Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  "Athenians!" Brasidas called out. "We hold thirty citizen women and seventy children. They are untouched for now, and we have no wish to harm them. All you need do to secure their return is accede to our demands, which are simple. We want our shields back and a guarantee of safe passage to Megara." He paused briefly and scanned his rapt audience. "Is Demosthenes among you?"

  "I am here." Demosthenes stepped forward, even as his thoughts went to his home and Laonome and their warm twin comforts of a soft bed and her softer body.

  Brasidas laughed, a cold sound. "Do your countrymen know that it is a woman who gives them victory?"

  Demosthenes' heart plunged, for the space of one beat, into icy water. So Brasidas knew of Thalassia; Styphon had told him of meeting Thalassia on the island, naturally. The rest he must somehow have deduced on his own.

  "Let the innocents go," Demosthenes said flatly, more to change the subject than in real hope of achieving that result. Brasidas was hardly about to relinquish his sole advantage.

  Addressing the whole crowd, Brasidas shouted, "I will free twelve wives and all their children if Demosthenes, who should be dead already, takes their place! If he is brave enough! You have our demands. If our shield arms remain empty a half hour from now, this street begins filling with corpses!"

  With that Brasidas spun on his heel and receded down the captured street. His improvised herald's wand clattered on the paving stones where he threw it. The time for talk was over.

  The generals present, which comprised most of the Board, closed in a tight circle. Even though Kleon had jurisdiction, all looked to Nikias for the first word.

  Demosthenes forcefully preempted both: "Bring them their shields."

  Red-faced Kleon scoffed. "Not a chance!"

  The captured shields, still on display in the Stoa Pointile, were his treasure.

  "Half an hour is ample time to ready an assault," Kleon went on. "We shall take them alive and save as many women and children as we can. To which end, dearest Demosthenes, you must take him up on his offer. I have no doubt that any one of us would do the same in your place. But since it is you he has asked for..."

  In the air above Melite, a infant's droning cry arose, and then abruptly, by some means or another, was silenced.

  "Give them their shields!" Demosthenes repeated through gritted teeth. "And their safe passage. It makes no difference if Sparta gets them back. We will win this war all the same. You must trust me. Holding onto them is not worth one Athenian's life!"

  "Of course it is!" Kleon came back testily. "How many Athenian lives have I saved already by bringing them here? And how many more might continue to be saved so long as they–"

  "Shut your fat fucking mouth," Demosthenes said, and he looked impatiently to Nikias for a decision.

  But Nikias remained silent, and the demagogue was not done.

  "I am City Protector and the final word is mine to give!" Kleon raged. "No shields! No passage!Nothing! We will recapture them, and if in the process they kill the helpless, the blood-guilt will stain their souls, not–"

  Kleon did not finish. Instead he fell reeling to the ground, sent there with blood streaming from his ruddy face by the clenched fist of Demosthenes.

  Rubbing his knuckles while his victim twisted and crawled, barely conscious, on the cold earth, Demosthenes said, "Seeing as the chief of homeland defense is incapacitated, do any object to my assuming his duties?"

  No one did. The hard, gray eyes of Nikias showed neither approval nor remonstration. He could hardly have felt much grief on seeing Kleon, the constant thorn in his side, laid low.

  Demosthenes' eyes sought a trustworthy face in the gathered crowd and found one in Leokrates, the man who had subdued Brasidas at Amphipolis, and won for it the prize for valor. He told Leokrates, "Round up as many able men as you need, collect the shields from the Painted Stoa and bring them here."

  With a proud nod Leokrates raced off to comply, tapping a dozen men to accompany him.

  "I need a priest and a clerk of the law-court!" Demosthenes called out over the crowd. "Tell both to bring their seals."

  He wasted no breath declining the trade that Brasidas proposed, mostly so as not to call attention to the fact that he had given no thought to accepting it. The lives of the families trapped in Melite were precious, but he had sworn a pledge to his own new family that morning, and it was one he would keep. He would not trade Laonome's happiness for that of others, for he knew with near certainty that his walk down that street would end not in captivity but sacrifice.

