Not many days later was the Festival of Epona, the Lady of the Foals. It is a season of giving; and then there came another gift to Alkibiades at Bisanthe. A smaller gift; a Scythian gyrfalcon, with bells of gilded silver on her jesses, and a hood tufted with heron hackles, and her own glove of white mare’s hide. And I remember when My Lord pulled on the glove and took her on his fist and unhooded her to gentle her neck-feathers (I have learned that the Greeks do not know how to handle a falcon; but he had been long enough among the Persians and in the North to learn the trick of it), how her eyes were proud and dark and webbed with a golden lustre, like strange jewels that narrowed and dilated in the sunlight.
Alkibiades accepted the gift with grave courtesy, but when the noble and his falconers were gone, he stood there holding the re-hooded falcon on his fist, seeming lost in his own thoughts.
Heraklides said, ‘Medacus does not pay so well as Seuthes.’
Alkibiades smiled into the sun. ‘My dear Heraklides, don’t be so crude. One does not compare the size of gift with gift; and I have no doubt that Medacus is too proud a man to seem to compete with his brother king for the favour of an Athenian adventurer.’
*
For almost a year I rode with the young men behind My Lord; and there were more and always more of the young men. They came in from all the quarters from which the winds blow, for the booty and adventure and the leader to follow, until all the tongues that I have ever heard, even the Persian, sounded round our watch fires, and we had become a little army spread among the three forts from Pactye to Chrysopolis along the Propontis shore. Joined with Seuthes or Medacus it would have been not such a little army. But it never came to joining the three together. There was a bond between them, an alliance, My Lord called it, and for the rest, I think he chose rather to be free than to be bound in with either too closely.
The coastwise cities and settlements had long since thankfully accepted Alkibiades’ protection, and paid a fair price for it, though seldom without grumbling; and so we did not need to raid for our horses any more.
And then, when we were driving off an attack of inland Thracians on Perinthos, I took an arrow-gash in the fleshy part of my arm. It was only a little wound, though jagged where the arrow had torn through. I remember the smart of it, not much worse than a hornet sting. I looked down at it, seeing the torn sleeve of my jacket, and the red dripping through. But we were hot in pursuit, and the speed and the triumph of our going was sharper than the smart of the wound. And I rode on, keeping as close as I could to the big tiger-spot horse that My Lord always rode since Seuthes had given it to him.
But after a time, suddenly the snow-puddled slopes began to darken and swim on my sight, and I found myself falling forward on my horse’s neck, and tried to pull myself back; and then the white-streaked backward-flying ground was rushing up to meet me; there was a thunder of horses’ hooves around and over me, and then only the dark.
The darkness ebbed a little, and there were horses’ hooves again; but under me, the hooves of only one horse, and I knew vaguely that I was being carried across somebody’s saddle; and that my arm was on fire, with little flames that jumped as a forge fire does under the bellows, with every beat of the hooves. And then there was darkness again.
And then lamplight; and I was lying under a rug in a little room that I did not know, with an old woman, who I did not know either, bending over me. I tried to ask where I was, and I suppose I must have managed it after a fashion, for she cried a little and kissed me with old soft sour-smelling lips like withered leaves, and told me, ‘Perinthos’, and said that I was one of those brave ones who had saved them. But I was too tired to listen to her properly; and she brought me warm milk with herbs in it, and I slept, despite the throbbing of my arm.
When I woke again, it was a full, daylight waking. And I lay for a while staring up at the rafters and feeing the smart of my wound and the rough warmth of the blanket, and wondering what it was that hurt me so, far down in my dark inmost places where I could not quite remember. And then I remembered; and knew that the hurt was because they had not carried me back as we always carried our wounded, to the fort, but abandoned me at Perinthos like a mere broken chattel.
I did not even trouble to ask the woman stirring something in a crock over the fire, whether Alkibiades had brought me; I knew well enough that he would not turn back from his hunting on my account.
