Sacred Games (38 page)

On Pericles’s face I saw immense satisfaction.

A small group gathered about the body. I hovered behind. I had no standing to be there, but I had to be close.

For a moment, no one moved. Unable to keep the urgency out of my voice, I said, “Crown him, and be quick about it!”

Diotima took up the olive wreath. She blessed it and passed it to Exelon.

The Chief Judge declared to every man present, to all the Hellenes, “Timodemus, son of Timonous One-Eye, an Athenian, wins the pankration. Zeus has granted the victory!”

All around the stadion, men cheered and sobbed in equal measure. It was a famous victory by a man who had expunged family dishonor by the manner in which he chose his fate.

Exelon placed the olive crown on the head of the still form. My friend had won the Olympic Games.

Everything that had to be done was done.

I pushed my way through, picked up the body of Timodemus, slung him over my shoulder, and ran.

I
T WAS A
fine afternoon at Olympia. The closing ceremony had finished, and men packed their tents for the journey home. The Sacred Truce would last long enough for everyone to travel back to their cities, after which we could all go back to fighting one another.

Not that I was likely to notice any difference.

The closing ceremony had been particularly fine and, for me, the only time in the last five days that I’d been able to relax. I thought what a pity it was Timo hadn’t been there to see it. But Timo was ensconced in the iatrion with Heraclides, unable to move.

It had been a tense and stressful night. Heraclides had worked right through, first to keep Timo breathing, and then, when it was certain Timo’s breath wouldn’t stop and while the effects of the hemlock were still upon him, to reset the shattered bone in Timo’s left leg. Timo didn’t feel a thing, which was good because the pain would have been excruciating. Timo would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. He could never fight again, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t mind.

Klymene tended Timodemus throughout. Diotima had to tear her away at dawn, because the Priestess had to oversee the closing ceremony. The moment it was over, Klymene had returned to Timo’s side. One-Eye and Exelon had begun negotiation for the marriage.

“Do you think the fathers will agree?” Diotima asked me.

“I’m sure they will. The sooner they can both put their
children’s pasts behind them and look to the future, the better for everyone.”

Diotima smiled. “Good. Marriage is a fine thing.”

The night before, Diotima had been present when Pythax and Sophroniscus signed our marriage agreement. King Pleistarchus had already commissioned my father for statuary at Olympia. With the money that Sophroniscus would earn, we were provided for, and Pythax could keep the farm. Pythax and Sophroniscus had imposed one new condition: that we replay the marriage ceremony in our mothers’ presence. I protested, but Pythax, one of the toughest and most dangerous men in Athens, had explained the situation with great clarity.

“If you don’t, your mothers will kill us,” he’d said.

My father had nodded agreement with his new relative. “Don’t take on any new commissions until then, do you hear me, son?”

“There’s no fear of that, Father.”

The body of Festianos had been discovered that morning, slumped over the altar at which the oxen are sacrificed to Zeus. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear, just like the sacrifices. The altar to Zeus stands at the busiest point in Olympia, yet not a single witness had stepped forward. This was one death I would not be investigating.

Not that there was time, even if I wanted. Diotima and I had been summoned to Queen Gorgo.

“Y
OU HAVE SAVED
the Spartans and the Athenians from war, young lady,” Gorgo said. “A war that would have weakened not only both our cities, but all of Hellas. You’ve done well.”

“Thank you, Queen Gorgo,” Diotima said.

I waited for Gorgo to praise me, too, but apparently I hadn’t saved anyone.

“I have something for you,” Gorgo said.

Diotima knelt before Gorgo, and Gorgo placed into Diotima’s hands a stained backing board and four pieces of thin wood.

“What is it?” Diotima asked, confused.

Gorgo said, “This is what’s left of the wax tablet that held the secret message, the warning that the Persians were about to attack. Do you see the message itself scratched into the wood? I saved the city-states when I deduced the existence of that message—not only my own city, but all of them. Do you take my meaning, girl?”

“I understand you,” Diotima said. Her voice quavered.

Gorgo looked into Diotima’s eyes. “I’ve waited twenty years for a Spartan woman of the next generation, one to whom I could pass these bits of wood. Now I find they must go to an Athenian.”