  Well before Brasidas's deadline had passed, stacks of battered lambda-blazoned shields began arriving on handcarts pushed by slaves and citizens alike. In with the first cartload of shields to be sent down the captured street went a sworn document signed by six generals, four priests and the archon basileus promising the escapees safe passage to Megara. Minutes after the guarantee went in, women and children began streaming out. Some walked, looking as shades escaped from Hades, but most, especially the young, raced up the street into freedom and into the arms of waiting relations. The reunions were both joyous and tearful, but as the last cart laden with shields went in and the trickle of freed hostages dried up, there remained a dozen frantic men in the plaza yet to greet their missing loved ones.

  A citizen woman who was among the last to emerge told why.

  "They will take twelve wives with them to the border," she said. "Unless Demosthenes takes their place."

  Her fearful eyes found the man she named. The gazes of the other strategoi swiftly followed, insistent on a response.

  "He has his freedom and his guarantee," Demosthenes said, stifling shame. "Send word that his revenge for Amphipolis will have to wait. Tell him that every able man in Athens will shadow them to the border in full arms, and the first woman's death scream will be their call to charge."

  Nikias swiftly departed with his aides to see to the promised escort, which he would have no trouble raising. The remaining Board members present were doubtless all disappointed to some degree, either simply at what they saw as a display of cowardice or else the lost opportunity to be rid of a political rival, but (perhaps mindful of Kleon's bloodied face) they kept their feelings to themselves.

  There was little chance Brasidas would kill the hostages. To avenge his humiliation, he might dare to cut the throat of one general on the Megarian frontier, but he was not bloodthirsty enough to begin slaughtering women, not with such an unprecedented success in sight. He would return home to even greater glory as the rescuer of his countrymen than he would have won as the conqueror of tiny, remote Amphipolis. The loss of so many of their best men at Pylos had frustrated the Spartans for long seasons and now, thanks to Brasidas, they would get their men back bloodlessly, with nothing given up in exchange.

  While others attended to the Spartans' departure from Athens, Demosthenes remained in the rapidly emptying plaza. Thalassia had foreseen nothing like this occurrence. But she had labeled Brasidas as clever and dangerous and pressed for his death. Now it became clear why. Demosthenes did not look forward to informing her of the day's events. Thalassia was not likely to reprimand him, but then she did not have to; the lesson was well taken that no warning of the star-girl was to be dismissed, lightly or otherwise.

  There was another lesson, too: Fate would not consent to stay down after one blow. She was in a fighting mood.

  Still, not even the prospect of delivering bad news to Thalassia was enough to make him dread returning home, for Laonome was there, and solace.

  The Spartans were filing triumphantly into the street to form up in orderly rows for the march to the Dipylon Gate, and their freedom, when Kleon, earlier carted away insensate by a gaggle of his devoted followers, returned.

  "You will regret this, Demosthenes!" the demagogue fumed, pointing a meaty finger. His lips and chin still were crimson with smeared blood. "I will have your generalship and every obol of your patrimony for this!"

  There was a fair chance he was right. />
  IV. ARKADIA 7. Slaughtergoddess

  Gamelion in the archonship of Isarchos (January 423 BCE)

  Dressed in his war gear and a shabby winter cloak, Styphon stood on the frost-hardened road in the shadow of the Temple of Apollo, waiting. He waited for Brasidas and for news, news of whether or not the Gerousia of Sparta had branded Styphon, son of Pharax, as a trembler.

  Already he had been denied the homecoming granted his fellow prisoners. Instead, Brasidas had sent his dog to Bassai, in the thickly wooded hills of western Arkadia, to gather what information he could on the supposed witch who had reportedly slain men by the dozen more than a year ago.

