Sacred Games

by Gary Corby

  “I’m sorry about Timodemus, son. I know he’s your friend. Are they to execute him?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Don’t go getting yourself killed along with him. Your mother would never forgive me.”

  “I’ll do my best, Father.”

  Then he frowned. “Pythax came to see me today about this supposed marriage. He’s not a happy man. Why did you have to act so rashly? Now we have this mess to sort out.”

  “You could approve the marriage?” I said in hope. “Pythax is happy for it to go ahead.”

  “Of course he is!” Sophroniscus thundered. “How many former slaves can marry their metic daughters to a citizen?”

  A metic was a resident alien with permission to live in Athens. The prejudice against marriage with metics was strong and getting stronger all the time. Pericles even talked of a law to make the children of such marriages non-citizens. If that happened, Diotima and I would have a problem.

  “Please don’t blame Diotima’s family.”

  “I don’t. I blame you. If you wanted to be married, son, all you had to do was ask me. Didn’t I just tell you every man at Olympia remarked on your courage this morning? By the end of that race, any man in the hippodrome would have been pleased to match his daughter with you. In fact I had two offers as I left. It’s not too late; I can still find you a good girl.”

  “I did find a good girl, Father.”

  “You found a non-citizen. How do you know she won’t turn to her mother’s trade?”

  I laughed. “One thing I can guarantee you, Father: Diotima will never be involved in prostitution.”

  Sophroniscus sighed. A long, deep sigh like I’d never heard from him before. “We’ll have to see what sort of a dowry this Pythax can offer to accompany his daughter.”

  Had I really heard that? I felt an unexpected flutter of hope. “You mean, sir, you might consider taking Diotima after all?”

  My father’s shoulders tensed, and he shuffled his feet like a guilty man. “I hate to admit it, son, but business has been slow. Too slow. The truth is, we’re close to the point where I’ll not be able to feed the family.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

  “I know you didn’t. You’ve been too busy gallivanting about. But if your Diotima comes to us with enough dowry to keep our heads above water … well, I’d have to consider that very carefully.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Father?” I asked. I was genuinely, deeply, and suddenly concerned. He lived for sculpting. If he were unable to continue, it would break him.

  “I need work, son. Perhaps one of these athletes will commission me for his victory statue.”

  Dawn lit up for me. “So that’s why you’ve flocked to congratulate the winners! I thought you’d become a sports fan.”

  “If it will help win work, I’ll join the mob.” He sighed. “There are too many good sculptors. Onatas of Aegina is here. So is Myron of Eleutherae.” Sophroniscus named the most fashionable, most popular, and most expensive sculptors in Hellas.

  “If I see a chance to help—”

  “Oh, so you have time to work with your father now?”

  “No—I mean, yes! But Father, if I find someone who needs a statue—”

  “You’ll mention it. Yes, I know you will, son. By the way, there was a message left for you.”

  “A messenger? What did he say?”

  “No messenger, a written message, and we don’t know how it got here. It’s all a bit of a mystery. Socrates has it.”

  Socrates sat outside our tents. He’d ignored our conversation. Instead he stared at something in his hands. He’d obviously fallen into one of his trances, during which he was oblivious to the world. Father and I had both become accustomed to his strange behavior.

  “Socrates!” Sophroniscus yelled into my brother’s ear. “Wake up, will you?”

  Socrates looked up as if he’d suddenly noticed the world existed. “What?”

  “Show Nico the message,” our father said.

  Socrates held out the thing in his hand. It was an ostrakon, a piece of broken pottery, red on the outside and black on the inside. On this one, words had been scratched in stark white into the inner black:

  He said the secrets would kill me to if I told you but I had to do sumthing the Athenian dinnt do it the secrets killed the Spartan

  “Where did you find this?” I demanded.

  “In the middle of our tent,” Socrates said. “When I returned from the chariot race. It lay in the middle, where you couldn’t miss it.”

  The tent flap had been up. Anyone could have tossed it in as he walked by.

