Olympiad Tom Holt

by Olympiad (lit)

  Hipposthenes studied Sarpedon's face for a while, then said, 'That really bothers you, doesn't it? Fear of being forgotten, I mean.'

  'Of course it bothers me. Doesn't it bother you?'

  Hipposthenes pursed his lips. 'A little,' he said. 'But then, I've still got plenty of time.

  'And I haven't,' Sarpedon said. 'So you see, this is just what I've been looking for. Now, you wouldn't deny an old man a chance at immortality, would you?'

  And so - to my amazement and more than slight disgust - it was decided; Sarpedon would take over the throne of Aegina, as the heir nominated by Pentheus and also as the legal guardian of Pentheus' widow. To mark his accession, and mourn the loss of King Pentheus -

  - I promise you; when the princes told us what they had in mind, I thought it must be a joke. Not a very funny one, but maybe (I thought) there were some subtleties of Megaran humour we hadn't mastered yet. When I realised they were serious, I nearly fell off my chair -

  - Funeral games would be held, on a scale never before seen on Aegina, with competitors from as far afield as Megara, Athens and Elis- 'Elis?' I asked. Oenophilus smiled sweetly at me. 'That's you,' he said. 'Me?'

  Well, I was so utterly stunned I couldn't find any words; the god had emptied my heart and filled it with goose-feathers. So, in default of further objections, the motion was carried - it'd have been carried even if I'd objected like mad, since, after all, they were the princes. 'It'll help smooth over the transfer of power like nothing else,' Oenophilus assured me. 'And if we imply - nothing said out loud, of course, but it's easy enough to give an impression - if we imply that we regard these games as not just for Pentheus but for all the Aeginetans who were killed in the battle, regardless of which side they were on - well, it's the best way I can think of to give your uncle a good start and help the locals get on with their lives. After all,' he continued, looking at Cleander, 'someone once told me games are like war, except that wars create wounds and unsettle cities, games heal wounds and settle cities down. And I couldn't agree more.'

  Cleander, the fool, nodded. 'And,' he added, 'it's the last serious chance we've got of recruiting games-players. Just think, if we can draw them here from Athens-'

  Needn't have worried on that score. On the eastern side of the island, away from where we were, there was another small city; its people hadn't had much to do with either the rightful kings or the Corinthians, and tended to stay on their side of the mountain if they could, but they were keen enough to come over the rocks to play games, and what's more, they were good friends with a number of the better sort in Athens (which is only a day's sail away; they reckon that on a clear day you can see Attica from Aegina, but I couldn't be bothered to try this for myself). No; visitors from Athens weren't really at the forefront of my mind. The only foreign visitors I gave any thought to were Corinthians, who wouldn't be showing up to play games. Fortunately, they didn't materialise, whereas two shiploads of Athenians did, along with a party from Troezen (who must have hitched a ride on the backs of eagles to get there in time) and even a solitary Theban, who'd happened to be on the way to Aegina when we landed. All told, we had twenty-one games-players competing; four wrestlers, four boxers, six runners, five chariot-racers, four jumpers and three heavy wrestlers - yes, I know that's more than twenty-one, but some people took part in more than one event. If you want me to be more precise than that, hard luck.

  Things went well. It was a warm day, not much wind, and the marshals (some of Hipposthenes' people who'd done this sort of thing before) were up well before dawn marking out, piling up stones, pacing out distances, raking the dirt, rooting out stones and tree stumps. People started coming in about mid-morning, while Cleander and I were supervising the building of the funeral pyre. Being an island, Aegina isn't all that wonderfully off for gash wood, and the locals were muttering something about using another source of fuel - thatching reed, they suggested, or bean-helm or - I'm not kidding - dried cow-dung, which the smallholders burned on their fires in winter. Well, part of me could see how fitting it would be for Pentheus' ghost to be freed from its corporeal prison in an inferno of blazing cowshit; but there were appearances to consider, not to mention the smell. I borrowed a few men-at-arms from Uncle Sarpedon (he'd appropriated a dozen of the princes' Sardinian soldiers-of-fortune; evil as they come, didn't care what they did) and went foraging for damaged furniture in the houses of the dead Corinthians. By the time the Sardinians had finished enjoying themselves, there was enough damaged furniture to spit-roast an army, let alone one man.

