Sacred Games (9 page)

“What about him being naked?”

“Perfectly normal. The athletes are required to compete naked, and many don’t bother with clothes for the duration of the Games. Everyone knows that.”

Diotima looked dubious. “There’s a lot of supposition in what you said.”

“It’s almost all guess, but it fits exactly with what we know, and it sounds convincing.”

“What was Timodemus doing, if not escaping the crime scene?”

“Good question.”

“For that matter, what was Arakos doing in the woods?”

“Another fine question.”

“We need to trace his movement on this side of the river.”

“No, you need to trace his movements.”

Diotima looked at me quizzically.

“I need to take the Olympic Oath.”

A
POLLO
’
S LIGHT SHONE
cold and distant over the horizon. I stood, shivering, in a place I’d never expected to be: on the steps of the Bouleterion of Olympia, before the statue of Zeus Herkios, about to take the Olympic Oath.

Markos the Spartan stood beside me. His blond hair hung to shoulder length, in the manner of the Spartans, and like the Spartans he wore a scarlet cloak of fine wool, which kept him warm in the chilly dawn. He looked relaxed but serious, the very picture of a responsible young man about to assume an important burden. I on the other hand nervously sprang from one foot to the other, my arms wrapped about to stop me from shivering too visibly. I knew I made a poor impression compared with the Spartan.

A crowd milled about before us. The men of Sparta and Athens were up in force to watch the unprecedented oath. News of the murder and the investigation had spread faster than plague.

The men of Sparta clustered together in the center of the crowd, easy to spot because, like Markos, they’d assumed their vermilion cloaks. The Spartans normally forswore their famous cloak at the Games, to blend into the crowd and be less divisive, but now they wore them as a badge of honor.

The Athenians, too, were easy to recognize. They were the nervous ones. They stood in clusters with their backs to one another. A few seemed angry.

Pericles stood at the fore of the crowd. He looked tired. He hadn’t slept any more than had I.

One belligerent fool among the Athenians waved a wineskin and declared loudly that no one cared about a dead Spartan; in fact, those were the best kind. Pericles turned quick as lightning to push his way through the crowd. I saw him speak to the drunk fool, not with harsh words, but soft ones, and I saw him gently remove the wineskin from the man’s grasp. That was a riot averted.

I could see King Pleistarchus, and beside him Xenares, hanging about like a bad case of the gripes. A knot of younger men surrounded these two; there was no doubt what they were: Spartan bodyguards.

At the back I saw the weedy fake Heracles who’d attacked Diotima and me. He still wore his ill-fitting lion skin, but at least he wasn’t carrying his club. He stared at Markos and me, his jaw hanging. He probably hadn’t expected to see me again, let alone standing where I was.

My father, Sophroniscus, pushed his way to the front of the crowd. I’d had no chance to speak to him since the murder; I hoped Socrates had brought him up to date. What he thought of this I couldn’t tell. Father had permitted me against his better judgment to pursue my career as agent for Pericles for a period of two years, a period that now was more than half gone, under the condition that if at the end I could not make it pay, then I was to return to the family trade of sculpting. Now he saw his son standing at the Olympic altar. It occurred to me I’d come a long way in a very short time from that first, perilous mission, which had almost ended in my death and his ruin. Our eyes met for a moment and he nodded. Socrates stood beside him and for once he didn’t fidget. My little brother looked up at me in wonder.

Pythax, the huge barbarian from the north, chief of the Scythian Guard of Athens, former slave and now a new-made citizen, stood in the throng. As a barbarian he was forbidden to compete—not that he wanted to, he was too old—but as a citizen of Athens he had every right to be here. I stood to attention at the sight of him, desperate to make a good impression.

Timo’s uncle Festianos looked up at me from the crowd with a quizzical expression; beside him, One-Eye scowled.

The old man with the bright face was there, too, the man whom I’d noticed yesterday at the first swearing in. He held a long walking staff, and I saw him look from me to Markos and back to me again. I wondered who he was. Other men seemed to know him, for they made way for the old man wherever he chose to go. Or perhaps they were merely being polite to an elder.

