“King Xerxes,” Jamsheed corrected as he tied off his horse.
“King to some,” Leonidas said, “not to us.”
“Then I suppose I need not address you as king either,” Jamsheed said, “since you are not my king.”
“You haven’t yet,” Leonidas noted.
“Gentlemen,” Idas’s voice was rough and Leonidas noted a knotted scar across the front of the throat. “We come here to talk, not argue.”
“I do not argue with words,” Leonidas said. He lightly tapped the pommel of his sword. “I argue with this.”
“Who is this, my lord?” Idas nodded toward Cyra who stood silent in the shadows cast by the trees.
“She’s from the Oracle at Delphi,” Leonidas said.
A cloud passed over Idas’s face. “Why is she with you, Lord?”
“I thought I could use some advice,” Leonidas said. “And I do not believe it is your place to question me, Idas. This is not Athens where any can use their tongues with impertinence.”
Idas bowed his head a half an inch. “My apologies, king.”
Leonidas turned to the Persian. “What do you want?”
Jamsheed sat on a log with a flourish of his gold lined cloak. “I come to seek peace.”
“With an army behind you,” Leonidas said.
“My king’s army comes whatever you say,” Jamsheed said. “It can come in peace or it can come in war. The Ionians have already made peace. Many have even joined us.”
Leonidas noted that the Athenian Idas shifted his feet in the dirt. While Sparta was the land muscle of Greece, Athens provided the sea power. And Ionia was across the Aegean, much closer to the Persians than their fellow Greeks. The Ionians had asked for help from their Greek cousins and Athens had spent months debating while the Ionians watched Xerxes’ massive army come closer and they ultimately made the sane decision to side with the east over the west rather than be destroyed.
“And,” Jamsheed let the word hang in the air for several seconds. “The Thessalians are wavering. Although that might be too impartial a way of putting it. They know they will be the first to bear the brunt of our assault. Emissaries from my king are speaking to them now. We are confident they will listen to reason.”
Leonidas was watching the others, noting their reactions. Loxias’s face was inscrutable; something the king was used to. He could see a vein pulsing on the side of Eusibius’s face, anger barely kept in check. He knew the young man was like most of his comrades; ready to fight, bleed and die, rather than submit to the Persians. And Idas, the Athenian, was the most interesting in that he was studying Leonidas rather than focusing on the Persian. Leonidas knew that Idas must have heard all this already from Jamsheed.
“Then why is your king sending his army?” Leonidas asked. “It sounds as if he has already conquered Greece.”
Jamsheed laughed. “I have some excellent wine tied off on my saddle. Perhaps you would care to partake, king?”
Before Leonidas could reply, Loxias was at the Persian’s horse, untying the strap and carrying a leather flask to the king.
Leonidas took it from Loxias and extended it to the Persian. “You first, my friend.”
Jamsheed laughed. “You fear poison?”
“I fear bad wine,” Leonidas replied. “It is well known that Persians drink swill from their goats.”
Jamsheed flushed in anger. He said nothing, taking a deep drink then offered it back to the king. Leonidas took a drink, then turned and offered it to Cyra, to the astonishment of all the other men. The priestess nodded her head in thanks and drank deeply, before passing it on to Eusibius. The young warrior was confused, glanced at his king, then drank, before passing it on to Loxias.
“Not as good as what we produce in Sparta,” Leonidas noted.
“‘We’?” Jamsheed repeated. “With all due respect, king, you produce nothing. Your slaves produce everything. I understand there are five male slaves for every Spartan male.”
“We don’t have slaves,” Eusibius said.
“Your helots then,” Jamsheed corrected, indicating he knew something of the way things were in Sparta. “The ratio is five to one, is it not?”
Leonidas didn’t rise to the bait. A helot rebellion was something every Spartan feared and one of the major reasons for keeping such a fiercely trained standing army. It was hard sometimes to figure which had begot which — the helot power allowing the free-born men to train all the time, or the need to train all the time to keep the helots in shackles. It was a precarious balance, unique in Greece.
“What do you offer us?” Loxias asked Jamsheed.
Leonidas didn’t hesitate. He was on his feet in a flash, his sword drawn. He slammed it into Loxias’s right side, where the armor was weakest at the joint, punching through. Leonidas couldn’t tell if the shocked look on Loxias’s face was from the steel piercing his vitals or the unexpected attack. It didn’t matter because the look was gone, replaced by the slackness of death as Loxias collapsed in the dirt, blood seeping out. Leonidas removed his sword, wiped the blade on the pale skin on Loxias’s face, leaving broad red marks, a harsher imitation of the rouge on Jamsheed’s cheeks. Then Leonidas removed the scarlet cloak from the body.
No one else had moved throughout the action. Jamsheed’s face was inscrutable. Eusibius was surprised but motionless. Idas was shaking his head ever so slightly. And Leonidas felt Cyra’s eyes on him as if a red-hot blaze were in the center of his back.
“I am king. I do not know what this—” he kicked Loxias’s body with his boot—“told you, or offered you, but he is food for worms now. He does not, did not ever, speak for Sparta.”
Jamsheed took another draft of wine. “I knew that. But he got me here to speak to one who does speak for Sparta.”
Leonidas’s hand was tight on the pommel of the sword, knuckles white. He faced the Persian. Jamsheed slowly lowered the wine and stood. He took an unconscious step back. “I am an envoy.”
“Then act like one.” Leonidas finally sheathed his sword. “Do not try to manipulate my people against me.”
Jamsheed sat back down. “I did not have to say much to him. What he did, he did on his own. I understand you are not the only Spartan king. That another rules along with you.”
Even Leonidas wasn’t certain when his ancestors had decided to go the unique route of having two kings instead of the more traditional one. It made sense though in two important aspects: the two kings acted as a check against each other; and it allowed one king to lead an army away from home, while leaving a king behind to rule.
Leonidas wanted some of the wine to take away the bad taste in his mouth but he didn’t want to ask the Persian for the flask. “Then why didn’t you go see him?”
“Because I have been informed that if there is to be war, you will be the one leading the Spartans in the field while he remains in Sparta. Therefore you have more at stake.”
Leonidas wanted to laugh. “I have been told by the Delphic Oracle that I am to die in battle soon. That gives you little leverage with whatever you think I might have at stake.”
Jamsheed was quiet for a moment as he mulled this over, and Idas took the opportunity to speak. “Xerxes — King Xerxes—” he amended at Jamsheed’s look—“has already had an advance force dig a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula so there will be no repeat of the storm that saved Greece last time. And he is bridging the Hellesponte so his army can cross. He had been preparing this assault ever since taking the crown. His greatest desire is to avenge our victory at Marathon.”
“The construction of the bridge,” Idas continued, “is why we could not sally forth with our fleet and keep the Persians from entering Europe.”