by P. K. Lentz
And lastly, he introduced the man and woman standing behind him. To many present, their names were already known. One had proven himself among the most capable and effective generals of Athens, Kleon averred, whose city had suffered defeat in spite of, not because of him. Demosthenes' plans would lead Naupaktos to certain victory while denying Sparta the pitched crush of shields which was the only type of fighting in which Equals excelled.
Next Kleon shifted behind Thalassia and set a lean hand on the leather and iron of her shoulder, making her the focus of the crowd's rapt attention, the same it had given Kleon for the duration of his speech.
“And finally, the one at whom you have been trying hard not to stare whilst you listen to me blather. Her true nature I reveal to you now. As educated men, some of you accomplished poets, you will know that bright-winged Selene herself, bringer of light to the night sky, bore fifty daughters with the beautiful shepherd Endymion. Here stands the eldest of that brood, a Titan's blood filling her strong and supple limbs! I present to you Thalassia.”
The crowd did not cheer, and Kleon seemed not to expect them to. Many were perhaps unsure yet where they stood, even if they had known when Kleon started, but their gravely contemplative faces seemed to speak to a willingness to hear his arguments and give them due consideration.
“As I said, you are educated men,” Kleon went on, flattering them. “As such, I would hardly expect you to accept a bold claim such as I have made without letting your own eyes bear witness. To that end, a demonstration is in order, would you not agree? To show that she has no equal among mortal man, I invite any among you to step forth and test your prowess in battle against hers!”
Thalassia's kohl-blackened eyes betrayed nothing, but Demosthenes caught the flash of a smirk, present for but an instant. They had discussed this on the sea voyage, the idea of putting Thalassia's capabilities on public display that they might inspire confidence in a Naupaktan victory.
The subject of that display had taken an instant liking to the proposal. In past lives and by other names she had been a petty smuggler and then a pilot on the lines which laced together the layers of reality, but only here, as Thalassia, had she discovered her affinity for close combat.
“Let loose against her with murderous rage if you so desire!” Kleon offered. “Try your best to pierce her sweet flesh, while in return she seeks to harm nothing of yours beyond your pride!”
With one hand on Thalassia's shoulder, Kleon used the other to beckon forward any takers. “Come on!” he urged the yet-silent crowd. “Who among you is reckoned the best fighter Naupaktos has to offer?”
Kleon had barely paused the space of a breath before answer came in the form of an unsheathed, upraised sword, the holder of which shortly broke through into the front rank. He was (not surprisingly) a young man, scarcely into adulthood, with smooth chin and short, meticulously groomed dark hair. His chiton hung loosely from a tanned, well-muscled frame.
“Excellent!” Kleon said with a smile. “Clearly you are a lad destined for greatness, regardless of how you fare presently against our Titan-spawn. What name is it that is one day bound to be upon so many tongues?”
“Xenarchos,” the youth responded emphatically, as though it should already be known to all. In an admittedly over-swift judgment, Demosthenes decided Xenarchos was like any number of youths he had known in Athens, perhaps a local champion at some sport and likely the head of his class and a troop leader in military training. Perhaps he was as good as he thought he was.
'Endymion's daughter' could have fun with him.
“Clear a space, would you!” Kleon instructed the crowd, which eagerly receded to form a rough semi-circle on the dusty slope under the balcony of earth where perched the goddess and her companions. “Put on a good show!” the demagogue whispered into Thalassia's ear.
Returning no answer, she leaped from the platform into the ring below. The distance was not so great as to prevent a mortal man making the jump, but his legs would have been hard-pressed on landing not to buckle, where hers just barely creased at the knee. Facing her challenger, she drew her sword with like grace and kept it pointed earthward in a pose which showed a sort of unconcerned readiness. Head cocked and slightly bowed, she made eyes at the youth which might as easily have been an invitation to play in some less deadly form than was on offer.
Somewhat less nonchalant, but still clearly underestimating his foe (or trying to convey such), Xenarchos circled with sword raised, observing closely to glean whether his opponent was inclined to strike first or wait.
