The Flowers of Adonis by Rosemary Sutcliff
He stood over me, and I saw how his hand went to his dagger, and for an instant my breath checked in my throat. And then I knew that he had felt for it only as a man feels for his spear before he lies down to sleep in wolf country, and it came to me that in this palace where he was an honoured guest, he never lay down to sleep without making sure that his dagger was to hand.
He lay down beside me, and pulled the great bearskin rug over us both. And then his darkness came between me and the stars, and I felt the hard urgent weight of his body on mine. Yet he did not seek to come in to me at once, as I have known some men do; instead, he began to make a fierce sweet love-play with me, such as the stallions on my father’s runs would make sometimes with the mares at mating time. I had not known that kind of play since before the slavers came, I had never known it like this; and all my body woke and answered to it in joy.
I lay with my first lad when my breasts had scarce begun to swell, for in my country we let our girls run free, though when once the bride-price is paid, it is a different story. We had coupled freely as young animals, though less sure at first of how it should be done. And after the slavers came there had been others; in the house near the Temple of Hermes, and in the Satrap’s palace. There had been a few who made me want to laugh, because they were too fat or not up to what they wished to do, a few I would have liked to kill. There had been a few who had made me sorry — those every pleasure-house girls knows, who came because they were ugly or crippled and could never have except for payment, what other men can get free and for love. There were a few who had even given me pleasure. They came and went, and I had learned long since to take them as they came.
But when I opened my thighs for Alkibiades, it was as though it was for the first time. And when he came up into me, the great waves of his coming were made of flame, beating, beating through all the dark woman-parts of my body, filling all of me, shimmering through me like the high notes of a flute, until the shrill white sweetness was almost past my bearing; and I clung to him, while all my body seemed to melt and I no longer knew which was flesh of his flesh and which was flesh of mine, or where his spirit ended and mine began.
And that too, was for the first time.
The tide ebbed, and we parted into our separate bodies; and he slept. He slept deeply and quietly, as a man sleeps who has eaten his fill after a hard day’s hunting; arms and legs wide-flung and almost all the bed-rugs tangled round him. But there was no sleep for me, through what was left of that night. For I knew that I had found a more bitter bondage than ever the slave market had forged upon me. Something, some part of my life, he had taken from me, and I belonged to him now, whoever had paid the slave price for me. And he would go away and forget — I thought suddenly that he had never asked my name, so I would not even be a name in his memory — and laugh, and lie with other women on other nights that would mean as much and as little to him as this one night of all my life had done. And I should be left with nothing, yet still bound to him past all breaking free.
He was a boy in some things, and cruel as a boy. He was a great lover of women, and proud of his skill with them, but he never understood what it meant to a woman to be loved by Alkibiades. It was the one thing in which he ever thought too little of himself. But that knowledge came to me at a later time. That night I knew only that I loved him and hated him. I heard his voice again in the darkness, saying, ‘I can’t take the risk, darling.’ He had made sure of me by a way as certain as death and more cruel. He had taken all that remained to me of freedom; bound me to him so that I could not betray him to Sparta. And for no other reason.
I remember propping myself on one arm, and looking down at him as he slept. The first water-grey light of dawn was creeping into the little courtyard. A bird was singing in the Satrap’s new paradise; and from the young men’s quarters of the palace I heard a gamecock crow, answered by another, farther off. Soon the slaves would be astir, and all night there must be guards within call. But he lay defenceless, sleeping, his face turned a little toward me. I did not know that I had reached down to feel for the dagger at his waist, until my hand closed on the grip. Afterwards the guards would come running. Afterwards it would be death for me too, but I did not care. Hair’s breadth by hair’s breadth I eased the curved blade from its sheath. It came free into my hand, and I sat back, looking at his exposed throat. But I could not do it that way, as one slaughters a sheep; not to Alkibiades. I had only to draw back the rug a little, to come at the place where I had felt his heart beat slow-pounding against my breast and belly.
