The excess of emotion on her part and the sense of wasted youth on his led them both to seek immediate gratification of their desires. The day was warm, the grass soft and thick. The grazing horses were benevolent spectators. If Eirana’s parents or helots were watching from the windows of the house, they were clearly approving.
Only after they were lying in the grass, dozing and listening to the crickets and the breeze in the pine trees, did Eirana speak again. Her voice was tight, still filled with tears despite Leonidas’ embrace. “You will take my daughter, too, won’t you? She’s so hurt because her father doesn’t love her anymore …” She broke off, starting to cry again.
Leonidas stroked her head. “Of course. Why shouldn’t I?”
The news that the master had taken a wife and that she would soon be coming to take up residence at his kleros sent Laodice into a panic. For the last three years, ever since their own quarters were finished, she had been making the main house ready for a mistress—but that was very different from the prospect of actually meeting her. In reality, Laodice and her family had become used to being “masters” of their own house. The master’s occasional holidays on the farm had been like having an honored guest. A woman living here permanently would be something else again.
Laodice was suddenly certain that a woman would find fault with everything. She looked around the house and noticed all the little things that hadn’t been done yet. Oh, they had the rebuilt and plastered walls. The roof was strong and leaked nowhere. The floors were well surfaced with practical local terra cotta—but nowhere a mosaic scene or even a pretty patterned walkway. And the walls were simply whitewashed—no frescoes or even pretty stenciled borders. Most distressing to Laodice was the realization that all the furniture had been built by her son Pantes. He was very proud of his work, all the more so now that the master had loaned him the money to set up his own shop. Maybe he really was good, Laodice thought, looking at his creations with their very sparse but “strategic” decorations in a new light. But what did she know? The new mistress might find it all very primitive and beneath her dignity.
The master had told them, full of pride, that his bride came from a “very good” family, that her father was one of Sparta’s lochagoi, and that she had been married to a priest of Apollo at Delphi. That sounded very exalted to Laodice. She was desperately afraid that the mistress would find many things to complain about at the kleros.
At least her arrival would be in the dark. The master had explained the peculiar Spartiate marriage custom of “capturing” the bride by night and leaving her at his residence, only to return to his barracks before morning roll call. It seemed a very funny custom to Laodice, and she had heard the helots from the surrounding farms laughing about it. It saved the Spartiates huge amounts of money in wedding feasts and presents, the helots joked; but how many times had the bride woken up and discovered she’d been carried off by the wrong man? The Spartans all looked alike in their cropped hair and training armor, they teased. And the girls cut their hair and dressed as boys, too—so they could get by the watch more easily.
Pelopidas, Polychares, Mantiklos, and the new field hand Leonidas had brought from one of his other estates to replace Pantes doubled up laughing when Polychares told the story about some ardent bridegroom who had failed to get the girl’s father’s permission. The father, an officer it seemed, found out about the planned elopement and made sure the meleirenes knew when and where to look for the young man and his daughter. The amorous couple were caught, arrested, and put in the stocks—to the amusement of the entire agoge, who came to taunt them there. Laodice didn’t find the story funny. All she could picture was poor Kleta.
With a sigh, Laodice left the men to their gossip, and set her mind to what she should cook for the mistress the first day. The master said she had a four-year-old daughter. Children liked sweets. She would be sure there were plenty of sweets ready, but there wasn’t much time. The master was clearly in a hurry now that he had found the woman he wanted …
Hilaira found out about Leonidas’ marriage from the woman that sold baskets in the agora, who had heard it from the cooper on Lycurgus Street, who had it from the dye merchant around the corner. By the time Alkander was home for his midday meal, she was ready to grill him. “And did everything work out for Leonidas last night?”
“Give me time to catch my breath and wash up, would you, woman?” Alkander answered in mock reproach.
