So it was. The referees in the pankration use whips to control the contestants, but a referee’s whip is shorter and less flexible.
“What’s a whip doing here?” I wondered.
He shrugged. “I suppose someone must have dropped it.”
“Yes, but who carries a whip around Olympia?”
The Spartan shrugged. “It might have nothing to do with the murder. I’ll show it around, see if anyone recognizes it.”
I snatched back the whip. “I’ll keep it, if you don’t mind.”
“What if I mind?”
“Finders keepers.”
“Thanks a lot, Pericles,” I said, after I’d tramped back to the main grounds. I’d caught up with Pericles at the Bouleterion. The moon was on the way down. Soon Apollo would rise upon his chariot of fire. “But I must warn you, I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Yes, you can,” he said. “You’ve done it twice before.” He turned and began a quick step south, toward the Athenian camp and, presumably, his tent.
Indeed I had. My first investigation had been such a success that I’d made it my trade. But this time there was an important difference.
“That’s not the point,” I told him. “Timodemus is my friend. I can’t possibly do this and remain objective.”
“Objectivity isn’t the requirement. You’re supposed to get him off.”
“But what if he did it?”
Pericles stopped his fast, angry walk and turned on me. “Listen, Nicolaos, I don’t give a curse if-” He broke off to see who of the men staggering back and forth in the cold early morning might be listening in. He dragged me into an alcove of the nearby gymnasium, where we wouldn’t be overheard.
“I don’t give a witch’s curse if one of our people murdered some Spartan. If your friend’s innocent he deserves justice, and if he’s guilty I don’t want the rest of the world to know it. If you feel strongly about it, we can punish him in the privacy of our own city, but not here at Olympia. There are political considerations, and I’ll point out we wouldn’t have this problem if you’d watched that overmuscled, underbrained friend of yours like I told you.”
“You didn’t say to watch him every moment. You said to make sure the Spartans didn’t eliminate him. Well, they didn’t.”
“He looks pretty eliminated to me!”
I had to concede Pericles was right. Pericles saw he’d won, as he’d surely known he would. He stalked off with his final words: “Stop arguing. Get out there and save Timodemus.”
There were too many things to do and, as Pericles had pointed out to the Chief Judge, not enough time to do them. Day Two of the Sacred Games was about to begin; four days, then, to find the man who killed Arakos, or at least prove it was not Timodemus. Or-and I had to be honest, though I wanted to believe him-perhaps prove my friend was a murderer; for Socrates and the Chief Judge were right; on the face of it, Timodemus looked as guilty as any man could be.
Two actions were pressing: I needed to talk to Timo, who had been led away, and I needed to interview that priestess of Demeter in whose tent Timo had been discovered. The testimony of a woman of her stature would hold great weight at judgment time.
The Priestess of Demeter from Elis was the only woman permitted to observe the Games. Indeed, she was required, and once the Games began at dawn, she would be ensconced in her box, in full view of the crowd, and unapproachable until the night-a whole day lost.
But a strange man could hardly expect to be admitted to her tent. I needed help, and luckily for me I knew just the person. I went to pay a call on my Diotima.
I’d learned my lesson. I wasn’t rash enough to poke my head through the tent flap without warning. Instead I stood outside Diotima’s tent, where flying knives couldn’t hit me, and called, “Diotima, it’s me. Is it safe to come in?”
Not a word in reply.
Of course. Normal people were still asleep at this time. It was only slaves and investigators who tramped the cold, damp ground of Olympia before the sun was up.
I crept into Diotima’s tent, so as not to wake her, then realized how silly that was, since the entire point was to wake her. There she lay, curled up fast asleep, as innocent as a small child. In sleep she was lovely. Her red lips were slightly parted, her dark tresses fell across her face, and her chest rose and fell as she breathed softly.
I wondered how I’d been so lucky as to get her. An awful lot had gone wrong in my life, but Diotima was my one victory. At least, I hoped she was; there were still some parents to overcome.
I reached out an arm and shook her gently.
“Diotima, honey, wake up. It’s me-aaarrggh!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Nico!”
Diotima had turned and plunged a short, sharp knife straight into my arm: her priestess knife, which she used for sacrifices and always kept in a pouch about her. She’d only stopped her stab as the curved point sliced my skin. Blood trickled down my forearm.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I thought you were a man creeping into my tent.” She paused. “Well, actually, come to think of it, you were.”
But it was the first part of her statement that grabbed my attention. “Diotima, have men been creeping into your tent?”
She grimaced. “There’ve been one or two incidents. The drunks who stagger into the women’s camp seem to think every tent has a pornê in it. They don’t bother to look for hanging sandals.”
Sandals hung up outside a tent mean the occupant is open for business. Sandals, because pornê means “walker,” as in a woman who walks the streets. At Olympia there are no streets to walk, so the women for hire hang their sandals beside their tent entrances. I could see how a drunk man in the dark could make a mistake, but that wasn’t going to save anyone who threatened Diotima.
Diotima read my thoughts. “It’s all right, Nico. I dealt with them.”
“Are they still alive?” I asked, wondering if we’d need to hide any bodies.
“Mostly,” she said.
I decided not to pursue that.
“I’m in no danger, Nico,” Diotima tried to reassure me.
“Keeping you safe is my job.” Merely saying it made me feel good. I liked the idea of protecting Diotima.
“Stop worrying about me, Nico. You didn’t used to behave like this.”
“We didn’t used to be married.”
“We aren’t married now either. We still have our fathers to convince.”
I sighed. “I know.”
“And even if they do let us marry, it doesn’t mean I’m suddenly helpless.”
I could see life with Diotima was destined to be unusual. “We have a problem,” I said, using the same words the Spartan Markos had said to me over the body.
I told her what had happened while she slept and/or knifed intruders. I only got a few words in before she sat up, excited, and wrapped the blanket around her for warmth.
I ended by saying, “We need the evidence of Klymene, the Priestess of the Games, as soon as possible. Once the Games begin, she’ll be locked into her box at the stadion, and she won’t be free to tell her story until tonight. A whole day’s delay for her evidence might be a killing problem.”
“Literally killing, for Timodemus,” Diotima added.
“A fellow priestess like you could give me an entrée.”
“Good, let’s go.” She hopped off her bed and tossed aside the blanket to reveal her outstanding body in all its glory.
“Diotima, you sexy woman, why don’t we stay here for a while and-”
“I have to decide what to wear for this priestess.” She began to rummage through the wooden trunk that she’d brought with her from Asia Minor. She pulled out clothing and tossed it on the camp bed.
On our last mission, before we’d left Magnesia, Diotima had been given a whole new wardrobe as a gift from the people we’d helped. A slave who specialized in Persian fashion had sniffed noisily when asked to make simple Hellene chitons, but after lavish flattery and some physical threats, the dressmaker had measured Diotima and, in the space of a only a few days, had cut and embroidered ten new chitons from a large range of exotic, brightly patterned fabrics. Some were of a shiny new material called silk, fabulously expensive stuff the Persians imported from a country so distant no one even knew its name. When we got back to Athens, Diotima would be the envy of every woman.