Spartan (37 page)

One of the two men began to speak. ‘Basias, we bring you bad news: the chiefs of our people, who had gathered at the old mill at Cape Taenarum, were surrounded by the
krypteia
last
night and massacred. They had sought asylum in the enclosure of the temple of Poseidon but the Spartans, from what we have heard, showed no respect for the sacred place, and killed them on the very
altar as they clung to it. Revolt has become impossible; we thought it best to warn you, so you can spread the word. We can take no more risks; we must wait for the times to change and for a more
favourable situation.’

Basias lowered his head as if stunned by a heavy blow. ‘Was no one saved?’ he asked after a long silence.

‘No one,’ responded the other. ‘Our people have been given permission to bury the bodies.’

‘Not even . . . the Keeper?’

‘No, his body was not among the others. Perhaps he managed to escape, or perhaps the others were all dead already by the time he arrived.’

‘The Spartans may have concealed his body. Has no one seen him since then?’

‘Not as far as we know. But why would they have taken his corpse? They’d have no reason to. No, he must be alive. Hidden away somewhere. Someone betrayed us, and he probably trusts
no one anymore. But you can be certain that he will come back and then he will tell us when we will have the day of our revenge . . . the day of our freedom.’

The three of them fell silent and Kleidemos, overwhelmed by what he had heard and trembling in anger and indignation, did not even feel the cold. The clouds had parted and the stars now twinkled
in the clear night sky.

‘There’s someone in your house,’ said one of the visitors suddenly. ‘We saw smoke coming from the chimney and the glimmer of flames in the hearth.’

‘I know,’ responded Basias. ‘He is a wayfarer who asked for my hospitality. He told me he was a merchant from Megara, once a mercenary in Asia, but he made a strange impression
on me; he seemed more Laconian than Megarian.’

‘Be careful,
krypteia
spies are everywhere. The Spartans have become very suspicious and are set on ridding themselves of any of us who seem to have rebellion on our
minds.’

‘By the gods!’ exclaimed Basias. ‘If that is the case I’ll strangle him with my own hands! I certainly won’t be held back by the law of hospitality, just as the
Spartans weren’t dissuaded by the sacred enclosure of Poseidon.’

‘No, Basias. Whoever that man is, you must not raise your hand against him. Let the Spartans stain themselves with sacrilege and provoke the ire of the gods. If he were a spy from the
krypteia
, he wouldn’t make it easy for you to kill him, and if you did, the revenge of Sparta would only sow more grief on our land. Farewell, Basias, and may the gods protect
you.’ The man stood and wrapped himself in his cloak. Kleidemos backed into the house, wiping out his tracks with the edge of his
chlamys
, and closed the door behind him, just in
time.

The two men silently walked through the snow of the courtyard and started back along the road leading east. The light went out in the shed, and Kleidemos lay down, devastated and unable to
sleep. He could still hear the words of those men; he imagined the carnage, the screams, the bloodied altar. Another thought allowed him no rest: who was the one Basias called the
‘Keeper’? Not even Kritolaos had ever pronounced that word, nor had he ever spoken about a similar figure. But deep down in his soul, Kleidemos thought that this must be the key to the
mystery.

He tossed back and forth on the straw, finding no peace, until the thought of Antinea took him, and the image of her face appeared clearly before his eyes. Sleep overcame him, dissolving the
pain in his heart and the weariness in his limbs.

The wind had carried away all the clouds and the seven stars of the Great Bear glittered low over the hills of Messenia.

*

It was not difficult for Kleidemos to stay on track, because although the path was covered with snow, it ran down the centre of a valley and the only way to stray from the trail
was to climb up the rocky hills at its sides. He made much better time than he had expected. At a certain point, the valley swerved towards the sea, and there was much less snow on the path than
there had been higher up. And so he arrived at the farm where he hoped to find Pelias just after sunset, famished and tired.

He left the path and drove his horse up the ridge until he could look down on the little farm surrounded by pens for the animals. To the east was an olive grove and a vineyard with perhaps a
hundred or so trees, although he could not be sure because it was becoming hard to see. He looked towards the cottage and saw the chimney smoking . . . finally, he had arrived. In a little while he
would go down and knock on the door, and his heart would tell him the words to say. His heart, which he already felt hammering in his chest.

