It took no brains to see I was treading the thinnest of ice. How could one answer a question like that? I straightened and addressed the lady directly.
There are fourteen hundred boys in the training platoons of the agoge. Only one displayed the temerity to follow the army, and that in knowing defiance of his own mother's wishes, not to say full awareness of what punishment he must endure upon his return.
The lady considered this. It is a politic answer, but a good one. I accept it.
She rose and thanked the lady Arete for arranging this interview and for providing for its confidentiality. I was told to wait outside in the courtyard. The lady Paraleia's maidservant stood there still, smirking; no doubt she had overheard every word and would blab it to all the Eurotas valley by sunrise tomorrow. In a moment the lady herself emerged, deigning neither to look at nor speak to me, and accompanied by her maid, strode off without torchlight down the dark lane.
Are you old enough to take wine?
The lady Arete addressed me directly, speaking from the doorway and motioning me back within the dwelling. All four daughters slept now. The lady herself prepared a bowl for me, cut six to one as for a boy. I took a grateful swallow. Clearly this night of interviews was not over.
The lady invited me to sit. She herself settled at the mistress's station beside the hearth. She placed a chunk of alphita barley bread on a plate before me and brought a relish of oil, cheese and onion.
Be patient, this night among women will soon be over. You'll be back with the men, with whom you clearly feel more comfortable.
I am at ease, lady. Truly. It's a relief to be away from barrack life for an hour, even if it means dancing barefoot on the hot steel of the skillet.
The lady smiled at this, but it was apparent that her mind was held by a more sober subject. She drew my eyes to hers.
Have you ever heard the name Idotychides?
I had.
He was a Spartiate stain in battle at Mantinea. I have seen his stone before the mess of Winged Nike on the Amyklaian Way.
What else do you know of this man? the lady asked. I muttered something. What else? she insisted.
They say that Dekton, the helot boy called Rooster, is his bastard. By a Messenian mother, who died giving birth.
And do you believe this?
I do, lady.
Why?
I had stuck myself in a corner now; I could see the lady perceive it. Is it because, she answered for me, this boy Rooster hates the Spartans so much?
I was struck with dread that she knew this and for long moments could not find my tongue.
Have you noticed, the lady continued in a voice that to my surprise displayed neither outrage nor anger, that among slaves the meanest seem to bear their lot without excessive distress, while the noblest, those at the brink of freedom, chafe most bitterly? It's as if the more one in service feels himself worthy of honor, yet denied the means to achieve it, the more excruciating is the experience of subjection.
This was Rooster in a nutshell. I had never thought about it that way but, now that the lady had expressed it thus, I saw it was true.
Your friend Rooster talks too much. And what his tongue withholds, his demeanor announces only too plainly. She quoted, virtually verbatim, several seditious statements that Dekton had spoken, in my hearing alone, I thought, on the march back from Antirhion.
I was speechless and could feel myself breaking into a sweat. The lady Arete maintained her expression inscrutable. Do you know what the krypteia is? she asked.
I did. It is a secret society among the Peers. No one knows who its members are, just that they are of the youngest and strongest, and they do their work at night.
And what work is that?
They make men disappear. Helots, I meant. Treasonous helots.
Now answer this, and consider before you speak. The lady Arete paused, as if to reinforce the importance of the question she was about to put. If you were a member of the krypteia and you knew what I have just told you about this helot, Rooster, that he had expressed sentiments treasonous to the city and further declared his intention of taking action based upon them, what would you do?
There could be only one answer.
It would be my duty to kill him, were I a member of the krypteia.
The lady absorbed this, her expression still betraying nothing. Now answer: if you were yourself, a friend to this helot boy, Rooster, what would you do?
I stammered something about exculpatory circumstances, that Rooster was a hothead, he often spoke without thinking, much of what he said was bluster and everyone knew it.
The lady turned toward the shadows.
Is this boy lying?
Yes, Mother!
I spun in startlement. Both older daughters were wide awake, in their shared bed, glued to every word.
I will answer the question for you, young man, the lady said, rescuing me from my predicament. I think you would do this. I think you would warn this boy, Rooster, to speak no more of such things within your hearing and to take no action, however slight-or you yourself would dispatch him.
I was now utterly discomfited. The lady smiled. You are a poor liar. It is not one of your gifts. I admire that. But you tread dangerous ground. Sparta may be the greatest city in Hellas, but it is still a small town. A mouse cannot sneeze without every cat saying God bless you. The servants and helots hear everything, and their tongues can be set a-wag for the price of a honey cake.
I considered this.
And will mine, I asked, be loosened for the cost of a bowl of wine?
The boy disrespects you, Mother! This from Alexa, who was nine. You must have him striped!
To my relief the lady Arete regarded me in the lamplight with neither anger nor indignation, but calmly, studying me. A boy in your position should rightly stand in fear of the wife of a Peer of my husband's stature. Tell me: why aren't you afraid of me?
I hadn't realized until that moment that in fact I wasn't.
I'm not sure, lady. Perhaps because you remind me of someone.
