Spartan

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘No, Basias. Whoever that man is, you must not raise your hand against him. Let the Spartans stain themselves with sacrilege and provoke the ire of the gods. If he were a spy from the krypteia, he wouldn’t make it easy for you to kill him, and if you did, the revenge of Sparta would only sow more grief on our land. Farewell, Basias, and may the gods protect you.’ The man stood and wrapped himself in his cloak. Kleidemos backed into the house, wiping out his tracks with the edge of his chlamys, and closed the door behind him, just in time.

  The two men silently walked through the snow of the courtyard and started back along the road leading east. The light went out in the shed, and Kleidemos lay down, devastated and unable to sleep. He could still hear the words of those men; he imagined the carnage, the screams, the bloodied altar. Another thought allowed him no rest: who was the one Basias called the ‘Keeper’? Not even Kritolaos had ever pronounced that word, nor had he ever spoken about a similar figure. But deep down in his soul, Kleidemos thought that this must be the key to the mystery.

  He tossed back and forth on the straw, finding no peace, until the thought of Antinea took him, and the image of her face appeared clearly before his eyes. Sleep overcame him, dissolving the pain in his heart and the weariness in his limbs.

  The wind had carried away all the clouds and the seven stars of the Great Bear glittered low over the hills of Messenia.

  *

  It was not difficult for Kleidemos to stay on track, because although the path was covered with snow, it ran down the centre of a valley and the only way to stray from the trail was to climb up the rocky hills at its sides. He made much better time than he had expected. At a certain point, the valley swerved towards the sea, and there was much less snow on the path than there had been higher up. And so he arrived at the farm where he hoped to find Pelias just after sunset, famished and tired.

  He left the path and drove his horse up the ridge until he could look down on the little farm surrounded by pens for the animals. To the east was an olive grove and a vineyard with perhaps a hundred or so trees, although he could not be sure because it was becoming hard to see. He looked towards the cottage and saw the chimney smoking . . . finally, he had arrived. In a little while he would go down and knock on the door, and his heart would tell him the words to say. His heart, which he already felt hammering in his chest.

  He would enter with the evening wind. With past years weighing heavily on his shoulders, with his soul tormented by doubt. He would enter like a wolf, pushed on by the chill and by his hunger. He stroked the neck of his horse who was blowing clouds of white steam from his frosty nostrils. The ground was becoming hard again with nightfall and the cold was numbing. He touched the bay’s sides with his heels and the animal started down towards the clearing. A dog tied on a rope began to bark loudly. As Kleidemos approached the middle of the courtyard the door opened and a figure stood out in the doorway . . . Antinea. Black against the red glow of the hearth, a figure with neither face nor eyes. She was holding a shawl to her breast and raising her head as if straining to see through the darkness. And she saw the horse and its rider, still as a statue on the back of his frost-covered bay.

  The dog had stopped barking and the place fell into deep silence. The woman shivered at the sight of the dark horseman gripping his spear, and she dared not say a word. Kleidemos heard a low, rather sharp voice calling, ‘Antinea?’ A word immediately swallowed up like lightning in a black cloud. He took a step forward as he heard the quavering voice inside the cottage insisting, ‘Is there someone there?’

  She sharpened her gaze to try to make out the features of the stranger’s face, and his voice said ‘Antinea,’ piercing her heart and buckling her knees. He had descended from his horse now and was walking towards her, entering into the faint beam that came from the open door.

  ‘I’m cold!’ called the voice from inside. She stared at him, trembling like a leaf: a bristly face, framed by a black beard, eyes shining under a furrowed brow. He had wrinkles around his eyes and a bitter crease, like a scar, at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes . . . his eyes shone behind a veil of tears as they had that day long ago on the plain when he had watched her go and waved with his arms raised high against the dying sun.