Within a few beats, Thalassia's intention not to move became clear, and Xenarchos struck. After feinting once to the left, then twice to right, he launched his first attack from the latter direction, an underhanded stroke aimed at Thalassia's left hip, where a hit, if sword point made it under the armored skirts of a fighter's breastplate, would end any battle. It would not have ended this one, but Xenarchos never got to learn that, for his stroke was easily turned aside by a single, swift motion of Thalassia's blade.
Quick on the heels of the parry, his next attack (aimed at her head in proof that he was taking Kleon's instructions to heart) was as easily deflected. So, too, were his next and his next, delivered after another round of circling and feints. Thalassia, for her part, seemed to be defying Kleon, for this was hardly a good show. She had barely moved.
Xenarchos seemed to be done testing her now, and his next attack was a harder one, fueled by anger. It, too, was stopped cold, but now Thalassia was done testing, too, and she struck back. While parrying, she ducked and twisted and brought her hand up in a gentle, open-palmed strike to her opponent's unguarded jaw. The hit rattled him, less literally than in spirit, forcing him to withdraw a step and regroup. Though she might easily have pressed the advantage, Thalassia permitted the youth his breathing space.
He took only one deep breath before launching a fresh assault, this time a frenzy of successive stabs accompanied by a guttural roar. Thalassia knocked them all aside with ease before slipping her empty left hand inside Xenarchos' guard to grasp his sword arm by the wrist. Her whole body followed, and in a smooth, twisting motion, she wound up with her back pressed to his chest, her sword point aimed over her shoulder at her opponent's neck. Just as quickly, she disengaged, leaving all well aware that had she wished it, Xenarchos would now lie dead.
All too aware of that himself, the youth set his mind and blade to saving face. Holding back nothing, he surged forward behind a series of thrusts which Thalassia either nimbly dodged or else parried whilst backpedaling. Then, when the time was right, she delivered another obvious killing stroke which stopped just shy of dealing death.
They battled on thus for another several minutes before Xenarchos at last admitted defeat. Thankfully, he was not so headstrong as to quit in a rage, but was able instead to see the wisdom of yielding amiably. Stepping back abruptly out of a guarded stance, he threw up an open left palm and gave a self-deprecating smile. Accepting his surrender, Thalassia nodded at him, sportsmanlike herself in letting the mask of a barbarian goddess slip long enough to tell him with a look that although he had lost, he had accounted well for himself.
That was when the youth took one final swipe at her. Thalassia blocked it easily and raised a brow in surely-feigned surprise. Xenarchos smiled and shrugged, resuming his former display of cheerful submission.
On the earthen platform above, Kleon applauded, not for the minor goddess of his invention but for the challenger, and he encouraged the crowd to cheer, too. Even as Xenarchos humbly dismissed the ovation, it was apparent that it went some way toward assuaging an ego that could not have failed to be bruised by public defeat.
It was a fine line which Kleon walked, and Thalassia, too, for that matter, between humiliating men and inspiring them.
“A spectacular round!” Kleon declared. “But only the opener. Now that she has warmed up, who else among you would try his hand against this ally sent to us by the Goddess?”
A n
umber of hands were raised by men whose owners began pressing forward to carve paths to the front of the crowd. Most were as young as Xenarchos, in their mid-twenties at most, eager to prove themselves, but not a few were time-tested veterans. Some of the latter Demosthenes recognized from Pylos. Kleon's gaunt, bearded face, meanwhile, showed him to be almost giddy with delight, for the plethora of volunteers hinted that his strategy would reap its intended result.
She fought four more that morning, then three at once for a finale. She put the youths and veterans alike in the dust, then helped them up and raised their arms and presented them to the audience as if they had been the victor. And although she was an outsider putting the cream of Naupaktos to shame, and although all present hoped the next challenger would be the one to beat her, the swelling crowd in the Orchard persisted in adoring her.
