Sacred Games

by Gary Corby

  “I hate to have to tell you this, my friend,” Markos said, “but to many people in Hellas, wanting to destroy Athens does put him in a good light.” He thought for a moment, then said, “We must consider the possibility that the information Gorgo gave us, that there’s a krypteia agent assisting Xenares at Olympia, is tangled up in these negotiations with Corinth.”

  I nodded. “If so, then he has nothing to do with Arakos, and we’ve gone down another dead end.”

  “I’m sorry you had to hear all that from Xenares, Nico,” Markos said. “It can’t have been pleasant for you.”

  “Do men truly praise Xenares because he hates us?”

  “That’s how most Spartans see it.”

  “Is that how you see it?” I asked him.

  Markos hesitated for so long I thought he might refuse to answer, but he said, “How I feel doesn’t matter, Nico. I follow orders. You and I don’t get a say. Maybe one day, when we’re as old as Xenares, you and I will be able to sit down together and resolve all the differences between our cities.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, thinking of my orders from Pericles to get Timo off the charge at all costs. That in turn reminded me of my new idea. Empedocles had said that love and strife moved everything in the universe. To me, it sounded like two good motives for murder.

  I left Markos behind and crossed the river, where I waited outside the tent of Klymene, under a nearby tree for the shade, until the tent flap lifted and the priestess’s personal slave—the girl with red hair, whom Klymene had called Xenia—emerged carrying a large jar with two handles. The girl settled the jar on her head, where it remained, perfectly balanced, and walked easily toward the river.

  “Going for water?” I asked as I joined her on the path and matched her steps.

  She glanced at me in contempt. “What a stupid question.”

  “Then let me try a better one. Where do you sleep at night, Xenia?”

  “Are you hitting on me?” She didn’t break stride for a moment.

  “I’m a married man.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest!”

  “I only want to ask a few questions.”

  Xenia scoffed. “That’s a different approach.”

  We reached the riverbank. Xenia waded in. She stopped in the middle of the stream, took down the jar, and slowly submerged it in the river.

  As the air bubbled up she said, “You’re the one who came to the mistress’s tent with the pretty dark-haired girl, aren’t you? Why do you care where I sleep?”

  “I think you’re like most slaves in a camp; you sleep outside your owner’s tent.”

  She nodded. “All right, that’s true enough.”

  “But in the women’s camp at Olympia, it’s not safe for a lovely girl like you to be asleep outside a tent, not with all those drunk men staggering about looking for a pornê.”

  “So?”

  With a grunt she heaved the jar back up on her head and waded out. I pulled her the last few steps up the bank.

  “Thanks.”

  We walked back toward the camp.

  I said, “So I think you sleep in her tent, at the entrance, so that any man who blunders in will trip over you first and not bother the Priestess of the Games.”

  Xenia walked on, saying nothing.

  “Here’s the thing, Xenia. When Klymene screamed in the night and the guards came to take Timodemus, why weren’t you there first? In fact, why didn’t Timo trip over you?”

  The jar fell from Xenia’s head. I almost caught it as it fell, but it was wet and slipped through my hands and hit the ground at my feet. I was sloshed head to foot.

  “Gods curse it! Now I’ll have to fill it again.” Xenia bent to pick up the jar, which must have been beloved of the Gods because it hadn’t broken.

  This was what I realized when Empedocles spoke of love and strife: that neither Klymene in her testimony nor Timodemus nor the guards had mentioned Xenia.

  “What’s the answer, Xenia?” I said.

  “You can’t make me talk.”

  “I don’t have to. The judges will see to it if I call you as a witness. I suppose you know they torture slaves when they give evidence in court.”

  Xenia went pale.

  “A thumbscrew’s what they usually use.”

  She said, “You mustn’t tell the mistress I told. Promise me.”

  Aha! “I swear it by Zeus. May I lose the contest if I reveal.”

