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“Did Sparta somehow grow even sterner while I was away? I remember we used to celebrate properly every once in a while, back in the day.”
One brow raised, Alexios speared a dry cut of cured meat on his knife and pushed it into his mouth. It was tough as old leather. The plain bread and water that had been served alongside it promised to be only very little more exciting.
Stentor had called in a favour to get Alexios to sit in with his syssitios to take the daily communal supper. It was one of the obligations of Spartan men that he was glad to have dodged thanks to his more than extraordinary circumstances. However, from what Alexios had seen on the tables of other families as they walked here, where they were spread out in front courts or on the porches of houses to accommodate guests, it seemed nobody planned to eat well today.
“The Hyacinthia goes for three days,” Stentor answered, ripping dry bread into pieces. “The real banquets are on the second day. Today, we mourn the death of Hyacinthus.”
The name was not wholly unfamiliar, but too far buried under other memories.
“Who was he?” Alexios asked, past the piece of meat that refused to surrender to his teeth in any way.
“You don’t know who Hyacinthus is and you call yourself Spartan? We named a month after him,” Stentor gave back haughtily.
“Well, are you going to tell me or do I have to fetch Herodotos?”
Stentor wrinkled his nose, as he usually did at the mention of Alexios’ Athenian friends. Would he stop if Alexios told him that it made him look a little bit like a cute rabbit smelling herbs? Perhaps Alexios would find out later, but he wanted to know the answer to his question now.
“Hyacinthus was a Spartan prince. He was so beautiful that droves of men and women wanted him and even the gods vied for his favour. The North Wind and the West Wind wished him to be their lover, but Hyacinthus chose Apollo.”
“How did he die?”
“One day Hyacinthus and Apollo played at throwing the discus. However, the god used too much strength and it flew away, cutting the clouds apart. Hyacinthus wanted to impress him and so he ran to fetch it. The discus hit the ground hard and bounced back, catching Hyacinthus in the head. He died in his lover’s arms. Apollo wanted to die with him, but he could not, for he is immortal. In remembrance of his lover he crafted the most beautiful of all flowers out of his spilled blood.”
Reaching out, Stentor touched the purple petals of one of the hyacinths that stood in a small, round, earthen vase on the table before them. Alexios, who had finally managed to choke down his meat, had to smile.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you tell a love story – and with such feeling.”
Quickly, Stentor dropped his hand from the flower, colour rising up his neck and reaching his ears and cheeks within moments. It didn’t seem like he had noticed how reverent his tone had gotten.
“It’s an important moment in Spartan history,” he groused, averting his gaze.
“It is a very Spartan story – flowers out of dead man’s blood, and someone who can’t give up even when he should know better.” He glanced playfully at his lover. “Now where have I seen that before?”
Stentor huffed. “I figured it should be you who would feel kinship with Hyacinthus,” he gave back archly. “After all, you are the one who constantly has admirers trailing after you wherever you go.”
There was a barely hidden tinge of annoyance in his voice. Alexios could have tried to deny it, but it was not wrong that he’d had lovers all over the places he’d travelled to and still collected approving looks wherever he went. Many appreciated the fantasy of a strong, handsome mercenary with morals just loose enough to be fun for a night who would then pass on his way the next day. Still, that was all it had been the last half year since he had become Stentor’s lover: looks. The only one who had his favour was sitting next to him and he seemed satisfied with every morning when Alexios did not have to leave, judging by how tightly his arms were always wrapped around him. After so many years slipping in and out of people’s beds and lives, Alexios was quite content to have arrived somewhere he was wanted permanently and jealously guarded.
“You’re right, actually. And with my grandfather being Leonidas, I’m even a Spartan prince,” Alexios said with a smirk, reaching over and running his hand over Stentor’s naked thigh, pushing up his leather battle skirt. Stentor’s legs clamped shut reflexively, trapping his hand, as Stentor gave him a vexed look. Alexios laughed.
“If you want my fingers down there that badly, I think we can leave your battle brothers and go behind the mess hall,” he murmured in Stentor’s ear.
