The Queen of Sparta (16 page)

I nodded. ‘This is the item Demaratus asked me to give to the Fox,’ I said, passing Aristeides the brooch.

Aristeides thanked me. He looked at the brooch and swiftly hid it under his clothes. Then he asked me why I was going to Athens. ‘Surely there is more to it than delivering Demaratus’ gift?’

I told him that the man whose body the Athenians had taken to the vault in the Acropolis was not that of Datis but of my father, the leader of the warriors the Athenians called the “Axemen”.

Aristeides smiled. ‘You know, your father very nearly killed me at Marathon. After he struck down poor Callimachus, our War Archon, he came directly towards me. So powerful was his first blow that it nearly cleaved my shield apart. His repeated blows made it useless and I was knocked back to the ground. He would have surely finished me off had not my comrades come to my aid and formed a shield wall around me. Your father then turned his attention to Themistocles, my rival. He too came within an inch of losing his life and was also saved when other hoplites came to his assistance. I have often wondered whether Athens would have been the same had both I and Themistocles perished at Marathon.’

Then he shook his head. ‘Your father’s body had been brought to Athens, and kept in the vault beneath the Temple of Athena Parthenos on the Acropolis because my fellow citizens were convinced that it was Datis’ body. They were sure that the Persians would offer a pretty price for it. But as soon as they found out that Datis was alive and well, living in Sardis, a mob took your father’s body out of the Acropolis and threw it into the sea.’

Seeing the anger and sadness in my eyes, Aristeides patted my shoulder and left me to my pain. By the following morning, I had decided there was no need to proceed to Athens. As we walked towards Aegae through the rugged, mountainous terrain, Aristeides was clearly in an upbeat mood. He started propounding the glories of Athenian democracy. I called it an exercise in hypocrisy where the rich could hold on to power by manipulating the poor. He was appalled. We continued to argue for hours. Then he changed the subject and turned to the battle of Marathon, exaggerating Athenian glory. He smiled broadly as he remembered the day “they ran” – referring to the Athenian claim that they had charged for a mile before crashing into enemy lines at Marathon and forcing the massive Persian army into headlong retreat.

There was no way, I told him, that hoplites weighed down by armour and weaponry could have charged such a distance and still maintained the cohesion of their phalanx. Nor could they have defeated the Persian force, unless it was actually far smaller than the Athenians claimed.

Needless to say, I called Aristeides’ version rubbish and much worse, while he continued harping on about how well the Athenians had fought. I’d had just about enough of his Athenian aristocratic arrogance and said, ‘I wish someone would come along and shut your pompous mouth.’

Just then, four armed riders appeared; all of them Persian. I told them my cover story and said the Greek was a business partner. We had been shipwrecked and were heading to Macedonia. The Persians asked proof of our story and, unfortunately, we had none.

The Persian soldiers said that they were under instructions to arrest any travelers on this road and to execute all Greeks, for only spies dared enter Macedon through this route. They forced Aristeides down on his knees. One held him down, another pulled his hair in order to bare his neck, and a third drew his sword to decapitate him. The fourth held me back.

Even then in the face of certain death, Aristeides quipped, ‘I suppose, my Scythian friend, that this is your idea of someone shutting my pompous mouth.’

At that moment I showed the Persian soldiers the Great King’s Royal Seal. I told them my identity as a commander in the Persian Army and said that I had been on a secret mission on behalf of Xerxes. I told them I was under orders to help this Greek get to the Macedonian capital, Aegae, urgently and in safety. The Persians immediately kneeled before me, or rather before the Seal of the Great King, and begged forgiveness.

Aristeides asked if it was not ironic for the son of a man who tried to kill him many years before to save his life, not once but twice. I said in the field of battle, I would not hesitate to finish off what my father had begun, but as long as I was not at war, I bore no ill will towards him or any other man. I told him that I had arranged for a horse to take him to Aegae. I wanted to return to Sardis, so I would take another route.

Though he expressed the hope of us meeting again as friends, I said it was unlikely, given the impending conflict. I predicted that the next time we would see each other again, it would most likely be across a battlefield.

