A large, two-handled pelike with a cover immediately caught her attention. Chariots chased one another across the shoulder, but on the body hoplites fought. Strikingly, in the center on one side stood a remarkably lifelike image of a bearded man with raised spear―and he wore a cross-crested helmet, the symbol of a Spartan king.
“A Spartan king?” Gorgo asked, astonished.
Menekles smiled. “Of course! Menelaos―and here is Paris taking flight.” He pointed at a thin, beardless figure in hoplite armor and an open-faced helmet with raised crest. The youth looked fearfully over his shoulder as he dropped his sword. “Would you like the pelike, my lady? It would be an honor for me to think it adorns Menelaos’ home.” The slave-artisan bowed deeply.
“I would be delighted to make a gift of it to my husband, but I would not risk taking it with me in my current state. I will send a servant with Uche for it later,” Gorgo assured him, thinking she would send Taiwo with some money as well. Taiwo would know the value of the pelike and persuade the potter to take at least some compensation.
Hunger, more than anything, reminded Gorgo and Uche that they had been out for hours now and it was time to return before they were missed. They thanked Menekles, left the potters’ quarter, and soon came to an intersection where the avenue from the east crossed the broad road up from Piraeus.
Ahead of them a trio of sailors was sauntering, stopping to look at the cheap goods offered for sale. They were in no hurry, and from the excited way they pointed at this or that, they were clearly strangers to Athens. Uche suggested to Gorgo that they pass them when the sailors stopped at a street-side stand to buy bread stuffed with spinach and cheese. Gorgo nodded and extended her stride, but she glanced sideways as they passed. Her eyes met one of the sailors, and he recognized her at once. “My lady!” he exclaimed, and then to his mates he added, “It’s the queen!”
Gorgo looked again. All three sailors were looking over at her, smiling and bobbing their heads. She realized they must be crewmen from the Minotaur, so she smiled and paused to ask, “Are you enjoying Athens?”
“Yes, my lady!”
“But the prices are crazy!”
“And people talk funny!”
Gorgo laughed, and they laughed with her.
“They don’t know about helots. They think we’re slaves!” one complained.
“Will we be here much longer?” his friend asked.
“A few more days,” Gorgo guessed. “Have you been to the theater?”
“Yes, my lady. But the chorus was paltry! We have much better music!”
“And better dancers!” his colleague added, nodding vigorously.
Gorgo laughed again, but then told them, “I must go. I’m late already. Enjoy your shore leave―but try not to get hoodwinked into staying. We need you to take us home.”
“Of course, my lady!” “Not a chance!” “The sooner the better!” they answered in a cacophonous chorus.
Gorgo waved to them as she stepped out to continue up the street, but she did not get far. Suddenly a young man on a prancing, fine-boned horse cut in front of her and blocked her way. “What’s your price, then?” he asked, leering down at her from his superior vantage, a broad-brimmed hat on his head and gold glinting from his rings as he held the fretting stallion.
“I don’t have a price!” Gorgo told him indignantly.
“Don’t play with me,” the man answered, nudging his horse closer, effectively pinning Gorgo and Uche against the wall of a factory that backed up against the street. “I saw you talking to sailors. If you sleep with scum like that, you can’t be worth much. Half a drachma?”
Uche tried to pull Gorgo back, calling up to the young man, “We’re not whores! Leave us alone!”
The horseman ignored Uche, his eyes fixed on Gorgo as he leaned lower. “Come on, name a price! I’m feeling generous today. Even if you do it with sailors for less, I’ll pay a whole drachma. And you’ll enjoy it more. I don’t smell.” He reached out with one hand to run a finger along the side of her face.
Gorgo could smell his perfume, and she noticed, too, the delicate embroidery that dusted his chiton with bright bursts of blue iris and yellow lotus. “Go away!” Gorgo ordered, making a face and drawing back sharply. “You can’t even play a female role!”*
The young man laughed and grabbed hold of Gorgo’s upper arm, pulling her to him, as he urged his horse closer to the wall so she would have no escape as he bent to kiss her. Gorgo reacted by lifting her knee into the belly of the horse with such sudden force that the horse reared up. Her assailant was nearly thrown, and had to let go of her to grab the reins and cling to the mane. Gorgo darted past the horse and ran up the street, with Uche several strides behind her.
As soon as the horseman recovered his seat and control of his horse, however, he cantered after them, cursing. “Forget about payment! I’ll f**k you for free for that!”
Gorgo spun about and darted back the other way, knowing that he could not reverse so quickly on horseback. She almost collided with a marine in full armor, who pushed her aside to reach up and drag the young dandy off his horse. The horse whinnied and spun away, while Prokles pounded the impudent young Athenian with his right fist as he held him fast with his left. Blood gushed from the Athenian’s nose and mouth as his knees crumbled under him. Still Prokles continued hitting and kicking him at the same time, preventing him from escape by holding him fast and knocking his feet out from under him when he tried to run.
“Stop it!” Gorgo ordered. “That’s enough!”
A crowd was gathering. The three sailors had run up behind Prokles, and from across the street other men rushed over. A heavily laden wagon stopped in the middle of the street.
