A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  Eurybiades understood his concerns. Taking such a green crew on this voyage was only half the danger. The other risk was that these eager farm lads, who had never before set foot outside their villages, would find themselves overwhelmed by the charms of a city like Corinth. They might desert (or get kidnapped by unscrupulous foreign captains) and leave the Minotaur short-handed in a foreign port.

  “King Leonidas will board almost straight away and we will take him to his next destination, wherever that might be,” Eurybiades answered. He opened his mouth to add that there would be no shore leave, but he didn’t get the words out.

  From the crowd of men standing in the blustering wind, a young voice asked, “The king himself will sail with us? King Leonidas?”

  “Yes,” Eurybiades confirmed, “so there’ll be no―”

  “Then let’s go!” the voice called eagerly.

  To Eurybiades’ and Hierox’s surprise, this suggestion was met with a cheer and the shout, “For Leonidas!”

  Without awaiting further orders, the men turned and ran to the trireme, which crouched on the sand with her snout pointed toward the white-capped bay. Eurybiades looked at Hierox, baffled, and Hierox looked at the men crowding around the trireme, only partially organized by the more experienced oarsmen. He shrugged. “For the first time in thirty Olympiads, they see prospects of a better future. To them, Leonidas isn’t just a Spartan king―he’s a liberator.”

  Eurybiades shrugged and turned his thoughts to more immediate concerns, but Prokles stood watching the launching of the trireme, his perpetual frown masking his thoughts.

  Eurybiades and his helmsmen knew these waters intimately, and they made the most of prevailing currents to sail as far as possible until the moment came to turn right into the teeth of the gale and run out the oars. Eurybiades took the storm head-on, to avoid the corkscrewing that came from angling into the waves. The trireme, built for ramming, was heavily reinforced at the bow and shaped to send anything she pierced off to her sides. Her timbers were less likely to be strained by a frontal assault on the seas than by the twisting that came from slanting through them. Furthermore, by going dead into the wind, Eurybiades reduced the risk of shipping water through the open sides of the upper oar-decks, while hide coverings with a hole only for the oar kept the lowest oar-ports reasonably dry.

  When they started rowing, the crew at first sang, something Hierox had taught them to do to help keep them synchronized, but the wind proved too strong. Within minutes they needed all the air they could suck into their lungs just to breathe. The aulos alone kept time.

  The bronze-sheathed ram smashed through the waves, flinging great plumes of water twenty feet into the air. The water fell back on the foredeck like violent rain showers, driving sailors and marines aft. The timbers of the vessel shuddered and trembled, frightening the inexperienced crewmen, but the veterans were not concerned. They had watched like brooding hens as the keel of the Minotaur was laid down and day for day as the ship had taken shape in the yard at Skandia. They knew the men who had fashioned her out of wood and the priests who had blessed her at her launch. Her prow had been soaked in the blood of a sacrifice to Poseidon at Dragonara, and she had been dedicated to him. They trusted her.

  By midafternoon some of the crew were nearing the end of their strength. From the deck, their increasingly unsynchronized rowing betrayed their waning energy. Eurybiades looked anxiously over the sides, noting that now and then the oars clattered against one another. Some of the rowers on the lowest deck seemed hardly able to lift their oars out of the water anymore, and each time an oar hit a wave on the back-stroke it acted like a brake on forward progress. If he had been a nervous man, Eurybiades would have started to look anxiously at the shoreline or started praying.

  Instead, Eurybiades turned command of the deck over to his mate and descended into the bowels of the ship, to the lowest tier of oars. Here, light and air filtered down from the decks above only through the gangways at bow and stern. The air was rank with the smell of sweat and urine and hung like a heavy cloud over the straining men. Eurybiades let his eyes adjust to the darkness, then swept his gaze along the two rows of men separated by the narrow walkway, thirty men per side. Their faces were strained. Some bit their lips, some gritted their teeth. Some grunted. Some blew out like long-distance runners at the end of a race. They all shone with sweat.

  “You’re all wishing you were back on the farm by now, no doubt,” Eurybiades remarked with a laugh.

