by P. K. Lentz
“Well earned, Styphon,” the polemarch said, and appeared to mean it. He smiled his thin smile. “The award, if not the fine. I consider you to be my protege, and I could not be prouder if I had received another commendation myself today.”
Brasidas, of course, had been the recipient of countless honors throughout his adulthood, and would receive yet more for his victory against Athens. Those would come from the ephorate, however, not the Gerousia which, if Agis was correct, had expected Brasidas to fail. Some elders might even have hoped thus, but to ever admit such a thing would be highest treason.
Moments after Brasidas made his leave, Agis found Styphon and aimed a look of distaste at the departing polemarch's back.
“The fine came as news to me,” the king said. “I just now finished arguing to have it overturned, but no luck. I will pay it for you, if need be.”
“It is my honor to contribute,” Styphon said, and it was. At worst, it did not matter much.
“You only say that because you have no wife to feed,” Agis returned with a grin. “Speaking of which, if you are quite done having your head swollen, let us go see if my cousin doesn't swell your cock!”
* * *
3. Hippolyta
Hippolyta dwelt in the home of her mother, Agis's sister, in the village of Limnae, but it was not there that the two men called upon her. Instead, Agis led Styphon east into the woods through which flowed the River Eurotas, on small trails that the king seemed to know well.
“Sire,” Styphon addressed Agis humbly as they walked. “I mean, Agis...”
He wished another favor of sorts from his king, this one for himself rather than Andrea. He might have thought twice of asking were it not a simple favor which he was almost duty-bound as a well-bred Spartiate to ask.
“It is open knowledge that an army will march in the coming days to recapture Pylos,” Styphon said. “I hear that it is you who is to lead it.” He added, transparently, “As is your right.”
Agis glanced back over his shoulder, as one in no doubt of what words would come next, and he prompted, “Yes?”
“I only wish to express my hope that my unit will have the honor of accompanying you.”
The king's snort said he was unsurprised. “You know there is not a man in the city who does not share the same hope. If there are any who do not, they daren't admit it.”
“Aye,” Styphon said, sounding suitably chastised.
“Your request is noted,” Agis said formally, pushing aside a shoulder-level branch across the trail. “And it will be given favorable consideration. Now, silence from here on. We come upon her.”
Hope renewed where he had counted it lost, Styphon was glad to obey.
They heard evidence of Hippolyta's presence well before they saw her, as through the sparse wood came a strange, high pitched sound, part grunt, part war cry. Seconds later, it was followed by a sharp, resounding crack, like the fall of a woodsman's ax on timber.
“She gathers firewood?” Styphon guessed.
Agis only chuckled, and his laugh was punctuated by another iteration of the same groan-thump. As they continued along the trail, they heard the sound twice more, nearer each time, before Agis halted, ducked low to the ground and put out a hand with two fingers raised in the signal for stealth, which Styphon heeded. The sounds came again, their origin now identifiable as a space just ahead, past a green thicket. The two men hunkered down, Styphon confused and Agis smiling knowingly even as he reached out with one hand, grabbed a leafy branch, and gave it a shake.
“Who's there?” a female voice demanded sharply. “Show yourself like a man or die like a pig.”
Styphon could not but look to Agis for guidance, and thus he followed the king's lead in rising from his concealing crouch with open palms upraised.
“No need to stick us two pigs, cousin!” Agis said. “You are in no danger!”
In the clearing stood two women clad in the plain long dresses of citizen women, with slits to mid-thigh on either side so as not to restrict their freedom of movement. Both were armed with javelins; one brandished hers almost like a sword, showing she could not have been serious about running the intruders through, while the other crouched with a whole sheaf of the missiles slung over her shoulder. It appeared that this latter had been collecting the shafts from the vicinity of a birch which, judging by the state of its trunk, had seen much service as a target.
Styphon knew which of the two he hoped was Hippolyta. The one holding the sheaf was thick of jaw with a plain face and too-narrow hips, while the other, the woman aiming the iron-tipped shaft at Agis as though it were a blade, was fairer by far. Her black hair tumbled from a central part in free, natural curls—the only kind of curls found on Spartiate women—framing a tanned face which in spite of its smooth lines had just a touch of the masculine about it. Her plump lips were all woman, though, and of the kind that could give a man ideas even when they were, as now, twisted in a sneer of exaggerated contempt. Sharp shadows lined the contours of her biceps as she snapped the javelin to vertical and swung it round to rest it across her shoulders behind a strong but graceful neck. Agis had just called this particular woman cousin, but then he undoubtedly had more than one of those.
Styphon's uncertainty ended when Agis strode up to this woman, laid an affectionate hand on her cheek and said warmly, “Hippolyta.”
Hippolyta responded by swinging the javelin from her shoulder in a telegraphed arc that forced Agis back several steps. When the stroke was complete, her eyes found Styphon's. “This is him?”
“It is,” Agis answered. “I hope you have not already repelled him.”
“He's got to be braver than that.” She inclined her chin at Styphon. “Have I put you off, Styphon?”
Styphon considered his reply, settling on, “Not yet.”