“Enough! That’s enough!” men echoed Gorgo.
“What’s this all about?” the teamster asked in a deep voice.
“Just some whore,” a man in the crowd answered with a nod toward Gorgo. Instantly the three sailors of the Minotaur flung themselves at the man who had dared to call their queen a whore, knocking him off his feet. Prokles abruptly let go of the dandy and dealt him a final kick that sent him staggering into the collected crowd. He grabbed Gorgo by her arm and hustled her up the street, with a frightened Uche trailing them.
“Where did you come from?” Gorgo asked.
“You don’t think I’d let you wander around in this piss-pot on your own, do you?”
“You’ve been following me all morning?”
“I knew it would come to this sooner or later. The Athenians are all―” he swallowed the word he’d been about to use.
“Did Leonidas tell you―”
“I don’t take orders from Leo―unless he’s paying me.”
Gorgo thought about that. “Then there’s no reason that he has to find out about this, is there?”
“Not that I know of.” They looked at each other―and slowly, a little timidly, they both smiled before continuing up the street in comfortable silence.
Only now, when it was over, did Gorgo realize how much danger she had been in and how badly shaken she was by the encounter. For the first time this day she was frightened, and she kept close to Prokles, taking comfort in the familiar smell of sweat-stained leather.
Prokles was acutely aware of Gorgo’s presence. He noticed her dirty bare feet and slowed down to accommodate her shorter strides, noting that she had not asked it of him. He glanced at her sidelong. “Are there any maidens like you left in Sparta?”
“Dozens,” she assured him with a nervous laugh.
“Willing to take a grizzled old salt with a stinking past?”
“One or two,” she assured him.
Prokles snorted and pointedly looked away.
Again they continued in silence for a dozen paces. Then Prokles cleared his throat and asked, “Is Leo serious about taking me back? Would he make the ephors give me a kleros, cloak, and shield?”
“Prokles! Of course he would! You know he would. He has wanted you to return from the day yo
u left! Alkander and Hilaira, too.”
“And you think I could really find a bride―one who wouldn’t hate me?”
Gorgo thought about that a minute and then declared, “I think I know exactly who would suit you. She’s an orphaned heiress whom Leonidas will give in marriage.”
“Don’t say a word about this to Leo!” Prokles warned gruffly, and then added apologetically, “Forgive my rude tone. Old habits die hard. But let me think about this before I talk to Leo myself.”
“As you wish, but you can count on my support.”
He smiled at her and nodded.
Preparations for the symposium were well under way by the time Leonidas and the four guardsmen returned. They were in exceedingly good spirits and feeling proud of themselves. The Spartans had won at every sport that mattered to them. Who cared about discus and boxing when they could beat the youth of Athens in javelin and wrestling and broad jump? And while they had to concede pride of place to a truly magnificent Athenian sprinter, as soon as the runners put on armor, the Spartan guardsmen had left the competition gasping in their dust. Even Leonidas was feeling very proud of himself for having outperformed if not the best, then at least the bulk, of the competitors, who were much younger than he. Indeed, there had been hardly any Athenian men of his generation who did more than jog a little or toss a javelin or two. Mostly they were there to watch the young men and boys rather than to exercise themselves.
“They spend more time eating than exercising,” one of the four guardsmen scoffed as they turned their horses over to the grooms, his nose already catching the scents wafting out of Aristides’ kitchen.
“These meals go on all night!” his colleague complained. “And then you’re so befuddled in the morning that you couldn’t keep a straight line to save your life.”
Leonidas raised an eyebrow at him and remarked, “You can only get drunk from the wine you drink yourself.”
The others laughed, but the young man defended himself. “True enough, but it’s hard to lie around for hours without drinking.”
“Since when do Spartan guardsmen only do what is easy?” Leonidas countered.
While his fellows laughed again, the target of Leonidas’ remark swore passionately, “I swear by the Twins I will not touch another drop of wine as long as we are here! You are my witnesses!” he admonished his grinning comrades.
Leonidas simply nodded and took his leave of them to go in search of his wife. He called out her name as he entered the darkened corridor that led to the women’s quarters beyond the andron. She answered from the long hearth room to the left, and as he approached he could hear the rhythmic thumping of the loom. Entering, he saw Eukoline at the large loom, surrounded by half a dozen women carding and spinning and coiling wool. Gorgo sat there with the others as if she were a handmaiden to Eukoline. Leonidas frowned, but made no comment.
Gorgo looked up from her work to ask, “How did it go?”
He tried to act casual. “Lakrates outdid himself. He’s got Olympic potential. What was also interesting―”
Taiwo was in the doorway, evidently having spotted Leonidas, and followed him anxiously. “My lord, Eurybiades is here. He needs to talk to you urgently.”
“Let him in!” Leonidas answered without thinking, turning toward the door, so that he didn’t even notice the shocked way Eukoline straightened and sucked in her breath. She then made a show of snapping her fingers at one of her slaves, who hastened to bring her a veil. This she draped over her head and wrapped around her shoulders so that, hunched over the loom, she was invisible to the strange man Leonidas had so rudely invited into the presence of a respectable woman.
