“You’re sure?” Cleomenes asked, glancing again at the door.
“I swear, my lord. I swear!” Prothous raised his voice emphatically and hopefully.
“The wine tasted funny,” Cleomenes felt compelled to justify himself.
“It was from Sicily, my lord. Maybe it was a bit off, but there was no poison.”
“Let me taste it,” Leonidas ordered generally, and Gorgo blanched.
“I threw it out the window,” Cleomenes admitted with a giggle.
Gorgo reached her father’s side and stroked his arm. “That was very wise, father. Whether it was poisoned or just off, it deserved to be thrown out the window.”
Cleomenes stroked her cheek and looked at her as if she were his long-lost bride. “My child. Have you come home?”
“Only to see that you are safe, father.”
“But you won’t leave me alone tonight?” Already Cleomenes’ look was wild again, and he looked around the shattered kitchen in alarm, as if expecting assassins to spring up from the corners.
Gorgo glanced at Leonidas, who answered for her, “No, we’ll both stay with you tonight. Come, let Gorgo take you back into the house and we’ll have some good wine together. I’ll send word to your syssitia that you are ill, and to mine that I am looking after you.”
Cleomenes docilely allowed Gorgo to lead him out of the kitchen. As soon as he was gone, Leonidas crossed to the pantry door and knocked once. “You can come out.”
The door opened at once and a half-dozen terrified helots spilled out into the kitchen, while from outside came the wailing of the pipes calling the men to dinner.
“Fetch good wine―make it neat and put poppy seed in it,” Leonidas ordered.
Prothous, however, was kissing his hand in gratitude. “You saved my life. You saved all our lives. He surely would have butchered us!”
The images of the wood by Argos were too vivid in his mind for Leonidas to dismiss the thought altogether, but he tried to reassure the terrified old cook. “It’s over now. Put together a tray with things my brother likes to eat, especially fruit or nuts, foods hard to poison, and serve up a familiar wine laced with poppy seed. Gorgo and I will stay the night with him and see that he stays calm.”
“Thank you, my lord,” they murmured in unison around him.
“Don’t call me ‘my lord,’” Leonidas corrected them. “I’m just an ordinary Peer.”
“Yes, my lord―I mean, sir.”
At the door into the courtyard he glanced back at the chaos left behind by his father-in-law and the anxious faces of the kitchen staff, and he knew this could not be allowed to go on much longer.
The old man had his himation up over his head in a gesture of grief, and he shuffled more than walked. He had hitched his chiton up through his belt, exposing his scrawny, scarred legs, which were dusty to the knees. His feet were bare. Most people passing him on the road took him for little more than a beggar, at best a pilgrim. Agiatis, seeing him coming up the drive toward her father’s house, ran home frightened.
Agiatis’ agitated arrival warned Gorgo a visitor was on the way. She stopped weaving, pulled a himation over her peplos, and covered her head with a snood. If a stranger was coming unannounced, she did not want to look slovenly.
The old man reached the front porch and rang the bell. The helot Melissa opened for him and invited him inside, leading him to a bench in the hall, before she excused herself to fetch the mistress. Gorgo left the children on the terrace in the care of Laodice with orders to keep them quiet, then went to greet the stranger.
The old man was waiting for her with his walking stick between his knees. He looked up at her as she entered, with large, milky eyes covered with cataracts. Yet he knew her without seeing. “Lady Gorgo?”
“Hekataios!” she exclaimed, astonished. The old man had been a priest and royal seer as long as she could remember. He had assisted at almost every sacrifice of her childhood and had his own apartment in the royal palace. “What a surprise! Wait just one moment, and I’ll bring wine and a snack.”
“No need. I do not drink wine anymore,” Hekataios answered, his voice flat and hollow as if he were already dead.
Gorgo felt a chill go through her and she clutched her himation closer. “Is something wrong, sir?” she asked. “Can I help you in any way?”
“All my life I have served your family,” the old man answered, staring not so much at her as past her.
“Yes. I know. We have always valued you―”
“Valued me? Valued me? Is this how you pay someone you value?” he demanded in return.
