A Heroic King

by Helena P. Schrader

  “Yes,” Sperchias agreed, following the African’s gaze to a slender penteconter lying offshore. “That will be the ship Leonidas promised.”

  The ephors had refused to detail one of Lacedaemon’s small fleet for this mission, arguing that, given what they’d done to the Persian ambassadors, it might be seized and confiscated, crew and all, as soon as it was identified as Lacedaemonian. The concern was not groundless and Leonidas conceded the point, but insisted that if they weren’t willing to send one of their own ships, then they had to hire a foreign vessel to transport their emissaries to the Persian Empire.

  Bulis had exchanged not a word with Sperchias since remarking as they set out: “Just because we are on the same mission doesn’t mean I like you any more than before.” Now he roused himself to look at the ship and spat out in evident shock, “That’s a pirate!”

  Sperchias looked again. The ship was painted black, as pirates often were, and there was something ominous about the slant of her masts, but Sperchias doubted the ephors would engage a pirate ship for such an important mission. After all, Bulis and he were accredited ambassadors of the Lacedaemonian state.

  Meanwhile, a lookout on the penteconter had spotted the chariot, and a flurry of activity broke out on deck. Men ran to the oar banks, and the anchor was hauled in hand over hand. The chariot, however, had reached the foot of the hill and entered the port town, losing sight of the ship as it clattered, creaked, and bounced its way over the cobblestones. Behind it came the cart with their luggage, the other African, and their attendants.

  The walls of the city seemed to crowd them, and the driver called to the horses in his own tongue to steady them as they slowed to a crawl. Sperchias had the feeling that everyone in the whole port was staring at him with a mixture of awe and aversion. They must be wondering what sort of men volunteered to be slaughtered like sacrificial beasts. He glanced at the man beside him, still baffled to find himself paired on this mission with the arrogant ex-guardsman. Whenever he looked at his companion, he was reminded of the way Bulis had held the struggling Tisibazus over the well by his ankles while Brotus screamed, “You’ll find all the earth and water you need down there!”

  Bulis was a good four inches taller than Sperchias, ten years younger, and had been a star on the ball field in his youth. He’d set upon Temenos in the street, too, some years ago, nearly killing him, Sperchias remembered. He was a bigoted man, full of hatred for everyone who didn’t share his viewpoint.

  No, Bulis was certainly not the man he would have expected to volunteer for this mission, nor was he the man Sperchias would have chosen as a companion for a long journey to anywhere. He was glad, therefore, that the Egyptian and the Nubians were with them. The Egyptian seemed a very learned and wise man, while the Nubians even now were laughing at some joke, and the younger man flashed a smile at a bold maiden as they passed.

  When they reached the quay, they found that the penteconter had already gone alongside and a gangway had been run out. The hatch was open, giving access to the narrow boxes, built under the afterdeck, in which the horses would be transported. The chariot would be dismantled and stowed in the forepeak. The men themselves traveled on deck with the crew. They would stop for water and food each night and camp ashore, so there was no need for accommodations or to carry provisions for the men.

  As the team halted beside the dark penteconter, a grizzled old marine barked an order and a white pennant was run sharply up the mast, showing the coiled hydra of Argos.

  Bulis recoiled instantly. “Worse than a pirate! It’s Argive!”

  “Argos is an ally of Persia,” Sperchias pointed out, annoyed by Bulis’ knee-jerk hostility. “This way we’ll have access to Persian ports, as we would not in one of our own ships.”

  “An Ionian would have done just as well. This stinks of treachery!” Bulis insisted.

  Meanwhile the company of ten marines came to attention on the afterdeck of the vessel, while a lithe, black-haired young man sprang lightly ashore. He was darkly tanned, so that his white chiton stood out crisp and clean against his skin. Incongruously for an Argive, his beard was cropped and his hair braided like a Spartiate―at the diagonal just as Dienekes did it.

  “Eurybiades!” Bulis gasped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The dark-haired man bowed mockingly to Bulis. “Captain, to you, Bulis. I am captain of this fine, private penteconter. Take no note of the pennant―we fly whatever suits us. Argos just happens to be what we prefer for this voyage.”