  Once we had the pyre built, and the platform for the marshals, and the stand for the chief mourners and guests of honour, it was after midday, cool enough to get on with the funeral and start the games. I'll say this for the Aeginetans, they know how to appreciate a good funeral. Cleander and I were the two front pallbearers, so I was in a good position to see the contented faces and nods of approval as we went through all the ordained palaver of grief, while the gaggle of old biddies we'd hired to be the Women in Mourning played an absolute blinder - shrieking, sobbing, thumping their temples with the heels of their hands, ripping out great bunches of hair, gouging their cheeks with their nails until the blood actually flowed; they couldn't have put on a better show, even though I don't suppose one in five of them had the slightest idea who they were supposed to be mourning for. Anyway, after they'd finished, one of Oenophilus' stewards took them back to the palace for a hearty feed and a jar or three of wine, which they'd thoroughly deserved.

  We, of course - the princes, Cleander, Sarpedon and me - we were chief mourners and had to go through the whole business with long faces and sad frowns. Sarpedon managed some tears as he set the torch to the pyre - he told me later he'd got an onion crushed up in the palm of his left hand - and I did the best I could by looking down at the ground and dragging my feet as I walked. All things considered, it was a perfectly respectable display of grief, though ironically, the only person in the whole world who was sad because Pentheus was dead wasn't there; Dusa refused to come, and actually cracked Prince Oenophilus round the head with an earthenware plate when he tried to reason with her.

  The cremation itself nearly went blue on us; we hadn't layered the pyre properly, and when it was just going nicely and the flames were getting presentably high, the whole thing started to shift alarmingly, threatening to topple over and dump burning logs into the crowd. The invaluable Sardinians saved the day, jumping up on to the pyre itself in their thick-soled boots and pushing it all back into shape with their spears, for which they got a splendid round of applause from the crowd. The singing of the hymn went perfectly -it's a real bitch getting the timing right so the hymn comes to an end just as the fire dies down. Sing too quickly, you finish early and have to stand around like overlooked figs on a tree; sing too slowly, and the fire's out before you've finished, and you have to hurry like mad through the last few verses. This time, though, we got it right. We were quietly pleased with ourselves; we'd put on a good show.

  It was only afterwards, when we were raking through the ashes for the bones, that we realised the mistake we'd made. We couldn't find any bones. Not so much as a charred knuckle.

  Prince Hipposthenes drew me aside and whispered, 'You did remember to bring the body.'

  I looked at him. 'Me?' I said. 'I thought Oenophilus was seeing to that.'

  The prince rolled his eyes. 'Bugger,' he said. 'I'll bet you the crowstruck thing's still back at the palace. How can anybody have a funeral and forget the damn body?'

  I clicked my tongue. 'Can't be helped now,' I said. 'I don't suppose anyone's noticed. We'll just have to fish out some bits of twig that look like bones and bury them instead.'

  So that's what we did; and it was a few blackened stumps of chair-leg and spear-shaft that got wrapped in fat, dowsed in wine and laid reverently to rest in a tasteful gold jar under a cairn of stones. Sure enough, when we got back to the palace that evening, Pentheus was where we'd left him; so while Sarpedon stood watch to make sure Du
sa didn't see us, Hipposthenes and I wrapped him up in a torn sail and gave him to the Sardinians, who took a row-boat out into the bay when it was dark and chucked him over the side.

  Back to the fun; after the interment we took off our white cloaks and put them under our chairs, and told the marshals to start the games. Sarpedon gave the order, and sat in the high seat where the king usually sits and hands out the prizes. Of course, the locals didn't know who he was, or who any of us were; don't suppose they cared all that much, either.

  Here are my recollections of the boxing match, in which I personally took part. I was drawn against an Athenian, whose name is on the tip of my tongue. Before I'd even had a chance to take guard, he smacked me on the chin. That's all I can remember about the boxing match.