Hippolyta aimed a smile at him. To his own surprise, that victory inspired in him his greatest sense of achievement thus far on a morning in which he had been singled out for honor before kings and elders.
Agis gave Styphon a wink of encouragement. “He may yet be the one who breaks you, theria,” he said to his cousin. He waved Styphon closer and put an arm around him. “Hippolyta has thrown off all her other would-be riders. Lately she has devised a test which I am sure you will have the indignity of facing. She expects you to beat her in a contest with this so-called weapon.”
The insult prompted her to brandish the 'weapon' again at Agis. Smiling, the king disengaged from Styphon's side.
“Now that introductions are complete,” he said, “nature must be allowed to have its way with you. Perhaps your companion will allow me to escort her home.”
That was just what happened; Agis left with the plain girl, leaving Styphon alone in the clearing in the company of the prospective bride to whom he had yet to speak more than two words.
With the removal of Agis's powerful presence, Hippolyta seemed almost to shrink, her manner becoming instantly less confrontational. She threw Styphon fleeting glances, every third one or so of which found his eyes and caused her to smirk. This went on for some time before she laughed.
“How long do I have to stand here acting like a girl before you say something?”
The question was not laced with scorn, as it might easily have been. It was playful, meant only to defuse the tension before it built to breaking.
“Not much longer.” It was the first answer which came to Styphon's mind.
That mind was serving him well today, it seemed, for Hippolyta said amiably, “Just let me know when you are ready.” Her thumb picked at an imperfection on the smooth ash shaft of her javelin.
“Am I really to beat you with that thing?” Styphon asked.
She raised a brow. “You are to try,” she said. “But only if you're interested in courting me. You may wish get to know me first.”
“At which point, if I were to fail in the contest, we would have wasted a great deal more time. Not to mention that one or both of us might be disappointed. Better to ge
t it over with.”
Styphon put out his open right hand, and with a pleased smile, Hippolyta set the javelin into it. He tested its weight, shifting his grip along the length of the shaft, searching to restore some connection with a weapon he had not picked up since childhood.
“That trunk?” he asked, indicating the already splintered birch, which at its widest point was scarcely the breadth of a man's hand with fingers fully outstretched.
“That's the one.”
Judging by its current state, the target posed little challenge to Hippolyta, and perhaps her friend. Concentrating intently, Styphon raised the javelin to his ear, adjusted once, again, and then once more. Finally, he put one foot forward in the bed of dry needles and poised for the throw. After a deep breath in which he endeavored, and failed, to clear his mind of all thought and forget his audience, he drew back and released. Shaft spinning, the iron-tipped javelin sailed up into a shallow arc on course for the mark.
Styphon knew it, and doubtless Hippolyta did, too, well before the javelin's tip began to fly off true, that the shot would not land well. The loud crack that sounded on impact was that of wood-on-wood as shaft struck bark, iron head biting only air, and then the leaves of the forest floor.
Avoiding his audience's gaze, Styphon cursed and set himself to receive some manner of rebuke, whether gentle or mocking. But Hippolyta said nothing. She merely continued staring in the direction of the missed target while chewing the inside of her smooth cheek.
“There are some obscure rules in this contest,” she said at length. “One of them applies to men who have just earned commendations.”
Styphon looked at her in puzzlement. “How do you know of that?”
Hippolyta made a little face that gave the answer and made Styphon feel the fool for asking. Agis had told her, of course.
“The rule allows you to call in a substitute to throw for you,” she went on. “And it need not be a man.”
Her meaning could not have been clearer: this courtship was not to be a battle at all, at the end of which one party would wind up broken. She wished for him to succeed.
“It hardly seems fair, but if that is the rule...” Styphon said, “then I exercise my privilege and call Hippolyta.”
“An excellent choice,” she said with every appearance of seriousness. “I hear she is the best.”
Hippolyta fetched a new shaft from among several leaning against a nearby tree, and she poised herself for the throw. The tanned, athletic body which was a thing of beauty while standing still was only more breathtaking to behold in motion. From somewhere within that graceful form came the shrieking grunt he had heard earlier, and the javelin flew, but Styphon's eyes did not follow it. They stayed fixed on her body so that he did not even see, but only heard, the iron tip strike home, gouging a fresh wound into the tree's well chipped skin.
She turned, caught him staring, and met the attention with a smile of satisfaction. “Shall we take a walk?”
* * *
They took their walk by the Eurotas, and then the next day took another walk, and the next another. Before the third was done, Hippolyta's arm had quietly wound itself around Styphon's, and their conversations strayed into ever more intimate territory.
“As a girl, I caught the eye of an ephor's wife,” Hippolyta revealed. “She took me as a lover for a few years. Her husband was none too happy, but what business of it of his what his wife got up to while he was too busy for her? He came and complained to my father, but my father, bless his buried heart, sent him packing.”
Styphon did not have much to say in answer to that. It was an open secret that Spartiate women got up to such activities while their men were away on campaign, which was often. That certainly did not qualify as a flaw in her. In fact, the more he came to know Hippolyta and find no flaws, the more he wondered whether he was not missing something.
“How is it you have not already wed?” he asked.