  “Private, my ass!” Bulis growled. “That’s just another word for pirate!”

  “We serve whoever pays―in this case, King Leonidas of Sparta,” Eurybiades corrected him, and turned to smile at the dumbfounded Sperchias.

  They were both Kytherans, and Sperchias’ deep-seated aversion to war dated from the Argive raid on Kythera. He remembered hearing that Eurybiades’ mother hanged herself when the Argives broke into her estate. Eurybiades had been a little boy of twelve or thirteen, and the news of his mother’s violent death had reached him in the agoge. His father had gone at once to try to find and bury the body of his wife, only to return with word that the house was completely gutted and uninhabitable, the helots and livestock slaughtered. Sperchias understood that such an experience might have turned Eurybiades into a rebel, and yet he was not entirely comfortable with someone as irreverent toward the law and the Gods as Eurybiades was reputed to be.

  Eurybiades gestured for the emissaries to board his vessel and turned to give instructions about the horses, while the helots started to offload the luggage from the cart. Sperchias was reminded that they had no time to waste. Children were still sick and dying at home.

  He followed a still-smoldering Bulis across the gangway, and his eyes fell on the captain of marines. The man looked vaguely familiar, although he wore his hair short and his beard long like other Greeks. Sperchias thought maybe he’d seen him in Delphi, a supplicant to the oracle perhaps?

  But then the man introduced himself: “Prokles,” he growled, “Prokles, son of Philippos.”

  “Of course! You were Leonidas’ boyhood friend.”

  “Was, yes. Now I’m just a mercenary like my men―the scum of the earth with nothing to lose. We hire our skins out for pay. King Leonidas pays well, I might add. Better than most.”

  “But you’re Hilaira’s brother,” Sperchias protested. “Your term of exile expired three years ago. You could―”

  “Don’t start that! I’m not coming back!” Prokles snarled, and then, sensing he had overreacted, he asked in an almost normal tone of voice, “Is Hilaira still well, and Alkander? This sickness has not struck them, I hope?”

  “They are both well, but your nephew Simonidas nearly died. He has been scarred for life.”

  Prokles nodded emotionlessly. Why should he care about a boy he had never met? On the quay they had started to dismantle the chariot. Prokles stepped back. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later. I have orders to take you all the way to Susa.”

  They stopped on Crete, Rhodes, and then Cyprus. They rounded the Karpasian peninsula from the north and put in at Salamis to take on water and rest one last time before striking out for the Levant. Although Cyprus technically belonged to the Persian Empire, the culture and language were Greek. Indeed, Cyprus had briefly joined the Ionian Revolt. From Sperchias’ point of view, Salamis was the last port of call in friendly territory. The next stop would be Sidon, and there the two emissaries would enter an alien world commanded by the world’s most powerful despot―a man who had vowed to destroy their homeland.

  Still, they were accredited ambassadors of the Lacedaemonian state with an embassy to the Great King. If all went according to plan, their diplomatic immunity would enable them to travel all the way to the Great King’s court, where they would reveal their mission and make their sacrifice to him directly. Sperchias was acutely aware, however, that the Great King might have long since issued standing orders to treat any Spartan ambassadors as the Sp
artans had treated his own. Even if such orders had not been issued, there was no assurance that the local satrap, Hydarnes, would not prefer to dispatch them on his own initiative, in order to send their heads to Xerxes as a means of currying favor.

  Under the circumstances, Sperchias found he could not sleep. Clutching his himation around his naked body, he left the carpet of crewmen and marines stretched out and snoring on the afterdeck to walk forward between the oar banks to the prow of the ship. Here he leaned on the port railing and gazed at the stars, brilliant in a cloudless sky.

  He still did not fully understand how it had come to this. He accepted that it was his destiny, and part of him was secretly pleased that a even a mediocre man might yet find his way into history. Leonidas had promised him the Spartans would raise a monument to him just as if he had died in battle, and he knew the boys of the agoge would be taught that Bulis and he embodied Sparta’s spirit of self-sacrifice for the common good. And yet, how was it that a man of only average talent and understanding was the only one who had foreseen this?