  She could neither speak nor move as he drew closer and said ‘Antinea’ in his deep, resonant voice. And when the flame of the hearth lit him up she dropped her hands from her breast and raised them to his face. And only when she touched him did the tears start flowing from her eyes. ‘It’s you,’ she said, caressing him, touching his eyes and his forehead and his neck. ‘You’ve come back . . . you’ve come back to me.’ Her voice trembled even harder as she continued to whisper, ‘You’ve come back!’ And she burst into tears, beside herself.

  He saw that she was about to collapse and he embraced her, covering her with his ample cloak, standing there in the snow, weeping in silence. The winds of the night ruffled his hair and froze the tears on his cheeks, and he felt nothing but the heartbeat of Antinea and that heartbeat reawakened in him a life he had thought lost forever. When he finally released her and lifted her face, he saw that the years had left no mark in those fervid eyes . . . time had stood still. It was the same look that he had never forgotten, the look that a goddess had stolen to seduce him one hot night in distant Cyprus, the light that he had forever sought in the eyes of the women of Asia and of Thrace. Clear as spring water, the light of springtime remembered, as warm as the sun itself . . .

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her through the still-open door. An old man wrapped in a blanket sat next to the fire. He lifted his white head and turned to stone at the sight before him. He thought that his weak eyes were deceiving him and only when he heard his daughter’s voice saying, ‘He’s back,’ did he raise his knotty hands and murmur, ‘Immortal gods! O immortal gods, thank you for having consoled your old servant.’ The door swung closed behind them and Kleidemos forgot to tie his horse, but the steed found shelter under the roofing of the fold. The timid bleating of the lambs did not disturb the proud animal, used to the whistle of arrows and the blaring of the battle horn. He knew that the next day his master would reappear, holding the shining spear, to stroke his blond mane.

  *

  For hours Kleidemos told Pelias and Antinea of the events he had lived through in all the years he’d been away. When he saw Pelias was nodding off, he picked him up in his arms and laid him on the bed in his room; the old man was so frail it felt like carrying a child, and as he covered him up, Kleidemos thought of how Antinea had lived, taking care of a sick old man and working in the fields. Softly he closed the door to the little room and went back to the fire. Antinea was adding wood, and had snuffed out the lamp.

  ‘Did you think I’d come back one day?’ he asked her.

  ‘No. I wanted you, badly, but I never let myself think about it. My life was hard enough as it was. Karas would come to visit every year, usually at harvest time, and would help me with the heaviest work. We would talk about you; of when we were all together, back on the mountain.’

  ‘Did you know that I had come back to Sparta?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen Karas for nearly a year.’

  ‘I returned at the end of the summer and I’m living in the house of the Kleomenids.’

  ‘You are . . . Spartan, now.’

  ‘I’m me, Antinea, and I’ve come back for you.’

  Antinea stood without taking her eyes off him and unfastened the ties of her dress. She let it slip to the ground and then removed the band that swathed her hips.

  ‘They say that the women of Asia have bodies as smooth as marble and are scented with the essence of flowers,’ she said, lowering her head, but he was already embracing her. He lay her back on the oxhide in front of the hearth and kissed her with infinite tenderness, trembling, like the first time he’d known he loved her. And only when his soul was full and his loins were weary did he abandon himself to sleep, laying his head on her bosom. Antinea stayed awake at lengt
h, watching him and touching his hair. She could not get enough of the sight of him, his face burnt by the sun and frost of long summers and freezing winters. Suffering and grief had carved deep furrows. His face was different from how she had imagined him for so long, and yet the same as the boy’s she had first loved. Was it truly time for her to come alive again, or was this just a flash of light that would illuminate her existence for a mere moment before it disappeared, plunging her back into sorrow? He would certainly leave again . . . but would he ever come back? She could not know the will of the gods who governed the fate of men, but she knew that she had desired this moment more than anything else in the world, and she could not tire of looking at him.

  Often over the years the night had seemed anguished and interminable and she had awaited the light of day to free her from its dark ghosts. Now she wished the night would never end, because she already had the sun in her arms: she could feel its warmth and its light.

