So Pandora had talked with them and foresaw the destruction of the bridges? Xerxes pondered that as he spoke. “What kind of preparations?”
“Most wonderful King, we have a convoy of ships and barges less than a day’s sailing from here loaded with woven flax cables. They are stronger than the ropes the Egyptians used. And our fleet carries enough for two bridges.”
For the Phoenicians to have ships and barges carrying that much cable close by meant this was long in the preparing, Xerxes knew. He glanced at Pandora, her beautiful face expressionless. Plots within plots. She had warned him about the Egyptian bridge, but he had dismissed her concerns — after all what did a woman know of such things?
“How long will it take to build the bridge once your ships arrive?” Xerxes demanded.
“Three days, Lord.”
Xerxes knew this was not a coincidence — just in time for Pandora’s four-day prediction for the crossing.
“How much will it cost me?” Xerxes asked.
The sum the Phoenician quoted was outrageous but Xerxes had no choice. Besides he planned to take the cost of this entire expedition out of the city-states he captured in Greece. He ordered his paymaster to makes the funds available. Then he turned back to the six Egyptians with a cruel smile. “You will live to see another dawn.”
And he left them with that cryptic statement, heading toward the Imperial tent, Pandora behind him.
* * *
Leonidas pressed the march hard. He knew it would ruin his horse, but there was the knowledge that the Persians would be moving forward, combined with the desire to cause Cyra to fall behind. But the priestess kept up, pushing her own horse just as hard, not complaining about the brutal pace or the many hours in the hard saddle.
They crested a pass and he could see the rocky trail ahead of them stretching for miles along the coast. A ship would save them time, but he didn’t trust the Athenians and their ships patrolled the Sea of Corinth. Land was safer.
“Your mother,” Leonidas said abruptly.
“Yes?”
“Why is she sending you on this dangerous journey? Aren’t you to be the next Oracle?”
“The journey is necessary,” Cyra said. “And no, I am not to be the next Oracle. My daughter is.”
“You’re married?” Leonidas knew priestesses of Delphi could marry, but he had not sensed that air about her. In Sparta, a woman married young and became the property of her husband. Spartan women were strong, but they carried themselves in a way that indicated they were property. For the briefest of moments, he thought of his own wife and realized he had not considered her or his children at all when he had heard the Oracle’s forecast of his death. He was more surprised at having this realization than at what it meant.
“No.”
Cyra’s one word answer cut through his thoughts and was a greater surprise than the first.
“But you said you had a child—“ he began.
“One does not need a husband to have a child,” Cyra said.
Leonidas did not respond to that, riding in silence for several minutes. He’d spotted a small cloud of dust ahead when they crested the pass and knew they would shortly meet whoever was heading this way. From the size of the cloud he estimated four or five riders. Since Sparta was not currently at war with any of the other city-states, he was not overly concerned but more interested in who he would encounter.
The woman bothered him. A child without a husband. A priestess who did not act like one, but rather rode as well as any of his warriors. Her directness, which was most unbecoming for a woman.
Leonidas pulled back on his reins, halting in a grove of olive trees. Cyra came up next to him and also stopped her horse. He waited for her to ask why they had halted but the minutes passed and she said nothing, waiting silently.
“There are riders coming this way,” he finally said.
“I know. Two Spartans, an Athenian and a Persian.”
Leonidas twisted in the saddle in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“I sensed them coming a long time ago. They seek you.”
Leonidas slid off his horse, his right knee almost buckling as he touched the ground. Only a firm grip on his stirrup kept him from tumbling in the dirt. He shot a quick glance at Cyra, but she seemed not to have noticed. An old wound, the result of a spear thrust by an Athenian, the knee bothered him when it stiffened.
“Since you know so much, tell me what news they bring me,” Leonidas tied off his horse on a sapling.
Cyra dismounted and tied her horse off. “Double-speak, treachery and manipulation.”
Leonidas smiled. “You seem to know politics.”
“I know the rules and means of power,” Cyra said.