The giant brazier had been rekindled. I took a step closer to it to try to catch some of its warmth. No one else seemed to be cold, but I shivered.

Exelon, the Chief Judge of the Games, emerged from the Bouleterion behind me. As he walked past the Spartan Markos and me, he muttered, “Look confident and put on a decent show, you two.”

We both nodded that we understood.

Exelon stood with his back to Markos and me. He banged his Y-forked staff on the steps until he had the attention of the crowd. “Hellenes! I know you’ve heard what passed during the night. A competitor has been murdered. I know that feelings will run high because of this, it’s only natural, and I remind you all, here and now, that the Sacred Truce remains in force. Anyone who transgresses will be punished.”

The Chief Judge was tense. I saw it in the set of his shoulder muscles and the knuckles that stood out on the hand that gripped his staff.

“That’s all very well, but what of the killer Timodemus?” a faceless voice in the crowd shouted. “Will you punish him?”

“Timodemus is innocent!” another man yelled. “You just have it in for us Athenians.”

“Hold!” Exelon shouted into the argument and banged his staff once more. “If Timodemus is guilty, he will pay the debt of blood as custom demands, under the laws of Elis in whose domain we stand. To that end, two men will investigate the crime:
one an Athenian, the other a Spartan. The Judges of the Games will make the final decision based on their reports.”

The crowd quieted at his words. They sensed this was a fair judgment.

“They report to me and the other judges, not to their cities. I call upon them to take their oath.” Exelon nodded to me. “You first.”

Suddenly I felt nervous again. I stepped forward and spoke my words. Whether anyone heard me I don’t know, because I spoke quickly to get it over with, and I fear I mumbled.

“I swear by mighty Zeus that I, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, shall contest the Sacred Games fairly and with honor, when I compete in the event of—” I staggered over the next words. In a sudden panic, I realized nobody had told me what to call this strange new event. “In the Olympic event of … murder investigation.”

The crowd stirred and murmured. It is the right of the judges to create any event they like, but this was a new one for everyone present.

Exelon gave me a stern look. I continued in a louder voice over the hubbub of the crowd. “I shall obey the orders of the Judges of the Games. I shall do everything in a way that is right. May mighty Zeus of the Oaths destroy me if I do not.”

I saw Pericles wince as I spoke and wondered what his problem was.

The sacrifice wasn’t the traditional giant boar but a small piglet. There were only two of us, and anything larger would have been a waste. The animal had probably been picked up from the festival agora and was destined for a meal in any case. The man with the piglet laid it on the altar and stroked the little animal gently but firmly. It squealed as the knife went in and struggled for the briefest instant but relaxed for a last time as its lifeblood flowed away.

“The sacrifice went willingly,” I heard someone in the front row say. “It’s a good sign. Unlike what happened yesterday.”

I took a slice of piglet from the altar—the Butcher of the Games had begun his bloody work—and with thumb and forefinger threw the dripping meat into the burning brazier. The meat sizzled at once, and I smelled burned flesh. My oath to Zeus was complete.

Markos stepped forward and proceeded to make the same oath I had. He spoke slowly in a clear, carrying voice and didn’t stumble at all.

The oath was complete. Criminal investigation was an Olympic event for the first time in history.

I had thought, when the Chief Judge set the requirement in the night, the oath would be a mere administrative detail that would keep me from my work for a short time and then could be forgotten. Now that I was upon the steps, I was overcome by the importance of what I had sworn, and understood his wisdom. The Olympic Oath is a sacred dedication, and by speaking it before the Hellenes my investigation was removed from the realm of politics and became a part of the Games themselves. I was no longer Nicolaos of Athens; I had become Nicolaos of Olympia.

The heralds, their voices so loud they could be heard across all Olympia, announced the first event of the day: the chariot race at the hippodrome.

