A/N:
*How is there not more Leonidas/Gorgo fic? This couple? Smoldered.
*The poetry here is all credited to Sappho.
*Reviews dearly appreciated, whatever day/month/year you may happen to read.
***
Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot,
and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing
on the black earth. But I say it is what you love.
Spartan!
Yes, my lady?
Come back with your shield, or on it.
Yes, my lady.
Pinpricks of white lit the tiny convoy's path as they picked their way through fields of destruction toward the place they called home.
Blood red, black night, life and death, family and idealism filled their minds. The air was sharp enough to sting.
300 Spartans, only 4 had not fallen.
As the carnage dwindled to its end, Dienekes had allowed himself a moment of pause on the battlefield, a moment of admiration for the King's threshold for pain. How long had he been alive, despite his wounds? Five hours? Six? Blood was streaked across his face, crusted in the corner of his slightly open mouth. He blinked, slowly, and mouthed a few quiet words before slipping from consciousness.
And only by the grace of a medical healer left among the sparse ranks of lingering Arcadians had their Spartan King shrugged off death's looming grasp.
His limp form strapped across a makeshift transport, the men trudged on homeward, watched as Leonidas drew faint breaths, but neither blinked nor spoke as they carried him.
Respect and honor. A sacrifice so profound to rescue their world from mysticism and tyranny and usher in a future brighter than anything most Greeks could imagine.
Leonidas loved his citizens, his son too much to condemn them to a mere existence.
Memories shoot across his mind's unconscious eye. The feel of cold stone beneath his feet, the harshness of the agoge, the metallic taste of blood.
Persians. Politics. Duty. Glory. Power.
And Gorgo. Always Gorgo.
He jested to her several years after they'd been married, that on their wedding night she'd only pretended to be shy.
"Pretended?" she answered indignantly.
Still in the dawn of womanhood, she'd bowed her head to hide her nervousness as she entered the royal bedchamber for the first time.
He was patient and generous with his young wife, determined above all else that she come to trust him completely. Strengthened by his love and his respect, she quickly grew confident in her role as queen, meeting his intensity with her own. A true partner.
Eros shook my mind
like a mountain wind falling on oak trees
If there was ever an Elysium on earth, she thought, it was in the aftermath of desire, in the moments between love and sleep, when he whispered into her tousled hair, and she nestled against him, his name still on her lips. Warm breeze gently tapping at the curtains, their child sleeping soundly in the next corridor, safe. The two of them, two pieces of the same puzzle, fitting neatly together.
A dark pit yawned in her heart since her husband and his 300 departed, a mortal wound that she was almost certain she would carry with her for the rest of her days.
***
I would not think to touch the sky with two arms
He woke clutching his chest, most surprised to find the arrows no longer protruding from it. He blinked rapidly taking in the canvass walls, and the attendant at the end of the cot staring at him unabashedly. Each time he closed his eyes he found himself fighting that last battle, as it played on an infinite loop in his mind.
"Sire?" The attendant brushed a moist cloth across Leonidas's forehead. "Can you hear me?"
How could this possibly? "How it pleases me to hear you speak the tongue of Sparta, young man."
"King, you rest at a sentinel post just outside the base of Sparta. Your party arrived just hours ago. My fellow patrolman rushes to fetch a medical healer from the nearby barracks. King, are you in any pain?"
"Hardly." The wounds smarted if he breathed too deeply.
"Sire – "
"You speak of my… party?"
"Yes, Sire. Two along with you. One, he rides into Sparta on my horse now. The other keeps vigil outside this tent."
***
The Moon is down,
The Pleiades. Midnight,
The hours flow on,
I lie, alone.
Lost in a dreamless sleep, Gorgo roused when the strong arms of her maidservant shook her awake.
"Maid?"
"You must get up, Queen."
"What time is it?"
"Four in the morning. News from Thermopylae waits you."
Gorgo got out of bed and shivered as her feet hit the cool floor. She pulled an extra cloak around herself, followed her loyal servant to the courtyard, and stopped. Dilios stood with his shield, his expression unreadable.
***
Someone will remember us
I say
Even in another time
The pragmatic attitude the 300 showed towards their fate and the courage they displayed right up to the end would solidify their place in history. Epic heroes, scholars many centuries later would proclaim.
Freedom is not free.
To Spartans, the fact that King Leonidas was willing to sacrifice himself brought the gravity of the situation home.
To all Greeks, the march of the 300 was a morale booster and a wake up call. The time brought by the Spartans' blood gave the rest of the Greeks time to organize resistance against the Persians.
***
Sitting upright, Leonidas flinched as a sudden jolt of pain racketed up and down his spine.
The sun was rising, backlighting the tent with a yellow glow. The physician approached him with a strong-smelling mixture of pounded leaves that had been stirred together with a dark liquid. He scooped some up and applied it to the arrow wounds in Leonidas's chest, then with deft fingers wound a bandage snugly around him.
"Sire," he pronounced with scarcely concealed awe, "there will be scars." Only scars.
***
Gorgo stepped out onto the balcony adjoining her bedroom, savoring a moment of solitude. The air was pleasant. Against all odds, she wanted to hold out hope, but she steeled her nerves, prepared herself for the agonizing wrench of loosing her husband. Excessive emotion was not a luxury she could afford, not in public, not in these trying times.
Pleistarchus must have sensed his mother's tension, because he refrained from his usual mischief, choosing instead to hover nearby her all morning, quietly occupying himself.
***
"Praise Olympus, it's true! Our brave King has returned to us. He is invincible." A posse of Councilmen had arrived. Each wore a look more reverend than the next.
"I heard you rained sheer terror upon the barbarians."
"I heard you obliterated hordes of them."
"I heard you spilt the blood of-" (a twisted smirk) "-the 'divine' Xerxes."
"Councilmen. I am as astonished by my own return as you are. However let us waste not a minute in getting to Sparta. The task against the Persians remains incomplete. I must compel – "
"Sire, a proper Spartan army has already been assembled. They will unite with a large Greek coalition before proceeding northward. Dilios lead their deployment this morning."
"That means the council would've had to have voted days ago – "
"Yes. It was the Queen's persuasion that ultimately swayed the council."
He smiled inwardly, but wondered at what cost. Clearly you don't know our women! I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen. (What he had seen, of course, was Gorgo.) She would've had to play a dangerous game in his absence, not one of small dominations and little victories.
"I see Councilman Theron has not joined you. Where is he?"
The most loyal among them spoke up. "Exposed as treacherous, traitorous. Dead. At the Queen's hands."
"Really..." His curiosity piqued.
"Sire, Theron made a most unspeakable false accusation against her. She was heedless and so very angry that she lunged at him with her bare hands. Two men restrained her before she seized a sword and ran him through. That's when his purse filled with Persian gold spilled onto the floor."
He nodded approvingly, his expression hovering between triumphant and rueful.
"Well gentleman, you have come by chariot, have you not?"
"We have."
"Then take me to the Queen."
***