The fox, p.35
The Fox, page 35
His face fell. “Agisilaos will have command of that.”
“Claim it for yourself. He has usurped your right of command often enough.”
He spoke with difficulty. “Leo’, I know he has his faults, but I would not permit him to speak against you.”
“But I have no faults.” I got to my feet. It was not the time for argument.
He smiled “So you always fancied. My mother would be pleased to see you.” He meant that I should have a chance to greet my wife, before setting out to the hall where I was dining with Antalkidas. He had left urgent messages for me at my barracks, the Agiad palace, and the houses of a number of friends.
My wife lived in the Agiad palace, in my aunt’s quarters. My mother was implacably opposed to the match, having herself selected three maidens of impeccable Royal Heraklid blood, from among whom she graciously allowed me a choice. Having seen all three, I chose none.
Shortly after, I saw Kleonike practising for a competition of maiden’s choruses. For that rehearsal, she took the place of the chorus master and sang his part. Her voice was unusual. It was a haunting voice, low and vibrant, with a touch of the careless insolence of an up-country boy herding his goats. Her looks were as pleasing as her singing.
I saw her on the running course, and watched her throw the spear. She won no race, but was amongst the front runners. Her spear went straight. She would have strong sons. Her nature was agreeable also. Her father was lochagos in a fine regiment, and decently poor.
Being under thirty, I could not speak on my own behalf. Nor would I ask any woman to live seven years with my mother’s displeasure. Aunt Eurydame declared she would be delighted to have Kleonike with her. She and Agesipolis approached Kleonike’s father for me. I do not think my aunt was entirely displeased by an opportunity to annoy her beautiful elder sister.
Anyone would have mistaken her as the elder now, as she sat with her women companions in a room opening into the courtyard. Her prettiness faded when Pausanios was deposed, and she was becoming rather plump. The women excused themselves when I came in.
These companions were widows of Royal Heraklid lineage and small means. One or two had once lived with my mother, but such companions rarely stayed long in her favour. My aunt dismissed the servants.
“Tell me, Leotychides, will Pausanios be proud of him?”
“More than proud.”
“That young man is with him. I saw them just now coming in from the courtyard.”
I nearly said, “It has been a long campaign. He has earned it.” I recalled I was talking to my aunt, and muttered something about the fellow being harmless enough and short of wit.
“Agisilaos is the wit,” she replied shortly. “Leotychides, will that man rule my son again?”
“He feels a certain gratitude to Agisilaos.”
“Agesipolis is so easily led.”
“He is not weak. Gentle–”
“Pausanios is not gentle. He was never led.” she smoothed her hair. “Kleonike is selecting maidens for a chorus. You can see Leonidas.”
I had been out of Sparta when my son was named. The royal elders had given him as fine a name as I could have wished. Had I been present, he would have been called Agis. His nurse brought him in.
“How like Timaia he is,” My aunt took him from his nurse. He had changed from a rather unappetizing bit of flesh to a handsome child, who looked at me with large green eyes and fair hair that was brightening to sunset gold. “He has the look of our family. Kleombrotos has it a little. Agesipolis never had. I wonder why it is always boys with us? Timaia and I. Sons and a grandson. I must find Agesipolis a wife who–” She broke off, as Kleonike’s voice preceded her.
“Tell a false note from a true, and simply because she is an ephor’s daughter–” Her face was flushed; and small, dark curls had escaped to frame it becomingly. She treated me with seemly dignity. I gave her a sign that meant I would try to steal away to her the next night. One is always watched closely, the night of one’s return.
“I was telling Leotychides that Leonidas resembles our side of the family.” Eurydame babbled on, as though she were bestowing the highest of compliments. “It must miss a generation. Agesipolis resembles Pausanios, although I don’t think him as fine-looking. Leotychides, also, is like his father–”
“Dear Aunt–” I interrupted her train of thought before she took it further. “I must go, or I shall be unpardonably late.”
I waited for Antalkidas by the Cattle Price House. He came out of the Agora, accompanied by an ephor and a polemarch. He talked. They listened. He saw me. Took courteous but brief leave of his companions.
“You received my message.”
“How could I not?”
“You are in luck.” His short, neat beard was darker than his garish hair. “Two members of my Hall were excused for hunting. There will be game tonight.”
“What is so urgent that it cannot wait until I have been in Sparta a full day.”
“Venison.”
He was not downcast by the failure of his mission to Sardis. Mere delay, he assured me. “I have put a stop to Konon. Tiribazos bought us a fleet.”
“And was recalled to Susa.”
“Unfortunate for him, but he can do us more good where he is.”
“His successor will not.”
“Disagreeable fellow, Struthas. I must put a stop to him, too. Patience, my dear Leotychides. But not too much.”
Antalkidas was in high spirits all evening. The talk in Hall centred on the Argive campaign, and turned to the coming invasion of Attica. Antalkidas praised Agesipolis lavishly, and waxed enthusiastic on the autumn offensive.
“Of course,” he said as soon as we were outside, “there will be no invasion.”
