The Fire of Ares

by Michael Ford

  ‘As you know, Sarpedon is without a male heir. But now he has found you.’ Strabo spoke as though it was a simple domestic arrangement. ‘Sarpedon was wondering if you would do him the honour of entering the agoge.’

  Lysander’s hand dropped from the door.

  ‘Me? Enter Spartan training?’ he said in disbelief. Lysander knew all about the agoge. It was the system of education undergone by all Spartan boys in order to prepare them for manhood. It was famed for being brutal and uncompromising. Many boys did not make it, and died in the course of the training. It was the reason that Spartans had such a fearsome reputation all over Greece. If you could last the training, you could face any enemy without fear. Lysander felt his heartbeat quicken at such a prospect.

  ‘Yes, you,’ said Strabo. ‘In his youth, Sarpedon was one of the greatest warriors in all of Sparta. He was a natural leader of men, and always the first to throw himself against the enemy. His sons were no different. And now it would be a great pleasure for him to see his grandson become such a man.’

  ‘Wait,’ Lysander said, ‘surely I am too old. Spartans start the training when they are seven years old. I am thirteen – I’ve too much to learn.’

  ‘Well, you are right that it’s not normal,’ said Strabo. ‘But most of their training is physical, and you look strong enough from your work in the fields. You will soon catch up if you apply yourself.’

  ‘But I am only half Spartan.’

  ‘Again, it is uncommon, but it has been known for mythokes to enter the training.’ Lysander had heard the word before – the name for children like him, born of Spartan men and Helot women. They were on the fringes of Spartan society, not truly accepted by either the master race or the Helots. Lysander looked at his mother, but her face was unreadable.

  Strabo carried on:

  ‘I have my orders – you must make the decision now,’ he said.

  ‘What about Agestes – the overseer?’ asked Lysander.

  ‘He is of no importance,’ Strabo said.

  ‘And my mother?’ he asked.

  ‘She will be taken care of,’ said Strabo. ‘Look, I have some errands to run for my master, and cannot waste any more time. Am I to understand you are refusing the offer?’

  Things were moving so fast. Lysander could not help thinking that perhaps this was the great destiny his mother had always spoken of. His hand reached for the pendant at his neck. But of course, it was not there. His mother caught the movement.

  ‘Lysander, where is the pendant?’ The colour had drained from her face. ‘Please tell me it is safe,’ her voice trembled.

  You fool! Lysander silently cursed himself. But before he could explain, Strabo spoke first.

  ‘The pendant was stolen,’ he said simply, with his eyes on Athenasia. ‘It seems your son has trouble avoiding the more criminal elements of society.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said Lysander’s mother. ‘You know how important the Fire of Ares is …’

  Lysander started to speak.

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. There was nothing I could have done. I was attacked at the market. Someone knew what they were looking for …’

  ‘Your grandfather thinks the missing pendant might have something to do with the same boys who attacked you two nights ago,’ said Strabo. ‘Your best chance of recovering your property lies in the barracks. If you can find the culprit, you can get back this Fire of Ares.’

  Perhaps Strabo was right.

  ‘What about my mother?’ he asked. ‘You said she would be taken care of. She cannot live here without me. It would not be in Prince Kiros’s nature to look after a slave who isn’t earning her keep …’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she began. ‘I can look after myself.’

  Lysander knew she was lying. There was no chance she could make a living in her current state.

  ‘I have orders to take her to Sarpedon’s home,’ said Strabo. ‘She will be given a room there and the best possible medical attention.’

  Athenasia let out a gasp of surprise, and Lysander turned to her excitedly. Strabo gave a smile, but it was not reflected in his eyes.

  ‘It is the least Sarpedon can do,’ he said, then added: ‘So, Master Lysander, can I take your answer to him?’

  Lysander would be leaving the settlement and everything he knew. Even leaving Timeon. This would be a new life, with new hardships. Another, darker thought crossed his mind. I could use this to help the Resistance. Learn the Spartan ways. Know my enemy and teach the Helots.

