Spartans at the Gates (15 page)

Aeskylos got to his feet and shuffled to the center of the room. “My gracious host,” he said and bowed to Helena. “We are honored to be in your home and partake of your wine—the blessing of Dionysus. Nearly every man in this room is either an actor or a playwright, and as you know how difficult it is to make a living in this business, you have taken pity on us once again. Now that our physical appetites have been satiated, we are ready to nourish our minds and, hopefully, entertain you in the process. I propose to begin with a debate between two members of our present company on the subject of this symposium. I defer to you now to pick the men who will expand on the subject of the delights of lovemaking.” He went back to his cushioned seat and took a drinking cup proffered by a slave.

“Thank you, dear Aeskylos,” said Helena. “I would be pleased to listen to the debate you have proposed. Since Euripides here”—she waved a hand at Black Beard—“seems so anxious to express his views on the subject to me in private, I would ask him now to express them in public for all to hear.”

Euripides scowled, but he stood and bowed to Helena.

“I've heard,” Konon said to Nikias, his voice already slurred from too much wine, “that this Euripides spends much of his time in a cave on the island of Salamis writing his plays. Isn't that strange? I wonder who she'll choose to take him on?”

Nikias said under his breath, “I think I can guess.”

Helena smiled. “Now for your opponent I pick someone whom I think can stand up to your threatening manner. I saw him defeat a pankrator today before the first punch was thrown, using only his words.” She turned her face to Nikias and made a sweeping gesture. “Nikias of Plataea.”

The crowd voiced their approval for this choice and Nikias stood up and faced Euripides. The two threw their wine lees at a spot on the floor to see who'd go first and Euripides won the honor, for his lees stuck together in the bigger clump.

The playwright bowed his head for some time before raising his dark eyes to look at Helena. “When love first struck me,” he said bitterly, “I tried to figure out how best to bear it. At first I thought silence was the thing, because my tongue is a fool. It criticizes others for the same faults that it possesses, yet brings down a heap of troubles upon my own head. You see, I believed I could defeat love, subdue it with caution and good judgment. And when that also let me down I resolved to die. Aphrodite, in her anger, has cast me into a vast sea of love! And my pathetic swimming will not bring me to shore.”

Helena shook her head slowly, digesting his words, a bemused smile on her gold-painted lips.

“But my dear Euripides,” said Helena in a goading voice, “you were supposed to elucidate on the delights of lovemaking. What you have described would be better suited to a symposium concerning the torments of unrequited love.”

“How peculiar,” said Euripides, “that doctors have found remedies for snake venom, but against a bad woman—far deadlier than snakes and crueler than fire—no one has concocted a cure.”

“Perhaps you should not step on them,” shot back Helena. “Perhaps then they will not bite you.”

“I take no delight in any of this,” replied Euripides with a growl. “Let the Oxlander excite you with his rustic notions of pleasure.” And with that he stormed out of the room.

The room was uncomfortably silent. Helena sat back down in her chair, trembling with fury. She looked as though she, too, might get up and leave the chamber. Nikias knew that Euripides had insulted her in some deep and painful way that went beyond his scathing words. Obviously there was a history between the two.

“Euripides was right,” said Nikias. Helena shot him a wounded look, but he winked at her and continued. “He was right earlier when he said that farmers from the Oxlands like me have scant knowledge of the arts of lovemaking. I know men who believe that plowing a field should be considered a kind of foreplay.” Cordial laughter followed this little joke and Nikias took a deep breath to steady his nerves. “Our women, on the other hand,” he continued, “do know something about the delights of lovemaking. And it's their task to tame us men and break us like wild horses—”

“And then ride you across the plains of the Oxlands!” called out Aristophanes jovially, imitating a woman's voice.

