Truth and Sparta (2 page)

Her father
breathed a sigh of relief as they went. It was scary seeing so many
of them in one place, and not just Spartans—soldiers. It was never
a good day running into one of them. They always came in and did
what they wanted; they took livestock, crops and equipment as they
pleased. It was sheer luck that they came through this time of
day—if is had been near dusk and they would have set up camp and
who knows what would have happened. There was always a risk that
the Spartans would make sport of the Helots. They may seek to
humiliate the men by making them dance, but sometimes they were
worse to the women—sometimes they just took the young women with
them.

“
I wonder why they are back,” Doros said.

“
Who understands their ways?” her father said.

“
They’ve no doubt been killing peasants and other innocents up
near Athens,” Doros said bitterly.

“
Watch your tongue, Doros. You will bring trouble to our house
if you don’t. Now back to work.”

Chara watched
the anger boiling in her brother as he attacked the barley. Her
father was right, he needed to lose that anger—it would attract
attention, and that was never a good thing.

Chara had to
go to the village a few days later to pick up a knife that her
father had sent to the village to be sharpened. This village was
the lifeblood of their community. It wasn’t large, a total of
fifteen small mud brick houses. There was another village about an
hour’s walk away that belonged to the same estate. While they would
sometimes see the people from that village, it was mostly only at
harvest time when everyone had to drop their crops off at the
Menares villa. The Spartans didn’t like the Helots consorting
widely—they grew suspicious very quickly. It was no secret that the
Spartans were paranoid about Helot revolts. There were revolts on
occasion as some village got fed up with their treatment, but
large, co-ordinated revolts were not common; although a large one
occurred not that long ago. The Spartans had not forgotten, and now
there were less of the Spartans around and more Helots.

The villagers
were on occasion ordered to convey the harvest to the messes in
Sparta where the citizens ate. Chara had never been to Sparta,
going there was a task that was typically reserved for the men. She
had heard stories though, of Spartans and their strange ways.

“
Did you see the garrison that came through the other day?”
Chara’s friend Della asked. “I couldn’t believe how many of them
there were.”

“
We saw them as they came through our field when we were
working.”

“
They’re back from Athens, I’ve been told. I don’t think I’ve
ever seen so many young men in one place,” Della confided. Della
was always impressed by young men, even if they were technically
the enemy. Her impressions were further exasperated by the fact
that she hadn’t found someone to marry. Young men were in
increasingly short supply, their shortage exasperated by the fact
that the Spartans declared war on them once a year—the
Crypteia—where they would cut down anyone who tried to put up any
kind of resistance. This had resulted in a hollowing out of the
marriageable male Helot population. “Gave me goose bumps seeing
them all in the flesh. Apparently that was the garrison that the
Menares son is in. He was probably there yesterday when they walked
through. I hear he is returning here until they go on campaign
again. I don’t even know the last time he was here.”

Chara didn’t
particularly care about this gossip, but she guessed that the
Menares’ son, Nicias’ return outshone her own in importance, and
she was grateful for that. She hated being the source of gossip,
but there was always gossip in the village.

“
Can’t find a wife, what I hear,” Della continued.

“
Who?”

“
Menares’ son. I hear from someone who works in the house that
he is of marriageable age now, but there is no one for him to
marry.”

“
Maybe they shouldn’t have killed off all their new-born
girls,” Chara said. “Who did they expect there would be to
marry?”

“
I don’t know what they were thinking. They couldn’t possibly
have wanted this outcome. They killed off all the future breeding
females, what did they expect? I hear they have forbidden the
practice now,” Della pointed out.

“
The damage has already been done.”

“
Maybe they will breed themselves out of existence.”

“
It would be nice to think—we have suffered with their presence
for long enough.” While Chara discouraged her brother’s anger and
resentment, she couldn’t deny it was there—ever present in all of
them. She knew no one who wished the Spartans to thrive. They had
allies, but even amongst them, they were universally
despised.

“
Their arrogance will be their own downfall,” Della
said.

“
Unless the Athenians decimate them.”

“
With them being struck by the plague endlessly, I am not sure
they have the capabilities to defeat them.” Della looked around to
see that they were still unobserved. Even in their own village,
they had to be careful. The Spartans killed anyone who was too
vocal in their dissent, and there were always ears around that you
weren’t sure you could trust. There were many Helots who’d grown up
with their Spartan masters, and they were sometimes more loyal to
their master than to their own kind.

“
We must go to the Menares estate and collect wood for the
bridge he wants built. We might as well drop off the barley in the
process. You will both have to help,” Chara’s father urged both her
and her brother up on the cart. They trundled along the road to the
Menares estate as the slow pace of the oxen’s leisurely
stride.

Chara took a
moment to relax in the warm breeze on top of the cart. For once
there was nothing to do but to wait for the oxen to reach its
destination. The Menares estate was on a hill overlooking the
surrounding countryside so they could keep an ever-present eye on
the village further down on the plain.

They finally
arrived in the courtyard at the center of the house. It was busy
due to the harvest, there were villages unloading a good proportion
of their harvest as they were required to, while house servants
were taking count and informing the elder Menares of the crops that
were coming in.

The Helots
that served the family were generally no friend to the Helots that
served the fields—they saw themselves as better. They also had the
possibility of being freed as recognition of good service, which
was a fate that was never extended to the Helots in the fields.
There was no love lost between the two forms of slaves on the
larger Menares estate—there was suspicion on both sides. The
divided loyalties of the house serving Helots were always
questioned and resented by the villages, as they served in many
capacities, including as companions and lovers to the Spartans.