  One or two of the men glanced up. Most didn’t risk it.

  Eurybiades started down the aisle between the men, his head swinging from side to side. He put a hand on a shoulder. “Take a break,” he ordered. The youth looked up at him, disoriented. “Just ship your oar and catch your breath.”

  Eurybiades moved on, his head swinging back and forth until he found the next culprit. Again he put his hand on the man’s shoulder and ordered him to rest. At the bow, he turned and started back down the aisle. Now they had their backs to him, but he could see even better who was having difficulty holding the rhythm and pace. Again he ordered the weakest to take a break.

  Hierox appeared at the foot of the gangway in the stern. “Sir?”

  “Just giving some of our landlubbers a rest.”

  Hierox nodded and handed a flask of water to the first man with a nod. “We need to bandage some hands as well,” he told his captain, nodding toward a youth. Several of the unfortunate beginners had burst blisters on their hands that left streaks of blood on the oars. Eurybiades nodded and disappeared back up the ladder to the main deck to get bandages.

  Meanwhile, even the experienced men on the upper tiers of oars had growling stomachs and were starting to glance out the open sides to judge their position. Others glanced at the deck over their heads, wondering when the order would come to stop pulling. Hierox had less tolerance for this and called out to them sharply, before returning to the lowest deck to tend to the youngsters with bloody hands.

  “How much longer?” one youth dared to ask as Hierox bandaged his hands. Hierox thought it was the same helot who had been so naively enthusiastic about embarking on this dash into the teeth of a gale. He considered making a snide remark about being more cautious next time, but thought better of it. Did he want crewmen who shied away from a challenge? Instead he said gruffly, “That’s for the captain to decide!” Then, relenting, he added, “But we’ve made good progress. Maleas is off our port quarter.”

  Sure enough, within the hour Eurybiades ordered the helm over and all sail set. The oars were shipped, and the oarsmen from the lowest, breathless tier were allowed on deck for fresh air and a meal. A meal of hard sausage and bread was also distributed to the other oarsmen while they sat at their benches. Quickly the mood turned positive, and soon the men started singing as they flew northward on close-hauled sails.

  No one objected when Eurybiades asked for the men to take turns manning the upper tiers to add an extra knot or two to progress. As dusk fell, they had cleared the Kokoreli, and the wind was on their starboard quarter. It would have been more prudent to put ashore either at Troizen or at Aegina, but the crew had caught their captain’s competitive fever, so they pressed onward through the night, relying on the following wind. A nearly full moon provided enough visibility to distinguish shore from sea. Late in the night they made out Epidauros, by the concentration of fires and torches that merged together in a large orange blur on the darkened coast. When the morning star rose over the high-curving stern-post, they glided with a dying wind into the harbor of Kenchrea, Corinth’s port to the Aegean.

  The crew was sent ashore to get a hot meal and rest on the sandy shore, while the marines kept watch over the vessel and crew. Eurybiades, however, combed out his hair and rebraided it. Then he changed into a red chiton and pulled on his armor before going ashore in search of Leonidas.

  In the courtyard of Archilochos’ residence, Leonidas was mounting in preparation for an excursion to Acrocorinth. The appearance of the dark
sea captain in Spartan scarlet brought him up short. “Eurybiades! What are you doing here? I thought you were putting the Minotaur through her sea trials in the Gulf of Laconia.”

  “We put her through her paces rounding Maleas in the teeth of a nor’easter. She’s awaiting your pleasure at Kenchrea.”

  “She’s where?” Leonidas asked, astonished.

  “Kenchrea.”

  The two men stared at each other. Eurybiades was cocky and obviously pleased with himself. But then again, he had a right to be. Leonidas overcame his disapproval of the impudent attitude and conceded, “Well done.” Then he thought to ask skeptically, “You did that with a Lacedaemonian crew?”

  “A half-helot crew, to be precise. They may not have salt water in their veins, but a whiff of freedom seems to have been sufficient to enable them to overcome even seasickness.”

  “But what does he want here?” Nicodemus, Athens’ archon for the year, asked somewhat plaintively into the symposium.

