Truth and Sparta Read Free Page A

of the Spartan soldier standing in the shade on her.
She wasn’t sure if it was true or if she was imagining it, but she
wasn’t about to look. Once they had unloaded, her father went to
talk to someone about the wood they were to carry away with
them.
    Chara busied
herself with getting water for the oxen. Her father returned before
long.
    “ You should go now,” he said quietly to her.
    “ But we haven’t started loading the wood.”
    “ I said now, girl. Walk back now.” She placed the pail of water
she had been holding for the beast on the ground and looked around
quickly to see that her suspicions were true—the Spartan was
observing her. She kept her head down as she started walking to the
gate of the courtyard. She didn’t look back, just kept on walking
just as her father had asked.
     

Chapter
3
     
     
    Chara walked
briskly out of the courtyard and through the gardens of the Menares
villa. She kept going, walking through the tall grass of the fields
further away. It would take her a while to get back home, but her
father had been adamant she leave. She wasn’t entirely sure why,
but she knew in her gut it had something to do with Nicias.
    He was
menacing as he stood in the shadows, watching everything. Chara had
felt his eyes, but she’d not grown concerned like her father had.
She wasn’t sure why she had to leave that very second—she hadn’t
seen anything that would be cause for concern. He hadn’t approached
her or spoken to her, but then she didn’t really know the threat
her father feared—the Spartan did nothing more than watch while he
ate. She also didn’t get a chance to look at the garden surrounding
the house. It was the only garden she had ever seen and the beauty
of it had astonished her, as did the apparent lack of purpose. It
was just there to be beautiful and nothing more.
    She kept a
relentless pace, but it didn’t entirely account for her rapid
heartbeat or the shakiness she felt, like she had been confronted
with something deadly. Spartans were dangerous, but she hadn’t
technically been confronted by either him or his father.
    There was no
doubt that he was different from the men she knew—he was certainly
different from her late husband. He didn’t have the gawky frame of
a youth, like her husband, who had been nineteen and the same age
as her. From what she knew, she wasn’t sure the Spartans ever were
slim and gawky; they worked on their skills and strength from when
they were boys. Nicias wasn’t a boy, being of marriage age, which
made him quite old. He must be past twenty five at the very
least.
    Chara wasn’t
an innocent, she’d been married and she knew what happened between
men and women, so she had some idea of what her father feared.
Coupling with a Spartan seemed well outside the realm of
possibility and she could in no way see the movement from the point
where she stood watering the ox, to one where she was with him in
such an intimate way. There was no path of progression that she
could see; although the thought of it sent a thrill of fear through
her. It was even scary thinking about it, which she shouldn’t.
    It didn’t
matter—likely she would never see him again. Her father was being
overly precautious, fearing that the Spartan might take a liking to
her. They did take Helot women for their purposes as far as she
understood, but she couldn’t see that as something happening to
her. Besides, it might have been something very far from what the
Spartan was actually thinking. She dismissed the incident.
    The memories
of being with her husband seemed to flow into her mind in its
place. She knew that men enjoyed the act, but she also knew that it
wasn’t her than her husband’s eyes were following; it was a young
man in the village who drew her husband’s attention whenever he was
close. It wasn’t an act she particularly enjoyed, but she also knew
there was something in it, something she wasn’t privy to and she
could perceive the absence of