  Xenia whispered, “Klymene sent me away.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? Because a man was due. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Timodemus?”

  Xenia nodded.

  “Had he been to her before?”

  “Not here at the Games.”

  Which meant in Elis.

  “Do you like your mistress?”

  Xenia stopped to think about that. “Yes,” she said finally. “On the whole, I do. She’s had a tough life.”

  This from a slave. I wondered what had been so tough for Klymene, but that didn’t matter now.

  Xenia looked worried. “Remember you promised not to tell the mistress.”

  “I promise.”

  So now I had the alibi for Timo that I’d wished for right from the start. But Timodemus had lied to me about how he came to be in Klymene’s tent. What else had he lied about?

  “IT’S ALL LIES” Klymene said. “There was nothing between Timodemus and me. I’m the Priestess of the Games, you know!”

  “I know,” said Diotima. “If I were Priestess of the Games, and I’d been fooling around, I’d deny it, too.”

  I’d brought Diotima the news, and together we’d waylaid Klymene at the Sanctuary of Zeus, where everyone had congregated to party and drink while they waited for the oxen to cook. Already the aroma of sizzling, well-cooked meat was drifting across Olympia.

  Diotima and I dragged Klymene into the Bouleterion for a private discussion. The inside of the council house was divided into one large meeting hall and a number of small rooms. We chased a couple of slaves out of the smallest, quietest room, where they’d been hiding to shirk their duties, and then we accused Klymene, not of murder, but of lust.

  She’d denied everything, over and over.

  Diotima and I shared a look. We knew we were running out of time; even with my official status, we couldn’t keep a priestess locked away forever, especially not if they needed her when the Games resumed.

  Diotima sighed. She said, “Very well, then. How do you explain the love poetry?”

  “What?” Klymene was nonplussed. So was I, for a moment. Then I remembered.

  “We searched his tent,” Diotima said. “Timodemus writes poetry about you. Did you know that?”

  “Does he really?” Klymene said. Her expression was one of wonder. “You mean … he really likes me?”

  “Shall I go fetch it?” Diotima said. “You can see for yourself.”

  Klymene turned away to stare at the blank wall, ignoring us entirely.

  I dragged Diotima to the other corner. “Why didn’t you tell me before about the poetry?” I hissed.

  “I did,” Diotima said. “You saw me reading it.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was writing about Klymene! You could have saved me having to question Xenia.”

  “Er … there’s a slight problem there,” Diotima admitted, somewhat abashed. “The poetry doesn’t actually mention Klymene by name.”

  I was appalled. “Then how can you possibly know it was meant for her?”

  “I used some intuition. Also a bit of logic. Everything Timo has here at Olympia, he brought with him from Elis, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he must have written the poetry beginning in Elis. Who did he meet there? Who else could it be for? Do you see any other nubile women around here, to use his words, with breasts like melons?”

  “Timo wrote that?” I asked.

  “I told you it was bad poetry. Listen, Nico, we can prove Timo
wrote the words. Considering he was captured in her tent, that should be enough.”

  Klymene turned around. “All right, I’ll admit it.” She twisted a tress around her fingers. “Timodemus and I were having an affair. How did you know to look for poetry? I suppose that little vixen Xenia told you all about us first. She’s hated me ever since we were children.”

  “You knew Xenia as a child?” Diotima asked.

  “Oh yes. Xenia is my father’s, he got her on a barbarian slave he once owned. That’s why she’s called Xenia. He kept her because he thought she might be a useful companion for me. I’m older by a year.”

  “It wasn’t Xenia who told me. I guessed the truth,” I said, to cover for the slave-woman. “The scream that brought the guards running to your tent. That wasn’t you being scared; that was you having an … er …”

  “Orgasm,” she finished for me. “If you ever want one, Timo’s your man.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  “I shouldn’t have screamed, but you know how it is when the moment’s upon you. When those moron guards came running, we had to make up a story, fast. Timo jumped off the bed and pretended to have stumbled in by accident.”