“Still it is an easy answer for any meeting.”
Cyra nodded, acknowledging that. “You want specifics? There is a traitor in the group.”
“Traitor to whom?” Leonidas wasn’t to be drawn in so easily. “Sparta? Athens? Or is it the Persian?”
“That you will have to determine. I can only sense the aura of betrayal as it comes.”
Leonidas could hear the approaching riders. They came around the bend. The lead man wore the red cloak of a Spartiate, followed by a man in the armor of Athens, then a third with the outlandish attire of a Persian followed by another Spartan.
The two from his own land, Leonidas immediately recognized: Eusibius and Loxias. From the finery on the Athenian’s armor, Leonidas knew the man to be high ranking. The Persian was dressed in what Leonidas considered an outlandish costume: purple, flowing pants; a white shirt underneath his chest armor with billowing sleeves; his helmet like a dome, open-faced, revealing dark skin and a pointed nose, giving him a hatchet-like appearance, accentuated by, of all things, rouge on the cheeks. The Persians dressed like dandies, but Leonidas knew better than to judge the man’s fighting qualities by that.
“Hail, travelers!” Leonidas stepped onto the track, causing Eusibius to rear back on his reins in surprise.
“My lord.” Eusibius swung easily from the saddle. Leonidas studied the young man. Just past twenty he was from a good family and had shown bravery in the few battles he had been in. Loxias was a different story. He was older, in his mid-thirties, a hardened warrior but one who always seemed to be in the midst of any controversy whether it be as large as division of power between the two kings that ruled Sparta to something as trivial as deciding the fate of an insolent helot.
Eusibius had taken the Athenian’s reins, allowing him to dismount. “May I introduce Idas of Athens and—” he paused as the Persian rode past him without allowing him to take the reins and dismounted, facing the Greeks—“Lord Jamsheed from the court of Xerxes.”
“King Xerxes,” Jamsheed corrected as he tied off his horse.
“King to some,” Leonidas said, “not to us.”
“Then I suppose I need not address you as king either,” Jamsheed said, “since you are not my king.”
“You haven’t yet,” Leonidas noted.
“Gentlemen,” Idas’s voice was rough and Leonidas noted a knotted scar across the front of the throat. “We come here to talk, not argue.”
“I do not argue with words,” Leonidas said. He lightly tapped the pommel of his sword. “I argue with this.”
“Who is this, my lord?” Idas nodded toward Cyra who stood silent in the shadows cast by the trees.
“She’s from the Oracle at Delphi,” Leonidas said.
A cloud passed over Idas’s face. “Why is she with you, Lord?”
“I thought I could use some advice,” Leonidas said. “And I do not believe it is your place to question me, Idas. This is not Athens where any can use their tongues with impertinence.”
Idas bowed his head a half an inch. “My apologies, king.”
Leonidas turned to the Persian. “What do you want?”
Jamsheed sat on a log with a flourish of his gold lined cloak. “I come to seek peace.”
“With an army behind you,�
�� Leonidas said.
“My king’s army comes whatever you say,” Jamsheed said. “It can come in peace or it can come in war. The Ionians have already made peace. Many have even joined us.”
Leonidas noted that the Athenian Idas shifted his feet in the dirt. While Sparta was the land muscle of Greece, Athens provided the sea power. And Ionia was across the Aegean, much closer to the Persians than their fellow Greeks. The Ionians had asked for help from their Greek cousins and Athens had spent months debating while the Ionians watched Xerxes’ massive army come closer and they ultimately made the sane decision to side with the east over the west rather than be destroyed.
“And,” Jamsheed let the word hang in the air for several seconds. “The Thessalians are wavering. Although that might be too impartial a way of putting it. They know they will be the first to bear the brunt of our assault. Emissaries from my king are speaking to them now. We are confident they will listen to reason.”
