The Last of the Wine (40 page)

She said to me, in the voice I suppose she had heard her mother use to visiting ladies, “I have heard Lysis speak of you often. Even before he went to sea, while I was still quite young. Whenever he called, my brother Neon would always ask how you were. Lysis would say, ‘How is Kleanor?’ or whoever his best friend was just then. But Neon always said to Lysis, ‘How is beautiful Alexias?’ and Lysis would say, ‘Still beautiful.’”

“Well,” said Lysis, “now you see him. Here he is. But you must talk to me now, or we shall be falling out.” She turned round, not a moment too soon. It was lucky we had the canopy; hardly anyone had seen. “Oh, no! You must never quarrel with Alexias, after so long.”

We went jolting on through the wheel-ploughed slush, while in the glow of the torches the snow floated like great flakes of fire. People in the street bawled out the age-old jokes about the month of long nights and so forth; and from time to time I stood up in the car and shouted back the age-old answers. When we got near the house he leaned over, and whispered to her not to be afraid. She nodded, and whispered back, “Melitta said I must scream.” Then she added firmly, “But I told her no.”—“I should say not indeed. What a vulgar notion.”—“And besides, I said to her, I am a soldier’s daughter.”—“And a soldier’s wife.”—“Oh, yes, Lysis. Yes, I know.”

When the time came, and he picked her up at the end of the bride-song, she put up her arms smiling, and caught him round the neck. As I ran after to keep the door for them, I heard a couple of old hens by the wall clicking their tongues, and censuring her shamelessness.

Next day I called to see him. There seemed no reason why I should wait till the late hour custom prescribes, so I got there quite early, before market-time, to be ahead of the rest. After some delay he came in, half-awake, the perfect picture of a bridegroom next morning. When I apologised for disturbing him, he said, “Oh, it’s time I was up. But I was talking to Thalia till all hours. I had no notion, Alexias, how much sense she has, and grace of mind. She’ll make a woman in ten thousand. Don’t speak too loud, she’s still asleep.”

“Shouldn’t she be about her work,” I said, “at this hour?” Seeing me look at him, he laughed a little shamefacedly. “Well, she was awake fairly late. She looked such a child, I sat down by her to talk her to sleep, thinking she might be scared alone; but I must have dropped off first in the end, for when I woke, I found she had got a new blanket out of her bridal chest, and laid it over me.”

I said nothing, since it was no business of mine. He said smiling, “Oh, yes, I can hold my horses till starting-time. With me it takes two to celebrate the rite of Aphrodite; I’d as soon lie with Athene of the Vanguard, shield and all, as a woman I don’t please. I know what the child needs of me just now, better than she knows herself. I daresay it won’t be for long.”

Certainly as time passed he looked well and happy; and one day later in the year, when he had asked me to sup, as I stood in the little porch I heard from within the sound of a young voice singing in time to some work or other, like water tinkling in the shade. Lysis said, “You must forgive the child. I know a modest woman shouldn’t tell her whereabouts to the guests; but when I see her happy, I can’t bear to trouble her with such things. She had enough of that from her brother’s wife; I gave her a good present, the bitch, and forbade her the house. There’s plenty of time. Her modesty is in her soul. We’ll attend to the outside later.”

It was a beautiful golden evening. The small supper-room just held four couches, but looked better with two. There were garlands laid out, of vine-shoots and roses. “Thalia made them,” he said. “She sulks if I buy made-up stuff in the market.” It was dressed sword-fish for supper. I was not very hungry, but I did my best because I could see he was proud of it. We talked about the war, which was largely at a standstill. The Spartans had given Lysander another year in command, against their custom, and he was getting money from Cyrus again.

“Don’t you care for the fish?” he asked. “She said I must ask you if the sauce was sharp enough.”—“I never tasted better. I heard some news on the way that spoiled my hunger. Those two triremes the Samian fleet took the other day; do you know what became of the rowers? They pitched them off a cliff into the sea. That will teach them to work for a side that can afford to pay them.”

He stared at me silent; then said, “Zeus! And when one thinks what was said at the start of the war, when the Spartans did it … I suppose you don’t remember. We’re improving daily; the last proposal was that enemy rowers we caught should have their right hands cut off, or was it both thumbs? I got some black looks in Assembly for voting against it. I’m glad we’re out of the Navy, Alexias. Everything one hears from Samos sounds bad.”