  “It’s your last chance to jump ship,” remarked a dry, cracked voice in the darkness, making Sperchias start. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Prokles.

  “I have no intention of jumping ship,” Sperchias told him.

  Prokles shrugged. “Xerxes is a spoiled princeling―not as ruthless as his father, but more dangerous, because he is fickle and unpredictable. Darius was rational. Darius knew perfectly well he stole the throne from Cyrus’ rightful heirs. He knew he slaughtered and cheated his way into power―and that he had to put down revolts with merciless brutality or risk falling victim to the next Darius. But he also knew flattery when he heard it. Xerxes, on the other hand, confuses it with the truth. He actually believes he is all the things his father’s relentless bureaucracy tells him he is―Godhead of all Wisdom, Source of all Civilization―all that kind of crap.”

  “Have you met him?” Sperchias asked.

  Prokles shrugged and answered evasively, “Near enough,” and then, apparently insulted by the mere question, withdrew.

  Sperchias was left to his own thoughts, and was soon so lost in them he did not even notice that Bulis had joined him until Bulis remarked, “The stars are fading.”

  Sperchias shook himself out of his reverie and looked at his companion. Bulis looked at the horizon, his head held high, his expression haughty. Sperchias waited.

  “Since I may never have another chance to ask this question, I want to know before we die together just why you, an inveterate Persia-lover and compromiser, volunteered for this mission?”

  Sperchias almost protested angrily that he was not, and never had been, a Persia-lover, but then he realized it would do no good. He’d tried to explain a hundred times already, but Bulis wasn’t listening, so he kept his answer to the minimum. “I volunteered for this the day after the murders―foreseeing the wrath of the Gods, although not what form it would take.”

  “There was no call for volunteers back then!” Bulis scoffed.

  “No, and Leonidas dismissed my offer out of hand, saying it would serve no useful purpose. He was only thinking of the Persians, you see, not the Gods. Our sacrifice will not stop the Persians from bringing war to Lacedaemon, but before that war comes, I want the Gods to be appeased. I would not want Sparta to go to war with Persia while the Gods are set against us.”

  Bulis was still staring at the horizon and gave no indication of having heard, much less being impressed by, Sperchias’ answer. Sperchias sighed and asked, “And why did you volunteer?”

  “To prove to Leonidas that I am a better man than he thinks I am,” Bulis snapped back.

  That sounded petty to Sperchias, and he unconsciously raised his eyebrows.

  Bulis didn’t notice; he was still staring eastward, where a sliver of golden sun was peeping over the horizon, turning the sea purple. “It is no great sacrifice I make,” he added in a murmur without turning his head, “because I am already dead. The moment she died in my arms, proving all my strength and skills and prayers worthless….”

  Hydarnes was in his prime, and a successful man by any standard. He was currently in command of the seaports of the Levant, a notoriously lucrative post. For the two Spartan emissaries en route to the Great King in Susa, he ordered a banquet that would manifest his wealth and power. The kitchen was tasked with producing a variety of dishes using exotic ingredients―from ostrich eggs and pineapples to the meat of crocodiles, swans, and piglets of wild boar. These and other dishes were to be prepared with spices from the farthest corners of the Empire: white and black peppers, saffron, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, tarragon, sesame, and more. To drink, the guests would have a choice of date wine, wine from red or white grapes, honey mead, or Assyrian barley beer. For entertainment, Hydarnes ordered Egyptian dancers, Indian gymnasts, and a juggler from Armenia, but held fighting cocks in reserve in case these primitive visitors could not appreciate his more refined offerings. Music was to be provided by Babylonian and Ionian musicians, as well as a Nubian slave with an amazing voice.

  At the appointed time, the visitors were admitted to Hydarnes’ palace and escorted to the banqueting hall by one of the assistant stewards. The steward wore soft shoes of doeskin and flowing robes in bright patterns. Compared to this mid-ranking official, the Spartan ambassadors looked like a pair of sentries in their near-matching red chitons and cloaks and their bronze and leather armor.

