I rushed off to take some wine from Xenophon's private store, which he used for libations during the sacrifices, and returned to find Asteria chatting quietly with several of the Rhodian boys, each of whom was asking her about their own wounds and ailments. Asteria patiently answered their queries as best she could, but I could see from her face that she was drained and exhausted, and I gently led her away from the grateful slingers, and sleeping Nicolaus.
Walking quietly back to the camp followers' quarters, we paused near a high hedge to rest. I was deeply impressed with her work on Nicolaus, and told her as much, but she wearily waved off my compliments.
"I learned about treating foot injuries from some notes left at the palace years ago by Democedes of Croton," she said, "but it was your countryman Hippocrates who perfected the cauterizing technique. I never had the courage to try it, until now. The pain is terrible, but short-lived. Thank the gods it was only his foot. It could have been much worse."
"Worse? His foot was in shreds!"
"True, but Hippocrates recommends the technique for treating hemorrhoids."
I recoiled, and she rolled her eyes at my squeamishness. "Theo, please, let us talk of something else. My spirit needs distracting."
I was not sure what she wished to discuss, but my mind immediately ventured to a question that had been gnawing at me for weeks, afraid to hear the answer from her for fear it might cause her to reconsider her own motives.
"Asteria, you had hardly even spoken to me before. What possessed you to steal into my tent in Cunaxa?"
She looked at me in surprise. "Because I am Lydian, of course," she said.
This response failed to penetrate, which she gathered from my silence.
"Of course, I was born in Miletus," she explained, which only confused me further. "Miletus has been under Lydian rule for centuries, but my mother traces her lineage directly from King Croesus, so I consider myself Lydian, even though the Persians insisted on calling me 'the Milesian.'"
I was thoroughly baffled by now, which seemed to flummox her.
"I'm surprised at you," she said, in exasperation.
"Then we're even," I answered. "I've known Lydians all my life-Athens is full of them-but I've never known one to grant me the favors you did, simply because you were born a Lydian!" I winked, but she ignored, or failed to notice, the jesting tone in my voice.
"Have you ever read Archilochus of Paros?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.
Naturally I had read the old Parian, back when Xenophon and I were schoolboys, but I had retained precious little, and indeed I had to confess that I had understood even less at the time I had read him. To me, his lyric poetry was of the densest sort.
"And you call us barbarians," she said dismissively. "Athenians seem to think that unless their history comes spoon-fed in simple prose straight from Herodotus, it can't be worth listening to."
The conversation had now shifted to a topic with which I was familiar. "Herodotus was a great man," I asserted, straightening my back and raising my chin at this rare chance to demonstrate my superior knowledge. "I once even met the master personally, when I was a young boy and he a very old man-though you can't imagine a crustier old gaffer than he was, and one less likely to attract the favors of a Lydian wench." I pinched her playfully on the haunches but she swatted my hand away.
"Well, since you are such a cultured Athenian," she retorted sarcastically, "you certainly know Herodotus' chronicle of King Candaules of Lydia."
"Of course, but I still dispute your characterization of Herodotus…"
"Would you care for me to recite Archilochus' verse form of the tale? Then you may be better capable of judging the prose of your own leaden-tongued hero."
Ignoring her dismissal of the education and culture I had struggled so hard to acquire at Xenophon's side, I took the bait and happily agreed to the recitation. She launched effortlessly into the polished iambic trimeter that Archilochus employed only for his most salacious verse, though from her lips it sounded as pure as a prayer. I would be wholly incapable of transcribing here her perfectly modulated pitch and crystalline vocalizing-it is impossible for a mediocre intellect to accurately render the speech of a superior one, especially fifty years into one's dotage. I will therefore limit myself to recalling it to the best of my ability in the thick Attic prose Asteria so disdained, but with which my pedestrian Muses have cursed me.
"You know, of course, that Candaules was madly, passionately in love with his wife," she began. "He was a very fortunate man, for if the gods ordain both that a man fall in love, which happens often, and that he love the very person with whom they ordain he is to spend the rest of his life, which happens only rarely, then that man is indeed blessed. And Candaules was thrice blessed, in that he also believed that his wife was the most beautiful woman in the world. It is just such an overabundance of fortune that leads the gods to take notice, and to pound in the nail whose head extends higher than the rest."
She paused to look at me, confirming that I was paying close attention, then continued.
"Candaules had one bodyguard, Gyges, whom he favored above all others, and to whom he confided all his affairs, even his most intimate thoughts; and Gyges never once betrayed his master's confidence. He was loyal to a fault. Candaules often rapturously described his wife's beauty and voluptuousness to Gyges," and breaking out of character and rhythm, Asteria added, "though you know better than I do what men talk about to each other when alone."
I felt the blood rising to my face and began heatedly denying that men discuss any such things with each other, but she rolled her eyes dismissively at me and continued.
"One day, while they were discussing Candaules' favorite topic, he remarked that Gyges did not seem to believe the claims he made of his wife's physical perfection. 'Since the truth is more persuasive to men's eyes than to their ears,' he said, 'I will find a way for you to see her naked, and then you will be convinced of what I say, not only with regard to her beauty, but to her other talents as well.'
"Naturally, Gyges was appalled at this suggestion, as any honorable man would be. 'What are you saying, master?' he said. 'You wish me to see your wife naked? Believe me, I know you are telling the truth when you say there is no woman on earth with a body like hers. But I was taught by my father to distinguish between right and wrong. Don't ask me to do evil merely to confirm what I already know is true. I would rather you blinded me.'
"But the king would have none of this. 'Courage, Gyges,' he chided. 'Do not take me the wrong way. I only wish to dispel any doubts you might have in your mind. Believe me, perfect white buttocks like hers are not seen every day, at least not by mortal men. I will manage it so that you will be able to inspect her beauty at your leisure, while she remains completely unaware that you are watching. Evil unnoticed by the victim is not evil at all, but merely a benefit to the perpetrator, and no one will be the worse for it.
"'Tonight, stand behind the open door of our bedchamber. When I go there to sleep, she will follow me. There is a chair close to the entrance, on which she will drape her garments one by one as she takes them off. She sleeps naked, and you, standing in the shadows behind the door, will be able to see her illuminated in the light of the lamp as if it were your own bed for which she was preparing. After she has finished undressing and turned her back on you to go to bed, you may stay and watch further, or slip quietly out the door without her seeing.'
"Gyges tried repeatedly to escape his master's request, but to no avail. That night, Candaules led Gyges to the hiding place, and a moment later the queen followed, carefully laying out each garment on the chair just as the king had predicted. Gyges watched in awe, his heart in his throat at the queen's beauty, which was more wondrous than he had ever imagined or than the king had described. He could scarcely breathe in his passion and fear, and his knees were so weak from trembling that he was afraid they would buckle beneath him and drop him gasping to the floor at the feet of the surprised queen.