All the creatures of summer spoke as we walked back from Hall. Boys behind us sang a song of Tyrtaios. The sky was splendid with stars. Moonlight outlined the rounded peaks of Taygetos. The sights and sounds and scents of Lakedaimon.
“You, no doubt, will persuade the Athenians to surrender without a battle.
“Something like that. You heard about Teleutias?”
“No, Antal. We had no news of Teleutias in the Argolid.”
The boys’ voices grew fainter, as they turned off the path towards their flock encampment.
“It seems Agesipolis put Agisilaos’s little skirmish in the shade there. Or was it really Aristodemos?”
“It was Agesipolis. What about Teleutias?”
“The Athenians were sending help to the Tyrant of Cyprus.” Cyprus had rebelled against Persia after Konon’s demise. “Teleutias sighted them with his squadron of triremes, and destroyed every enemy vessel.”
“Teleutias knows the sea.”
“My dear Leotychides, you have missed the point entirely. Cyprus is at war with our enemy, the Great King. The Athenians were helping our ally, who is the enemy of their ally Artaxerxes. And Teleutias stopped them. Now do you understand?”
Both sides had acted against their own interest. Athens and Sparta were becoming like two tired boxers striking out aimlessly. I said something to that effect. The analogy pleased Antalkidas. He asked my permission to borrow it.
“But, Antal, a boxing match ends only when one boxer is defeated.”
“Never carry an analogy too far. We have a few new ships of our own. I intend to command them.”
“The Magpie will be pleased.”
“By Zeus, Leo’, I tell you that I may be appointed grand admiral, and all you say is that it will please Anaxandros.”
“He has admired you since you were his patrol leader.”
Surprisingly, he seemed quite gratified.
“Well, if he and his friend want to join my fleet, they are welcome. And you, Leo’.”
“We are cavalry officers, Antal.”
“You haven’t heard? A number of cavalry troops – those who lost their kleroi for illegitimacy – are to be given a permanent regiment of their own. A hoplite regiment. The officers will be full Spartiate, of course.”
So others have seen the potential of these men. In more respects than one.
“This will not be good for the cavalry.” Most of the younger men fell into this category.
“I don’t think you understand, Leo’. There will be no permanent cavalry regiments. Don’t worry; there are places for all of you in hoplite regiments at your present rank.”
“By Apollo, Antal, you must have it wrong. Such a cavalry will be useless in battle.”
“It has always been a small part of the Spartan army.”
“Numbers do not matter.”
“I quite agree. But I am not chief ephor...yet. Leo’, when I take command, I will need good officers at sea. Men I know. Flock-brothers. You, the Magpie, his friend Kallias. Not a flock-brother, but a sound man...”
I thought of Pelles, the garrulous Maro – excellent cavalry officers – as Antalkidas went on talking about the war at sea.
It was my first night back in Sparta after a hard campaign. I was overwhelmed by the disbanding of my regiment. It was all those men with whom I had ridden into battle. Alive and dead. There was also the sea.
The sea beckoned – and I forgot that Antalkidas had a way of telling only half a story, and agreed before I learned that Tiribazos was back in the favour of the Great King.
That barbarian had an uncharacteristic consistency in his friendship for Antalkidas. Perhaps he respected the insincerity of its reciprocation.
Chapter 14
A tall woman left the temple of Artemis Orthia, as I entered. Her head was covered by the end of her peplos, her face shadowed as we passed one another between the two columns. I laid my finger-length bronze cavalryman on the offering-table. There were many such small helmets; swords, shields, mounted warriors, and hoplites in full panoply for the Chaste Huntress after the campaign in the Argolid. So few, after Corinthia. Was the goddess elsewhere then? Or was she angry because she had no sacrifice before the battle on the Isthmus road?
I turned to the rose-marble portrait of Artemis and Apollo: divine sister facing divine brother; doves at their feet.
“Daughter of Zeus, we had no time to make the sacrifice. You must know that, you who protect Spartan warriors in foreign lands. We have always honoured you. Why did you turn from us?”
I left the temple, and stepped out into the quiet. The hollow is still as a mountain peak. The bird-song, clear in the laurel trees that bound the grounds sacred to Artemis, Huntress and Mistress of Wild Things. Beyond the holy grounds, the grass is greener, – where the nameless dead of Sparta lie, before the honoured place where limestone grave-markers bear the names of priestesses, and warriors slain in battle. The tall woman walked among the marked graves, followed by her maid. I wished her gone.
“What should be carved upon it?” Dinon had asked me. (He died two months after his son).
“Warriors with shields.”
That day, we followed the bier with radiant faces, smiling proudly. Hekataios, at his father’s side, ready to give him his arm; but the white-haired man did not falter. His wife had been a very pretty woman in her youth, and still had the ways of beauty. She, too, smiled; but her pretty ways died with her elder son. Gorgo, head high, a slender silver ring on her arm, a proud smile on her lips. Her maiden’s peplos black, her face stark white.
Warriors followed us to the shrines and sanctuaries, Anakos amongst them. Some I did not know. Men who had fought near Nemea. Served in Asia. After the funeral feasting was done, in the house on the stony land, the last guests gone, Dinon asked, “What should be carved on the grave-marker?” and I replied, “Warriors with shields.”