To make things worse, Eurybiades was not alone. Hierox was with him, and both men looked grave. Leonidas asked at once, “What’s the matter? Has something happened to the Minotaur?”
“Not directly. But some of the crew were involved in a terrible brawl, sir,” Eurybiades answered. “Aside from more than one broken bone that will make them useless at the oars, they’ve been arrested, and the Athenians want a drachma a head for their release.”
“How many men were involved? What was it all about?” Leonidas was frowning.
Hierox glanced once at Gorgo, but said nothing, while Eurybiades answered smoothly, “There’s no knowing what it was about, sir. These things happen in port. A sailor is insulted or notices he’s been cheated―as sailors always are―and demands his money back. The locals always gang up sailors, and a sailor in trouble calls out the name of his ship. His shipmates come to his aid without question. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be.”
“So how many men are in jail?”
“Seventeen.”
“You want me to choke up seventeen drachma for crewmen who have disgraced Lacedaemon abroad?”
“No, sir,” Eurybiades answered steadily, although Hierox moved uneasily from one foot to the other. “I could find seventeen drachma. The problem is that the Athenians want us to pay damages for the destruction of furnishings in a tavern and an overturned cart loaded with what they claim was the finest Attic pottery.”
“How much are they asking?” Leonidas asked, horrified.
“Three hundred drachma.”
“That’s ridiculous. They’re trying to take advantage of us! I’m not paying an obol for rowdy sailors. We’ll sail seventeen short if we have to.”
“That’s not fair, Leo,” Gorgo spoke up, drawing the attention of the three Lacedaemonians and a gasp from Eukoline. Leonidas waited for his wife to continue, and she nodded toward Eurybiades. “You heard the captain. Our men were very likely provoked. Athenians don’t understand that helots aren’t slaves. They might have been refused service or the like. Even if they were to blame, we brought them here, knowing they had no experience of any place but Lacedaemon. We have no right to abandon them here. We don’t know what might happen to them if we did. They might be enslaved as Ibanolis was.”
“No one’s arguing about seventeen drachma to get them out of jail, but this bill for damages is bogus.”
“Very likely,” Gorgo agreed. “I’m not suggesting you should just pay it outright or without question. Make the Athenians list each object allegedly destroyed and provide an itemized estimate of fair market value. Better still, insist on an independent assessment of value―but first apologize profusely and make fulsome promises of fair restitution, to get them off their guard.”
Hierox laughed outright, while Eurybiades nodded his head approvingly in Gorgo’s direction. Leonidas simply agreed, “Good idea. I’ll fetch my purse.” The three men departed together, Leonidas asking for more details as they went.
Eukoline shoved her veil off her head and turned on Gorgo, asking in a tone that mixed disapproval with amazement: “Why are you Spartan women the only ones who rule your men?” She did not mean it as a compliment.
“Because we are the only women who give birth to men!”† Gorgo snapped back.
“As if I hadn’t given birth to two sons?” Eukoline retorted indignantly. “Athens has five times the number of citizens Sparta has!” she added proudly.
“Athens has forty thousand males who think that making clever speeches is the pinnacle of manliness.” All Gorgo’s pent-up anger at what she had seen since her arrival boiled over. “That’s why they’re afraid to educate their daughters and why they keep their women in the dark―physically and mentally!” Gorgo could not resist adding, “Sparta’s men prove their manhood with their spears, and need not dismiss good advice just because it comes from the mouths of women!” She threw down the wool she had been working and stormed out of the chamber, leaving the other women stunned in her wake.
Rain, driven by a strong wind, swept in from the east. The sky darkened dramatically and the clouds hung low, reaching out ephemeral yet ominous hands toward the rooftops. The temperature dropped abruptly and men clutched capes and cloaks more tightly around their shoulders, even before the first heavy drops of rain fell from the hostile sky. The torrent that foll
owed pelted the open squares so violently that the drops jumped up again like millions of tiny fountains, while the rooftops reverberated. The rush of water overwhelmed the gutters and fell in sheets from the roofs, to join the rivulets cascading over the paving stones and sweeping refuse down the alleyways.
Leonidas and his companions dived for cover under the nearest roof and found themselves in the shop front of a shoemaker. Belts hung from hooks hammered into the plaster wall, and pairs of sandals were lined up in neat rows. The man and his two apprentice sons looked up astonished from their workbenches as four armored men suddenly burst into the humble shop.
One of the boys gaped with an open mouth, but the older man, sitting astride his workbench and pushing a thick needle with thread through the sole of a sandal, got to his feet and came forward, bobbing his head. “My lord, what an honor!” His words were directed not to the Spartan king, whom he did not recognize, but to young Kimon, who had offered to help Leonidas negotiate with the outraged landlord about the damages allegedly done by the Minotaur’s crew.
“Ah―” Kimon took a moment to remember the name, and then it came to him. “Demeas! What a surprise! How are you?” Before the man could answer, he added, “This is King Leonidas of Sparta.” The shoemaker dutifully bobbed his head to Leonidas, while Kimon continued with the introductions. “Demeas fought with my father at Marathon.”
A Heroic King Page 44