by Tessa Afshar
It was my first real experience of death—of its finality. I found no help in the words of the priests or the stories of our people. Did the world have no more consolation to offer than vapid platitudes in the face of so great a loss?
The weather had been dry for months, withholding rain from the earth. Even the evergreens seemed to have lost their color, and the world was shrouded in gray. When we returned home, I collapsed on a couch in the dining room across from Father while Theo paced like a caged panther. I felt exhausted and in need of sleep. An image of Justus flashed before my eyes, enveloped in the black of his mourning garb, his shoulders slumped with grief. I wanted to burst into tears.
As if reading my thoughts, Father said, “Justus bears a heavy burden besides the grief of losing a beloved father. He is alone now. No other family in Corinth.”
“I know his mother was a freed slave. But where is Servius’s family?” I asked.
“Servius was born in Rome. He enjoyed considerable wealth and imperial connections until he fell in love with Parmys, a Persian slave without family or connections of her own. She was a far cry from what his family considered desirable.”
“But the Romans marry freed slaves all the time.”
“Rarely when they are patricians. In any case, Servius’s father found the liaison objectionable and threatened to disown him. That did not dissuade Servius. He adored Parmys. After the wedding, Servius’s father made good his threat and cut him off. He had three other sons. I suppose he felt he could afford to lose one.”
“He sounds like a fool,” Theo said, his tone bitter. “What kind of man would treat his son like garbage, to be disposed of when convenient?”
Father gave Theo a lingering look. “Yes, I believe Servius might have agreed with you. If he nurtured any hopes of a reunion with his family, it never came to pass. After he came to Corinth, they refused to reach out to him.”
“Why did he settle in Corinth?” I asked.
“His grandmother had land here. And a soft spot for him in her heart that his marriage did not change. She gave him property and a hefty bag of gold with which to start his new life. He multiplied that inheritance many times over. His grandmother was the only one with whom he continued to communicate. When she died years ago, he severed all personal ties with Rome.”
“Has Justus never tried to contact his family?”
“He wants nothing to do with them. They rejected his mother and cast out his father. None of his uncles tried to right that wrong. As far as he is concerned, he has no family.”
“He must have cousins,” Theo pointed out. “They were not involved in what happened long ago. Perhaps he will reach out to them.”
Father shrugged. “I think Justus will have his hands full for some years, administering his inheritance. He is young to bear so considerable a responsibility and will feel the full weight of it. I doubt reestablishing lost ties will be a priority.”
“What happened to Justus’s mother?” I said, curious. “The Persian slave?”
“Childbirth fever, I think. What a terrible tragedy that was. Servius never quite recovered from her loss.”
“What was she like?”
“Parmys? She had the kind of beauty that makes people stare. If you were sick, she would put on her old tunic, cook broth with her own hands, and bring it over herself instead of dispatching a servant. Her kindness was as legendary as her beauty. I found the combination striking.”
Father’s tone was wistful as he talked about the beautiful slave. I wondered with sudden insight if he might have loved her from afar. His own marriage had proven an emotional pit, a far cry from Servius’s love match. Father’s marital alliance had been more like warfare than companionship, a reality that had affected all our lives. While Justus had grown up in a home filled with affection, my brothers and I had lived in a temporary truce at best, and at worst, in a siege. Father, too, had felt the burden of that ice-cold union, so different from Parmys’s natural warmth.
The Isthmian Games took place in mid-spring when the weather normally obliged us with warm, sunny days. That year, however, the games coincided with unusually heavy rains. By the time the festival began with a trumpet blast, the deluge had stopped, but the field had turned into a slippery mud bath.
The roiling crowds fell quiet as the dedication ceremony to Poseidon, the official patron of the games, proceeded. Iuventius Proclus, the president of this year’s games, stepped into view. Wrapped in a dazzling white toga, he raised his arms to draw every eye to himself. With a careful motion, Proclus pulled the corner of the toga over his balding head. This was a sign. Roman men never veiled their heads in public proceedings except when they were about to perform some religious act. By covering his head with his toga, a man demonstrated that despite his high standing among other men, before the gods, he was humble. And Proclus wanted everyone present to know that he was an important man, the one charged with offering an augury for the games. He stretched the sacrifice and prayers so long that I almost collapsed from exhaustion before the ceremonies came to an end.
A dense horde of people surrounded the outdoor arena. Some of the wealthier citizens sat on folding leather chairs and enjoyed the protection of umbrellas, which their slaves had installed before the rising of the sun. The majority of the spectators simply stood around the arena, jostling for a good view.
After our city’s defeat two hundred years before, the Isthmian Games had been moved to Sicyon. Ten years ago, Corinth had finally reclaimed the games, and their popularity had grown in leaps since. They were a point of pride, a declaration of honor regained. And every one of us who participated in the competitions carried a small part of that honor as we tried to best contestants from other city-states in Graecia.
I would not compete on the first day, which was dedicated to the chariot races, the most prestigious and popular of the games. But Theo would. He had entered the race driving Justus’s horses and chariot.
I studied the state of the arena with a worried gaze and hoped they would postpone the event until the following day, allowing the track to dry. Chariot races were dangerous at the best of times. But the treacherous condition of the course now made it a death trap.