Gorgo looked to Pleistarchus and me. “Leave us,” she said, in a voice that commanded kings. “This young lady and I have a few things to discuss.”

I
T
’
S NOT EVERY
day you get to shoot the breeze with a king of Sparta.

Pleistarchus and I walked through the camp while we waited for his mother and my betrothed to end their conversation.

Pleistarchus said, “I could almost wish the Persians would come at us again.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said, surprised. His father had died fighting Persians.

“You’re right, I’m not serious. But we Hellenes had something back then that we’ve lost: unity of purpose. When it looked like we might all die together, we fought as one. The moment the pressure was off, we went back to our old internecine bickering ways. I hate it.”

“You’re a king, Pleistarchus. Why don’t you do something about it?”

He laughed a bitter laugh. “You went through the last four days, and you don’t know the answer to that?”

“You could change the rules, rule without the ephors.”

“The last man to try that was my mother’s father. He ended up minus a certain amount of his skin.”

All about us, as we ambled, Spartans packed their belongings with military precision. They paused to salute Pleistarchus wherever he passed.

“Traditions should change when they no longer work,” I said, sure of my point. Wasn’t that what had happened when we Athenians created the democracy?

“I see you have no future as a Spartan,” Pleistarchus said.

“I’m relieved to know it.”

“As am I. I’ve seen you fight, Nicolaos, and your technique is appalling, more like a street thug than a soldier.”

“Then that would be appropriate, King Pleistarchus, because that’s where I fight,” I said.

He laughed, and this time it was a happier sound. “I could wish that I were you and not me. I’m pleased you survived.”

I nodded. I’d seen what a tough job it was to be a king of Sparta, and I’d rather be me, too.

He said, “You and that rather clever girl of yours stopped a war. Sparta owes you both a debt.”

“Not all your fellows agree.”

“I’ll keep them in line. Tell Pericles that Athens must curb her ambitions. Tell him that the Hellenes are like a chariot pulled by two horses. If one horse gets ahead of the other, the whole thing overturns.”

“I’ll tell him.”

He offered me a kingly nod of the head. “Farewell, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus. Usually I offer a wish to meet again, but in your case I suspect it would mean bad news for both of us.”

Diotima emerged from Gorgo’s tent, carrying the old, broken pieces of wood. She looked somewhat stunned. “I’m ready to go, Nico.”

As we left the Spartan camp, three men stepped in front of me, three of the five whom Markos and I had beaten.

“What now, Skarithos,” I said. I was tired. I was hungry. “It’s all over. Everything’s done.”

Skarithos sneered, “This time you don’t have Markos to protect you.”

“No, instead I have King Pleistarchus. He just thanked me.”

“What Pleistarchus thinks isn’t what I think. We have kings to serve us, not rule us. We Spartans think Athens needs taking down, and if you’re in the front rank of your army when that happens, Athenian, then all the better. I want to meet you on a battlefield.”

I was already on my battlefield, fighting a war few men even realized existed. Pleistarchus had his work cut out for him if he thought he could keep this lot on a leash. Perhaps Pericles was right, perhaps war was inevitable.

Skarithos looked over my shoulder. I didn’t bother to turn; I knew he could see his king watch us depart. Skarithos stepped aside.

“I’ll be seeing you, Athenian,” he hissed as we shouldered our way past.

“Not if I see you first,” I said. It wasn’t the most witty reply, but I really was tired. All I wanted was to go home.

We walked out of the Spartan camp for the last time, down the path that would take us back to the Athenians. Diotima was unusually subdued. She trudged along beside me with her head down and concentrated on stepping as delicately as she could through the mud. After five days, and thousands of men and women walking back and forth, the ground was churned up like the aftermath of a war.

“What did you talk about in there with Queen Gorgo?” I asked.

“Woman talk. You wouldn’t be interested,” she said. “But one thing I’ll tell you. Gorgo is dying.”

I wasn’t surprised. The Dowager Queen of Sparta looked thin enough to be dead already.

Parked along the road, out of the worst of the mud, was a long line of racing chariots. Their horses snorted and pranced.

