‘I am no Spartan,’ replied Parmenion. ‘I was despised as a mix-blood, part Macedonian, but were I a Theban I would be seeking a way to... persuade the Spartans to leave.’
‘Would you now?’ responded the Theban, a red flush spreading across his thin, pockmarked cheeks but his voice remaining cold. ‘There are few men who would attempt such an action. For myself, as I said, I am a private citizen and have little interest now in matters martial.’
‘Then I shall trouble you no further, sir,’ said Par-menion. Leaving the letter from Xenophon on the desk, he bowed and walked to the door.
‘Wait, man!’ called Epaminondas, not wishing his unwelcome visitor to see his other guests as they left. ‘You are a stranger in the city, and you can stay in my home until we can find suitable lodging for you. I will have a servant prepare you a room.’
That will not be necessary. I have no wish to remain where the welcome is so grudging.’
‘I see you are a plain speaker, so let me be equally frank. I have no great love for Spartans, be they friends of Xenophon or no. But you are a stranger in a strange city. Finding good lodgings will take time. I urge you to reconsider - and,’ he added, forcing a smile, ‘I will even apologize for my crusty behaviour.’
At the smile Parmenion appeared to relax. ‘I too must apologize. I am out of place here, and I feel awkward.’
‘We shall start again, then, Parmenion. Come, sit and take some wine while I read this letter.’
Returning to his couch, the Theban unrolled the parchment and read of the duel with Nestus and the need for Parmenion to seek his fortune in another city. ‘Why did you fight this man - or is it a private matter?’ he asked at last.
‘He was betrothed to a girl. I too was in love with her.’
‘I see. What happened to her?’
‘She was sacrificed as Cassandra’s victim.’
‘What a barbarous people we are,’ said Epaminondas. ‘It amazes me how easily we criticize the peoples of other races, calling them barbarians, while still we practise obscene blood sacrifices.’
‘The gods require them,’ Parmenion said.
‘There are no gods,’ responded the Theban. ‘It is all a grand nonsense - yet they have their uses.’
‘How can something that does not exist have a use?’ asked the younger man.
The Theban smiled. ‘There are two doors leading from this room, Parmenion. If I told you that one door was guarded by a lion and that the other leads to a paradise, which door would you open?’
‘The paradise door.’
‘Exactly. The lion does not exist - but it helps me to make sure you open the door I require. It is very simple. Soldiers tend to believe in gods and oracles, but in my experience any prophecy can be turned to advantage.’
Parmenion felt uneasy with this casual blasphemy and changed the subject. ‘Xenophon told me you once fought alongside the Spartan army.’
‘Three years ago. I was twenty-five then, and a lot more naive. Thebes and Sparta were allies against the Arcadians. I was given ten gold pieces by Agisaleus, who told me I fought well - for a Theban.’
‘The line broke,’ said Parmenion, ‘but you and Pelopidas locked shields and stopped their advance. When Pelopidas was struck down, wounded in seven places, you stood over his body and protected it until the Spartans came up to support you.’
‘You know a great deal about me,’ said Epaminondas, ‘while I know little about you. Was Xenophon your lover?’
‘No, friends only. Is it important?’
Epaminondas spread his hands. ‘Only in so far as I must trust his judgement. He says you are a gifted strategos. Is he right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Excellent, no false modesty. I cannot abide a man who cloaks his talents.’ The Theban rose. ‘If you are not tired from your long ride, we will walk around the city and become acquainted with your new home.’
Epaminondas led Parmenion through to the front of the house and out on to the wide main street heading south to Electra’s Gates. Parmenion had ridden through these gates only an hour before, but now he stopped to examine the reliefs carved in the stone gateway. The figure of a man, hugely muscled, was shown attacking a beast with many heads. ‘Heracles’ battle with the Hydra,’ said the Theban. ‘It was carved by Alcamenes. There is more of his work to the north-west.’