  ‘Listen to Strabo, Lysander,’ said his mother. ‘This is an opportunity to escape the Helot’s life, an opportunity I never thought you would have. It is rare for a half-Spartan to be accepted without a great deal of wealth. The agoge will make you into a man, and give you a life after I am gone.’There were tears in her eyes, but happiness too. Lysander turned from his mother to Strabo.

  ‘Please tell Sarpedon I would be honoured to accept his offer.’

  ‘There is one more thing,’ said the servant. ‘As a trainee, you will need a Helot to wait upon you.’

  The thought disgusted Lysander. ‘I won’t need a slave – I have been one for long enough. No one deserves to be treated badly.’

  ‘It is one of the regulations, Master. You do not have to beat your slave, although some boys take pleasure in doing so. Is there no one here – a friend perhaps?’

  Of course, thought Lysander. There is someone!

  ‘I’ll bring Timeon,’ he said to Strabo.

  ‘Very good,’ said Strabo. ‘I will return in the morning. For now, enjoy your time with your mother.’

  Strabo stood and was gone.

  That evening, Lysander and his mother sat outside their hut, enjoying the last of the sun’s rays. They had spoken little since Strabo left the house, and Athenasia had slept through the afternoon. Other Helots passing home from the fields gave them odd looks, but no one asked why they hadn’t been in the field that day.

  ‘Mother,’ said Lysander, ‘what is so special about the Fire of Ares?’

  Athenasia kept looking at the sky, where the sun smeared the horizon. She pressed her lips tightly together.

  ‘I never wanted to tell you, because the knowledge would place you in even greater danger. It belongs to a life I never thought you would share. It was your father’s. And Sarpedon’s before him. And his father before him. All the way back to the Trojan War, six hundred years ago. Do you know the story about King Menelaos?’

  Lysander shook his head.

  ‘Well, many hundreds of years ago, Sparta had only one king, rather than two. His name was Menelaos. His wife, Helen, was the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, but she was kidnapped by men from over the Aegean Sea, men from the city of Troy. As well as Helen, the Trojans also took all of her riches and jewels. All but this one piece. Menelaos found it on the beach from which the Trojan thieves had departed: that is how he knew they’d taken his wife. Menelaos called it the Fire of Ares, and swore on the charm that he would get Helen back. The markings on the back are in the old language. It says, The Fire of Ares shall inflame the righteous.

  ‘With his brother Agamemnon, Menelaos assembled a huge fleet and sailed to Troy. They were victorious, but only after ten years of fighting. In all those ten years, the Fire of Ares kept Menelaos safe, but after the conflict Helen gave the pendant to their daughter, Hermione. It has been passed down since then.’

  ‘Can the Fire of Ares really have survived all that time?’ asked Lysander.

  ‘Don’t underestimate the power of the jewel,’ his mother replied, with deadly seriousness. ‘The same power that drove King Menelaos to batter down the walls of his enemy will belong to the wearer of the Fire of Ares. It represents the family – the ancestry – to which you owe your very existence. The red of the stone is your bloodline, and your tie to the past.’

  Lysander had to recover that jewel, whatever it took. His mother reached over to him.

  ‘I am sure you will make me very
proud,’ she said. She squeezed him close as the sun set.

  CHAPTER 11

  Lysander stood outside the barracks with Timeon and Strabo.

  ‘And we are going in there?’ said his friend, gazing at the building in front of them. ‘They could have made it more pleasing to the eye, couldn’t they?’

  Lysander had to admit his friend was right. The barracks was a huge, one-storey square building built of wood. He could only see two sides, but it looked as though there was a single door in each, and a row of windows along the top, well above head height.

  ‘Wait here,’ Strabo said, then disappeared inside.

  Looking at the barracks, Lysander wondered if he had made the right decision. This one building would be his home until the age of eighteen. Nearly six years! He would eat, sleep, learn and train here with other boys of his own age. Can I really live here? he asked himself.

  ‘The other Helots didn’t trust their ears. You! A Spartan warrior,’ said Timeon. ‘Agestes’s face was a sight to behold.’ Timeon mimicked the overseer’s booming voice: ‘I hope they use him for target practice.’

