But the demons she faced were all the more unbearable because she could not confess them to anyone―least of all to Leonidas himself. Gorgo did not want Leonidas to go. She could not explain it. It was not rational. But she could not shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen.
CHAPTER 8
DEATH OF A KING
NIKOSTRATOS LIKED HIS MIDDAY NAP. IT was, of course, a self-indulgence, one he would not have granted himself if he were younger. But at seventy-four, he thought a body that had served him so prodigiously long deserved to be treated with respect.
Since it was late summer and the days were blisteringly hot, he decided to take his nap on the rooftop terrace that opened off the bedroom on his wife’s estate. The property had been a gift of King Cleomenes to his mother on her marriage to Nikostratos. It lay on the east bank of the Eurotas almost opposite Amyclae, but not on the river itself. Instead, it backed up against the Parnon range. It consisted almost entirely of terraced orchards and vineyards. The house was small and simple, but it had a covered roof terrace with a magnificent view north toward Sparta. It was one of Nikostratos’ favorite spots on earth.
Nikostratos settled himself on a couch placed strategically in the shade and cooled by breezes. He stretched himself out with a contented sigh. The crickets chirped in the pine trees, and a calico cat sat primly, washing her face with a white paw.
Chilonis was off somewhere. Nikostratos didn’t remember what she’d said, exactly, but he suspected she was visiting her granddaughter Gorgo. Their relationship was close, and Gorgo needed a little extra support today after seeing her husband march off yesterday to face the Persians.
She’d played her role very well, Nikostratos thought. She had stood prominently beside her bewildered father as the army marched past, smiling and waving not only to Leonidas but to family friends as well: Oliantus, Temenos, and Maron were all on active service and left with Leonidas, while Sperchias had been one of the two ephors sent with the army, the other being Euragoras. Gorgo had looked lovely, Nikostratos thought, completely biased and unashamed of it.
The sound of galloping hooves brought Nikostratos from his shallow doze with a start. The road here was too steep and too rough for that pace, he thought with irritation. If some youth of the agoge were riding a horse like that, he deserved to have his hide taken off! And then the hoofbeats broke into a clatter, and Nikostratos realized the rider had turned in at the gate. From below he heard the helot housekeeper exclaim in surprise, “Can I help you, sir?”
“I need to see Nikostratos at once!”
With a grunt and a wince (because his back increasingly gave him pain), Nikostratos sat up and swung his feet down. With another inward groan, he pulled himself to his feet and went to the railing to look down at the unexpected visitor.
The housekeeper had moved inside and was calling up the interior stairs, but Nikostratos leaned over the railing and called directly down to the young man, who wore leather training armor. His eyesight was no longer the best, and he could not make out the young man’s features, but he thought the braids of dark-blond hair raked across his skull at an angle; if so, it was probably Dienekes.
Dienekes had been appointed one of the three hippagretai this past spring, and the Guard had not deployed with the rest of the army because it always remained with the kings; no ruling king had marched to Marathon.
“I’m up here, young man!” Nikostratos called down. “Is something amiss?”
Dienekes took a step back to get a better look at Nikostratos. “Sir!” he shouted back. “You must come to the city at once. The ephors have ordered the arrest of King Cleomenes.”
“What? On what charge?”
“To prevent him from doing harm to himself and others, sir.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Nikostratos retorted.
“Not entirely, sir. He attacked Talthybiades with his staff, breaking his nose and knocking one of his teeth loose.”
“Talthybiades?” Nikostratos asked, instantly smelling a rat. Talthybiades was one of Brotus’ cronies. No doubt he had provoked the attack. “And Lysimachos, as ephor, demanded Cleomenes’ arrest,” he concluded out loud.
“Sir. It is worse than that. Please come.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Nikostratos stopped only to slip his feet into sandals, and made his way down the stairs and out the front door in his chiton without bothering about a himation in this heat.
As he came out of the house, the look of worry on Dienekes’ face set off every internal alarm. Dienekes had a reputation for nerves of stone. He was the kind of young man who joked even in the worst situations, and it was this―more than his jaunty braids or flashy striped chitons―that had won him the admiration of the younger men. “What is it?” Nikostratos demanded at once.
“Sir. They ordered King Cleomenes put in the stocks.”
Nikostratos’ first reaction was, “They can’t do that!” Then he thought to ask, “Who do you mean by ‘they’? Kyranios and Polymedes would never condone such an insult to a son of Herakles!”
“Lysimachos signed the order, sir, but it was Cleombrotus who gave it.”
“In the name of Zeus himself! By what authority? Brotus has no right to arrest anyone―let alone a ruling king!”
“He is King Cleomenes’ closest male kinsman, and he gave Lysimachos permission to do this.”
“And the Guard let it happen?”
“The company on duty was commanded by Pieros son of Aekesilos, and he is one of Orthryades’ men.”
Nikostratos felt as if his head were spinning. “You’re saying that Talthybiades provoked the king into hitting him, Lysimachos used it as an excuse to arrest him, and Brotus then authorized putting his own brother in the stocks? This is preposterous! How could Brotus dare such a thing?” he asked again, incredulous, yet increasingly convinced that this was a plot.