But when the woman brought fresh rags to replace the fouled ones on my arm, I saw that they had been torn from Alkibiades’ tunic — I knew the pattern well enough, for I had worked the border myself. I said, ‘Old Mother, where did you get these?’
She must have thought that I was complaining, for she said sharply, ‘They were round your arm when the young man brought you in; and I washed them for use again. Do you think that I can be tearing up my best linen to keep you in fresh bandages?’
‘No, it is that I recognised the tunic it was torn from,’ I said; and I remember fumbling out the hand of my sound arm, surprised that I was so weak, and touching the tattered embroidery at one end, because it seemed to ease the ache of being abandoned.
I said, ‘Was there any word as to my staying here? Any word of sending for me?’
‘The man who brought you gave me gold, and bade me keep you until one came to fetch you again. I know no more,’ she said. And then (for the crying and kissing mood was quite gone from her), ‘What a woman who’s known your kind of life — Oh, I know your sort, my girl — should be doing riding with the Lord Alkibiades’ men for our saving, I’d not be knowing. Not that I’m thinking it’s for us, you’d do it. But he’ll come for you, whoever he is. You’re not the kind that every man finds to his taste, but you’re the kind that gets into the blood of one here and there.’
I laughed, and asked her how she knew, and she said, ‘I was such another, before you were born.’
But I waited so long, and my arm was healed, all but a little place at one end of the tear. And still nobody came, nobody, nobody …
And then one day, standing in the doorway of the little house, I saw some of the Bisanthe men clattering up the street — there was much coming and going between the settlements and the forts, by that time. They passed without knowing me, for I was in the shadow of the door; and I stood and watched them until they were gone from sight; and then I went back into the house — the old woman was out at the market — and laid a little gold brooch that Alkibiades had given me, on the bed-place for her to find. Then I went out into the city, to the Temple of the Dioscurii, which was always the gathering place for our horse bands in Perinthos.
They were there; but at first they did not want to take me back, saying that they had no orders concerning me, that my wound could scarcely be healed yet, and if I foundered on the way there would be bad trouble for them.
‘This is a new thing!’ I said. ‘Since when have you treated me as though I were something tender out of the women’s quarters? Then, if you will not let me ride with you, turn your backs, and let me steal a horse, and I’ll ride after in your dust.’ And when they still raised difficulties, I said, ‘This is not the only place in Perinthos where there are horses for stealing; but if I can steal no other horse, I swear that when you are gone, I will walk every foot of the way, and take my chance of falling into the hands of the tribesmen!’
So in the end they let me have one of the re-mounts and a corner to myself to sleep in, and I rode back with them next morning.
The man on the gate said that Alkibiades was down at the landing beach. I was past remembering, by then, the behaviour fitting to Alkibiades’ woman, and I went down the sloping path to the creek, not caring for the glances that I knew men were casting to each other behind my back. There was no snow here, and the water was deeply green as beryl against the pale winter reeds, the newly-painted sides of the Icarus staining it with reflected crimson. My Lord was watching the men at work lashing a new hull cable about her. He turned round when he heard my footsteps, and his brows drew to
gether.
He said ‘Timandra! I bade the old hag keep you in Perinthos until I sent for you.’
And I said, ‘I waited long and long, and it seemed to me that I was forgotten and that maybe you would never send.’
His eyes moved over me and slowly the frown cleared a little. He said, ‘I would have sent when I judged that it was time … How did you get here?’
‘I made your men who rode into Perinthos yesterday bring me back with them — they did not want to, but I made them. It is no blame of theirs.’
‘That, I do not doubt, for I know your ways, Timandra.’ He gave some orders to the men at work on the lashing, then turned back to me and said, ‘Go up to the keep chamber.’
I did not move. ‘Because you are angry that I disobeyed you?’
‘Partly. But also because you look like a ghost.’
‘I am well enough,’ I said.
