The Queen of Sparta (13 page)

CHAPTER 14

“BRIGHT EYES”

Sparta

A week later

The first time he saw her was at a distance – nestled at the foot of the forbidding snow-topped Mount Taygetus. She was not what he had imagined.

For all its fame, Sparta was like no other city. No great walls; no grand boulevards; no impressive buildings; and no monuments of any kind. And yet, Sherzada had to remind himself, this city had just humbled a great empire

As he was dragged through its winding streets, he recalled that Sparta was less a city; more a collection of villages loosely connected to each other. And yes, their names came back to him –
Pitana
,
Mesoa
,
Limnae
,
Kynosoura
, and
Amylcae
– which were also the home bases of the standing regiments of the Spartan army. Each of these settlements had simple houses interspersed with longer barrack-like structures. These villages, marked by lows hills, were separated by pleasant clumps of oak, fig and cypress trees and olive groves. The haphazard streets and the disorganized nature of the settlements meant that no one had actually bothered to plan this city. And yet, order was what Sherzada saw all around him. But the order was not in its streets or buildings, it was in its people.

Sparta, he recalled, was, after all, its people – the so-called
Spartiates
or the
Homioi
– the ‘similar ones’. Though it was her male citizens that made up her fearsome army, all Spartans, whether male or female, child or adult, were in one way or another a part of the war machine that made Sparta so awesome. It was no wonder a city like this had no need for walls.

As the crowds lined the streets to quietly welcome their troops home, Sherzada could not help noticing how strange the Spartans looked to outsiders.

Most of the men wore long hair and long beards – down at least to their chests – but without moustaches. They almost reminded him of the wild savages he had encountered in his travels. But the Spartans considered themselves the most civilized of Greeks. While every Spartan male wore a long crimson cloak, covering most of his body, their women had much less cloth covering theirs. The married ones had cut their hair short – very short – and a few were completely shaved. For a foreigner like Sherzada, this reversal in clothing and hair-length was indeed shocking. But to the Spartans this was perfectly normal.

All he had learnt about Sparta in the preceding years raced through his mind as he was taken through its streets. The throbbing pain in his head was replaced by the pounding of his heart, as the excitement of being in Sparta temporarily numbed his pain. But soon enough a sharp pull on his chains rudely brought him back to reality. His Spartan guards pushed him into an open field behind a very modest marketplace – the
Agora
– which stood at the centre of the city.

Soon people began to file into the field, almost as if in a military drill. Although none spoke, there was a sense of pride everywhere. An occasional smile, a beaming face – Spartans could not have been marking a happier event. Their young regent-general had scored a spectacular victory; their army had avenged the death of a much-loved king; and they had driven out an invading army. Greece had been liberated. And he, Sherzada, was being displayed as a trophy of war.

As the people gathered, two simple chairs were placed under an oak tree. Five distinguished looking men stood behind them. “The Ephors,” Sherzada thought. Then a young boy – not yet ten – walked up and sat on one of the chairs. From the moment he saw him, Sherzada knew who he was. Despite himself, Sherzada couldn’t help smiling at how he resembled his father.

The second chair was left empty, and while Sherzada was wondering to whom it belonged, he overheard talk of a victory King Leotychidas had won at sea. The King had, as reports suggested, destroyed the Persian fleet in a battle on land, rather than at sea – a fittingly bizarre end to a strange and pointless war, thought Sherzada.

He did not see her at first, even though she stood there right in front of him, invisible in plain sight. It was only when the child-king looked nervously over his right shoulder that Sherzada noticed her. She was standing alone, at a distance, separate from the crowd. In her appearance too, she stood apart from the rest. She wore a simple peplos dress, creamish-white in colour, as opposed to the drab dark colours worn by other women. Over her shoulders, she wore a light beige himation shawl. Her long hair fell gracefully on shoulders; there was pride in her poise and determination in her eyes. Like Sparta, she too had surprised Sherzada.

