Temenos shrugged. There was permanent damage―to his psyche, if nothing else. He was bitter and he was angry, but he preferred not to talk about it. “Nothing serious, but I can’t do long marches yet, which is why I’m here. My enomotia is on maneuvers in Messenia.”
Sperchias accepted the explanation up to a point. Temenos was just twenty-five. He would be on active service for another five years, and meanwhile he had to live in barracks and serve with his unit. He could not be away from his unit at this time of day without permission from his commander, so there could be little doubt that his physical condition was less than perfect. Nevertheless, Temenos could have chosen to go to a gymnasium, or he could have visited his parents or done any of a number of other things. He did not have to spend his free time with a helot girl and her two bastards. “Were those your boys?” Sperchias asked, indicating the two little boys that had come around the corner a moment earlier.
At last a smile split Temenos’ serious face, and his eyes followed the boys as they rushed out into the nearby orchards, playing some game of tag only they understood. They were trailed by a half-grown puppy from Leonidas’ famous kennels. “Yes,” Temenos said at last. “Pelops and Kinadon.”
Sperchias considered the two little boys, who he guessed were four and five. They were brown and healthy, dressed only in short chitons cut down from something else, but neatly sewn and trimmed in bright thread by a loving mother. Sperchias felt sorry for the boys. Today they were happy, basking in the love of parents and grandparents, growing up on a large, prosperous estate with lots of horses and dogs to play with, good food (their grandmother Laodice was one of the best bakers of sweets in all Lacedaemon!), and apparent freedom. They did not yet understand that they owned none of the wealth they enjoyed, or that they could not grow up to be like their father. Bastards of a liaison frowned upon by the Spartan government, they would never be more than helots, and Sperchias doubted if Temenos―or the boys themselves―would be happy with that. Certainly they would not be happy when Temenos was forced to take a Spartiate wife, as he eventually would be.
Sperchias’ thoughts were distracted by the arrival of Chryse herself. She was dressed modestly in a long-sleeved striped peplos bound at the waist. She had a snood over her head, and she bowed humbly to Sperchias as she set a kothon of cool water and a plate of flat bread, fresh goat’s cheese, and olives on the bench beside him.
From the house came voices, and a moment later Leonidas emerged, holding up the lame Kyranios on his arm and followed by the nearly blind Nikostratos on Gorgo’s arm. Kyranios had been Sparta’s best lochagos until he was struck down by a stroke during the Battle of Sepeia. For several months he had lain paralyzed on one side, but his fierce will had eventually triumphed. He could now walk with the help of a cane and had limited, if awkward, use of his left arm. Sperchias knew he intended to run for the Gerousia at the next vacancy.
At the sight of Sperchias, Leonidas’ face lit up. “Chi! Why didn’t you tell us you were here? Or did you just come to see what Laodice had in the kitchen? Come join us at the table.” Leonidas gestured with his head while guiding Kyranios to the table under an awning of grape leaves. Sperchias brought his plate and mug and sat opposite the older man, while Nikostratos sat down at the far end facing Leonidas. Gorgo settled herself beside her husband.
“I want your opinion,” Leonidas addressed his friend. “We were just discussing if there might be some way to get word to Persia that we regretted the murder of the ambassadors, without appearing to submit to their demands.”
“Send me, Leonidas!” Sperchias burst out. He knew instantly that this was his destiny.
Leonidas looked stunned, and Kyranios barked, “Don’t be ridiculous! They’d kill you.”
“Yes. Better me than the whole city. If we don’t do something to appease them, they’ll descend upon us all―with the Gods on their side. Let them kill me, if it will sate their anger.”
“Which it won’t,” Nikostratos countered firmly. “They sent the ambassadors here with the message that we were to submit to them or they would conquer us. Since we’re not going to submit without a fight, nothing will stop them from coming. Your death would serve nothing.”
“It might appease the Gods,” Sperchias insisted, his eyes only on his friend.
