A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  “How much more?”

  “Oh, it varies. Here, for example.” Alcidas had the evidence at his fingertips, marked for easy reference. He was very sure of himself, and he couldn’t resist showing Leonidas just how solid his evidence was. “The boys are entitled to an ounce and a half of oil a day. Maron has sixteen boys and because of a holiday he was drawing for a period of seventeen days rather than the usual twenty, but instead of drawing 407 ounces he drew 429.”

  “That’s hardly going to break the treasury.”

  “I should have known you’d take that kind of indulgent attitude,” Alcidas sneered, “but I do not believe in indulging theft, no matter how petty it may seem to someone of your wealth. It is the principle that matters. Stealing from the state treasury is stealing from all of us, most particularly from the poorer members of our society.” This was the argument that was going to hold water in Assembly, Alcidas thought to himself.

  Leonidas noted mentally that Alkander had endured under this pompous ass longer than he would have done; the man was dangerously self-righteous. He answered, “You put Maron under arrest?”

  “No. I saw no need for that. If he runs away, he not only admits his guilt but proves himself a coward as well. Besides, there are not enough meleirenes on duty during the holiday to keep watch on the punishment cell.”

  “So where is he?”

  “How should I know? I told him I had discovered his systematic theft of state property and that I would take the matter up with the proper authorities as soon as the Herakleia is over. Then I dismissed him.”

  “When was that?”

  “Hours ago. Why?”

  Leonidas stood. “It is not important to you. Good day.” He walked out calmly to disguise his agitation, but once he’d left the agoge building he signaled urgently to Alpheus. “He left hours ago, after being told he was under suspicion of embezzling public funds―”

  “That’s absurd! Maron wouldn’t know how―”

  “Shhh! I know. We’ve got to find him. Where would he go after hearing something like that? One of the temples? A close friend?”

  Alpheus was shaking his head vigorously. “It’s not that he doesn’t have friends. I mean he gets along with everyone, but he doesn’t feel like he fits in with the others. That’s why he’s been so pleased to spend holidays with you.”

  “What about a girl?” Leonidas was thinking of how Temenos had turned to Chryse at the same age, finding in her the comfort and reassurance he had not received from his family or peers.

  But Alpheus shook his head again.

  “Where could he have gone?” Leonidas persisted.

  Alpheus thought a moment and then decided, “Our mother’s grave. It’s in an orchard, and when we were children he used to go there to talk to her sometimes when things were really bad. He remembered her, you see.”

  “Take me there.”

  It was a mixed orchard and some of the trees were heavy with green fruit. A light breeze stirred the long grass between the trunks. A small herd of goats was straying through the far edge, their bells clanging. Everything seemed peaceful.

  Then Alpheus spotted him. Maron was stretched out lifelessly on the grass. Only as they came nearer, leaving the horses behind, did they see the noose still around his neck and the broken branch beside him.

  Alpheus ran forward and flung himself on the ground beside his brother, turning him over, calling his name. Leonidas went down on one knee and took the limp wrist in his hand to feel for a pulse. His own distress blotted it out at first, but then he felt it. “He’s alive. Stay with him. I’ll fetch water.”

  Alpheus pulled the noose off over his brother’s head and talked to his unconscious brother in a stream of angry insults. “You idiot! What did you think you were doing? How could you do such a stupid thing? Don’t you give a damn about me?” The flood of curses almost disguised the fact that he was crying. Leonidas paused to lay a hand on his shoulder. Only after Alpheus had calmed down and was just holding his brother in his arms did Leonidas go back to the horses and take one to ride to the nearest fountain.

  By the time he returned, Maron had come to. As Leonidas approached, he heard the brothers speaking.

  “…But it doesn’t matter if it was a mistake,” Maron was saying earnestly. His rasping voice betrayed the violence done to his windpipe by the noose before the branch broke.

  “Of course it matters! You’re not a thief, Maron. All you did was multiply wrong!”

