She’d denied everything, over and over.
Diotima and I shared a look. We knew we were running out of time; even with my official status, we couldn’t keep a priestess locked away forever, especially not if they needed her when the Games resumed.
Diotima sighed. She said, “Very well, then. How do you explain the love poetry?”
“What?” Klymene was nonplussed. So was I, for a moment. Then I remembered.
“We searched his tent,” Diotima said. “Timodemus writes poetry about you. Did you know that?”
“Does he really?” Klymene said. Her expression was one of wonder. “You mean … he really likes me?”
“Shall I go fetch it?” Diotima said. “You can see for yourself.”
Klymene turned away to stare at the blank wall, ignoring us entirely.
I dragged Diotima to the other corner. “Why didn’t you tell me before about the poetry?” I hissed.
“I did,” Diotima said. “You saw me reading it.”
“You didn’t tell me he was writing about Klymene! You could have saved me having to question Xenia.”
“Er … there’s a slight problem there,” Diotima admitted, somewhat abashed. “The poetry doesn’t actually mention Klymene by name.”
I was appalled. “Then how can you possibly know it was meant for her?”
“I used some intuition. Also a bit of logic. Everything Timo has here at Olympia, he brought with him from Elis, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then he must have written the poetry beginning in Elis. Who did he meet there? Who else could it be for? Do you see any other nubile women around here, to use his words, with breasts like melons?”
“Timo wrote that?” I asked.
“I told you it was bad poetry. Listen, Nico, we can prove Timo wrote the words. Considering he was captured in her tent, that should be enough.”
Klymene turned around. “All right, I’ll admit it.” She twisted a tress around her fingers. “Timodemus and I were having an affair. How did you know to look for poetry? I suppose that little vixen Xenia told you all about us first. She’s hated me ever since we were children.”
“You knew Xenia as a child?” Diotima asked.
“Oh yes. Xenia is my father’s, he got her on a barbarian slave he once owned. That’s why she’s called Xenia. He kept her because he thought she might be a useful companion for me. I’m older by a year.”
“It wasn’t Xenia who told me. I guessed the truth,” I said, to cover for the slave-woman. “The scream that brought the guards running to your tent. That wasn’t you being scared; that was you having an … er …”
“Orgasm,” she finished for me. “If you ever want one, Timo’s your man.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“I shouldn’t have screamed, but you know how it is when the moment’s upon you. When those moron guards came running, we had to make up a story, fast. Timo jumped off the bed and pretended to have stumbled in by accident.”
She didn’t bother to say she willingly let him sacrifice himself to protect her reputation. I didn’t know whether to deplore her ruthlessly self-centered attitude or applaud the way she carried it off. Timo must have been an idiot to bed this woman.
“When did Timo come to you?”
“After I’d dined.”
“Diotima, when did Petale look outside her tent to see Arakos?”
“After the moon had reached its peak.”
Diotima took hold of my hand and squeezed gently. Timodemus had been less than innocently engaged at the same moment Arakos was discovered breathing his last. Klymene’s testimony would prove Timodemus was innocent.
“You were seeing Timodemus back in Elis, weren’t you?” Diotima said. She added, “There’s no point trying to hide anything, Klymene. We know enough to be able to force your personal slaves to testify before the Judges. They’ll certainly tell us everything you’ve done.”
They certainly would. It was the law that slaves could only testify in court under torture. The young women who served Klymene would fold in an instant.
Klymene knew it, too. She sighed. “Yes, I admit it. Both Timodemus and Arakos,” she said.
And Arakos. It took a moment to sink in. Diotima and I stared at each other in open shock.
“What, at the same time?” The thought of small Timo and the huge Spartan-
“Of course not, silly! They hated each other. You couldn’t imagine two more different men. Like salt and honey, the two of them.”
“Which was salt?”
“Oh, Arakos. He’s strong, not subtle at all. He really makes a woman feel like a woman. Or he did, rather. Timodemus is smooth.” She smiled. “And sweet.”
“So all this hatred between the two of them was rivalry over you,” I said.
“Oh, I have a feeling it went deeper than me. Not that I’m not deep, you understand.”
“I can imagine.”
“I met Arakos first, in Elis, at the time the athletes arrived for the compulsory training period before they move on to Olympia. Part of my job is to welcome the new arrivals. Arakos took a shine to me at once.”
“And then you … er … welcomed him.”
“He welcomed me first! Grabbed me when we were out of sight behind the temple walls and kissed me properly. I felt like a powerless rag doll in his hands.” She smiled happily.
“What happened when Timo arrived?”
“That was many days later. This time it was me doing the welcoming. What a good-looking man!”
“And Timo took a shine to you.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Arakos must have been furious when you dumped him,” I observed.
“Dump Arakos?” Klymene looked at me strangely. “Why would I do that?”
Diotima’s jaw dropped. “You mean you-”
“Had affairs with them both. I told you.”
There was a refreshing directness to Klymene that I was beginning to appreciate. Klymene probably didn’t have many friends among the women of her own class, but back in her home city the young men must have queued up to meet her.
“What about your father?” Diotima asked.
“You have a disgusting mind for a priestess!” Klymene said.
“Er …” I said, taken aback. “What Diotima means is, didn’t your father object?”
“Oh. He never found out. But even if he had, what could he do? I’m his only child. He can’t rid himself of me; he needs to marry me off to get an heir. Besides, if I did something to hurt him … well, that’s all to the good, I say. He deserves it. My father killed my mother.”
I gasped. “Your father murdered your mother?”
“It wasn’t anything as merciful as a knife. No, what he used to kill my mother was his penis.”
I boggled at the mechanics of such a killing. “Is that what they call a blunt instrument? How did he hit her-”
“She means her father got her mother pregnant, Nico.” Diotima rolled her eyes.
“Well, how was I to know?”
Klymene nodded. “When she was too old to carry, he got her pregnant because he was so desperate for a son.”
“You’re the only child,” Diotima guessed.
“Yes, but it wasn’t for want of him trying. I remember when I was a child, he was always happy to go to his parties or use the slaves and leave Mother and me to our lives in the women’s quarters. We had enough food, weaving to be done, chores to do … we were happy together, Mother and I. I loved her so much.
“All except for every tenth night. Then Father came to our quarters, and I was sent away. I’d stand outside the door and listen to the moans and groans and screams. When he was finished, the door would open and he’d step out. He always saw me there. He’d look at me but not say anything, just walked past without a word, like I didn’t matter, which when I was older I realized was true. A girl child’s no better than a slave, is she? We wouldn’t see him for another ten nights. That’s how I learned to count to ten, by marking off the nights before he’d come back. The tenth night chore, my mother called it. But nothing ever happened. Then, when everyone thought nothing could, that she was past her days, Mother fell pregnant.”