Rolling his eyes, Stentor released him. The diversion seemed to have blunted his spike of anger.
“Besides, the way you tell it, Hyacinthus didn’t let himself be blown about by the west wind or the north wind or any other suitor. He chose and remained loyal. Reasonably, you’d be my Apollo.”
“I wouldn’t make much of an Apollo,” Stentor said.
Alexios had to grin.
“True, I can’t picture you with a lyre. Maybe Ares or Artemis. Don’t you have a cult for her here in Sparta?”
“Artemis Orthia,” Stentor said, sounding pleased with the idea of being thought of as a stand-in for the great huntress.
“Now I just have to take care not to go playing with the discus and we could stay together as long as you can stand to have me around.”
He felt Stentor’s fingertips brush against his arm. There was a rare, gentle smile on his face. He held on to Alexios’ wrist for a moment before he pushed his chair back.
“You always keep me with idle talk,” he chided and Alexios chose not to remind him that Stentor had participated readily. “I have to go now. There are a few more dead I must pay my respects to before the day is over.”
“I thought you visited the soldiers’ graves this morning?”
Alexios got up, but Stentor gestured at him to sit.
“These graves lie a way out of the city. You do not have to come.”
“Would you let me?” Alexios asked, for in Stentor’s tone he could hear he was hesitant.
Stentor halted.
“If you wish...”
After Stentor had said his goodbyes, they stepped into the golden sunlight that slanted over Sparta’s rooftops and walked down a set of broad stone steps which descended unto the dusty road. Stentor led them away from the clustered villages that made up Sparta towards open countryside.
“Who is buried so far out?” Alexios asked, as they had left the last streets behind, with only some few houses still scattered around them on the meadows.
“None of my comrades,” Stentor said.
That was all for a while as they strode between olive trees and hip-high grass. Alexios figured Stentor had said his part when he added, minutes later: “It’s my family.”
“Family?” Alexios repeated. “Why couldn’t they be buried with the other Spartans?”
“Because they weren’t Spartan,” Stentor answered. “They were helots.”
The revelation left Alexios quiet for a moment. When he thought of his hometown, Stentor appeared to him as the quintessential Spartan: proud, strong, loyal, obedient, fiery. But apparently he had no Spartan blood at all.
“What happened to your family?”
“Nothing remarkable. An illness swept through the villages around Sparta when I was a boy of five, as happens sometimes when the gods are displeased. My parents were young and strong. I had two healthy older brothers already well-grown enough to work the fields.” He shrugged, a frown on his face. “I was just a pile of skin and bones at the time. Yet, somehow, I was the only one to stand up from the sickbed again. Tyche has a strange way of leading destiny at times.”
“How did you come to be educated in Sparta?”
There was much Alexios had forgotten or never known about Sparta, but he was certain citizenship was not handed out easily – clearly. He’d had to win the Olympics and a whole country to be allowed back in.
“No one wanted another mouth to feed in the village where I lived, so whenever the boys of the agoge left the city to practice I would join them in hopes of being noticed. Eventually, some of the educators did and allowed me to make up missing numbers in one-on-one combat or act as the bait in a chase. Your father saw me, too. Once convinced that I had promise, he paid for my education, so I became a syntrophos, officially allowed to train with the Spartan boys. He adopted me later when I had proven myself to him.”
Stentor had never told him of the time before Nikolaos had taken him in, not even after Alexios had spoken at length about his time in Kephallonia to him; perhaps he had learned that for his honour it was better not to reveal his origins. All the sweeter that he would do it now.
“Tomorrow, people will sing and dance and feast. It will be a lot more uplifting than all this time spent with the dead,” Stentor added to Alexios’ silence.
Alexios hummed. He was looking forward to seeing Stentor smile easily after a few cups of wine, but to learn of Sparta and, more importantly, of Stentor was a lot more than he’d hoped for from this day, even if the stories were tragedies.
“For now, I’ll be honoured to meet your family,” he said, taking hold of Stentor’s arm. Stentor squeezed it tightly against his side.