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Sacred Games

Page 28

by Gary Corby


  The Chief Judge looked at the King of Sparta with some irritation. “I think we need to hear the answer from Festianos.”

  “This is ridiculous,” One-Eye protested. “First my son is accused of murder, then my brother of poison. This is nothing less than a conspiracy against my family and I demand—”

  “You haven’t proven a thing,” Festianos interrupted. “How did I get the poison into the athletes?”

  “In their water bottles,” I said promptly. “The relative of a competitor is almost invisible, and no one watches the water bottles. Why should they?” I faced the judges again and began to pace back and forth, a habit I’d picked up from Pericles. “Sirs, at midday today, I told Festianos that Timodemus had been given permission to contest the Games, if he’s found innocent.”

  “Which is true,” said Exelon.

  “Yes, sir. Festianos immediately poisoned the water of the other contestants.”

  Festianos said, “You’re making this up.”

  I smiled to myself. “I thought you might say that.” I stopped pacing. “Pindar?”

  Pindar stepped forward to stand beside me. The Ten Judges stirred in their seats. The greatest living poet of the Hellenes was about to speak.

  Pindar cleared his throat.

  “Honored Judges of these Games most sacred to mighty Zeus,” he began in his beautiful voice, “as Apollo with well-strung lyre sung before the Gods of high Olympus, so I stand before you with these few simple words of—”

  I stamped on Pindar’s toes. “Save the panegyrics for the paying crowd!” I hissed. “We have a man to redeem.”

  “Er … to cut a long poem short …” Pindar glared at me and rubbed his foot. “I affirm that I, Pindar the Praise Singer, watched this man Festianos leave his tent, carrying the box you see. I observed him walk into the gym, where were assembled the athletes for the pankration. I saw him walk back to his tent soon after.”

  “Lies,” said Festianos.

  “The word of Pindar is beyond doubt,” said a minor judge.

  Timodemus had watched his uncle’s testimony with something like horror in his expression. Now he walked in front of Festianos, turned his back on the judges, and thrust his face so close to Festianos that I thought they might kiss. Or bite.

  “My win at Nemea wasn’t a fair fight?” Timodemus whispered.

  “I didn’t poison the bottles, nephew,” Festianos rasped.

  “It’s all been a lie. I’m not the best at all.” Timo turned away and hid his face in his hands.

  Diotima reached into the evidence bag and withdrew a leather bottle. She placed it on the table. Festianos stared at it in surprise.

  I said, “I took one of the contestant bottles after you left the gymnasium. Here it is.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Would you care to drink the water, Festianos?”

  Festianos glared around at the assembly. He was a trifle wild-eyed. He reached for the leather bottle, opened the stopper, upended and drank it down in rapid gulps.

  “There, you see?” he coughed a little. “River water mixed with wine. That’s all it is, and not very good wine at that.”

  The faces about us showed disappointment. All except One-Eye, who registered confusion, and Pericles, who looked relieved.

  Diotima reached into the evidence bag. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled out another bottle and placed it before Festianos.

  “Now try this one,” she said. “Nicolaos took more than one bottle.”

  Festianos stared at the bottle, at me, at the bag.

  The room was totally silent.

  Diotima reached into the bag for a third time. Without a word, she placed a third bottle before Festianos.

  I said to him, “If you told the truth, your bladder will fill, and you’ll be a little drunk. Nothing more.”

  We waited, but Festianos only stared at his doom.

  “The bottle you drank can’t harm you, but three bottles is six leaves, enough to kill a man. Of course, if as you say, there’s only water and wine in there, then there’s nothing that can hurt you, right?”

  Festianos made no move.

  “Drink the water, Festianos,” Exelon ordered.

  Festianos reached forward. He took the next bottle and brought it to his lips. His hand shook. In one sudden motion he upended it onto the floor. The liquid splashed out. Droplets fell on our feet. Then he leaned forward onto the table, head in his arms, and cried.

  “So it was Festianos who murdered Arakos,” murmured the Chief Judge.

