The Queen of Sparta (12 page)

And so it had been. Salamis was won but did not end the war. And right now, Gorgo had no way of knowing which way the winds were blowing on the Plains of Plataea.

CHAPTER 12

SUPPLICATION

Plataea

Later that afternoon

When Sherzada awoke, the terrible throbbing in his head was still there; in fact, it was worse. The rest of his body was aching too, which was not surprising given he was shackled hand and foot.

He looked around the unfamiliar tent, and tried to recall how he had ended up here. He remembered was the ferocity of the Athenian charge. As he ordered his troops to fall back across the river, he had suddenly felt his head swaying. The noises of battle were replaced by a deafening silence, and the last thing he recalled was the enemy pressing his men from all sides. And then everything went dark. Someone, he realized, must have hit him over the head, and hard.

Outside, Sherzada could hear voices being raised. But he could only recognize one; the elegant and eloquent elocution of the War Archon of the Athenians, Aristeides. He shuffled himself closer to the entrance.

“He is your prisoner, Aristeides. Why don’t you keep him?” asked a young voice in Attic Greek, but with a thick Dorian Spartan accent.

“After all, he burnt down the Acropolis, Pausanias. I do not think his life expectation in Athens would be terribly long,” came the reply from a voice Sherzada knew only too well.

“Then do the merciful thing. Slit his throat while he is still unconscious,” was Pausanias’ comeback.

“This man is one of the enemy’s bravest and best commanders,” replied Aristeides. “He will be of more use to you alive than dead. Take him to the Queen. She will know what to do with him.”

“She will probably kill him, if I don’t first …” muttered Pausanias. “But what’s this?”

Sherzada managed to find a tiny chink in the tent’s entrance. He saw a line of weary girls led by a determined-looking Cleonice.

“They had asked me to lead them to you, Regent,” said the Spartan warrior who accompanied the women.

As they approached Pausanias, one by one each girl went down on her knees, except Cleonice and the girl next to her. Then Cleonice nudged her neighbour forward. The girl, with a little hesitance, slowly walked forward, fumbling as she did so. Once directly in front of Pausanias, she too went down on her knees. Even though Sherzada could not see it, he knew the Greek custom. She would have bowed low and clasped his knees in supplication.

“Lord, my name is Hieronyma. I am … I am the daughter of Hegetorides, son of Antagoras of Cos,” said the girl, her voice trembling.

“My father had a close friend called Hegatorides of Cos,” responded Pausanias.

Sherzada glimpsed the girl tug something from her neck and present it to Pausanias. “This necklace was sent by your father to my mother through my father.” Sherzada guessed it carried the emblem of Sparta.

“Then under the code of
Xenia
, you are as close to me as a sister.”

Gasping a sigh of relief, Heironyma cleared her throat and spoke, “Lord, these girls here with me are all of Greek blood. They were forcibly taken from their families by the Persians. All I ask of you is to ensure that all of us are returned to our homes in safety.”

“Granted. I shall make arrangements.”

Then Sherzada saw Cleonice’s face redden as she lowered her gaze.

“What is your name?” he heard Pausanias ask her.

“Cleonice of Byzantium,” she responded with a hint of defiance.

There was silence for a moment.

“Correct me if I am wrong, Euro,” Sherzada heard Pausanias say to someone next to him in a low tone. “Byzantines are not exactly Greek, are they?”

Cleonice spoke up. “My father’s father came from Megara and a part of my mother’s family are of Mycenaean origin. I was raised as a Greek, my Lord, and regard myself as one.”

Pausanias spoke again to the man beside him. “I shall let all the girls go except that one. I want her.”

An exasperated voice responded, “You have already given your word. Let her go, Pausanias.”

“I shall treat her well …”

“As well as you can treat any war concubine, that is,” corrected Euro. “If you take her to Sparta, her status will be that of a slave – a Helot. Sparta is not kind to love matches between Spartans and non-Spartans. With those in bondage it is even worse. Have you not learnt from my example?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to get back to the fate of our prisoner,” said Aristeides. “He you must take to Sparta, Pausanias.”

“Like Hades I will,” said Pausanias. “I shall end it now. Bring him here.”

CHAPTER 13

A TREMBLER NO MORE

Sparta

Two days later

It was still dark outside as Gorgo opened her tired eyes. Still in bed, she saw Agathe hovering over her, trying desperately to wake her. If Agathe wanted to wake her before dawn, Gorgo thought, she must have very good reason.

“Majesty, two messengers have arrived from Plataea, one after the other. One sent from the Regent Pausanias and the other from Prince Euryanax.”

Gorgo got up as calmly as she could and demanded to see the messages. After weeks of preparation, planning, and anticipation, all had come to this point.

Before they had left Sparta, she had made it clear to her cousins that she should be the first to hear of the battle’s outcome – before the War Council, before the Ephors, even before the Gerousia. If someone was to break the news to Sparta, it should be her.

