Miros rose to his feet angrily, the sound in his throat nothing so much as a growl. A lesser man would have fled the tent at the sight of the expression on his face. But Plinates neither moved nor showed emotion.

"You may thank Zeus that you were my father's friend," Miros said softly. His dark eyes flashed anger, and the cords in his neck stretched at their covering of skin. His big fists clenched and unclenched.

"Yes. I was your father's friend and I am your friend. But I am also the Chief Elder of the village of Arestines and that is my responsibility, even more than friendship."

"Yes," Miros said. "And our village has been fighting the village of Kuristes for five years and now we have a truce for these games and then today I will beat Ottonius of Kuristes and tomorrow we will be at

5

war again with Kuristes. Just as we always have. I fight for our village and our honor."

"How many have died in these five years of fighting?" Plinates asked.

"I don't know. I leave counting to politicians."

"Two hundred and six," Plinates said. "And now, if I tell you that you have it in your power to save perhaps another two hundred? Or four hundred? That you have it in your power to end this war? That you alone can make your village the victor? Then what do you say?"

"I say I am a wrestler," Miros said.

"And I say you are the son of a father who gave his life for the village of Arestines. Do you deny the value of what he did?"

And slowly Miros sat down on the dirt of the tent floor. He kicked away the linens with which he had been wrapping his left knee. He would not need them this day. He knew that and the truth lay in his stomach, as black and as hard as a giant lump of the Arestines coal he had mined for the past thirty years.

That afternoon, Miros of Arestines met Ottonius of Kuristes in the final championship match of Olympic wrestling. The hot Greek sun had coated both their bodies with sweat as they faced each other across the twenty-foot rectangle that had been scored in the earth of the plain, formed where the Qadeus and the Alpheus flowed together.