I drew back the heavy folds of fur. He stirred, but did not wake. The marks of my teeth were on his shoulder. I sat there for a time — it could not have been as long as it seemed — with the knife in my hand, before I knew that I could not kill him.
I let the rug settle again, and got up — I was crying I think — I think — it is so long ago; and went quietly into the sleeping chamber and huddled on my clothes. On my way to the postern I had to pass again the place where he lay. I checked and looked down at him. He had stirred a little, flinging out his arm, but not toward the empty place beside him where I had lain. He would be waking soon, and I must hurry. But when he woke, he should know what had been in my heart. The naked dagger lay where I had left it lying on the grass. I picked it up and reached for a low-hanging spray of the almond tree and cut it through; three newly-opened flowers shone on it, fragile and grey as the ghosts of flowers in the morning twilight. I laid it with the dagger among the dark harsh folds of fur in his breast.
Then I ran for the side entrance. The door opened easily, and I was out in the narrow way behind the chariot court. Two guards loomed out of the shadows and barred my way. But when I showed them my face, and the flute that I carried, they laughed and let me through. They must have been well used to the night-time comings and goings of Alkibiades’ women.
13
The Seaman
Alkibiades and our fat Satrap walks everywhere with their arms on each other’s shoulders and seems uncommon pleased with each other all that spring. On the edge of summer a Spartan commission arrives in Karia, and Tissaphernes goes down with a splendid retinue to meet them. There’s not much need to wonder what they come for, what with Tissaphernes cutting the promised daily drachma to a half, and no sign of the long-promised Phoenician fleet; and the state of things in Ionia can’t have suited the Ephors too well.
Alkibiades, left behind in Sardis, wanders up and down that fine new garden like a caged leopard, or sits with his hands across his knees whistling half under his breath and staring at nothing, or joins me by fits and starts in the pleasure houses of the lower town. Well, I won’t deny it’s good to have his company again; but when he was left behind in Sparta, it wasn’t that way he passed his time, and it seemed to me that Sardis was taking its toll of him. I says to him one day, ‘We’re going to pieces in this place, you and I — let’s cut adrift and get a few ships together —’
He was lounging on cushions in a jasmine arbour, feeding a little tame green bird with millet seeds from his hand, and lazy as a eunuch. Soon, I thought, he would grow fat. ‘The old sweet dream of piracy,’ he says, and laughs. ‘Ah now, Pilot, it does a man no harm to rest for a while in the shade before he turns to the next stage of his journey.’
‘And that is?’
‘Tissaphernes’ return, in the first place.’
‘And after that?’
‘That depends on what happens in Karia; on what kind of mood he returns in; on a great many things.’ He looked up from the little green bird. There was kohl on his eyelids and he reeked of the saffron crocus perfume that the men wear in those parts. He says, ‘I’m playing a lone tune, Antiochus dear, I have to play it by ear.’
A few days later Tissaphernes gets back, and word goes round the palace that he’s in a foul temper and his wives and his slaves will suffer for it. But Alkibiades isn’t his wife nor yet his slave. And he comes back from talking with the Satrap on the morning after his return, with
We rode out over the Magnesian plain, the grass already beginning to dry with the onset of summer. But we did not try the falcon. Instead, when we were well clear of habitation we talked. There is nowhere one can talk safely in Sardis.
I says, ‘Well?’
‘Well enough. Tissaphernes has quarrelled with the Commission. They were sharper witted than poor old Chalcidius where the treaty was concerned, for one thing.’
‘Of course you never did send a full copy of that treaty back to Sparta,’ I says. ‘It must have come as something of a shock to them.’
‘It did.’ Alkibiades smiles between his horse’s ears. ‘They told Tissaphernes what he could do with it, and I gather he swept out in a passion. The Spartan Commission will not have reassuring news to take home with them.’
‘Is that a good idea, so far as we are concerned?’ I asks. ‘Forgive me, I’m only an ignorant seaman; my brain can’t keep pace with all these doubles and twists.’