The fleet had done nothing for months. The generals did not trust each other, and the men did not trust the generals; rumours were always drifting home that one or other was taking bribes, the kind of talk that had made trouble among the Spartans at Miletos. There was poison in the mere knowledge that the gold was there. “Konon is sound,” I said.—“One man in a dozen. I wonder what Alkibiades thinks in that hill-fort of his. They say it looks over half the Hellespont. He must laugh sometimes from the top of his walls.”

“It’s Salamis Day,” I said. “Seventy-five years today since the battle. Don’t you remember how he used to give out a wine-issue? It was on Salamis Day he told that story about the Persian eunuch.” We laughed, and then fell silent together. In the pause I heard again the singing in the house, but softly now; she must have remembered there was company.

“You’re not drinking,” he said. The slave-boy had cleared the tables, and gone.—“No more for a while, Lysis. I’m as merry now as wine will make me.” I found him looking at me. “It’s a deep sadness,” he said, “that goes in fear of wine.”—“Are you coming to the race tomorrow? Kallias says the bay will win.”—“It’s the way of the world, it seems. If there’s a man one would sooner do a good turn to than any other, that’s the man one will see eating his heart out for what one can’t give.”—“Have you known long?” I asked.—“No matter. No one else knows. Can’t you find a woman again, like the one you had in Samos?”—“I’ll look one day soon. Don’t think of it, Lysis. It’s a madness. It will pass.”—“You should marry, Alexias. Yes, I know advice is cheap, but don’t be angry with me. If a man …” His voice ceased. We both put our wine-cups down, and got up from our couches, and ran to the door. The street was empty. But the noise drew nearer, streaming like smoke, blowing in great gusts upon the wind.

It was not a wail, nor was it a groan, nor the keening women make for the dead. Yet all these had part in it. Zeus gives good and evil things to men, but mostly evil; and the sound of sorrow is nothing new. But this was not the grief of one or two, or of a household. It was the voice of the City, crying despair.

We looked at each other. Lysis said, “I must speak to the child. Ask someone what it is.” I stood in the porch, but no one passed. Inside the house he was talking quietly. As he left I heard him say, “Finish your supper, keep busy, and wait for me.” She answered steadily, “Yes, Lysis. I’ll wait.”

A man shouted something far up the street. I said to Lysis, “I couldn’t make sense of it. ‘Everything lost,’ he said; and something about Goat’s Creek.”—“Goat’s Creek? We beached there once, when we sprang a plank. Half-way up the Hellespont, just north of Sestos. A village of clay huts, and a sandy shore. Goat’s Creek? You must have heard wrong. There’s nothing there.”

In the streets we saw no one, except a woman sometimes, peering from a door. One, forgetting her decency in her fear, called out to us, “What is it, oh, what is it?” We shook our heads and went on. The noise was from the Agora, like an army in rout. An echo seemed to go on beyond, into the distance. It was the sound of crying upon the Long Walls, throbbing between the City and Piraeus like pain along a limb.

A man met us in the street, coming from the Agora. He was beating his breast as he ran. When I caught him by the arm he stared like a trapped beast. “What is it?” we said. “What news?” He shook his head, as if we had not spoken Greek. “I was at Melos,” he said. “Oh, Zeus, I was at Melos. Now we shall see it here.” He plucked his arm free, and ran on towards his home.

Where the street ran into the Agora, it was plugged at the neck with men trying to shoulder through. As we joined the press, a man coming the other way squeezed out towards us. He stood for a moment, staggered and fell down. “What news?” we shouted at him. He leaned over and vomited stale wine. Then his head lolled round at us. “Long life to you, trierarch. Is this the street for the women?” Lysis said, “This man’s a rower off the
Paralos
.” He shouted in the fellow’s ear, “Answer me, curse you,” and shook him to and fro.

The man reeled to his feet, muttering, “Aye, aye, sir.”—“What news?” we asked. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and said, “The Spartans are coming,” and spewed again. When it seemed that all his drink was out of him, we dragged him over to a public water-tap in the street, and drenched his head. He sat on the slab of the fountain, his arms hanging. “I was drunk,” he said. “I spent my last obol, and now you’ve sobered me.” With his face in his hands he wept.

Presently he came partly to himself and said, “I’m sorry, sir. We’ve been at the oar three days, with this ahead of us, bringing the news. The fleet’s destroyed, sir. Someone sold us to Lysander, by our reckoning. Caught on the beach at Goat’s Creek; no help, no cover, nothing. Rubbed out, finished, rolled up like a book.”