  She didn’t bother to say she willingly let him sacrifice himself to protect her reputation. I didn’t know whether to deplore her ruthlessly self-centered attitude or applaud the way she carried it off. Timo must have been an idiot to bed this woman.

  “When did Timo come to you?”

  “After I’d dined.”

  “Diotima, when did Petale look outside her tent to see Arakos?”

  “After the moon had reached its peak.”

  Diotima took hold of my hand and squeezed gently. Timodemus had been less than innocently engaged at the same moment Arakos was discovered breathing his last. Klymene’s testimony would prove Timodemus was innocent.

  “You were seeing Timodemus back in Elis, weren’t you?” Diotima said. She added, “There’s no point trying to hide anything, Klymene. We know enough to be able to force your personal slaves to testify before the Judges. They’ll certainly tell us everything you’ve done.”

  They certainly would. It was the law that slaves could only testify in court under torture. The young women who served Klymene would fold in an instant.

  Klymene knew it, too. She sighed. “Yes, I admit it. Both Timodemus and Arakos,” she said.

  And Arakos. It took a moment to sink in. Diotima and I stared at each other in open shock.

  “What, at the same time?” The thought of small Timo and the huge Spartan—

  “Of course not, silly! They hated each other. You couldn’t imagine two more different men. Like salt and honey, the two of them.”

  “Which was salt?”

  “Oh, Arakos. He’s strong, not subtle at all. He really makes a woman feel like a woman. Or he did, rather. Timodemus is smooth.” She smiled. “And sweet.”

  “So all this hatred between the two of them was rivalry over you,” I said.

  “Oh, I have a feeling it went deeper than me. Not that I’m not deep, you understand.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I met Arakos first, in Elis, at the time the athletes arrived for the compulsory training period before they move on to Olympia. Part of my job is to welcome the new arrivals. Arakos took a shine to me at once.”

  “And then you … er … welcomed him.”

  “He welcomed me first! Grabbed me when we were out of sight behind the temple walls and kissed me properly. I felt like a powerless rag doll in his hands.” She smiled happily.

  “What happened when Timo arrived?”

  “That was many days later. This time it was me doing the welcoming. What a good-looking man!”

  “And Timo took a shine to you.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “Arakos must have been furious when you dumped him,” I observed.

  “Dump Arakos?” Klymene looked at me strangely. “Why would I do that?”

  Diotima’s jaw dropped. “You mean you—”

  “Had affairs with them both. I told you.”

  There was a refreshing directness to Klymene that I was beginning to appreciate. Klymene probably didn’t have many friends among the women of her own class, but back in her home city the young men must have queued up to meet her.

  “What about your father?” Diotima asked.

  “You have a disgusting mind for a priestess!” Klymene said.

  “Er …” I said, taken aback. “What Diotima means is, didn’t your father object?”

  “Oh. He never found out. But even if he had, what could he do? I’m his only child. He can’t rid himself of me; he needs to marry me off to get an heir. Besides, if I did something to hurt him … well, that’s all to the good, I say. He deserves it. My father killed my mother.”

  I gasped. “Your father murdered your mother?”

  “It wasn’t anything as merciful as a knife. No, what he used to kill my mother was his penis.”

  I boggled at the mechanics of such a killing. “Is that what they call a blunt instrument? How did he hit her—”

  “She means her father got her mother pregnant, Nico.” Diotima rolled her eyes.

  “Well, how was I to know?”

  Klymene nodded. “When she was too old to carry, he got her pregnant because he was so desperate for a son.”

  “You’re the only child,” Diotima guessed.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t for want of him trying. I remember when I was a child, he was always happy to go to his parties or use the slaves and leave Mother and me to our lives in the women’s quarters. We had enough food, weaving to be done, chores to do … we were happy together, Mother and I. I loved her so much.