Nikias smiled and nodded. “I tell you this: a man who is unwilling to bow before the altar of Aphrodite is nothing more than a stubborn and stupid beast. Euripides spoke of drowning in a sea of love. Well, I say, ‘Swim in that sea!' You, Aristophanes, may wear gowns and pretend to be a woman when you're on the stage, but until you've lived in the same house with three strong women like I have, you will never be able to understand their desires. They love and hate and dream just like us men.” He glanced at Helena out of the corner of his eye and saw she was smiling slightly. “Euripides talked about the cruelty and counterfeit nature of womankind. In my experience it is
men
who exhibit this kind of behavior, not women. And everything that I have learned about love has come from women, not men.”

The guests clapped politely and Aeskylos called out, “Excellently said! Most excellent!”

Helena stood up slowly and walked over to Nikias, stopping a few feet from him, regarding him with an inquisitive glint in her eye. “Would you agree, young bull,” she asked flirtatiously, “that lovemaking is like the pankration?”

“Like the pankration?” asked Nikias with surprise.

“Yes,” said Helena. “The lovers are the two fighters—”

“The bed—the arena,” added Nikias playfully.

Helena gave him a mischievous look and said, “The opponents face one another. Flexing their muscles. Eyeing each other haughtily. And then the fight begins with the first blow.”

She stepped forward and kissed him briefly but sensually on the lips.

“I wish this sort of fight were an Olympic event,” commented Aristophanes drily.

“It's an event that I would gladly enter,” said Nikias, “if my opponents were as beautiful as Helena.”

“Hear him!” shouted Aeskylos merrily, and the other men in the room started talking all at once, calling for more wine and making jokes.

Nikias's eyes locked with Helena's and her smile slowly faded. A queer look darkened her features and she turned away. She went back to her seat and sat staring into space, sipping her wine, brooding in silence.

Nikias picked up a tortoiseshell harp that lay nearby and started plucking out a tune. His song was nothing like the frantic music that had been playing when he and Konon had entered Helena's home. This was a melancholy ode, full of yearning, full of anguish. It was an ancient song that Nikias's father had played. Nikias had spent many hours alone in his room, practicing upon his late father's harp, as though to conjure the dead man back to this world. And he had written the words to accompany the music.

“Hush!” said Aeskylos to the room. “It appears the Oxlander is going to play for us.”

The crowd quieted down and Nikias started singing in his deep and mellow voice:

“A shimmering star that hangs in the sky

An apple on a limb too high

A fragrant wind that rushes by

Love's sweet yearning

A gentle hand that touches skin

Kisses that never wear thin

Eyes that drown me therein

Love's sweet yearning…”

Nikias stared at Helena as he sang, and saw that her eyes were welling up with tears. And when the tears finally trickled from the corners of her eyes they looked like drops of quicksilver racing down her golden cheeks. When he was done he set down the harp and looked shyly about the room. He had not planned on singing. In fact he'd never sung anything other than drinking songs in front of a crowd. The chamber burst into hearty cheers and thunderous applause.

“You can play
and
sing,” said Konon, coming up and slapping Nikias on the back. His face was flushed with wine.

As the evening progressed the men became drunker and more ribald. A merchant who imported a fabric called silk—a dark-eyed Lydian with a handsome face who smiled too much for Nikias's liking—arrived late. He wore an outlandish garment made of the material he sold, and he kept trying to corner Nikias, begging him to tell him news of the Theban sneak attack.

The somber mood cast by Euripides had evaporated almost completely, and Helena became a charming and friendly host. Later, as the guests started to depart, she called Nikias to her and asked him to drink from her cup. He flushed with pride and drained the proffered wine.

A few minutes after sipping from her cup Nikias started to feel dizzy. Thinking he had imbibed too much, he sat down on one of the cushioned chairs and picked up the harp, strumming the strings absentmindedly. They made a weird sound, reverberating in his brain and rising and falling in volume. The harp slipped from his fingers and landed on the floor with an echoing crash. He stared at his hands with fascination, for they seemed to be stretching and bending as though they were made of dough. He regarded them for the longest time, unable to tear his eyes away. Finally he managed to squeeze his eyes shut, but when he did he saw bright colors and lights exploding behind his closed lids. Suddenly he felt as though he were flying—like Ikarus toward the sun. It was an unnerving sensation.