“Brotus argued that Cleomenes is dangerous, sir. What he did to Talthybiades is harmless compared to his other acts of violence. Brotus claims the palace staff lives in terror of his sudden und unpredictable outbursts. There has been more than one instance since his return from Arkadia in which servants have been injured. In one case, Brotus claims, the king took a knife to a man and tried to flay him alive, saying he would do what the Persian king did to his enemies.”
Nikostratos paled in horror. In Thessaly, Cleomenes had learned that Darius punished rebel leaders by first flaying them alive and stuffing straw into their skin like scarecrows and then impaling the skinless, but still living, victims on stakes to starve and bleed to death before the eyes of their followers. Gorgo claimed she had heard her father say: “I am more a king than Darius! Darius is a usurper! But Darius cuts out the tongue of anyone who tells the truth about how he came to power on the pretext that he is telling a lie. If a usurper can turn lies into truth and truth into lies just by skinning people alive, why shouldn’t the son of Herakles teach impudent Spartans respect by the same device?” Until now, Nikostratos had not realized that he’d actually tried ….
Cleomenes had periods when he appeared simply confused and harmless rather than wild. Yesterday had been such a day. Chilonis and Gorgo had cajoled him into carrying out the sacrifice always performed by Spartan kings before an army left Lacedaemon. Cleomenes had readily agreed without even protesting that he wasn’t leading the army anywhere (as they had half expected). Furthermore, he spent a great deal of time earnestly turning over the entrails and inspecting the liver and heart of the calf before declaring with astonishing sobriety (in marked contrast to his usually flippant tone when speaking of the Gods) that the signs were exceptionally good. “Really,” he announced as if amazed, “I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. A triumph beyond all measure. A victory to be sung as often as the Song of Troy. And all the glory will go to you, little brother.” He had then flung his arms around Leonidas and started to cry, babbling about how much he loved him and wished he could go with him, and then that he envied him the fame he
would earn. “People will remember you forever,” he declared, his mood already shifting as he started to sound jealous.
“He threatened to skin Brotus alive,” Dienekes continued, bringing Nikostratos back to the present. “He drew his sword, and it took several guardsmen to hold him back and wrench the sword out of his hand.”
Nikostratos met Dienekes’ eyes, and now he shared the alarm in them. Cleomenes had delivered himself into the hands of his enemies. He had given them the grounds they needed to move against him, and Nikostratos felt lamed by a sense of destiny. He would go with Dienekes into the city, and he would see what he could do to get the mad king released from the stocks. But Cleomenes’ throne was no longer salvageable. The Gods were taking their revenge for a lifetime of blasphemy.
Yes, Nikostratos thought mournfully as he let Dienekes help him up onto a horse, Cleomenes was lost―but what was to become of Sparta? Leonidas was by now halfway to Athens, and to call him back was unthinkable. Sparta’s safety depended no less on his ability to deflect the Persian invasion than on deflecting Brotus’ bid for power.
Only slowly did Nikostratos grasp the full magnitude of the threat. Not only was Leonidas gone, so were most of the men who supported him: Sperchias, Oliantus, Temenos, and last year’s eirenes who were devoted to him for his intervention against Alcidas―Maron most of all, but a score of others as well. They were now all citizens, and so had marched away with the army. Nikostratos knew he could count on Kyranios and Alkander, and Gorgo and Chilonis too, of course, but he feared that would not be enough.
He gripped Dienekes’ strong arm. “Young man,” he said, “I am going to need your help in the days ahead.”
“You will have it,” Dienekes assured him simply.
To make use of the cool part of the day before the unbearable heat of noon, Phormio had risen early. He left his wife sleeping and dragged himself up the outside stairs to his office. Here, with the doors to the balcony open to the cool breeze and the twittering of birds, he worked carefully through the receipts from the day before, checking the entries of his clerks. He did this routinely to keep them honest, but his thoughts were not really on the neat figures entered on the rosters. His thoughts were in the north.
Phormio calculated that the Spartan army was by now in Corinth, heading for the Isthmus. There they would surely get word of whether the Athenians had managed to hold the Persians at Marathon or had been pushed back toward the city itself. Phormio was moderately optimistic that Athens had not yet suffered a decisive defeat, because he had agents in the east-coast ports where news from Athens would first go ashore. His agents had orders to send runners with any important intelligence. By tomorrow night the Spartan army could reach Athens, and the day after that they could be in Marathon. If the Athenians could hold the Persians just three more days, they would be reinforced by the full Spartan army, two thousand strong, supported by an equal force of perioikoi infantry. Phormio was confident that this force would make the difference between defeat and victory.
A strange rhythmic pounding penetrated his consciousness. It was a dull but resonant sound, not the metallic ring of a smith, but the higher-pitched crack of an axe on wood. It sounded like a drumbeat, but that made little sense early on a working day.