‘In that case,’ said Aristeides, shaking my hand, ‘let us part now as friends.’

He got on his horse and rode off to Aegae. I later heard that when the war started, the Athenians not only asked Aristeides to return from exile but also made him a military commander. I was told that he served at Salamis under the command of his rival Themistocles. And, of course, he commanded the Athenian forces in Plataea.

What I never understood, though, is what he was up to in Persian-controlled Macedon.

Gorgo smiled to herself. It was time she put the Barbarian out of his misery. She got up and slipped her long shawl off her shoulders. The reaction was as she had expected. The Barbarian’s eyes bulged with disbelief as he pointed a finger at her shoulder.

CHAPTER 18

THE MADNESS OF KING CLEOMENES

“My Queen, that brooch … it resembles the one I gave to Aristeides.”

“It is the same.” Gorgo took off the brooch and with her thumb pressed a small lever which opened, revealing a small hollow chamber inside. “You see, at the time I had also begun to play my games, contacting potential allies among the Greeks, including those on the Persian side. Demaratus and I were passing secret messages to one another. He had asked me which Athenian was worth trusting. And since I did not trust many Athenians, I sent this brooch to Demaratus, containing the coded word for ‘the Fox’. Demaratus sent it to Aristeides, through you, warning him about the Persian threat and urging him to work closely with the Spartans. Also, I believe, the message contained an appeal to bring more allies to our cause. The fact that the two of you accidentally ended up in Macedon proved very convenient. Aristeides used that opportunity to make contact with King Alexander – the one man in Macedon whom he could trust – to recruit him for our cause. Alexander, in turn, sent it to Leonidas, confirming he was on our side. The brooch had travelled full circle and you, my Barbarian friend, were an unwitting instrument in my game to unite the Greeks.”

Realising he had been tricked, Sherzada flew into a rage.

“Barbarian, I thought you owed the Persians no loyalty. So why are you angry at having betrayed them, albeit unwittingly?”

Sherzada, finally spent, sat and rested his head in his hands. “It is not betraying the Persians I regret. That fact that I helped you create an alliance that led to the deaths of those under my command in Plataea is what hurts me.”

“Blame the Persians for that,” retorted Gorgo. “We did not invite them or you to invade our land. This was war, and many awful things happen in war.”

Then she gathered her red gown, rose and started walking around him, as though she too were angry. “Barbarian, did you love your father?”

He nodded.

“Were you angry at what the Athenians did to his body?”

He nodded again and told her that he had taken his revenge. Gorgo’s eyes widened as she asked him how he did so.

“After the Persians stormed the Acropolis, after rescuing the women and children who had taken refuge there, I burnt down the Temple of Athena Parthenos and the vaults below which housed his body.”

“My father spent three days in that Temple surrounded by an Athenian mob baying for his blood. But tell me, Barbarian, do you know how he died; my father?”

“From what I have heard, my Queen, your father died a few months before the battle of Marathon. People say he went mad and killed himself,” said Sherzada, his eyes following her movements.

Gorgo sighed. “People say that his madness was punishment for his blasphemies. People say he had broken promises, committed sacrilege, bribed oracles and above all, he had committed the sin of
hubris,
regarding himself above even the divine. But it is not the truth.”

“So, he did not bribe the Oracle of Delphi in the case of Demaratus’ alleged illegitimacy?”

“Of course he bribed the oracle,” said Gorgo, “but they used false evidence against him. It was fabricated because no one ever found the real proof.

“The
Pythioi
, the Spartan ambassadors to the Delphi Oracle, accused him of using them to bribe the priests. But that was not true. My father had certainly bribed the Oracle, but he did it in a manner that left no trail.”

Seeing Sherzada sitting there looking even more bewildered, Gorgo explained, “To bribe the Oracle, rather than using Spartan intermediaries, he relied on an old and trusted friend to act as his secret courier to the Priests of Apollo. The man’s name was Gorgus. He was a prominent Delphian merchant. There is a tradition in Sparta and elsewhere in Greece that children are sometimes named after very close friends of their parents. So close was he to my father that he had in fact named me after him.”