  What about the other events? Let's see; the running race. An Athenian called Hipponicus was the clear favourite, with the other five considered to be pretty well matched. This Hipponicus certainly looked like he meant business while he was warming up -running on the spot, doing frog-hops, swinging his arms and doing that thing where you sprint forwards a few steps and then come to a screaming halt - and he looked even meaner and more determined waiting for the off, with the toes of his front foot curled into the little trench the marshals had scraped in the dirt to mark the start line, his arms outstretched as if he was getting ready to catch something, his head very slightly turned towards where the herald was standing - so the sound of the trumpet would reach his ear that much quicker, I guess. And he made a wonderful start, too; it was a pity his specially tailored runner's shorts came adrift, wound themselves round his knees and sent him down on his nose a few heartbeats later, because I'm sure he'd have won otherwise. I can't remember now who actually did win - it was one of the Megarans, but the name's gone. Isn't that crazy? I can remember who lost the race, but not who won it.

  The jumping was quite exciting; one of the two games-players from Troezen made a fantastic jump, nearly ten paces, but was disqualified by the marshals because he landed left foot first, and so didn't make a clear two-footed mark in the dirt. He was quite calm about the decision, but his brother, the other Troezenian, got rather upset and waved his arms about a lot, even going so far as to chuck a jumping-weight at the herald. Fortunately he missed - they're heavy, those things - and the weight went ever such a long way before it landed, prompting the herald to say that it was a shame we weren't having a weight-throwing event at these games, or the Troezenian would've won it for sure. The winning jump, made by a Megaran called Timoleon, was a measly six and a half paces; a fine example of the best man not winning, though of course that's supposed to be impossible.

  The chariot race was a non-event, really; not that I'd want to suggest collusion or fixing or anything, but the field as they came into the final straight looked like some sort of sacred procession, with Prince Hipposthenes way out in front and everybody else keeping a respectful distance. Since Hipposthenes had also donated the prize - a rather lovely tripod and cauldron with gryphon feet, the pick of his share of the plunder from the late king's personal storeroom - it all seemed rather pointless, but it kept the prince happy, and the crowd cheered like mad when he crossed the line. Once he was safely home, the remaining competitors put on a terrific spurt (maybe there hadn't been any directions about who was supposed to come second), and two chariots collided and got pretty comprehensively wrecked, so that the eventual second-place winner crossed the line on his bare axles and facing the wrong way, having lost his wheels, boom and horses in the pile-up. Third-place winner protested; but the marshals, after a long debate, declared the result valid. The second-place man was an Aeginetan, which I think had something to do with it; so long as he won, Hipposthenes didn't mind allowing a little glory to a local man, as a gesture of goodwill.

  The orthodox wrestling was good, vulgar fun; an Aeginetan called Gonnadas won one heat, and met a Megaran by the name of Taxander for the final. The start of the bout was a somewhat tense moment up on the platform; if the Megaran killed or maimed the local boy, or if (even worse) he cheated, there was a chance that we could end up fighting our way back to the ships before nightfall. In the event, however, it was a thoroughly good-natured bout, more a test of strength than anything involving skill. After a few desultory holds, the two men decided between themselves to make it a matter of who could lift who off the ground first. Taxander may even have thrown the fight, I don't know; he looked a far more likely prospect for most of the time, then suddenly seemed to get tired and let Gonnadas pick him up like a jar of olives. Not to be outdone, Gonnadas chose to forgo the first prize (a silver-hilted sword with a bronze-studded scabbard and matching belt) and take the second prize instead - a young but not particularly special-looking slave girl, formerly the wife of one of the Corinthians, who was in fact, as we later discovered, Gonnadas' niece.