The crowd before us instantly broke. Thousands of men elbowed to be first to the best vantage points. It was like a mob of particularly vicious goats on their way to the feed bin. As I stood and watched the chaos, it occurred to me that whoever had killed Arakos had done it in a remarkably confined space. All my life I’d heard men speak of Olympia—after the sacred sanctuary at Delphi, it was the most famous place in all of Hellas—now I was here for the first time, and I saw it was much smaller than its enormous reputation. The permanent buildings covered a tiny area; the tent city was larger, but still no larger than a village. Crowded into this space were more men than you would find
in a medium-sized city. To kill Arakos must have been for the murderer like trying to scratch his nose in a closet full of men.

One would have thought that would make catching the killer easier, but I had no idea who might have done it. Unless of course, it really was my friend.

Timodemus had exactly four days left to live.

I
STOOD AND
considered what to do next until everyone was gone.

Well, almost everyone.

“It’s not fair,” Socrates whined. “How come you get to be an Olympic contestant and I don’t?”

“It wasn’t my idea. The Chief Judge insisted.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but we should consider ourselves lucky. Exelon didn’t have to permit an investigation, you know. He could have condemned Timo out of hand.”

As I spoke, I caught sight of the fake Heracles. He took the steps up the Bouleterion, I suppose for a shortcut though to the hippodrome. He swerved away when Socrates turned and I stared at him. He probably remembered how easily I’d disarmed him.

“Nicolaos of Athens?” It was the Spartan Markos. He’d wandered up to me from behind. It occurred to me Markos could be very quiet when he chose.

“What do you want?” I said, more abrupt than I intended because he’d startled me.

He said, “Now that we’ve sworn the oath, we’re required to share our witnesses. I only wanted to know, do you have any plans? Shall I come with you?”

The polite inquiry wasn’t fooling anyone. I had no more wish to work with Markos than he did with me. I particularly didn’t want Markos in the room when I interviewed Timodemus. I said, “Why don’t we follow our own paths, then share notes. If
we don’t trust each other, we can always check by talking to the same people.”

“As you wish.” He smiled thinly, turned on his heel and walked away.

I wondered if I’d been rude, but I wasn’t sure.

The old man with the look of a priest approached me and Socrates. “Your voice is a disaster,” he told me.

“What?”

“I witnessed your oath. Who taught you rhetoric?”

“No one.”

The old man nodded. “It shows.”

Pericles had once promised to teach me to speak before the people, but he’d never gotten around to giving lessons.

To change the subject, I said, “I am Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, of the deme Alopece of Athens.”

“
Kalimera
Nicolaos,” he said. “Good morning. I wish to know if Timodemus, son of Timonous One-Eye, is a murderer.”

“Don’t we all,” I muttered.

He raised an eloquent and somewhat-bushy eyebrow. “You haven’t formed a view? Surely you cannot have long to investigate this dreadful crime, a few days at most.”

“Have you talked to the judges?” I demanded.

“No, but your deadline is obvious. In a few days the Games will be over, and everyone will depart. You must be swift as the stadion runner if you wish to catch this killer.”

Whoever this old man was, he was sharp. “Who are you, sir?”

He smiled. “Ahh. When you stared at me during the sacrifice I suspected you didn’t recognize me. I am Pindar the praise singer.”

Merely the greatest living poet of the Hellenes.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Pindar,” I said, and meant it. Everyone knew the songs of Pindar. To be praised by him was to be immortalized. “But I must ask, sir, do you have an interest in this?”

“After the Nemean Games, the father of the accused, One-Eye,
commissioned me to praise the young man Timodemus in song. I took the money of One-Eye and praised Timodemus. So I ask myself, did I waste my words on a cheat? I hate to think it.” He put a hand to his head, like a tragic actor who hears bad news.

“Thank you, Pindar. At least there are two of us who don’t believe he’s guilty.” Pindar was an influential man. His support would be invaluable to save Timo.

“No, young man, you misunderstand my words. I said I hope he’s not a killer, not that I believe it.”

“Oh.” I felt deflated.

Pindar didn’t seem to notice my disappointment. “I must be neutral in this matter. The victim and the accused are both known to me.”

“Then you know Timodemus hasn’t the personality of a murderer,” I said.

Pindar raised an eyebrow, and that one expressive movement told me I’d said something stupid. “On the contrary. Both these young men are highly aggressive. Both are capable of the greatest violence.”