“
What are you bringing?” a deep demanding voice stated behind
Chara’s back—making her jump. Chara turned to see what could only
be the son—Nicias. His bearing proved it if nothing else. He had
long golden hair that curled and is flowed down to his shoulders.
His skin had seen many hours of sun and his soldier’s physique
showed through the plain tunic he wore, a new, clean tunic, but not
a highly decorated one of a married man.

“
Barley,” Chara’s father answered as the Spartan eyed their
harvest suspiciously. He looked them over before waving them toward
one of the courtyard’s corners. They were obviously supposed to
unload their barrels of barley there. Her father complied without
pause. Chara kept her head down throughout the encounter, silently
urging her brother to behave. She could feel his tension rising the
moment they’d been approached by the soldier.

Chara knew
that the man that had just interrogated them was an accomplished
killer, and he had served in the Spartan army for many years. He
could probably take on everyone in this courtyard and be the one
that walked away. He had his sword in his belt, but he would likely
be just as deadly without it.

Doros put his
anger into the work of unloading their cart. A servant was counting
the barrels while Menares sat in a chair and kept record. The son
had returned to a spot in the shade where he was eating some fruit
in his hand and observing the activity in the courtyard. Chara
busied herself helping her father. The sooner they could get out
the better. It was not pleasant coming to the Menares estate, and
there was always the risk that the residents would take offense to
something and enact punishment.

Chara felt
like she was being observed; it was an uncomfortable feeling. She
felt the eyes of the Spartan soldier standing in the shade on her.
She wasn’t sure if it was true or if she was imagining it, but she
wasn’t about to look. Once they had unloaded, her father went to
talk to someone about the wood they were to carry away with
them.

Chara busied
herself with getting water for the oxen. Her father returned before
long.

“
You should go now,” he said quietly to her.

“
But we haven’t started loading the wood.”

“
I said now, girl. Walk back now.” She placed the pail of water
she had been holding for the beast on the ground and looked around
quickly to see that her suspicions were true—the Spartan was
observing her. She kept her head down as she started walking to the
gate of the courtyard. She didn’t look back, just kept on walking
just as her father had asked.

Chara walked
briskly out of the courtyard and through the gardens of the Menares
villa. She kept going, walking through the tall grass of the fields
further away. It would take her a while to get back home, but her
father had been adamant she leave. She wasn’t entirely sure why,
but she knew in her gut it had something to do with Nicias.

He was
menacing as he stood in the shadows, watching everything. Chara had
felt his eyes, but she’d not grown concerned like her father had.
She wasn’t sure why she had to leave that very second—she hadn’t
seen anything that would be cause for concern. He hadn’t approached
her or spoken to her, but then she didn’t really know the threat
her father feared—the Spartan did nothing more than watch while he
ate. She also didn’t get a chance to look at the garden surrounding
the house. It was the only garden she had ever seen and the beauty
of it had astonished her, as did the apparent lack of purpose. It
was just there to be beautiful and nothing more.

She kept a
relentless pace, but it didn’t entirely account for her rapid
heartbeat or the shakiness she felt, like she had been confronted
with something deadly. Spartans were dangerous, but she hadn’t
technically been confronted by either him or his father.

There was no
doubt that he was different from the men she knew—he was certainly
different from her late husband. He didn’t have the gawky frame of
a youth, like her husband, who had been nineteen and the same age
as her. From what she knew, she wasn’t sure the Spartans ever were
slim and gawky; they worked on their skills and strength from when
they were boys. Nicias wasn’t a boy, being of marriage age, which
made him quite old. He must be past twenty five at the very
least.

Chara wasn’t
an innocent, she’d been married and she knew what happened between
men and women, so she had some idea of what her father feared.
Coupling with a Spartan seemed well outside the realm of
possibility and she could in no way see the movement from the point
where she stood watering the ox, to one where she was with him in
such an intimate way. There was no path of progression that she
could see; although the thought of it sent a thrill of fear through
her. It was even scary thinking about it, which she shouldn’t.

It didn’t
matter—likely she would never see him again. Her father was being
overly precautious, fearing that the Spartan might take a liking to
her. They did take Helot women for their purposes as far as she
understood, but she couldn’t see that as something happening to
her. Besides, it might have been something very far from what the
Spartan was actually thinking. She dismissed the incident.

The memories
of being with her husband seemed to flow into her mind in its
place. She knew that men enjoyed the act, but she also knew that it
wasn’t her than her husband’s eyes were following; it was a young
man in the village who drew her husband’s attention whenever he was
close. It wasn’t an act she particularly enjoyed, but she also knew
there was something in it, something she wasn’t privy to and she
could perceive the absence of it.

Her husband
would perform his husbandly duties on occasion, but it was not
often. Along with his family, he was also increasingly dismayed
with her failure to fall with child. He was growing increasingly
irritated with her and it had hurt her. She had prayed to Hera to
help her conceive, but her prayers had gone unanswered. Then her
husband had grown sick and died, and before long, she had been
suspected as the reason for it.

Her father and
brother returned as she was helping her mother grind some barley
for their bread that evening.

“
We are to start building the bridge this evening,” he said as
he put the oxen away in his closure.

“
You were provided with wood then?” she asked.

“
You are to stay away from the Spartan,” he father said quietly
as he lifted the gate into place. “Both of them.”