Sacred Games

by Gary Corby

  “The look on your face, for one. But I know ’cause I can read people, and let me tell you that bastard would do anything to get Timodemus off. Do you know the most important skill of a pankratist?”

  “Hitting people?”

  Dromeus snorted. “If that’s all there was to it, any big man could be a champion. Look at Timodemus, he’s a small guy, but he can mix it up just fine. No, kid, the secret is in reading your opponent. Where he’s looking can tell you a lot. So can his body, which muscles are tense, which relaxed.”

  “So you’re saying Timodemus can read people?” Markos said.

  “Like a scroll. It’s why he’s the best. He’s never where the other guy’s about to strike. It’s almost impossible to hit the little bastard.”

  It occurred to me, if Timo could read other people so well, then he knew Arakos was about to needle him before Arakos opened his mouth. Then how could he claim he was so enraged by Arakos that he acted without thought?

  Markos said, “I take it you don’t like One-Eye.”

  Dromeus shrugged. “I gotta train his son. I don’t have to like the father.”

  “What about Timo himself?” I asked.

  “Timodemus is all right,” Dromeus said. “Listen, kid, I like you. You took on Timodemus when you didn’t have a hope in Hades. You knew he was going to beat you to a pulp, didn’t you?”

  “I told you we fought as kids. You said Timo needed to get the anger out of his system.”

  He nodded. “I like that. A man ready to take a few lumps for a friend.”

  “You said fighting me would get the anger out of Timo’s system. Did it work, Dromeus?”

  “I think it did.”

  “Then how can you think Timo killed Arakos?”

  “You got it wrong, kid. You asked me before who the two were, the two I reckon did it.”

  “Yes?”

  “One-Eye and Festianos.”

  The others in the room showed no surprise. It must have been common gossip. I said, “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? They want their boy to win.”

  “Festianos says you’re desperate yourself.”

  Dromeus snorted. “I’m a professional. Sure I want my student up there. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna cheat for it. I told you I didn’t see One-Eye and Festianos that night, but I tried. I went around to their tent. Neither of them was there. I reckon they were off, seeing to Arakos.”

  THE MOMENT WE left the gym, Markos took my arm and led me to a quiet spot in the shade of the building. Quiet meant there were only ten other men sitting there, fanning themselves and talking sport. Olympia really was crowded.

  Markos said softly, so the others wouldn’t hear, “Nico, this evidence of Dromeus agrees with the ostrakon I found, the one that demanded a meeting.”

  “I know, Markos, but Timodemus denied writing it.”

  “He’s your friend. I understand,” he said sympathetically. It was the tone of a man who spoke to the bereaved, or the soon to be bereaved.

  “I don’t know, Markos. Give me some time. I need to think.”

  Had Timo lied? I didn’t want to think about it, so instead, I wondered what Diotima was doing, whether she’d made any progress, and suddenly I was gripped by the empty feeling of not having her with me. So I said, “Come on, Markos. I want you to meet my wife.”

  WE FOUND HER at Petale’s tent. A queue of men waited outside. Diotima sat at a table beside the entrance with a stack of coins and a water clock dripping away the time.

  A man emerged smiling from behind the tent flap. He blinked, adjusted his tunic, and sauntered off.

  “Next!” Diotima called, without taking her eyes off the clock. It had only a few drops left to run. At the last drop, Diotima turned it over and made a mark on a wax tablet. She consulted her notes and said to the man at the head of the queue, “Let’s see, you’re doggy.” She handed him four obols from the stack of coins.

  The man said, “But what if I want something else?”

  “If you want free sex, then you do it my way,” she told him. “You’re wasting time. Get in there and stop screwing about—er.” Diotima realized what she was saying. “That is, do screw about.”

  The man grinned and went inside. A moment later, we heard a brief squeal from Petale.

  “Diotima!” I said, shocked.

  Diotima looked up, pushed back a wisp of dark hair from her eyes, and said, “Oh, hello, Nico.”

  “What in Hades do you think you’re doing?”

