Gary Corby: Sacred Games

“Thank you, Pericles.”

“Don’t thank me. I haven’t finished yet. The Spartans will want our man out of the Games, especially since he beat their man last time they met. They will argue that Timodemus has committed a clear breach and must be expelled. If I convince the judges otherwise, the Spartans will feel there’s bias against them, and tension will rise between Athens and Sparta.”

“Will anyone notice? The Spartans already hate us.”

“It could be a lot worse than it is. We know Corinth has asked Sparta to help them in their war against us. We also know Sparta hasn’t said yes, at least not yet. We don’t want to encourage that.”

Athens and Corinth had been at war for some time, the issue being control of Megara, a weak city that lay halfway between us. Megara controlled access in and out of the Peloponnese. If Athens won that war, we could block any Spartan army from reaching Athens, and we’d be safe at last.

Pericles was right. We definitely didn’t want Sparta involved in that fight.

Pericles picked up the stylus once more and slapped it against his palm. “Your job, Nicolaos, is to keep your friend out of trouble. No more incidents. Assault can work both ways. You understand me? The same people who’d like to see us humbled might not be averse to helping Zeus with his decision.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Don’t worry, Pericles, I’ll watch like a hungry eagle.”

I returned to the gymnasium to find Timodemus still there with his uncle and trainer. He was safe enough, which left me free to visit the person I wanted most in the world to see.

The women’s camp serves two purposes: it’s where the men who’ve brought their families can leave them so they don’t get in the way, and it’s also where the prostitutes-the cheap pornoi and the expensive hetaerae-set up for business. The women’s camp is on the west side of the river. On the east side are the men’s camps, the sports grounds, and the temples.

Two soldiers of Elis guarded the ford across the river. They were dressed in formal armor of polished bronze to befit the occasion, their helmets tilted back on their heads for a quick pull-down if required, but they leaned on their spears while they argued over which team would win the chariot race the next morning. They ignored me completely as I passed by. There was considerable traffic back and forth, which they also ignored; I guessed the guards were more to ensure drunks didn’t trip and drown on the way across than for any pretense of security.

The women’s camp was smaller than the men’s and tidier and smelled better. Unlike the men’s, it wasn’t divided into city camps, I suppose because there were fewer tents or because the women were less likely to riot. I had no trouble finding Diotima’s tent, because I had helped set it up.

A knife flew past me as I entered. It almost went into my eye but missed to embed itself in the tent pole beside me.

“Dear Gods! Do you want to kill me?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Nicolaos! I didn’t hear you coming.”

She sat on a travel chest, dressed in a bland and well-worn chiton, and looking very, very beautiful. My wife. At least as far as I was concerned. Opinion was divided on our relationship. Diotima and I believed we were married. The rest of the world was sure we weren’t. We had carried out an ersatz version of the Athenian marriage rites in the midst of a bad situation, one in which neither of us had expected to survive. But we had, and now it looked like a quick trip to Hades might have been the better alternative.

“Do you usually practice knife throwing in a tent?”

Diotima grimaced. “Only when I’m bored out of my mind. Have you any idea how deadly it is in here?”

I put out a finger to stop the knife’s quivering in the wooden pole. “I think I have some idea.”

“No, you don’t. You’re not a woman.”

“But I’m glad you are.”

It had come as a shock to both our families when I arrived with Diotima on my arm. We’d come to Olympia direct from Asia Minor, because I knew Pericles would be here, and I needed to report on the outcome of our last mission, a delicate matter that had required a certain amount of discretion. I hadn’t expected to find my father, and we certainly hadn’t expected to find Diotima’s stepfather.

My father was furious with me. He had twice before refused to negotiate for Diotima. By Athenian law he had every right to refuse, and as long as he did, by Athenian law the marriage had never happened.

My girl had always been known as Diotima of Mantinea-the town of her mother’s birth-rather than by the name of her father, because she was the illegitimate child of a prostitute by a prominent citizen. Diotima had risen to become a priestess of Artemis, but the miasma of illegitimacy still clung to her. That had changed when Diotima’s mother finally married-not Diotima’s father, who had died, but a newly made citizen: the barbarian Pythax.

Pythax was, if possible, even more angry with me for marrying Diotima than my own father was. He’d become responsible for Diotima the moment he married her mother. Now he faced the prospect of a daughter for whom he could never hope to find a good husband, because I had, in his words, “soiled” the love of my life. No Athenian father would accept Diotima as wife for his son in her new and entirely irreversible condition.

Now she sat in a tent, waiting to learn her fate while our fathers squabbled.

Diotima balanced a knife on one finger and said, “Would you believe Pythax-Father-took away my bow and quiver?”

“I should hope so. The Sacred Truce forbids arms at the Games.”

“I don’t even have my mother here to talk to and … oh Gods, how desperate do I have to be to have said that?” Diotima grimaced. She and her mother were not exactly close friends.

“I think I can relieve the boredom for you.” I told Diotima how Timodemus had broken his oath, and the fallout from it, finishing, “No one knows what’s to happen. Timodemus may or may not be banned.”

“Interesting.” Diotima had paid close attention to my story. I knew if I asked her, she could repeat everything I’d said almost verbatim. “Why did your friend attack the Spartan?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“That’s worrying.”

“It’s irrelevant, unless they let him back in.”

“It’s certainly irrelevant to me while I’m stuck in this tent.”

“What happened with Pythax?” I asked her. After we’d arrived, and my father had disowned the marriage, Pythax had taken control of Diotima and rented this tent to install her.

Diotima shrugged unhappily. “Pythax says I’m not to leave the camp without a responsible adult. By which he meant himself. I’m not sure it means you.”

“Oh. I thought about taking you to visit the agora.”

She pushed herself off the travel chest. “Good, let’s go.”

“You just said your stepfather wouldn’t allow it.”

“Yes, he will. Pythax is desperate to win me over, and besides, he isn’t all that bad, you know. Beneath that callous, gruff exterior there’s a … a …” She was lost for words.

“A callous, gruff interior?”

“Well, all right, yes. But he’s besotted with my mother, and if he wants me to call him Daddy, he’d better not stop me.”

I wondered if Pythax had met his match in his new stepdaughter, and what that might mean for me and whether there was something I should do about it, but I wasn’t about to stand in the middle of any fight between Pythax and Diotima. There are easier ways to die.

I led her across the ford, and we walked through the Sanctuary of Zeus and out the other side to see the famous festival agora of Olympia, which for forty-nine months out of fifty is an empty field of weeds and for the remaining one month is the most exciting place in Hellas.