Sherzada gasped. “So what about your father’s massacre of the Argive soldiers who had surrendered at Sepeia and the murder of the two Persian envoys? Are you saying, my Queen, that he did not commit these crimes?”

“On the contrary,” she let out an exasperated breath. “He did all of it and more, but only to preserve Sparta and protect her interests. Yet, people saw things differently. They said when a person commits
hubris
, the gods make him go mad. Not long after that, people started seeing evidence of his madness. They said that the gods led him to his own destruction. And so the story goes that they made him commit suicide by slicing himself in thin strips from the ankle upwards.”

“So he
did
go mad?”

“No, Barbarian,” said Gorgo, her eyes brightening with rage, “he most certainly did not! I saw my father just a few days before he died … and there was nothing irrational about him. Of course, he was bitter. Blamed everything on Spartan short-sightedness and pig-headedness. Said the Spartan leadership was blind to the threats around them. That no one was willing to admit the threat from Persia and no one understood why the Greeks should stand united. He said that Sparta, with its military prowess, needed to lead the Greeks in their resistance against the Persians. But he feared most Greeks would either remain neutral or give in to Persia, leaving Sparta isolated and vulnerable.

“Father insisted Sparta could not save Greece alone. To do that, an alliance of strong Greek states was needed. Though he did not care much for the vagaries of Athenian ‘democracy’, he strongly believed that that the secret to defeating Persia lay in the Spartans and Athenians standing side by side, something it seems Datis was also wise enough to understand.

“Two days after this meeting, my father was declared insane and locked in a cell. The very next day, his body was found. Suicide, they said. He had cut himself into slices from ankle to chest. How could he have inflicted these wounds upon himself, and with a knife that was never meant to be in his cell to start with?”

“You suspect he was murdered.”

“I know it, Barbarian. Someone paid a Helot to slice my father up.”

“But who?” asked Sherzada. “I doubt it was the Persians.”

“So sure, Barbarian?”

“The Persians never took an interest in your father’s exploits until … well … I started working on Sparta. And that was at least a year after your father’s death. And had they done such a deed, I who worked among them, would have picked up even the faintest of rumours. No, my Queen, I do not think the Persians had a hand in his death.”

“No, Barbarian, the men who had my father killed were not foreigners. They were Spartans.”

CHAPTER 19

THE HUNTRESS

Sparta

The following afternoon

Sherzada had not known that his request, though a simple one, would bring him to the Queen’s own apartment. He stood there, in chains, waiting on Gorgo.

Sherzada was struck by what he saw. Instead of a Great Hall of a Spartan king, what he found was a simple hearth room with sparse but very tasteful decorations; with a distinct feminine touch. He reminded himself not be surprised by what he found in Sparta.

Gorgo was sitting at the dining table by the hearth reading a parchment. On the table next to her was a small wooden chest containing documents. Without looking up at him, she motioned him to sit down on one of the chairs beside her, which he did.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked, still focusing her attention on the document.

“Forgive me, my Queen,” said Sherzada, “there is much I would like to know …”

Gorgo cut him off, “Must I remind you
again
that is I who asks the questions around here?” And then her tone softened. “I shall, however, make an exception today. I shall only answer one of your questions you sent me … the one about Artemisia?”

“Was she also somehow involved in this … plan …of yours, my Queen?”

Gorgo’s eyes widened. She looked up at him with a half-smile and asked Sherzada how he knew her.

He replied, “She was … is … a friend.”

Gorgo’s eye glinted mischievously. “A little coincidental, don’t you think, that the two of us would share the same circle of friends?”

Gorgo still remembered the first day she had laid eyes on Artemisia; the day she came to visit Sparta along with her father the King of Halicarnassus. She was a queen in her own right having married the King of Caria when she was only fifteen, her husband thirty-five years her senior.

Gorgo, who was thirteen, was then in awe of the glamorous young Carian Queen, then in her early twenties, full of beauty and energy. No sooner had she arrived in Sparta than Artemisia wanted to go out on a hunt and asked Gorgo to join her. This was most irregular, for Spartans never hunted. It was a distraction from soldiering, so they left the hunting and gathering to the Helots.

