Leonidas was giving him a special chance to prove himself because he had been born a Spartiate, and Leonidas had promised him more than once that he would do everything in his power to see that his status was restored―if not for his sake, then for his sons. Meander planned to marry at the winter equinox, and his bride-to-be was, like him, the daughter of a former Spartiate too poor to pay his mess fees.
Meander drew a deep breath and unnecessarily tightened the strap of his quiver. Leonidas was reminding him, “If there’s any way to get the girls out without bloodshed, so much the better. Your job is just to find out where they are and if they are guarded. If we’re lucky, the girls will be kept in a separate room and everyone will be asleep.”
Meander nodded, took off his pilos, readjusted the felt cap under it, and then put the helmet back on. He didn’t dare meet Leonidas’ eye for fear the king would read his inner doubts. He set off.
The windmill stood on a low hill, its sails turning slowly and creaking slightly in the gentle breeze. Meander approached from the back, crossing first a flat, fertile plain with long, soft grass, then up a more barren incline, to climb over a low, dilapidated stone wall that enclosed a handful of sheep. The sheep stared at him without even getting to their feet, their jaws working slowly. Meander eased himself over the far wall of the paddock into the courtyard behind the mill itself. This was home to a score of chickens, and they were more excitable than the sheep. Almost at once they started clucking in alarm, and an instant later a dog barked close at hand.
Meander froze, his heart pounding in his ears. He had screwed up! He was about to be attacked and torn to pieces!
The dog came trotting into the yard to see what was going on. He spotted Meander and lowered his head, growling.
Meander stopped breathing. Then slowly, slowly he reached over his shoulder and brought his bow to the ready.
The dog raised his head and barked twice. He took a step closer, growling more ominously than before.
Meander fitted an arrow.
The dog raised his head and barked twice more―loud enough to wake the dead, or so Meander felt.
The arrow slammed into the dog. It went right through his chest and out again behind his right shoulder, knocking him down. He let out a wail of anguish unlike any bark and writhed in agony, trying to rise up again. Meander leaped forward to silence him with his knife, cursing his bad luck. The howl was sure to warn the whole household that this was no passing fox or stray!
But no one raised the alarm. No one came crashing out of the house. Meander waited tensely, his bow at the ready, for another thirty seconds. Only gradually did he let the bow fall. After another thirty seconds, he returned it to his back and started cautiously forward again.
He searched the outbuildings first. These were filled only with supplies, farm tools, firewood, and junk; there was no sign of any captive women.
Meander had no choice but to approach the house itself. This was a one-story stone structure with a crude chimney that backed up almost to the windmill. It had two windows facing this direction, and both were shuttered. Meander crept up to the first and looked between the slats. Inside it was very dark, but some light seeped from the adjacent hearth room, and he could just make out a man and a woman lying on a low bed, one of whom was snoring loudly. The next window opened to the hearth room itself, and he could see the interior of this room better because the hearth was still aglow with embers. Two men and two children were lying on mats before the fire. There was not a trace of any young women.
This is ridiculous, Meander thought. Maybe they were at the wrong mill, or the knife grinder had misinterpreted what he heard? He couldn’t return from his reconnaissance until he’d at least looked in the mill, however, so Meander crept around the side of the house and crossed to the mill. He pushed the door open and stood in the low room with the grinding stone. The sails had been disconnected for the night so that although they turned, the grindstone was still. The room smelled good: of fresh ground flour and wood. Meander drew a deep breath and turned to leave.
Something clunked and then scraped on the wooden ceiling over his head. He froze, and his heart beat loudly as he listened. From overhead came a soft, scraping sound and then a moan, a voice.
Meander looked around the room again, only now noticing the stones that jutted out of the wall spiraling upward. He started up them cautiously, one hand on the rough interior wall to steady himself.
As he ascended, the ceiling came down to eye level, and he was looking across it from the perspective of a mouse. There were heaps of straw and something white on them. Something that moved. With horror he realized it was a girl, completely naked, and beside her another girl. They were dirty and unkempt, and one had vivid, dark bruises on her buttocks as if she’d been given a horrible thrashing. The other was covered with a variety of cuts and scratches―some almost healed, some still swollen and scabbed. There was little doubt that these were the captive girls.
Meander looked down at the empty room below and considered the open door, the sleeping family, the dead dog. Leonidas had said his job was just reconnaissance, but why risk bringing a lot of men here and waking everyone up, if he could just take the girls back with him? If he rescued the girls single-handedly, maybe they would even reward him, give him back his citizenship…. He continued up the stairs.
One of the girls sat up abruptly and looked right at him. Her eyes widened in horror, and Meander hastened to put his finger to his lips. “Shhh! Silence!”
The girl answered by shaking her companion awake and pulling herself into a ball, clutching her knees to her chest, in a gesture so piteously pointless and so childish that it melted Meander’s heart. The second girl groaned slightly as she was torn from her sleep, but seeing her friend’s pose she gasped, looked toward the stairs, and likewise took up a defensive position.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Meander told the frightened girls. “We’ve come to set you free.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m not important. King Leonidas is here.”