  “I know, but that’s the point! I’m too stupid to become a citizen. Sparta doesn’t need idiots.”

  “Just because you aren’t particularly good with numbers doesn’t make you an idiot!” Alpheus protested, in the exasperated tone of someone who has said the same thing many times and is tired of repeating himself.

  Leonidas stepped into the circle and handed the goatskin to Maron. “I brought some water.”

  “How did―?” Maron looked at Alpheus.

  “He went to the Paidonomos.”

  “But then he must have told you, sir? About the money.” Maron looked down miserably.

  Leonidas went down on his heels, pressing the ignored goatskin on Maron. “Drink slowly. It will help your throat.”

  Maron glanced up and met Leonidas’ eyes. “Aren’t you angry with me, sir?”

  “Why in the name of the Twins should I be angry with you?”

  “For―for stealing.”

  “Were you stealing?”

  Maron lifted his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Not intentionally, but in effect.”

  “He’s just not very good with numbers,” Alpheus tried to explain. “He’d memorized the quantities for each item, but whenever there was a holiday or something varied, he―”

  Leonidas waved Alpheus silent. “Maron, do you think I am a good Spartan?”

  “Yes, sir! One of the best!” Maron told him, so earnestly that Leonidas would have laughed if the circumstances had been different.

  “Do you think I know what is good for Lacedaemon?”

  “Yes, sir!” Maron assured him.

  “Then I want you to listen to what I am going to say very carefully, and I want you to remember it and remind yourself of it whenever you doubt yourself. Are you listening?”

  Maron looked at him with wide, dark eyes under a forehead creased with concentration―anticipating that what Leonidas was about to say would be hard to understand and memorize.

  “Sparta needs good men. It needs clever men.” Leonidas heard Alpheus suck in his breath in outrage, but Maron just stared at him like a calf looking at the butcher. “And it needs men who are not so clever.” Alpheus let out his breath in relief, but Maron still looked like a steer awaiting slaughter.

  Leonidas took a deep breath and dropped on to the ground to make himself more comfortable. He looked up at the branches overhead and had an inspiration. “Maron, what kind of trees are in this orchard?”

  “Plums, pears, apples, apricots, and almonds.”

  Leonidas nodded. “And which is the best fruit?”

  “Do you mean, which do I like most?”

  “No, which is most important for Lacedaemon?”

  Maron frowned harder and glanced at Alpheus, but his younger brother lifted his shoulders and shook his head to indicate he didn’t know the answer, either. After a moment he gave up and admitted, “I don’t know, sir. I can’t work out which is most important.” As he spoke, he hung his head in despair over his own stupidity.

  “That’s because they are all equally important,” Leonidas told him. He waited. “Do you understand what I am saying? We are all equally important. Lacedaemon needs us all.” Then he couldn’t control himself and added a little flippantly, “With some rare exceptions like Alcidas and my brother Brotus.” Alpheus laughed, but Maron was confused and looked back and forth between them. Leonidas grew serious again. “That was just a joke―about my brother, I mean. I am very serious about Sparta needing you, Orsiphantus’ son Maron―”

  “But I’
m not good at anything!” Maron protested. “If you knew―”

  Leonidas cut him short. “I know a great deal more about you, Maron, than you think. I know you are more dependable than most of the so-called ‘clever’ boys―including your own brother here.” Leonidas said this with a quick grin at Alpheus, who understood him and smiled back. “I know you are conscientious―far more so than I was at your age.” He paused and then asked, “Did you know I had a son by my first wife?”

  Maron shook his head.

  “Well, I did. He was killed in the same fires that killed your father. But if he had lived, he would be old enough for the agoge now, and there is no other youth in your entire age cohort that I would rather have had for his eirene.”

  That took Maron by surprise, and he looked at Leonidas with wide, questioning eyes. “Really, sir?”

  “Yes,” Leonidas assured him and waited. Although it surprised him that this was what seemed to reassure Maron the most, there was no doubt that for the first time, the eirene’s brow cleared and he sat up a little straighter.