  “What secrets could kill a man?” I asked myself aloud.

  “Many,” Sophroniscus said. “You’re old enough to know that.”

  I inspected the ostrakon closely to deduce what I could from it. I hoped for a clue as to who might have thrown it into our tent. Then I sighed.

  “It’s difficult, isn’t it, Nico?” Socrates sympathized.

  “It certainly is.”

  “Yes. Other than that the writer was a nervous, left-handed man with a blunt knife and tawny-colored hair, there’s almost nothing we can get from it. But you know that, of course.”

  I almost dropped the ostrakon. “You can’t possibly know all those things,” I said, but I was afraid he could.

  “Sure you can, Nico,” he said. He was too absorbed in the problem to notice the insult. “See here where the knife has slipped? It slipped from left to right. So he held the ostrakon in his right hand and the knife in his left.”

  Now that he pointed it out, it was obvious. “All right,” I granted. “But the blunt knife?”

  “The same slip happens here and here and here,” Socrates pointed to the slight scratches. “The knife point wouldn’t hold.”

  I had to concede he was right. “And the nervousness?”

  “He can spell secrets, but not didn’t. He couldn’t think straight.”

  I knew what to look for now. I rotated the shard until I found the short hair trapped in a crack at the bottom edge, where the break was particularly ragged. I didn’t know how a hair could have caught there, but there was no doubt it was tawny colored.

  I put the ostrakon in a cloth pouch and tied it to my belt. I had no idea what it meant, but I’d find out. This was the first evidence that Timo might be innocent.

  “Good work, Socrates.”

  “Thanks, Nico!” Socrates beamed.

  I FOUND ONE-EYE in a dusty patch he’d taken for an exercise ring, surrounded by dry, spindly grass. Not an official athlete, One-Eye wasn’t permitted use of the Olympic facilities. He danced about in the dust in a sequence of oddly elegant movements, each ending in a blow, a kick or a punch against the empty air. One-Eye practiced the standard routine of a pankratist. He danced naked and glistened with sweat. The red, empty eye socket gave him the forbidding look of an angry Cyclops. He snarled and grunted, dodged, swerved, and struck so smoothly that I knew I observed a daily routine. One-Eye might have been an old man, but I for one wouldn’t have wanted to face him. I doubted anyone but a current contestant could have taken him on.

  One-Eye saw me, but he didn’t stop his practice. If anything, his momentum increased ever so slightly. Had he picked up the pace to impress me?

  I said nothing but waited for the routine to slow to a halt, which finally it did.

  “Nicolaos,” he acknowledged me. He began to alternate jogging in place and straining his arms against a large piece of granite.

  “Very impressive, sir. Are you finished?”

  “The heavy, useful part of the routine is over, yes. I must cool down slowly now, or the muscles will knot.”

  “Does Festianos exercise like this, too, sir? Where is he?”

  One-Eye laughed, but without humor. “My brother has let himself go these last years. But perhaps I shouldn’t criticize too much,” he allowed. “My brother has been afflicted with poor health. No, Festianos has gone to the stadion to
watch the pentathlon.”

  “Oh, of course.” I’d forgotten for a moment there were Games on. “I don’t suppose you know where I could find him on the hill?”

  “He left late. I imagine he’ll be toward the back, close to the entrance.” One-Eye continued his warm-down exercise without pause while we talked.

  “Don’t you want to watch, too, sir?” I asked.

  “There’s only one sport I care about, young man, and it’s not the pentathlon.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re the one assigned to free my son. Why aren’t you out doing it?”

  “It’s why I’m here, sir. There are some questions I have to ask.”

  “I know nothing about the killing,” One-Eye said at once. “Except that it was thoroughly deserved.”

  “Arakos didn’t deserve to die,” a voice said. Markos came to a halt beside me. He was surprisingly calm considering One-Eye had just consigned a Spartan to Hades.

  One-Eye looked him over. “You’re the Spartan they assigned to make sure my son dies.”