“What do you mean? Has my father dismissed you?”
“No. He has killed me.”
Gorgo stared at the man, so obviously alive, and knew no answer. She shivered again and wanted to flee as Agiatis had done.
“My son is dead,” Hekataios declared woodenly.
“Your son? Asteropus?” Gorgo had heard that news, brought from Delphi by a runner weeks ago.
“Asteropus,” Hekataios confirmed.
Gorgo held her breath. She had heard that Asteropus had been found at the foot of a cliff near Delphi. People had speculated about whether he had fallen by accident or whether someone had pushed him. The Agiad representative to Delphi had enemies, it was rumored. He lived an extravagant lifestyle and cohabitated with a Phocian woman, who had given him several children. The conservatives in Sparta were outraged by Asteropus’ lifestyle, and even Leonidas did not like him, if for more personal reasons. No, Asteropus did not have many friends in Sparta, but he was said to have powerful friends in Delphi and even Athens.
“I went to Delphi,” Hekataios told her in his dull, lifeless voice. “He had a woman.” Hekataios dismissed his son’s foreign concubine with a contemptuous wave of his hand and a sneer. “An illiterate goose. She did not understand the importance of things written down. She sold my son’s papers to another man.”
Gorgo still did not know what to make of this bizarre interview.
The old man focused his eyes on her. “The papers made everything clear. Your father―” He stopped.
Gorgo held her himation closer around her shoulders. “What about my father?”
“He―he bribed the Pythia. He bribed the Pythia! He corrupted the most sacred voice of Apollo―turning a servant of the Gods into a vile, self-interested creature who defiled her office with falsehoods!”
Gorgo drew a deep breath. Leonidas had long claimed that Asteropus’ oracles were fraudulent. He refused to trust any of them. “You mean your son―”
“No! That’s just it!” Hekataios all but shouted at her. “My son may have produced documents that he claimed came from the Pythia, but he never corrupted her. When he refused to condemn Demaratus, however, your father went to the Pythia herself! He paid her gold through a man called Cobon, and in exchange she lied. She lied. She pretended to speak the words of Pure Apollo when she was spewing sewage put into her mouth by your sick and selfish father! And now, because of my son’s suicide and his stupid illiterate concubine, it has all come to light. The whole world will soon speak of nothing else! The vile woman who was honored with the most sacred office of Pythia has been disgraced and sent from the sacred city forever, and Cobon will be killed―if they can catch him.”
“That sounds most just from what you say, Hekataios,” Gorgo assured the old man cautiously, still bewildered.
He stared at her. “You still don’t understand what I have said, do you? Clever as you are, you still don’t understand.”
“No. I don’t,” Gorgo confessed.
“The oracle about Demaratus was purchased with your father’s gold, and the whole world knows it! Demaratus is the rightful king of Sparta and Leotychidas is a usurper, while your father is the most corrupt, vile, putrid, evil―” The old priest could not find words strong enough to express his hatred, and as he raised his voice, saliva splattered from his mouth with his bad breath and his anger. “Your father is―is the man who bribed the Pythia
at Delphi!”
“Brotus wants Cleomenes deposed, not just exiled,” warned Sperchias, one of Leonidas’ oldest friends. It was the middle of the night, but he felt Leonidas had to be warned. “He’s cobbled together a majority in the Gerousia, and they will put forward a proposal at the extraordinary Assembly tomorrow to depose Cleomenes―and with him Gorgo and Pleistarchos―as illegitimate bastards of an illegal marriage. The Assembly will then have no choice but to declare Brotus the rightful Agiad king.”
Leonidas was wrapped only in his himation, having answered the knocking at the door from his bed. He was not yet fully awake, but he felt as if he’d gone through this all before. “I’m not surprised,” he told his friend, clutching the himation around his shoulders from the inside, his bare feet sticking out below the uneven edge. “It’s been Brotus’ position for as long as I can remember. We were raised to see Cleomenes as ‘that bastard.’ There’s hardly anything new about the claim.”