Leonidas was shaking his head, his expression worried. “You tried to stop the murders, Chi! You were the one who managed to save the interpreter. Dienekes and I were too far away and couldn’t have gotten there in time. If you hadn’t intervened, it would have been too late.” Chi unconsciously felt the scab over his lip, where he’d been injured in the scuffle to get the interpreter out of the hands of the mob. “The Gods don’t want your blood, Chi, they want Brotus’―and that of his thugs!”
“I must admit, sending Brotus to the Great King’s court to apologize for what he did does have a certain charm,” Nikostratos remarked with a chuckle.
The others looked at the aging councilman for a moment, but Leonidas brought them back to reality. “He won’t go.”
“Might he be convinced to send a pair of his followers? Bulis, for example? He first disgraced himself in the affair with Temenos, and he was one of the men who upended the senior ambassador over the well,” Kyranios reminded them.
“You think Bulis is so loyal to Brotus, he’d be willing to die for him?” Leonidas asked back, alarmed.
“Good question.”
“We could at least suggest it,” Nikostratos persisted. “I’ll put it to the ephors.”
“Speaking of ephors,” Kyranios started, “this lot ought to be hanged! They mismanaged the whole affair. They should have admitted we had no kings, rather than coming up with that masquerade! And you shouldn’t have been part of it,” Kyranios told Leonidas pointedly before returning to his topic. “We need to ensure that better men stand for election this year.”
“Chi?” Leonidas turned to his friend.
“What?”
“Will you stand for ephor at the next election?”
“Leo! I’m not yet forty, and everyone knows I’m your protégé.”
“Exactly,” Kyranios remarked dryly.
Sperchias looked from one to the other and finally to Nikostratos. “This city is afraid of what it’s done, Chi,” the old man explained. “It’s afraid of the omens, and it knows you were one of the few voices of reason in that mob―you and Leonidas and Dienekes. We need to exploit those sentiments while we can, because we need a strong government.”
“Is that what you think, too, Leo?” Sperchias looked at his friend. Sperchias had wanted to be elected to public office ever since they’d gone off active service. He’d run for one office after another, and had only a string of electoral defeats to show for it. The prospect of being elected to the most powerful and prestigious of all offices was at once immeasurably tempting and overwhelmingly intimidating. For a second, he was filled with the ambitions of his youth and visions of all that he could do, but then the weight of a decade of defeats settled upon him again. “You know I’ll do whatever you ask of me, but what makes you think I’ll win this time?”
“You’ll win,” Kyranios told him simply. “And so will Dienekes. It’s the other three candidates I’m worried about. Alkander―”
“No.” Leonidas cut his former commander short. “I won’t subject him to what they’d put him through―all the slanders about his stutter as a boy and questions about whether a mothake qualifies for public office. Besides, I want him appointed Paidonomos as soon as Alcidas is finally dismissed. Furthermore, I’d rather have Dienekes appointed hippagretai than ephor―he’s the ideal man to appoint guardsmen and he’s the kind of commander we need.”
“Granted,” Kyranios conceded at once. “But that means we need four reliable candidates besides Sperchias here.”
“Why don’t you run yourself?” Nikostratos suggested, adding before Kyranios could protest, “It won’t disqualify you from running for the Gerousia, if a position becomes vacant, but we have no
way of knowing when one of the current councilmen might die. Better to have you elected ephor now. When the Persians get wind of what happened here, we will face the greatest threat in our history, and the army will be leaderless without kings. Unless we can get the Assembly to accept Pleistarchos and name Leonidas regent, we will be facing the Persians under the command of a venial usurper.”
“What about my father?” Gorgo broke into the conversation, amazed that Nikostratos could talk like this, as if her father were already dead.
Nikostratos at once looked contrite and assured her, “Child, you know your father cannot be entrusted with command―not after what he did in Argos.”
“I’m not suggesting he should be given command, but the last we heard he was making trouble in Arkadia. He is said to be trying to stir up our allies against us. Don’t you see he will use this incident with the Persian ambassadors? He will tell the Arkadians that it proves we cannot govern ourselves, and that he must be restored to his throne or the Persians will come and destroy us all. If he talks them into taking up arms against us, we could find ourselves facing an army led by him. We’ve got to find a way to bring him home,” Gorgo insisted, all her fears for her father bubbling up. The men stared at her with looks that betrayed they had not thought of this.