Unfortunately, pushing the race back by one day meant all the competitions would have to be delayed. Many athletes and spectators had to travel long distances and could not afford to linger an extra day in our city. In the end, the president decided to hold the games according to the usual schedule, and competitors began to enter the arena for the famed four-horse chariot race.
Father and I took our places at the edge of the track, mute with apprehension as we observed the depth of the mud. Justus joined us after helping Theo harness and hitch the horses. The teams lined up at their assigned places.
“Did Theo spend the night at your house?” I asked Justus. I had seen him slip out in the afternoon. He had never returned home.
A muscle jerked in Justus’s cheek. “One of the horses had colic. He sat with it through the night.”
I gasped. “He is racing through this muck with a sick horse?”
Justus gave me a heavy-lidded look. “I trust his judgment. So should you.”
At the very first turn, one chariot toppled over, crushing the driver under its heavy body. We had never seen so many accidents at a race. Lame horses, broken axles, drivers thrown from their perch into the air, tumbling into the gasping crowds. Turn after turn, the race exacted a bloody price. Theo held a steady pace, avoiding wounded horses and overturned chariots with the agility of a dolphin.
By the seventh turn, he began to move ahead. With deceptive ease, he overtook one chariot after another, jostling, surging, slithering, and ducking through impossibly narrow openings. Father shouted himself hoarse when an Athenian charioteer, bent on preventing Theo from passing, veered into his path, his deadly spiked wheels aiming for the white chariot made famous by Justus. With a deft swerve, Theo evaded the Athenian’s trap and pressed forward. A team from Delphi moved like an
eel, slipping past Theo, settling in second place behind a Spartan driver.
We were now entering the tenth lap. The tension in the crowd grew explosive.
With a combination of intuitive skill and sheer reckless courage, Theo drove his team forward, overtaking the team from Delphi.
He seemed stuck in second place, unable to overtake the Spartan. I bit my knuckles, nerves stretched beyond bearing.
Theo shouted something to the horses and suddenly they shot forward. It became evident that he had held them back until that moment, controlled the wildness of their speed for the final lap. The beasts took off as one, their hooves stamping into the ground, spraying mud on those spectators in the first row. No one cared. We knew we were watching history being made.
Theo came neck and neck with the Spartan. The driver turned his head and gave Theo a long look. With an unexpected swerve, he drove his team into Theo, forcing him from the track.
The crowd held its breath.
Theo’s white chariot lurched, one of its wheels popping off the track, tilting to the left. For a moment, he hung in the air. My father and Justus swore together. I was beyond words.
With any other driver, that chariot would have flipped over with crushing force. But Theo twisted his body, throwing his weight against the right side, the whole time remaining in control of the spooked horses. His weight righted the tottering vehicle, and he carried on with hardly a ripple. What Theo did in those moments became the stuff of legend in Corinth, creating an intoxicating spectacle no one would forget for a generation.
With a speed that defied logic, he pressed forward until, just before reaching the finishing posts, he drew even with the Spartan once again. It was his turn to give the other driver a lingering look. And then, stretching on tiptoes, he leaned forward and adjusted the reins. The horses responded to that delicate touch and shot forward one last time, and overtaking the Spartan, they passed the finish marker first.
The crowd let out an adoring roar. No one thought of Theo as the foundling anymore. He had become Theodotus the champion.
With defiant courage, he had brought Corinth to its knees. I turned to find my father weeping. Justus clutched his short hair as if he could not believe what his eyes had just witnessed. I became aware of the taste of blood in my mouth. I had been so terrified my foster brother would come to grievous harm during the race that I had bitten the inside of my lips raw.
We pushed and pressed our way to Theo. It took us an age to get through the multitudes who wanted to be near him. By the time we arrived, several men had lifted him onto their shoulders and were singing a bawdy anthem as they jostled him about. I thought this might well prove more dangerous than the chariot race and grinned.
Finally, the hordes calmed enough to allow him to be formally honored. By then, some measure of order had been established, so that Father and I could stand near him. His crown of pine sat crooked on his brow, and his eyes sparkled in a way I had not seen in months.
From the corner of my eye I saw Diantha and her five-headed beast heading his way and winced. If that woman tried to sour his victory, she would have a taste of my knuckles.
She stood in front of Theo, so close they almost touched, and reached out to straighten his crown. “That was well done, Theodotus. You ran a daring race.”
For a moment, I doubted my ears.
Theo gave her an odd, lopsided smile. It was the first time I had ever seen that smile on his lips. It would not be the last.
“My father is hosting a feast this evening. Why don’t you come?” Diantha said.
Theo said nothing for a moment. Then his arm reached out and he pulled me forward. “She comes too.”
Diantha hesitated. “Of course.”
“She comes as my guest.” He bent his head a fraction, his eyes boring into Diantha. “Understand?”
Diantha blinked. Her head nodded graciously. “Yes, Theodotus.”
“Why did you do that?” I griped when she had left. “I don’t want to go to that woman’s house.”
“You are coming,” Theo said, not bothering to explain further.