  “We need to know how long Petale spent with clients. Didn’t I say to leave it me?”

  “Petale doesn’t remember how many clients she saw.”

  “I found a way to work out her payments. Most of them, anyway.”

  “No one can look at a jar of coins and deduce in what handfuls they’d been put in. I know you’re smart, Diotima, but I can’t believe even you could do it.”

  Diotima blushed. “I … er … had some help.”

  “Who could possibly do such a thing?”

  “Hi, Nico!” came a boy’s voice from under the table.

  I bent to look. There was my little brother, Socrates.

  “Socrates worked it out,” my wife admitted sheepishly.

  “You asked a child?”

  “Well, he is my brother-in-law, you know.”

  “It was fun, Nico,” Socrates said eagerly as he crawled out from under the table. “A really unusual puzzle. But I solved it!”

  “How?” I said, unbelieving.

  “Say there are fourteen obols in the jar. Then it must be for a man on top and a doggy. Because man on top is ten obols, and doggy is four.” Socrates paused. “Er … I thought at first doggy had something to do with—you know—dogs. I wondered where they all were. It was a bit of a relief when Diotima explained about the different ways. Hey Nico, which positions do you and Diotima—”

  “Can we get back to Petale?” I interrupted. “Why couldn’t it be for something else?”

  “Oh, sure. Well, woman on top is nine obols, and standing is three, and there just isn’t any other way to make fourteen. That’s only an example, of course. You see?”

  I saw. “That’s really quite clever. But I saw Petale’s money jar. There must more than a hundred coins.”

  “Yes, Nico, but the customers come from different cities. Lots of different cities. There weren’t more than a couple of customers from each place.”

  “Go on,” I said, intrigued despite myself.

  “Well, every city has its own coins, and everyone paid in their own currency.”

  It struck me like a hammer. “Dear Gods, Socrates, that’s brilliant!”

  Socrates smiled like the rising sun. “Thanks, Nico! Do you know, I think that’s the first time you ever said I did something smart? All the other times you—”

  “Don’t get carried away,” I told him. “Go on with your calculation.”

  “Oh, well, in the jar there are only a handful of coins from most cities. So it’s easy to work out all the different ways they could have been paid. Lots of the solutions are obviously ridiculous; we can eliminate those.”

  “And where there’s ambiguity,” Diotima added—I heard the I-told-you-so in her voice—“it usually doesn’t change how many men paid.” She shrugged. “Sometimes we took the high answer, sometimes the low. It’ll even out close enough that we know how many men she saw.”

  “But the coins from different cities have different values.”

  “Sure.”

  “To do this you’d have to know the fees in the coins of every city in the country for every way of having sex.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Socrates said. “I memorized them all. Petale told me all the going rates.”

  Terrific. My wife was running a brothel, and my little brother had memorized the cost of every sexual position with a prostitute for every currency in Hellas.

  Diotima said, “I’m timing the same number of men, duplicating the positions as close as we can get them. Pret
ty soon now I’ll be able to tell you what time Petale saw Arakos the Spartan.”

  The answer would be a gift of the Gods, but I still had trouble believing the answer could have been divined.

  “Socrates, tell me the truth, did you really work out how many men she serviced? You’re not making this up, are you?”

  “No, Nico,” he said, and he sounded hurt. “I can prove it. Honest. I’ll show you every step.”

  “No,” I said at once. “I believe you, Socrates. I’m sorry I asked. So how many men in all?”

  His eyes and mouth became large as plates. “A lot.”

  “You’ve done well. Good thinking, Socrates.”

  “Thanks, Nico!” He beamed.

  “Uh—don’t mention this to our father.” I pulled Diotima to the side. “You’ve been teaching Socrates about sex,” I hissed.

  “He was surprisingly ignorant for a twelve-year-old,” she said calmly. “Fortunately he didn’t need to know much to solve the mathematical problem.”

  “That’s not the point. I told Father you’d never be involved in prostitution. What if he finds out?”

  “It’s more important to get the answer.” Diotima looked at Markos, who’d listened to all this with a bemused expression. “Who’s your friend?” she asked in a loud voice, quite blatantly changing the subject.