Only now, Gorgo was not sure what news there was to break. She went outside into the courtyard and sat down on the steps. She decided to start with Euro’s letter. It was long and not in code, which surprised her a little. This was all the more reason to read it first, and so she did:

Dearest Cousin, from Euro,

Love and greetings.

I wish I can say that the battle of Plataea was won by Pausanias’ leadership skills, but that would be laughably incorrect. I wish I could take the credit for winning the battle through my tactical brilliance, but that would be an even greater exaggeration. The day was won for Greece, but sadly not by the Spartans, nor for that matter any other contingent; certainly not by some of the cowards on our side who fled the field of battle. It was won solely by Aristeides the Just – the man you rightly convinced the Athenians to elect as War Archon. And in spite of this, Aristeides refuses credit, giving all the glory instead to Pausanias.

It was his strategem to use Persian gold against the Persians that first shifted the odds in our favour. He had bribed many Persian commanders to leave the field, which they did when battle began. And even after the debacle at Gargaphia, when we had decided to withdraw, it was Aristeides who told us that we should use this to our advantage – to lure the enemy into a trap. He said that we should continue our withdrawal until he gave us a signal to turn the tables on our foes. The words that I heard were his, but I suspect the ideas were yours.

Of course, things did not go exactly as planned. When it came to withdrawing, confusion reigned. The entire Greek army inadvertently broke into three groups, retreating in separate directions – rather than to the agreed point. Even within our ranks, there were Spartan commanders who considered any form of withdrawal as cowardice. Other Greeks took the retreat for a general flight, even though they had been told it was only a stratagem. We had not counted on this cowardice, especially from the contingents of Corinth and Megara. But the two contingents had suffered badly that day when the Persian cavalry tried to storm the Heights of Cithaeron, and their morale had not completely recovered. These contingents, a total of nearly ten thousand men, took refuge like scared children inside the fortified precincts of the Temple of Hera at the foot of Mt. Cithaeron, only to emerge from their hiding place in the middle of the night. And then the Dark Riders of Thebes ambushed them, leaving them brutally mauled. Even in defeat, these Thebans showed greater courage than most.

And, indeed, courage was not the monopoly of the Greeks – on either side. Indeed, those of the enemy who did not run away fought with admirable bravery and skill. Had all the Persians fought like those valiant few, they would have surely beaten us. I was later told that most of those we confronted were largely non-Persian subjects or allies of the Great King. Whoever they were, they were among the best warriors I have yet seen. Until Plataea, I thought the Spartans the best warriors in all of Greece and all Greeks superior to all Barbarians. I am not so sure I believe this now.

And it was not just these brave enemies of ours who demonstrated great courage. Even those among us whom we considered cowards proved us wrong. Aristodemus, whom we had labelled ‘Trembler’ proved his heroism by charging the entire Persian army single-handedly. He plunged deep into their lines with his spear and thus died a painful death, but only after making the enemy pay dearly. While most of us felt that he had redeemed his honour by this act, Cousin Pausanias refused to grant him any battle honours afterwards because he had broken ranks and charged the enemy against orders. This is rich coming from Pausanias, who has spent a lifetime defying discipline.

Towards the end of the battle, the bravest of the enemy made the last stand by the river near Mardonius’ fortified camp. They almost routed us at the Asopus River crossing, had not Aristeides and his Athenians come to our aid. And after that, at the front of his camp, Mardonius and his troops also died, fighting bravely to a man. It was only after Mardonius’ death that all resistance ended.

During the battle, one of the enemy commanders, in my reckoning their best, was taken prisoner. Aristeides asked Pausanias to take him to Sparta, suggesting you “would know how to use him.”

Gorgo could not think of any possible use for the Persian, other than target practice.

Today the Mantineans arrived, a day after the battle was over. They were shown the battlefield and marveled at the enormity of our victory. Many hung their heads, saying they had very much wanted to share this victory with the Spartans. They remembered the curse uncle Leonidas had placed on them of being cowards forever. Indeed, theirs was the first Greek contingent to abandon the Thermopylae Pass when the Persians outflanked it. Of course, Pausanias rubbed salt into their wounds by suggesting that they had deliberately delayed their arrival at Plataea to avoid the battle.

However, what the Mantineans were shown was a cover up. We told them, like we are telling everyone else, that the Greeks suffered very few casualties, less than 200. We are also telling everyone that our 70,000-strong force faced a Persian army of at least 300,000, though the fact is that their army outnumbered ours by a very thin margin. In reality, if you multiply the number of ‘our dead’ by twenty you will not come close to the true number we lost. I, myself, buried hundreds of those under my command. Plataea could have easily have been a defeat rather than the resounding victory we are claiming it to be. But the truth, as an Athenian recently put it to me, is war’s first casualty.

And then finally, at the bottom of the parchment was a postscript, clearly written more hurriedly than the rest:

News has just reached us that the majority of the Persian Army that fled Plataea has been ambushed and destroyed by Alexander of Macedon’s army at the Strymon River.