  The last event was the heavy wrestling; and there we had a problem, namely only three competitors. That meant either giving one of them a bye straight to the final, which always looks bad, or finding someone to make up a fourth. Now, since two of the three games-players we did have were Megarans and the third was an Athenian, it made sense not to recruit an Aeginetan - we'd got this far without starting a riot, and heavy wrestling is probably the one event most likely to result in serious injury. Unfortunately, it's also a skilled business; you can't just pitch someone on to the floor and tell him to get on with it; against a trained opponent he won't last the time it takes to peel an apple. In the end, it turned out that the only man qualified to take part was Prince Oenophilus, who'd apparently been quite good at the game a few years before, when a back injury made him give it up.

  Faced with a choice between getting thrown over someone 's shoulder in a good cause and spoiling the show with a bye, Oenophilus finally agreed to do the decent thing, and allowed us to dowse him down with oil and dust, ready for the start. The ballot matched him against the Athenian - he'd had it fixed that way so as to spare himself the embarrassment of being beaten by one of his own people - and they squared off in the usual way. Before the bout started, Oenophilus had told us his plan was to dodge around just long enough to show he wasn't a complete novice, then give the Athenian a nice, clean opening for a quick, fairly gentle throw.

  I think it would all have worked out just fine if the Athenian hadn't tried to bite the prince's nose off. For one thing, biting isn't really allowed, even in heavy wrestling; more to the point, Oenophilus had something of a vain streak in his nature - he'd apparently been very good-looking as a boy, with plenty of genuine admirers around his father's court, and although he'd inevitably lost the looks as he grew older, he was still self-absorbed enough to react badly to someone who'd just given him some ugly and permanent scars right where everybody couldn't help seeing them. So he lost his temper a little, which meant that he fought both vigorously and extremely badly, giving the Athenian no choice but to throw him around a bit, purely in self-defence. At one point he scored a quite obvious throw, but as soon as the marshal came up to announce the end of the bout he got an eyeful of concentrated majesty and, very wisely, backed off.

  The Athenian saw that he was in a fix, and that the bout was going to continue until the prince won, rules or no rules, so he decided to accept the inevitable and make it as painless for himself as possible - you could see the thought being put into his heart, even from where I was sitting. So he opened his defence for a nice, conclusive throw that'd end the match and not break any bones; but the prince wasn't having that, he was downright angry by now, the way usually quiet and peaceful men get sometimes when they've had a lot to put up with and want to take it out on someone. So, instead of accepting the opening, he went for a rather more flamboyant throw, one which involved getting the other man over his shoulders and pitching him across the floor like a sack. Unfortunately he muffed the manoeuvre; and the Athenian, who was still expecting him to take the opening, dropped his own head down just as the prince's head was coming up. There was a crack they must have heard in Arcadia; th
e Athenian wobbled and nearly fell over backwards, while Oenophilus dropped to the ground with blood pouring from his forehead, where the Athenian's teeth had cut him. Luckily, the Athenian had the wit to fall over (otherwise he'd have won the bout, like it or not); he looked as if he was planning on staying there and conceding, but he wasn't given the chance. As soon as Oenophilus managed to get back on his feet, he charged over, grabbed the Athenian by the arm, dragged him upright and stabbed him right in the pit of the stomach with his outstretched fingers.

  Now that's a neat, quick way to kill someone if you judge it right; but the prince didn't, and the Athenian, who was clearly terrified and afraid for his life, reacted on pure reflex and lashed out with his left hand, catching the prince a terrific blow on the side of the head. Oenophilus reeled away, roaring like a bull, grabbed a chair off the platform behind him and took a swing at the Athenian, who had no alternative but to step sideways or get mashed.

  Either Oenophilus' brains were a bit shaken up by the punch, or he couldn't see properly because of all the blood in his eyes; whatever the reason, he staggered forward into the space where the Athenian now wasn't, tripped over one of the feet of the chair and fell heavily across it, catching the chair-arm in his mouth as he fell, with all his weight behind him. The effect was pretty catastrophic; a fractured jaw and well over half his teeth smashed like a row of pots. Even so he tried to get up and have another shot at the Athenian (who'd tried to run away, but was being held back by one of the Sardinians); after a valiant attempt to stand, however, Oenophilus wavered and slowly dropped on to the ground, out cold.