  Lysander burst out laughing, but had to straighten his face when Strabo came out of the barracks door accompanied by another man.

  ‘He’s bigger than Herakles!’ whispered Timeon. Lysander nodded. When the two men reached them, Lysander had to lift his chin to look the stranger in the face. A thick dark beard climbed his cheeks, and one of his eyes was covered with a patch. The top half of his left ear was missing, and Lysander found it hard to keep his eyes off the ragged pink scarring.

  ‘Lysander, this is Diokles. He’s a tutor at the barracks. He will be your guide in the agoge.’ Something about the way Strabo said the word guide made Lysander uneasy.

  ‘So, half-breed,’ snarled Diokles, ‘you must think yourself a Spartan already.’

  ‘I …?’ Lysander didn’t understand.

  ‘Well, look at your hair, boy. It hangs around your shoulders. Only Spartan warriors and women are permitted to wear their hair long. You will have to have it cut. Is this your slave?’ He waved his hand towards Lysander’s friend.

  ‘His name is Timeon,’ said Lysander.

  Diokles struck Lysander in the chest with the heel of his hand. The blow was like a charging bull, and Lysander slid across the dirt. The tutor stood over him, his face red with fury.

  ‘You, boy, will call me sir, and I will call your Helot whatever I wish. His life is worth less than yours here. Do you understand?’

  Lysander was dazed and shot a look to Strabo, who stood by. Diokles leant down and took hold of Lysander’s jaw, turning it so that their eyes met.

  ‘Do. You. Understand?’

  Lysander nodded.

  ‘Y–yes, sir!’

  Diokles released him.

  ‘Follow me!’ ordered the tutor, striding back towards the barracks door. Timeon helped Lysander get to his feet.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Lysander.

  Diokles was disappearing inside the barracks and Lysander and Timeon ran to catch up. Just as they reached the door, Lysander turned to say farewell to Strabo, but Sarpedon’s servant was already walking away.

  Inside the building it was surprisingly cool. They were in a small vestibule area, with doors leading off to the left and right. Those must be the dormitories, thought Lysander. Looking directly ahead, he realised that the building was not a solid square after all, but four long sides surrounding a central exercise yard.

  ‘This way,’ instructed Diokles, and led them straight ahead and into the yard. He spread his hands. ‘Welcome to the arena.’

  Boys filled the training ground. Immediately to his left two boys wrestled, their arms locked around each other. They circled, each looking for the advantage, grunting while their feet kicked up clouds of dust. One boy pushed a foot behind his opponent and, with a twist of the hips, threw the other boy to the floor, before landing on top. The dust stuck to the sweat on both boys’ bodies.

  Beyond them stood a wooden frame, hanging from which was a row of hoops of different sizes and at different heights. A queue of boys took it in turns to thrust wooden poles into each of the holes. Lysander realised it must be some type of spear practice. One boy expertly jabbed his pole several times without touching the sides of the hoops.

  ‘Good head shots,’ said Diokles. ‘His brain would be on the end of your spear.’

  In two lines in the centre of the yard, one row of young Spartans attacked with wooden swords, while opposite them, another row defended with circular wicker shields. They were following a pattern of prearranged moves, and both rows moved with precision and in symmetry. The boys shouted a count to stay in time, and the swords crashed on the shields, hard enough to shatter bones. Lysander was impressed.

  More boys to the left seemed to be lifting weights in pairs. One squatted by the side of a rock as big as a watermelon. Placing his arms either side, the veins in his head stood out as he tried to lift it. Finally, with a gasp, he managed to stand straight, and place the rock on to a platform at head height. His partner then picked the rock up and ran with it to a post a few paces away, and then back again. They repeated the exercise. Could I lift that? wondered Lysander.

  ‘You two, out of the way,’ someone shouted, and Lysander turned to see a boy sprinting towards him at full speed. Everyone watched as the boy pushed off from the ground and sailed through the air, landing in a pit of sand.

  ‘This is where you will do your indoor training. You will go outside for marches, and javelin and discus.’