“I am only twenty-four,” she complained. “We're not Athenians, you know, marrying girls off before they even have hair on their holes.”
“What I mean is—”
Seizing on the chance to torment him, Hippolyta pressed, smiling, “Yes, what do you mean?”
Styphon returned a good-natured growl. “You know.”
“Hmmph,” Hippolyta snorted. “I think I do. You want to know what's wrong with me. The answer, at least the one I'll admit to, is that I cannot stand the idea of marrying some under-thirty who still lives in the barracks and only comes home to stick his cock in me now and then.”
Styphon nodded silent understanding.
“Is that how it was with your wife?” Hippolyta asked, without preface or apology. Now it was Styphon's turn, evidently, to share intimate details.
“Yes,” he confessed. He had known and loved Andrea's mother, but not nearly so well as he might have had she lived past his thirtieth birthday, upon which he would have been permitted to dwell in his own home with her.
Hippolyta rubbed his arm in a brief offer of sympathy and let the subject pass.
They had walked the same course through the wood each day. This day, near the end of that course, Hippolyta disengaged her arm from Styphon's, ran toward the river and stood with her back against a tree, facing out across the splashing current. Naturally, Styphon followed. When he came round, Hippolyta declined to look at him, but only stood with her arms at her sides. She licked her shapely upper lip, bit the fat lower, pursed them, pressed them together—doing anything with her mouth but let it be still, while her eyes likewise lighted everywhere but his face.
Her intention was not hard to ascertain, yet Styphon held back several beats, until he became certain. Once he was, he acted.
Inserting himself between her body and the river, he pressed up close to Hippolyta, set his palms on the bark of the tree at her back, trapping her. He lowered his head until her upturned nose nearly met his twice-broken one. Her eyes finally found his, and the excitement he saw in them erased all doubt as to her desire.
That spurred him on. He kissed her, delicately at first, and then with the force and vigor that her eager response seemed to demand. Living up the affectionate nickname by which her cousin had called her, theria—wild girl—she seemed to wish to devour him.
Suddenly, her lips slammed shut. She twisted her head, breaking off the kiss. Her hand came up and slapped his cheek, not hard, but enough to sting. Stunned, Styphon froze, only to find his face struck again, and again, and again.
“What—” he began, but was cut short by another slap. Then a sixth, and still without explanation.
The seventh landed, but on the eighth he caught Hippolyta's wrist.
“Why?” he demanded angrily. He could not have misread such signals as she had given.
The playful smirk which appeared on her face caused his annoyance to melt. “Why?” he demanded again, now likewise smiling.
“Ask your daughter when you get home.”
The question thus dodged, Hippolyta yanked him into her to resume the kiss as though there had been no interruption. She panted like a beast, and her throat hummed moans of pleasure which after some minutes of passion became words.
“Lower,” she breathed over the gentle rush of the Eurotas. “Lower, kiss me lower. I'll return the favor.”
There was no cause for refusal, and less for delay. Sinking to his knees as she hoisted the skirt of her long chiton for him, Styphon tongued the folds of her womanhood. Her hand found the crown of his head and clutched a handful of his long hair and used it to guide him. After some minutes, his effort paid off: Hippolyta's hard thighs tensed and she bucked and spasmed and cried out much like she had when throwing the javelin. Finally the tension left her and she slid down the tree trunk, took his face, slick with her sex, between her hands and briefly resumed their kiss before shoving him back onto the tree's thick roots, where with ample skill she lived up to her promise of fair exchange.
* * *
4. Uninvited
Wi
th unsanctioned reluctance, Styphon parted with Hippolyta to return to his mess for the midday meal, after which he made his way home to Mesoa and pushed open the door to his simple home.
He froze in the doorway when too many eyes met his in cold greeting. Four too many: two male and two female, even if neither of their owners met the strictest Spartan definitions of the words 'man' or 'woman.'
“What are you doing here?” Styphon asked. He hoped that neither his rage, nor the fear which checked it, entered his voice.
Ghostly Eris rose from where she sat alongside Andrea on the floor. A smile curled her bloodless lips, long flaxen locks trailing down over the breast of her simple Spartan dress.
“Apologies for not seeking your permission, Styphon,” she said. There was no apology in her icy tone. “You were unavailable.”
“Answer the question,” Styphon said firmly. He sent a stone-faced look around the room, stopping at each of the other three present. First his daughter, who met it sheepishly, with guilt in her black eyes. Next Eurydike, who was defiant, daring her master to remove her from the lap on which she sat, the lap of the second unwelcome guest and final recipient of Styphon's glare: Alkibiades.
The Athenian smiled pleasantly back. Dressed in fresh clothing, face neatly shaven and clean hair tumbling around his ears in sweeping curls, he looked far better than he had when Styphon last saw him.
Eris went on in the accent of whatever part of Hades had spawned her: “Alkibiades expressed a desire to visit your slave and your daughter, and his behavior warranted the reward.”
She spoke as one who felt no need ever to explain herself, Styphon thought, but who did so now and then out of imagined magnanimity.
“Andrea tells me she is unsatisfied with the course of her learning,” Eris continued. “I have agreed to become her tutor.”