“But what were you doing there?” said Lysis. “It’s two good miles from Sestos; there’s no harbour and no supplies. Were you driven aground?”—“No, the fleet made camp there.”—“At Goat’s Creek? Made camp? Are you drunk still?”—“I wish I was, sir. But it’s true.”

He rinsed his face in the fountain, wrung the water from his beard, and said, “We got word Lysander had taken Lampsakos. We followed him up the Hellespont, past Sestos to the narrows. Then we camped at Goat’s Creek. You can see Lampsakos from there.”—“Great Poseidon!” said Lysis. “And Lampsakos can see you.”

“We put out in the morning in battle order, to meet Lysander. But the old fox kept to earth. Next day the same. Then rations ran out. We had to walk over to Sestos market, after we’d beached the ships. Four days this went on. The fourth evening we’d just beached again, when we heard a hail. There was a man riding down from the hills; not a country fellow; a good horse, and a knight’s seat on it. The sun was setting behind him, but I thought, ‘I’ve seen you before.’ There was some young officers looking; all of a sudden they went running as if they were mad, up the road to meet him, shouting out, ‘It’s Alkibiades!’

“They caught on to his feet, his horse, anything they could lay hold of. One or two, I thought they were going to break down and cry. Well, it was always meat and drink to him to be made much of. He asked after this man’s father and that man’s friend; you know, sir, how he never forgot a face; and then he said, ‘Who’s in command?’

“They told him the generals’ names. ‘Where are they?’ he says. ‘Take me to them. They must get off this beach tonight. Has the fleet run mad? Four days now,’ he says, ‘I’ve watched you stick out your arse for Lysander’s toe, and I can’t stand it longer. What a station, by the Dog, to take in face of the enemy. What a camp, look at it; not a guard posted, not a ditch. Look at the men, straggled from here to Sestos. You’d think it was Games Week at Olympia.’

“Someone took his horse, and he went to the generals’ tents. They came out to see what the noise was. They didn’t look as pleased as the young men, not by half. Hardly gave him good evening, and didn’t as much as offer him a drink. Do you know, sir, what it was that shook me first? It was hearing him so civil to them. He was never a man to bear being made light of; he could always give better than he got. He put the case to them about the camp, very quiet and serious. ‘Didn’t you see today,’ he says, ‘the Spartan picket-boats watching your beach? Lysander mans his ships each morning, and keeps them manned till dusk. If he’s waited till now it’s because he can’t believe it. He’s afraid of a trap. When he gets word the men don’t keep camp at night, do you think he’ll wait longer? Not he; I know the man. Every minute you sit here now, you’re staking the fleet and the City with it. Come, gentlemen, you could be in Sestos tonight.’

“They’d kept him standing outside, so there were plenty to listen. I heard General Konon say into his beard, ‘Just what I told them.’ Then Tydeus, one of the new generals, steps out. ‘Thank you kindly, Alkibiades,’ he says, ‘for teaching us our business. You’re the man to do that, we all know. Perhaps you’d like to take the fleet over; or perhaps there’s another of your cup-companions you’d care to leave it to, while you run about Ionia chasing women. What were the Athenians thinking of, I wonder, when they put us in command instead of you? Still, they did it. You’ve had your kick at the ball. Now it’s our turn, so a very good day to you.’

“His colour came up then; but for all that, he kept his head. Cool and slow he spoke, with that drawl of his. ‘I’ve wasted my time,’ he says, ‘and yours too, I can see. Two things I respect Lysander for: he knows how to raise money, and where to spend it.’ Then he turned his back and walked off, before they found their tongues to answer.

“You could hardly get near for the crowd seeing him off. When they brought up his horse, he said, ‘There’s no more I can do, and if I could, I’d see them to Hades first. They’re the losers,’ he said. ‘I’ve still a friend or two across the straits. I could have given Lysander troubles of his own in Lampsakos. I’d only to sound the trumpet on my keep, to have raised three thousand Thracians. They called no man master before, but they fight for me. I’m king in these parts,’ he said. ‘King in all but the name.’

“He sat on his horse, looking out over the water with those wide-open blue eyes of his; then he wheeled and rode off into the hills, where his castle was.

“That night our Old Man on the
Paralos
stopped all shore leave. So did General Konon, on his eight ships. But the rest went on the same as they’d done before. And the next night, the Spartans came.”