Then Nikostratos patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, child. When we get our slate of ephors elected we will send an embassy to your father, assuring him he has been forgiven and urging him to come home.”
Gorgo looked skeptical.
“We’ll do better than that, love,” Leonidas added, pulling Gorgo into his arms and kissing the top of her head. “We’ll send you! Your father will come home if you ask him to.”
The crowds were noticeably larger at the Orestes gymnasium, where Brotus coached both boxers and competitors for the pankrantion. Brotus took it as an indication that support for him and his claim to the Agiad throne were growing. He noted, too, that ever since he and his followers had thrown the Persian ambassadors down a well, people took him more seriously. He’d shown leadership and decisiveness, and the Spartans admired that. They admired strength. The way his brother and his followers had run about like a bunch of old women, whimpering about “diplomatic immunity” and fretting about offending the Gods, had completely discredited them. Brotus felt stronger than ever.
That strength encouraged him and buoyed him up. Here among his admirers, he could always be sure of harvesting laughter whenever he made jokes at the expense of his twin. As he encouraged Philocyon, his favorite protégé and hope for an Olympic crown in the pankrantion, Brotus called out, “Squeeze his balls till he peeps like my brother’s little eunuch friend!” Everyone standing about in the shade of the peristyle roared with laughter, while the antagonists continued their brutal, no-holds-barred struggle, twisting, gouging, and kicking.
“Isn’t it amazing how my brother’s menagerie is growing?” Brotus asked, basking in the obvious approval of the crowd. “First he adopted that stutterer Alkander, then he brought back from Athens a dithering old Thespian schoolmaster, next he appointed that loser Oliantus his deputy, and soon he started sheltering that helot-lover Temenos. Now he’s as good as adopted that moron Maron, and most recently gave refuge to a Chian eunuch! If he keeps on collecting human rubbish, he’s going to need a special place to put them all.” Brotus laughed so hard at his own joke that he didn’t notice the others weren’t laughing.
The struggle between the two eirenes had ended with a victory for Brotus’ protégé, Philocyon. Brotus ignored the loser and gave his hand to help the victor to his feet. He offered the youth his critique as they walked to the spacious dressing room, where athletes scraped sweat and sand from their bodies and oiled themselves down.
Brotus snapped his fingers at one of the helots, growling: “Can’t you see we need water?” Then he addressed the young athlete in a low voice, “So, is Pausanias ready for the Phouxir?” In only two months’ time his eldest son would face the demanding test of living outside society for forty days. Brotus worried that the boy might disgrace him.
“Don’t worry about Pausanias,” Philocyon retorted with a grin at his trainer. “I’ve got everything set up for him.” Brotus had ensured that Alcidas appointed Philocyon as Pausanias’ eirene.
Brotus clapped the young man on his shoulder and nodded contentedly before saying in a louder voice, “Yes, you should be up to competing at Delphi next year, if you keep up your training.” Then Brotus left the dressing room by the far door, stepping on to the back porch facing the open grassy field where athletes practiced running, discus, javelin, and long jump. A line of plane trees marked the border of the gymnasium property some fifteen yards away, and the shrine to Orestes stretched between the palaestra porch and the trees at one end, while a simple stoa closed off the fourth side.
There were only a handful of youth practicing javelin at the moment, but a group of men were clustered in earnest discussion in the shade of the stoa. Brotus went to join them. Orthryades was leaning against a column, looking calmly superior as always, but Lysimachos was clearly agitated.
“What’s the matter?” Brotus asked.
“Your brother and his wife!” Lysimachos spat out. “First he let her go to her father, and now we’ve had word she’s talked him into coming home. The last thing we need is for that wily old fox to come back here and dump his fat ass firmly on the Agiad throne again. Things were going our way!”