Like most married men, Alkander went straight from morning drill to his wife’s home—whether that was a nearby kleros or, as in Hilaira’s case, a rented apartment in the city itself. While bachelors went to the public baths or down to the river to swim and took their midday meal at a tavern or street stall, married men let their wives bathe and feed them, since even men on active duty had the afternoons to themselves until dinner at the syssitia and reporting to barracks for the night. Most Spartan children were conceived on these leisurely afternoons, and not—as foreigners thought—in hasty night trysts, when the men were technically AWOL from their units.
As he stripped, Hilaira took Alkander’s filthy, sweat-soaked chiton from him and dropped it in the wicker hamper. Alkander stepped into the terra-cotta tub in the middle of the sunny courtyard, sinking down into the cool water with an audible sigh of contentment. Hilaira came around behind him and started massaging his neck. Then, as he relaxed with a sigh, she dunked his head under the water. Alkander came up sputtering.
“Tell me!” she insisted before he could get a word out. “Did Leo finally carry Eirana home, or didn’t he?”
“Of course he did,” Alkander answered, still scowling at his wife for the dunking.
Hilaira kissed his frown away, and with a smile returned to her massage, but now she wanted to know. “And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and?’”
“Well, what was he like this morning?”
“Happy; what do you expect?”
“And that’s all?”
“Do you think we give one another a blow-by-blow description of our wedding night?”
“I always suspected it …” she teased, inwardly confident that it was not true. She had heard too many men scorn Brotus for “talking too much” and others for being “lewd” to think they indulged in too much indecent talk about their wives.
“Leonidas says everything went well, and that is all we need to know,” Alkander told her primly. “Eirana is now on his kleros, and her father has delivered two splendid mares and a chariot as her dowry. Her daughter and the girl’s nanny will move in with them in the next couple of days.”
“I think I shall go visit her,” Hilaira declared.
“Good idea. I’m sure Eirana would like that—but don’t let Thersander eat too many of Laodice’s sweets. If you spoil him too much, he’s going to have a terrible time adjusting to the agoge.”
“Don’t remind me!” Hilaira protested. She dreaded the day when she would have to give little Thersander up to the harsh nurture of the Spartan agoge. Already she was planning to retain this townhouse even after Alkander went off active service, so that she could be near her children—providing a ready and nearby haven from the vagaries of life in the herds and the injustice or incompetence of adolescent eirenes.
“Where is the rascal?” Alkander wanted to know, standing up and reaching for a towel that was hung out to dry on a laundry line stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other.
“He wore himself out this morning with a temper tantrum when I wouldn’t let him near the bullpen in the agora. He went to sleep right after lunch.” Hilaira always fed her son before her husband came home for his midday meal; but usually the boy waited eagerly for his father, and Alkander played with him for a few minutes before he was put down for a nap while the adults had their meal together.
Alkander tiptoed into the nursery to check on his son and found him, as his mother said, sound asleep and breathing deeply, with a serene expression on his face. Alkander smiled. He was a beautifu
l child—all bright blond curls and soft, pale brown skin. Alkander’s protectiveness knew no bounds. He knew that he would give his life without thought or regret for the boy’s sake—and he would defend the boy from the cruelty and injustice of any eirene or instructor or herd leader, too! But he also knew that the very best defense he could give the boy was proper preparation for the years ahead. He knew he had to prepare him both mentally and physically to be strong enough to endure the hardships of the agoge: the cold, hunger, sore muscles, blisters and cuts and bruises, and above all the ridicule and teasing. If he could just help the boy not to be the butt of all jokes, as he had been, he would have given him a valuable start in life, Alkander thought. The problem was, Alkander wasn’t sure how to go about that. Closing the door behind him very softly, he turned to smile at his wife.
Hilaira slipped into his naked arms and lifted her face to his. He kissed her and then bent and lifted her into his arms. He carried her up to the loft room that served as their bedroom. He set her on the bed and lay down beside her. She stood, but only to remove her peplos and lie down again, naked. He turned toward her and started to caress her.