“Everything is new! Cleomenes isn’t a young prince with Chilon’s blood in his veins. He is an aging man, who over the last quarter-century has slowly but surely squandered the support and respect of even the most conservative citizens. He turned Athens from a friend into a dangerous rival. He lost us the support of our allies in the League. He sullied our reputation as the saviors of Greece by failing to support the Ionian revolt, and he failed to subdue Argos―even when we had a chance. And now, as the final straw, he has earned us the disdain of the entire civilized world by corrupting the Pythia.”
“He is mad, Chi,” Leonidas answered simply and sadly.
“That’s not the point, Leo!” insisted Sperchias, frustrated by Leonidas’ apparent refusal to see the danger he was in. “The mood is ugly. People feel they were duped into deposing Demaratus, and they fear Apollo’s vengeance for the insult to his oracle. An angry mob is one easily swayed by those who shout loudest.”
“But it is less than a year since we―wrongly, it now seems―declared Demaratus illegitimate. Surely the Assembly is not going to be so foolish as to make the same mistake again.”
“The Assembly can be manipulated,” Sperchias argued. He knew. For years he had tried to get elected to public office, only to lose again and again because, he felt, Leonidas’ rivals and enemies had manipulated the Assembly to stop him. And all the while, Leonidas had been focused on his family and his duties, keeping aloof from politics because he claimed not to be ambitious.
Leonidas nodded and put a hand on Sperchias’ shoulder. “Thank you for warning me, Chi. Now try to get some rest.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Sleep and collect my strength.”
“Leo! Don’t you understand? Brotus is going to come to Assembly tomorrow with a large body of men prepared to shout down any common sense. They are determined to win any vote, if not with numbers then simply by shouting louder.”
“Then I will demand a head count,” Leonidas countered.
Sperchias sighed in frustration. As so often in his life, he had brought forward good arguments and he had presented them cogently and clearly, but no one, not even his best friend, seemed prepared to heed him. He felt like Cassandra, warning of impending catastrophe and condemned to watch his vision come true. Discouraged and exhausted, he descended the stairs from Leonidas’ front porch to walk down the long cypress-lined drive as the moon rose above Parnon.
Leonidas started up the stairs to his bedroom, but collided with his wife. She was sitting on the stairs, clutching her himation around her just as he was. She had been eavesdropping, but he could hardly blame her. What happened at Assembly tomorrow would affect her father, her husband, and her son. “What are you going to do, Leo?” she asked him earnestly.
“What can I do, my love?” Leonidas answered as he dropped down beside her and put his arm over her shoulders. “Your father is not fit to be king. You know that as well as I do. It is time he was set aside.”
“But Brotus―”
He silenced her with a finger to her lips. “Brotus is more dangerous when he lurks around in the dark than when he makes a frontal assault in Assembly. You will see: just because people recognize your father is mad does not mean they think he is illegitimate.”
Gorgo was far from comforted. Then she had a thought. “Leo?”
“Yes.”
“Would you do me a favor?”
“What?” he asked cautiously.
“Tomorrow, when you go to Assembly, wear your father’s armor.” Leonidas didn’t answer for a moment. His father’s armor was ancient because it had been inherited from his father King Leon―and it had been left to his eldest son, Cleomenes. Leonidas only had access to it because the palace staff treated Gorgo as their mistress, turning to her rather than her mother with their problems. If Gorgo asked them to bring this armor that had belonged to Leonidas’ grandfather and father before it belonged to Gorgo’s, they would do it.
The breastplate was too small for Leonidas across the shoulders and it cut in under his arms uncomfortably. He would not have thought to wear it for any military purpose, but it had been worn by Sparta’s Agiad kings for fifteen Olympiads, and it was very showy and distinctive, with relief spirals on the breasts. If he wore it, everyone would know exactly what he was wearing, and it would send a clear nonverbal message.
He drew a breath and then nodded. “Yes. I’ll wear it, if you can get hold of it in time.”