For all the stories he had heard about this woman, he had never expected her to look so youthful and so beautiful. Being the legendary birthplace of Helen of Troy, Sparta was famous for its stunning women. Even so, her beauty was exceptional. He could not help but stare. What was more incredible was that he could not believe that someone so young could be so wise.

For the briefest of moments, a look came over face which told him she was uncomfortable at being stared at. But then she stared back, her hazel-green eyes blazing in anger. “Bright Eyes,” Sherzada recalled. So apt. And her stare was indeed dreadful, like that of her namesake – the mythical Gorgon who turned men to stone. But what perplexed him most of all was why, on the day Sparta was celebrating its greatest victory, the person who deserved most of the credit was standing at a distance, aloof among the shadows.

Then Pausanias walked into the centre of the field. He looked even younger than his twenty-some years, in spite of his long beard. Handsome and cocky; this young man clearly loved being centre-stage. Silence spread through the crowd as he began to speak.

The young regent-general addressed the child-king Pleistarchus and spoke glowingly of his father, the late King Leonidas and his heroic death at the battle of Thermopylae. He dedicated the victory of Plataea to the two reigning kings, neither of whom was present at the battle. Then Pausanias went on to praise his warriors – and then himself.

Pausanias’ self-eulogy was, however, interrupted when a Spartan warrior stepped up behind him. A little older than Pausanias, this man looked the perfect Spartan specimen – muscular, slim, and tall, with his curly long black tresses hanging down his crimson cloak, and a long beard that came down to his chest. The man’s alert green eyes seemed to Sherzada to betray a rare intelligence. This was Euryanax, the deputy-commander of the Spartan army.

Whatever Euryanax had said made Pausanias turn towards Sherzada. He motioned to the guards, who dragged Sherzada into the middle of the field. There, Pausanias told the crowd that the prisoner was a ‘Persian’ commander captured at Plataea and brought to Sparta as a trophy of his victory. The crowd nodded its approval.

A voice rang out, “Well done, Pausanias. Now can we get rid of him?”

“He should be in Hades with the rest of his comrades,” someone else chimed in. “Let us put this poor creature out of his misery.”

Pausanias shouted back, “Not so fast! He can be useful to us. I want him alive. For now, at least.”

The Queen walked slowly to the centre of the field, towards Pausanias. She stared angrily into Sherzada’s eyes. “This man’s fate, dear cousin, is not your decision,” she said. “It is that of the Gerousia. You can petition our highest body to show clemency towards this prisoner. But the decision will be theirs, not yours.” Giving Sherzada a contemptuous look, she added, “We are nothing if not slaves of our laws …”

And still with her stare fixed on him, she said, “… But if it were left to me, I would take a sword right now, and thrust it through his heart. As far as I am concerned, this Persian deserves the same mercy his comrades showed my husband at Thermopylae.”

There was a muted, but prolonged, cheer from the crowd. This was the closest a Spartan crowd came to going wild … and they were going wild, thirsting for Sherzada’s blood.

Gorgo’s lips curled up slightly as she waited for the cheer to die down, as if satisfied with the crowd’s reaction. When silence returned, she said calmly, “But then again, the decision is not mine, either.”

“Very well,” Pausanias responded. “If it pleases the King and the Ephors, may we discuss the fate of the prisoner at the next session of the Gerousia? King Leotychidas will be among us also, back from his victory at Mycale. Until then, I suggest the prisoner be kept in the royal residential compound of the Agiadae, under my protection and responsibility.”

The Ephors nodded in approval. Following their lead, and after looking over his shoulder at his mother again, the child-king nodded too.

Surrounded by pleasant groves, the compound comprised two rows of simple-looking houses connected to each other as though they were one long building. Made of strong dark wood, they had the distinct look of a barracks rather than a set of homes.

Next to these was a small hut. This hut was dark, dank and cold, with only one small window, barred by iron rods. It had a faint musky smell, slightly on the pungent side. The room was square shaped, with each side being roughly the length of a Persian long-spear, two hands longer than a Spartan one.