  “And with his wife! Whoever heard of such a thing?” Xanthippos added with a disapproving frown. “Why, she even attended a play yesterday!”

  “Other women attend the tragedies,” Kimon pointed out. “Even my mother likes to go.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid that if he leaves her behind like Menelaos did, she might run away from him like a modern Helen!” This suggestion came with a laugh from Kallixenos, who could remember the youthful Leonidas from his last trip to Athens. “He’s not much of a lover, I’m sure. More of a dry stick, I tell you. A prude and a man of ponderous intellect.”

  “And she’s no modern Helen, either!” one of the younger men pointed out. “I hear she’s quite plain, in fact. Brown like a slave and red-haired like a barbarian.”

  “I wouldn’t say that!” another man protested at once. “I caught a glimpse of them going into the theater, and she was anything but ugly. Not even dowdy. She’s as slim as a youth, with these long, shapely legs and a long neck and these huge eyes that look openly at the world. I’d give a tetradrachma to get her on my couch!”

  That brought a roar of laughter from the others. “I can just see you, Pheidon!” someone declared, and Kallixenos teased with, “And what will Agido say when she hears that?”

  “Agido is an expensive whore,” Pheidon retorted, dismissing the object of last week’s passion and provoking a new round of laughter. Agido was a professional courtesan, the former property of Kallixenos (who still took a cut of all her earnings). Pheidon had been infatuated with her for some time, and had recently been involved in an unseemly brawl because he wanted her “loyalty,” but couldn’t afford to pay for it.

  “I’ll tell her you said so,” Kallixenos told Pheidon with a grin.

  “Well, it’s not as if it were something she didn’t know!” Pheidon defended himself. “But the Spartan queen―”

  “The Spartan king, not his immodest wife, is what should concern us!” replied Xanthippos, cutting short the conversation of the younger men. “Nicodemus is right to ask why he’s come, and why now?”

  “And why did he come by trireme, I wonder?” Kallixenos added. “The world knows the Spartans have some of the finest horses in the world―easy matches for the Persian stables. Leonidas himself was a halfway passable horseman,” he admitted patronizingly. (As the commander of Athens’ cavalry, Kallixenos thought Athenian horsemanship superior to any on earth.) “I’ve heard that Leonidas himself has a reputable stud, though it was Demaratus who won at Olympia―”

  “We know all that!” Xanthippos cut him short, annoyed by the cavalryman’s obsession with horses. “How he got here is of no importance. The question is why?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to see our tragedies?” Pheidon suggested, harvesting laughter again. No one took Pheidon seriously.

  “Well, we’ll know more tomorrow,” Nicodemus declared. “Aristides has invited some of us to an intimate symposium which, I presume, the Spartan king will attend.”

  “What about his wife?” Pheidon asked anxiously. “If she’ll be there, I’ll crash the party!”

  “Don’t be ludicrous. Of course she won’t attend a symposium! She’s a queen and Aristides’ guest, not a flute girl!”

  “And as Dionysus is my witness,” Kallixenos groaned, “Aristides’ symposiums are the driest, dullest affairs one can imagine. He’s so boringly sober all of the time! What was the topic of the last one?” Kallixenos asked the room at large. “Cosmic influences on the life cycle of the grasshopper―or something like that.”

  They laughed, and the conversation turned to other things.

  They had been in Athens five days, and Gorgo had been out in the city only twice: once in the company of her hostess to attend a ceremony on the acropolis with other women from the neighborhood, and once to attend the theater with Leonidas and their host. Their hostess, Eukoline, had emphatically refused to go to the theater, noting that too many “lewd women” lurked about and that one was never safe from “lecherous looks” even if completely veiled. Gorgo had been far too curious to let her hostess’ warnings or her hosts’ disapproval dissuade her, but the experience had been sobering. Despite Leonidas’ presence, not to mention his escort of four guardsmen, she had attracted more attention than she enjoyed. In fact, the looks and her sense of being talked about had made it hard for her to concentrate on the play itself. In the end, she was glad to return home.