Spartan Assemblies were held in the Canopy, a large stoa with a hundred columns in five rows, built some twenty-five Olympiads earlier by Theodorus of Samos. It was located on the street leading from the Market Square, beside a rotunda dedicated to the Olympians Zeus and Aphrodite, and the Temples to Athena of the Council and Zeus of the Council. It was also not far from Kastor’s tomb, and Leonidas rode into the city early so he could go first to Kastor’s tomb before proceeding to the Assembly.
Leonidas had viewed Kastor as his special protector ever since he had been a child. It was logical for him to look to the Dioskouroi―since they, like he, were Spartan princes and twins. His particular affinity for Kastor came from the fact that Kastor was the mortal twin. Because Brotus had always been bigger and stronger and more successful when they were boys, Leonidas thought of him as like the demigod Polydeukes, while he identified with Kastor. The association with Kastor was reinforced by the fact that Polydeukes was a boxer like Brotus, while Kastor was the master of horses, a role Leonidas was happy to play.
It was chilly this early on a winter morning, and the Eurotas River was shrouded in mist; the entire valley still lay in the shadow of the Parnon range. Leonidas dismounted and tied his horse behind the temple. He took olive oil, honey, and cheese, produce from his kleros, from a canvas satchel he carried over one shoulder, and set them upon the altar of the ancient Doric temple that marked Kastor’s tomb. The offerings were modest because Leonidas despised gifts that had the appearance of bribery. He unloaded the goods in silence and then stood back and considered the ancient statue, which depicted Kastor smiling enigmatically.
Kastor and Polydeukes had been inseparable, and Polydeukes’ grief for his mortal brother had been so great that he had been prepared to spend half his time in hell so that his brother could escape the grave every other day. In contrast, Leonidas reflected, if his twin got the chance he would kill him or his son for the sake of worldly power. Leonidas wondered if he had come to the wrong shrine after all. But just as he turned to leave, the sun abruptly cleared the Parnon range, and light flooded into the temple to light up the face of the mortal who had become immortal through the love of his brother. Even though Leonidas knew it was a perfectly natural phenomenon, he smiled and was encouraged nevertheless.
Leaving the empty satchel with his horse, he started for the Canopy. The street before the stoa was starting to fill up. The army did not drill when there was Assembly, and the young men came over in hordes from their barracks, while the older men were flooding in from the surrounding countryside on horseback and chariot. Under the ro
of of the Canopy, men were congregating in spontaneous groups that then drifted apart and reformed in new constellations. The faces, tone, and mood were earnest.
As Leonidas made his way through the crowd, his armor attracted attention. Some men even turned to follow him with their eyes, but he ignored the looks and focused on what his ears collected as he passed. He heard many angry and indignant remarks about Cleomenes coming from the clusters of citizens. Sperchias was right; sentiment was very much against his father-in-law. But that in itself was not a problem. He was as keen as anyone to see his father-in-law declared incompetent.
“Leonidas!” Leonidas halted and looked in the direction of the caller. Alkander, with Euryleon beside him, signaled for him to wait. Leonidas halted for his friends to catch up with him. A moment later Oliantus and then Sperchias joined him. Each noted his armor without comment―but Sperchias looked relieved, Alkander smiled, and Oliantus nodded his approval.
It was starting to get crowded in the Canopy as more and more citizens arrived, but there was still no sign of Brotus. Sperchias kept looking anxiously for him, muttering about how he was bound to be collecting his faction.
Finally Brotus appeared, just as Sperchias had predicted, surrounded by his hangers-on including Orthryades, Talthybiades, Lysimachos, and the four ex-guardsmen who had nearly killed Temenos. The older citizens ignored Leonidas as if he did not exist, but Bulis smiled as he went past and asked in a low, malicious voice, “How’s that helot-lover friend of yours?”
“Better than you,” Leonidas retorted, eliciting a puzzled look, but Bulis had to keep moving to stay with Brotus.
“How is Temenos?” Alkander asked.
“He’s recovering, but that ass hasn’t seen the end of this incident yet.”
Alkander nodded absently, because his attention was drawn toward the front where the councilmen were arriving, including Leotychidas but not Cleomenes.
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