  “Oh no, sir,” I said. “That’s quite impossible. A man with arthritis like Festianos could never have raised his arms against Arakos.”

  They all looked at me in shock. A judge shouted, “Are you playing with us, young man?”

  The answer was yes. I deserved some revenge after what these men had put me through. But what I said was, “No, sir! It was necessary to demolish the motive that Sparta alleges against Timodemus.”

  “How do you know Timodemus wasn’t in it with Festianos?” Xenares said.

  “You need only look at him,” I said.

  Everyone did. Timodemus had buried himself in the corner of the room, his head against the whitewashed wood of the wall, oblivious to everything.

  I said, “No, sirs, Timodemus had an extremely good reason to murder Arakos, but this wasn’t it.”

  “Had a good reason?” Pericles seemed close to apoplexy. Good. This would teach him to order me to fake an investigation.

  I said, “Rivals in love, Pericles. But I’ll let someone else explain that.”

  Diotima opened the door. Klymene stepped in, shaking. Her skin was the color of dough.

  “Klymene, daughter of Exelon, has important evidence for us,” I told the assembled men.

  Klymene said, “Timodemus could not have killed Arakos.” She drew a deep breath. “Timodemus could not have killed Arakos because he was with me.” She paused. “In my tent,” she added, to make the point clear. Then, in case anyone in the room was terminally stupid, she finished, “We were having sex. Lots of it.”

  At least five judges dropped their cups of wine.

  One said in a horrified squeak, “But this means the entire Games have been observed by a priestess in a state of pollution.”

  “Yes.”

  “The last four days are invalid?” If he hadn’t been sunburned, the judge would have turned dead white. “If the people find out, we’ll be slaughtered.”

  The judge beside Exelon turned to him and said, “I’m sorry, Exelon my friend, but the penalty is prescribed. She must be thrown off Mount Typaeum.”

  Exelon said merely, “No,” in the faintest of voices.

  Klymene smiled bravely. “It’s all right, I’ve had my fun. Timo and I can go together.”

  “Why do you tell us this?” another judge demanded. “Are you in love with this Timodemus?”

  “If love is liking someone, in bed and out, then I suppose I am.”

  To get us all back to the important point, I said, “Timodemus didn’t do it. This leaves us with the problem of who did kill Arakos.”

  “I suppose you know who that is,” Exelon said sarcastically.

  “I call upon Petale the pornê to give evidence. She will be assisted by—I’m very sorry about this—my brother.”

  Petale explained that she had seen Arakos leave the women’s camp, and no one else.

  I said, “My brother Socrates will now explain how he used the coins in Petale’s jar to calculate what time Arakos was seen walking into the woods.”

  Exelon stared in distaste at Petale and Socrates, a prostitute and a boy, holding hands. He muttered, “I think we’ll take your word for it, for the moment at least.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The idea of Socrates trying to explain anything to anyone was terrifying.

  “The evidence of Petale fixes the time of the murder,” I said. “Something the killer certainly didn’t want. He needed to ensure there was some moment during the night when Arakos might have di
ed, and Timodemus had no alibi. You’ll notice the ostrakon that demands the meeting is deliberately vague about the time. How is this possible? How could they have met? The only possible answer is, the killer lured Arakos with a verbal message, one that gave a fixed time, and then planted the ostrakon later.” I paused to let that sink in. “Which means the killer went to all this trouble to frame Timodemus.”

  “It means nothing,” Xenares the ephor said. “All we have is the word of a whore, and—” He stared at Klymene. “—and the word of a girl who should be.”

  Pleistarchus said, “More to the point, it doesn’t necessarily imply the killer had anything against Timodemus, other than that the young man had made himself the perfect target for a false accusation.”

  “I acknowledge the truth of what you say, Pleistarchus,” I said gratefully. “Let’s move on to the death of Iphicles the chariot driver.”

  “An unfortunate accident,” said Markos.

  “Very unfortunate, because Iphicles saw the murderer.”

  “No, he saw Arakos.”

  “Then why didn’t Petale see Iphicles?” I shot back. “Petale says she saw Arakos and no one else leave the women’s camp.”

