Nikostratos nodded with satisfaction. He was always pleased to hear good things about Leonidas, because he had long believed in the boy—even when most of the city still thought of him as the “runt of the litter” and adored Dorieus and Brotus instead. To Chilonis he remarked simply, “He’s a good young man.”
“He said something about a girl turning him down. Who would be so foolish? I would have thought he was the most eligible bachelor in all of Sparta at the moment.”
“Eirana, Kyranios’ daughter, turned him down to marry Asteropus instead—but that was two years ago.”
Chilonis didn’t like the sound of that. “You don’t think there’s any truth to the rumors that he bought that whore to satisfy his lust, do you?”
“Good heavens, woman! Where did you hear such nonsense? Leonidas was pressured by Hilaira, the daughter of Philippos, into buying the woman. I was there. Hilaira and that helot cook of his set on him like the Furies themselves, insisting the woman was not really a whore. Besides, Leonidas and Sperchias were shaken by what the Argives had done on Kythera. When they heard she’d been abused by the Argives, who carved an alpha between her breasts with a knife, they were determined to rescue her.”
“Brotus is spreading all sorts of unsavory rumors about Leonidas,” Chilonis told the treasurer.
Nikostratos looked at her with an inscrutable look, and then announced, “That, my good woman, is because Brotus is mired in unsavory rumor himself. But I will see what I can do.”
They fell silent again for a few moments, and then Chilonis had another idea. “Since I have you captive, sir, I wonder if you could answer a question.”
“You are welcome to ask. Whether I have an answer to any question is another matter altogether,” Nikostratos returned.
Chilonis laughed. “There is hardly anyone in Sparta whose opinion is more respected than yours.”
“Well, that may be because I never answer questions, but let people answer them for themselves,” he told her with a flicker of amusement.
Chilonis laughed again, and this time Nikostratos cracked a small smile of his own, giving her a sidelong glance.
“Sir, as the widow of a Spartan king, is there any property I can call my own? A widow’s portion? A kleros as the other widows have?”
Nikostratos looked over at her, horrified. “Don’t tell me your son wishes to expel you from his home!”
“No, no, no. This is entirely my own idea—but, you know, it is never good for a mother-in-law to live with a young couple. I should have moved out years ago.”
“Madam, you are the most sensible person in the Agiad palace. I cannot—as a responsible Spartan citizen—support your desire to abandon your station,” Nikostratos stated firmly, shaking his head.
Chilonis laughed. “I’m flattered, but let’s be honest with one another. I will be just as sensible wherever I happen to live, and since my influence on my son is currently nil, it might be worthwhile seeing if it would increase for being less common.”
Nikostratos stared at her—until a rut in the road jolted the chariot and caused him to wince in pain and grab hold of the rim of the cart. After the road had become smoother, he announced, “Madam, this is a very bad day. First I make a fool of myself falling head over heels into the dirt. Then I learn that Brotus is slandering his own twin for an act of kindness. And now I hear that the sensible and wise queen mother of our exceedingly erratic and temperamental Agiad king feels she has no influence on him.”
“I’m sorry to contribute to your woe, sir, but could we return to the issue of what property I am entitled to as a widow?”
“Unfortunately, there is no state portion for a queen or former queen. If your husband did not provide for you in his will …” He seemed to be thinking. “Hmm … I might be able to find a precedent … But …” He was frowning and started rubbing his beard. In the process he found it was dirty and, blushing with embarrassment, started to comb it clean with his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me my beard was filthy!” he snapped rhetorically at Chilonis.
Once in the city, Chilonis wanted to take Nikostratos to a surgeon, but he steadfastly refused. “Believe me, I know my ankle. It’s just the damn tendons and ligaments, which are stretched out of all useful shape. Have been for years, which is why they give way at the slightest provocation. A little unevenness in the pavement, the ankle buckles and I land on my face. It is acutely humiliating, but I assure you it will heal without any expensive doctoring.”