She, in turn, appeared to genuinely adore it back. Surely such an experience represented for her, as she had said in Corinth, a pleasant change from the Caliate, where few if any names had been more despised than that of Geneva, the Wormwhore.
As Kleon ended the morning's spectacle with the promise of another show that evening and tomorrow, and more words in favor of war, a familiar voice rose up from the center of the thronging crowd.
“I would try my hand!” It was Agathokles. “Might I have a turn?” he asked into the silence with which his fellow Naupaktans deferred to him. There was no note of humor in his voice. The look of his eyes, too, above his graying beard, was one of disapproval, perhaps even betrayal.
The three conspirators had deliberately failed to inform Agathokles of their intentions to sway the vote, lest he balk at the prospect of such forceful intervention by foreigners in the affairs of his city. Given the dark tidings from Argos and Pylos of the last few days, it was entirely possible that Agathokles himself intended now to support capitulation.
A few words from now from Naupaktos' 'first among equals' could spoil their plans entirely.
* * *
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8. Defiance
“You honor us!” Kleon said. “By all means!” With a welcoming gesture, he indicated the combat space. “Have at her, general! If anyone can spill her blood, it is you!”
Drawing his sword, throwing off his cloak and putting on an expression of blank determination, Agathokles stepped into the dusty semicircle where waited his opponent. Thalassia watched him silently with sword pointed at the earth, appearing deceptively unready.
On the platform above, Kleon sidled up to Demosthenes. “She must let him cut her,” the demagogue said through a corner of his smile, while keeping his eyes on the impending fight. “Do you think she knows?”
“Probably,” Demosthenes replied. “If not, you just told her.”
Kleon accepted the answer, and with it another manner in which Thalassia was superior to mortal men.
The combat commenced as Agathokles wasted no time with feinting or circling but just made his first thrust. Thalassia knocked it aside effortlessly and followed it with a quick swipe of her own. Even if she intended to spare the Naupaktan leader's pride, she would yet make him work to keep it.
Agathokles dealt with her attack and launched another of his own, which was parried, and they settled into a dance, trading blows which failed to land. For Thalassia the dance was almost a literal one, full of snake-like movements and even a deliberate roll in the dust after which she sprang up to attack from behind. With each successive match, she had given more of a show. Agathokles, thankfully, managed to avoid the too-real beheading which it for a moment seemed she might in fact be prepared to inflict. Shortly after there followed a brief bout of close hand-to-hand grappling in which Thalassia took a knee to the torso then delivered a kick of her own which separated them.
Wisely, Thalassia did not let the fight drag on too long before letting her guard down, lest Agathokles concede before getting his hit in. After a deliberately slow attack of her own was deflected, Thalassia left herself, for the briefest of spans, open to attack from her right. Agathokles' instincts, by now running in something close to the kill-or-be-killed mode of true battle, did not fail him, and he sent his blade into the opening.
Thalassia twisted down and left, but a fraction too late: the blade's edge ran almost the whole length of her right bicep, cutting it. The crowd gasped as one, a few souls cheering, but Thalassia did not cry out, naturally, nor wince or offer any pretense of pain. Springing upright after the evasive maneuver, she paused, as did her opponent who was perhaps stunned by his own success, and she leveled at Agathokles a look of pleasant surprise. Her sword arm, which maintained its grip on the raised weapon, was already half covered with blood that dripped from her elbow to slake the Orchard's dusty earth.
After the passage of a few heartbeats left her convinced that Agathokles did not intend press his advantage, she sent her left hand to the wound and ran fingers over it.
The fingers went to her mouth, where she tasted of the blood before flicking her wrist to send out a volley of red droplets which just missed the first rank of onlookers. Smiling, she swung her sword in a few showy, impractical flourishes meant to demonstrate that she was no worse off before she resumed a defensive posture, inviting fresh attack.
None came. Agathokles relaxed his own stance, put both arms out horizontally to show peaceful intent and bent to wipe his blooded sword blade on a clump of dry grass before returning it to its scabbard of plain rawhide.