With a grunt, Phormio heaved himself off his chair and moved on to his balcony, frowning with unease. He planted his fleshy hands on the railing and looked down into the street. It was empty at this time in the morning, except for a stray dog sniffing along the edge of the house opposite and a slave boy dawdling in obvious reluctance to do whatever task he’d been assigned.
Then from the top of the street―from Sparta―a rider appeared. The man was swathed entirely in black and riding a black horse. Drums hung on either side of the horse’s withers, and with steady, merciless regularity the rider pounded the head of one and then the other. Phormio caught his breath. This could mean only one thing: one of Sparta’s kings had died. He leaned over the balcony and called down to the rider, alarmed and shocked. “Which king? Which king is dead?”
“The Agiad Cleomenes,” the rider answered and continued down the street, as more and more people came out onto the balconies to stare in dread.
As she drew up to the back entrance of the Agiad royal palace, Gorgo could hear the hysterical screaming of her mother, even above the clamor of the women banging cauldrons. While the black-robed, mounted drummers brought the news of a king’s death to the scattered perioikoi cities and towns of Lacedaemon, within Sparta itself the death of a king was traditionally announced by a procession of women beating cauldrons. The procession had formed and was starting to weave its way through the streets. The residents of the houses it passed were required to drape their doors in black cloth and dress in mourning.
One of the palace grooms caught sight of Gorgo and ran out to take her horses. “Mistress Gorgo! Go in at once. I’ll see to the horses.”
Gorgo nodded and entered through the door he had left open, wishing her mother could be more dignified. Apparently she was going to have to calm and comfort her mother when she was feeling weak and vulnerable and desperately in need of comfort herself. If only Leonidas were here!
But she did not make it to the private apartments. As she tried to cross the kitchen courtyard, the palace staff blocked her way. “Mistress Gorgo! It wasn’t Prothous’ fault. Truly, he had nothing to do with it!”
“I swear, Mistress, he never left his bed all night!”
“You’ve got to save him, Mistress!”
“What are you talking about?” Gorgo countered, confused and resentful. Didn’t they realize her father was dead? Did they have to assault her with their pleas for favor and intercession even at a time like this?
“Your uncle! He is threatening all of us with punishment. He says we can be charged with murder!”
“I only just learned of my father’s death. Let me go to him and my mother!” Gorgo replied stubbornly; she did not want to even hear their problems right now.
“But, Mistress, Cleombrotus might arrest us all! Order our death! He says he is king now, and that he can have us killed.”
“Don’t be hysterical. Brotus isn’t king, and he can’t just kill you anyway. Why would he want to?”
“For giving your father the knife!”
“And we didn’t, Mistress! We were all asleep in our beds.”
“Your father asked for wine, and we gave him that,” one of the younger staff admitted, “but not the knife, Mistress. You’ve got to believe us!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Gorgo insisted irritably. “I must go to my mother and tend to my father’s corpse. This is no time for other matters. Let me go to my father!”
“But, Mistress―”
Suddenly they were all silent and staring at her.
Finally someone asked, “Didn’t they tell you how he died?”
“No. Why? How did he die?”
Dead silence answered her; her mother’s screaming seemed all the louder. A shudder ran down her spine and she shivered in the heat. “How did he die?” she asked again, more insistently.
Now they looked away, embarrassed and ashamed.
Gorgo pushed past them. She moved rapidly until she reached the atrium of the private apartments. Here she paused to lift her head and listen to the sound of her mother’s screams. At last her mother sounded less hysterical; she seemed to be sobbing now rather than screaming. Gorgo crossed the courtyard and reached the shade on the far side. Her mother had gone silent, but the silence was eerie. She ascended the stairs and started down the hall toward the double doors that gave access to the king’s bedchamber. She had gone only halfway when the doors opened and a figure draped in black emerged. It was a moment before she realized she was standing face to face with her grandmother.
Chilonis took a step forward and took Gorgo into her arms, but her grip was not soft. This was not the comforting embrace of a loving grandmother. Chilonis’ arms were fierce and imprisoning.
“What is going on?” Gorgo demanded, instinctively pulling free of a hold that seemed to arrest rather than support. “How did my father die?”
“You do not want to see him,” Chilonis answered obliquely, turning Gorgo around in her arms and pushing her back toward the stairs.
Gorgo resisted, raising her voice to demand almost hysterically, “What is going on here?”
Chilonis took Gorgo by the shoulders, and her fingers dug into Gorgo’s flesh like claws. “Listen to me!” she hissed harshly.
Gorgo went deadly still. She could not remember her grandmother ever talking to her like this, not even when she’d been a disobedient child. When she met her grandmother’s eyes, her heart missed a beat. This was not the woman who had been more a mother to her than her own. This was a gray-haired, sharp-featured crone, whose eyes blazed with an intensity that was almost evil.
“Someone has systematically sliced the skin off your father from his feet to his belly.”
Gorgo stared at her grandmother, disbelieving.
Chilonis dropped her voice even further. She was almost inaudible. “According to your uncle Brotus, your father did it to himself.”
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