They took their time because there was no rush, and then they lay talking on the bed. They discussed Hilaira’s mother’s waning health, and her father’s misfortune in losing his best young stud stallion in a freak accident. “And you heard Leonidas tracked down his old nanny Dido?” Alkander asked. “Apparently she was living in dreadful straits, terrorized by her own son into giving him everything she earned. Leonidas has arranged for a pension to be paid via her cousin, Brotus’ nurse Polyxo, so her son can’t get his hands on it. He wanted to bring her here, but—”
“Daddy! Daddy!” Thersander broke in on them. He rushed to the bed and crawled onto his father. “We saw the Minotaur today!”
Alkander laughed and swept his son into his arms. Sitting up, he tossed the boy into the air. The three-year-old squealed with delight, while Hilaira swung herself out of the bed and hastened to dress again. As she combed out her hair, her son babbled nonstop to her husband, who was now dressing himself. He was a good father, she thought, with gratefulness and a glance down at her belly. It was two months since her last period. She was very likely with child again.
Somehow the days and weeks slipped away from her. There was no longer any doubt that she was again with child, and preparing for the new addition to the family preoccupied her in a pleasant way, weaving and sewing and fixing up the cradle. So it was a couple of months before Hilaira finally organized her visit to Eirana, on a day when Alkander’s enomotia had been detailed to provide a ceremonial escort for some visiting dignitary, so that Alkander would not be able to visit her at all. The summer heat had broken and the first rains of autumn had fallen, refreshing the parched countryside and giving the fields an almost spring-like green.
Hilaira loved the autumn more than any other season, for it heralded the time of year when Alkander would be with her more often than any other. Beautiful as spring was, for Hilaira (and many other wives in Sparta), it was the precursor of the summer months, when the men were often away on long maneuvers—if not actually campaigning. Twice now, Alkander’s pentekostus had been engaged in hostilities against the Argives, and those were summers Hilaira preferred not to remember. The dread of bad news had soured even the loveliest day, for she could never quite forget that Alkander was at risk.
But today she rose early and ordered the housekeeper to make a picnic lunch for them. Then she and the housekeeper set out together right after breakfast, with Thersander on the hefty housekeeper’s back. The housekeeper was a middle-aged helot woman from Hilaira’s father’s estate who had come to run Hilaira’s town establishment after Thersander was born. She was widowed, but had brought five children into the world and buried three of them. The housekeeper’s son was Hilaira’s father’s second attendant, and her daughter was a kitchen maid on a large estate. She was a big help to Hilaira, doing all the heavy work from housecleaning to washing, chopping wood, fetching water, and baking the bread. Broad of face and beam, she was not a particularly bright woman, but she had a ready laugh and a good heart, as she had shown that day Leonidas brought Laodice to them after Laodice had helped Kleta. As they made their way out of the city, she entertained her mistress with local gossip.
Beyond the bridge they had to stop and let Thersander watch the army units at drill. The men were in training armor, but they were drawn up into opposing forces. Again and again they clashed with one another while officers prowled around watching for breaks in the line, files that didn’t close up properly, or any other detail that failed to meet their standards.
Thersander was fascinated by it all, and Hilaira was reminded of the many hours she had spent on the opposite slope watching the boys of the agoge struggling with learning the intricacies of the phalanx in the clouds of choking dust. The girls had usually brought skins full of cool water and even apples or nuts and raisins to snack upon. When they were old enough to have sweethearts, they shared these treasures with their favorites during the short breaks. Alkander had always been surrounded by maidens offering him refreshments, and Hilaira had often shared her snacks with her brother and Leo instead. But she’d first suspected that Alkander really liked her best when he took another girl’s water but winked at her even as he drank.
