by L. E. Waters
I gasp and say, “Spartan mothers cannot raise a weak boy, but they care nothing of weak helot children!”
It takes one minute to register, and then her eyes widen in shock at the idea.
“You want me to be his mother?”
I nod with tears of joy.
“No, I don’t even have a man. No one will believe this!” she says backing up as if she can walk away from this.
“Leander has not seen you in months. No one knows about you or if you have a husband away fighting. I bet no one will even ask.”
I move back toward her and pull the blanket down to show the weak one’s little face. She looks down at the fragile, pale baby who studies her face through its narrow swollen slits.
“Look at this child! How can you hand him over to be thrown against rocks! Rocks, Ophira!”
Her eyebrows pinch together under her scar. “How will I even feed this child?”
“I’ll send for a wet nurse for Arcen, and I’ll nurse this one in secret.”
She looks again at him, smiles, and says through happy tears, “I will call you Theodon, god-given.”
Ophira puts her cloak back on and readies to take Arcen to Leander. I give Arcen a parting kiss, knowing I’ll see him again. Ophira fishes out her medallion and lifts it over her head and free of her long wavy hair.
She places it over Theodon’s tiny head, and as she tucks it into his blanket, she whispers, “For protection and strength.”
As they leave, I gaze out to the sun setting in a red sky and sit to nurse Theodon. When I look down at his tiny face, I know I already love him.
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Leander returns that night glowing and proclaims, “I held my son up for all to see, and the Lesche all said there has never been a stronger baby seen!”
My heart wells with pride. Leander has never talked this much for so long. Everything is blooming.
Leander hears another baby crying, and he looks at me, perplexed.
“That is Ophira’s son. She gave birth a few weeks ago.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Is she married?”
“Yes, her husband has been away fighting in the Citizens’ Army for months.”
I note to be sure to tell him of his death in battle soon.
“Well, I’m sure he is not anything like the son we have!” He holds Arcen up in the air, hardly supporting his rolling head. “Strong one!”
Leander goes back to his men, and a specialized helot comes to nurse Arcen. She takes over his care entirely. I miss much sleep sneaking in and out of Ophira’s room nursing Theodon. Even though I’m tired, these moments of closeness in the dark with him are such peaceful moments; moments I lose with Arcen. Every respectable Spartan mother gets a wet nurse, but I can see there is something about nursing that attaches a baby so. I can tell Ophira resents how he seems to want me whenever she picks him up.
One day Ophira comes to me and says, “I think we should start giving Theodon brothed maza now.”
“He is too young for food yet,” I snap, a little too quickly.
“Alcina, do you want him to grow up and think of you as his mother? Because that’s what will happen!”
I don’t say anything.
“You need him to think of me as his mother, or we’ll both get killed for this.”
The words hang in the air for a stale moment until I hear its honesty. “I understand. We will start feeding him maza.”
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The boys are in the field playing with the scattering greyhounds, and I go call them in for dinner. A frail boy with freckles darts by.
I grab him by the arm and tickle him. “Come in for dinner. Where’s Theodon?”
He points behind a tree and leaves to go clean up inside. I smile, seeing part of a sandal behind the tree trunk.
I tiptoe off to the tree and jump out. “Whaaaaa!”
Theodon screams and runs across the field with me in pursuit, his copper-colored hair shining and bouncing in the light. He’s shirtless with a wrap around his waist, and even though he’s only seven, he has the muscles of a ten-year-old. I finally catch him and roll on the ground with him. He throws his head back and giggles, showing the small space between his teeth I love so much. We sit down to sausages and hard-boiled eggs, our small family of four. Leander will come in for a few nights at a time, but this is the way we all liked it best. Today is a little sad, though, since it’s our last day before sending Arcen away to agoge and I secretly hope it’ll make him stronger. He seemed to wither as Theodon flourishes. Theodon wins every race, every match, and every game. Arcen doesn’t excel at anything. I hope the severe conditions of agoge will give him the motivation to thrive. Maybe the heavy competition and relentless drills will give him strength. Maybe the deprivation of needs and starvation will make him hungry to steal and fight. I’m sure he has it in him to be strong. The worst thing a son can do is fail agoge or to be accused of cowardliness.
In the morning, I pack his bag with the scanty things they let him bring. Arcen sits on his straw mattress, fiddling with a piece of straw he plucked out, tears hitting his hands.
Pulling his chin in the air, I demand, “Spartan men do not cry!”
He begins a high-pitched whine and cries, “But I’m scared. I don’t want to go.”
I slap his face hard. “You’re no longer a boy! Today you’re a man, and you’ve had your last cry! Cry again and you’ll be flogged for it!”
I grab his arm up and yank him through the house. Theodon’s standing with Ophira outside the front door.
I take him by the shoulders and look into his wounded eyes. “You must listen to your commanders and be strong. Show no weakness. Make me and your father proud.”
Arcen delicately reaches up for the bag, still sniveling, and drops it to his side as he walks off into the city alone. He tries to look brave by walking fast but ends up looking more pathetic with all the rocks he trips on. He looks back once when he reaches the apex of the hill and I can tell he’s crying again. My shoulders drop and I turn to see beautiful Theodon standing there, watching his best friend go off to the place he so wishes he could go too.