This is the account of the battle as I saw it.

Beneath these words, her cousin’s familiar seal.

Gorgo got up and walked out of her room into the living quarters. Agathe and the girls had put on the fire and she sat down by the hearth and unfolded Pausanias’ missive. It read simply:

I, Pausanias, Regent of Sparta and Hegemon of the allied Armies of Greece, have crushed the Barbarian hordes on the Plains of Plataea. Greece has been saved.

Gorgo laughed aloud at Pausanias’ conceit. But, surely, he could have done a lot worse.

She asked Agathe to fetch Pleistarchus. Though the people of Sparta regarded him as their king, Gorgo could still guide him for a few more years.

Soon enough, Agathe returned with the little King, dressed in his tunic, the crimson slightly darker than the average fare, indicating his superiority over other Spartans.

As Gorgo took him by the hand, he asked her, “What is it, Mother?”

“I have got some good news, my darling, but we need to share it with everyone.”

His eyes flashed. “You mean we’ve …!”

She put her finger on his lips. “Shhhh … Let us not spoil the surprise. But we also have to do something else.”

Gorgo took Pleistarchus to the Agora. It was early morning still and the market was full of people buying and selling. Fresh produce, meat and fish had been brought into town by the Perioiki merchants, and people were gathering to buy them. The stalls were neatly arranged alongside a path which led to a platform at the centre of the Agora. Even though there were a lot of people there, no one thought it strange for the King and his mother to visit the marketplace. But when Gorgo started climbing the platform with Pleistarchus, people stopped their business and began to gather around. The banter of trade was replaced by a commotion of speculation, as the citizens of Sparta waited to hear what news their queen brought.

Gorgo waited a little to let the people settle. But more and more slowly started to come in. She cleared her throat and said, “Is Ione, daughter of Aristodemus, present here?”

There was silence.

“Is Ione here, daughter of Aristodemus?” she repeated.

“You mean Aristodemus the Trembler, Majesty,” someone shouted from the crowd. There was mocking laughter.

After a moment’s pause, she shouted again, “Are you here among us, Ione, daughter of Aristodemus
Monophthalmus
?”

She had deliberately called him
Monophthalmus
– ‘One-eyed’ – in reference to the infected eye that had prevented him from fighting and dying at Thermopylae, the eye he later gouged out in anger over his plight.

A timid voice blurted out, “I am here, your Majesty.”

“Then would Ione, daughter of Aristodemus
Monophthalmus
, do the honour of joining his Majesty and myself on this platform?”

Seeing the shocked look on the girl’s face as she reached her, Gorgo hugged her warmly as disapproving shouts rang out from the crowd. She locked Ione in a tight embrace and whispered in her ear, “Ione, I only ask you to do one thing for me. Be strong. As long as you are up here, with me, be strong and proud. You will have ample time to shed your tears later. Keep yourself together, Ione … just for a little while. Just smile … Remember that you are still a woman of Sparta.”

The Queen took the girl’s left hand in her right hand and placed her other hand in that of her little son’s. And then, clasping their hands, she wheeled them around to face the crowd.

As Gorgo looked through the crowd, she saw disapproving faces; even anger in some. Most, if not all, were visibly hostile to see the daughter of the Trembler stand next to their young king.

All this time, Gorgo was trying to work out how she should break the news to these good citizens of Sparta. Should she tell them that Pausanias had won a famous victory? That would be a lie. Or should she tell them Plataea had been won through trickery and deceit, not by courage and skill? That the enemy was brave as the Spartans? That the Greeks came very close to losing? But then she remembered that it did not matter to the people of Sparta how the battle had been fought or even indeed where it had been fought. They only wanted to know its outcome. Whatever she had to say, it should be brief and to the point. That is all they expected.

So at the top of her voice, she shouted, “Citizens of Sparta, the Persian army has been destroyed. Thermopylae has been avenged. He whom we called a coward has died a hero.”

Deafening silence descended on the packed Agora. Gorgo scanned the crowd and slowly saw smiles light up every face. There were no cheers, no catcalls, no clapping like elsewhere in Greece. There were only satisfied faces. This was because victory was the only expectation Spartans had. They would have settled for nothing less and nor would have Gorgo.

As she slowly came down from the platform, Pleistarchus’ hand still in her own, the people bowed and made way. Ione followed them with a slight if somewhat contrived smile on her face. There were no more angry looks towards her; only smiles.

And just as they cleared the crowd, Gorgo heard an old woman say something to Ione. A loud sob burst out of the girl. She ran from the marketplace, tears streaming down her eyes. All the old woman had done was to warmly greet Ione, and call her the daughter of Aristodemus
Monophthalmus.

Aristodemus the Trembler was no more!

A tear slid down Gorgo’s eye. Pleistarchus noticed it and asked, “What is wrong, mother?”

She wiped it away and kissed his head, “Nothing, my darling. You father did not die in vain. We finally have our victory!”