‘Are you coming or not?’ Artemisia asked Gorgo.

For Gorgo there could have only been one answer.

A little while later, the Spartan princess accompanied her guest and a score of servants and slaves into the forests south of Sparta. Whereas Gorgo wore one of her father’s worn-out military tunics, Artemisia was elegantly dressed. She wore a long slim dress with the sides slit at the bottom to allow her more movement and a pair of high deer-skin boots which came up to her knees. Her hair was neatly tied up in tail above her head. Carrying a powerful composite bow, the Carian Queen looked every bit her namesake; the Greek deity called Artemis – “the Huntress”.

Seeing that Gorgo only carried a spear, Artemisia remarked, ‘You won’t be able to catch much game with that, little sister.’

Spartan women were trained, just like their men, to use the short sword and the spear. Though they were not taught to hunt, they knew how to protect their homes and hearths against invaders.

Patting her bow, Artemisia said, ‘This can kill anything within five hundred paces.’

It was not long before the Helots became animated, having sighted wild boars. Artemisia ordered the servants to harass the boars and drive them into the clearing where she and Gorgo stood. But things did not work out as planned. At the last moment, the wild boars changed course, forcing Gorgo and Artemisia to give chase. Gorgo ran up ahead but it was not long before she realized something was wrong.

The ground shook beneath her as she turned, and on the path that had already been cleared by the other wild boars, she saw a huge beast charging her. It was she who was being chased, and Artemisia was nowhere in sight.

There was no time to panic. She did exactly what her military training had taught her. Gorgo pushed the butt-spike at the rear end of the spear into the ground at a low angle. Then she went down on one knee, leveling her spear, like a stake, at the oncoming animal. Holding the spear with both her hands, and aiming it between the boar’s eyes, Gorgo waited for impact. She shut her eyes as she braced herself for the jolt.

But it never came. All she heard were three successive “twangs” in rapid succession, each followed by a “thud”. Gorgo opened her eyes to see the boar lying dead just in front of her spear, three arrow shafts piercing from its body.

‘I am sorry to have stolen your kill, little sister,’ came a voice above her, ‘but I had a clean shot and I could not resist.’ Artemisia was perched on a strong tree branch above Gorgo.

Before the end of the day, Artemisia had also bagged three deer and several quails. By late afternoon, they returned to Sparta amid the silent adulation of Artemisia’s hosts. The Spartans were beaming when they saw the Carian Queen return with her prey. For Spartan warriors, it was conclusive proof, if one was ever needed, that the bow was after all a weapon for women.

Later, over dinner, Artemisia walked over to Gorgo and sat down with her. ‘So, do you consider me a Barbarian, little sister?’

‘No. You speak Dorian Greek. So by definition you are not a Barbarian.’

‘Aye,’ Artemisia nodded. ‘I am only one-quarter Carian and three-quarters Greek. My mother was a princess from Crete. And among my ancestors are Spartan princes and princesses of the House of Agiadae.’

‘So we are related?’ asked Gorgo, her eyes widening.

‘More than you think, little sister.’

‘But are you not the slave of the Persians?’

Artemisia took her time swallowing her morsel and then replied, ‘Yes, the Greeks of Asia live under the Persian yoke, but like all Greeks we yearn to be free. Freedom will not come to us for a while, but there might come a day when we shall have fight together for
Eleutheria
.’

‘And on that day, big sister, I shall be with you!’

Sherzada wondered if they were talking about the same woman. He recalled the beautiful Artemisia, now in her late thirties, though she looked ten years younger, if not more. A woman of ageless beauty, sensuality and rare intelligence, who charmed everyone she met.

She was a warrior queen, the only woman who led troops and ships in the Persian army that invaded Greece. Artemisia, he told Gorgo, was one of Xerxes’ closest advisors. It was said that that the Great King has many eyes, but only one ear. And it was she, Artemisia, who had that ear. Xerxes liked to call her
Arta-Masia
– ‘The Bearer of Truth’.

“You know she had correctly advised Xerxes not to risk a sea battle, insisting that continuing to fight on land would be the best option,” said Sherzada.