When he finally opened his eyes the room was dark and empty. The only other person still there was Konon, but he was passed out on the floor with a smile on his face.

Nikias heard footsteps. When he looked up he saw that the two burly men who had been guarding the entrance to the house were now standing over him. Their faces were not friendly.

“Where's Helena?” asked Nikias with a slurred voice.

The men ignored his question and pulled him from his seat.

“He's heavy,” observed one of them.

“Like carrying a side of beef,” said the other.

Nikias tried to move his feet, but they were dead. The men gripped him under the armpits and dragged him down a dark hallway, then up a flight of stairs. They took him into a darkened chamber and threw him on a bed, then stripped off his belt and tunic.

“What are you doing?” asked Nikias, frightened all of a sudden. Were these two going to rape him?

The men exited the room, shutting the portal behind them. Nikias lay on the bed, unmoving, listening to his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He heard something move.

“Who's there?” he asked fearfully.

After a while a man whose face Nikias did not recognize appeared from the shadows, leering down at him. Nikias tried with all his might to sit up but he couldn't move a muscle.

He was utterly paralyzed … frozen like a corpse.

The stranger ran a hand over Nikias's chest, then up his throat to his lips. He put a finger in Nikias's mouth and pulled down his jaw so that his mouth was agape. Then he took a small vial from the folds of his robe and unplugged a stopper. He put the spout to Nikias's lips and poured a burning draft down his throat.

“Now we begin,” said the stranger.

 

FOURTEEN

Nikias choked on the thick and bitter liquid. A few seconds later he felt a wave of euphoria rushing through his body. Every nerve was on fire with pleasure. Not once had he ever experienced such intense joy. Such peace and clarity of mind.

“How are we feeling?” asked the stranger in an aristocratic Athenian accent.

Nikias smiled and nodded.

“Excellent,” said the man.

Nikias saw the figure of a naked woman standing at the foot of the bed, holding an oil lamp. Her face was obscured in darkness, but her perfectly shaped breasts were illuminated by the flickering light, the areolas staring at him like eyes in a face, the navel a tiny mouth shaping an O.

“What's wrong with him?” Helena asked with a worried tone.

“It's the drug I just gave him,” replied the man, stepping back into the shadows. “A very powerful drug. Touch him now.”

“Can he hear us?” asked Helena.

“Yes,” said the man. “He can hear us. He's in a dreamlike state.”

Helena set the lamp by the bed and crawled on top of Nikias. She had washed off all of the gold paint. Her flesh was warm and smelled of roses. With all of her makeup removed she looked much younger. Nikias realized she was only a few years older than him. She pressed herself onto him, pushing her hard nipples against his chest.

“Who's that man?” asked Nikias, and wondered why his own voice sounded like it came from so far away. She started kissing him. Her mouth tasted delicious … like wild mint. And within a few seconds he'd forgotten what he had just asked her.

“I've found this technique works far better than torture,” said the man. “And so much cleaner. Ask him why he came to Athens. And touch him below.”

“Why are you here?” asked Helena, stroking Nikias's quickly growing erection with her soft fingertips.

“I came to hire mercenaries,” Nikias replied without hesitation. “To help defend Plataea. Gods! Keep doing that.”

“And where did you get the Persian gold?” asked Helena, moving her lips down to play on his chest.

Nikias laughed softly. “So you're the one who stole my pack.…”

“Not her,” said the man's unctuous voice. “It was one of my whisperers. You were a fool to pick a fight with Kleon's nephew on your first day in Athens. Draws a crowd, you know? Now tell me: Where did you get such a treasure in Persian gold?”

“The gold coins,” said Nikias, chuckling. “They spilled from my guts onto the road. The Dog Raiders…” He drifted off, adrift in a sea of delight.

“Tell him,” said Helena anxiously. “Please tell him, Nikias.”

“It was the traitor Nauklydes's pay for opening the gates to the Thebans,” said Nikias dreamily. “We found the darics at his pottery factory.”