That obviously made no sense to the girls―who, Meander supposed, might never have heard of him. “Dithyrambus brought us.”
The girl with the horrible bruises gasped and lifted her head slightly. “Truly? Dithyrambus? He has not forgotten and rejected me?”
“No, we just didn’t know where you were until yesterday. Come with me; I’ll lead you out.”
“But―” the girl cut herself off. “But―”
“What?”
“We have no clothes! They tore away our clothes when they seized us, and will not give us even a rug or a blanket or a rag to hide our shame.”
“We have plenty of himations,” Meander answered practically, regretting he was not wearing one himself at the moment.
“But―but―there are men.”
“Half a hundred altogether,” Meander admitted. “We thought there might be guards here, or anyway, more men.”
The girls were shaking their heads. The girl who had been Dithyrambus’ bride was biting her lower lip and starting to cry. The other begged Meander, “Can’t you bring us something to hide our shame? Please! We can’t go out like this! Please!”
Meander didn’t understand. Girls of marriageable age in Lacedaemon were not in the habit of going around naked, either, but they did as girls. In a situation like this, where it was a matter of freedom or slavery, he felt certain they would have followed him without another word. He looked down at his own chiton, but couldn’t bring himself to give it to one of the girls and thereby leave the other alone. He tried to reason again. “Don’t worry about being naked. We’re only about a mile away. Just out the back and across the meadow to the trees. We’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
The girls were shaking their heads. Dithyrambus’ bride was weeping. “But we’re naked,” her companion wailed. “Completely naked! Please! Please help us! Just an old blanket would do. Anything at all! Oh, please! Don’t dishonor us in front
of our own brothers and cousins!”
“All right,” Meander capitulated, not prepared for this situation. “I’ll see what I can find.” He descended the stairs backwards, slipped out of the mill, and stood looking around the little complex in feverish confusion. On the one hand, he had orders to do reconnaissance only. On the other, it would take so much longer to return and report, and by then maybe the miller and his family would have woken. If he could just find a sheet, a himation, a chiton ….
But there was nothing lying around outside. He crept back toward the house and peered through the window again. There were hooks along one wall on which the inhabitants had hung their own clothes, and there were blankets, too, but even as he watched, one of the men woke enough to sit up, scratching his crotch, and then lay down again, trying to make himself more comfortable on his straw pallet. There was no way Meander could slip inside without arousing attention.
Cursing, he started running, past the dead dog, through the cackling barnfowl, leaping over the stone walls, and jumping the little gullies in the field below the mill. He was panting when he arrived among the band of men who loomed up among the darkness of the trees, surprising him, even though he knew they were there.
“I found them!” he announced breathlessly. “They’re up in the loft of the mill itself. No one’s guarding them―I killed the dog, and the miller and his family are sound asleep. I tried to talk them into coming back with me, but they haven’t any clothes. The miller won’t give them any, to keep them from running away.”
Exclamations of outrage and bitter cursing erupted from the Thespians until Leonidas hushed them. “Dithyrambus and Kleandor” (that was the brother of the other girl), “take a couple of himations apiece, go into the mill, and bring the girls out. The rest of us will surround the house and make sure the miller and his family don’t interfere. Let’s go.”
The Thespians rushed forward, chattering in excitement.
“Halt! Silence!” Leonidas ordered.
The Thespians fell silent in embarrassment and waited anxiously, but in his eagerness to carry out the rescue at last, Dithyrambus could not keep still; he stood shifting from foot to foot, his expression tortured because he did not dare contradict a king. “Come!” Leonidas clapped him on the arm. “But silently!”
They started forward again, the Spartans leading this time. They easily covered the field below the mill. Just as they started up the incline, the sound of hooves on the road brought them to a halt. “Drop!” Leonidas ordered.
The Spartans hit the ground almost instantly to lie flat and still, invisible in the darkness. The Thespians, less well drilled, went down more slowly and more raggedly, one knee at a time.
Fortunately, the rider was not looking toward the field. He rode past at a good clip, and Leonidas was on the brink of giving the order to rise again when they heard the canter break into a trot, then a walk, and the man pulled up―at the mill.
Dithyrambus started cursing. “That’s the bastard who abducted her! He’s come to visit her while the miller is asleep to avoid paying what he promised!”
Meander and Leonidas both stared at him, amazed by how rapidly he put things together. There was little doubt that the horseman had come to visit the girls, however, because he had tied the horse by the mill and they saw him disappear inside.
There was no holding Dithyrambus now. He sprang to his feet and started running with all his might, his arms pumping like an Olympic athlete. There was nothing to do but follow.
Dithyrambus was easily a hundred yards ahead of them by the time they reached the first wall. High-pitched screams were coming from the mill, and as they came abreast of the house, the door crashed open and men started stumbling out. They were dressed in unbelted chitons and one had grabbed an axe, another a poker. The sight of men in armor with crested helmets and hoplons spilling into the narrow space between mill and house stopped them in their tracks. Leonidas nodded to Dienekes, who drew his sword and pointed it at the man closest to him. “Get back inside!” Dienekes ordered, while Leonidas turned his attention to the struggle taking place behind him in the mill.
