Gary Corby - Sacred Games

“Even if it kills him?”

“That’s his choice,” said my Priestess of the Hunt. “What do you think Timo’s life will be like if he lives? What will men say of him? Besides, I seem to recall two men who battered each other almost to death in public, and you refused to stop it.”

I could only hang my head. Diotima stepped past to take her place in the box Klymene had vacated. She spurned the chair and stood, her hands gripped the railing like a judge about to pass sentence. She was every bit the haughty priestess.

I went back to the cluster of people from the trial.

Timodemus drank down the final bottle.

“Six leaves,” Heraclides said to me. “A fatal dose.”

The Chief Judge of the Sacred Games looked to Diotima for permission.

Diotima nodded.

“Begin,” Exelon called.

The referees took their positions, and Timodemus began the contest that would kill him.

Heraclides scratched a note into an ostrakon. “Socrates, I want you to take this note to my wife. Tell her I want these medicines and instruments laid out before I arrive.”

Socrates took the note and ran.

“Will Timo make it to the end, do you think?” I asked.

Heraclides said, “I don’t know which is stronger, the poison or his remarkable reserves of willpower.”

Korillos punched Timo, hitting him in the same spot in the diaphragm, over and over, obviously hoping to deprive him of any chance to breathe.

Timodemus doubled over and spewed.

“Good,” said Heraclides. “We can hope that’s taken out some of the poison with it.”

“You mean he might live?” I said.

“Who knows? His extreme exertions spread the poison much more quickly, and he’s a small man. But he’s also in outstanding condition, and there’s no telling how much of the poison that vomit might have brought up.”

Korillos landed a massive kick against Timo’s leg. Everyone saw it coming, but Timo couldn’t move. The whole stadion heard Timo’s leg snap. They could see the bone poking through his skin. Every man gasped and waited for the inevitable moment when Timo raised his arm in defeat.

But Timo didn’t. He kept on fighting.

“Dear Gods, he’s fighting with his bones sticking out!” I heard someone exclaim. I looked beside me for the voice and saw it was Pericles. He looked distinctly ill at the ugly sight. In the crowd behind me, someone retched.

“He doesn’t feel a thing,” Heraclides said in astonishment, and then, “Oh, but of course! The poison’s deadened all feeling in his legs! While he’s in this state, there’s nothing Korillos can do to hurt him.”

Timodemus stood there on his broken leg and ignored the blows raining down upon him. He grabbed the throat of Korillos and squeezed. There was no art in what Timodemus did, but he had no time for art.

Korillos fell to his knees. Timo didn’t relent for an instant. He grinned the rictus smile of supreme effort.

Any moment now, Korillos would expire for lack of air. His face turned blue. It was surrender or die.

Korillos raised his arm in defeat.

Timodemus let go, staggered sideways, forward, backward, forward. He dribbled uncontrollably, then doubled over and vomited again. He gasped for breath. His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed.

The crowd gasped. Men wept and beat each other.

“Timodemus of Athens is the victor,” the Chief Judge called. He stood over the inert form as if this had been nothing but a normal bout.

Heraclides said to me, “There might still be time. As soon as the ceremony is over, bring him to the iatrion as quick as you can. I’ll wait there for you.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

Heraclides picked up the skirts of his ground-length chiton and ran out of the stadion and down the path like a woman.

One-Eye walked to the center of the ring. I thought he too might collapse, but he picked up his son, who was entirely limp, and carried him to the altar where the Olympic crown waited.

One-Eye laid his son on the altar as if he were a sacrifice. There was nowhere else to put him.

On Pericles’s face I saw immense satisfaction.

A small group gathered about the body. I hovered behind. I had no standing to be there, but I had to be close.

For a moment, no one moved. Unable to keep the urgency out of my voice, I said, “Crown him, and be quick about it!”

Diotima took up the olive wreath. She blessed it and passed it to Exelon.

The Chief Judge declared to every man present, to all the Hellenes, “Timodemus, son of Timonous One-Eye, an Athenian, wins the pankration. Zeus has granted the victory!”

All around the stadion, men cheered and sobbed in equal measure. It was a famous victory by a man who had expunged family dishonor by the manner in which he chose his fate.

Exelon placed the olive crown on the head of the still form. My friend had won the Olympic Games.

Everything that had to be done was done.

I pushed my way through, picked up the body of Timodemus, slung him over my shoulder, and ran.

It was a fine afternoon at Olympia. The closing ceremony had finished, and men packed their tents for the journey home. The Sacred Truce would last long enough for everyone to travel back to their cities, after which we could all go back to fighting one another.

Not that I was likely to notice any difference.

The closing ceremony had been particularly fine and, for me, the only time in the last five days that I’d been able to relax. I thought what a pity it was Timo hadn’t been there to see it. But Timo was ensconced in the iatrion with Heraclides, unable to move.

It had been a tense and stressful night. Heraclides had worked right through, first to keep Timo breathing, and then, when it was certain Timo’s breath wouldn’t stop and while the effects of the hemlock were still upon him, to reset the shattered bone in Timo’s left leg. Timo didn’t feel a thing, which was good because the pain would have been excruciating. Timo would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. He could never fight again, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t mind.

Klymene tended Timodemus throughout. Diotima had to tear her away at dawn, because the Priestess had to oversee the closing ceremony. The moment it was over, Klymene had returned to Timo’s side. One-Eye and Exelon had begun negotiation for the marriage.

“Do you think the fathers will agree?” Diotima asked me.

“I’m sure they will. The sooner they can both put their children’s pasts behind them and look to the future, the better for everyone.”

Diotima smiled. “Good. Marriage is a fine thing.”

The night before, Diotima had been present when Pythax and Sophroniscus signed our marriage agreement. King Pleistarchus had already commissioned my father for statuary at Olympia. With the money that Sophroniscus would earn, we were provided for, and Pythax could keep the farm. Pythax and Sophroniscus had imposed one new condition: that we replay the marriage ceremony in our mothers’ presence. I protested, but Pythax, one of the toughest and most dangerous men in Athens, had explained the situation with great clarity.

“If you don’t, your mothers will kill us,” he’d said.

My father had nodded agreement with his new relative. “Don’t take on any new commissions until then, do you hear me, son?”

“There’s no fear of that, Father.”

The body of Festianos had been discovered that morning, slumped over the altar at which the oxen are sacrificed to Zeus. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear, just like the sacrifices. The altar to Zeus stands at the busiest point in Olympia, yet not a single witness had stepped forward. This was one death I would not be investigating.