Sacred Games

by Gary Corby

  The Butcher was already spattered with blood, which made for an interesting effect on his formal chiton. Large drops of grease had fallen from the passing sled and formed small pools of slipperiness in the muddy ground. I wondered if anyone would step in it. That put me in mind of Socrates and his clean tunic. I said, “Socrates, look out for the slippery patches, and for Father’s sake, try to keep your chiton clean, all right?”

  No answer. I’d expected a sarcastic comment.

  “Socrates?”

  I looked about me. He wasn’t there.

  I said, “Diotima, weren’t you keeping an eye on Socrates?”

  “No,” she said shortly. “He’s my brother-in-law, not my child.”

  I said, “Has anyone seen Socrates?”

  No one had. Socrates had disappeared.

  He was probably safe. Any normal boy would spend the day running between the grown-ups, playing in the crowd, stealing extra meat from the barbecue, and then make his way back to camp that night for his scolding. The only problem was, that was what any normal boy would do. Socrates, on the other hand, was fully capable of climbing into the barbecue pits to see how they worked.

  Father remained admirably calm. He said only two words: “Find him.”

  We spread out. I reasoned that he couldn’t have gotten far, not because Socrates couldn’t move fast but because the press of people made it impossible. The same press made it difficult for me to move, too. I became overly acquainted with the sweaty armpits and backs of the men and women I brushed past.

  It was Markos who found my errant brother.

  “He’s over here!” Jumping up onto the plinth of a statue, I saw Markos standing near the fire pits, which reignited my fear that Socrates had fallen into one. Markos waved and shouted. Somehow over the chaos I managed to hear him. Diotima heard, too, and she was closer. She pushed her way through to Markos before me.

  Slaves were already at work on the pits; they’d kindled a hundred fires. Wood chips had been added and the smoke smelled sweet. When the fires burned strong, the slaves would add stones to glow red hot and be the base on which the oxen would roast. Other slaves prepared the wooden frames to hold the carcasses. Tonight the Hellenes would enjoy the largest barbecue in the world.

  Then I saw what had attracted the attention of my over-inquisitive little brother. Socrates sat on a stone, in earnest conversation with a man who wore a large flowing robe of the deepest purple, tall and thin, with a nose long enough to double as a spear. Upon the man’s feet were sandals that were quite obviously made of bronze. How he walked in them I don’t know, but they glared in the sun so that you couldn’t miss the odd footwear.

  Beside the strangely dressed man was a fire pit, much smaller than the hundred official pits. The small pit looked quite forlorn. A shovel and heaped dirt lay discarded beside it. The stranger leaned over a pile, almost as tall as me, of gray, squishy bread dough. He kneaded the dough, handful by handful, as he conversed with Socrates. In fact I saw he’d handed some dough to Socrates, who was also kneading. Already the two of them had attracted a small crowd.

  Socrates looked up and said without apology for wandering off, “Oh, hello, Nico. This man is making an ox!”

  “You mean he’s cooking an ox,” I corrected.

  “No, he’s making one. Out of bread.”

  I said to the man, “Can I ask a question?”

  He nodded as he kneaded the dough on his lap. “That’s why I’m here. I was once a fish, you know.”

  It wasn’t entirely the answer I’d expected. “You don’t say?”

  “And a bird.”

  Light dawned. Yes, this was exactly the sort of person Socrates would take up with.

  I said, “You’re not a philosopher, by any chance, are you?”

  “My name is Empedocles, son of Meton, and I am indeed a lover of knowledge. How did you guess?”

  “Just a feeling I had. Why are you making an ox out of bread?”

  He clapped his hands in happiness, and bits of dough splattered over us. “That’s the question I hope many will ask. The answer is because it’s immoral and unethical to consume meat. My plan is simple yet brilliant,” he elucidated. “Tonight I will hand out pieces of my bread ox. Then everyone will see we can all eat bread instead of meat, and there’s no need to kill our fellow creatures.”