Together the two men walked around the walls of Thebes, through the market-places, passing houses built of white marble and other smaller dwellings of sun-dried clay bricks, painted white. Everywhere there were people, and Parmenion was struck by the variety of colour in the clothing and in the decoration upon house walls. The streets also were paved and decorated with mosaics, unlike the hard-packed earth of Sparta’s roads. Parmenion stopped and stared at a woman sitting on a low wall. She wore a dress of red, edged with gold, and silver pendants hung from her ears. Her lips were impossibly red, her hair a gold he had never seen.
She saw him and rose smoothly. ‘A gift for the goddess?’ she enquired.
‘What gift?’ asked Parmenion. She giggled and Epaminondas stepped in.
‘He is a stranger to Thebes, doubtless he will give the gift on another day.’ Taking Parmenion’s arm, he steered the young man away from the girl.
‘What gift did she desire?’
‘She is a priestess of the Temple of Aphrodite and she wanted to bed you. It would have cost forty obols. One obol goes to the temple, the rest to the priestess.’
‘Incredible!’ whispered Parmenion.
They walked on and made their way slowly through the crowds thronging the market stalls. ‘I have never seen so much waiting to be sold - so many trinkets and items of little value,’ remarked Parmenion.
‘Little value?’ replied Epaminondas. ‘They are pleasing to look at, or to wear. There is value in that, surely? But then I am forgetting you are a Spartan; you like to live in rooms with one chair made of sharp sticks and a bed with a mattress of thorns.’
‘Not quite,’ responded Parmenion, smiling. ‘We occasionally allow ourselves the treat of sleeping naked on a cold stone floor!’
‘A Spartan with a sense of humour - no wonder you were unpopular with your fellows.’
At last they came to the twin statues of Heracles and Athena, standing at the southern base of the Cadmea.
They were shaped from white marble, and were over twenty feet high.
‘Alcamenes’ greatest achievement,’ said the Theban. ‘When you and I are dust, and forgotten by history, men will marvel at his workmanship.’
‘They are so real, like frozen giants,’ said Parmenion, lowering his voice.
‘If Athena did exist, I would think she would be pleased with his creation. It is said that the model was a priestess of Aphrodite, but then with a body like that it is hardly surprising.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t blaspheme,’ said Parmenion. ‘Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be wrong? The Spartans are very religious, and they have never lost a land battle where the foe had equal numbers.’
‘I like you, Parmenion, and I ask you to consider this: Sparta is the only city to retain a regular army, magnificently trained, superbly disciplined. Could that be the reason they win battles?’
‘Perhaps it is both.’
‘Spoken like an ambassador,’ said the Theban, with a broad smile. He led Parmenion to an open square where seats and tables had been placed beneath canvas awnings to block the sun. They sat at an empty table and a young boy wandered over and bowed.
‘Bring us some water and a few honeycakes,’ ordered Epaminondas. As they ate, he questioned Parmenion about his life in Sparta and the full story behind his departure. He listened in silence as the Spartan talked of his life and of his love for Derae.
‘Falling in love is like gripping a sword by the blade,’ said the Theban. ‘You have it in your hand, but at great cost. We stopped sending victims for Cassandra more than thirty years ago. Athens abandoned the vile practice ten years since. It
makes no sense.’
‘It placates the gods,’ said Parmenion, with the ghost of a smile.
‘I’ll not worship any being who demands the blood of innocence,’ responded the Theban. He gazed up at the citadel on the acropolis; it was surrounded by a high wall on which Parmenion could see sentries walking. ‘So, young strategos, merely for the sake of debate, how would you retake the Cadmea - if you were a Theban?’
‘I would not bother. I would take the city.’
‘You would conquer Thebes in order to save it?’
‘How many citizens live in or around this city? Twenty thousand? Thirty?’ asked Parmenion.
‘More, but I do not know the exact number,’ replied the Theban, leaning forward and lowering his voice.
‘And how many Spartans in the garrison?’
‘Eight hundred.’
Parmenion lifted his goblet and drained his water. ‘Is there a well there?’
‘No.’
‘Then I would encourage the citizens to rise up and besiege the Cadmea - starve the Spartans into submission.’
‘And what would happen when the Spartans drew their swords and opened the gates? There would be panic, the crowd would flee.’