Chilonis didn’t like the sound of that, either. Was he saying he couldn’t afford a doctor any more than a horse?
Nor would he let her drive her to his home. “Stop right here,” he ordered.
“But you can’t walk on that ankle.”
“I most certainly can! I would have walked the whole way home if you hadn’t happened along. I live just up the end of that street, and there is no reason why you should have to maneuver this chariot down a narrow alley. I thank you most sincerely for your kindness, good lady, but I don’t want to become even more indebted. Debt is against my principles,” he added, with a little smile that sought to soften the harshness of his refusal. Then he eased himself carefully but determinedly off the back of the chariot onto his good foot and hobbled away, leaning heavily on his walking stick.
Nikostratos had a hard time hobbling to his syssitia that evening. By the time he arrived, he was sweating, and his left armpit was bruised from leaning so hard on his crutch. The other men were solicitous, but they respected his refusal to make a fuss about things. It was only as they stood to leave that Nikostratos called on Leonidas to help him.
Leonidas was no longer the youngest member of the syssitia. They had accepted Euryleon at the solstice, on his graduation. It would have been more correct for Nikostratos to ask for Euryleon’s help, but the latter was shortsighted and had trouble seeing in the dark. Thus although Euryleon dutifully offered his help, at a nod from Leonidas he withdrew.
“You don’t mind seeing me home tonight, do you?” Nikostratos asked as he laid an arm over Leonidas’ broad but soft, warm shoulders. They were so much more comfortable than the top of his walking stick!
“No, of course I don’t mind. Euryleon will tell Euragoras why I’m late.” Euryleon was in Leonidas’ section and could report to the enomotarch.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Nikostratos confided.
It was pitch dark, and although it had been one of those bright, sunny winter days that promised the return of spring, with the sunset winter seemed to have returned with a vengeance. Leonidas paused to wrap his himation more tightly around him.
“When your father died,” Nikostratos started, “did he make no provision for his second wife, for Chilonis? I mean, your mother was most generously endowed, as I remember.”
“My mother went to her own estates. She wanted nothing to do with anything that had belonged to my father. She felt he had betrayed her.”
“I see.” Nikostratos was lost in apparently unhappy thoughts.
“What is the matter?”
“The queen mother, Chilonis. She wishes to move out of the palace and retire. But she owns nothing, it seems. No one has provided her with anything she can call her own.”
“Why does she want to move out?”
“Ah, leave it to you to go straight to the heart of it. Why, indeed? I am not sure. The answer she gave me was …” He looked for the right word. “Facile. She did not tell me the whole story. But she is not a frivolous woman. If she feels she should move out, then she will have her reasons.”
Leonidas nodded in agreement.
“Another thing,” Nikostratos went on as they continued their slow, tortured way along the road back to Sparta: “It is not good for you to keep that perioikoi girl, the one picked up for soliciting, on your kleros. People are talking about you.”
“People, or my brother Brotus?”
Nikostratos frowned and insisted, “People—including your brother Brotus.” He stop
ped and faced Leonidas. “You’re a bachelor, Leonidas; you can’t keep a whore on your kleros without people talking about it.”
“You mean it would be better if I were married?”
“Yes—because then your wife would be in charge of your kleros; and since no self-respecting woman would let her husband keep a rival under her roof, people would recognize that, whatever else the girl did, she did not warm your bed.”
“I don’t see how the temperature of my bed is anyone’s business.”
“The morality of every Spartan citizen is the business of us all,” Nikostratos reminded him.
“The girl was thrown out of her own home for being a victim of Argive brutality, and you want me to throw her out again just because some tongues are wagging behind my back? Listen: if you hear anyone say a word against me, tell them to say it to my face!” Leonidas was getting worked up.
“Stop being stubborn, Leo; this doesn’t have to be blown out of proportion. This girl isn’t your kin. She’s perioikoi. You are not in any way responsible for what happened to her.”