He made a sound between laughter and exasperation, and stooped and caught me up and turned back to the path to the water gate. I put my sound arm round his neck, and the dryness of his hair was under my hand, harsh and living like a horse’s mane, and the slow strong beating of his heart was against me, and my own heart said, ‘I am home! I am home! What are my father’s hunting runs to me?’
He carried me through the water gate and across the court and up to the great chamber, and laid me on the bed-place.
I wondered if he would make love to me then. I was spent with the long ride and the ache of the half-healed wound; but I had never had mercy from Alkibiades; I did not expect it. I did not even want it.
But he only said, ‘Show me your arm.’
I held it out, pulling the sleeve of my tunic; and he drew his finger down the puckered reddish scar with the little crusted bit at one end. ‘That was a gash!’ he said. ‘But it has almost healed. It was as well we left you with the wise woman at Perinthos.’
‘I had rather you brought me back here, as we have always done with our wounded,’ I said.
He smiled at me suddenly. ‘There’s a difference. Little bitch-wolf, don’t turn into an Amazon; I like you best with both breasts, and this soft brown hide of yours patterned only with stags and star-flowers and crimson-tipped lilies.’
‘It is only a little scar. Soon it will fade to nothing,’ I said, seizing on the thing that was quickest understood and countered.
‘That one, yes. Nevertheless, you’ll not ride with the war band again,’ he said.
I felt as though he had hit me; but I could not quite believe it, not yet. ‘I thought it seemed good to you, that I should ride with you,’ I said in a little.
He put his hands over my breasts, and I felt the dark shadows of the bones at his finger-tips, as I had seen them with the firelight shining through; and he leaned forward and kissed me, hot and fierce but quickly over, his mouth still half laughing over mine. ‘I’ve held to you through five summers; and I’ve a wish to keep you a few summers more. Next time you stop an arrow, it may not be in the arm.’
‘And because of that, you will leave me behind like some stupid Athenian woman, and ride without me?’
‘Not like an Athenian woman, stupid or otherwise,’ he said, and I knew that he was laughing at me. ‘Never like an Athenian woman, fox-haired Timandra.’ And then he ceased the laughter, and said, ‘Listen, when first you rode with us we needed every spear. Now, we have many spears. We are an army — a mongrel host, I grant you, but an army. It is only when men are at their wits’ end for horses, that they risk their mare: in battle.’
He got off the bed, and stood looking down at me. I wanted to reach up and cling to him, and plead. But it was never any use to plead with Alkibiades; he would do of his own will, or he would not do at all.
‘Remember the years of the great campaign here in the North,’ he said. ‘You did not help to fight the galleys. How then, is it different now?’
But it was different now. I had been his woman then, nothing more, nothing less, and had asked only what a woman asks. And My Lord had loved me in his way. But he was of his own people, as I am of mine, and a woman had small place in his world, outside the women’s quarters. For a while I had been set free of that, I had stepped forward into his world, beside him, and had learned to ask for other things. And now I was to be thrust back into the women’s quarters again.
I shook my head; I could not speak, and turned my face away from him. I knew that if I tried to tell him, he would not understand. It was not in him to understand.
‘I’ll send one of the slaves to bring you some food,’ he said. ‘Then you must sleep.’
And he went out, rattling the door to behind him. I heard his feet on the stair, and a gull swept past the window, calling like a lost soul, against the cold blown winter blue.
I pulled the wolf skin rug over me and rolled on to my side, curling up over the pain that was like a stone in my belly; the empty ache of loss for things that would not come again.
Once, I had thought that I might be with child; and I had made ready the herbs to kill the babe before it knew life. I had thought that I would do even that, to keep my freedom of his world, where I could not ride, burdened with women’s business. But there had been no need. It had been only the cold and the hard riding binding up my flow, and the next moon all had been as usual. And I had been half glad that I had not needed the herbs, yet half torn with grief that there was no child of My Lord’s sowing in my body after all. Maybe I would not have used the herbs. I do not know. I think that for that one gain, I could have lost My Lord’s world and not grieved over much.
