Even the kindly man laughed, although he stopped first and suggested calmly, “If you tell me your father’s name and where he dwells, I will see that you get home safe.”
A male voice answered from behind her before Gorgo could get a word out: “Thank you, stranger, but that won’t be necessary.”
Gorgo spun around and with immeasurable relief recognized her favorite uncle. She ran to him, clutching her puppy. “Uncle Leonidas!”
Leonidas bent and lifted her into his arms, puppy and all, and then nodded again to the stranger, who had also come to his feet. “Thank you again for your offer to help, stranger.”
As Leonidas turned and carried Gorgo out of the inn, the people behind them were still muttering about the way Spartans let their children run wild and what an unhealthy system of education it was.
“How did you find me, Uncle Leonidas?” Gorgo asked, leaning her tired head against his warm, strong chest with a sense of relief that betrayed how frightened she had been.
“We are returning from an exercise, and I just happened to see you go into the inn,” Leonidas explained.
Out in the street Leonidas’ entire eight-man section was milling around, waiting on him. They looked surprised to see him carrying a child, and even more surprised when he said simply, “My niece.” Adding, “Chi, take the puppy so I can carry her on my shoulders.”
One of the other young men came forward and scooped the puppy out of Gorgo’s arms, making a face as he did so, which brought laughter from the others. But Leonidas ignored them, firmly turning Gorgo around in his arms and lifting her up over his head to sit on his shoulders.
Gorgo didn’t mind. Her father often carried her like that, too. Leonidas had hold of her ankles, one in each hand, and she held on to his head, a little dismayed that his hair was so much shorter than her father’s that she couldn’t get her fingers into it properly. But she felt completely safe, and the countryside went by much faster at the easy marching pace of the young men. After a few moments one of the men started singing a melodious marching song and the others joined in, including Leonidas in his warm, deep voice. Thus they sang her all the way home.
Although by the time they reached the Agiad palace Gorgo was very tired and hungry, she was still sorry to arrive. Inside was all the gloom that she had fled this morning, and she knew she might have trouble talking her mother into letting her keep her puppy—not to mention the scolding she would get for being away so long without telling anyone, and for her dirty clothes. But Leonidas swung her down, and the young man handed her back her distressed puppy, and the meleirenes at the gate pushed open the heavy gates without hesitation to let her back inside. Her adventure was over.
Chapter 7
Obligations
The solstice was behind them now and the days were getting longer, but it was still cold. Morning drill left the young men chilled through, because the sweat they worked up cooled the moment they stopped exercise. As a result, the young men flooded the baths as soon as drill was over. They sought the steam baths to warm up, and then let the bath slaves massage them down with oil to drive the muscle aches away.
Before Alkander married, Leonidas and he had come together to the baths, but now Alkander preferred to go straight to the townhouse Hilaira kept in the heart of the city. There she prepared a hot bath and a hot meal for him, especially on days like this. Leonidas rarely saw Alkander before dinner at their syssitia anymore, and he increasingly spent his free time with Sperchias.
Today Euryleon, one of the youths who had been in the unit Leonidas commanded as an eirene, joined them too. Euryleon had received his citizenship at the solstice and was just finding his footing in the army; it was natural that he attach himself to the familiar Leonidas.
“… so we’re going to put the roof on during the Achilia,” Leonidas explained, lying on his belly while the bath slave oiled him down. The Achilia was one of Sparta’s lesser holidays. Dedicated to the hero Achilles, it lasted only five days; but since it was not accompanied by elaborate choral, dance, or athletic contests and occurred in the winter when campaigning was rare, it was a good time to get work done on one’s estate. With the agoge closed and the army furloughed except for a small emergency guard, many families used the holiday to travel to Messenia or other outlying estates.
“Are you going to get married soon?” Euryleon asked, making the connection between Leonidas getting his kleros fixed up and starting a family.
Leonidas frowned because it was a sore subject, and Sperchias answered for him. “Getting the roof on is only the prerequisite for fixing up the interior,” he told Euryleon with a warning look.
