Sacred Games (31 page)

I held it up for him to see, vertical and sideways. “See the curve of the clay? If it came from a small pot, then the curve would be tighter. This comes from an amphora, or some other pot of similar size.”

“I see. Then it might also be from a krater for mixing wine?”

“No. Kraters are always decorated on the outside.” I turned the shard to show the outer face. “It’s not glazed. Only the dull red of the original clay.”

“Very good, Nicolaos! I understand exactly.”

“Thanks, Markos.” I was oddly pleased by his approval. “The only problem is, it doesn’t help us at all. There must be hundreds of broken amphorae all over Olympia. A distinctive glazed decoration and a maker’s mark would have been so much more useful.”

“Your correspondent has been careful to remain anonymous. Yet he arranges a meeting. Why didn’t he simply come to you?” Markos asked, puzzled. “It would be as easy as to leave the message.”

“I don’t know. I wonder why he sent this to me, and not you?”

“Because I’m a Spartan,” Markos said ruefully. “He’s afraid I’ll suppress any evidence that exonerates an Athenian.”

“Markos, do you want to be there?”

Markos hesitated. “Do you swear to tell me everything he tells you?”

“I swear it, by Zeus and Athena.”

“Then I won’t go. I might scare him off.” Markos looked up at the sun and squinted. “You have a while before you need to be there.”

“That’s good, because I have a fight to referee.”

P
YTHAX AND
D
ROMEUS
met at the field of the agora. There was nothing unusual in that. The agora was the site for all manner of sideshows. For two men to test themselves against each other was nothing special, except these men were Pythax and Dromeus.

By the time Dromeus arrived, word had already spread and a ring had formed, defined by the men who had come to watch the weakest pankratist ever take on a mere barbarian with pretensions to Hellenism.

Pythax had stripped and stood waiting. Dromeus did the same as he arrived, flanked by the pankratists from the gymnasium. They backed their man for the honor of the pankration.

Pythax spat in the dust. I stood at his side.

“Gentlemen,” I called. “The contest is between Dromeus of Mantinea and Pythax of Athens. The rules are those of the pankration—”

“No rules,” Dromeus said.

Pythax nodded. “No rules,” he agreed.

I stepped back. So did the friends of Dromeus. I hoped this didn’t turn into a free-for-all, because there was only me to back Pythax.

In the crowd I saw my father, Sophroniscus. His eyes were impossible to read from the distance. I hoped Father would stay out of this. He was an old man, in no condition for these games.

Pythax’s eyes were dark and angry. For some reason I noticed how thick and bushy was his beard.

“Begin,” I said.

Pythax took a swing at Dromeus and knocked his head around. Dromeus returned the blow with a swift punch to the neck. Pythax dodged, but the blow hit him over the heart, and he grunted.

Pythax knew every dirty trick there was. I knew, because he’d taught me most of them, but he used none of them now. He was determined this was to be a test of pure strength. Dromeus likewise eschewed every technique of the pankration and concentrated on battering Pythax into submission. Blow after blow they traded, until I was sure one or the other must fall.

The two men staggered back and forth, barely on their feet. Blood streamed from their noses, their mouths, their ears, and gashes on their faces. Their chests had taken a pummeling that would have killed lesser men.

“Dear Gods, what’s happening!” A voice behind me. Diotima.

“What are you doing here?”

“I realized I don’t care what happens to me; I refuse to hide
like a weak woman in my tent. I heard about this in the women’s camp. All of Olympia is talking about the fight.
You
got Pythax into this, didn’t you?”

I told her what happened as the pummeling continued. Dromeus had his head down and smashed Pythax in the diaphragm over and over while Pythax hammered the head of Dromeus.

“Nico, if you love me, you have to stop this,” Diotima said. He voice sounded strained.

“Why?” I asked.

“I was cursing Pythax because he won’t give in to your father’s demands and let me marry you. Then I thought about Klymene and her vitriolic relationship with her father, and I realized that I might not like it, but Pythax has looked out for my interests like I was his own birth-daughter, and I love having him as my father, and Nico, you have to stop that fight.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Nico—”

“Diotima, this is an act of catharsis for both these men. It would be the worst cruelty to stop this before they’ve proven themselves before their fellows.”