For several moments the lady did not speak, but continued regarding me with that same intense scrutiny.
Tell me about her, she commanded.
Who?
Your mother.
I flushed again. It made me squirm to think this lady divined the contents of my heart before I even spoke them. Go ahead, take some wine. You don't have to play tough in front of me.
What the hell. I took it. It helped. I told the lady briefly of Astakos, of its sack and of my mother and father's murder at the hands of the night-skulking warriors of Argos.
The Argives have always been cowards, she observed, dismissing them with a snort of contempt that endeared her, more than she realized, to me. Clearly her long ears had learned my poor story already, yet she listened attentively, seeming to respond with empathy to hearing the tale from my own lips.
You have had an unhappy life, Xeo, she said, speaking my name for the first time. To my surprise this moved me profoundly; I had to fight not to let it show.
For my part, I was summoning every ounce of self-composure I possessed, to speak correctly, in proper Greek worthy of a freeborn, and to hold myself with respect not only for her but for my own country and my own line.
And why, the lady asked, does a boy of no city display so much loyalty to this alien country of Lakedaemon, of which he is not, and can never be, a part?
I knew the answer but could not judge how much I dared entrust to her. I responded obliquely, speaking briefly of Bruxieus. My tutor instructed me that a boy must have a city or he cannot grow to be fully a man. Since I no longer possessed a city of my own, I felt free to choose any I liked.
This was a novel point of view, but I could see the lady approved of it. Why not, then, a polis of riches or opportunity? Thebes or Corinth or Athens? All that can come to you here is coarse bread and a striped back.
I replied with a proverb that Bruxieus had once quoted to Diomache and me: tha
t other cities produce monuments and poetry, Sparta produces men.
And is this true? the lady inquired. In your most candid judgment, now that you have had opportunity to study our city, its worst as well as its best?
It is, lady.
To my surprise these words seemed to move the lady profoundly. She averted her gaze, blinking several times. Her voice, when she summoned herself again to speak, was hoarse with affect.
What you have heard of the Peer Idotychides is true. He was the father of your friend Rooster.
He was something other as well. He was my brother.
She could see me react with surprise.
You didn't know this?
No, lady.
She mastered the emotion, the grief, I now saw, that had threatened to discompose her.
So you see, she said with a smile brought forth with effort, that makes this young Rooster something of a nephew to me. And I an aunt to him.
I took more wine. The lady smiled.
May I ask why the lady's family has not sponsored the boy Rooster and put him forward as a mothax?
This is a special dispensation in Lakedaemon, a stepbrother category of youth, available to the lesser-born or bastard sons of Spartiate fathers primarily, who could despite their mean birth be sponsored and elevated, enrolled in the agoge. They would train alongside the sons of Peers.
They could even, if they showed sufficient merit and courage in battle, become citizens.
I have asked your friend Rooster more than once, the lady answered. He rebuffs me.
She could see the disbelief on my face.
With respect, she added. Most courtly respect. But with finality.
She considered this for a moment.
There is another curiosity of mind which one may observe among slaves, particularly those who spring from a conquered people, as this boy Rooster does, being of a Messenian mother. Those men of pride will often identify with the meaner half of their line, out of spite perhaps, or the wish not to seem to curry favor by seeking to ingratiate themselves on the better side.
This was indeed true of Rooster. He saw himself as Messenian, and fiercely so.
I tell you this, my young friend, for your sake as well as my nephew's: the krypteia knows. They have watched him since he was five. They watch you too. You speak well, you have courage, you are resourceful. None of this goes unobserved and unremarked. And I will tell you something more. There is one among the krypteia who is not unknown to you. This is the Captain of Knights, Polynikes. He will not hesitate to slit a treasonous helot's throat, nor do I think that your friend Rooster, for all his strength and spirit, will outrun a champion of Olympia.
The girls by now had all succumbed to slumber. The house itself and the darkness beyond its walls seemed at last entirely, eerily still.
War with the Persian is coming, the lady declared. The city will need every man. Greece will need every man. But just as important, this war, which all agree will be the gravest in history, will afford a mighty stage and arena for greatness. A field upon which a man may display by his deeds the nobility denied him by his birth.
The lady's eyes met mine and held them.
I want this boy Rooster alive when war comes. I want you to protect him. If your ear detects any hint of danger, the slightest rumor, you must come straightaway to me. Will you do this?
I promised I would.
You care for this boy, Xeo. Though he has scourged you, I see the friendship you share. I implore you in the name of my brother and his blood which flows in this boy Rooster's veins.
Will you watch over him? Will you do this for me?
I promised that what I could do, I would.
Swear it.
I complied, by all the gods.
It seemed preposterous. How could I stand against the krypteia or any other force that sought to murder Rooster? Still somehow my boy's promise seemed to ease the lady's distress. She studied my face for a long moment.
Tell me, Xeo, she said softly. Do you ever… have you ever asked anything just for yourself?
I replied that I did not understand the lady's question.
I command one other thing of you. Will you perform it?
I swore I would.