He would enter with the evening wind. With past years weighing heavily on his shoulders, with his soul tormented by doubt. He would enter like a wolf, pushed on by the chill and by his hunger.
He stroked the neck of his horse who was blowing clouds of white steam from his frosty nostrils. The ground was becoming hard again with nightfall and the cold was numbing. He touched the
bay’s sides with his heels and the animal started down towards the clearing. A dog tied on a rope began to bark loudly. As Kleidemos approached the middle of the courtyard the door opened and
a figure stood out in the doorway . . . Antinea. Black against the red glow of the hearth, a figure with neither face nor eyes. She was holding a shawl to her breast and raising her head as if
straining to see through the darkness. And she saw the horse and its rider, still as a statue on the back of his frost-covered bay.

The dog had stopped barking and the place fell into deep silence. The woman shivered at the sight of the dark horseman gripping his spear, and she dared not say a word. Kleidemos heard a low,
rather sharp voice calling, ‘Antinea?’ A word immediately swallowed up like lightning in a black cloud. He took a step forward as he heard the quavering voice inside the cottage
insisting, ‘Is there someone there?’

She sharpened her gaze to try to make out the features of the stranger’s face, and his voice said ‘Antinea,’ piercing her heart and buckling her knees. He had descended from
his horse now and was walking towards her, entering into the faint beam that came from the open door.

‘I’m cold!’ called the voice from inside. She stared at him, trembling like a leaf: a bristly face, framed by a black beard, eyes shining under a furrowed brow. He had wrinkles
around his eyes and a bitter crease, like a scar, at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes . . . his eyes shone behind a veil of tears as they had that day long ago on the plain when he had
watched her go and waved with his arms raised high against the dying sun.

She could neither speak nor move as he drew closer and said ‘Antinea’ in his deep, resonant voice. And when the flame of the hearth lit him up she dropped her hands from her breast
and raised them to his face. And only when she touched him did the tears start flowing from her eyes. ‘It’s you,’ she said, caressing him, touching his eyes and his forehead and
his neck. ‘You’ve come back . . . you’ve come back to me.’ Her voice trembled even harder as she continued to whisper, ‘You’ve come back!’ And she burst
into tears, beside herself.

He saw that she was about to collapse and he embraced her, covering her with his ample cloak, standing there in the snow, weeping in silence. The winds of the night ruffled his hair and froze
the tears on his cheeks, and he felt nothing but the heartbeat of Antinea and that heartbeat reawakened in him a life he had thought lost forever. When he finally released her and lifted her face,
he saw that the years had left no mark in those fervid eyes . . . time had stood still. It was the same look that he had never forgotten, the look that a goddess had stolen to seduce him one hot
night in distant Cyprus, the light that he had forever sought in the eyes of the women of Asia and of Thrace. Clear as spring water, the light of springtime remembered, as warm as the sun itself .
. .

He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her through the still-open door. An old man wrapped in a blanket sat next to the fire. He lifted his white head and turned to stone at the sight
before him. He thought that his weak eyes were deceiving him and only when he heard his daughter’s voice saying, ‘He’s back,’ did he raise his knotty hands and murmur,
‘Immortal gods! O immortal gods, thank you for having consoled your old servant.’ The door swung closed behind them and Kleidemos forgot to tie his horse, but the steed found shelter
under the roofing of the fold. The timid bleating of the lambs did not disturb the proud animal, used to the whistle of arrows and the blaring of the battle horn. He knew that the next day his
master would reappear, holding the shining spear, to stroke his blond mane.

*

For hours Kleidemos told Pelias and Antinea of the events he had lived through in all the years he’d been away. When he saw Pelias was nodding off, he picked him up in his
arms and laid him on the bed in his room; the old man was so frail it felt like carrying a child, and as he covered him up, Kleidemos thought of how Antinea had lived, taking care of a sick old man
and working in the fields. Softly he closed the door to the little room and went back to the fire. Antinea was adding wood, and had snuffed out the lamp.

‘Did you think I’d come back one day?’ he asked her.

‘No. I wanted you, badly, but I never let myself think about it. My life was hard enough as it was. Karas would come to visit every year, usually at harvest time, and would help me with
the heaviest work. We would talk about you; of when we were all together, back on the mountain.’

‘Did you know that I had come back to Sparta?’

‘No. I haven’t seen Karas for nearly a year.’