  Socrates asked, “But why did you say you’d been a fish and a bird? Did the Gods transform you, sir?”

  “What happens when you die?” Empedocles asked Socrates in return.

  Socrates looked confused. Everyone knew the answer to that. “Er … my psyche goes down to Hades?”

  “Not so!” Empedocles said. “The psyches of the dead are reborn in other living creatures. We’ve all lived past lives.”

  If we had, this was the first I’d heard of it. I could tell from the expressions of Diotima, Markos, and Socrates that they, too, had never heard of such a thing.

  Empedocles continued, “In my own past lives, for example, I’ve been both a fish and a bird. When we hold a beast in our hands, it could be our own son, our mother, our daughter from a previous life. When we consume the flesh of the sacrifice, young boy, it’s nothing less than cannibalism.”

  “Yech!” Socrates said.

  Empedocles said this not only to us but to the rapidly growing crowd that had come to watch. Empedocles worked as he talked, trying to mold the bread dough and failing miserably.

  After a while of watching him struggle with the dough, Socrates remarked, rather rudely, “It doesn’t look much like an ox.”

  “Anyone can be a critic,” Empedocles said to him. “Can you do better?”

  “Sure I can,” Socrates said. “Nico and I are the sons of a sculptor.”

  Empedocles blinked. “You are? Good, then you can both help me,” and before I could object he handed us trowels and a set of sculpting tools so new they shone in the sun.

  I couldn’t see any harm in it. Socrates was interested in talking to Empedocles, and I was simply relieved that we hadn’t found my brother grilled with the oxen. Together we wrestled the dough into something that approximated a bovine body. Everything sagged.

  Diotima and Markos laughed at our efforts. That made me determined to do the job right. After a time I stood, tossed the tools on the ground, and announced, “There!”

  Empedocles looked thoughtfully at my creation, rubbed his chin, and said, “It looks more like a cow, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s definitely an ox.” I turned to Diotima and Markos. “It looks like an ox, doesn’t it?” I said. They both nodded gravely.

  “Definitely an ox,” Markos said. “I see it clearly.”

  As we worked, Socrates questioned Empedocles closely on the doctrine of reincarnation, as he called it. Empedocles was puzzled that a mere child should show an interest, so I explained proudly that Socrates had once met the philosopher Anaxagoras, who told us everything was made of infinitesimal particles, and—

  Empedocles almost exploded. “That mountebank!” he shouted. “I know this fellow you talk of, and let me assure you, he’s no more a philosopher than this boy here.” He gestured at Socrates. “Tell me, have you ever seen these supposed particles?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted.

  “Have you touched one?”

  “No.”

  “Heard one?”

  “No.”

  “And nor will you, because they don’t exist.” Empedocles snorted. “The whole idea is simply bad philosophy. I’ve solved the riddle of matter, and it has nothing to do with these ridiculous particles.”

  “Then what is it, sir?” Socrates asked eagerly, because he was always desperate to learn from philosophers.

  “All matter is composed from earth, air, fire, and water. They combine in different portions to form everything around us.”

  Socrates thought about it, his head cocked on one side, then he asked, “But sir, what moves the earth, fire, air, and water to combine in different portions?”

&n
bsp; “That’s simple. Love and strife. Love and strife, young boy, are what move everything in the universe.”

  Love and strife move everything. Empedocles might be crazy, but he’d given me an idea.

  “Nicolaos!” It was an old woman’s voice. I turned to see Gorgo with two men at her back, both twice her height. She, too, had come to see the spectacle of the oxen.

  “Where’s your woman?” Gorgo asked.

  I pointed to where Diotima and Markos stood together. Gorgo motioned, and we all stepped away from Empedocles, who had begun to harangue the amused crowd.

  “Why were you making a bread cow?” Gorgo asked, obviously intrigued.

  “It’s an ox.”