I order you one day to take an action purely for your own sake and not in service to another.
You will know when the time comes. Promise me. Say it aloud.
I promise, lady.
She rose then, with the sleeping infant in her arms, and crossed to a cradle between the beds of the other girls, laying the babe down and settling it within the soft covers. This was the signal for me to take my leave. I had risen already, as respect commanded, when the lady stood.
May I ask one question, lady, before I go?
Her eyes glinted teasingly. Let me guess. Is it about a girl?
No, lady. Already I regretted my impulse. This question I had was impossible, absurd. No mortal could answer it.
The lady had become intrigued, however, and insisted that I continue.
It's for a friend, I told her. I cannot answer it myself, being too young and knowing too little of the world. Perhaps you, lady, with your wisdom may be able to. But you must promise not to laugh or take offense.
She agreed.
Or repeat this to anyone, including your husband.
She promised.
I took a breath and plunged in.
This friend… he believes that once, when he was a child, alone at the point of death, he was spoken to by a god.
I pulled up, minding keenly for any sign of scorn or indignation. To my relief the lady displayed none.
This boy… my friend… he wishes to know if such a thing is possible. Could… would a being of divinity condescend to speak to a boy without city or station, a penniless child who possessed no gift to offer in sacrifice and did not even know the proper words of prayer? Or was my friend hatching phantoms, fabricating empty visions out of his own isolation and despair?
The lady asked which god it was, who had spoken to my friend.
The archer god. Apollo Far Striker.
I was squirming. Surely the lady will scorn such temerity and presumption. I should never have opened my cheesepipe.
But she did not mock my question nor deem it impious. You are something of an archer yourself, I understand, and far advanced for your years. They took your bow, didn't they? It was confiscated when you first appeared in Lakedaemon?
She declared that fortune must have guided me to her hearth this night, for yes, the goddesses of the earth flew thick and near at hand. She could feel them. Men think with their minds, the lady said; women with their blood, which is tidal and flows at the discretion of the moon.
I am no priestess. I can respond only out of a woman's heart, which intuits and discerns truth directly, from within.
I replied that this was precisely what I wished.
Tell your friend this, the lady said. That which he saw was truth. His vision indeed was of the god.
Without warning, fierce tears sprung to my eyes. At once emotion overwhelmed me. I buckled and sobbed, mortified at such loss of self-command and astonished at the power of passion which had sprung seemingly from nowhere to overcome me. I buried my face in my hands and wept like a child. The lady stepped to me and held me gently, patting my shoulder like a mother and uttering kind words of assurance.
Within moments I had mastered myself. I apologized for this shameful lapse. The lady would hear none of it; she scolded me, declaring that such passion was holy, inspired by heaven, and must not be repented or apologized for.
She stood now by the open doorway, through which the starlight fell and the soft babbling of the courtyard watercourse could be heard.
I would like to have known your mother, the lady Arete said, regarding me with kindness.
Perhaps she and I will meet someday, beyond the river. We will speak of her son, and the unhappy portion the gods have set out before him.
She touched me once upon
the shoulder in dismissal.
Go now, and tell your friend this: he may come again with his questions, if he wishes. But next time he must come in person- I wish to look upon the face of this boy who has sat and chatted with the Son of Heaven.
Chapter Fourteen
Alexandros and I received our whippings for Antirhion the following evening. His was administered by his father, Olympieus, before the Peers of that officer's mess; I was lashed without ceremony in the fields by a helot groundsman. Rooster helped me away afterward, alone in the darkness, down to a grove called the Anvil beside the Eurotas to bathe and dress my stripes. This was a spot sacred to Demeter of the Fields and segregated by custom to the use of Messenian helots; there had once been a smithy upon the site, hence the name.
To my relief Rooster did not treat me to his customary harangue about the life of a slave, but rather limited his diatribe to the observation that Alexandras had been whipped like a boy and I like a dog. He was kind to me and, more important, possessed expertise in cleansing and dressing that unique species of ruptured laceration which is produced by the impact of the knurled birch upon the naked flesh of the back.
First water and plenty of it, bodily immersion to the neck in the icy current. Rooster supported me from behind, elbows braced beneath my armpits, since the shock of the frigid water upon the opened weals rarely fails to knock one faint. The cold numbs the flesh swiftly, and a wash of boiled nettles and Nessos' wort may be applied and endured. This stanches the flow of blood and promotes the rapid resealing of the flesh. A dressing of wool or linen at this stage would be unendurable, even applied with the gentlest touch. But a friend's bare palm, placed lightly at first, then pressed hard into the quivering flesh and held down, brings a relief whose effects approach ecstasy. Rooster had endured his own share of thrashings and knew the drill well.
Within five minutes I could stand. In fifteen my skin could take the soft sphagnum, which Rooster pressed into the blotted mass to suck out the poison and to inject its own subtle anesthetic. By God, there's not a virgin left, he observed, meaning a space that was still God's flesh and not ruptured and reruptured scar tissue. You won't be humping that hymn-singer's shield across this back for a month.
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae Page 16