  Most men here, he had learned, did not call the woman a witch. They called her Eris, the slaughter-loving sister of Ares, She Whose Wrath is Relentless

  Three days Styphon had spent in Bassai, and now the day had come on which Brasidas was due to arrive with a detachment from Sparta. Styphon awaited them in the appointed place in front of the modest sandstone facade of Bassai's temple to Apollo. Hours passed and the sun sank, taking with it what little warmth it shed, before the shadows on the road to the south finally coalesced into a band of crimson cloaked Equals on the march. They came traveling light, their lambda-blazoned shields and ash spears and helot servants left behind.

  Styphon went out to meet them on the road, finding his master at the band's head.

  "What news, dog?" Brasidas asked. "Have you learned the ending to our tale of the White Witch of Bassai?"

  "I have, polemarch," Styphon reported. "And I know where she is located, although I have not yet been to the place."

  "You have found her already!" Brasidas's scarred face veritably glowed. "Quite the hound you are. Where is she?"

  "A half-day's march into the woods," Styphon answered, conscious of the hateful stares directed at him from the band of ten Equals at Brasidas's back. A few had come from the prison, while others were fresh from Sparta; all seemed to despise Styphon with equal intensity.

  "We shall camp and embark at dawn," Brasidas said, resuming his stride. The band of Equals followed, some grumbling obscenities at Styphon as they shoved past with unnecessary roughness. Ignoring them, Styphon joined the general's retinue, and to the cadence of crickets they walked past Bassai's timber houses, drawing anxious stares from their occupants. Men here had no love for Sparta. Their grandfathers' fathers had been conquered by her, and their own fathers had risen in rebellion. Now the place was more loyal to Sparta, but still fiercely proud of its Arkadian heritage.

  "Sir," Styphon dared to address his master.

  "Yes, dog?" Brasidas taunted. "You wish to ask something of me?"

  "No, sir," Styphon lied. He would not show weakness by asking to know the elders' decision on him. "I thought you might wish to know what else I have discovered concerning the witch."

  "You may tell me after camp is made."

  Said camp, in the wood on the edge of Bassai, consisted of little more than a crackling fire, which the Equals would have done without were it any earlier or later than midwinter. As purple dusk turned to night, a party of Arkadians appeared–the Spartan-appointed governor, some city officials and a troop of servants carrying food. Unchecked by any order from their general, Brasidas's men had fun at the Arkadians' expense, threatening and insulting them, stealing their torches and shoving a few to the ground before taking by force the food that had been brought as a gift and chasing the givers off into the night. The band dined on roast lamb that night, all but Styphon who made do with barley cake and boiled onions rather than even try to take the portion of meat his tormentors would have derived great entertainment from denying him.

  Brasidas, seated on a log, face stained with the dripping blood and grease of his portion, summoned Styphon over and bid him speak of the witch.

  "First, the name by which men call her here is Eris," Styphon began.

  The polemarch scoffed, shreds of meat flying from lips. "Yes, just as the poets describe her: One-Armed Eris, Slayer of Sheep-Lickers!" Some other Equals nearby took to laughing. "However," Brasidas went on, "lacking any better name for her, that one will do. Go on."

  "It was in a village to the west of here that this... Eris first appeared, killing several men. After those who gave her chase were likewise slaughtered, the villagers appealed to Sparta, but they also sent a rider on to Bassai, which lay in the direction she was last seen traveling. The leaders of Bassai were convinced to raise their infantry as if an invasion force had suddenly appeared.

  "The next morning, they sighted her in the woods and engaged. Of the nearly four hundred men who opposed her, fifty-six were slain and thirty wounded before Eris fell. Her corpse was further mutilated, but left on the spot where it had fallen. A tomb was dug and lined with cut stones. They pushed the remains in and spent three days carting in every heavy stone they could find to pile atop it. The locals now count the place as cursed and are loath to go near it."

  "Hmm," Brasidas intoned. "The prospect of recruiting her seems... less than promising. Still, if your sea-bitch managed to cheat death, this one may yet live. Tomorrow we shall visit this cursed place and learn what we can."

  Tearing off one last chunk of meat with his teeth and grinning as he chewed, Brasidas held the almost-stripped bone toward Styphon. "A bone for the dog."