  “Looks more like a cow to me, but that’s not important now. I have information for you.” She looked about, realized we were in the middle of a crowd that had come to watch Empedocles’s strange protest against meat, and signaled for us to follow. Gorgo’s two Spartan guards cleared a path for their queen. Gorgo led us, at her slow walk, to a place behind some statues of former Olympic victors. Here there were only a handful of men, quietly taking turns to drink from a wineskin. The guards made these drunks feel unwelcome, and they departed with rude gestures and empty threats.

  When they were gone, Gorgo said, “I’ve done some checking of my own, as I told you I would. You’re still interested in the krypteia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll wish to know there are definitely krypteia at Olympia.”

  “Who?” I asked, excited.

  “I have no names. I begged a favor of a member of the Gerousia—that’s our council of elders—from a fine man who once served with my husband. He’s of a conservative disposition himself and in with the current ephors. He tells me that Xenares said to him, when they were both well in wine, that he—Xenares, that is—wants to promote a war against Athens while he’s here at Olympia, and that a member of the krypteia is assisting him. I’m told Xenares appeared quite confident of success.”

  That didn’t bode well for Athens.

  “The difficulty is, I don’t know what this plan is, or in what capacity the krypteia might play a part. Olympia, as the location suggests, involves other city-states. The agent may simply be a go-between among allies.”

  “Thank you, Gorgo,” Diotima said.

  “I’ve also looked closely into the life of Arakos. I searched for any motive someone who knew him might have had to kill him. I find that Arakos was an exemplary Spartan.”

  I said, “Tell me, how many krypteia are there in total, Gorgo?”

  “The exact number is unknown, of course, but it’s possible to deduce. There are eight thousand serving Spartans—”

  “So few!” I’d always thought of the Spartans as being a large army, but this was less than half what Athens could put into the field.

  “You forget that any one Spartan is worth ten men from any other city. The test of the krypteia is reserved for those who might one day become leaders in combat. Perhaps one young man in ten is selected for the test. Of those, perhaps only one in a hundred shows such resourcefulness and expertise at silent killing that he’s selected by the ephors. From this we may guess the entire membership of the krypteia is probably not more than ten.”

  “Do you mean to say we’re worried about only ten men?”

  “We’re probably only concerned with one of those ten, and we’re right to be worried. It would require a man of extraordinary talent to face down one of these hidden killers and survive. My Leonidas could have done it; I know of no other man who would stand a chance.” Her eyes glistened as she spoke of her husband, and I realized with a shock that Gorgo was close to crying.

  “Is there nothing that betrays them?” Diotima asked quickly. She wanted to spare the queen of Sparta the indignity of tears before strangers.

  “They live ordinary lives,” Gorgo said. “They’re only called upon to provide their special service when the need arises. The only thing that marks them is they must all be of the officer class. I speculate that the krypteia deliberately restrain their abilities in day-to-day life, so as not to be too obvious.”

  “Terrific,” I said glumly. “We’ll never spot him. If he even exists, that is. There are at least two other ways to interpret the word ‘secrets’ in that anonymous note.”

  Gorgo said, “Your next step is clear. You must speak with Xenares. Only he can tell you more.”

  “Will he agree to see us?”

  “He will, because I’ll order it, personally. For all his faults, Xenares is a good Spartan, and there’s one thing you can rely on from any good Spartan. Markos, what’s the first lesson of our people?”

  Markos smiled. “To follow orders, Queen Gorgo.”

  Gorgo returned his smile. “It makes life so much simpler.”

  FOLLOWING ORDERS MIGHT make a man’s life simpler, but it certainly didn’t make him happier.

  “There are no krypteia at Olympia,” Xenares said, or, rather, snarled. “And even if there were, I certainly wouldn’t discuss it with an Athenian.”

  As Gorgo had predicted, Xenares the ephor of Sparta had agreed to meet, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. We stood in a room at the Bouleterion, Xenares, Markos and I. Though there were couches along the walls, he remained standing in the center. Xenares clearly intended this to be a short discussion.

  “I’ve heard otherwise,” I said.

