Truth and Sparta (9 page)

Long days of
marching stretched before them promising nothing but drudgery. If
they were rested and refreshed, it was an easy march with high
spirited camaraderie to keep them entertained, but high spirits had
been absent for a long time.

He wished he
was going home to his father’s house. He wanted to spend some time
with his girl, buried in her warm, tight flesh—forgetting all these
troubles. But he had no excuse to divert and they were needed on
the coast now that the Athenians had cut their supply lines with
Alexandria, which would hurt them. The men were itching for a
fight. They wanted someone to bear the brunt of their
frustration—preferably some Athenian soldiers, but Nicias was not
sure they would be allowed to engage now that Athens had
prisoners.

They were
exhausted when they got back to their barracks. One of his father’s
slaves was waiting for him when he arrived. A waiting slave never
proved good news.

“
You father sends a message that you must come,” the thin man
said at the door of the barracks.

“
Why?” Nicias demanded with annoyance.

“
Your father wishes to inform you that there have been some
consequences with a Helot girl that you must deal with,” the man
said with a bow. Nicias knew full well that the euphemism stood
for—the girl had fallen with child. Nicias growled with dismay and
frustration, and the Helot cowered in fear. “Go,” he told the man
before he actually did take his frustrations out on him.

He knew that
it was a risk when he took up with the girl—being neither unusual,
nor uncommon. Such associations were actually encouraged by the
elders, the army needed men and it was a good way of securing the
future soldiers Sparta desperately needed. Citizens would be
better, but the half castes were accepted in their stead. Taking
the child off the mothers wasn’t a pleasant task, but it was vital
lest they form attachment to the weak Helot side of their nature.
Good soldiers had to be raised with the knowledge that the state
was of supreme importance. Nicias hoped the child was not female as
it would be an even more unpleasant task. But it was his duty and
he must take care of it—shirking it would mean dire consequences.
The Assembly would look very negatively of such things as it was
seen as detrimental to the state and hence traitorous—men had been
exiled for it.

Nicias began
the ride home after informing his superiors that he had to take an
absence to sort out a pressing matter at home. He was given four
days to do so. It didn’t give him much time, so he had to hurry.
He’d saddled one of the horses and departed at once.

He arrived
home in the morning, the land quiet and peaceful as he rode through
the village shortly after dusk. Spring seems to have found the
valley, with growth having started after the long winter. Nothing
had changed here—it never did.

He joined his
father in the courtyard as he sat in the sun warming. Nicias didn’t
need any heat, the ride this morning after a brief sleep along the
way had warmed him sufficiently. His sluggish movements told him he
could use a few more hours sleep though, but he wanted to take care
of the unpleasant business before he had to spend too much time
thinking about it. This was the exact reason he had not readily
engaged with Helot girls before. Whores were fine, you spent the
night and then left, and there were never consequences to be dealt
with. But as he got older, the nameless, faceless whores were not
enough; he’d wanted more and this was the consequences for having
that.

There was a
chance the child wasn’t his, but he knew instinctively that it was.
He’d made his claim on her known and anyone who touched her would
be insulting him directly. He also felt that she was not the kind
of girl who would be giving her favors away to others.

“
Have you seen the child?” he asked his father.

“
No.”

“
What must I do?” he asked. He wasn’t entirely sure how to go
about this. He knew the children were taken to Sparta and the state
cared for them from there.

“
Sinon will deliver the child,” the older man said indicating
to the waiting servant and Nicias nodded. He departed the house,
ordering a fresh horse from the stable. He hoped the girl would not
fight him; he hoped she understood the necessity of
this.

Chara’s body
had recovered slowly. She didn’t have the strength she’d had
before, but she was becoming stronger every day. She missed her
baby like a physical ache—an ache she was learning to deal with it.
She started working the fields with her father again. She looked up
at a noise and spotted Nicias at the edge of the field. She had
expected him, but she was still shocked to see him. It had been
many months since she had seen him last and he looked no
different.

“
Do you want me to speak to him?” her father asked. She
considered it for a moment.

“
No, I will do it.” She wasn’t entirely sure why she couldn’t
let her father do it, maybe she felt that her father might remind
him of her mother presence in their house. Her mother’s absence
going unnoticed was the key to the whole plan and she couldn’t risk
anything reminding him of her.

She walked
over to the edge of the field where he was mounted on a large gray
horse she’d seen before, her heart beating quicken as she
approached him. She had prepared for this moment for weeks. He
looked so large and intimidating sitting high above her and she was
small compared to him even when he was on the ground. He did look a
little more drawn than the last time she had seen him, perhaps the
troubles the Spartans had been experiencing over the last year had
been weighing on him.

“
You know why I am here,” he said his hand was resting on his
thigh as he looked down on her.

“
There is nothing for you to come for, the child was
stillborn,” she said looking up at him. The sun was behind him and
it hurt to look at him, she had to look away.

“
You must know that there are dire consequences for deceiving
me in such things.” The warning in his voice was clear.

“
I am not deceiving you,” she lied. She tried to look at him
again, but the sun was making it impossible to hold his
gaze.

“
Show me your cottage,” he ordered. She stood still for a
moment then turned in the direction of their small house. She could
hear the hooves of the horse behind her as she walked. She felt his
presence there even if she didn’t see him.

He dismounted
when they arrived and tied up the horse to the empty oxen pen. He
walked into the small house while Chara waited outside. She felt
her stomach clench with nerves as he search even though she knew
there was nothing for him to find as Chara had hidden well as
physical reminders of her mother. If he were to notice that her
mother was gone it would be now. He came out and searched every
space around the outside.

“
Where is your brother?” Chara felt her stomach flip. He
remembered Doros, which was not a good thing. It would have been
much better that Doros was here, but his absences stretched more
and more of late.

