Gary Corby: Sacred Games

“One-Eye’s told me what happened.” The usually elegant Pericles was unkempt by his high standards. His hair was uncombed. He wore no himation-Pericles owned one made of the finest Milesian wool, and he normally would not be seen dead out of doors without it. He did wear a formal chiton, but it was smudged and crumpled. Was it possible that Pericles, like any normal man, dropped his clothes on the floor when he went to bed? He’d forgotten to put on sandals.

Exelon banged his forked staff on the ground again and said, “I blame Athens for this disaster, Pericles. Your man attacked Arakos this morning, and now Arakos is murdered.”

“A scuffle in the morning does not necessarily mean murder in the evening,” Pericles said.

“There’s more,” said the Chief Judge. He moved a step to the side.

Over the shoulder of the Judge I saw Timodemus with his head bowed and a guard to either side of him. The guards held his arms tight. It was the second relief for me for that night. I’d been afraid that Timodemus too lay dead or dying.

Timodemus looked up at that moment, and our eyes met. His were unreadable. The expression on his face was identical to the one he wore in the pankration, the same expression I’d seen right before we’d fought that very morning.

Pericles said, “What do you have to say about this, Timodemus?”

“There’s nothing I can say,” Timodemus said. “I didn’t kill him. I haven’t even seen Arakos since this morning.”

I said to the Chief Judge, “Did you find Timodemus here?”

“Close by, in the women’s camp. Hiding.”

“Hiding?” That didn’t sound like Timodemus.

“Guards found him in the tent of Klymene, the High Priestess of Demeter,” the Chief Judge said grimly.

Uh-oh. The Priestess of Demeter was an integral part of the Sacred Games; the contests could not be held without her. If Timodemus had hurt or polluted the priestess by his presence, then the Games would be delayed, and ten thousand angry sports fans would butcher Timo before the day was out. I decided not to ask the obvious question.

“What he was doing in the women’s camp is irrelevant,” said Exelon. The Chief Judge seemed equally reluctant to follow that line of thought. “The fact is the women’s camp is the shortest of runs from where we stand, and that is meaningful in the extreme.”

“The implication is obvious,” Pericles said. “But that’s all it is: an implication. How many other men were in the women’s camp tonight? Hundreds, at least, probably thousands. No court would convict a man for that.”

“You’re not in Athens now, with your courts and your rhetorical tricks,” said Exelon. “This is Olympia, where the Ten Judges decide. It’s in our power to ban Athens from the next Olympics.”

Pericles said at once, “I apologize, Exelon. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

Pericles contrite was a sight to behold, but not at the cost of Timodemus, which was the way this was headed. Something had to be done. I asked, “How did Arakos die?”

“See for yourself.” The Chief Judge stepped back to let me pass.

The body lay in half darkness. I knelt down. It was impossible to see detail.

“Can I have some light here?”

One of the torchbearers stepped over beside me, and suddenly the scene was revealed. The flame was fresh and still smoked considerably and burned with a strong yellow light that was hot and eerie in how it revealed the ghastly corpse.

Arakos had been laid out straight, a scarlet cloak placed under his head. It was the standard-issue cloak beloved of the Spartans. Blood had dribbled from his crushed nose and mouth and now dried on his cheek. His jaw hung slack, and there were bloody gaps where teeth had been. But the worst was his eyes had been gouged out, both of them. The sockets were bloody holes.

I looked behind me at once, to where Socrates stood. He’d never seen violent death before. Well, now he had. I worried what effect the ugly sight had on my little brother.

“What happened to his eyes?” Socrates asked in the same casually clinical tone he used for all his questions.

So much for worrying about my little brother’s mental health.

But it was a good question. Where were Arakos’s eyes?

Something small and sharp jabbed under my knee. There were some front teeth, in a small pool of blood. But not enough teeth. I opened his mouth and felt about inside, with a finger. Yes, I felt a few more teeth lying loose. Whoever had hit Arakos had done a thorough job.

“Who found him?”

A man stepped forward. “I did.”

He spoke with a Spartan accent. Terrific.

“What were you doing in these woods so late at night?”

Another man said stepped forward and said, “I was with him.” He took hold of the first man’s hand.

“Er … right. Nice night for a walk, I guess. Is this how you found him?”

“No, he was alive. We tried to save him.”

“How did he lie?”

“Curled in on himself, knees drawn up, arms wrapped about his torso, facedown in the dirt.”

It was the position of a man being beaten who has no way to fight back.

Arakos couldn’t fight back?

I inspected his wrists and his ankles. There were no tie marks, no indents into the skin that might have been caused by the pressure of a tight thong. His arms and legs were also clear of all but the bruises any fighter carries.

There was a large clot of blood in his hair. I pressed on it, gently at first, then harder. The scalp, and the bone beneath, moved inward under the pressure. In fact it wobbled. This was probably what had killed him.

I asked the group in general, “Did Arakos say anything before he died?”

“He was unconscious most of the time.” A man in the outer shadows spoke up. “He breathed in a funny way. Really labored, you know? And he blew bubbles of blood.”

Everyone knew what that meant. Arakos had been struck in the chest, and the ribs had pierced his lungs. I lifted his chiton and probed. There were no open wounds, but there was movement beneath the skin where there should not have been.

By all appearances, Arakos, one of the finest bare-handed fighters in all Hellas, had been beaten to death.

I stood up and dusted off my knees. “This is impossible.”

The man who stood next to the Chief Judge said, “It seems obvious enough to me. The Athenian surprised Arakos, perhaps in an ambush, and hit him from behind. There are many trees and other places from which to leap. He knocked out Arakos with the first blow and then proceeded to beat an unconscious man to death.” The man who spoke was middle-aged, perhaps fifteen years older than me, but his shoulders were broad, and he looked fit. He had a rich, dark beard and black, curly hair that was well kept. He stood straight and wore a cloak of the deepest scarlet.

I said to him, “With no weapon, not even a knife? Why wouldn’t the killer wait until Arakos had passed and stab him in the back?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time things didn’t go to plan in an ambush,” he replied. “Especially in a night attack.”

“In my experience it’s unlikely,” I said, doing my best for Timodemus. “And I have some expertise in these matters; I’ve examined more than one crime scene.”

He said, “In my judgment it makes perfect sense, and I know something about ambushes.”

“Who are you to be making judgments?” I demanded.

He said mildly, “I am Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas, of Sparta.”

My stomach lurched. Dear Gods, I had challenged a King of Sparta, one of the most powerful men in Hellas. This man’s father was the Leonidas who had led the Three Hundred at Thermopylae and died the most revered warrior of our times. With a word, Pleistarchus could have an army of Spartans at his back-there was one available in their camp-and the dead man before us was one of his own. I swallowed.