Sherzada looked around the room and found it – unlike the dungeons in other lands – surprisingly clean. A stool was placed at the centre of the room; and there was a bed of reeds on the floor covered with a faded cloak. One small bucket of water, with a jar-like earthen cup and another larger empty one, were placed close by. His ‘prison’ was very basic; containing nothing more than the bare essentials … so typical of the Spartans.

The window was also close by and he could smell something very pleasant – it took a few moments for him to realise this was the fragrance of flowers. He looked outside towards a cobbled path leading to a pleasant garden nearby. It was spectacular, with Mount Tageytus in the background. He knew that the Persians prided themselves on their gardens but he never imagined Spartans as being horticulturalists.

Much later, a servant, a Helot no doubt, brought him a bowl with a dark thick liquid inside, along with a piece of stale bread. This black broth, he had been told years ago, contained some form of meat, combined with pulverized vegetable, fruit and herbs, cooked in milk, vinegar and blood. Sherzada was famished, but just as quickly as the broth went into his mouth, it came out again. The Spartan black broth was a triumph of practicality over gastronomy.

CHAPTER 15

LANGUAGE OF THE ENEMY

Royal Compound of the Agiadae

Sparta

That evening

Gorgo stood staring at him, dumbfounded. She could not believe her ears.

“An interpreter will not be necessary, my Queen,” is what Sherzada had said.

What amazed her was that these words were not spoken in a Barbarian language, but in Greek. In fact, not only in perfect Doric Greek, not only in the Spartan dialect, but in the accent that only Spartans of the two Royal Spartan families normally spoke in.

Gorgo began to study her prisoner as he squatted on the floor. His face was not painted like those of the Persian envoys they had killed some twelve years ago. Instead, it was adorned by battle scars across his forehead and his left cheek. This Barbarian was much taller than the average Spartan and as swarthy as she expected an Asiatic to be. His dark brown eyes belied curiosity and intelligence. He did not seem like those Persians.

“Persian,” she asked, coming closer to him, “tell me, who taught you our language?”

“Demaratus taught me,” said Sherzada, adding, “… And I am not a Persian.”

Gorgo gasped at the mention of that name. This man surely knew too much. All the more reason he must not see her afraid. So she snapped back at him, “Like Hades you’re not! You’re a Persian right down to those disgusting trousers.”

She waited for him to respond; he did not, except to look down at his trousers and shrug.

“I don’t care who you say you are,” she said. “You came to this land uninvited, to kill our people, burn our cities, defile our temples and to make us your slaves. You cannot expect pity.”

There was defiance in his sullen eyes. “I am quite familiar with your Spartan hospitality. The Persian envoys who came here were no doubt given special treatment. Oh yes, a drink of water at the bottom of a deep well. No, my Queen, I do not expect mercy. Nor will I ask it.”

He was certainly not like those Persians they had killed.

“You seemed to recognize me this afternoon at the mustering field,” she said, pacing about. “Tell me, how did you know who I was?”

“Your hair is much longer than that of any other woman I have seen in Sparta.” It was true – married Spartan women cut their hair very short, but Spartan widows would grow it long again. “Second, even a Spartan child-king looks towards his mother for comfort. Finally, your exceptional beauty. A gift from none other than the spirit of Helen of Troy, as Demaratus often said.”

Ignoring the compliment, Gorgo continued, “Why did you smile at my son?”

“He resembled his father, your late husband.”

“You have seen my husband? Where?”

“At Thermopylae.”

“You could not have seen his face. He always wore his helmet in battle.”

“No, my Queen. He was not wearing his helmet when he died.”

“But that is impossible,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “I have heard that he died fighting. He was decapitated afterwards and his body mutilated.”

“King Leonidas’ head remained very much attached to his body, even after his death. The man whose body was mutilated was another Spartan, whose corpse was mistaken by King Xerxes for that of your husband’s.”