Eventually Thersander lost interest and they continued down the east bank of the Eurotas, past the giggling pubescent girls splashing naked in the shallows. Not long afterward they reached Leonidas’ kleros and turned into his cypress-lined drive, leaving the main road behind. One of the helot girls, out with the goats, saw the visitors first and ran back to announce them. By the time they made it to the courtyard Laodice was coming out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. Laodice welcomed Hilaira earnestly. “What a pleasure to see you, mistress. Why didn’t you send word that you were coming? I would have made something special.”
Hilaira laughed. “Everything you make is special,” she assured the helot, trying to ease her apparent distress. Hilaira remembered when Leonidas’ kleros had been a ruin, and she appreciated how much the helot family had done to turn it into a very pleasant home. She remembered even more vividly the way Laodice had looked the day she was arrested for giving water to that poor girl who had been in the stocks. The rescue of Kleta had made the two women conspirators despite the difference in their status. Hilaira did not like to see Laodice looking so worried.
Laodice, meanwhile, was asking her to come into the courtyard and promising to get her refreshments and the mistress. “Melissa!” she called to her daughter-in-law, “Come take the boy!” Thersander, who had fallen asleep on the housekeeper’s back after the excitement of the drill fields, at once woke and started wriggling and whining. The housekeeper untied the shawl that held him onto her back and set him down on the ground. “We’ll make ourselves comfortable in the kitchen,” she assured Laodice, so that Laodice could see to Hilaira.
The courtyard was by far the nicest part of the main house, because it offered a spectacular view across the Eurotas to Taygetos. There were benches lining the house, enabling people to sit out here and enjoy the view while working, and a table, too. At this time of the day the benches were still in shadow, and the air smelled of the rosemary growing in large pots between the benches. Hilaira was surprised not to find Eirana out here enjoying the lovely morning. She was sure that this was where she would have sat to spin. Indeed, she would have dragged a loom out here so she could weave, Hilaira thought. Laodice urged her to sit down while she went to fetch the mistress.
Eventually Eirana emerged from the upstairs bedroom and came down the outside stairs to greet Hilaira. “How kind of you to come! Forgive me! I—I had a bad night. I have a headache. I’m sorry. Sit down. I’ll have water and refreshments brought.” Eirana seemed flustered and her hair was in disarray, as if she had indeed just gotten up. Her movements were slow, too, as if she were just waking up. Leonidas must have been here during the night, Hilaira
surmised with amusement. But she couldn’t blame him. After waiting so long to marry, he was undoubtedly an ardent lover, and since he had been promoted to enomotarch during the summer, he took less of a risk than Alkander by going AWOL at night.
Eventually the two women settled themselves on benches at the large table. Fresh grapes and bread were spread out on a linen cloth before them along with a flask of cool well water. Hilaira asked Eirana how she was settling in and if there was anything she lacked.
“No, no,” Eirana assured her. “Laodice and Melissa are exemplary helots. Indeed, they spoil me. They are so kind and efficient. And the girls, as well. If only …” She broke off and looked around as if missing something. “Excuse me.” She stood and disappeared into the house. Hilaira heard her talking, scolding it sounded, and she heard a child whine, without understanding exactly what was said. After a few minutes Eirana emerged, pulling a petulant girl by the hand. The girl was pouting and hanging back. “You will say hello to Lady Hilaira!” Eirana insisted.
The girl stamped her foot and said, “No!”
Hilaira smiled at the little girl. “I’m not really that terrible! Come let me look at you!”
“NO!”
Eirana cuffed her sharply, then pushed her forward.
The child took advantage of her mother’s letting go of her to dart away, right back into the house. With an exclamation of exasperation, Eirana went after her, leaving Hilaira feeling embarrassed. She hoped she would never have such a difficult child—and her hand went automatically to her belly, wondering what the next little being would be like. She thought it was a girl, which was fine, except that Thersander was terrifyingly vulnerable. She lived in constant fear of him being taken from her by a fever or accident, a scorpion or snake or—as he grew—the hardships of his upbringing.
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