A shadow fell across the patterned shadows of the boundary trees. The woman had come back from the graves.
“Leotychides.” She halted.
Her long peplos was so simple I would not have noted its richness, had I not been the son of my mother. Her dark hair, centre-parted, fell in two wings on her temples; and was gathered in a high loop, showing earlobes weighted by small bunches of gold grapes. A heavy gold ring circled her left arm.
“Mistress Gorgo.”
On her right arm was a slender silver ring that had been exchanged for a tankard, I had already recognised her by her walk. In a city where women are known for the pride of their steps, hers was still exceptional.
“I married Chairon for peace,” she said in her rich, low voice.
I had not seen her since the day we followed the bier.
“You owe me no explanation, Mistress Gorgo.”
“There is no other to whom I would give one.”
“Have you found peace, Mistress Gorgo?”
“If peace is an absence of pain.” Her brow was smooth. The bold-arched eyebrows static. The frowning, sturdy little girl, the defiant maiden, had disappeared into this handsome, poised woman. The eyes were the same. Large and dark as ripe grapes.
“Are you at peace, Leotychides?”
“It is not in my nature.”
“I envy you.”
“My pain?”
“Only the living know pain.” Her eyes were fully on me, like two dark suns. “I have seen your son. I, too, would like a son named for a hero.”
I understood her. “Your husband is an honourable man, Mistress Gorgo.”
“Nor would I dishonour him.” She walked away with that firm, proud step.
A few nights later, as I neared a dining hall with a brother officer, Chairon drew me aside. He complimented me on the fine appearance of my son, and confided that it was his great regret that he had married too late to sire strong children. He also made it quite clear that his friends would be detaining him late in Hall that night. Very late. Between honest men that is how such things are arranged.
Gorgo was a fever that raged in my blood.
Between us there was fire. No laughter. No tenderness. Few words. Only that tinder fire that had been lit the first night I slipped past the servants sleeping under the eaves, and into her rooms. Felt her strong limbs, as the moonlight flooded over those parts of her face and body not hidden by the long mass of her heavy dark hair unloosed from its high knot. Kleonike was like a refreshing stream, smiling and gentle. Gorgo was a storm of thunderbolts.
The rest of that summer I lived in a fever of Gorgo.
I would find myself thinking of her in dining-halls where I guested, her image compelling me to slip away to her on nights when I intended no visit.
It happened so frequently I wondered that no one noticed my departures and returns. Perhaps it was because Kleonike was again with child, and no one looked for me to slip away.
I stayed so late in Gorgo’s rooms that I had to go directly to my barracks, the hall having emptied. Another time I encountered Pronax, leaving the barracks quarter at dawn, as I returned. I muttered something about hunting. He said he would go with me. I had to endure his company the whole of the day.
Sometimes Gorgo’s servants were stirring when I left her. The cook saw me on his way to the cook-house to prepare breakfast for his master and mistress. I stumbled against her maid outside her door.
There was another night when I reached my barracks room against a paling sky, only an eye-blink before my batman came in with a bowl of black broth to wake me. The night we truly talked.
We started remembering small things in the after-quiet. The time she taught Euagoras the spear. The Magpie’s fury when she took Kallias’s cavalry horse to ride to Aulon. A sharp, premature breeze blew in from the courtyard. She rose and picked up some garment, hers or mine, to wrap about her, and stood outlined against the dark light of the sky.
“Do you think of them? That woman from Aulon and her followers?” she asked in her rich, low voice.
“Rarely, We were very young then, Gorgo.”
“My husband is of an age to remember Sparta when she was pure.” She turned, partly facing me. “Men no longer speak freely in the streets and the gymnasium, and the hot baths.”
A chance word overheard by a gymnasium servant or a bath attendant, or even a by-passer, had cost more than one man advancement. Only in Hall, where no word goes forth, could men speak easily.
“That is true.”
“Did Doreius know?”
“He knew. But he was of a metal that could not be corrupted.”
“That I know. Perhaps it is one reason why I have followed him into his grave. I wish he had not known.”
“I too, thought I had died, Gorgo. It was only my youth.”
“Many boys were.”
“But it was you he loved,” she went on relentlessly. “You he fought beside. You, who were so close to him that you cannot know how much of you is yourself, and how much Doreius. That is a trust, Leotychides. Never betray that part of you that is Doreius.”
“I kept his company of cavalry what he made it. Now it has been disbanded–”
She rounded on me. “There is more to Sparta than one company of cavalry.”
“It was his. It was mine. It is finished.”
“Your pain is the price you pay for living.”
“You live, too, Gorgo. You speak too passionately for one dead.”
She wrapped the garment about herself more closely. “I think of many things, but it is as though someone else thought them.”
“In myself, I call it wisdom.”
Did I fancy the wry smile illuminated by the moonlight? “Yes, I must learn the language of the old.”
“Age is said to bring tranquillity.”
“It is a long season between spring and winter.”
Thus we talked. We who, at twenty-four, would never be young again.
I went to her only twice more. The third time she sent me away. The purpose had been accomplished. The fever still burned in Gorgo also; but she, too, was Spartan.