Gorgo took a step back and walked around the room a little nervously. Thermopylae had never been an easy topic for her to discuss. She wanted to know but perhaps that would come later. So she decided to raise another matter. “Barbarian, you mentioned the fate of the two envoys your King sent to us demanding earth and water. We killed them because they threatened to enslave us, to do unspeakable things to our women. And you did to our women exactly as they had foretold. Oh how brutally your men raped the Greek women of Phocis. Women refugees from the Aegean islands also told of the horrors the Persian soldiers visited on them, of infants smashed against walls.”

“My lady,” he said. “I have never knowingly killed or harmed an innocent person, whether man, woman or child. The brutalities you speak about indeed occurred. And I will not defend them. But please tell me, my Queen, do Greek slave-raiders treat ‘barbarian’ women and children with any less brutality? What about the women captured by your forces at Plataea? Tell me, did they fare any better than the women of Phocis? And do not tell me that none of your brave Spartan warriors has ever raped a Helot woman, or that none of your
Crypteia
squads have ever slit the throat of a Helot infant. Do not be quick, my lady, to accuse others of crimes that your men commit themselves. You Greeks are no different, and you have no right to consider yourselves superior.”

At last, he was displaying some emotion. “We are indeed superior to your kind, because we value something that you don’t have …”

Before he could react, Gorgo continued, “… do you know, Barbarian, what we Greeks hold most dear?
Eleutheria
!”

From the look in his eyes, she knew he understood the meaning. It was the oldest word in the Greek language, and the most sacred. “We will sacrifice everything for
Eleutheria
. This is the one thing that unites all Greeks; that binds us together. It is what defines Greece. Both my father and my husband died for this. You, who are slaves of the Persian King, can never truly appreciate what it means, for you have no notion of liberty!”

“… Nor, my Queen, do the Helots of Sparta,” interjected Sherzada. “What rights do they have in your paradise of freedom? You also suppress the Perioikoi, forcing them to die in wars over which they have no say. You have built your freedom around the slavery of others. You Greeks think you invented the whole notion of freedom, but freedom, my Queen, is not the preserve of the Greeks. Every nation on earth values its freedom just as you do.”

This Barbarian seemed to know a lot of about Sparta. But Gorgo did not want the last word to be his. “So, prisoner, did the Great King lead a million men into Greece just to free the Helots from Spartan oppression?”

“A million men?” laughed Sherzada. “Oh, how you Greeks love to exaggerate! … But it is you Spartans whom the Persians blame for starting the war in the first place, not them.”

“Two generations ago, a Lydian King went to war with Persia after misinterpreting a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi, and so the Persians blame us for starting a war!”

“Sparta not only had considerable influence over Lydia at that time, but also over the Delphic Oracle. And there are those who believe Sparta has considerable influence over the Oracle even now.”

This was a secret. How could he possibly know this? No one else in the whole of Greece knew this. Perhaps he was bluffing. “How can the Persians possibly justify invading and conquering other people’s lands?”

“Now that you have won the war, my Queen,’” he said, “you can say that right was on your side all along. History is written by the victors. But all sides in any conflict believe their cause is just. You and your
Eleutheria
and the Persians their
Arta
.”

She did not know the word.

“Just as you hold your
Eleutheria
dear,” he explained, noticing her confusion, “the Persians value Truth –
Arta
– above all else. Every Persian must learn three things from childhood: to ride well, to shoot straight, and to tell the truth. But the kings of Persia have become skillful in manipulating the Truth for political ends. They are masters of propaganda. It was Darius, one of Cyrus’ successors, who first declared war on the Lie, to justify his illegal seizure of the throne. Everything he did, he claimed, was to preserve the Truth and to damn the Lie. So much for a man who had seized power by killing the rightful heir and covering up his crime with piety. The Persians claim to fight for the Truth against the Lie, just like you Greeks fight for freedom against oppression, and yet all I see is hypocrisy on both sides.”

This strange Barbarian was turning out to be as fascinating as he was annoying. “Tell me about Demaratus, who was once our king,” she demanded. “How did you come to know him?”