‘If our aim was to bide friends with Sparta, no,’ Alkibiades says, and then, ‘There was a time — I think you know it — when I considered allowing Sparta the honour of returning me to Athens. But I can scarcely be expected to remain on kissing terms with a state that plans my — liquidation.’
‘You certainly didn’t, before, when the state was Athens,’ I says.
We rides a little way in silence, and a deer breaks from cover of a thicket and runs across our path; and Alkibiades turns and watches it out of sight. ‘It was not the people,’ he says at last. ‘Not the people in their hearts; it was the party.’
‘The people suffered for it,’ I says; and again he doesn’t answer, but his horse jumps and flinches as though from a sudden jab on the bit.
But when at last he looks round again, he’s half smiling, though not with his eyes.
‘Our fat Satrap has cut the Spartan’s pay and it’s in arrears, and the morale of the Spartan fleet is doing exactly what the morale of a fleet always does when pay is long in arrears. He has kept the Phoenician fleet out of action — though they could sweep the Athenians out of the sea. All this will be known in Athens as well as it is in Sparta. And as well as it is known that Alkibiades is in Sardis and has the ear of the Satrap. Add that Tissaphernes is out of humour, to put it mildly, with all Sparta, for their stiff-necked commission; and I think we have enough in the pot for the moment. We will leave matters to simmer for a little.’
‘And when you reckon they’ve simmered long enough?’ But in my bones and belly I know already, and the whole pace of life seems to quicken round me.
‘Then, my dear, I shall send you with a message to the senior fleet officers at Samos.’
*
And so a bit more than a month later, there I am, standing in the colonnaded terrace of one of the tall houses of Samos, looking out over the town, while behind me three Admirals of the Samos fleet sits round a table and discusses a letter from Alkibiades.
I seen that letter before it was sealed, and it was beautifully to the point; not a word wasted. Alkibiades offered to return to Athens bringing with him the friendship and support of Tissaphernes and through him, of the Great King; and he made only one condition; that the democracy which had outlawed him must be overthrown.
Behind me, I hears their voices murmuring on. There’d been a spot of disagreement as to whether, though I know what was in the letter I brought, I should be present at the meeting. Strombichides, the senior Naval Commander, had been dead against it, but Paesander had persuaded him and Charminius that it might be useful to have me there in case there was some question I could answer or point that I could clear up. We knew each other, vague like, having met at one or two of Alkibiades’ parties; but I don’t think ’twas friendship for me that made him take that line. I think he wanted to be sure that if there was trouble, I was up to my ears in it; and his sense of humour made him enjoy the thought that every word of their discussion, however uncomplimentary, would go straight back to Alkibiades, and him not able to do a thing about it. Anything he was not to know would be said at some other meeting that I shouldn’t be told of at all. Incidentally, I was interested to see that Phrynichus — the fourth of the Samos Admirals, and a Democrat of the more rabid kind — hadn’t been told of this one.
‘How do we know that we can trust him?’ Strombichides asks, point blank, behind me. ‘He has betrayed us once already, and now he betrays Sparta.’
‘As to that,’ says Paesander, the politician, ‘one can hardly blame him. Athens condemned him to death on a false charge of blasphemy.’
‘If it was false,’ puts in Charminius in his dry smooth voice.
I looks round at them over my shoulder; Strombichides, who couldn’t have looked anything but a sailor if he tried for a thousand years, and Paesander with his clever, big-jowled face, and little grey Charminius with his dry cough; and Alkibiades’ future lying on the table between them. ‘It was false,’ I says.
Paesander looks round at me. ‘Ah yes, I believe you were present at that unfortunate supper party.’
Charminius gives his damned little cough. ‘But — forgive me — I believe you were drunk. Your recollection may be somewhat hazy.’