  “I’m not going to let Alcidas bring charges against you, Maron. I am going to bring charges against him first―for driving you to attempt suicide, and so risking the loss of a valuable future citizen after fourteen years of painstaking and expensive education.”

  Both youths gasped. “But, sir,” Alpheus protested, gesturing toward the noose and broken branch, “then we’ll have to admit what happened.”

  “Why shouldn’t we admit what happened?”

  “Won’t people see it as an admission of guilt?”

  “I cannot control what some people say or think. Some people are fools. However, I don’t think most people are fools, and I think the facts will speak for you, Maron. But you must be prepared to tell the truth.” He turned his attention to the elder youth again. “You must admit that you miscalculated without becoming ashamed.”

  Maron bit his lower lip and then asked, “Sir? Did you really mean what you said about me being the eirene you would want for your own son?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you sincerely care about the welfare of your charges. You are more concerned about helping them than about your own advancement. Most of your peers have those priorities reversed.”

  “But I make mistakes―”

  “We all make mistakes, Maron. I have made more than my share. Now, I think your throat could use some milk and honey.” Leonidas pushed himself to his feet and offered his hand to Maron.

  Maron took it self-consciously and then looked up at him again. “And you meant what you said about Sparta needing even men like me, who aren’t particularly clever?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Pausanias had never been so hungry in his whole life. Even worse, his bowels weren’t working properly. He had constant diarrhea and stomach cramps. That frightened him. Every boy in the agoge had heard about how some of the boys died during the Phouxir. Pausanias was starting to think he was going to be one of them. He was starving, and there were still twelve days to go.

  This wasn’t supposed to be happening! Not to him. He was an Agiad prince, second in line to the throne after his father. If his father were king (as he should be), Pausanias reasoned, he wouldn’t have had to go through the agoge at all! He didn’t think he ought to be subjected to these risks, and his eirene had promised him that everything had been arranged. He only had to check under a certain stone every couple of days and he would find instructions on a shard of broken pottery telling him where to find food. It had all sounded so easy.

  But after just four days, the shards with the instructions stopped appearing in the designated spot. Pausanias hadn’t been too worried at first. He’d done some trapping and scavenged a bit, thinking that the messages would resume. But they hadn’t.

  Then his traps had been cut to pieces, evidently by one of the other boys. Pausanias wasn’t sure who it was because he didn’t see it happen, but he had his suspicions. There were several boys in his herd who were weaklings and pricks! He’d let them know it more than once, and Philocyon had laughed at them and told them to eat shit when they protested. Pausanias was certain one of them had destroyed his traps. Inwardly he vowed revenge, solemnly closing his eyes and invoking Orestes, his favorite hero. But first he had to survive the Phouxir.

  He had lurked around his Dad’s kleros for several days, watching for an opportunity to snatch something edible from barns or sheds. He knew his Mom would never intentionally leave anything out for him, and she kept most things bolted inside because the helots were untrustworthy. But Pausanias figured that since the dogs knew him, he ought to be able to get in and milk one of the cows at least, or take some of the eggs.

  To his dismay, however, he soon realized that that bonehead Maron and some of the other eirenes were patrolling around his Dad’s kleros as if they expected him. That could only be because his Dad’s friend Alcidas had been dismissed by the Assembly for driving Maron to attempt suicide. The old Paidonomos had temporarily taken over the agoge again. Pausanias concluded they were out to get him, too, just to shame his father.

  Pausanias gave up trying to take anything from his own kleros, and decided to steal from some poor helots instead. He figured they wouldn’t have the courage to report him even if they caught him. But he hadn’t reckoned with their geese. The geese attacked him viciously, leaving him covered with horrible bruises on his calves where they had bitten him with their beaks. That would have been bad enough, but then he heard laughter from the hillside as he fled from the geese. The treacherous little shitheads who had cut up his traps were apparently following him and watching his every disaster.