“I first met Demaratus in Sardis, the centre of Persian rule in Western Asia, some ten years ago. An exiled former King of Sparta, coming all that way to offer his services against his own people, was something the Persians could not refuse. At the time, I was working for a man who was head of Persia’s intelligence apparatus responsible gathering information on Greece. He instructed me to befriend Demaratus in order to learn as much I could from him. And indeed, Demaratus taught me your dialect with your distinct royal accent, and almost everything I know about Sparta.”

“So, Barbarian,” she said, “all this time, I had thought you a warrior; you are actually a spy.”

“I have been both and a lot more, my Queen. But that is not important.”

Gorgo was amused by his modesty, but also alarmed at what he had revealed. She wanted to know more about the secrets Demaratus had shared with him. But to her own surprise, instead she asked the one question that she had longed to ask Demaratus. “I suppose Demaratus still hates my father?”

“My Queen, you know better than I about the enmity between your father and Demaratus. But he never said a disrespectful word about King Cleomenes to me. He admitted that only he, himself, was to blame for tearing their friendship apart. Though he was obviously bitter about the way your father had had him dethroned, he admitted that he had brought it all upon himself, by repeatedly undermining your father’s plans. Demaratus could not comprehend why King Cleomenes had to interfere in the affairs of other Greek states. Of course, only after Demaratus had defected to the Persians, did he realize what your father had been trying to do. That he had been attempting to unite the Greeks against a common threat – the Persians.”

How strange, she thought, that it took a Barbarian to truly appreciate her father’s genius.

“Demaratus told me that once he and your father fell out, King Cleomenes accused him of being an illegitimate child and not the true heir of the Eurypontid King. An oracle from Delphi backed up your father’s accusations. The Ephors met and deposed Demaratus, replacing him with his rival, Leotychidas.

“But Demaratus has always maintained that he was the legitimate child of King Ariston. He was born prematurely – seven months instead of nine, and King Ariston really was his father. Surely you don’t believe your god Apollo lies?” he asked.

Gorgo smiled and said to herself, “Ah … but that is politics!” Then she addressed Sherzada. “Have you forgotten yourself, prisoner?
I
shall be the one to ask questions. So, what happened once Demaratus defected to your side?”

“… the Persian side,” he tried to correct her.

“Your side!” she asserted.

“Demaratus thought the Persians would help him regain his crown. But he soon realized they were not interested in restoring him. Afterwards, he felt guilty about what he done and later did his best to undermine the Persian war effort. Did he not warn you about the Persian invasion, my Queen?”

How could the Barbarian possibly know all of this?

“The wax tablet containing warning of the Persian invasion?” he prompted. “Demaratus was certain that no one would know how to decipher the secret of the wax tablet. No one, that is, except you, my Queen.”

Gorgo, once again, ignored his compliment. She needed to know more. “They say Demaratus was close to Xerxes. How did he convince the Persians he was loyal to their cause?”

“Demaratus is a likable man. Xerxes found his company agreeable from the start. So he made Demaratus his advisor on all things Greek. When the invasion began, Xerxes regularly turned to him for advice. While he was ingratiating himself to the Persian King, Demaratus was playing a double game, as you know better than I.”

“So, where is he now?” Gorgo asked. “Surely he must have been executed.”

“For what?”

“Their defeats, of course, and his role in aiding the Greeks,” she responded.

“Only if they had known … or cared. The Persians do not see the Greek adventure as a complete defeat. Had they not killed a Spartan King and burned Athens – twice?”

“So, what happened to Demaratus?” she asked, with too heavy an impatience for someone in her position, she realized too late.

“For his loyal service, the Great King has made Demaratus ruler of Pergamum and two other neighbouring cities.”

“Not bad for a traitor, and a two-timing one at that. I am happy for him. But still, all the thrones of Asia are not worth half a kingship of Sparta.”

“Spoken with true arrogance, my lady,” he said, “just like a Persian.”