“You mean to say Pythax and Dromeus can fix their lives by battering each other until neither can stand, while other men watch them do it.”

“Precisely.”

“Aaarrggh. Why are men so stupid?” Diotima grimaced.

As she spoke, they both went for each other’s throats. Their arms locked in a sheer test of strength. Their grins turned to rictus smiles of ultimate effort. The muscles in their arms strained so hard I could count every tendon. The sweat poured from their brows. At any moment the tendons would tear through the flesh that barely contained them. It was a dead heat for sheer animal strength. I seriously considered the possibility that Dromeus and Pythax might be about to kill each other.

“Aaarrgh!”

Someone with a panel of wood torn from one of the stalls whacked Dromeus in the face. He fell back, not expecting the blow.

It was Diotima.

“Aaarrgh!”

She hit Pythax in the face. He was too surprised to block. He, too, fell to the ground, panting and exhausted.

Diotima stood in the center; she owned the field of victory.

She shouted, “Stop this, both of you!”

I shouted too. “Diotima, get out of there!”

“Diotima?” Dromeus said from where he lay in the dirt. “Young woman, who are you?”

I realized Dromeus had never before seen Diotima in my company. He had no idea who she was. Dromeus stared at her as if she were some psyche ascended from Hades, which, given her fury, was a reasonable assumption.

I said, “I’m sorry, Dromeus. She’s a bit hard to control.”

Dromeus waved away my apology. “Who are you, woman?”

Diotima lifted her chin and said with pride, “I am named Diotima of Mantinea.” Pythax, lying in the dirt and panting, winced. His action caught Diotima’s eye, and she added in a softer voice, “And, too, I am daughter to Pythax, Chief of the Scythian Guard of Athens.”

“I care nothing for your father,” Dromeus said. “Your mother,” he said. “Tell me the name of your mother.”

“Why should I tell you?” Diotima never admitted her mother if she could help it.

“Just tell me, woman.”

“No.”

“Then tell me yea or nay, does she go by the name Euterpe the Hetaera?”

Diotima gasped.

Then it struck me like a blow to the head: Diotima was known as Diotima of Mantinea, after her mother’s hometown, because
her father had never married her mother, and here was Dromeus. Dromeus of Mantinea.

I glanced at my father. Sophroniscus looked from Dromeus to Diotima and back again, and stroked his beard, and I thought I saw the beginning of a smile.

Dromeus scrabbled to his knees, took Diotima by the hand, and between broken teeth said, “Greetings, cousin. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby.”

D
ROMEUS HAD POLITELY
asked permission of Pythax to speak to Diotima. Of course Pythax granted the privilege; it’s perfectly acceptable for a close male relative of a respectable woman to speak with her.

I invited Dromeus to our tent, and Pythax, Diotima, my father, and I gathered around to hear his story. I dragged in a table and kicked about some loose sacking to give us something comfortable to lounge on. The terrible injuries Dromeus and Pythax had inflicted on each other were forgotten—no, that wasn’t quite right; they had become marks of respect for each other. Two tough men united by a woman: Euterpe, the mother of Diotima.

“Your mother was a wild one,” Dromeus said to Diotima as he sipped our wine. “No man could tell her what to do.”

“Not like her daughter at all, then,” I said.

Diotima jabbed me in the ribs.

“She ran away from home twice, and twice her father—my uncle, your grandfather—dragged her home. When she ran the third time, he let her go. He said she was more trouble than she was worth.”

Pythax growled. This was his wife that Dromeus spoke of.

Dromeus said, “I understand your feelings, friend. I report what happened, not my own thoughts.”

Pythax nodded. “She’s a good woman,” he said.

“I know it. Speaking of which, where is she now?” Dromeus asked.

“Back in Athens,” Pythax said. “The Olympics are no place for a respectable lady.”

As soon as he said it, every male head turned to look at Diotima. We were all thinking the same thing.

She stuck her tongue out at us.

Dromeus laughed. “That’s what I’ve always remembered about your mother: her independence.”

I wasn’t sure that Diotima really wanted to know how much she resembled her mother.

“When we heard she’d become a prostitute, that was the end of her as far as the family was concerned.”