“Aren’t I?” Leonidas stopped, making Nikostratos stare at him. “Aren’t we all? What happened on Kythera was our fault. We left it undefended, then took over a week to respond. All the while, the Argives were rampaging across the island—plundering, burning, raping, and murdering. There were scores of girls who suffered what Kleta did, only most of them are now dead. Because we failed them.”
“We can’t be everywhere at once.”
“We collect taxes and tolls from the perioikoi, don’t we? We demand their absolute loyalty and require them to send their sons with us as auxiliary troops whenever we operate outside our borders, don’t we? We even expect them to help put down helot unrest if necessary.”
Nikostratos was frowning. “What are you driving at, Leo?”
“That we made a pact with them, a simple two-part pact: First, they receive the exclusive right to engage in trade and manufacturing in exchange for paying high taxes and tolls. Second, they support us militarily without question in exchange for protection. When we let the Argives sack most of Kythera this past spring, we failed to keep our end of the bargain.”
Nikostratos considered the younger man and nodded. “There is truth to that.”
“Then you must also admit that if it happens too often, we will deservedly lose the loyalty of the perioikoi, and our own strength will diminish accordingly.”
“You are probably right,” Nikostratos conceded, impressed that Leonidas could be this foresighted; but then he added firmly, “But that has nothing to do with the fate of this girl. She’s already been rejected by her own family. What happens to her will have no impact on perioikoi loyalty one way or another.”
“Maybe not, but I feel personally responsible for what happened to her, and for that reason I owe her all the compensation I am capable of giving.”
“What you’re doing, Leo, is just digging in your heels and refusing to see reason on this out of sheer orneriness!” Nikostratos retorted; then he patted Leonidas’ shoulder to calm his protégé before he could reply. “You don’t have to just dump her out onto the streets. You own scores of properties—including, if I remember correctly, a majority share in a flax mill near Kardamyle.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve never met the girl, but most perioikoi women are excellent weavers. This girl must have spirit and brains, or she would not have survived—or escaped the Argives. Give her some capital and let her set herself up in business as a weaver, attached to your flax mill. That gives her an honest way to earn her living—and puts her on the other side of Taygetos, too far away for even the most hostile detractor to impute sexual motives on your part.”
Leonidas thought about it for a moment, and then admitted, “No wonder you have been elected treasurer again and again. That is a very good idea, and I will speak with my steward Phormio about it tomorrow.”
“Good man,” Nikostratos nodded, satisfied and relieved, mentally thanking Athena for the inspiration. Then he raised the other topic that was bothering him. “Have you heard about your twin’s wife, by the way?”
“You mean the rumors that Lathria was overly friendly with a certain helot from the lumberyards while Brotus was away on the Argive border this fall?”
“Ah, so you do keep an eye on your brothers.” Nikostratos sounded pleased.
“No,” Leonidas corrected. “I am forced to hear about them constantly from others.”
Nikostratos acknowledged the rebuke with a small laugh, but persisted. “What do you make of it?”
Leonidas sighed. “Lathria is hot-blooded. Brotus was, as you said, away until late this fall. It does not task my imagination to think she sought amusement elsewhere while my brother was away.”
“With a helot?” Nikostratos sounded shocked, and he stopped to stare at Leonidas.
It was too dark to see the younger man’s face, but Leonidas shrugged and answered evenly, “What Spartiate would risk the rage of the second in line to the Agiad throne? I think a helot might have found it far more difficult to resist Lathria’s inducements.”
“But what Spartiate woman would lower herself to such a liaison?” Nikostratos still seemed incapable of imagining it.
“The helot involved was allegedly a very fine-looking young man, exceptionally well-made and strong as an ox.”
“Was?” Nikostratos raised his eyebrows.
“He was found dead the other day, and no one is asking any questions—not even the lumberyard owner.”
“And you think it possible that your sister-in-law willingly took this helot to her bed?”