*
But to have lost it all for a little gash in the arm …
I have cried only a few times in my life, and that was not one of them. I lay hunched over the pain, with my knees drawn up, as a child lies in its mother’s body; and dragged my nails across and across my breasts and throat and cheeks, until, when I put my fingers to my mouth, I could taste the blood on them, salt as tears.
23
The Soldier
The autumn after Alkibiades left us, the Spartans caught Konon with his squadron at sea, captured several of his ships and chased him into Mitylene on Lesbos and blockaded him there. The news came to Samos, but there was nothing we could do. We, the fleet, agreed with our new Admirals on that. It was about the only time we ever did agree with them.
The great days of the Samos fleet were past, and quite frankly, even if we left Samos an open door for the Spartans to walk in through, we could not muster enough ships to stand a hope of being able to break the blockade. For a while it looked as if we must lost the rest of the squadron, and Lesbos itself, and have the Aegean torn wide open again.
But again Athens put out one of those superb efforts that still, in those days, sometimes made us proud to call ourselves Athenians. Somehow, yet again — we gathered the story little by little —she was conjuring a makeshift fleet out of nowhere. Every citizen fit to bear arms or stand on a heaving deck was being pressed into service, slaves were being offered their freedom to serve as rowers aboard the hundred or so triremes. They were stripping the temples of gold and silver to furnish new rams and patch up old ships better fitted to the breaker’s yard — said the reports that reached us — than to the open seas. The only thing they seemed well supplied with was Admirals; Charminius and Thrasybulus and Theramenes among them.
Just at the beginning of spring we heard that they were coming — a gallant fleet of lame ducks, coming to drive the fine new Navy of Sparta from the seas.
Every ship that could be spared from the safekeeping of Samos put out to join them; my own Pegasus, the Clyte, the Halkyone …
But the Spartans were out from Mitylene and making south to head us off. When we anchored in the lee of Arginussae, the White Islands, that night, the weather was foul, and even in the shelter of the land the short choppy seas made half the crews sick. We could make out, when the seas lifted us high enough, the stern cressets of the Spartan fleet about five miles away.
The weather
worsened in the night, with sleet driving before a gale from the gulf, and the curdled green seas running in a short murderous swell. ‘They’ll never attack in this Typhon’s brew,’ my pilot said to me, when we made the morning sacrifice as best we could in the shelter of our spread cloaks. And had scarcely said it when the first of the Spartan galleys appeared out of the murk.
No ordered battle line was possible, for them or for us; and they came down on us like a gale-sped skein of wild geese. We fought them all that morning; and Poseidon may know how it came about that we beat them in the end, but assuredly I don’t. Quite suddenly they were falling back on Chios; and we knew that the victory was ours. But there was no heart in us to cheer; and it had not been a victory gained without paying its full price. Sparta lost seventy ships that day; but twelve of ours were sunk, and as many more in a sinking condition, with no hope in those seas and the weather still worsening, of making land. At the time of course we knew nothing of numbers, nothing clearly; we knew only that there were drowned men and floating wreckage in the sea about us; and a trireme with half her outrigger smashed away and her side ripped open below the rowing benches staggered across our bows. But the hissing spray was in our faces, and we were blind with it, and dead tired, and wracked with seasickness though we had long since thrown up all that was in us. And when the orders came, passed back by flag and trumpet from Charminius’ flagship, the Gods forgive us, we obeyed them and headed back for Arginussae. It is hard to see what else we could have done; but the Gods forgive us, none the less.
Once back on dry land, thawing out before great fires lit on the beach, and the first of the drowned, Spartan and Athenian alike, beginning to be washed up at our feet, something of a sense of duty returned to us; there was very nearly a mutiny, and in the end the Admirals gave Thrasybulus grudging leave to take forty ships out again to see what could be done. But by then it was too late, and the seas running too high. We got back empty-handed.