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I become Theodon’s best friend while Ophira is busy doing housework. Theodon follows me all over the farm watching me manage the helots. When all my work is done, he’s standing there, holding our bows and arrows, ready to go boar hunting. He catches his first boar at nine. Everything he tries, he masters. Even though it’s not customary to school your helots, I teach him all the reading and writing a Spartan citizen should know. I never expect him to work like a helot, and I can tell the others don’t accept him for it.
One night, home after a long sea voyage, Nereus comes to visit for a dinner of black broth. I go out to greet him as he’s pulling Zale with all his weight toward the stables. I throw an apple in the stables and the horse drags Nereus with him in pursuit. Theodon loves to hear his embellished stories of the perils of sea travel. Nereus will get louder and louder while the story climaxes, reaching the point where you can’t even understand what he’s saying as he rolls his head back and forth, his mouth wide open, laughing as he yells the best part.
However, you can see Theodon’s green eyes glimmer. He yearns for one day when he might have such journeys beyond this farm. He laughs the hardest, though, when one of Nereus’s inverted burps erupts mid-sentence, and he simply continues like nothing happened. Theodon will giggle until he can barely breathe. All throughout his stories, Nereus keeps dipping his bread in the blood broth but pushes his bowl with the back of his hand in front of Theodon. “My teeth just can’t handle the pork any longer.”
Theodon grabs the bowl eagerly as I bring a tray of dessert figs and a new jug of wine. Theodon takes a fistful of dried figs before Ophira decides it is time for him to go to bed, and I get a pang of jealousy, since she gets to tuck him in.
Nereus distracts me. “What I really came here for
was to tell you unpleasant news about Arcen.”
My heart drops; somehow I suspect what he’s going to say. I open the seal on the terracotta jug and refill Nereus’s kylix.
After I pour, he turns the jug to read the stamp, raises his eyebrows, and says, “Cretan wine?” Then he swallows happily before continuing. “I was in the city last night and spoke with one of the commanders of the agoge—a good friend of mine. When I asked about how my grandnephew was faring he turned to me and shook his head. He said he was the most picked on and ridiculed boy in the group. He causes the other boys to receive more punishment for his weaknesses, and they torture him for it. They deprive him of food, hoping he’ll go and steal, but he’s quickly wasting away. He’s not going to make it if he doesn’t get stronger.”
A great shame comes over me. “What can I do, Uncle?”
He shrugs. “Too bad he’s not like Ophira’s boy. What a specimen! Shame he’s a helot, though. What a waste,” he says as he wipes his hands with barley bread and feeds it to the dogs.
Chapter 5
Leander’s army is sent to Thebes. I’m relieved not having to give him the news of Arcen, although he has probably heard through the army by now. I cringe to think what he’ll do about it. The best parts of my day are spent with Theodon and Ophira. One unusually beautiful day, when the intensely blue sky is scattered with fat clouds by a warm caressing wind, we take our dinner down to the cliffs. Theodon and I decide to run down to the beach and go swimming. He shuffles his feet down the steep rock steps that lead to the sand.
I begin to run down after him but turn to a stalled Ophira. “Come on!”
She shakes her head. “I’m not running down these stairs; I’m too old for this.”
“We’re the same age you ninny.” I run down a few more to show her how easy it is, but she shakes her head sternly.
She yells, “We don’t all still look like you Alcina. If you had long hair, I swear nothing’s changed since the day I met you.” She chooses to walk down the safer path. “I’m going this way. I don’t know why, but I feel like something is going to come and push me down those steps.”
I scoff at her paranoia and try to catch up with Theodon, already halfway down.
We dive in after peeling our tunics off, leaving them to fall wherever on the scant, pebbled shore behind us. As we play in the crystal, waveless water, Theodon comes up behind me and pushes down on my shoulders, shoving me under. I have to throw him off to come up for air. We laugh and laugh with our heads bobbing in the deep, rolling tide. Then we scale back up the cliff, soaking wet, and Ophira starts dancing, pulling us up to join her. The three of us dance around the countryside together, delirious in our tiny world.
We straggle back into the house, laughing, and decide the night wouldn’t be complete without a late-night dessert before retiring. As Ophira fetches some figs and cheeses, I bring out some wine. I lean over Theodon to fill his cup.
Theodon starts tapping his thumb on the table. “I wanted to talk to you, Mother.”
Ophira turns, even though I want to, and she answers, “Yes, what is it?”
“I’m sixteen now, and Arcen’s in agoge while I’ve nothing. I’m not working or living with the other helots, yet I’m one of them. I’m either going to join the Citizens’ Army—”
I wince at the thought of the army Sparta uses as their shield in return for promised citizenship.
“—or live with the helots down in Laconia.”
“You’re not happy here with me and Alcina?”
He looks at me quickly as I sit down across the table from him. “I need to be around helots my own age.”