“Did you ever see her again?” I asked Dromeus.

“I did. When I came of age, I thought to look her up. We knew she’d moved to Athens. It was easy for me; a man on the tournament circuit moves around.”

Like Korillos and his fellow pankratists. Yes, that made sense.

“She’d become a fine woman with a big house. I was impressed. When I knocked on the door, she thought I was a client. It was disconcerting.”

I nodded in sympathy. I’d had the same experience, and barely survived.

“Well, I explained who I was, and she remembered me, and there were tears, and she swore me to secrecy, and then she revealed that she was a mother. So proud and happy, she was.” He said to Diotima, “I held you in my arms when you were barely a newborn.”

Diotima wiped away a tear. “What was I like, as a baby?”

“You peed on me. Euterpe whisked you away, and that was the last I ever saw of you. Your mother had a comfortable life, and I’d fulfilled my duty as a male relative, so I wished her well and left. I’d always wondered what happened to her.”

As we went our separate ways—Diotima hugged Dromeus; Dromeus hugged me; Pythax, after an awkward moment of hesitation, stepped forward to hug Dromeus—my father pulled me
aside and said quietly, “This puts your marriage to the woman Diotima in a different light.”

“It does?” My spirits lifted.

“The daughter of a prostitute is one thing,” said my father. “The cousin of an Olympic champion is quite another. The prestige of an Olympian in the family may overcome the defect of the mother. Of course it would have been nice if the Olympian had been anyone but Dromeus.”

My spirits fell. “Dromeus couldn’t help it if no one else came to fight him,” I said, oddly echoing his own defense.

“Hmmph.” Sophroniscus half-grunted. “There are still two problems, are there not?”

I stared at him blankly.

“There’s still the issue of the farm, and did you not tell me Dromeus is a suspect for this murder? We could hardly have a murderer in the family.”

It was a good point. Dromeus, so convenient a suspect for both Pericles and the Spartans, would now destroy my last chance of marrying of Diotima if he proved a murderer.

Diotima had no such fears. “I can barely believe it, Nico. I have a male relative, a
respectable
male relative.”

“Not merely respectable. He’s an Olympic victor.”

“I don’t care about that.” She brushed aside the highest accolade any man can win. “The important thing is I can mention him in public and not have to blush. Not a single taint. Not a slave, not a prostitute. Nothing but respectable.”

“That’s good?”

“Good? It’s
wonderful
. Don’t you see? All my life I’ve been saddled with this awful reputation that wasn’t my fault. Now suddenly I’ve got some respectability to balance it.”

“I thought you didn’t like Dromeus.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

I hoped it stayed that way when our investigation finished. But it would soon be dusk, so I left Diotima to contemplate her
newfound relative while I departed for the secret meeting with the secret informant. I’d have to hurry, or I might be late, and this was a meeting I definitely didn’t want to miss.

T
HE NEW TEMPLE
was a massive building, visible from anywhere within Olympia, and it only became more impressive as I approached. I stopped in the Sanctuary of Zeus to admire it. There, standing with his back to me, was Pericles. He too looked up at the massive temple.

I stopped beside him. Pericles turned his head, startled, saw it was me, and relaxed.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Have you come to report progress?”

“No, but with any luck, I’ll have some good news for you before the night is out.”

“That would be nice, because we’re running out of time, in case you hadn’t noticed. The pankration is in less than a day. Timodemus will die the day after.”

Pericles and I stood side by side and gazed. The Temple of Zeus was painted in red and blue. A line of gold ran all around the outside of the roof.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“How can they make so much stone stand upright?” I marveled.

“Don’t ask me,” Pericles said. “I’m no architect. It’s impressive, isn’t it?”

I had recently come from Ephesus, where I’d seen its Temple of Artemis, said to be the most beautiful building in the world. The Artemision had beautiful lines and was covered in the finest sculpture, but for majestic awe this Temple of Zeus at Olympia with its stark, simple lines beat it hands down.

“It’s incredible,” I said.

Pericles nodded. “Athens needs something like this. Something that shows the world Athens is a force to be reckoned with, not
only in strength of arms, but that we lead the world in the arts and philosophy and culture.”