  It was after this incident that Pausanias started heading downriver. In part he thought to feed himself by fishing, but another part of him just wanted to get away from everyone: away from Philocyon, who had broken his word about helping; away from Maron and the other eirenes, who had it in for him, and away from the turds in his herd, who were tormenting him.

  Pausanias wanted to get beyond the reach of eirenes and citizens. They would all stay within a day’s walk of Sparta. If he went beyond that, he figured, he would find it easier to steal. What he hadn’t reckoned with was the fact that the perioikoi always vigilantly protected their homes and farms from thieves.

  So Pausanias had come to this. He was starving. He was going to die. He sat down on the beach and, clutching his knees to his chest, stared out to sea feeling sorry for himself.

  There was a cold wind whipping up whitecaps on the Gulf and a little fishing smack smashed through the waves, flinging up great sheets of spray and spume. The boat seemed to be heading straight toward him, and Pausanias started to contemplate begging. It was not a Spartan thing to do. Spartans weren’t supposed to beg. But who would ever find out?

  Were fishermen helots or perioikoi? It would be horrible to lower himself to begging from a helot, but it wouldn’t be so bad to ask a perioikoi for help, he told himself. Or maybe he could just order the helots to give him their catch. Maybe they were so dumb down here that they didn’t know about the Phouxir and how the boys were supposed to survive on their own. Maybe if he just went up to them and demanded that they give him their fish, they would be so intimidated they would give him everything.

  The fishing smack was close now, and Pausanias could see there were two people on board, a thin youth and a boy about his own age. The youth was at the tiller and the boy was standing ready to drop the sail. The smack swung up into the wind. The youth gestured and the boy loosened the halyard. The youth went forward to help hand sail and then ran out the oars, while the boy went back to the tiller. They were rowing right toward Pausanias, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  The boy was Thersander! The son of that stutterer, the former deputy headmaster. What was he doing here?

  With a last pull at the oars, the little fishing boat crunched on to the beach. The oarsman shipped the oars, then turned and climbed into the bows, removed a
bowline, and jumped on to the beach.

  Pausanias’ jaw dropped. It was the Chian eunuch!

  “That’s cheating!” Pausanias shouted, jumping to his feet. “You’re cheating!” he shouted at Thersander in outrage.

  Thersander had been busy collecting the nets in the bottom of the boat, which were full of fish. Astonished, he looked up at Pausanias standing on the beach, shouting at him in rage, and laughed.

  Pausanias ran up to the edge of the boat, shouting furiously. “You’re cheating!”

  “And what do you call letting your eirene feed you?” Thersander threw back at him with a sneer.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Everybody knows about it!” Thersander retorted. “Are you going to help me with these fish or not?”

  “Will you share them with me if I do?” Pausanias wanted to know.

  Thersander shrugged. He didn’t like Pausanias much, but he didn’t want him ratting, either. It would be a lot safer making him an accomplice. Pausanias reached in and grabbed hold of one of the nets.

  They got the nets ashore and hauled them up to a little shed filled with fishing gear. On the back side of this was a stone hearth, and Danei sent the boys to collect firewood while he cleaned a fish apiece. At last they had enough wood, and Danei got the fire started while the boys sat down to watch the fish grill. Thersander handed Pausanias a goatskin of water with a trace of wine in it.

  “Things are going to be different from now on,” Thersander announced, without even looking at Brotus’ son. “Wait and see. My dad is going to be made Paidonomos.”

  “Your dad?” Pausanias exclaimed in horror, then laughed. “Your dad’s a stutterer! A trembler!”

  Thersander hit Pausanias so hard it took his breath away, and the next thing he knew Thersander had pinned him to the earth and was holding his head down with a hand on his throat. “My dad is braver than anyone! He stood up to Alcidas, when the rest of them just crawled on their cowardly bellies. And your dad is nothing but a brute! A dumb brute!”