Euryleon took the hint and asked, “Do you want us to come help you?”
“You don’t need to. Pelopidas has talked most of the helots from neighboring estates into helping.” Leonidas considered this fact, adding, “Pelopidas was very good about lending out the oxen, or sending Pantes over to do carpentry work, when his neighbors needed help. He’s made himself liked and respected, despite the initial hostility to strangers.”
“Not to mention the impact of Laodice’s cooking!” Sperchias added with a grin, sitting up on the bench and swinging his legs. “Will she be cooking for the workers?”
“Of course. She’s in town today buying raisins, almonds, and other stuff so she can cook some things in advance.”
“In that case, I’ll definitely come,” Sperchias announced, and Euryleon nodded, adding with a glance at Leonidas, “Unless I’m on duty, of course.”
“No, you’re not on until the Chalkioika.” As section leader, Leonidas knew the duty schedule; his friends did not.
The sound of excited voices at the entrance penetrated to the inner chamber of the baths. Leonidas thought he heard his name mentioned. He lifted his head and cocked an ear. Beggar, who was resting with her head on her front paws under the bench, immediately followed her master’s lead.
There was clearly some commotion that brought laughter from some of the younger men and then a rebuke from Alcidas, one of the agoge officials. Leonidas signaled to the slave that he was finished and sat up.
“Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas?” Alcidas called sternly.
Leonidas stood and walked into the next room. A meleirene, one of the nineteen-year-olds that served the city as sentries, messengers, and the like before assuming the responsibilities of eirenes at age twenty, stood in the doorway, but it was the deputy headmaster who addressed Leonidas in a reproachful voice. Alcidas had been one of the agoge officials whom Leonidas had disliked when in school: a humorless, petty-minded stickler for regulations. “Young man, you are wanted at the magistrate’s office,” he intoned ominously. “One of your helots has been arrested.”
Leonidas caught his breath. Ever since their joint trip to Messenia, he harbored suspicions that Mantiklos might turn rebellious. Instantly he pictured Mantiklos refusing to obey orders or even back-talking someone. If provoked, Leonidas realized in growing alarm, Mantiklos might even strike out with his fists.
Meanwhile, Alcidas lectured in a self-righteous voice, “You should have better control of your helots, son of Anaxandridas! You give them too much freedom and they get ideas! They think they are more than the miserable worms they are!”
That was certainly true of Mantiklos, Leonidas noted, wondering not for the first time if he should dismiss him. But first he had to find out what he had done.
“Helots reflect on their masters,” Alcidas continued; “wherever you find uppity helots, you also find a lax master. Inferiors need to be ruled with an iron fist, and if you don’t, you don’t deserve to rule at all.”
Leonidas had heard this rubbish before. Alcidas was just like Brotus. They both thought you could solve every problem with brute force. But Leonidas held his tongue. In silence he turned to the shelves lining the wall, found his bundle of belongings, and dressed. Sperchias and Euryleon did the same.
As the three young men stepped out of the warm, humid baths into the chilly aftern
oon, however, Leonidas was astonished to be confronted by Mantiklos himself. “Sir! Come quick! Laodice has been arrested!” The Messenian’s face was darkened by a scowl of barely suppressed anger.
“Laodice?” Leonidas found himself asking stupidly. He couldn’t imagine it. Women didn’t get arrested—except for soliciting. Laodice was the last woman he could imagine soliciting.
“Come quick!” Mantiklos insisted, already turning and pushing his way through the early afternoon crowds.
Leonidas looked at his friends. He did not know what the hard-working, honest Laodice could have done to get herself arrested, but he was certain he was going to need the advice of someone wiser than himself; so he ordered, “Euryleon, go find Nikostratos and ask him to come to the magistrate’s office.”
Euryleon nodded and started in the other direction, while Sperchias fell in beside Leonidas. “You don’t suppose it’s illegal to cook as well as Laodice does, do you? Maybe it’s against the law to make black broth that you don’t actually want to puke out again?”