‘We were all drunk,’ I says, ‘but not as drunk as that. If you’re going to condemn to death every young man who joins his friends in a mock invocation or a bawdy version of a hymn after supper, you’ll be hard-pressed to find enough survivors in Athens to fight your wars.’
Strombichides nods. He’s a good enough fellow in his way, and a great one for justice.
And Paesander said soothingly, ‘Shall we say, at least, that the charge was greatly exaggerated.’ And I felt myself dismissed from the discussion, and turned my back on them again, propping myself comfortably against one of the painted columns.
Below me, the town curved out on its horned headland, glowing honey-coloured in the evening light, and across the straits that were dark as lapis, stood the hills of Ionia. Alkibiades and I had come down to the coast together, and somewhere among those hills he waited for the word that I was to bring him. I did not wonder he had chosen to send his messenger to Samos instead of to Athens direct. Athens herself, by all accounts, with barely enough ships and men to defend Piraeus and the Long Walls, counted for very little now. All the power and strength of Athens was here, with the whole Athenian fleet that lay at anchor in the harbour, or drawn up on to the strands and slipways, save for the guard-squadron patrolling beyond the harbour mouth. Even from here I could see the swarming activity of the docks and harbour-side; the galleys stripped down for refitting, the forest of masts, the brilliance of new paint reflected in the water. I hadn’t known until then, how homesick I was for the sight of ships and the men of the sea.
Behind me, the three had got back to an earlier stage in their debate. ‘There’s still his betrayal of Sparta,’ Strombichides says. How the man harps on faith-keeping.
Again it’s Paesander who answers him. I begins to realise that of the three, it’s Paesander, for his own good reasons, who’s on Alkibiades’ side. ‘Sparta also has condemned him to death — chiefly, one gathers, for the crime of being too successful. Beside which, he is when one pauses to think, not a Spartan, however good a showing he made as one.’
There’s a silence; and then Strombichides says, ‘Supposing that we admit his excuse for treachery that we believe him to be acting in good faith now, in this promise of support from Persia, how can we be sure that the Great King will carry out his promise?’
‘It is, of course, quite impossible to be in the faintest degree sure of any such thing,’ says Charminius. ‘Alkibiades has always had an overwhelming notion of the power of his own charm and — ahem, personal beauty.’
I wants to turn round and push his yellow teeth down his throat, but I remembers it isn
‘A couple of months ago I would have agreed with you,’ says Paesander’s plump and soothing voice, ‘But since then, Tissaphernes has quarrelled with the Spartan Commissioners. Now, I think we may give considerable weight to his promises.’
‘It’s a hideous gamble,’ says Strombichides.
And Charminius’ dry voice slides in again, ‘It is. But there is more to it than that. Even supposing that the gamble comes off, there is still to be considered the price that he demands — and he drives, you will not deny, an extremely hard bargain.’
‘A full scale revolt to overthrow the government is certainly not a thing to be entered into lightly,’ Strombichides agrees.
‘No one imagines that it is,’ says Paesander. ‘I suggest, in the first place, merely that testing approaches should be made to certain of the officers and men.’
‘Which is to say that you are yourself already committed, at least in mind; and the moment these approaches are made, we are committed with you.’
‘That is so,’ Paesander says, after a moment.
Strombichides says flatly, ‘The fleet are Democrats almost to a man.’
And Charminius in his dry polished voice, ‘That in itself might not be an insuperable difficulty. I imagine the power of Persian gold might have a certain effect on the fleet’s political opinions.’
‘I don’t know the fleet as intimately as you two,’ Paesander says, ‘but it has seemed to me from time to time, that the promise of Alkibiades’ return might have its effect, too.’
‘Aye.’ I knows from the rasping sound that Strombichides is rubbing his short harsh beard up the wrong way, a trick of his when he’s uncertain. ‘It’s a strange thing about that golden boyo. Even after all he’s done against us, after Syracuse itself, he still lies at the bottom of men’s hearts like lees at the bottom of a wine cup. Any mention of his name — you can see it in their faces.’