Leonidas was watching the others, noting their reactions. Loxias’s face was inscrutable; something the king was used to. He could see a vein pulsing on the side of Eusibius’s face, anger barely kept in check. He knew the young man was like most of his comrades; ready to fight, bleed and die, rather than submit to the Persians. And Idas, the Athenian, was the most interesting in that he was studying Leonidas rather than focusing on the Persian. Leonidas knew that Idas must have heard all this already from Jamsheed.
“Then why is your king sending his army?” Leonidas asked. “It sounds as if he has already conquered Greece.”
Jamsheed laughed. “I have some excellent wine tied off on my saddle. Perhaps you would care to partake, king?”
Before Leonidas could reply, Loxias was at the Persian’s horse, untying the strap and carrying a leather flask to the king.
Leonidas took it from Loxias and extended it to the Persian. “You first, my friend.”
Jamsheed laughed. “You fear poison?”
“I fear bad wine,” Leonidas replied. “It is well known that Persians drink swill from their goats.”
Jamsheed flushed in anger. He said nothing, taking a deep drink then offered it back to the king. Leonidas took a drink, then turned and offered it to Cyra, to the astonishment of all the other men. The priestess nodded her head in thanks and drank deeply, before passing it on to Eusibius. The young warrior was confused, glanced at his king, then drank, before passing it on to Loxias.
“Not as good as what we produce in Sparta,” Leonidas noted.
“‘We’?” Jamsheed repeated. “With all due respect, king, you produce nothing. Your slaves produce everything. I understand there are five male slaves for every Spartan male.”
“We don’t have slaves,” Eusibius said.
“Your helots then,” Jamsheed corrected, indicating he knew something of the way things were in Sparta. “The ratio is five to one, is it not?”
Leonidas didn’t rise to the bait. A helot rebellion was something every Spartan feared and one of the major reasons for keeping such a fiercely trained standing army. It was hard sometimes to figure which had begot which — the helot power allowing the free-born men to train all the time, or the need to train all the time to keep the helots in shackles. It was a precarious balance, unique in Greece.
“What do you offer us?” Loxias asked Jamsheed.
Leonidas didn’t hesitate. He was on his feet in a flash, his sword drawn. He slammed it into Loxias’s right side, where the armor was weakest at the joint, punching through. Leonidas couldn’t tell if the shocked look on Loxias’s face was from the steel piercing his vitals or the unexpected attack. It didn’t matter because the look was gone, replaced by the slackness of death as Loxias collapsed in the dirt, blood seeping out. Leonidas removed his sword, wiped the blade on the pale skin on Loxias’s face, leaving broad red marks, a harsher imitation of the rouge on Jamsheed’s cheeks. Then Leonidas removed the scarlet cloak from the body.
No one else had moved throughout the action. Jamsheed’s face was inscrutable. Eusibius was surprised but motionless. Idas was shaking his head ever so slightly. And Leonidas felt Cyra’s eyes on him as if a red-hot blaze were in the center of his back.
“I am king. I do not know what this—” he kicked Loxias’s body with his boot—“told you, or offered you, but he is food for worms now. He does not, did not ever, speak for Sparta.”
Jamsheed took another draft of wine. “I knew that. But he got me here to speak to one who does speak for Sparta.”
Leonidas’s hand was tight on the pommel of the sword, knuckles white. He faced the Persian. Jamsheed slowly lowered the wine and stood. He took an unconscious step back. “I am an envoy.”
“Then act like one.” Leonidas finally sheathed his sword. “Do not try to manipulate my people against me.”
Jamsheed sat back down. “I did not have to say much to him. What he did, he did on his own. I understand you are not the only Spartan king. That another rules along with you.”
Even Leonidas wasn’t certain when his ancestors had decided to go the unique route of having two kings instead of the more traditional one. It made sense though in two important aspects: the two kings acted as a check against each other; and it allowed one king to lead an army away from home, while leaving a king behind to rule.
Leonidas wanted some of the wine to take away the bad taste in his mouth but he didn’t want to ask the Persian for the flask. “Then why didn’t you go see him?”