  Markos said mildly, “I’m the Spartan assigned to investigate a murder.”

  “Then perhaps your time would be better expended elsewhere. Chasing the killer, for example?”

  The tension oozed between One-Eye and Markos, between One-Eye and me. I said, “One-Eye, I understand your love for your son makes you anxious—”

  “My love? When I learned my wife was pregnant, I sacrificed to Zeus for a son. I sacrificed every day of her term. Do you understand why?”

  “Er … because you wanted a son?”

  One-Eye snorted. “If that’s your idea of incisive deduction, then my son is doomed. Yes, you idiot, I wanted a son so that I could pass onto him the family tradition of the pankration.”

  “Why did you say just now that the death was deserved?” Markos asked, then added, his voice dripping with irony, “Please don’t mind my feelings in your answer.”

  One-Eye turned to me. “I know you’ve talked to my son. He must have told you what transpired on the march here.”

  I knew, because Pindar had told me. Timo hadn’t thought to mention it. It occurred to me that my friend Timo hadn’t told me everything. I said, “I heard. Arakos harassed Timo.”

  “Arakos had it coming. Like most Spartans, he was an arrogant bastard.” One-Eye glared at Markos, daring him to interject. Markos kept his face a carefully controlled mask. He was a superb interrogator. One-Eye went on, “Whoever got him, I’ll wager it was someone understandably angered beyond control.”

  I wondered if he realized that description might apply to him or to his son. For the first time I noticed how Timo’s propensity to wild anger had been inherited from his father.

  I asked, “Did Dromeus really prescribe sex as part of the training regimen?”

  One-Eye frowned. “Dromeus says it keeps the athlete’s muscles relaxed, and I have to admit the results seem to prove him right. It’s one of those newfangled theories, like the meat-only diet everyone swears by these days.” One-Eye shook his head. “It’s unbelievably expensive. Do you know what red meat costs?”

  “So you disagreed with Dromeus on Timo’s training regimen.”

  “Oh no, I’m not getting into that argument! Haven’t you wondered why I, an expert in the pankration, hired an expensive personal trainer for my son?”

  “I did wonder.” In fact, it had never occurred to me, but I didn’t want to appear stupid.

  “It’s because a father is not always the most objective when it comes to his own son. A more dispassionate eye can see and correct faults an indulgent father might pass over.”

  One-Eye thought he was indulgent?

  “You were my son’s friend—”

  “I still am.”

  “And for that I forgive you these impertinent questions. But there will be no more from either of you. Free my son, Nicolaos. Preferably by tomorrow. Being cooped up in that room is terrible preparation for the contest.”

  Markos said, “Sir, the Judges of the Games set Timo’s trial for the last day of the Games.” Markos didn’t add the obvious: that they’d done so in order to execute him at once if the judgment went against him.

  “Then bring forward the trial.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe him.

  “You heard me. The pankration is the last event on the fourth day. Timodemus must be free by then, or he won’t be able to compete.”

  I said, “Sir, it’s for the judges to decide.”

  “But if you told the judges you could prove his innocence they would hear you early, would they not?”

  “I suppose so,” I said, with the greatest reluctance. “But One-Eye—”

  “Good, then tell them.”

  “Wouldn’t it help if we solved the crime first?”

  “Young man, you don’t need to find this killer. You merely need to prove it could not be my son. Surely you can do that.”

  Markos and I looked at each other in disbelief. For the first time, Markos was at a loss for words.

  “Right now, One-Eye, I can do no such thing. In fact, on the face of it, Timodemus did kill the Spartan.”

  “You don’t believe that.” He tossed weights into the air and caught them.

  “No, sir, but it’s what any impartial judge will decide. Let me do my job in the time allotted, sir, and if Zeus grants me the victory, then your son will return home with you, alive and free.”

  “I hoped for more than that.”

  “More? I don’t understand, One-Eye.”

  “Timo won at Nemea last year, no matter what they say. You should ignore the ugly rumors.”