That night, Diantha and her friends left me alone. No barbs. No jibes. They even attempted a polite conversation. I understood. For Theo’s sake, they had declared an end to their war. Theo had made it clear that if they wanted him, they had to treat me with dignity. And they definitely wanted him.
I watched my foster brother drink too much and give that lopsided smile all night. Diantha floated about him like a brilliant butterfly. She had competition. Now that he had won Corinth’s heart, women found him irresistible. Theo did not seem impressed. It was as if the victory and flattery belonged to someone else. A part of him found it amusing. But another part, an older and wiser piece of him that still remembered being called a foundling, held back.
As I watched him, surrounded by a throng of devotees who never left his side, I had a piercing realization. Theo was lonely. Achingly, utterly lonely. And I could do nothing to remedy his pain. I knew he cared for me still, but he had relegated me to the outer fringes of his world. I no longer had access to his thoughts. The knowledge was like a punch in my gut. I almost doubled over with the pain of it.
The morning of the footraces, I awoke with an aching throat and a pounding in my head that foretold the coming of worse pain. My father burst into my room, Theo in tow.
“Are you ready for your debut into the annals of Corinthian history?” he asked with the booming voice of an actor. I tried to cover my discomfort with a wan smile. “Come now. Make haste. You do not wish to miss all the fun.”
“How are you?” Theo asked me when Father left the chamber.
I shrugged. My confidence had ebbed with the rising of the sun. Why had I ever thought this public humiliation a good idea? I pictured Diantha’s face witnessing my defeat, saw her and her charming companions snickering as I came in last, straggling behind everyone. Blanching, I swallowed bile. “I hope I don’t disgrace you and Father,” I said, my voice reedy.
Theo squeezed my hand. “You will find few who can keep up with you. I have seen you run.”
I washed and dressed carefully in my new chiton, the special linen tunic Father had ordered for the occasion. The style was inspired by the costume of the athletes who competed in the Heraean Games, the only sanctioned women’s athletic competition in our land. The loose hemline ended just above my knees. Unlike the true Heraean tunics, the sky-blue linen covered my chest and shoulders modestly. The original tunics hung from one shoulder and bared a lot more flesh.
Though the other women would be dressed in similar garb, it felt quite daring to show so much skin in public. Of course, I would not walk about in my costume throughout the day. Over the chiton, I wore a longer tunic whose thick folds covered me with ample decency.
My race was not until the afternoon, and we watched a few wrestling matches until lunchtime. Proclus had purchased free food and drinks for the crowds, a common practice for the president of any festival. As the athletic activities stopped for the noonday meal, the throng of commoners started chanting Proclus’s name. Instead of the usual rough bread and boiled chickpeas, Proclus had arranged for food vendors to serve free hot pastries, fruit, and fragrant breads. For a few additional coins, the wealthy could purchase roast meats and a variety of sweets.
I tasted little of the feast before me. The ache in my throat had deepened to a burning throb.
I did not mention feeling ill for fear that Father would ban me from running. I could not imagine a greater catastrophe. My name had already been announced as a contender. Withdrawing now would make me look a coward.
I was determined to make Diantha sorry for humiliating me. Somehow, this race had become my answer to every disparaging remark others had made against me. It was my way of vindicating myself against my grandfather’s vitriol, the remedy to every wound he and Mother had inflicted on me.
I would run and I would win. I would press their haughty noses into my victory. I would prove them all
wrong.
CHAPTER 12
LONG AGO, my race against Justus had taught me one essential truth: I could lose. The fact that I had won every short footrace for years merely meant that I had not faced expert opponents. Justus taught me not to be brash and overconfident. I thanked him for that lesson. Arrogance would not fuel my steps today. I would run with resolve. Determination drove me that afternoon.
A total of nineteen contestants had registered for the stadion. Two other women were scheduled to participate in the race besides me. They both hailed from Sparta, the only city-state in Graecia that actively encouraged their women to train in sports. Since they believed strong women bred strong sons, they taught their girls a range of athletic exploits, including wrestling, running, and jumping. The Spartan girls showed up wearing nothing but diminutive bands of cloth over chest and groin. Compared to them, I appeared a goddess of modesty.
Tentatively, I removed my outer tunic and started to stretch in my blue chiton. A man garbed in a sleeveless Greek tunic shook his head. “Disgraceful wench.”
A younger man grinned. “Lovely nymph, only smile upon me, and I will devote myself to your altar forever.”
Father, noting the unwanted attention, moved near to discourage further comments from both admirers and critics. I gave him a grateful smile and continued to stretch my back and legs. The other athletes were engaged in similar exercises. I became aware of each muscle-bound form, sinewy from hard practice, and powerful enough to best me. Some of these men competed at every festival held in the land, including the Olympics, and were paid for their pains.
With a lurch I began to doubt my sanity. What had I done? Forget winning; I only hoped I would not lose so poorly as to make myself the target of every joke for decades to come.
When I had been a girl in Athens, my favorite shrine had not belonged to one of the famous gods, housed in grand temples and visited by thousands of ardent worshipers. My favorite shrine had been made of plain white marble with a simple inscription in Greek: “To an Unknown God.”