Leonidas cast Sperchias a smile of thanks for trying to cheer him up, but inside he was worrying that he had broken the law in some way by settling the Messenian family here in Laconia. But if that was the case, why hadn’t anyone said anything before this? Why arrest Laodice rather than Pelopidas?
They reached the lovely colonnaded square on which the court buildings were located, only to find a larger-than-usual crowd. Fortunately, the attention of the crowd was directed to the corner where the public pillory was set up in front of the temple to Zeus of the Council. In fact, the crowd was so thick that Leonidas could not get even a glimpse of the criminal who was attracting so much attention. He noted that surprisingly, there were more adults than boys in the crowd, although it was usually the other way around; but he was too worried about Laodice to give it much thought.
Leonidas hastened past the temple of Athena of Counsel, casting his eyes and prayers in the direction of the third temple on this square, one of several in the city dedicated to the Divine Twins. Leonidas sent a prayer to Kastor, adding mentally, “You probably wish I’d picked another God to be my protector.”
Mantiklos, who had forged ahead, was awaiting him impatiently, at the foot of the stairs up to the colonnaded structure that housed a series of chambers in which the magistrates heard cases. He pointed up the steps. “Talthybiades is the magistrate you have to see,” Mantiklos told his master, and Leonidas did not ask how he knew. He just ordered Mantiklos to keep hold of Beggar—dogs were not welcome inside official buildings—and started up the steps, adding, “You better stay here too, Chi.”
As he entered the corridor, several men recognized him and pointed him in the right direction. “On the right. The second door.” They seemed more amused than hostile or disapproving about whatever had happened.
Leonidas entered the identified office. Talthybiades was a man in his forties with a tall forehead and a sharp nose. He was wearing a long blue himation, the mark of his office, and Laodice was sitting on the bench at the side of the office with her wrists tied and tears running down her face.
“Oh, there you are at last! We’ve been looking for you for hours! This woman says she works for you.”
It was hardly a secret that Laodice worked for him. At least once a week she sold her sweets in a stand in the agora. Leonidas looked at Laodice, but she would not meet his eyes. She sank her head lower, her shoulders folding in as she bent over and the tears dropped onto her lap. Her hands were trembling, too. “She does,” he confirmed. “What are the charges?”
“She tried to give the whore water!”
“What whore?” Leonidas asked, bewildered. Prostitution was prohibited in Sparta, and the punishment for soliciting in public places was draconian enough to keep it out of sight—which, of course, meant it flourished in the surrounding perioikoi towns and villages.
“The bitch we have out in the stocks!” Talthybiades snapped back. “She was found soliciting on the steps of the Olympian Aphrodite in broad daylight by your twin brother! Fortunately, he brought her straight to us before she had caused a greater disruption! What would have happened if she had still been there when curfew ended and the older age cohorts of the agoge had been on the loose?”
Leonidas treated the question as rhetorical. He did not believe Talthybiades seriously thought the youths of the agoge were unfamiliar with commercial sex. Furthermore, Leonidas had never known his twin brother to be particularly prudish, and technically he had no right to be around during curfew, either. But Leonidas was not here on account of the whore or his twin, but because of Laodice. He wanted to be sure he understood the situation. “You arrested my woman for giving water to someone in the stocks?”
“To a whore!” Talthybiades insisted.
“Does that make a difference?” Leonidas asked.
“Legally, no, but it does make me wonder what sort of household you run!”
Leonidas ignored the jibe. “What’s the fine?”
“Two hens or a bushel of olives.”
“I’m good for the hens. Let her go.”
Talthybiades did not lower himself to personally cutting the prisoner free; he rang a bell and a meleirene answered. The meleirene was ordered to cut Laodice free. Leonidas gestured for her to follow him, and returned through the grinning crowd with Laodice in his wake.
As he emerged from the building, Beggar bounded up the stairs to rejoin him, and Mantiklos and Sperchias got to their feet. “What on earth …?” the latter wanted to know, but Leonidas shook his head. Laodice was stumbling, and he sensed she was barely able to keep herself going. Furthermore, the crowd of spectators around the stocks was larger than ever. He recognized Dienekes, debonair as ever, pushing his way through the crowd with a heavy frown of disapproval on his face. Despite his youth, Dienekes was an influential man, a popular section leader. Leonidas didn’t want to explain himself—or Laodice—to him, and he hustled Laodice out of the square.
