Diotima liked wearing the silk, and I liked it when she did, because when I held her against me the effect was intense.
“Wear the red silk,” I encouraged her.
“No. I know what will happen, and we have work to do.” Diotima stopped to consider. “I think I’ll wear the blue chiton. And some jewelry.” She rummaged through her travel chest. “Help me put on this chiton, will you?” She wrapped the large rectangle of material around herself and turned her back to me to fix the brooches that held the dress over her shoulders. Last of all, she carefully hooked in the silver bear earrings I’d bought her the day before.
Then she said, “Let’s go. I’ll do the talking.”
“She might respond better to me, Diotima.”
“I doubt it. She’s probably some withered prune with no interest in men. They always pick the old, ugly ones for the top jobs.”
“I woke up, and there he was, naked.”
Klymene spoke to us while a red-haired slave girl fussed about arranging her hair. She turned her lovely neck so the slave girl could pin up the dark tresses. Another slave washed Klymene’s feet. A slave apiece attended to her hands, which she was holding out for them to clean her nails.
“Then the guards ran in and tackled him. They took him away.” She spoke as if Timodemus had been a stray dog.
The slaves stepped back, and Klymene examined herself in a polished bronze mirror. She gave herself a smile.
Klymene was about to be the only woman present among thousands of excited men at the stadion, and there would be times when she was the center of attention. She knew it, and knew exactly what effect she would have on all those men. She stood and smoothed down her chiton.
I was glad Diotima had stopped to put on her fine clothes and her necklace and silver earrings. Klymene was a stunner, no doubt about it, but my girl was her match.
“You didn’t hear him enter?” Diotima asked.
“What? Oh no, of course not. I would have called or something.”
“You seem to have a relaxed attitude to naked men staring at you in the middle of the night,” Diotima remarked. “Does this sort of thing happen often?”
“First time. Of course, if I hadn’t woken, I wouldn’t know, would I?”
“Hmm.”
It was clear Klymene wouldn’t blame a man for breaking in to see her. Come to that, I wouldn’t blame a man either.
“You’re not married?” I asked.
“No.”
Diotima said, “What about your mother? Shouldn’t she be here with you?”
“She died when I was young.”
“I’m sorry,” Diotima said.
“So am I. I miss her. It would have been nice to have a mother.”
“How did you come to be a priestess?” Diotima asked. “You don’t seem like the usual sort.”
Klymene looked my wife up and down. “I could say the same for you, honey. Artemis, I think you said?”
“I served at the Temple of Artemis Agroptera in Athens and the Artemision in Ephesus.”
Klymene looked impressed. These were serious credentials. The two haughty priestesses faced each other eye to eye and, I noticed in appreciation, breast to breast.
What Diotima had neglected to mention was that she’d been barely tolerated as a junior priestess in Athens and had been cold-shouldered at the Artemision after fighting with the other priestesses.
Diotima returned to the subject at hand. “You find a strange man in your bedroom, and this is your total reaction?”
“Well, I may have screamed a little. That’s what brought the guards running. Everyone’s looked after me so well.”
I said, “What’s your function, Klymene, here at the Games?”
Klymene glanced over the assembly of rings, necklaces, and headbands that littered the table before her. She pointed at several items, all of which looked elegantly expensive.
As the slave girl decorated her with jewelry, Klymene said, “The Priestess of Demeter oversees the Sacred Games. She’s had this role since time immemorial.”
“Yes, but why Demeter? Why not Zeus, or even his queen Hera? There’s no temple to Demeter at Olympia, is there?”
“None. The ancient temple is the Heraion, the temple to Hera that also housed her husband Zeus until this Olympiad. Have you seen inside the new Temple of Zeus?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s amazing. They left space to erect a huge Zeus.” She frowned into the mirror. “Xenia, the tresses aren’t quite right.”
The redheaded slave girl stifled a sigh, picked up a comb made of fine bone, and began reworking the hair. Klymene watched the girl’s progress in the mirror as she spoke. “They say that in ages past, my goddess Demeter ate the shoulder of King Pelops, and that’s why her priestess must attend the Games, but if you ask me it’s a load of old wash water. A goddess eats better than that. All I can tell you is Demeter opens each day, blesses each contest, and closes every day with a prayer, and this Olympiad, it’s me who represents the Goddess.”
Klymene studied herself in the bronze mirror with much complacency. Then she stood. “I must go.”
Diotima said, “But for most of the time, you have to sit alone in a box upon an altar. What do you do all day? It must be mind-numbing.”
Klymene laughed. “With all those superfit naked young men running back and forth in front of me? Oh, I have a way to amuse myself!”
Klymene brushed past Diotima’s stunned silence, and a slave raised the tent flap. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some naked men to watch.” She waggled her fingers at us. “Ta ta.”
“Wow,” was all Diotima could say. “What do you think, Nico?”
“I think I want to be in the box with her when she amuses her-oof!” My wife delivered a swift elbow to the stomach.
“What did you think of her story?”
“Unfortunately, it all makes sense,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “I can imagine how the Spartan Markos will reconstruct it. Timo waylays Arakos in the forest and beats him close to death. He hears men approach. Timo takes off down the narrow track that runs through the woods to the women’s camp. Meanwhile the men discover Arakos and raise the alarm while trying to save the victim. Timo looks for a place to hide. There are plenty of tents, but he doesn’t know which ones are safe; many of the tents house pornoi, and they’re probably entertaining men. In the middle of the ground is a tent larger than all the others; he doesn’t know what it is, but it looks official, maybe no one’s in there at night. In he goes and stumbles right into Klymene. She sees him and screams.”
“What about him being naked?”
“Perfectly normal. The athletes are required to compete naked, and many don’t bother with clothes for the duration of the Games. Everyone knows that.”
Diotima looked dubious. “There’s a lot of supposition in what you said.”
“It’s almost all guess, but it fits exactly with what we know, and it sounds convincing.”
“What was Timodemus doing, if not escaping the crime scene?”
“Good question.”
“For that matter, what was Arakos doing in the woods?”
“Another fine question.”
“We need to trace his movement on this side of the river.”
“No, you need to trace his movements.”
Diotima looked at me quizzically.
“I need to take the Olympic Oath.”
DAY 2 OF THE 80 TH OLYMPIAD OF THE SACRED GAMES
Apollo’s light shone cold and distant over the horizon. I stood, shivering, in a place I’d never expected to be: on the steps of the Bouleterion of Olympia, before the statue of Zeus Herkios, about to take the Olympic Oath.