  But that had been three days ago. After three days cooped up in the bowels of Aristides’ house, where hardly a drop of sunlight penetrated, she’d had enough. By now, however, she knew it would be quite pointless to tell her hostess she was interested in seeing more of Athens. Eukoline was, like her husband, a very self-righteous person who believed that she knew exactly what was right and proper and had no tolerance for diverging opinions. According to her, a “good woman” never left her house except for weddings, funerals, or to honor the Gods. Working and shopping was for slaves, and everything else―from talking to fighting―was the exclusive preserve of men.

  Not that Eukoline was stupid. She ran her household with an eagle eye for possible waste or theft. She locked the storerooms, the pantry, and the slaves up at night (to be sure the latter couldn’t get up to any “hanky-panky”). She was the first to rise each day to let the slaves out again so they could go about their work. She was illiterate and innumerate, so she did not keep any books as such, but she seemed to have a sixth sense for possible malfeasance. Her sharp tongue discouraged the disobedience of slaves, children, and her husband alike. She was not a pleasant companion.

  Gorgo had no intention of even mentioning to this formidable female dragon her desire to see more of Athens. Nor did she mention the matter to Leonidas. Leonidas would have felt compelled to accompany her or detail one of his guardsmen to escort her. But today he was going with the four of them to one of the famous gymnasiums outside the city walls for some sports event. It was important for him to go, to be seen, and to compete. It was almost as important for him to have the guardsmen with him, since they were young and could uphold the reputation of Lacedaemon in the event Leonidas, at forty-five, was no longer competitive.

  Gorgo saw him off cheerfully, assuring him that she understood perfectly why she was not allowed to come along. “It would embarrass the Athenians that I’m so familiar with the naked male body―at least when I started making unkind comparisons to our own incomparable youth.” Leonidas had laughed, kissed her, and then hesitated at the door to ask if she’d be all right. “I’ll be bored to death―but I’ll think of something,” she answered. From the courtyard they heard Aristides asking what was keeping Leonidas, so he ducked out the door, leaving her behind without another word.

  Gorgo was on her own to implement her plan. Or almost. She was not so foolish as to venture out into the maze of dirty, crowded, chaotic streets without a guide or a disguise. Her plan was dependent on the cooperation of the slave who had been put at her disposal. Eukoline had been shocked to find that Gorgo had traveled at all, of course, but doubly
so to find she had come without a personal slave. She had then, hospitably, delegated one of the housemaids to see to Gorgo’s needs, admonishing the girl to do absolutely everything the guest requested, before saying to Gorgo in the girl’s presence: “She’s a lazy slut, so you’ll have to chase after her half the time, but it’s the best I can do.”

  Gorgo had not yet found it necessary to chase after Uche. On the contrary, the black girl seemed fascinated by her and followed her about on silent feet, gazing at her in wide-eyed expectation of some order. At first Gorgo had found this unnerving, and she suggested that it was unnecessary. Uche’s reply had disarmed her. “But you are a pharaoh! Taiwo told me so.” (Leonidas had brought Taiwo along with them because of his gift with languages.)

  Now Gorgo turned to the African and explained her desire to go out into the city of Athens. Uche’s eyes widened. “Just the two of us,” Gorgo insisted. “Not as a queen. I want to dress just like you, and go out as if we were two slaves on an errand.”

  “But, my lady, that would be humiliating!”

  “No, Uche, it would be liberating. I’m not used to living inside in the dark. I’m used to walking in the open, even driving chariots. Taiwo tells me the African and Egyptian women are the same way.”

  Uche seemed to think about that for a moment, and then she nodded.

  “You’ll help me?” Gorgo asked uncertainly.

  Uche nodded again and broke into a wide smile. With evident enthusiasm, she started helping Gorgo change out of her fine peplos into a simple striped chiton. Gorgo’s woven gold belt with lion-head ends was replaced with braided twine. Her hair was combed back into a pony tail and clipped up on the back of her head with a wooden barrette. “What about your feet?” Uche asked as the rest of Gorgo’s transformation was complete. “I don’t own any sandals,” the slave-girl admitted.