  As they worked their way through the crowd, Lysander began to understand why the Spartans were so powerful. All of their male citizens went through this. Almost every day, of every year, between the ages of seven and eighteen. Even after that, men continued to train together and live together until they were thirty. Only then were they permitted to live in a house of their own.

  Timeon stood close by his side.

  ‘It feels like being a mouse surrounded by cats.’

  Lysander was about to respond when an unusual sight caught his eye. In the far corner of the yard, a boy was tied by his wrists to the top of a wooden pillar. His body hung down, so that his feet dangled above the ground. His naked torso glistened with sweat, and the muscles on his arms bulged. But the boy’s face showed no emotion.

  ‘How long has he been there, sir?’ Lysander asked.

  ‘Who?’ asked Diokles, then he saw what Lysander was looking at. ‘Oh, Drako, is he still there? It must be time to bring him down.’ He walked behind the pillar and unhooked a rope. The boy fell to his knees on the ground.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he managed to say to Diokles in a deep voice. Drako got to his feet. He was heavy with muscle and as tall as Sarpedon.

  ‘His arms are as wide as my legs!’ whispered Timeon.

  ‘Drako was caught out after dark last night – he feels the need to supplement his rations by theft. Fine, of course, but he was foolish enough to be caught. This was his punishment,’ the tutor informed them. His manner was so offhand he might have been speaking about the weather.

  The group they came to next seemed to be playing some sort of one-against-many game. One boy stood with his back to them as others rushed in from all sides to set upon him with their bare fists and feet.

  ‘This is to teach a Spartan how to face several adversaries at once,’ said Diokles. ‘On the battlefield, you can’t expect our enemy to fight one-on-one.’

  The victim was quick on his feet, dodging and changing his position to meet his attackers. Each one was sent crashing to the floor or beaten back, but still they came. Lysander could see the single Spartan was getting tired. He panted for breath. Finally, one of the hunters managed to seize him around the middle and draw him to the ground. The others piled in too. Surely they’ve got him now, thought Lysander. But no! With a mighty cry, the Spartan broke free and threw the others off. He stood over them, victorious, and then walked
out of the ring. But when he saw Lysander his face went deadly cold. His dark, flashing eyes, the curl of his lips and the arrogant gait were unmistakable.

  Lysander reeled backwards.

  ‘What is wrong?’ asked Timeon.

  ‘That boy,’ said Lysander. ‘He was the leader of the gang in the alleyway.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ called out the tutor. ‘Well done, Demaratos. You have proved yourself again. Your team will have extra rations this evening.’ Diokles called out to everyone: ‘Spartans!’

  The boys ceased their activities.

  ‘We have a new arrival.’ Lysander watched the boys’ eyes fall upon him, but no pair burned more fiercely than those of Demaratos. ‘This is Lysander. He will be joining the barracks from today.’ A murmur went through the crowd, and Demaratos raised an eyebrow. ‘He will be allocated a place in the squad of Prince Leonidas, but I trust you will all give him a … warm welcome.’ The other boys laughed.

  Demaratos walked over. Under the single watchful eye of Diokles, Demaratos held out a hand for Lysander to shake.

  ‘Welcome to the barracks, Lysander. If you need anything …’ his grip tightened, crushing Lysander’s fingers, ‘… anything at all, let me know.’

  Lysander squeezed back, but Demaratos was too strong for him. He was grateful when the Spartan released his hand and returned to his pack of friends.

  Lysander saw a fair-haired boy looking at him. He stood tall, with lean taut muscles. He approached Lysander cautiously.

  ‘Don’t let him worry you,’ he said, giving a wry smile in Demaratos’s direction. ‘He likes to be head of the roost here.’

  The boy did not address Timeon at all. It was as if Helots were invisible. Lysander wanted to talk more, but Diokles seized both him and Timeon by the elbows. They left the training area by another gateway, which opened directly into what looked like Diokles’ own quarters. The tutor rummaged around in a basket to one side and pulled out a dirty red piece of material. He threw it at Lysander.