‘If they could open the gates,’ Parmenion agreed. ‘But what if they were secured from the outside? Then there would be no way out, unless the soldiers lowered themselves by ropes. I don’t think I can recall a battle where a phalanx advanced by dropping down on the enemy.’
‘Interesting,’ said Epaminondas, ‘merely as a theoretical strategy, of course. But I like you, young man, and I think it likely that we shall become friends. Now let us move on, there are many things to see.’
‘It is a wonderful city,’ said Parmenion later as the two men returned to Epaminondas’ white-walled home. A servant brought them platters of cheese and bread and they sat on a first-floor balcony, enjoying the cool of the shade below the towering Cadmea.
‘You have not seen one tenth of it,’ Epaminondas told him. ‘Originally the Cadmea was the city, and Thebes grew up around its base. Tomorrow we will see the Theatre, and I will show you the grave of Hector and the Great North Gate.’
‘With respect, I would sooner see the training ground. My muscles ache from the ride and I would like to run.’
‘Then it shall be as you say.’
That night Parmenion slept in a room at the top of the house, and a cool easterly wind blew in through the open window. He dreamt of an ancient temple with huge, broken columns. An old woman was there, lying on a pallet bed beside an altar; he took her hand and gazed down into her blind eyes. It was a curious dream, and he awoke in the depths of the night feeling calm and strangely refreshed.
Lying back, he thought of Nestus and the terrible fear in the man’s eyes, and remembered with sorrow the look on Hermias’ face as he had swung round with the bloody sword in his hands. Hermias was his friend no longer - worse, Parmenion had seen in him the beginnings of hate.
Through all the years of his childhood Hermias had been his one ally, loyal and steadfast. It hurt the young Spartan that such a gulf should have come between them. But that is yet another price I must pay, he thought, to achieve my revenge.
Revenge. The word stirred in him like a living thing -writhing, growing, dissolving the memories of the dream and the calm that followed it. Revenge will be neither simple nor swift, he told himself. I must bide my time, learn the ways of this new city, seek out the rebels who hate the Spartans as I do. But I must act with care. His thoughts turned to Epaminondas. Here was a man to cultivate - a great warrior, but also a thinker. Parmenion rose from the bed and drew the Sword of Leonidas from its scabbard, the moonlight reflecting on the blade and turning it to silver. A longing began in him then to plunge the blade again and again into the hearts of his enemies, to see it dripping with their blood. Do I have the patience? he asked himself. How long can I wait?
Xenophon’s words echoed in his mind: ‘The good general - if he has a choice - does not engage in battle until he is sure he can win, no more than a warrior will charge into the fight with a piece of iron ore. He will wait until the armourer has forged from it a blade with a killing edge.’
Parmenion drew in a deep, calming breath and sheathed the sword. ‘You are right as always, Xenophon. And I miss you. I will bide my time.’ Returning toJu’s bed he dozed for a while, cascading images flowing through his mind. The General’s Games, his mother’s death, Derae running on the training ground, Derae lying beneath him in the oak grove, Nestus dying, drowning in his own blood.
And he dreamt he was walking on a dark hillside beneath a crimson sky. A white tree was growing there, its trunk made up of gaping skulls obscenely wedged together. Swords and spears, gripped by skeletal hands, were its branches, and the fruits of the tree were severed heads, dripping blood to the ground. Where the gore touched the earth dark flowers grew, the blooms in the shape of faces. A cold wind moaned across the flowers and Parmenion seemed to hear a thousand distant whispers sighing, ‘Spare me! Spare me!’
A shadow moved upon the hillside and the Spartan swung to see a hooded figure rise up before the tree. ‘What do you wish for, young warrior?’ came a woman’s voice from within the hood.
‘Blood and vengeance,’ he replied.
‘You shall have it,’ she told him.
Parmenion awoke to the dawn and joined Epaminondas on the lower terrace for breakfast. The Theban was wearing a simple tunic of grey-green which made his pale, pockmarked face seem sallow and unhealthy. But his dark eyes were bright and his smile open and friendly as Parmenion joined him.