Thalassia likewise adopted a casual pose, blood dripping to the ground from untended wound while Agathokles addressed her in a voice loud enough for all to hear.
“Your point is proved!” he said. His tone was carefully neutral. “I have no doubt you would beat me if we fought on. I thank you for permitting me to draw your blood.”
The crowd remained silent, apparently sensing that Agathokles, the general they held in high esteem, was not done speaking.
They were right.
* * *
“Countrymen!” he called out. “I have stood here today and heard most of what this outsider said before he offered up this entertainment in which I have just taken part. But the Athenian did not make proper introduction of himself, so let me add what he left out. This man Kleon was known in his city's democracy as a demagogos, a derisive term his people coined just for him because he goads the masses with sweet words and half-truths into believing whatever he wishes them to believe. Failing that, he will just get the sense of a crowd's desire and put himself at its front, pretending its ideas were his all along.
“As for the two with him, well, Demosthenes I know to be a man of honor, even if I rather suspect his motives are less patriotic than personal. As for the third, this one who is not bothering to bind an ugly wound, I know her, too, as do many of you. She came with Demosthenes to our city a short while ago, offering the same thing Kleon now is holding out: aid against our common enemy.
“On my own authority as general, I gave them sanctuary and accepted their offer, on the reasoning that no matter what answer one favors giving to Sparta, no one can think it foolish to be prepared for war. Since then, this woman, Thalassia, has advised our engineers, blacksmiths, masons, shipwrights and others—I see not a few of you here today—to build contrivances which might serve in defending our freedom, should we choose that path. Is she the granddaughter of a Titan? Perhaps. I cannot give another explanation for the evidence of our eyes. It scant matters from what source she derives her powers. It is enough to know that she has them, and that she does.
“Yes, beloved Naupaktos, these three outsiders seek to manipulate you for reasons incidental to your welfare. They push you.
“Yet they push you in a proper direction. I agree with them. A demagogue Kleon may be, but the points he makes are no less true for having rolled from silken tongue. And Demosthenes is no less right in his desire to see us fight for the fact that it stems from blood already spil
led which he would see avenged. The third of them, for all I know, truly was sent by Athena to aid her beloved city, and having failed in that task would redeem herself by saving ours. I say let her try. Let Demosthenes try. In the darkest of times, as these are, it matters not from what quarter help is offered or what force motivates the givers, so long as the offer is genuine. Knowing these three as I do, I trust in them. I believe in the course they hope to set you on, the course of resistance. I believe that with their help, we can give the Spartans who enslaved our forefathers, and who hold our cousins in bondage still, a fight they will not soon forget. And I believe that we can win, and make our city's name ring synonymous with Honor! Courage! Defiance! Freedom!”
* * *
“Naupaktos!” Agathokles finished, clenched fist held high.
The crowd bellowed it back at him. “Death to Sparta!” someone cried out amid the cheers that followed, and others echoed the sentiment.
From his spot halfway up the slope between bleeding Thalassia and the earthen platform on which stood her accomplices, Agathokles cast up a resentful look at the latter, as if to chastise them for having taken action without him and at the same time claim credit, much deserved, for dramatically increasing the odds that their venture would succeed.
* * *
Endymion's daughter performed twice daily for the remaining two days before the citizen assembly of Naupaktos was set to vote on the demands of Sparta. Of course, while the citizens' eyes feasted on that spectacle in the agora, their ears were subject to Kleon's winged words, which showed clear signs of having their intended effect.
Thalassia played her role to a perfection that seemed due less to innate skill than to her own enjoyment of the attention. Whilst rarely speaking, she played with the crowd, worked it, teased it, defeated its champions with ease, yet never lost its affection. By the third day, she had amassed a heap of gifts and tokens given to her by women, men, and children alike, large enough to fill a large trunk. That same evening, in her final performance, she took on six men simultaneously, the most she felt she could face while still ensuring no harm to any. That match, which she fought with a staff in place of sword, produced her first and only accidental injury: an elbow to the face which left her spitting blood. The crowd cheered, and she laughed it off and went on to win.