That drew applause, which was my downfall. I like applause, and I slowed -
bang.
Down I went. Of course he was right behind me as I rose from my roll, and he got my shoulders from behind as I hesitated in my turn and threw me — literally pulled me on my back and fell across me.
I laughed.
He laughed.
I dived at him, got a knee in my thigh, and then tried the same infighting technique I’d just used — but from the front — using my shin to force his shin back. He stumbled away — but he broke my attempt. I threw a strong right at his retreating face and caught him, and he threw a right — I grabbed his arm, we both missed holds and stumbled together and then — I can’t remember how — we were on the sand, grappling on the ground like boys.
The Spartans know all about ground fighting, but they disdain it, because on the battlefield it can get you killed, and combat sports, for Spartans, are about battle, not about games. I might have had an edge, but my opponent — sheer luck — caught my broken nose with his elbow, and I was fighting in a red haze and anger and pain.
I have no idea how long it went on.
But the ephors separated us. I was tapped on the shoulder, but I didn’t know the signal, so the next thing I felt was a blow to my calf.
I stopped struggling, realising that my opponent was not moving.
Luckily, the gods have graced me with good wits and some humour — so I got to my feet as best I could and embraced Bulis before he could say anything.
He smiled again. ‘Good fight,’ he said.
I didn’t fight in the king’s gymnasium again. It took me two days to recover from the first time, and my nose took weeks to recover fully. But after that day, men greeted me in the agora and in the streets, usually calling out, ‘Khairete, Xenos!’
And I received an offer to dine with Bulis and his mess.
Sparta is not devoid of small talk, gossip, song or good fellowship. I lay on a couch in this, a more ‘average’ mess, and was served food that was merely bad and entertained by Sparthius, who was Bulis’s partner and a very funny man. Sparthius was irreverent and sometimes nasty, mocking Gorgo’s mismatched eyes and my limp, suggesting in some fairly obvious ways that as I was Hephaestus, all my women would cheat on me. He told a story about a drunk buying a fine wine to pour as a libation on the grave of a friend, and then offering to pass it through his body once first — he mocked Sparta and he mocked Athens.
At the same time, he mocked the gods. And he knew songs — ribald songs, dirty songs, marching songs. .
Bulis just lay beside him and smiled from time to time and sipped his wine.
We all drank a great deal, and I came to know the other men in his mess. They weren’t average, all being members of the elite Hippeis. All of them were handsome, and all of them were over thirty, and married. They struck me as being. . young. Most were my age, and yet — the Spartan lifestyle allowed them a boyishness that I had probably lost while I was a slave, or perhaps at Sardis. They laughed at farting. They mocked a helot with a misformed penis, but it was not particularly cruel, especially when they offered to send him to Corinth to get it ‘treated’ at the temple of Aphrodite. They drank like boys, too — on and on, mixed only one to one with water. As the wine flowed, Sparthius became louder, and, I confess it, funnier, kneeling on the tiled floor and begging (in the character of a Macedonian) for Helios to stay away, stay away. ‘Oh, it burns!’ he shrieked, and everyone laughed.
Macedonians, of course, come from a land of rain and clouds and their fair skin burns in the sun.
Bulis turned to me. ‘My wife finds you very attractive,’ he said. ‘She enjoyed your flattery.’
Gulp.
I hope I smiled. ‘The lady I met in the agora is your wife?’
He nodded. ‘We were married young. Our fathers arranged it — almost as soon as we were born. They were. . you know. Erastes and Eromenos.’ He sipped more wine, his eyes elsewhere.
That was all. At the door, when I was handed my cloak by a helot, he embraced me. ‘We should fight again,’ he said. ‘My wife was right about you.’
Leonidas had a number of meetings with my passengers, and I assume he briefed them extensively on his views on a number of subjects. I was not invited, and in truth, I can’t imagine why I would have been included. I went riding with Gorgo — the closest I’ve ever come to loving horses — and I drilled with Bulis’s mess on three different days. Their Pyricche was different from ours — different music, and much more chorography. In fact, I learned that where Plataea has a single, fairly complicated dance, Sparta has seven. I learned one well enough to practise it with Bulis and Sparthius on board ship.
I also began to practise their quick draw with the sword. On one of their practice fields, they use a row of polished shields so men can watch themselves as they train, and I did so, cutting a post, and several times men would stop and correct my posture or my footwork. It was one of the curious things about Sparta that training is seldom done by one man. In Athens, as you probably know, each taxeis hires a professional trainer to improve their spear fighting or their drill. But in Sparta, any man who has seen battle can correct any other man, especially if that man is younger. Virtually all of the older hoplites were very capable men, and they tended to wander around the drill field, like a hundred hoplomachia teachers instead of just one or two. As long as I was on their field, they trained me as willingly.
And in the agora, I heard more — and better — philosophy than I heard in Athens. Well, in Athens before Anaxagoras came, but that’s another story. But with the helots to do all the work, men had little to do but exercise, and in Sparta they exercised their minds as well as their bodies.
In truth, Briseis should have been born a Spartan.
Late in the week, I was introduced to Leotychidas, the other king — the Eurypontid king. He was sober and very grave — almost sixty years old, and still as solid as an oak tree. He lacked Leonidas’ charm, but he had a great dignity, and I could tell that Polypeithes, who was kind enough to introduce me, fairly worshipped him.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You are the foreigner that Gorgo fancies.’ He frowned. ‘That woman always gets her way.’
There really wasn’t an answer to that, so I bowed.
‘You speak Persian?’ he asked.
I admitted that I did.
He nodded, lips pursed. ‘I suppose someone must. Do you think Xerxes will march an army into Greece?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘As do I. Nor do I think that sending a pair of my best men to die will help in any way.’ He shrugged. ‘Can you keep them alive? Are you a friend of the Great King’s?’
I had to shake my head. ‘No, my lord,’ I said. ‘I knew his father’s brother. And a few of his soldiers.’
He rocked his head from side to side, as if considering me from different angles.
‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Well, if you knew a few of my Spartiates and my father’s brother, I’d give you a hearing. That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. What will you say on our behalf?’
I almost choked on my tongue. ‘I’m sorry, lord?’
He was watching me as if I were a not-very-bright boy. ‘If you gain the ear of the Great King before my two Spartiates wander in, what will you say? I tell you, I’d rather they weren’t killed.’
I thought it through for a number of heartbeats. I could hear Polypeithes breathe by my side. Finally I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, lord. I can’t say anything on the part of Sparta. I am not a Spartan.’
The Eurypontid king’s eyes were fixed on mine. ‘Would you be shocked if I gave you my permission to say anything? Be my guest, Xenos. Say what you like, and claim it comes from me. If you think that it will buy us peace, or keep these two young men alive. Anything but my submission.’
He said more, but that was the gist, and when I had a last dinner with Polypeithes, Leonidas and my two passengers, the Agiad king said much the same, and after dinner, when the mess was drinking toasts, I was summoned to the king’s house and found Gorgo sitting in the courtyard under the stars.