“Didn’t you say this morning that you were immune to flattery?”
“I’m immune to yours. I’m totally vulnerable to my own.”
I thought about it, then asked, “Can you get in a mention of Diotima?”
“It’s immoral to praise a woman, but I’ll try to squeeze in a brief allusion. Maybe something about Hera, helpmeet to mighty Zeus?” he mused. “Leave it with me; I’ll think of something.”
“Thanks, Pindar!” I said in gratitude.
“You know, don’t you, that a praise song doesn’t come cheap?”
“I knew there’d be a catch. How much?”
Pindar named a sum.
I staggered back in shock. “Dear Gods! People pay that?”
“It’s the going rate. Normally my clients are in such euphoria from their victory that they don’t stop to think. You’re unusual in that you’re currently rational.”
The taste of reconciling my family was too sweet to refuse. I didn’t have the money, I had no idea how to get it, but I’d think of something.
“Start writing my song, Pindar.”
“There’s one final point.”
I sighed. “Yes?”
“You have to catch the killer, Nicolaos.”
“Well, of course.”
“I don’t think you’ve quite caught my meaning. You have to catch the killer, not the Spartan. If the Spartan Markos beats you to it, then he has the victory, and you have no victory song nor, it would seem, any hope of a marriage.”
DAY 3 OF THE 80 TH OLYMPIAD OF THE SACRED GAMES
Homer’s rosy fingers clutched the dawn. Timodemus had two days to live. Three, if you counted the day on which he’d be tried and executed.
At least today I wouldn’t have to drag reluctant men away from the sport to question them, because most of Day Three is dedicated to the worship of Zeus.
One happy effect of this was that the men could sleep in. Whereas the sports began at the crack of dawn, the service could not begin until the main attraction had been driven in from wherever it was kept waiting.
I woke in my tent and pulled on my chiton, the only decent clothing I had, and wandered out to blink at the sun and wonder if there was anything to eat.
Socrates was already outside, protesting loudly. “I won’t wear a chiton,” he said.
“Yes, you will,” our father said. “This is a sacred festival and I won’t have you wandering about looking like a small child. You can wash in the river, too.”
“I’m clean enough,” Socrates grumbled.
Father looked to me, and I knew what to do. I picked up the bucket of water that lay between our tents and threw it on Socrates.
“Now you’re clean,” I said cheerfully.
Socrates sputtered and gave me a look that said he would have as cheerfully thrown a bucket of snakes at me. Nevertheless he was clean-an unusual state for him. I held Socrates down while Father pulled the chiton over him. This was an old, cast-off garment of our father’s, which had been cut down to size by our mother for Socrates to wear. Or, rather, almost to size. Mother had allowed room for my little brother to grow. The sleeves ended somewhere slightly past his fingers, and the bottom edge trailed along the ground. Socrates almost tripped over it when he took a step. Father hitched up the chiton, tied a rope belt around Socrates’s waist to hold up the extra material, and cheerily declared we were ready to go.
We joined the crowd streaming to the Sanctuary of Zeus, where we met up with Diotima, as we’d arranged. Women might not be allowed in the stadion when the Games were on, but these were religious rites, and the sanctuary was open to everyone.
I saw Markos with the other Spartans, though he stood somewhat apart. I guessed he was unpopular with his fellows since the fight with Skarithos. I beckoned and he came to join us.
A vast cloud of dust hung in the air above the road from Elis. If I hadn’t known better, I might have called it smoke from a forest fire, or perhaps the coming of the Gods. But I knew what to expect, and so I stood, Diotima and Socrates beside me, and we stared.
From the base of the cloud emerged a large, plodding ox, and alongside it walked a man. Both were difficult to make out; the ox’s coat was white against the gray of the road dust hanging in the air.
Another ox and man emerged behind the first, and another, and another, until one hundred oxen were visible on the road. The procession was so long that by the time the last appeared out of the dust raised by their hooves, the first ox had entered Olympia.
Each ox was garlanded in bright ribbons and crowned with an olive wreath. But there was something more spectacular than the colorful adornments.
Socrates gaped. “Is that real?” he asked.
“It is,” said Diotima. “Each ox to be sacrificed today has a coat of pure white.”
“I thought it was road dust,” Socrates said.
“No, they breed them like this.”
“How?”
Diotima shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”
“They allow only the bulls with white coats to mate,” said a man beside us in the press. “If a calf is born with an absolutely perfect coat of white, then it’s made an ox and reserved for sacrifice.”
“It’s incredible,” Socrates said, and for once I had to agree with him. This was one of the most amazing sights in all of Hellas: one hundred pure-white oxen, garlanded in flowers and with bright ribbons about their horns.
Each ox was led through the entrance into the Sanctuary, where the grand altar of Zeus was ready and waiting. The Hellenes were about to make their greatest sacrifice to Zeus, for these hundred white oxen, especially bred for their fate, were on their way to the god.
The first of the oxen was led by his keeper to the altar, where waited the Butcher of the Games with the tools of his trade.
The crowd walked along with the first of the sacrifices. Men called out good luck to the ox and wished it well and thanked the beast for consenting to be sacrificed. Those who could reached out to pat it gently.
The priest of Zeus spoke to the beast. I couldn’t hear what he said, but he seemed happy with the result because he stood back, and the Butcher stepped forward. He was a huge man with bulging triceps that would have compared favorably with Pythax’s or even Arakos’s.
The Butcher swung a large mallet and struck the ox direct on the forehead. The stunned animal stood stock-still, but lowered its head as if to nod in agreement.
The crowd sighed in happiness.
The Butcher dropped the mallet and picked up a large, very sharp knife. This he thrust into the beast’s neck and sliced to cut its throat. The blood spurted at a tremendous rate. Priests who stood waiting with large bowls hurried to catch the sacrifice’s lifeblood. As each bowl filled, another took its place, until slowly, but with tremendous grace, the animal’s legs gave way and it sank to the ground.
“It was a fine sacrifice,” Sophroniscus said.
Diotima pulled me aside. “Nico, did you see that? A mallet to the head would be just the thing to stun Arakos.”
“Before they beat him to death, you mean?”
“Yes. I’ve seen lots of sacrifices, I’ve performed plenty of them myself, but it’s never quite … er … struck me the same way.”
“What about your idea that he was disabled by hemlock?”
“This is the same, but with solids.”
The priests and attendants stood back, and what seemed like a hundred slaves stepped forward. The ox had been led up onto a wooden platform, the underside of which dripped with grease of pig fat to make it slippery. An aulos player put his V-shaped recorder to his lips and began to play sacred music. The slaves took up ropes and began to heave in time to the music. The remains of the sacrifice slowly but surely glided along the path-thanks to the slippery fat-to the waiting barbecue pits.