This strikes fear in both Ophira’s and my heart. He is our world. We don’t need anyone else.
As soon as he leaves for bed, Ophira looks at me with shoulders shrugged. “He’s growing up, and with that comes his independence. He can’t stay with us forever on this farm. We’re going to have to find some safe place for him.”
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Sparta’s armies are away so long that an elected magistrate of Sparta drives up to the house. Ophira and Theodon come running at the sight of the stately chariot. My thoughts jump first to Leander falling in battle, but then they heighten into the more likely fear of Arcen killed in agoge.
The ephor says at the sight of me, “Be calm, Mother, we have news sent by the kings.” He holds his hands out to me. “Your husband and son are fine. This has to do with you and Sparta.”
As soon as he walks into the house, he sniffs the air and with a thick grin asks, “Is that fresh bread I smell?”
With only a nod, Ophira fetches the ephor some bread, and we all sit down at my table in silence as he quickly stuffs in the bread, still steaming.
He finally explains, “Sparta’s men have been away at war for years, and normally, our men come back at breaks to provide Sparta with children.” He picks at one of his teeth and draws back to see what he found, obviously disinterested from continuous retelling. “But now there’s no time for breaks. We’re at war on every front, and the future of Sparta rests in our mothers’ hands.”
We wait for him to continue.
“Dire times are cause for dire actions, and the kings have instructed our Spartan women to go forth and procreate. Even half a Spartan is better than no Spartan at all. Our mothers must choose wisely. Pick the strongest, healthiest helot you can find.”
He then eyes Theodon’s powerful physique with his steel-grey eyes. “Any mother who does not procreate within the next six months will be fined heavily. By order of the kings.” He bows his head to me, and on his way out, says to Theodon, “You’re aware that the Citizens’ Army takes full helots, aren’t you?”
Theodon nods.
“And you know it is the only way you can win your freedom? No one else can grant you that, since you belong to Sparta.” The ephor eyes me. “You fight in the army and you win full freedom and citizenship.”
He turns and walks away, glancing back at Theodon’s perfect form one more time.
Ophira and I look at each other and laugh. Later on, during our walk from the barn, Ophira points down to the helots working below and says, “How about that one?”
Then she grabs my arm and points to another one. “What about him? Ahhh,” she cries out, “that’s a nice one there scratching his backside!”
She giggles away as the swarthy helot digs his hand halfway into his pants, too far away to hear our peals of laughter. We fall over each other in fits. Theodon doesn’t think it’s so funny, and he walks back into the house without waiting for us.
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I’m standing on my cliff, when the ground tremors just like it had so many years ago. I run for cover and watch as an old wind-beaten cypress splits in two. After the shaking ceases, a young child with strawberry-blonde hair emerges out of the torn trunk. She laughs like a nymph and claps her hand as I pick her up and spin her in the sea air.
Waking up in the grey haze before the sun shows, I miss the child of my dream and wonder if this was the result of the ephor’s visit. I realize I do have to take the order seriously, though, since they’ll fine us heavily and Leander would want me to comply. I go out for an early walk alone to try to see if any of my helots are in satisfactory condition as the sun begins to retrieve the night’s dew. I fold my arms up under my chin and lean against the fence overlooking the work fields, when Theodon comes up next to me. The barley is blowing in the wind coming off the sea, carrying with it smells of the newly fertilized field. A piece of my hair blows across my eyes, and he reaches up, sticks it behind my ear, and looks back down with a smile.
He clears his throat. “The helots who work for you are a worthless bunch, all of them drunkards. They drink unmixed wine as soon as they get home and drink until they stagger back here in the morning. Not a one fit for you, if that’s what you’re up here thinking.”
I realize he’s right. There isn’t one with good qualities.
He looks out onto the fields instead of at me, with his hand nervously perched on the edge of his lips. “I know I’m young”—putting his arm down, he directs his beautiful, shining green eyes at me—“but I don’t look helot at all.”
I turn away immediately, not at all expecting him to say what he did.
“Look at me. Look at me, Alcina.” He grabs both of my shoulders and forces me to look at him. “No one knows you better than me.”
I look down, not knowing how I can turn him away.
“I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
“Theodon, this can never happen.”
I put my hand up, wanting to avoid this embarrassment, but he pulls it down; an unfamiliar fire flashes in his eyes.
“I know that’s not possible, but at least give me this. Instead of some useless stranger! I will stay if you will grant this. I would stay here forever.”
How could this happen? What can I say?
He exhales purposely and tenses his jaw as he states, “I know you care about me too.”
I pull away from him, but he steps toward me. “Why else would you take all this special interest in me? All of the other helots see how different you treat me. How you have never made me lift a finger on this farm.”
He takes another step closer, and I can feel his breath on my neck.
He whispers, “I can see that you love me when you look in my eyes.”
How can this be happening!
He tries to catch my eyes, but I avert them now. I can’t think of anything to say that will make this all go away. He reaches down to hug me like he has so many times before, but now it feels under a different intent. I push him away and run out to my cliffs, hoping he won’t follow me, hoping I’ll think of something that will make this all disappear.