  “I can’t control what other people say. More important, how does an Athenian come to know of the krypteia and where its members might be?” Xenares looked pointedly at Markos, and there was no doubting whom he thought had talked.

  Markos met his gaze with a bland expression.

  “Markos told me nothing,” I said. “My source is higher up than any of us.”

  Xenares frowned. “Higher than me?” He had no trouble guessing whom I meant. “Then this will be a subject for discussion at the next meeting of the ephors.”

  I’d probably just caused trouble for Pleistarchus and Gorgo, but that was better than exposing Markos to the wrath of the ephors.

  I said, “Tell me the names of the krypteia at Olympia.”

  “What part of ‘no krypteia at Olympia’ did you not understand?”

  “Do you want this killer punished?” I asked.

  “This goes without saying.”

  “Then why won’t you help us catch—”

  “Because he’s already been caught. Let me ask you, if our roles were reversed, if Arakos had been an Athenian and this Timodemus were a Spartan, would you be looking so hard for evidence to exonerate him?”

  I had no answer to that, because Xenares was right.

  Markos said, “Xenares, may I remind you, Nicolaos has been ordered to do his best for the accused, as I have been ordered to do my best to convict him. We can hardly blame a man for following his orders, can we?”

  That gave Xenares pause. “I see. Yes, Markos, you’re right. Very well then, it does not matter how many krypteia are here at Olympia, nor who they are. They will never act without orders. Do you know what the krypteia are?”

  “Assassins,” I said.

  “Patriots,” Xenares corrected me. “Highly talented patriots, who have dedicated their lives to the good of Sparta.”

  The way he said it reminded me of the saying of Pericles, for the good of Athens.

  “So you’re saying the krypteia only act on the orders of the ephors,” I said.

  “The Spartan system is one of balance,” Xenares said. “The ephors are elected to represent the people, the Gerousia represent the wisdom of age, and the kings act for us all.”

  One thing struck me. “The ephors are elected by the people? You mean by all the Spartans?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I thought Athens was the only city with democracy.”

  “Democracy?” Xenares shuddered. “Are you insane? Democracy is for weaklings. We ephors are elected by the people to act as a balance against the kings, so they cannot get above themselves
. The system works. The kings make the best decisions they can because they know if they don’t, we ephors will veto them.”

  “Does veto include tearing the skin off a man who’s out of his mind?”

  Xenares looked like he’d swallowed something distasteful. “I see you’ve heard the rumors about Cleomenes, who was grandfather to our current king Pleistarchus. How should I know what happened back then? It was before my time. Whatever happened, I’m sure it was for the best for Sparta.”

  “But the ephors could order such a killing?”

  “We never discuss the government of Sparta with outsiders, and particularly not with an Athenian.”

  “Why do you hate Athens so?” I asked, genuinely curious, because I’d never understood it.

  “Is that a serious question?” Xenares said. “Athens disturbs the balance. Athens uses her wealth to bend other cities to her will. Every merchant from every city must deal with you, because you’re so rich. You set unfair rules that serve only to increase your wealth and power, and then the richer you get, the more you extend your unhealthy influence. Athens is like a cancer among the city-states.” Xenares was shouting now and waving his arms. He stopped abruptly when he realized what he was doing.

  “Where were you, Xenares, when Arakos died?”

  I thought for a moment he was going to strike me. “I didn’t even know the man,” he said at last.

  “Purely for the record, Xenares, so we can eliminate you.”

  “Eliminate me, eh? If you must know, I was with a delegation from Corinth. We talked through most of the night. They’ll vouch for me.”

  Considering Corinth was a close ally of Sparta and a mortal enemy to Athens, that didn’t mean much. To test him, I asked, “Oh? What did you talk about?”

  Xenares glared at me. “A subject dear to all our hearts: how best to destroy Athens.”

  “HE’S PROBABLY TELLING the truth,” I said to Markos. “If he wanted to lie, he surely would have made up a story that put him in a better light.”