  I paused for them to consider.

  “Iphicles, while blind drunk, followed a man through the women’s camp and into the forest. It must have been either before or after Petale left her tent to relieve herself. The man directed Iphicles back onto the path to the river ford. That man must have been the murderer.”

  “We’ll never know now,” said Markos.

  “No, we won’t. There’s been an unfortunate tendency for witnesses to die. Let’s consider the fake Heracles, who was murdered in the Temple of Zeus.”

  Markos turned to the judges. “I remind you, sirs, the question in hand is the murder of Arakos. Any other deaths, however regrettable, are incidental.”

  Exelon nodded. “Markos makes a fair point. This trial is for the murder of Arakos.” Thus was the death of the pathetic little Heracles consigned to the same insignificance as his life.

  I tossed my two ostraka on the table to rest with the one Markos had presented.

  “The first message declares Timodemus innocent. The second asks for a meeting in the Temple of Zeus. Clearly the fake Heracles knew something about the murder.”

  “The killer’s name?” suggested Pleistarchus.

  “No, the murder weapon,” I said.

  “There are no weapons at Olympia,” said Exelon at once.

  “Yes, there are,” I replied. “The clubs carried by the Heracles imitators! Perfect to beat a man to death, even a top pankratist, if he doesn’t expect the blow, and especially if it comes from someone he has no reason to distrust. Arakos was stunned by the first blow to his forehead, just like the oxen in the sacrifice. After that it was a simple matter to finish him.”

  Silence while everyone absorbed that. I could almost feel the ideas rearrange themselves in the minds of my audience.

  I said, “Someone took the club from the fake Heracles and used it to kill Arakos.”

  “You still have no proof,” said Exelon.

  “You’re right, Chief Judge. It’s not certain proof, but it was enough to make me look for certain proof.”

  I held up the twisted bit of metal for everyone to see. “This is the linchpin from Iphicles’s chariot.”

  Then I turned to the murderer.

  “You made one mistake, Markos. As soon as you knew Iphicles had seen you, the chariot driver had to die. You remembered the story of Pelops and King Oinomaos, and how the groom Myrtilus pulled the linchpin. So you pulled the linchpin straight after the crew had checked the equipment. I even watched you crouch to do it. The entire pit crew can swear you were the only man who could have pulled this pin.”

  Silence. Everyone waited for Markos to speak. His expression gave nothing away.

  Without a word, Markos pulled out a handful of coins. He placed them in a single pile on the table, where everyone could count them. Fifty drachmae.

  Markos was no fool; he knew the door would be heavily guarded.

  So he ran for the window.

  Gorgo stood between him and his escape. Markos raised his arm to strike her out of the way, and I gasped. Even a slight blow could kill the weak queen, but there was no time to reach him.

  Diotima threw her priestess knife. The blade slid across his arm and sliced the skin. Markos yelped and skipped around Gorgo and dived through the open window.

  “After him!” A dozen voices shouted.

  I ambled over to watch.

  Markos ran down the narrow lane. Standing at the end, blocking the path, was Pythax. Pythax snarled. Markos had no club with which to beat a larger man now. He skidded to a halt, turned, and sprinted in the other direction.

  Straight into Dromeus, who advanced from the other end. Dromeus hammered him hard. Markos staggered back.

  Pythax and Dromeus converged on Markos. They beat him with their fists. As far as they were concerned, Markos was a dead man. Markos, to his credit, took it in silence and hit back when he could. I’d always admired him.

  “Gentlemen! If we could have him alive, please?” I shouted.

  “HERE’S WHAT I think happened,” I said, after a dazed, bruised, and bleeding Markos had been hauled back between Pythax and Dromeus.

  “Even before the Games began, Xenares gave Markos orders to stir up trouble between Athens and Sparta, because the ephors want a rallying cry to take down Athens.”

  “But Markos is a member of the hippeis!” Pleistarchus objected. “Not the krypteia.”

