Telemachus ignored that. ‘I have brought you some books.’ He placed the buckets on the bed. He could tell that she was interested, despite herself. ‘Homer, of course, and Herodotus. Xenophon, Caesar, Gaius Marius, and other manuals of tactics. I know that the Spartan Priestesses covet such reading.’
‘Indeed.’ Lysandra pulled one of the scrolls out and inspected it. ‘ The Gallic Wars,’ she read aloud. ‘To what do I owe all this, then?’ She snapped the scroll closed. ‘Are you merely concerned for one of the Sisterhood who has fallen on evil times?’
Telemachus scratched his beard. It had been a long time since he had spoken with a Spartan and he had forgotten how blunt they could be. ‘No. I am here because Lucius Balbus asked me to speak with you. There are concerns that you are not performing here as you should.’
Lysandra’s smile held no humour. ‘He is disappointed that I am not worthy to fight and die in the arena. A pity. But the fact that I am here is ample proof that Athene has turned her face from me. It is better that I am sold, for I have done nothing but dishonour my Order and my people.’
Telemachus fixed the girl with a cold stare. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’ He could tell that this had taken her aback.
‘You call yourself a Spartan? It is not the Spartan way to hold oneself locked in gloom and self-pity.’
‘What would you know about it, Athenian? You have no right to come and speak of matters of which you have no comprehension.’
‘I know enough to see that you are right when you say you dishonour your Order. You dishonour the goddess by your refusal to accept the gifts she has given you. Instead you sit and sulk like a petulant child.’
‘Gifts!’ Lysandra exploded. ‘To consign her Priestess to slavery is a gift? I think not.’
Telemachus got to his feet. ‘Look about you and think to where you came from. Your life in the Temple has been dedi-cated to what? The practise of martial skills in honour of the goddess!’ He threw up his hands. ‘And what a waste! To what end do you learn these skills? To parade on the festival days in hoplite panoply before once again shutting yourself off from the world in your little temple.’
‘It is not the Spartan way to be ostentatious,’ Lysandra replied loftily. ‘We need no Parthenon, for we worship with our hearts.’
‘You are avoiding the issue, Priestess. To what end has your training been? Is it merely to pay the goddess lip service?’
‘For a priest, you are poorly educated. Our Order was founded after the invasion of Pyrrhus…’
Telemachus made a sharp gesture, cutting her off. ‘Yes, I know all that! Do you honestly think that your Sisterhood will be called on to defend Sparta again? Rome has outlasted all other Empires, Lysandra. The Pax Romana keeps us safe, the frontiers are marked, and there is no foreign threat. No,’ he shook his head, his expression mocking, ‘you practise the empty ritual of combat, harking back to days when Sparta was a great power, not a rural back-water of Hellas.’ He had hit a mark by design and was pleased to see anger burn in her eyes. As a Hellene, Telemachus understood the Spartan psyche and knew that laying insult at the gates of her polis would not fail to move her from the lethargy that Balbus had described.
‘It is not for Athenians to speak ill of Sparta. You are nothing but a race of effete snobs.’
‘At least we are a race of snobs with some intelligence, Lysandra.
You have been given a sign, a True Mission by the goddess, and you are too wrapped up in your own ignorance and disgusting self-pity to see it.’
‘A Mission? Do not be absurd. I was abandoned to the Earth-Shaker and left to this — ’ she gestured around her, ‘this cesspit.’
Telemachus softened somewhat. ‘You have a crisis in your faith, Priestess. It is no wonder, finding yourself in this place. But I, as an outsider and a priest, can see it so very clearly.’
Lysandra looked down and remained silent for a moment.
When she spoke, her voice was low. ‘I have feared she has turned her face from me.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ Telemachus placed his hand over hers and she did not pull away. He was struck, in that moment, by her youth: she was not yet out of her teens. ‘But there is purpose in this. The goddess does nothing without design, Lysandra. Or do you think it is mere coincidence that Balbus travelled to Halicarnassus to seek me out? To see if I could help you. Odd behaviour for a trader of skins, is it not? Or perhaps it was because he was compelled by a higher power.’
‘Why?’ Lysandra frowned. ‘I fail to see the purpose you speak of.’
‘You were a Mission Priestess, Lysandra. Your Mission was chosen by your Order, not by the goddess. And thus it failed. I know how Balbus’s men found you. The only survivor of shipwreck!
And the goddess delivered you. Delivered you to the one place that the skills you learned in her honour could be put into practice. That is your Mission, Priestess of Sparta, chosen by the goddess herself. You have been trained from your seventh year to fight for her. She has, in her wisdom, afforded you the opportunity to do something no other of your order has ever done before.’
‘I don’t understand!’ Lysandra’s eyes entreated him to give her some meaning to her plight. And Telemachus had been paid well to deliver. It was, he considered, fortunate that the Spartans were amongst the most gullible of people.
‘If you fight as you have been taught, you do Athene, your Sisterhood and your polis great honour, Lysandra. I cannot know her reasons, but I have read the signs of your situation clearer than you have. Your shipwreck, your being here, has the touch of the Immortals about it. You feel Athene has turned her face from you but it is just the opposite. You have spurned her, and this is why you feel as you do.’
‘I am still a slave.’ Lysandra shook her head.
‘No,’ Telemachus said. ‘You are a gladiatrix, and a Spartan. I do not believe Athene would abandon one of her handmaidens to such a fate as this without design. Is it not the Spartan way to make good of hardship, to prove that to endure and win is better than capitulate and die? You have been put in this place to restore honour to your Order and your people, in the Spartan way.’ He clenched his fist, not above a little drama. ‘By the sword.’
Lysandra did not respond but Telemachus knew that he had got through to her. He stood abruptly. ‘Make sacrifice and read the omens, if you need more confirmation. But look always to your heart. In there you will find the divine purpose.’ She nodded and smiled at him, her eyes full of a light that had been absent when he had first seen her.
‘Yes. Thank you for talking to me.’
‘A pleasure to serve a fellow servant,’ he said blithely. ‘Enjoy your books, Lysandra. And do the goddess proud.’
She nodded. ‘I will think carefully on your words, Telemachus, that much I promise.’
The priest left her to her thoughts, feeling a little guilty. He had been paid too well to counsel the girl to a realisation that she could, and perhaps should, have come to in her own time.
But Spartans were not renowned for their diversity in thinking and therefore his advice, such as it was, would have rung true with no other save for a Spartan. The truth of it was that the girl had been the victim of unhappy circumstance. Fate was cruel and Lysandra was a mere victim. Yet, he felt he was correct in his tackling of the former priestess’s concerns. She, like most of her kin, could fight. It was that skill, that instinct which would serve her best in the ludus. The money he had received would do well for the shrine, he told himself. But a nagging guilt at exploiting the girl’s circumstances refused to leave him.
XV
The sun was warm on Lysandra’s face as she stepped out of the infirmary. The very morning after her conversation with the Athenian priest, Quintus had given her leave to return to her training. This was, she knew, further evidence that Telemachus’s words had been heavy with truth.
She had cursed herself for a fool after he had left her to her thoughts. How could she have been so blind? It was all so obvious after the Athenian had cut through the fog of her melancholy.
She did indeed feel ashamed of herself for acting in such a pitiful manner, but that was past and there was no changing it. The future was a path not yet set and she now knew that the goddess had given her an opportunity to truly test herself and win honour for them both.