The easiest way to take a chariot home is to drive it. The chariots from all the cities traveled in convoy because they made such an attractive target for brigands. Besides, it was the perfect opportunity to do a bit of road racing.

Coming up the path from the Athenian camp was a bunch of men. They waved sticks, and I could hear their angry voices from more than a hundred paces away.

When they saw Diotima and me, they stopped. I walked another five paces before I realized they waited for me.

“Stop, honey.” I grabbed Diotima’s arm. “Come with me.” I turned her around, and we walked the other way at a brisk pace, only to see behind us a mob of Spartans with hard eyes and harder clubs. At their head was Skarithos, who only moments ago had threatened me.

The Spartans stopped when I turned toward them.

I looked over my shoulder. The Athenians stood at the other end with arms crossed and grim expressions.

It occurred to me that I’d angered a lot of people. The Spartans had insisted an Athenian killed Arakos. Instead, I’d proven it was one of their own. Pericles had insisted the Athenians were innocent. Instead, I’d proven an Athenian had cheated at the Nemean Games, and tried again at the Olympics. Both Sparta and Athens were in bad odor with the other cities, and it was all my fault.

At the very least, I was about to take a beating.

Diotima was safe. Hellenes wouldn’t harm a woman for what her husband had done. What was about to happen would be painful for her to watch, but not as painful as it would be for me.

Diotima saw the problem, but my brave girl wasn’t scared, merely perplexed. There was no other path and no building in sight in which we could hide.

“We could run cross-country,” she suggested.

“Outrun trained soldiers?”

“Nico! Nico!” It was Pindar. He ran down the street past the Spartans—he didn’t even notice them—waving a sheet of papyrus in his right hand and holding his lyre in his left. “Listen to this, you’re going to love it,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Pindar, I don’t have time to talk,” I said.

“I’ve written your praise song, Nicolaos. I didn’t even use one of the prepared ones. You get an authentic Pindar original composition, my boy. One of my better efforts, too, if I say so myself.” He began to tune his lyre.

At that instant, both mobs advanced.

“I’ll listen some other time, Pindar. I
really have to go
.”

“But this is your Olympic victory song, lad! They’ll remember your name forever. There are men who would die for one of these.”

“I know. Send your bill to One-Eye. He owes me.”

I jumped onto the nearest chariot and snatched the reins from a slave. He protested, but I ignored him. The chariot was rigged for two horses and ready to go.

I held out my hand. “Come with me, Diotima.”

Diotima’s eyes shone. “Father will be furious with you again.”

“No, he won’t,” I said. “We’re going to Athens, for the official marriage we promised our fathers.”

Diotima smiled and stepped up onto the chariot. “Let’s go.”

I whipped the horses, and the chariot lurched off across the open country, with Diotima at my side, pursued by an angry mob of Spartans and Athenians, and Pindar, waving his music.

T
HIS AUTHOR
’
S NOTE
talks about the real history behind the story, interesting facts that I couldn’t squeeze into the plot, and trivia to do with the characters. Which means it’s full of spoilers. If you haven’t read the book yet, this would be an excellent time to avert your eyes and turn to the front!

The pankration was the most brutal sport in Olympic history, probably the most lethal too. So it will come as no surprise that pankration had a huge fan base, even more so than chariot racing. A pankratist who won at the Olympics was treated like a rock star. Pankratists were the highest-paid athletes in ancient Greece. It was normal for a winner to be voted honors by his home city; he’d receive some special reward, typically free food for life—more valuable than you might think in chronically hungry ancient Greece—and he could expect his statue to be raised in his city’s agora.

Pankration is virtually unknown today. In 393 AD the Christian Emperor Theodosius banned the Olympic Games and all other pagan festivals, and that killed pankration. Which is a pity because if it had survived, pankration would be Europe’s answer to the Asian martial arts phenomenon.

From the many surviving pictures on vases, it appears pankration was vaguely similar to judo, only a judo in which punching, kicking, and choking your opponent to death were perfectly legal. If you’re interested, there’s a modern revival of the sport; I assume the rules have been toned down slightly.