‘I returned at the end of the summer and I’m living in the house of the Kleomenids.’

‘You are . . . Spartan, now.’

‘I’m me, Antinea, and I’ve come back for you.’

Antinea stood without taking her eyes off him and unfastened the ties of her dress. She let it slip to the ground and then removed the band that swathed her hips.

‘They say that the women of Asia have bodies as smooth as marble and are scented with the essence of flowers,’ she said, lowering her head, but he was already embracing her. He lay
her back on the oxhide in front of the hearth and kissed her with infinite tenderness, trembling, like the first time he’d known he loved her. And only when his soul was full and his loins
were weary did he abandon himself to sleep, laying his head on her bosom. Antinea stayed awake at length, watching him and touching his hair. She could not get enough of the sight of him, his face
burnt by the sun and frost of long summers and freezing winters. Suffering and grief had carved deep furrows. His face was different from how she had imagined him for so long, and yet the same as
the boy’s she had first loved. Was it truly time for her to come alive again, or was this just a flash of light that would illuminate her existence for a mere moment before it disappeared,
plunging her back into sorrow? He would certainly leave again . . . but would he ever come back? She could not know the will of the gods who governed the fate of men, but she knew that she had
desired this moment more than anything else in the world, and she could not tire of looking at him.

Often over the years the night had seemed anguished and interminable and she had awaited the light of day to free her from its dark ghosts. Now she wished the night would never end, because she
already had the sun in her arms: she could feel its warmth and its light.

She thought of how he had possessed her, depositing his seed in her womb and she was full of fear: hadn’t he thought that if a son were born to him it would have to bear the same curse he
did: son of Sparta and son of slaves? Or had he forgotten everything, overwhelmed by the same indomitable force that had gripped her? Spring would soon come with its tepid winds, and the bitter
wormwood would grow again; eating its leaves provoked acute spasms of the womb and would dry the life that had taken root there . . . no, she would not do that.

Her father, old Pelias, would not live much longer; she had no idea of what destiny had reserved for her future, but she would not chew the bitter wormwood . . . She looked again at his face,
his forehead, his hands, and she hoped with all her soul that she would never be deprived of them again. She thought of the fields on Mount Taygetus which would flower again with the coming spring.
The lambs would return to the high pasture and the wheat would ripple blond in the breeze. She didn’t know that sleep had overcome her and that she was dreaming, stretched out on an
oxhide.

‘D
ON’T RETURN BY THE
same road,’ said Pelias. ‘The snow will be much deeper at the pass by now and you might not be able to get
across. Go east until you find a river called Pamisus; travel up the valley until you reach a fork. There go right, towards Gathaei; you should reach Belemina in about two days’ time. Then
head towards Karistos, which is in the Eurotas valley. Turn south, and in another day you will have reached Sparta. We will await your news anxiously and will try to let you have word of us. May
the gods accompany you and assist you. You do not know the consolation that you have given us.’

‘I’ll send one of my men for the spring labours,’ said Kleidemos, putting on his cloak. ‘Use the money I’ve left you for anything you need. I’ll see what has
happened in Sparta during my absence and try to find a way to have you return. Perhaps the ephors will allow me to house you on my land. If I pay the price requested by the treasury they will
undoubtedly agree to it. When we are together again, everything will change – you’ll see. Perhaps we can be happy again, or at least take comfort in each other after these long years
spent apart.’

He held them in a long embrace, then mounted his horse and spurred him into a gallop, later slowing to a walk. The sun was appearing between the clouds when he arrived at the banks of the
Pamisus, a fast-flowing torrent with muddy waters. He journeyed up its shore until midday, crossing two small farming villages, and reached the fork in the river in the early afternoon. He ate a
little, taking shelter against a wall enclosing an olive grove and then began riding again along the right tributary of the Pamisus. Dusk was approaching when he noticed a bleak mountain which
dominated a stretch of hills covered with sparse lentiscus and juniper bushes. He could see some buildings on the top and hoped he might find a haven for the night. He turned off the road onto a
dirt path, and he soon found himself at the foot of the mountain. The place was strangely deserted and desolate, without a village or even a house in sight. As he ascended, the structures he had
glimpsed at the top of the mountain began to take shape; he could make out the ruins of a great wall, decrepit flaking towers rising here and there from the dismantled bastions. This could be none
other than the dead city of the Helots!