  I blinked. “What rumors?”

  “I just told you to ignore them. If Timo wins here at the Sacred Games, then it remains only for him to win at Corinth and Delphi—both easier competitions—and he will have won every major title on the competition circuit. Those who achieve such a feat are entitled to name themselves paradoxos.”

  Paradoxos—“the marvel”—Timodemus the Marvel, because to achieve four straight victories is almost impossible.

  Dear Gods, his son was held in a prison awaiting execution, and One-Eye could only think of how they would win the next contest.

  “The advantages that accrue to a paradoxos are great indeed,” One-Eye went on.

  Had the man no grip on reality? He’d be lucky if Timo still breathed come the next contest, let alone won it.

  Markos said, “Then it would help, sir, if you could give us any clue as to who might have killed Arakos. You’ve been around the pankration all your life. You know everyone in the sport. What do you think?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Dromeus killed the Spartan.”

  I blinked. Had One-Eye just shopped his own head coach for the crime? He’d said it as easily as if he discussed the weather.

  “Are you serious?” I had to ask.

  “Certainly I am.”

  “Why would Dromeus want to kill Arakos?” Markos asked.

  “Dromeus saw some hard times after his Olympic crown. He was widely considered the weakest Olympic victor ever. He turned to coaching to bolster his reputation, and he achieved some success, which is why I hired him, but Timodemus is the first of his charges to have a real chance at the crown. Dromeus is desperate for this win.”

  And you aren’t? I thought to myself, but didn’t dare say it. Instead I said, “Merely wanting to win a sporting contest hardly seems a motive for a serious attack.”

  “Doesn’t it? Look at me, Nicolaos.”

  He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me so close that my entire vision was filled with his face. His hot, angry breath blew on my face.

  “Here now!” Markos moved to save me, but I waved him back.

  “What do you see?” One-Eye rasped.

  I could see the broken nose from his many fights, the pockmarked skin dark and splotchy from years of practice under the sun, and, above all else, the ugly red hole where his right eye had been. It was
scarred and puckered. A layer of grime lay within the empty socket, where the sandy dust of the practice ring had settled.

  “A man who has spent his life in the pankration,” I whispered. I wondered if Timo would one day look like this.

  “Do you know how I lost this eye?”

  “Timo told me once, long ago.”

  “Did he tell you the details?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was at the Nemean Games, when I was the age my son is today. I was a pankratist, one of the very best. Not the best—there was no clear best—but I was among the top four or five, let us say; any one of us had a hope of Olympic glory.

  “I’d reached the semifinals of Nemea. I was confident. Very confident. I’d won easily in every round. I knew I was fighting better than every man present, and these were the men who’d be going on to the Sacred Games the next year. I allowed myself to hope that if I kept up my training, and worked hard, then perhaps the crown of the Sacred Games was within my grasp.”

  One-Eye’s one remaining good eye glistened. If it had been anyone else, I might have suspected a tear was forming.

  “My opponent in the semifinals was weak. He wouldn’t have made it so far, except the Gods had seen fit to grant him a bye in the earlier round. I faced him, and by his stance, I knew I could take him. I could see in his eyes that he knew it, too.

  “The umpires called time, and we entered the ring. We faced each other and I let him approach. Then sand flew into my eyes. He’d thrown it. He’d kept his hands clenched to hide the grit he held.

  “I was blinded and fell back. He jumped on top of me. The next thing I felt were the fingers hooked behind my ears and the thumbs in my eyeballs. I could hear the umpires screaming and the whips striking his back, but he didn’t stop. I tried to turn my head to save my sight. But I felt my right eyeball slide out.”

  That was definitely a tear on his cheek. I thought that One-Eye was about to weep, but he held it back.

  “I still have nightmares. For one hideous moment I saw my own face. Then it was gone, and I was left screaming on the ground. They carried me away, my trainer and my father, to the doctor to save what they could. He applied the branding iron to cauterize the wound.”