“Because I have been informed that if there is to be war, you will be the one leading the Spartans in the field while he remains in Sparta. Therefore you have more at stake.”
Leonidas wanted to laugh. “I have been told by the Delphic Oracle that I am to die in battle soon. That gives you little leverage with whatever you think I might have at stake.”
Jamsheed was quiet for a moment as he mulled this over, and Idas took the opportunity to speak. “Xerxes — King Xerxes—” he amended at Jamsheed’s look—“has already had an advance force dig a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula so there will be no repeat of the storm that saved Greece last time. And he is bridging the Hellesponte so his army can cross. He had been preparing this assault ever since taking the crown. His greatest desire is to avenge our victory at Marathon.”
“The construction of the bridge,” Idas continued, “is why we could not sally forth with our fleet and keep the Persians from entering Europe.”
A new voice surprised the men. “The bridge was destroyed yesterday in a storm.” Cyra took several steps forward.
“How do you know that?” Idas demanded.
“I saw it in a vision,” she replied.
Jamsheed laughed. “Are you an oracle also?”
“I am the daughter of the Delphic Oracle,” Cyra said. “I have the gift of sight beyond what my eyes can see.”
“The inner eye,” Jamsheed nodded. “My king has someone like you.”
“Pandora.”
Cyra’s mention of that name brought a start of surprise from the Persian. “How do you know your vision of the bridge being destroyed was a true one?” he asked, as he looked at the woman anew.
“It was true,” Cyra said. “But do not fear, Pandora has already helped your king with a new plan to bridge the strait.” She turned to Leonidas. “Xerxes’ army will be across the Hellesponte in four days.”
Leonidas knew the distances involved. The Persians still had a long way to march even when they were across the strait. And an army as large as his would move slower than a smaller, more disciplined force. “What do you want to say to me?” he asked Jamsheed, tired of the politics, his mind already on the coming battles.
As if sensing his disinterest, Jamsheed was to the point. “I am here — and he—” he added, indicating Idas, “because my king does not wish to wait while your two cities play local games. The great and generous King Xerxes will spare both your cities if you agree not to raise arms against him. Both Athens and Sparta must agree and they will be spared destruction.”
“They are my King’s to do as he will.”
“And if one of us agrees, but the other doesn’t?” Leonidas asked.
“Unacceptable. With all due respect, my King does not wish to be deceived or double-crossed. Both cities will be neutral or both will be destroyed.”
Leonidas didn’t believe the Persian. He saw no reason why Xerxes would be willing to let Sparta — the leading ground power in Greece, and Athens, the leading naval power — remain intact. He saw this as a ploy to get both cities to remain neutral while he dispatched the rest of Greece with ease, then turn his full might against Athens and Sparta when they could gather no allies.
“Then I determine the fate not only of Sparta, but Athens also?” Leonidas mused. Then he saw the real reason for this ploy — to drive a wedge between the two cities. Idas would not be here with the Persian if the elders of Athens were not seriously considering agreeing to Xerxes’ truce. And knowing that Sparta would never agree to such a thing, Xerxes was making enemies of the two leading powers in Greece. It was a shrewd maneuver that cost the Persian nothing and could destroy any hope of a consolidated Greek front against him.
Leonidas turned to Idas. “You know Xerxes lies, don’t you?”
“Perhaps we should talk privately,” the Athenian suggested.
“No. I will soon have Persian blood on my sword so I do not care what he hears or thinks. Sparta will never accept this proposal. So this meeting is over.”
Idas’s face grew red and he began to say something but he was interrupted by Cyra. “The east versus the west.” She looked from Leonidas to Jamsheed as she spoke. “The entire future of the world lies in balance. In more ways than any of you can imagine.” She walked up to the Persian and put her hands on his shoulders, peering deep into his dark eyes. “Go back to your King. Tell him to weigh carefully the words of Pandora. Very carefully. Tell him she does not speak for Persia, or for Greece. He must try to find out where her true allegiance lies.”
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