  “Markos, meet my fiancée, Diotima. Diotima, this is Markos of Sparta.”

  They looked each other up and down.

  At that moment the man emerged from the tent.

  “Oh!” Diotima rushed back to the table and ran her finger down the list. She grabbed a handful of coins and thrust them at the man first in line.

  “She’s on top. Go!”

  The man nodded his head and stepped in quickly. Diotima might not have approved of the seamier side of life, but she certainly knew how to run a brothel.

  She became preoccupied with her chart, checking her figures. Markos and I looked at each other, both desperately trying not to laugh. Markos grinned and said, “Your remarkable lady would have made a fine madam.”

  “I wouldn’t say that to her if you wish to live.”

  “I don’t suppose Diotima has a sister, does she?”

  “Sorry, Markos, you’ll have to find your own clever priestess.”

  As I said it, I thought what a pity that was. I would have enjoyed having Markos for a brother-in-law.

  Diotima turned her attention back to us. “What have you two learned?”

  Markos and I took turns telling her what we’d been up to while Diotima listened closely. From time to time as we spoke, she had to break off the conversation to usher in another client for Petale.

  When Markos and I finished, Diotima said, “Dromeus accuses Festianos and One-Eye. One-Eye accuses Dromeus. Festianos implies either Dromeus or One-Eye would have been happy to do the deed. The only person everyone agrees would not have killed Arakos is Timodemus, and he’s the one who’s arrested.”

  “How do you like Uncle Festianos or One-Eye as murderers?” I asked her.

  “They’d be a start.”

  It occurred to me my friend Timodemus might be a trifle miffed if I saved his life but got his father or uncle executed. I said, “Why do you think Dromeus named them?”

  “For the traditional reason,” Diotima said. “He hates them. But they’re all members of Timo’s team.”

  “No one else has a motive,” Markos pointed out.

  “Is there no one among the Spartans?” she asked. “Had this prickly pankratist no enemies at home?”

  Markos considered. “It’s a reasonable question,” he conceded. “But why, if you were a Spartan, would you pick Olympia to murder a fellow citizen? Surely there’d be better opportunities. In fact, I know there are.”

  Diotima opened her mouth to argue, but Markos raised a hand. “Wait! I agree it needs to be checked. I’ll see if anyone in the Spartan camp had a particular reason to kill Arakos.”

  I wasn’t entirely happy, but we had to trust Markos in this. If Arakos did have an enemy in the Spartan camp, Diotima and I could never hope to discover him. The Spartans would refuse to talk to us.

  It was hard to concentrate with the sounds of passion emanating from the tent behind us. Markos seemed distracted, too, but Diotima didn’t seem to notice.

  The line of men had shortened to the final two when the slave with the runny nose appeared from around the corner and walked up to us.

  “Not you again.” I backed away.

  He sniffed loudly. “Got another message from Pericles. The great man wants to see you.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the main camp.

  “Tell him we’ll be there shortly,” Diotima said.

  “You’re coming, too?” I asked.

  “I’m almost finished here,” she said.

  Markos said, “This is an Athenian-only meeting, I’m sure. I’ll see what I can find at the Spartan camp while you consult your leader.”

  “Pericles isn’t leader of Athens,” I said. “He’s influential, but he’s a citizen just like any other.”

  “Then why do all you Athenians jump at his beck and call?” Markos asked.

  It was a good question.

  DIOTIMA AND I pushed our way into Pericles’s tent without bothering to knock. Pericles was equally abrupt. Without greeting, he asked, “What progress?” And then, seeing who was with me, demanded, “What’s she doing here?”

  Pericles and Diotima didn’t exactly get along. It may have had something to do with the fact that Diotima had once blackmailed him.

  “Diotima’s my partner, Pericles,” I said. “If you want this job done in three days, I need all the help I can get.”

  “Hmmph.” He knew I was right. He also knew I would walk away if Diotima was excluded.

  Rather than argue about it, I caught him up on everything we’d learned.