  “All except for every tenth night. Then Father came to our quarters, and I was sent away. I’d stand outside the door and listen to the moans and groans and screams. When he was finished, the door would open and he’d step out. He always saw me there. He’d look at me but not say anything, just walked past without a word, like I didn’t matter, which when I was older I realized was true. A girl child’s no better than a slave, is she? We wouldn’t see him for another ten nights. That’s how I learned to count to ten, by marking off the nights before he’d come back. The tenth night chore, my mother called it. But nothing ever happened. Then, when everyone thought nothing could, that she was past her days, Mother fell pregnant.”

  Klymene had tears in her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks, and she had to wipe. Diotima offered a small cloth, but Klymene waved it away. She said, “Suddenly nothing was too good for my mother, no food too expensive. Father had every doctor in Elis come to give advice. Not that any of them looked at her. The doctors cast their divinations, or they sacrificed a ewe and inspected its liver. Either way they pronounced everything would be fine, took their coins, and departed. Father forbade Mother to work, for fear she might fall and harm the baby. He bought more slaves to work for her.” Klymene paused. “The lying-in was awful.”

  “You were there,” I said, a statement, not a question.

  “They said I was old enough. All through the labor she swore and writhed and cried in awful pain. And while that baby slowly killed her, she said it was all my father’s fault because he had to have his son. When the pain was worst, she asked to hold my hand. She held so tight I thought my bones would break. She looked in my eyes and said she loved me. She said it over and over. And she said it was all my father’s fault,” she said again. “Those were the last words I ever heard her speak. The midwife couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

  “What happened to the child?”

  “It was a boy. A dead one. The cord wrapped around the neck. I was glad.”

  I wondered for the briefest moment if perhaps the baby had been strangled with its own cord after birth by a frightened and upset little girl whose mother lay dying. But I put the thought away at once. The midwife would certainly have attended to a son first before seeing to the mother.

  “I’m so
rry, Klymene,” Diotima said.

  “So am I. So am I.”

  I was struck all at once with a dreadful fear. The danger of childbirth. It was something my Diotima would face one day.

  Diotima was saying, “What were you going to do if you fell pregnant?”

  “Oh, there are herbs to fix that,” she said. “I know a witch-woman. I’ve already had to use them once.”

  I wanted to put my hands over my ears to blot out the horror. Klymene saw my reaction and turned on me. “What would you know about this? You’re a man.”

  “My mother’s a midwife. I don’t know everything that happens in the birthing bed, but I hear enough. You know no father will accept you for his son if word gets out.” Even as I spoke, in a blinding flash like a revelation from the Gods, suddenly I understood my father’s attitude to Diotima. I might not like it, but I understood.

  Klymene snorted. “I’m the daughter of a wealthy man. I’ll only be married to another wealthy man, one twice my age. He’ll probably stink. He’ll certainly use me for breeding and take whatever hetaera he frequents for his pleasure while I go old and gray looking after his brats. It’s for certain he’ll be no good in bed; old men can’t keep it up any longer than it takes to spit. And that’s it for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wonder if a quick death would be the better fate.”

  I thought Diotima would be disgusted. She surprised me by nodding in sympathy. “I know what you mean. I was very lucky to escape exactly that fate. What do you want from life, Klymene?” she asked.

  “A proper man,” Klymene said promptly. “One who’ll treat me like a woman. A young man who can keep up with me.”

  “It’ll never happen,” I said at once. Because Klymene’s estimate was right. Even Timo would have agreed. He’d talked of having his father find him a young virgin when he was thirty. “You’ve made a mistake.”

  “Who are you to complain about sex before marriage?” Klymene looked pointedly at Diotima and me.

  “This is my fiancée,” Diotima said through gritted teeth.

  “Got caught out, did you?”

  “As it happens, yes, but in a good way. I was caught by my heart. How many other women get to marry for love?”

  “Well, I won’t be one, that’s for sure. But the way I heard it, you two aren’t properly betrothed.”