Mothac stepped into view, still carrying his knife. ‘Do not let it concern you,’ he said gently.
Parmenion gave a bitter laugh. ‘How would you recommend I do that? After the assassins came, Menidis told me he couldn’t care less whether I lived or died. That’s the Theban view on me, Mothac: I am a Spartan traitor. And it cuts me to the bone to be called so.’
‘I think we should get drunk,’ Mothac suggested.
‘It is not exactly the answer I was looking for,’ Parmenion responded.
‘It is the best I have.’
‘Then it will have to do,’ said the Spartan. ‘Fetch the jug.’
Thebes, Summer, 371 BC
Thetis awoke early. Her dreams had been good, her sleep restful. She stretched her arms and rolled on one side, gazing at the sleeping man beside her. Reaching out, she gently brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead. He sighed, but did not wake.
The last six years had been good to them both. Parmenion, at 29, was in his prime and had won races in Corinth, Megara, Plataea and even Athens. His face was sharper now, the prominent nose more hawklike, his hair slowly receding. But his smile was still boyish and his touch gentle.
Good years. …
In the first he had noticed her discontent at being virtually housebound and had come to her one morning from the market-place, where he had purchased a dark chiton, knee-length sandals, a pair of Persian-style trews in light linen and a felt hat. ‘Put these on,’ he told her.
She had laughed then. ‘You want me to dress as a man? Are we in need of such devices?’
‘No,’ he replied, with a grin. ‘But I will teach you another way to ride.’
It was an adventure she had enjoyed more than she would ever have thought possible. Still weak after the plague, she had sat high upon a chestnut mare and had ridden through
the city, her felt hat covering her hair and the loose chiton disguising the curves of her body. Once in the hills she had discovered the joys of the gallop, the wind in her hair, the impossible speed.
They had made love in a high meadow, shaded from the afternoon sun by the branches of a tall cypress, then splashed naked in a cold mountain stream. The recollection of that day shone with clear light in her memories. ‘When I am gone,’ he said, ‘you will be able to send Mothac to fetch the horses and continue to ride. There is freedom here, and no one to question you, or frown at the lack of dignity shown by a woman of quality.’
‘Gone?’ she queried. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Epaminondas has decided it is time to set about freeing Boeotia. We will be taking troops to captive cities and aiding their rebellions. We must secure the land against Sparta.’
Early one morning, some five weeks later, Thetis awoke to see Parmenion standing beside the bed. He was dressed in a bronze helm with baked leather cheek-guards, and a breastplate showing the head of a roaring lion. His sword was strapped to his side, the scabbard resting against a kilt made up of bronze-edged leather strips.
‘It is today, then?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You could have told me last night.’
‘I did not want to burden you. I will be gone for perhaps a month, maybe two.’ She nodded and turned her back to him, closing her eyes and pretending to sleep.
For days she fretted, imagining him riding to his death. ‘I will not fall in love with him,’ she promised herself. ‘I will not cry over his corpse as I did with Damon.’
But her fears grew as the news of skirmishes and sieges reached the city. The Spartan garrison at Thisbe, formed mainly from mercenary units from the city of Orcho-menus, had marched out to confront the Theban force. A short battle had followed, before the mercenaries were routed; it was reported that seventeen Thebans were dead. One by one the cities fell, mostly without bloodshed, the
beleaguered Spartan garrisons agreeing to leave after being granted safe conducts back across the Peloponnese. But still there was no news of Parmenion.