  When I finished, Pericles said, “I want you both to understand how important it is to Athens that Timodemus not be guilty of this killing.”

  I nodded. “Yes, it would be shameful if an Athenian cheated in such a way.”

  “I don’t think you’ve quite understood me. I said it’s important Timodemus be found not guilty. I didn’t say anything about him actually being innocent.”

  “You’re not suggesting we deliberately ignore evidence, are you?” Diotima said.

  “Not at all. Unless it’s inconvenient, in which case yes.”

  “Pericles,” I said, offended, “I swore an Olympic Oath to find the killer of Arakos. Timodemus is my closest friend, but if the facts lead to him, I have no choice.”

  “Yes, you do. How many men are dead of this debacle?”

  “One.”

  “If we’re not careful, the victims of this crime will expand to thousands.” Pericles picked up the bronze stylus he’d been playing with the last time we’d met in his tent and began to twirl it in his fingers.

  “Did you know there was a battle between Athens and Corinth while you two were away in Ionia?”

  “In the war for control of Megara? Yes.”

  “Corinth sent an army to settle the issue,” Pericles said. “We were committed to so many wars, in different parts of the world, that all we had left to send were old men and boys. Old men and boys against an army of veterans.”

  “And?”

  “The old men and the boys won. The army from Corinth was driven off. Our lads erected a victory tripod.”

  “Good for them.”

  “The Corinthians can’t have been pleased,” Diotima said.

  “They weren’t. The people of Corinth sent their army straight back, with orders to do a better job. The Corinthian army erected a victory tripod, too, claimed they’d won, refused to fight, and took off for home a second time.”

  We all laughed.

  Pericles said, “It may seem very well, but I’ve heard news this day. As I warned you might happen, Corinth is using this killing to egg on the Spartans to join the squabble. We must do nothing that would gi
ve the hawks in Sparta an excuse to declare war. Stretched as we are, we’d certainly lose it.”

  “I see.”

  “This time I think you do. If Sparta and Athens ever go to war, it will be like two giant lions mauling each other.”

  “Could it come to that?” I asked, concerned. I was as ready to fight for Athens as any man, but I hated the discipline of army life.

  “I begin to think a fight might be inevitable,” Pericles said. “There’ve been incidents. Small parties of Spartans have waylaid Athenians on their own, to rough them up. Our men defended themselves. There’s yet to be open fighting, but it’s only a matter of time. We’re not at war at the moment. I don’t wish to be when these Games end.”

  “Can’t you stop this, Pericles?”

  “No, but you can.”

  “Me!”

  “You. The Spartans won’t like it, but if Timodemus is officially innocent then there is no cause for dispute. Tension will fall. There are many things that could come of this debacle, Nicolaos, but there is one that must not: Athens and Sparta must not go to war. Ouch.” Pericles looked down to see blood flowing from his palm. In his excitement he’d stabbed himself with the stylus.

  Diotima said, “But Pericles, Nico’s sworn an oath. What if we discover Timodemus did kill Arakos?”

  Pericles said coldly, “Then Nicolaos must decide. Is he an investigator first, or an Athenian?”

  DIOTIMA AND I walked out of Pericles’s tent, out of the Athenian camp, and out of Olympia. Our path took us past the camp of the Spartans, as it had the night Arakos died. A handful of Spartans who lounged about the entrance saw me. One of them knocked another in the shoulder and pointed as we passed. I ignored them. I knew I’d become notorious; everyone had seen me take the Olympic Oath.

  We went to the woods, which were quite pleasant to stroll in if you didn’t think of them as a murder scene.

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  “Pericles has a point,” Diotima conceded. “Is it worth delivering justice for one victim if it kills thousands more?”

  “I’m tempted to give in and do as he asks.”

  “Yet the entire thing is unethical.”

  The pressure to exonerate Timodemus was enough to make me shake. His father, his uncle, Pericles, and the Athenians had made clear the result they expected. What would my life be like back in Athens if he were found guilty? I’d be known for the rest of my life as the man who destroyed one of our own.