They went off to bed chattering.
Morning came early.
I met Gorgo playing with my daughter in the garden, less than an hour after dawn. Euphonia could barely sleep for the excitement of having the Queen of Sparta in the house, and her doting nurse helped her dress and loosed her on the world.
The queen rose early.
‘I hope you are not planning on going riding,’ I said.
Gorgo laughed, long and hard. ‘I was hunting,’ she said. ‘I had a beast in view.’ She shrugged. ‘You took my boys to Susa and you brought them home. And helped with the chariot. All in all, I owe you.’ She smiled down at Euphonia. ‘She is charming. She was telling me about Brauron. You should send her to Sparta for a summer.’ She nodded. ‘She’s athletic enough. Some girls can’t take the pace of the races and the dance, but she could.’
‘Can you tell me anything of Brasidas?’ I asked.
Gorgo looked away. ‘He is still in Babylon,’ she said. ‘I doubt Demaratus can save him now.’
‘What did he do?’ I asked.
Gorgo shook her head. ‘It is not my place to speak of it. And I regret that. We are deeply in your debt, Arimnestos of Plataea.’
We talked for some time about the situation, and Euphonia, bored, slipped away into the garden and vanished to the stables.
At some point, I thought of Demaratus, and the tablets, and I sent Eugenios to fetch them. He brought them to me — somewhat hacked about. The string that held them together had been cut, so that they were simply three individual wax tablets, one double sided, and one with a carved cover. I held them out to the queen with a bow.
‘I’m sorry, my queen. These are from the former King of Sparta, Demaratus, and I was to deliver them to you immediately — and I have failed. I forgot them. And indeed, I can’t imagine that they have much of import — I confess I’ve read his note on the wax — it used to be clearer — and all it contains is directions for the factor of one of his farms.’
The queen took them. She sat suddenly, as if overcome by emotion — she, a Spartan — and she held them in the skirts of her chiton. Then she took the cover, and flexed it between her powerful hands, so that the frame splintered.
She took a sharp knife from her zone, and slipped it between the wax and the board beneath, and peeled the wax away in one neat rectangle — and the board beneath was covered in dense black writing.
She laughed aloud.
‘I should not have let you see that,’ she said. She raised her eyes. ‘Swear you will not tell.’
Well, I’m telling you now, but I think everyone involved is dead, now.
She peeled all three boards clear of their wax, and Eugenios carried the wreckage away. I have no idea what the former King of Sparta said to Gorgo in a three-page letter, but I’ll guess that he sent her a list of messengers and codes. Because from that day forward, she always seemed to know more than anyone about the Medes — and especially about their fleet.
Just as we tidied up the last splinters, Aristides joined us — shocked, I think, to find the Queen of Sparta alone in the garden with a man, much less with me. His wife joined us soon after.
She came across the garden, and I could see that age sat more heavily on her than on Gorgo, although they were much of an age — thirty or thirty-five, whereas their husbands were fifty-five and fifty-eight. She had more grey in her hair, and child-rearing had flattened her breasts, widened her hips and added to her weight. She was a handsome woman with a straight back and a dignity unmarred by time — but Gorgo appeared ten years younger — or even fifteen.
Gorgo smiled at her and took her hand, and they embraced. And Jocasta giggled — something I would not have thought possible — and whispered to Gorgo, who shrieked as if bit by an adder and then laughed so hard I thought she might fall down. She took Jocasta’s hand and put it on her right breast, and the two dissolved in laughter.
Aristides was embarrassed. He looked at me, and then looked away, and then walked out of my garden, calling for Nikeas. I followed him, passing a yawning Leda under the archway. She paused to smile at me — a full-face smile — and then I caught sight of my Athenian exile.
He kept walking — out of my house, out of the gate, towards the town wall. I followed him, and eventually caught him up.
‘It is unseemly,’ he muttered.
‘Have you given her the necklace?’ I asked.
That gave him pause. ‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Or anything else from the time we were away?’ I asked.
Aristides glowered. ‘She was behaving like. . like. . a man.’
I shrugged. ‘Your wife is making friends with the Queen of Sparta. The rules for women in Sparta are very different.’
He put his hands on his hips — fidgeted — and put them down by his sides. Finally he turned and started walking back to my house. ‘You are right, of course,’ he muttered. ‘But she is always. . so. . reserved.’ He turned. ‘I love her. . dignity.’
‘As do I,’ I said. ‘But it is a cloak she should be allowed to put off, from time to time.’
Aristides chewed on that for perhaps forty paces, and then said, ‘You get in a good thing, now and then. Dignity as a cloak — that’s good.’
We had the Queen of Sparta in Plataea for five days.
As with Jocasta, one of my favourite moments was created by the cup. Spartan women often sit with men, as I have mentioned, and several times we all sat in the guest house, or the garden, but one night we assembled in the garden and the insects were too much, and we moved into the andron, and there, glowing in golden opulence, was the Queen Mother’s gift.
Gorgo went and took it down from the low shelf on which it sat.
‘I want to drink from this,’ she said. ‘From the Great King?’ she asked.
‘The Queen Mother,’ I admitted.
Bulis laughed. ‘The Persians are so rich they don’t even know they are bribing us,’ he said.
We all laughed. And there we sat — the Queen of Sparta, the just man of Athens, and the heroes of Marathon, and drank to the cause of the liberty of Hellas in the cup we’d been given by the Queen of Persia.
Three of the days she was with us, Gorgo went with Pen and Leda and Jocasta and paid worship to Hera at the temple.
Every day, she was feted — by Myron, by Antigonus, by the temple of Hera itself. She made a great donation, and she was, to all intents, pleased by everything she saw. She kissed Boeotian babies and watched my Epilektoi dance the Pyricche.
Bulis walked among the young men and talked to them. He was like a different man — charming, with compliments for every boy on their physique, their bearing, their skill. Later, he lay with me on a couch.
‘This is a fine town, I think. More like Sparta than I would have believed. Small — and thus good.’ He raised a kantharos cup. ‘See? You make me drunk, and I talk.’
And Sparthius told Ajax and Lysius that the young men were good. This praise, from a Spartiate and a professional warrior, went straight to their heads, and they got very drunk and made fools of themselves very publicly, which was a nine-day wonder in Plataea and had no other effect on any of us — or them.
Early on the last full day, I put all the women up on horses — the splendid horses Moire and Ka had brought — and we rode up to the shrine of Leithos, and Gorgo made a sacrifice of wine. An odd thing happened that I cannot explain. Gorgo poured her libation on the precinct wall, and the tomb rang — as if with laughter. I had known that tomb since I was a boy, and never heard the like. Some of the men flinched.
Idomeneaus came down from his hillside to see the queen. She looked into his mad eyes and spoke quietly to him. He asked her something, and she nodded.
Later he came to me, and nodded. ‘She says you served her well,’ he said. ‘The hero — he is very pleased that she is here.’
I thought he looked madder than ever, and I didn’t linger near him. He smelled odd, and not of the hillside.