“She did so knowing that all the other naval commanders would vote her down,’ replied Gorgo, “and indeed the Persian defeat at Salamis eventually proved her right.”

“My Queen, Artemisia fought valiantly for the Persians at the battle of Salamis, braver than any Persian admiral. After the battle, King Xerxes summoned her and said, “Today, my men became women …”

“… And my women, men,” finished Gorgo.

Sherzada was flabbergasted. “So, she was a part of your conspiracy?”

“I would prefer to call it strategy, Barbarian,” Gorgo corrected him. “And, yes, for the reasons you have just given, she was my most important asset in the Persian camp. She pretended to be the most loyal of Persian subjects just to get as close as she did to Xerxes. No one knew about my contacts with her; not Demaratus, not even Aristeides.”

Gorgo explained how she had used a Greek traitor in Persian pay to deliver messages to Artemisia. He was a resident of Sicyon and believed he was carrying letters from Spartan traitors and would personally delivered them to Artemisia. The letters were in code, but the code could be broken, though not easily. And even if he did break it he would have found the message inside quite innocuous. But in these letters there was another code, a code within a code, a message within the message. This was a secret which Gorgo and Artemisia had agreed on during the latter’s last visit to Sparta, just before Xerxes’ invasion.

Gorgo dug up a sheaf of parchment from inside the little chest in front of her. “These pages contain the deciphered version of her last message to me,” she said, collecting them together. “On the eve of Salamis, I sent Artemisia a message with a specific question. And this was her reply.”

Gorgo explained that the message, in the form of a long letter, had not been delivered in the usual way though the Greek traitor from Sicyon. Instead, it had come from a trusted source in Crete. This was how she had her most important messages delivered to the Spartan Queen.

Handing the letter over to Sherzada, Gorgo said, “This may answer some of your questions, and I think you might have answered one of mine.”

Sherzada began to read.

I had indeed sunk an Athenian ship during the battle, but I did not have the heart to tell Xerxes that I had also sunk an allied vessel in an attempt to escape the Athenian warships that were bearing down on mine.

Xerxes complained that the invasion of Greece had not been as easy as his cousin, Mardonius, had led him to believe. Thermopylae had been painful but Salamis was an unmitigated disaster.

“My Generals are divided,” he said. “Some of them think victory is still in hand; we still outnumber the Greeks by land and sea and we can beat them. Others are disheartened. We have conquered half of the Greek mainland and we have burnt down Athens; still the Greeks continue to resist us. Indeed, all is not well back home. My ministers urge me to return, saying that my Empire is suffering in my absence. But Mardonius wants to continue the fight. He says either I stay and lead it, or I go home and leave him in charge. Either way, he assures me, a Persian victory is within reach.”

I told the Great King that it was not an easy choice. Certainly, Xerxes had been away from his Empire for too long and his people were yearning for his return. And the cost of this campaign had all but emptied his treasury. I explained to him that it was not the conquest of Greece that concerned me, but the stability of the Empire. Was the conquest of Greece so important that it would cause the Empire to go bankrupt and deplete the numbers of Persian troops so vital for the security of the homeland?

“You have achieved your objectives,” I said to him. “Let Mardonius now finish the task. But to ensure the empire’s security, take all your best troops with you.” I reminded him that revolts were breaking out in Upper Egypt and Babylon was burning. Xerxes needed his best troops to secure his empire. They would be no use to him in this far-flung corner of his Empire. “If Mardonius wins, the glory is yours; if he fails, the fault will be his.”

Xerxes went so far as to ask me which troops he should leave behind with Mardonius.

I suggested that Mardonius be allowed to keep only the reserve cavalry regiments. He could keep a small force of veteran Invincibles to act as his bodyguards, but the bulk of the troop remaining should be those from the foreign subject nations of Persia. After all, some of these troops came from rebellious corners of his Empire. Better they died serving the Empire than returned home to raise the banner of revolt. Other subject contingents could prove their loyalty to Persia. I myself would gladly leave behind my famed light horsemen to support Mardonius. They were led by my best commander, the young General Dardanus.