  She thought of how he had possessed her, depositing his seed in her womb and she was full of fear: hadn’t he thought that if a son were born to him it would have to bear the same curse he did: son of Sparta and son of slaves? Or had he forgotten everything, overwhelmed by the same indomitable force that had gripped her? Spring would soon come with its tepid winds, and the bitter wormwood would grow again; eating its leaves provoked acute spasms of the womb and would dry the life that had taken root there . . . no, she would not do that.

  Her father, old Pelias, would not live much longer; she had no idea of what destiny had reserved for her future, but she would not chew the bitter wormwood . . . She looked again at his face, his forehead, his hands, and she hoped with all her soul that she would never be deprived of them again. She thought of the fields on Mount Taygetus which would flower again with the coming spring. The lambs would return to the high pasture and the wheat would ripple blond in the breeze. She didn’t know that sleep had overcome her and that she was dreaming, stretched out on an oxhide.

  20

  ENOSIGEUS

  ‘DON’T RETURN BY THE same road,’ said Pelias. ‘The snow will be much deeper at the pass by now and you might not be able to get across. Go east until you find a river called Pamisus; travel up the valley until you reach a fork. There go right, towards Gathaei; you should reach Belemina in about two days’ time. Then head towards Karistos, which is in the Eurotas valley. Turn south, and in another day you will have reached Sparta. We will await your news anxiously and will try to let you have word of us. May the gods accompany you and assist you. You do not know the consolation that you have given us.’

  ‘I’ll send one of my men for the spring labours,’ said Kleidemos, putting on his cloak. ‘Use the money I’ve left you for anything you need. I’ll see what has happened in Sparta during my absence and try to find a way to have you return. Perhaps the ephors will allow me to house you on my land. If I pay the price requested by the treasury they will undoubtedly agree to it. When we are together again, everything will change – you’ll see. Perhaps we can be happy again, or at least take comfort in each other after these long years spent apart.’

  He held them in a long embrace, then mounted his horse and spurred him into a gallop, later slowing to a walk. The sun was appearing between the clouds when he arrived at the banks of the Pamisus, a fast-flowing torrent with muddy waters. He journeyed up its shore until midday, crossing two small farming villages, and reached the fork in the river in the early afternoon. He ate a little, taking shelter against a wall enclosing an olive grove and then began riding again along the right tributary of the Pamisus. Dusk was approaching when he noticed a bleak mountain which dominated a stretch of hills covered with sparse lentiscus and juniper bushes. He could see some buildings on the top and hoped he might find a haven for the night. He turned off the road onto a dirt path, and he soon found himself at the foot of the mountain. The place was strangely deserted and desolate, without a village or even a house in sight. As he ascended, the structures he had glimpsed at the top of the mountain began to take shape; he could make out the ruins of a great wall, decrepit flaking towers rising here and there from the dismantled bastions. This could be none other than the dead city of the Helots!

  He reined in his horse as if taken by fright and was about to turn back, when his curiosity overcame his fear and he decided to continue up. The dying sun still cast a slight glow at the mountain’s peak. The circle of walls must be incredibly ancient; he could tell by the huge, barely squared-off boulders that formed their base. When he finally made it to the top, it was pitch black. He entered the city, passing through one of the gates, of which only the jambs remained: the architrave lay on the ground, broken in two. He moved forward amidst the ruins and strangely felt no fear, despite the terrifying tales he’d often heard told as a boy about this cursed and sacred place. Under those stones, in some dank underground chamber, slept King Aristodemus: he who had once gripped the great horn bow.

  He returned to the wall and tried to find a niche where he could shelter for the night along with his horse. He would have liked to light a fire as the Thracians had taught him, by rubbing together two very dry pieces of wood, but he could find nothing but a few damp twigs. ‘This is how superstitions are born,’ he thought to himself. ‘If I had managed to light a fire, who knows what story a shepherd down at the bottom of the valley would invent, seeing a flickering light amidst the ruins of the dead city!’