  Having no choice, Styphon took it from him. "Thank you, polemarch." But he did not, would not, eat from it. When Brasidas waved him away, Styphon rose and walked away, casting the bone into the fire.

  "Dog!" Brasidas called out. Styphon turned. "The elders have delayed their decision on you until next year, pending my report on your behavior. So if you've a brain in that thick skull, you will serve your master well until then."

  Styphon nodded and resumed walking. It was good news, considering. It meant at least another year of humiliation and servitude, but at least there was hope that at its end Brasidas might deliver on his promises. The elders of Sparta gave a polemarch's word great weight.

  ***

  Before first light, Styphon was awakened by a kick in the ribs, and as dawn broke, the band of Equals struck off into the woods. Along the way, an Arkadian youth was compelled to act as guide. Though frightened of the cursed place, their boy knew well enough to fear Spartans more, and so he led the party without complaint or misstep.

  They hiked all morning, until the winter sun reached its zenith. Then the youth halted abruptly and pointed ahead, to where a gray mass was visible through the thin, bare trees. Brasidas clapped the boy on the shoulder and passed him a few coins of the currency that Equals were by Lykurgan law forbidden to possess, and the boy sped off back the way they had come.

  Brasidas waved the band forward. They filtered through the trees until they reached a clearing in which rose a man-made hill of limestone, sandstone, marble, and granite: boulders and plinths, broken pieces of fallen columns and statuary, millstones, lintels–anything heavy which the barely victorious Arkadians could find to heap upon the resting place of their deadly foe. Surrounding the burial mound, hanging from wooden stakes in the earth, were charms and wards of every variety, most comprised of the skulls and bones of birds and other small animals.

  Placed prominently at the base of the small mountain was a stone slab bearing a scrawled inscription: Here lies hateful ERIS, Destroyer of Men. Let he who removes a single stone be dragged below to where she dwells, his line forever mired in misery and suffering.

  "Begin removing stones!" Brasidas called out loudly, in a clear voice.

  No Equal budged. Brasidas turned both ways, surveying the band behind him. He spat. "I had no inkling that my judgment was so poor! It seems I have brought with me a bunch of cunts."

  He strode forward to the base of the mound, wrapped his thick arms around a chunk of limestone the size of his chest, and heaved it aside. As that piece rolled and settled, Styphon made his own choice, becoming the first among Brasidas's band to join him in the surely foolhardy endeavor. Would that his current circumstances allowed hi
m the freedom to make wiser choices; but they did not, and he could not. And so he hastened forth to help his polemarch, his keeper, potentially unleash a destructive force which dozens of men had given their lives to contain.

  Likely not wishing to be outdone by a coward and dog in the eyes of their commander, the other ten Equals were right on Styphon's heels, and the band set in silence to the work of flattening a small mountain of rubble. The labor was rough, and still incomplete when the better part of an hour had passed. Styphon rolled a roundish boulder clear of the mound and paused, leaning on it for but a moment to rest and wipe sweat from a forehead cold with winter's chill.

  "Tired already, dog?" Brasidas cackled at him from behind, tossing a block of marble close enough to Styphon's feet that he was forced to dodge.

  "No, polemarch," Styphon said, straightening and making to return to the mound.

  That was when he witnessed, along with Brasidas at his side, the sight of one, then another, heavy chunks of debris fall aside by themselves, as if possessed of their own motive force.

  Only for seconds did the cause of their movement remain a mystery, for out from the gap thus created rose a slender, filthy arm, and then a head crowned with hair which glinted gold in those few spots where it was not caked with all manner of filth and dried gore.

  "Equals, form up on me!" Brasidas bellowed.

  There was a bare moment's confusion among the band on hearing this order in the midst of hard labor, but a moment was all it took for them to remember that theirs was not to question the voice of command. They threw down whatever was in their arms and clambered over and around the constituent parts of the much-diminished mound to reach Brasidas's position. As the dropped stones tumbled, the blood- and soil-blackened apparition, rag-clad, completed its emergence, freeing first one sandaled foot and then the other, which was bare.