“This whole question of the guilt of Timodemus can be put away at once,” Pericles declared. “Nicolaos has watched over Timodemus like a hungry eagle, every moment since he was reinstated to the competition. He can certainly swear that Timodemus was nowhere near Arakos.”
Every eye turned to me.
Suddenly I was very nervous. I felt myself blush.
“Er … Pericles, that might not be entirely true.” I had to admit it; there might be a witness to prove otherwise if I lied. “After Timodemus went to bed I handed over the watch to someone else.”
“What!” Pericles fairly screeched.
“Well, Timodemus was asleep. It wasn’t like there was much to do, and it was someone reliable,” I said in my defense. “His uncle, Festianos.”
“So reliable we found the killer in the women’s camp,” Xenares pointed out.
Pericles turned to me and said, “Watching like a hungry eagle, were you?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
Pericles was being grossly unfair. But nor could I provide Timo with an alibi, so I obviously hadn’t been watching him closely enough. Pericles had spent his precious political capital for nothing, and it was I who had advised him to do so. I had no choice but to accept his withering stare.
“Where is this uncle now?” Exelon the Chief Judge asked.
“Asleep before our tents,” said One-Eye, his first contribution. “Chief Judge, I swear before Zeus my son had nothing to do with this. You mustn’t let this incident interfere with the Games-”
I think my jaw hit the dirt. The Chief Judge stared at One-Eye as if he were some strange creature suddenly in our midst, and so did everyone else.
“Interfere with the Games? Incident?” the Chief Judge repeated in shock. “One-Eye, do you understand what’s at stake here?”
“Is Timodemus permitted to compete in the pankration on the fourth day?” One-Eye asked.
How could he ask about such a thing with the life of his son forfeit?
“A man with blood guilt upon him? Not only that, an oath breaker before Zeus Herkios? Don’t be ridiculous.” The Chief Judge stamped his staff hard upon the earth.
“This is terrible,” One-Eye wailed. The death of a man didn’t affect him. The thought of sacrilege at the Sacred Games moved him not at all, but the thought of his son unable to compete caused him to cry.
Everyone stood speechless, embarrassed by his behavior.
“You’re looking for a friend of the dead man,” said Socrates into the suddenly frosty silence.
I’d forgotten he was even there. “Be quiet, Socrates. This is a business for men.”
“Who is this boy?” said the Chief Judge. “And what is he doing here? Is this disaster some sort of show for children?”
“He’s my little brother. I’m sorry, he was in the tent when your men came to fetch me. I’ll send him home at once. Socrates, disappear.”
Pleistarchus raised his hand. “No, let the boy speak.”
“Very well, what do you mean, Socrates?” I demanded.
“You said it yourself, Nico. The dead man was attacked from the front.”
“So?”
Socrates looked at us quizzically. “It’s just that if you met a man in the woods at night, and if he’d attacked you that same day, would you stand still to be hit again? It doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“I was about to say the same thing,” I lied.
“Your brother makes a good point,” said Pleistarchus. “If Arakos had seen Timodemus, he would certainly have expected another attack. He would have been ready to defend himself.”
“Yes, it’s very confusing, isn’t it?” Socrates shrugged. “Because on the face of it, only Timodemus could have killed Arakos.”
“Whose side are you on here?” I demanded.
Socrates looked puzzled. “But Nico, isn’t the idea to work out the truth?”
I ground my teeth and managed not to shout at him.
“Sorry, Nico,” he said meekly.
“The boy makes sense again,” said Pleistarchus. “The only man ever to best Arakos in the pankration was Timodemus of Athens. Who else could have taken him on without a weapon and killed him?”
Unfortunately the King of Sparta was right: what Socrates said made sense.
“Would you all excuse me for a moment?” I marched over to Timodemus, grabbed him by the arm. The guards watched me drag him out of their earshot.
“Did you kill him?” I hissed in the lowest voice.
“Nico!” he said, obviously hurt. “How can you ask such a thing?”
“I’m asking,” I said through gritted teeth, “because when I defend you, I need to know what I have to deal with. Are they going to find any evidence against you? Tell me true, Timo, and swear by Zeus.”
“I didn’t kill Arakos. I swear this by Zeus, may he destroy me if I lie.”
“All right.” I let go of his arm and walked back to the body, stood over it, turned around. I wanted to see what Arakos saw, the moment before he was attacked.
Another man strode into the clearing; he pushed his way into the inner ring. The new arrival stood opposite me over the freshly murdered corpse. He glanced down, and said, “It looks like the pankration started early this year.”
Xenares said, “None of your wit please, Markos. You can see this is a crisis.”
The man Xenares had named Markos was slightly taller than me, which meant neither tall nor short. He stood with a straight back, his face by torchlight pleasant but unremarkable. Our gazes met, and he smiled. His intelligent eyes were so deeply blue as to be almost black.
“We seem to have a problem here,” he said to me, as if he’d walked into a room where someone had spilled the wine.
I didn’t know who this Markos was, but Xenares had called for him, and that made him an enemy. For that matter, I didn’t know who Xenares was, except that he hated Athens, and a king of Sparta treated him with respect.
“There is another issue,” said King Pleistarchus. “It’s important to determine whether Arakos died fighting.”
“Why do you care?” Pericles said. “It doesn’t make him any less murdered.”
“It is the custom of our people. If my fellow Spartan died in combat then he is entitled to a headstone with his name upon it, so he will be remembered. But if he died without a fight, then his name is to be forgotten.”
I said, “He was beaten, as you see, but there are signs of a long struggle. Look at these bruises, here and here and here.” I touched different places on Arakos’s arms and neck. “All we have to do is look for a man who’s been in a fight.”
Markos said, “Of course there are signs of a struggle on him, he’s a pankratist! He’s been doing nothing but practice fighting for the last ten months.”
“Oh yes, of course.” I had no choice but to admit it; Markos was right and looked alert, while I had just made myself look like an idiot in front of these men.
“The same will go for Timodemus and every other contestant,” Markos continued. “There’s no point searching for evidence of a fight on any of our suspects.”
“What about looking for recent, fresh bruises?” a voice in the darkness asked.
“Was there anyone who didn’t train this morning?” Markos asked reasonably.
That was true. Why, even Timodemus, who had been thrown out of the contest, had picked a fight this morning. With me.
I wiped my hands, though there was very little blood on them-the wounds of Arakos had not bled much and were already quite dry-but there was another problem. “I’ve touched a dead body. I’m ritually unclean. Is there seawater?”
Exelon the Chief Judge said, “The water of the Kladeos is considered cleansing. You can wash on the way back to camp.”
During this conversation the other nine judges of the Games had trickled into the clearing, in varying states of wakefulness, and been apprised of what had happened. Now the Chief Judge turned to them, and they muttered together for an interminable time while some of the most powerful men in Hellas waited in silence.