As he approached, he could hear men cursing and hurling insults at one another. When he reached the door, he realized Dithyrambus was standing just inside, blocking the exit. The desperate young Theban clearly cared only about escape. “Come on! Come on!” Dithyrambus mocked. “Show me how brave you are, Theban!”
“What’s the point of killing me now? Your bride’s a little whore! We all had her more than once, front and back!” the Theban mocked.
In answer, Dithyrambus roared and rushed the man, who stepped aside nimbly and made a dash for the door. Instead he ended on Leonidas’ sword. He had not even noticed that another man had entered, and the look of amazement on his face suggested that his last thought was one of sheer surprise. Dithyrambus brought his own sword down with all his might and rammed it into his neck to make sure he was dead.
Leonidas heard gasps and glanced toward the stairway, but the girls had already disappeared. He could hear their footfalls overhead as they ran about in apparent confusion. Leonidas removed his own cloak and handed it to Dithyrambus. “Hurry! Bring them out before someone else comes.”
“I’ll never forget this,” Dithyrambus answered.
CHAPTER 14
WRATH OF THE GODS
“THE EPHORS REQUIRE YOUR ATTENDANCE, MY lord,” the herald announced, delivering the traditional summons with a bow to the king.
It was the new moon―that day of the month on which the ephors and kings exchanged their monthly vows, the kings to rule in accordance with the constitution of Lycurgus and the ephors to support the kings as long as they so ruled. But since this was also the first new moon after the winter solstice, it was also the date on which the new ephors, elected at the last equinox, met together for the first time as a ruling body. Furthermore, as chance would have it, it was the ninth year since the last time the ephors had conducted the ritual star-gazing.
Nine years ago, two shooting stars had been sighted. In retrospect, everyone understood that these had foretold the deposing of Demaratus and the untimely demise of Cleomenes. At the time, however, the interpretation of the shooting stars had been quite different. In any case, Leonidas had not been privy to the earlier interpretation, because he was not yet king. This was the first time since his ascent to the throne that this particular ritual had been carried out. Leonidas was correspondingly wary.
It was traditional for a king to refuse any summons from the ephors at least twice before, with great dignity, going slowly to the Ephorate. So Leonidas sent the herald back and turned to Sperchias, who he had appointed one of his two representatives to Delphi. “You, too, were up all night, and you look like death warmed over. Is it really as bad as all that?”
Sperchias looked older than his almost forty-three years. His hair had receded to the middle of his skull, his eyes were sunken in their sockets, and the skin on his neck and around his eyes was marred by a complex network of tiny wrinkles.
“The heavens foretell disaster. More I cannot say for sure, but I’m not talking of one or two stars falling from the heavens: it was a shower of stars. More than I could count. I am frightened. You heard about the Egyptian?”
“I heard only that an Egyptian sought audience with me and was referred to the ephors.”
“Yes. He may be there now.”
“Do you know what he wants?”
Sperchias sighed. “What they all want: help against Persia.”
“The Egyptian revolt was crushed.”
“Mercilessly.”
“And this man?”
“He appears to be nothing but an old scribe.”
“Have you spoken with him?”
“Briefly. He speaks Greek well.”
The herald returned. “My lord, the ephors request that you meet with them.”
Leonidas nodded and waved the herald away impatiently. He was as anxious to meet with the new ephors as they were to meet w
ith him. “Traditions can be irritating,” Leonidas remarked to his friend.
“Be careful, Leo,” Sperchias warned. “The Spartan Assembly is more fickle than a spring breeze. The majority is still with you, but the younger cohorts have little interest in trade, crafts, and the arts. They sense Lacedaemon’s rising status in the world, but that only makes them impatient to prove themselves. They are spoiling for a fight.”
“Will they never grow up?”
“Every year―and every year there is a new cohort hungry for glory.”
Leonidas made a face because he knew Sperchias was right; it was the nature of young men to be aggressive. He changed the subject. “Will the ephors make a stink about Pleistarchos entering the agoge?”
“I think not, provided Ephorus is willing to accept him.”
“Ephorus will accept him.”
Sperchias changed the subject. “You must not try to protect Temenos,” he warned.
“Why should I want to? He has broken the law willfully and provocatively. He must pay the price.”
Sperchias frowned, unsure if Leonidas were being honest or only putting on this face because he knew he had no choice.
The herald was back. “The ephors beg you to sacrifice together with them to Athena Protectress.”
“Then I will come,” Leonidas agreed at last, and with Sperchias at his heels he left the Agiad palace and strode purposefully through the still darkened streets to the Ephorate. Although the stars had faded, the dawn had not yet broken, and it was bitterly cold. Leonidas could see his breath and was grateful for his thick wool himation and his high leather boots. For a moment he felt guilty about sending Pleistarchos to the agoge next week. He remembered vividly the day his father had taken him to the agoge, and how cold it had been. There had been snow on the ground that year. But that day had been his first step on a path that had made him who he was: not just a king, but a Spartan Peer.
A hound started yelping somewhere, and Leonidas automatically turned in the direction of the sound. “What’s that light?” he asked, startled.
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