‘You mentioned a run, Parmenion. Are you an athlete?’ ‘I am fast, and should have represented Sparta in the Olympics. But I made a mistake in the final race and was edged out by Leonidas.’
‘Interesting. There is a man in Thebes who runs with great speed. He is a Spartan from the citadel: his name is Meleager.’
‘I have heard of him. Leonidas beat him by ten paces a year ago.’
‘You think you could beat him?’
Parmenion broke bread and dipped it into a bowl of onions, soft cheese and oil. ‘Unless he has grown wings.’
‘How much money do you have?’ Epaminondas asked.
‘I signed over my house to Xenophon, in return for which he gave me a hundred and eighty drachms and the bay mare. It will not last long.’
‘Indeed it will not. Does Meleager know of you?’
Parmenion shrugged. ‘He will know of my name, but what has this to do with the money I hold?’
‘Here in Thebes we wager on races. If you could beat Meleager - and no one else has - you could treble, perhaps quadruple your money.’
Parmenion leaned back in his chair. No one wagered in Sparta, it was considered vulgar. But it would be a fine way to extend his finances. At present he had barely enough money to see him through to the spring. If he did quadruple the amount, he would be able to eke out a careful existence for at least two years. But what if you lose? he asked himself. Races were tough, the runners using elbows and shoulders to barge their way through. Then there was the danger of being tripped, or falling. Nothing was certain in competition.
‘I will think on it,’ said Parmenion.
The lolaus training ground was bordered by oak trees to the north and west. To the east was the shrine to Artemis of the Glory, a high-columned temple dedicated to the goddess of the hunt, and to the south was the legendary Grave of Hector, the mighty Trojan warrior slain by Achilles during the war with Troy.
As Parmenion stretched the muscles of his thighs and groin, prior to his training run, he gazed at Hector’s tomb. It was of marble, decorated with raised reliefs, carvings which showed his valiant battle with the Greek hero. Parmenion had always felt a great admiration for Hector.
Most Spartans spoke of Achilles, for he was the victor, and yet it seemed to Parmenion that Hector had shown the greater courage. An oracle had warned Hector that to fight Achilles would mean death, for his opponent was i
nvincible. During the ten-year Trojan war both men had studiously avoided single combat. And then, one bright morning, Hector had seen Achilles riding towards him in a bronze chariot, his armour - caught in the sunlight -seeming to blaze with white fire. The two men had met on the field of combat - and Hector won. He struck down Achilles with a terrible blow to the neck, and watched his nemesis writhe in his death throes.
What a glory for Hector, what a weight lifted from his heart! Now he would see his baby son grow to manhood, now he would know again the peace which the oracle had stolen. He knelt by the body and tore the white plumed helmet from the head - only to find himself gazing down on the dead face of Patroclus, Achilles’ lover. Hector staggered back, shocked, confused. He ran to a Greek prisoner. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded. ‘Why was Patroclus wearing Achilles’ armour?’
The man could not meet Hector’s fierce eyes, but looked down. ‘Achilles has decided to return home. He will fight no more,’ he said.
Oh, but he would. Hector knew that. In killing Patroclus he had hastened his own doom. Leaping into his chariot, he galloped his horses back into the city of Troy and waited for the challenge he knew must come.
Within the hour Achilles was at the gates....
Parmenion finished his exercises and walked to the tomb, laying his hand upon it. ‘You went out to meet him, Hector,’ he said. ‘That was bravely done. And you died as a man should, facing his enemy.’
The bones of Hector had been brought from the ruins of Troy and buried in Thebes because of another oracle which said, ‘Thebans in the city of Cadmos, your country shall have innocent wealth if you bring out of Asia the bones of Hector. Carry them home and worship the hero by the decree of Zeus.’
The Thebans had obeyed. Every year, according to Epaminondas, they declared a holy day for Hector and a great celebration was held at the training ground, where men and women danced and drank in honour of the Trojan. And wealth had followed, in trade with Athens in the south and the exporting of goods north to Thessaly and Macedonia, to the Illyrians and the Thracians. Thebes was awash with coin.