“I can’t,” I said.
“Nico-”
“Diotima, this is an act of catharsis for both these men. It would be the worst cruelty to stop this before they’ve proven themselves before their fellows.”
“You mean to say Pythax and Dromeus can fix their lives by battering each other until neither can stand, while other men watch them do it.”
“Precisely.”
“Aaarrggh. Why are men so stupid?” Diotima grimaced.
As she spoke, they both went for each other’s throats. Their arms locked in a sheer test of strength. Their grins turned to rictus smiles of ultimate effort. The muscles in their arms strained so hard I could count every tendon. The sweat poured from their brows. At any moment the tendons would tear through the flesh that barely contained them. It was a dead heat for sheer animal strength. I seriously considered the possibility that Dromeus and Pythax might be about to kill each other.
“Aaarrgh!”
Someone with a panel of wood torn from one of the stalls whacked Dromeus in the face. He fell back, not expecting the blow.
It was Diotima.
“Aaarrgh!”
She hit Pythax in the face. He was too surprised to block. He, too, fell to the ground, panting and exhausted.
Diotima stood in the center; she owned the field of victory.
She shouted, “Stop this, both of you!”
I shouted too. “Diotima, get out of there!”
“Diotima?” Dromeus said from where he lay in the dirt. “Young woman, who are you?”
I realized Dromeus had never before seen Diotima in my company. He had no idea who she was. Dromeus stared at her as if she were some psyche ascended from Hades, which, given her fury, was a reasonable assumption.
I said, “I’m sorry, Dromeus. She’s a bit hard to control.”
Dromeus waved away my apology. “Who are you, woman?”
Diotima lifted her chin and said with pride, “I am named Diotima of Mantinea.” Pythax, lying in the dirt and panting, winced. His action caught Diotima’s eye, and she added in a softer voice, “And, too, I am daughter to Pythax, Chief of the Scythian Guard of Athens.”
“I care nothing for your father,” Dromeus said. “Your mother,” he said. “Tell me the name of your mother.”
“Why should I tell you?” Diotima never admitted her mother if she could help it.
“Just tell me, woman.”
“No.”
“Then tell me yea or nay, does she go by the name Euterpe the Hetaera?”
Diotima gasped.
Then it struck me like a blow to the head: Diotima was known as Diotima of Mantinea, after her mother’s hometown, because her father had never married her mother, and here was Dromeus. Dromeus of Mantinea.
I glanced at my father. Sophroniscus looked from Dromeus to Diotima and back again, and stroked his beard, and I thought I saw the beginning of a smile.
Dromeus scrabbled to his knees, took Diotima by the hand, and between broken teeth said, “Greetings, cousin. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby.”
Dromeus had politely asked permission of Pythax to speak to Diotima. Of course Pythax granted the privilege; it’s perfectly acceptable for a close male relative of a respectable woman to speak with her.
I invited Dromeus to our tent, and Pythax, Diotima, my father, and I gathered around to hear his story. I dragged in a table and kicked about some loose sacking to give us something comfortable to lounge on. The terrible injuries Dromeus and Pythax had inflicted on each other were forgotten-no, that wasn’t quite right; they had become marks of respect for each other. Two tough men united by a woman: Euterpe, the mother of Diotima.
“Your mother was a wild one,” Dromeus said to Diotima as he sipped our wine. “No man could tell her what to do.”
“Not like her daughter at all, then,” I said.
Diotima jabbed me in the ribs.
“She ran away from home twice, and twice her father-my uncle, your grandfather-dragged her home. When she ran the third time, he let her go. He said she was more trouble than she was worth.”
Pythax growled. This was his wife that Dromeus spoke of.
Dromeus said, “I understand your feelings, friend. I report what happened, not my own thoughts.”
Pythax nodded. “She’s a good woman,” he said.
“I know it. Speaking of which, where is she now?” Dromeus asked.
“Back in Athens,” Pythax said. “The Olympics are no place for a respectable lady.”
As soon as he said it, every male head turned to look at Diotima. We were all thinking the same thing.
She stuck her tongue out at us.
Dromeus laughed. “That’s what I’ve always remembered about your mother: her independence.”
I wasn’t sure that Diotima really wanted to know how much she resembled her mother.
“When we heard she’d become a prostitute, that was the end of her as far as the family was concerned.”
“Did you ever see her again?” I asked Dromeus.
“I did. When I came of age, I thought to look her up. We knew she’d moved to Athens. It was easy for me; a man on the tournament circuit moves around.”
Like Korillos and his fellow pankratists. Yes, that made sense.
“She’d become a fine woman with a big house. I was impressed. When I knocked on the door, she thought I was a client. It was disconcerting.”
I nodded in sympathy. I’d had the same experience, and barely survived.
“Well, I explained who I was, and she remembered me, and there were tears, and she swore me to secrecy, and then she revealed that she was a mother. So proud and happy, she was.” He said to Diotima, “I held you in my arms when you were barely a newborn.”
Diotima wiped away a tear. “What was I like, as a baby?”
“You peed on me. Euterpe whisked you away, and that was the last I ever saw of you. Your mother had a comfortable life, and I’d fulfilled my duty as a male relative, so I wished her well and left. I’d always wondered what happened to her.”
As we went our separate ways-Diotima hugged Dromeus; Dromeus hugged me; Pythax, after an awkward moment of hesitation, stepped forward to hug Dromeus-my father pulled me aside and said quietly, “This puts your marriage to the woman Diotima in a different light.”
“It does?” My spirits lifted.
“The daughter of a prostitute is one thing,” said my father. “The cousin of an Olympic champion is quite another. The prestige of an Olympian in the family may overcome the defect of the mother. Of course it would have been nice if the Olympian had been anyone but Dromeus.”
My spirits fell. “Dromeus couldn’t help it if no one else came to fight him,” I said, oddly echoing his own defense.
“Hmmph.” Sophroniscus half-grunted. “There are still two problems, are there not?”
I stared at him blankly.
“There’s still the issue of the farm, and did you not tell me Dromeus is a suspect for this murder? We could hardly have a murderer in the family.”
It was a good point. Dromeus, so convenient a suspect for both Pericles and the Spartans, would now destroy my last chance of marrying of Diotima if he proved a murderer.
Diotima had no such fears. “I can barely believe it, Nico. I have a male relative, a respectable male relative.”
“Not merely respectable. He’s an Olympic victor.”
“I don’t care about that.” She brushed aside the highest accolade any man can win. “The important thing is I can mention him in public and not have to blush. Not a single taint. Not a slave, not a prostitute. Nothing but respectable.”
“That’s good?”
“Good? It’s wonderful. Don’t you see? All my life I’ve been saddled with this awful reputation that wasn’t my fault. Now suddenly I’ve got some respectability to balance it.”
“I thought you didn’t like Dromeus.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
I hoped it stayed that way when our investigation finished. But it would soon be dusk, so I left Diotima to contemplate her newfound relative while I departed for the secret meeting with the secret informant. I’d have to hurry, or I might be late, and this was a meeting I definitely didn’t want to miss.