Leonidas shrugged. “I don’t have any trouble believing it at all, actually.” Leonidas thought back on his own encounters with the sexually charged Lathria.
“You will not be alone in thinking this,” Nikostratos concluded.
“No,” Leonidas considered and then added, “I’d say every Spartiate under the age of thirty and over the age of eighteen knows about Lathria’s proclivities.”
“Except your brother, it seems.”
“I suspect my brother knows—now.”
Nikostratos had been guiding them as they walked, and he stopped in front of a narrow two-story building in the alley behind one of the army barracks. Leonidas assumed they were taking a shortcut to someplace more respectable, but Nikostratos removed his arm and started fumbling in the dark with the door. Leonidas exclaimed in some confusion, “You live here?”
“Yes.”
“But where?”
“Above this shop. If you could help me up the stairs …”
“Nikostratos! I would carry you, if you need me to, but where is your attendant? Your daughter? Your daughter-in-law? Do you mean you live in this —this is not even a perioikoi dwelling!”
“No, it belongs to a freedman, a former Arcadian slave who escaped here and somehow bought his freedom—or not. I don’t know exactly. I am his tenant, not his interrogator. As for my daughter and daughter-in-law, I do not like to impose on their hospitality.”
“Hospitality? But you must have a kleros of your own!”
“It is halfway to Gytheon and supports my young grandson. How could I attend to my duties or come to the syssitia if I lived there? Horses eat too damn much, and where would I keep one here in the city? This is fine. What more does an old man need than a couple of rooms?”
Leonidas could think of many things—the warmth of a hearth fire, for a start, and someone to cook and clean for him. Meanwhile, Nikostratos had opened the door and hobbled down a dark corridor to a cramped, unpleasant courtyard. The whole place had the musty smell of mildew and rubbish and improperly cleaned latrines, although it was too dark to see much.
Nikostratos looked up a narrow wooden stairway with no railing, in obvious despair.
Leonidas went around to the open side and slipped his arm under Nikostratos’ shoulder to help heave him up the stairs. He got the old man into his bed and the
n stood looking around. There was almost nothing here. “Where is your attendant?” Leonidas asked again.
“I let him go.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was an old man and he wanted to go home.”
“Home? Where?”
“To Messenia.”
“Your man was Messenian?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that when I asked you about Mantiklos.”
“It was irrelevant. But this past summer, my man asked me to let him go home. After the Karneia. I didn’t have the heart to stop him. He was going home to die. Kidney problems.”
“Does my brother Cleomenes know how you live?”
“Why should he?”
“Do the ephors and Council know?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because you are one of the most important officials of this city!” Leonidas responded forcefully. “It is not right that you should live like this!”
“What do you propose? An official apartment with household help and catering for all city officials? That would just turn every post into something coveted for the wrong reasons. Lycurgus knew what he was doing when he said our city officials should serve for honor—not pecuniary rewards—and all citizens should be equal in wealth,” Nikostratos retorted.
“But we aren’t equal in wealth!” Leonidas protested. “The constitution has been corrupted and circumvented, and we are living a lie! We wear the same clothes and call ourselves equals, but we’re not!” Leonidas was angry, as he always was when confronted by a reality that did not match his ideal image of his city.
“I’m sorry to have distressed you, Leo,” Nikostratos declared sincerely. “That was not why I brought you here. I have been neglectful of myself. Thank you for reminding me. I will endeavor to improve.”
“Should I send you a helot youth to look after you?”
“I’d rather have more of those sweets you brought the other night to the syssitia.”
They both laughed, and Leonidas left it at that.
The next morning Nikostratos had considerable difficulty getting himself washed and dressed on account of his bad ankle. There was not always something to hold onto when he needed it, and if he used a crutch, it meant he lost the use of one hand, too. The ankle was swollen terribly now, and his toes were black. He gave some thought to going to a doctor after all, but then decided on the baths instead. The bath slaves had salves, the kind of things they rubbed into the aching muscles of the young men after drill.
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