Read Sacred Games for Free Online

the strongest man who ever lived, barring Heracles himself. You’ve never heard of Milo?” said the fake Heracles.
    “This is our first Olympics,” I said.
    “This is my fifth.” He smiled. He’d scored a point over us. “I’m from Elis. I come to every Games.”
    I inspected the club. It really was a solid piece of twisted wood. I handed it back.
    “You should be careful with that; you might hurt someone.”
    The club hung limply from his hands. “It’s just a game. I’ll be more careful. So, what do you think of the festival agora?”
    “I don’t know,” said Diotima. “You’re standing in my way.”
    “Oh. Sorry.” Fake Heracles stepped back to reveal a vista of the festival ground of Olympia.
    Men and women in gaudy festival clothes moved like a flowing rainbow among the stalls and displays. Jugglers wandered among the crowd, tossing and catching balls with blinding speed. Flute girls swayed and played their lilting tunes.
    “Oh, Nico,” Diotima breathed. She took my hand and stepped into the swirling crowd.
    We wandered from stall to stall. Vendors had come from all over Hellas to sell every imaginable thing: fine jewelry, beautiful cloths of many colors and patterns; bronze ware that shone in the sun, plus fine food. A man stirred a large kettle of sizzling spiced lentils. His wife handed out steaming bowls to those with coin. Every second stall sold wine.
    I bought silver earrings for Diotima, because they matched her headband, and a bronze mirror because I knew she didn’t have one with her. The earrings were in the shape of bears, the animal sacred to the goddess Artemis, whom my Diotima serves as priestess.
    We came across three more Heracleses. One of them lifted avast block of stone, his every muscle straining to burst through his skin, before he tossed it over his shoulder to the applause of the onlookers.
    “This is what I imagine it must be like every day for the Gods on Mount Olympus,” Diotima said. “Can you imagine walking through such a crowd and coming face-to-face with a goddess?”
    “I already have,” I told her, and she blushed.
    Naked acrobats tumbled and somersaulted past us.
    I put my arm around Diotima’s waist and squeezed tight. It wouldn’t have been proper to kiss my wife in full public view, but the temptation was almost overwhelming.
    “Why don’t we go back to your tent for some tumbling of our own?” I whispered into her ear.
    “What will you do if Pythax catches us? He’s already furious with you.”
    “I’ll point out you can only break a pot once,” I told her.
    Diotima smiled, but she hesitated. “I’d love to, Nico, but … let’s use your tent. I wouldn’t want the other women to think you were a custom … er, that is, not my …”
    Diotima had a horror of anything that could possibly be misconstrued to suggest she was a professional woman, as her mother once had been. Her background, paradoxically, had made her more prim and proper than the most natural-born of citizen women.
    I said, “Wouldn’t it look even worse if you were seen walking into a tent in the men’s camp?”
    “Men don’t notice. The women have nothing better to do than spy on one another and gossip.”
    When we returned to my tent, a message awaited me, scrawled untidily into a wax tablet and left to lie on the ground. It read:
    Pericles says this to Nicolaos: Timodemus has been reinstated. The Spartans are furious. Keep a close eye on your friend
.
    Diotima had rested her chin on my arm and read along with me.
    “I’ll have to go at once.” I sighed.
    “How long do you think this tablet has been here?” Diotima asked.
    “Could be as long as half the afternoon.”
    “Then he can wait a little longer,” said Diotima. She pressed her body against me, put her arms about my neck, and raised her face to be kissed. I was instantly aroused. I pulled the shoulder pins from her dress, and it fell to the floor.
    “N OW T IMO, DO you promise me you’ll go into that