“Mantiklos, go home and fetch Pelopidas. Have him bring the cart to Alkander’s townhouse,” he ordered. Then he took Laodice by the elbow and guided her firmly in the direction of Alkander’s house, with Sperchias trailing them.
He could feel Laodice trembling, and she kept murmuring under her breath, “I’m sorry, master. I’m sorry. Please don’t throw us off the kleros. Please, master. Pelopidas is a good man. A good man. It’s all my fault, master. Please.”
She kept repeating the litany no matter what Leonidas said, so he fell silent and concentrated on guiding her, because she was stumbling, blinded by her tears.
When they reached Alkander’s house, the housekeeper took one look at Laodice and exclaimed as she let them in: “What’s happened? Has there been an accident? Here, I’ll take her!” The woman reached out and took Laodice into her arms at once. “Have you hurt yourself, dearie?” she asked, adding, as she led her away without giving Laodice a chance to answer, “You’re chilled through, you poor thing. Come in by the fire.”
The sound of voices in the courtyard drew Alkander onto the balcony of the upstairs room, and at the sight of Leonidas he called something over his shoulder and then started down the wooden stairs. Hilaira emerged at once and followed her husband downstairs, but then continued to the kitchen, leaving her husband to see to Leonidas and Sperchias.
Hilaira knew Laodice well. Because Leonidas had no wife, Hilaira made a point of checking up on things at his kleros “from a woman’s point of view.” She soon realized that Laodice had things very well in hand. Indeed, she had developed a strong respect and affection for the helot woman, and sometimes wished the helots on Alkander’s kleros were half as hard-working and pleasant as Laodice and her family.
Laodice sat by the hearth with her back to the door. She had dropped her face into her hands and was sobbing uncontrollably, while Hilaira’s housekeeper patted her ineffectually on the shoulder. Hilaira put an arm around the helot’s shoulder, asking warmly, “What’s the matter? Has something happened to
Crius?” Hilaira knew how much Laodice worried about her youngest son, whose hands made him useless and whose uselessness made him impudent.
“It’s all my fault,” Laodice stammered in reply. “I’m so—please, Mistress Hilaira!” Laodice twisted sharply around to look Hilaira straight in the eye. Hilaira recoiled at the almost wild look on her face and the sheet of tears that glimmered on her cheeks. Laodice reached out and gripped Hilaira’s hands, and Hilaira was alarmed by how fiercely she clutched; the strength in her wiry hand hurt Hilaira unintentionally. “Please! You can talk to the master. Tell him I’m sorry! I’ll pay back the two hens.”
“Laodice, calm down,” Hilaira urged, dropping on her heels beside the helot woman. “What hens? Did some hens get killed by accident—”
“No, no. The hens he had to pay for my release. It was so—so—stupid of me. I should have known better. But when I saw that girl, and she is so young—just like I was—and you know she didn’t want to. If Pelopidas wasn’t such a good man. Such a good man!” Laodice broke down into uncontrollable sobbing, clutching her fists to her eyes and howling in misery like a small child.
Baffled, Hilaira stared at her equally perplexed housekeeper; and then she pulled Laodice closer into her arms, while her housekeeper set about mixing herbs into hot wine to calm Laodice’s nerves.
By the time the hot spiced wine was ready, Laodice had gotten some control of herself. She was no longer bawling, just hiccupping, as the tears continued to pour down her red and swollen face.
“Won’t you tell me what happened?” Hilaira pleaded with her. “From the beginning?”
“Melampus,” she choked out. “Melampus—raped—all the girls.”
“Who is Melampus?”
“The manager—in Messenia,” Laodice got out, and Hilaira was starting to understand. Leonidas had told them about his horse farm and the manager, who treated the helots badly and let guests abuse Crius.
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