“
He is in the village, working with one of the other families,
helping with the sowing.”

“
Why isn’t he working here?”

“
Their need was greater.” She wasn’t sure he would believe it.
She held her breath.

“
Don’t deceive me on this,” he repeated quietly.

“
I’m not. There is no child. We had to build a pyre for it. It
didn’t live at all.”

He stepped a
bit closer and took a hold of her neck. It wasn’t a rough hold, but
it did force her face up to him. He was looking her in the eyes,
looking for a lie. He seemed to accept whatever he saw there and
Chara suppressed a sigh of relief.

“
We are not compatible,” he said. Chara felt angry and insulted
at the statement; it wasn’t true and she had the most beautiful
baby to prove it, but she couldn’t afford to voice such a sentiment
to counter an insult.

“
No,” she confirmed. He hadn’t let go of her neck, he kept his
hand there, his wrist was heavy and warm on her shoulder. Chara
kept her eyes on his abdomen.

“
Perhaps that is for the best. I don’t mind telling you that I
dreaded today,” he said in his deep voice. It hadn’t been something
she expected hearing, Spartans never confessed weaknesses, fears or
dreads. He moved his hand along her shoulder. “I am to get an
estate soon,” he said. “It will be further to the west, I have been
told, and of a decent size.” Chara wasn’t sure why he was telling
her this. “But not yet, there is too much trouble at this moment.
When the troubles settle down and we have gained our position
again.”

She was
relieved that he had changed topics. He seemed to have accepted her
assertion and she now had to stay the course and not say anything
stupid.

“
I must rest now, it has been a long night—a long year in
truth. Come to me tonight.” He stepped away and walked toward his
horse and Chara watched as he easily mounted. Once seated he looked
back at her and smiled.

Chara let out
of a sigh once he’d left, but just for now as he wasn’t done with
her.

Chara stood
outside the heavy wooden door protecting the Menares house and
waited to be let in. The same Helot servant let her in as before.
So much had happened since the last time she was here, but on the
other hand, nothing had changed from what she could see. She knew
the way to the room where Nicias would spend time with her.

She felt
strange being there, it was an added element of risk engaging with
him more than she already had, but on the other hand, she could
make things infinitely worse if she refused. She could not let slip
that there was anything out of the ordinary, and this was
ordinary—a Spartan using a Helot girl for their needs was not
something anyone would bat an eye at, and that was what she needed
right now—calm ordinariness.

He wasn’t in
the room and she sat down on the bed. She could tell that the bed
had been slept in and not tidied. He really had meant it when he’d
said he needed to rest. The room smelled of him, she recognized the
scent immediately.

As before, she
was scared, but for entirely different reasons; she wasn’t scared
of him or the act they would engage in, but of something going
wrong—not that she could think of anything that would go wrong. It
wasn’t like she was going to blurt out that the baby was living and
in Athens. There were a few people who knew the truth and she
trusted them implicitly.

Her eyes
followed him as he entered the room. He walked over to the table
and poured some wine into a goblet. Chara watched his straight back
as the light from the fire accentuated his muscular form.

“
Do you want wine?” he asked turning to her. She shook her
head, the last thing she needed was wine to loosen her mind and her
tongue. His eyes watched her for a moment. “You look as I remember
you.”

“
I didn’t realize that you had any cause to remember
me.”

“
There was nothing else to think of where I was.”

Chara felt a
flash of concern cross her features before she controlled her
expression. She hadn’t anticipated that he would think twice about
her after he’d left. She didn’t know what this meant; she had no
personal experience with Spartans and their ways. “How long are you
staying?”

“
Just tonight,” he said and sat down on a chair by the fire.
“Come,” he said.

Chara stood
and walked over to the chair. He had a way of unnerving her,
leaving her unknowing what to do or what he would do. She wasn’t
strictly afraid of him, but she felt both tension and anticipation
when he called her to him.

“
I have missed you,” he said. He hooked a finger in the simple
leather belt around her waist and pulled her toward him. He was
pulling her off balance until she sank down into his lap, to his
warm, firm body. “I missed your curves and the way you smell. I
have spent every moment with grumpy, desolate soldiers for months
on end, thinking of nothing but getting back here.”

Chara wondered
if he was saying these things for her benefit. The cynical part of
her wondered if these were things they said to play on the emotions
of young girls. She wondered how easy it would be to fall in love
with someone like him. Perhaps if she didn’t have so much riding on
her keeping secrets, maybe she would be open to letting such words
and sentiments sway her.

His hand
travelled up the side of her face with his thumb stroking her along
her cheek. It continued along to stroke across her lips and his
eyes seemed to follow where it went.

“
So pretty,” he said and pulled her into a kiss, his lips
touched hers softly. Chara had trouble reconciling the gentleness
in his touch with the man he was. This gentility was disconcerting
and it brought questions to her mind that she didn’t want to
consider, foremost being what he really wanted from her. In her
mind, Spartans deprived and humiliated. The relationship between
them was that of grossly unequal adversaries; it was what she had
been led to believe all her life. Not that she was fooled by these
gentle touches; she was here because he’d ordered her to
be.

He deepened
the kiss, drawing her closer. She couldn’t deny that this had been
the kind of kiss she had always dreamt of, she just hadn’t seen the
person giving to her being one of the enemy. Additionally, there
was something very exciting about having deceived him. It was a
perverse feeling, but it made her feel stronger. She had achieved
something extraordinary; she had imposed her will and gotten her
way—she had won a battle. Although she knew that strength was an
illusion in some respects because he could quite probably snap her
like a twig, and likely would if he ever found out what she’d done.
But it was still there, a quiet strength, a confidence that
physical strength wasn’t all encompassing—there was other ways of
fighting back.