  As ambassadors, Sperchias and Bulis had a status equivalent to that of their host, and protocol was finessed with a herald announcing them at the entrance to the banquet hall and their host rising to meet them halfway. The steward bowed to his master and withdrew to the side. Hydarnes bowed his head first to Bulis and then to Sperchias; they returned the gesture with dignity. Hydarnes led them to the seats flanking him.

  For men from a country that murdered ambassadors, Hydarnes was impressed by their good manners. Both men behaved like civilized men, washing their hands, making offerings to the Gods, politely awaiting their host’s invitation to each course, and then taking small portions of everything. They took only small bites and chewed with their mouths closed. Nothing about their behavior suggested they were barbarians, Hydarnes thought with surprise.

  Because Hydarnes’ Greek was good, the Egyptian interpreter was all but superfluous, and he withdrew self-effacingly into the background. Hydarnes inquired after his guests’ voyage, narrated the dishes laid out for them, drew attention to the music, and related anecdotes about the musicians or other guests, generally playing the good host. Bulis acted as if they were speaking Persian, nodding politely now and again but stubbornly keeping silent, leaving it to Sperchias to be gracious and respond to Hydarnes’ questions.

  As he did so, Sperchias found himself thinking how useful all his observations would have been to Leonidas. From the moment they docked, he had been noting things―for example the shipyards, where no less than nine triremes were being built, but also the abject poverty of the people crushed into the sector of the city beyond the harbor. Sperchias noted, too, that there were many public buildings in shabby condition, and the roads were in poor repair. He guessed that tax money was being siphoned off to maintain a military establishment stretched to the limits, at the price of other state expenditures. He suspected that there was more unrest in this vast empire than outsiders realized. Darius, after all, had to subdue nineteen revolts in his first years on the throne. Might it be that Xerxes, too, was being challenged―and running scared? True, he had crushed the Egyptian revolt, but the Egyptian scribe Teti claimed there were uprisings in places he had never even heard of.

  Sperchias longed to report these observations to Leonidas, but he would have no chance―unless he wrote them down and entrusted them to Teti. He glanced over his shoulder at the Egyptian; the old man met his eye, then looked down humbly. Sperchias had the uncanny feeling the Egyptian saw a great deal more than he did―and his hatred of Persia was insatiable. That calmed him a little. A report on the state
of Persia would get back to Leonidas even without his own commentary.

  “Has Sparta at last seen the wisdom of becoming friends with the Great King?” Hydarnes’ words broke into his thoughts. Before Sperchias could even draw a breath to answer politely, however, Bulis barked out, “On the contrary. We are here to reaffirm our position.”

  Hydarnes looked shocked, and Sperchias hastened to soften the impact of Bulis’ outburst. “We are here to make amends for the violence done to the Great King’s ambassadors. We recognize the grievous nature of our transgression and have come to make reparation,” Sperchias assured him.

  Hydarnes raised his eyebrows, an expression of skepticism on his face, but he refrained from saying what he thought.

  Sperchias continued. “As my colleague noted, however, Sparta has not changed its fundamental decision to remain independent.”

  “But why?” Hydarnes asked. “You have only to look at me and the position I enjoy to see that the Great King knows how to reward merit. From what I have heard, Lacedaemon has many men of merit. Indeed, you seem to me to be such men yourselves. I can see that you are men of good breeding, education, and distinction. If you go to the Great King in friendship and submit to his generosity, I am sure he would reward you for this. Indeed, you might find yourselves endowed with vast authority over lands in Greece, which he will certainly give to those who embrace his friendship of their free will.”*

  “He has to take those lands first,” Bulis growled, but fortunately into his cup and under his breath, so that Hydarnes appeared not to hear.

  Sperchias spoke louder and held his host’s attention. “Hydarnes, your advice is good as far as it goes, but it is based on only half the facts. You understand well what slavery is, but you have never known freedom. If you had but tasted freedom as we know it, you would advise us not to submit, but to fight―and not just with our spears, but with axes and swords and, indeed, our naked hands.”