  He took his blanket from the horse and covered himself as best he could. The moon was rising and he could see the stretch of ruins well; it must have once been a large, thriving city. It had surely been abandoned since time immemorial and no one had ever dared to rebuild it after its destruction. He thought of Kritolaos, of Karas, of all those who had always hoped for the liberation of the mountain people. The massacre at Cape Taenarum filled him with despair. What an answer to such great hopes! The only true possibility of a great change had died along with Pausanias; the king’s plan would have had a chance, had he managed to overthrow the city institutions with the backing of the equals, and perhaps with the outside support of the Athenians. But now it was completely doomed; Themistocles had been exiled and the conservative Athenian government was friendly with the ephors who exercised strong influence over King Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas, and his young colleague Archidamus. Both were valorous but had no experience, and would have great trouble freeing themselves from the grip of the elders and ephors. And yet the memory of how the city of Ithome had fallen had kept alive the pride of the Helots and the hope of Kritolaos.

  Kleidemos curled under the blanket to sleep, but other thoughts began to throng into his mind. Distant words, phrases that echoed within him, faded images that seemed to come to life. That tremendous dream he’d had as a boy when he fell asleep clutching the bow of the King to his chest. The oracle of the Pythia Perialla; Karas’ reminder of her revelation as they stood on the battlefield of Plataea with his exhortation: ‘Remember these words, Talos, son of Sparta and son of your people, the day that you shall see me again.’ And that day couldn’t be so far off now. The words of Kritolaos as he lay dying: ‘A man blind in one eye will come to you; he can remove the curse from the sword of the King.’ What could he have meant by that?

  And the inscription on Ismene’s tomb . . . who had added those lines? What could they mean? What was the precious gift they referred to? Perhaps the life of Brithos, that King Leonidas, the Lion of Sparta, had wanted to save? But the king had died in combat at the Thermopylae. There were no survivors among the Spartans. No one, save Brithos and Aghias, returned alive from the Thermopylae . . . No one could have known the will of the king.

  Weariness began to weigh on Kleidemos’ eyelids, and he abandoned himself to sleep within the walls of Ithome, the dead city. He seemed to see – or maybe he was just dreaming – a small camp fire . . . Brithos asleep . . . Aghias nodding off, a shadow approaching . . . bending over Brithos as if to take something from him, then slinking off. O most powerful gods! The message of
the king! The message of the king had been stolen!

  He started to a sitting position. Everything seemed suddenly clear: the gift of King Leonidas that Ismene’s funerary inscription alluded to must have been the life of Brithos (and perhaps his own as well?). The king had wanted to save Brithos’ life. He had given him a companion, Aghias, as his escort, a Helot (just what had the king truly known about that Helot, Talos the cripple?), and a message. A message to be delivered to the ephors and elders. Just what had that message said? No one had ever told him. When they were fighting together in Phocis and Boeotia, Brithos himself had admitted that the message had always remained shrouded in mystery. And Brithos had always wondered why the rumour had spread that he and Aghias had intrigued to save their own lives, abandoning their comrades at the Thermopylae. Why hadn’t the ephors ever done anything to deny those rumours? It was even said that the scroll was blank, but this made no sense at all: King Leonidas would have had no reason to send an empty message to Sparta.

  Unless the scroll had been stolen and replaced . . . that night, near their campfire. Whoever inscribed those last lines on Ismene’s tomb seemed to be aware of the last will of King Leonidas, surely set down in the true message that Brithos and Aghias were carrying to Sparta. And now, his testament – hinted at in the words carved into the tomb of his mother – cried out to the last of the Kleomenids . . . or to Talos the Wolf. But who could have seen that message and carved those words into the stone? One of the elders? An ephor? It all seemed impossible.

  All at once he no longer felt sure that he had seen someone stealing close to Brithos that night; perhaps he had just dreamt it. Could he no longer distinguish dream from reality?