Brotus frowned, but then he shrugged. “When he gets back, he’ll remind people of just how crazy he really is! Besides, the way I heard it, for some reason he refused to return before the solstice. Meanwhile, with Gorgo away, little Leo is weaker.” Brotus would never forget or forgive the way Gorgo had snatched the victor’s crown right out from under his fingers and handed it to his brother at the festival to Artemis Orthia. “There must be some way to use her absence to our advantage,” he suggested, looking hopefully at Orthryades.
The older man nodded with a faint smile. Brotus was learning, he thought to himself. “It’s time we took the offensive against Leonidas’ pack of self-pitying dogs! His case against Alcidas is based almost entirely on the testimony of that stutterer Alkander―who everyone knows was a coward―and a half-dozen sniveling eirenes who don’t deserve citizenship. Alcidas, surely you can discredit the lot of them?” he asked, turning to the embattled schoolmaster.
Alcidas’ face was expressionless as usual, but he raised an eyebrow. “Alkander has discredited himself by quitting his post last spring.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “In addition, I think we can be confident that his eldest son will fail the Phouxir.” He added this with a twitch of his lips that suggested he was pleased with the arrangements he had made to ensure it. “As for the eirenes, I think we need only make a lesson of one of them: Maron. The others have fathers, whom we need not alienate. But Maron is an orphan―and he’s turned into Leonidas’ lap dog. If we expose him as a liar and a cheat, Leonidas’ whole case against me will collapse.”
Maron and his brother Alpheus had been invited to spend the ten-day festival of Herakles at Leonidas’ kleros, but Maron had been summoned to report to Alcidas at noon on the second day of the holiday. As the afternoon wore on and he still hadn’t returned, Alpheus started to get nervous. By the end of the afternoon watch, he could stand the waiting no longer. He approached Leonidas, who was discussing various aspects of farm management with Pelopidas in the shade of the front colonnade, and announced, “Sir, I think I should go into the city and find out what’s happened to Maron.”
Leonidas looked at the youth and considered him. Alpheus was the brighter and better-looking of the two boys, and usually the more cheerful. Maron was shy and withdrawn, often acting as if he were ashamed to speak up for fear of ridicule. He was also slow to smile, like a man nursing an inner grief. Alpheus and Agiatis seemed to be the only ones able to overcome Maron’s reticence and get him to talk and laugh. But it was rare to see Alpheus nervous and brooding. “What is it?” Leon
idas asked him.
“The Paidonomos hates my brother, sir. Ever since the Feast of Artemis Orthia.”
“No,” Leonidas corrected, “Alcidas hates me, and he is attacking me by attacking your brother. But what is bothering you so much right now?”
“I don’t know,” Alpheus admitted uncomfortably. “I just have a bad feeling. Maron has been so miserable lately. The Paidonomos has made him feel worthless. He told me the other day that he didn’t deserve his citizenship because he wasn’t smart enough to become a citizen, and that it would be better for me if he just ‘disappeared.’”
Leonidas unconsciously straightened and his voice was taut. “When did he say that?”
“Shortly before the Herakleia. I―I brushed him off and said he was just tired, and a holiday would do him good….” Alpheus admitted guiltily. “Now I’m afraid―”
“Pelopidas, ask one of your boys to tack up two of the horses. We’ll go into town at once, Alpheus.”
With school out, the agoge was deserted, but Alcidas was in his office, and that was where Leonidas found him, leaving Alpheus out in front. As always, the two enemies were exceedingly polite to each other. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Alcidas,” Leonidas opened.
“Not at all, not at all. Please sit down. What brings you into the city in the middle of the holiday? I thought you would have been enjoying the time off duty on your kleros or even in Messenia.”
“It seems the same duty brought me here as you.”
“Me? But I am just going through the school accounts. What has that to do with you?”
“You sent for Maron.”
“Indeed, I did, as it was my duty to do as soon as I discovered that he has been embezzling state funds. Since the courts are closed, I cannot officially file charges against him until after the Herakleia, but I thought it only fair to warn him.”
“Embezzling?”
“Yes, do you need to see the proof? It is right here.” He patted the accounts. “On more than one occasion, he has drawn more supplies than he is entitled to for his unit.”
A Heroic King Page 18