  “Actually, Pleistarchus, he works for both. A double agent. When we interviewed Xenares about the krypteia, Xenares assumed automatically that Markos had told me there were krypteia at Olympia. He hadn’t; it was your mother, Queen Gorgo, who discovered it through her own sources. Markos belongs to the hippeis, and the krypteia are famously secretive. Why would Xenares assume Markos could say where they are? On its own it might not have meant much, but combined with the proof that Markos had performed the killings, and that Gorgo confirmed there was no particular motive for any Spartan to murder Arakos, and that Markos barely knew his victim, the only remaining reason was to cause trouble between Athens and Sparta, which it certainly did. The man at Olympia who hates Athens the most is Xenares, and the krypteia take their orders from Xenares.”

  Every eye turned to Xenares. He stood, unrepentant. “I remind you, Pleistarchus, that a serving member of the ephors cannot be indicted for any crime.”

  “Your term has only six months left to run,” said Pleistarchus coldly. “Then you are vulnerable.”

  “That’s as may be. Much can change in six months.”

  Pleistarchus and Xenares stared at each other, both men full of hatred. It was going to be a frosty trip back to Sparta.

  I said, “Arakos wasn’t killed for rivalry in either sport or love. He was killed to start a war between Sparta and Athens. The philosopher Empedocles told me strife and love move everything. Arakos wasn’t killed for love; he was killed for strife. It almost worked, too. How close are we to open fighting?”

  “Close. Very close,” Pericles said, and Pleistarchus nodded.

  “So Markos arrived at Olympia already with an eye out for opportunities to cause trouble. What’s the first thing he sees? Timodemus attacks Arakos during the opening ceremony, in front of thousands of witnesses. It was a genuine case of rivalry between two great athletes, in a squabble over a woman. Then and there, Markos has his plan. He will murder Arakos in such a way that everyone believes only Timodemus could have done it.

  “My guess is, Markos was inspired when he ran into the fake Heracles. Weapons are banned under the Sacred Truce, but no one considers those clubs a weapon. Markos snatched the club from the fake Heracles, just as I did when he swung it at Diotima and me earlier that same afternoon. I imagine Markos threatened the fake Heracles. He said the krypteia would slit his throat if the Heracles said anything, and the fake Heracles, being fr
om the Peloponnese, would be aware of the charming Spartan custom known as the krypteia, of cutting the throats of irritating locals.

  “Markos lured Arakos into the woods with the false message, then beat him to death with the club. Astonishingly simple, really. But Olympia is a very crowded place. There was always the risk someone would see something.

  “Iphicles, dead drunk, followed a man into the forest. As soon as Iphicles told us this, before the race, Markos crouched, ostensibly to inspect the chariot, but in fact to hide his face before Iphicles recognized him. While he crouched, Markos had to think quickly. He pulled the linchpin, with the reasonable hope Iphicles would have a terrible accident on the track, and so it proved.

  “That would have been the end of any hope of solving the crime, except the fake Heracles overcame his fear long enough to write me the two messages.”

  “Why didn’t the fellow approach you directly?” Pleistarchus asked.

  “He tried, twice,” I admitted ruefully. “After he watched me take the Olympic Oath and once when I walked through the agora. But both times he ran away. Now I know why: he ran both times because I was with the murderer. After that, he resorted to anonymous messages. It was sheer bad luck that Markos was with me when I received the second message.”

  “What about the eyes?” asked Pericles.

  “Markos tore out the eyes of Arakos because it made the killing look more like the work of an angry pankratist. Putting the extra eyes on the body in the temple was his little joke. His sense of humor runs that way.”

  I turned to him. “I’m sad, Markos. I thought we were friends. A couple of days ago I thought to myself, I’d like to have you for a brother-in-law.”

  Markos smiled through his bleeding lips and broken teeth. The flesh about his eyes was already puffing up.

  He said, “For my part, I thought you were an idiot. Congratulations, the way you hid your intelligence fooled me completely.”

  I decided not to tell him it was mostly Diotima who had out-thought him.

  “I suppose you’re not as inept as you appear,” he went on. “But I must say, keeping you alive was hard work. I had to save you twice. First at the hippodrome, then with Skarithos.”

 

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