The Fire of Ares

by Michael Ford

  Lysander looked at the eagle-eyed teacher. ‘Why is he here?’ he asked.

  ‘He came to Sparta before we were born, to learn about our people, but he decided to stay. People say he is the wisest man in all of Greece. He has hundreds of scrolls filled with writing from around the world, and he can speak five languages!’

  ‘I want you to recite the poem we learnt last time,’ said Anu. He began to sing in a soft, low voice: ‘What is better than when a brave man …’

  The rest of the class joined in, but Lysander didn’t know the words. He could only listen.

  What is better than when a brave man

  Falls and dies in the front ranks for Sparta?

  What is worse than when a man runs away

  And is left begging with his poor mother,

  Aging father, little children and loyal wife.

  The beauty of the words stirred Lysander’s heart. He thought of the future, and of his mother. He wanted to make her proud, to make Thorakis proud too, the father he’d never met. This is my destiny. He could hear Orpheus’s voice above the others, clear and melodic:

  He will be despised wherever he goes,

  Reduced to nothing but rags and hunger.

  Shame will follow his ancestors always.

  Scorn and misery will sniff at him like dogs.

  But a man is at his best when young.

  He looks his finest dying in the forward clash.

  Let each man root his feet on the ground,

  Bite his teeth into his lips, and hold.

  The class fell silent. The final words rang out in Lysander’s head. I must get through this! I must bite my lips and hold on.

  ‘Very good,’ said Anu. ‘Tyrtaios would be proud.’

  Without thinking, Lysander said out loud, ‘Who is Tyrtaios?’

  The class erupted in laughter, and Lysander blushed.

  ‘Silence!’ said Anu, and gave Lysander a steely look. ‘You’ve only recently joined us? Tell him, somebody, who was Tyrtaios?’

  Demaratos answered.

  ‘He was a great Spartan poet. He lived over one hundred years ago, and led our people to victory in battle when they smashed the Messenians during the last Helot war.’

  Lysander’s heart missed a beat at the name of his countrymen. He had heard stories about the wars between his people and the Spartans, but they were all shrouded in legend.

  ‘Tyrtaios showed that a poet could also be a great soldier …’Anu continued.

  ‘Unlike Terpander,’ interrupted a voice from the front.

  ‘Do not interrupt, Hilarion,’ said Anu, ‘unless you have something useful to say. What do you know about the great Terpander?’

  Hilarion, a talkative boy whom Lysander thought more friendly than most of the others, answered, ‘Well, sir, Terpander was giving a recital of his poetry at a festival competition. He won, and someone in the crowd threw him a fig. He ate it … and choked to death!’

  Hilarion and the rest of the class started guffawing, but Anu frowned and shook his head.

  ‘That’s enough!’ he said, and the laughter ceased. ‘You shouldn’t believe such foolish rumours. Terpander lived to the age of eighty-four and died tending his vineyard.’

  The topic changed to the law, and the edicts of Lykurgos, the founder of Sparta. Lysander listened intently as the class recited his teachings. He learnt that Lykurgos had created the Ephorate and the Council of Elders to help the kings govern. It was he who had created the agoge and enslaved the Helots. Though he lived more than three hundred years ago, he had shaped almost every part of Lysander’s life. Lysander felt himself shiver involuntarily.

  ‘The final part of the lesson will be given to writing,’ proclaimed Anu. A groan went around the classroom.

  ‘We didn’t do this when Diokles was in charge of classes,’ Demaratos grumbled. ‘He said writing was for those who could not hold a spear.’

  Anu responded with a shake of the head.

  ‘The Council of Elders has decided all children must learn to write. When a Spartan goes into battle, his cloak is fastened with a piece of wood that bears his name. That way, after the fight is over, the pieces of wood can be collected from fallen comrades to identify who has been killed. Think, Demaratos, if you cannot write your own name, your family might think you have run away from the fight. Once you have all managed to write your names then we’ll finish for the morning.’

  Anu took out a shallow wooden board, with raised edges. It was covered with a milky, slightly shiny layer of wax. The board went around the classroom as Lysander looked on nervously. Each boy took the sharpened wooden stylus and scratched his name into the wax. By the time it came to Lysander, the last in the class, his hands were sweaty. He looked at the markings in the wax – they meant nothing to him. His hand hovered above the board. The stylus felt unnatural in his grip.

  Around him the rest of the class was getting restless, until someone shouted the words he’d been dreading.

  ‘The half-breed cannot write!’ Lysander looked up to see the other boys staring at him. He lowered the stylus and gouged a line in the wax, but Orpheus snatched the wax tablet out of Lysander’s hands, and held it up.

  ‘Yes he can, you idiots. Look!’ He pointed to some markings in the wax and grinned at Lysander. ‘There, below my own name. It says Lysander.’

  The cat-calling died down and Lysander looked too. Though he could not understand the shapes etched into the waxy surface, he knew that Orpheus must have written his name as well.

  Thank you, he mouthed to his friend.

  Anu took the board back and surveyed the signatures.

  ‘Right, class dismissed. And by the way, Aristos, our new boy’s spelling is much better than yours!’

  ‘Pay no attention to them,’ Orpheus said as he joined Lysander by the well. The day was hot and all the students were helping themselves to a drink. Demaratos was at the front of the queue, drawing water from a bucket. ‘They will tire of it and find someone else to harass. Just stand up for yourself.’

  ‘They don’t seem tired yet, though,’ said Lysander.

  ‘Demaratos and his gang used to make fun of me for my bad leg,’ replied Orpheus, cupping water into his mouth. ‘We are not so different, you and I. Both victims of our birth. Easy targets.’

  Demaratos stepped between the two of them. Orpheus struggled to keep his balance against the edge of the well. A quick look around confirmed that Lysander was surrounded on all sides: Demaratos, Ariston, Prokles, Meleager. Four pairs of eyes nailed him to the spot. Demaratos wiped his dripping mouth on a sleeve.

  ‘You think you’re a Spartan because you can write your name, do you?’ He did not give Lysander time to reply. ‘Well, don’t get above yourself just yet. Yours will be the first name-tag they find on the battlefield. If you even make it that far.’

  ‘That doesn’t frighten me,’ replied Lysander. ‘After all, first to die means first in honour. Unless you fear to lead the phalanx.’ A few boys laughed and Demaratos shot a look around him.

  ‘Are you calling me a coward?’ asked Demaratos slowly.

  ‘I am just saying what I see,’ said Lysander.

  Demaratos’s hands were around his throat, and he was thrown off balance, leaning over the edge of the well. He scrambled to get a grip, but he was helpless, at Demaratos’s mercy. His stomach tightened with fear. Over Demaratos’s arm, he could see Orpheus hobble forward. Ariston blocked his path.

  ‘Hold back, cripple.’

  Orpheus looked on – his mouth open in silent astonishment. Lysander struggled, trying to prise Demaratos’s fingers away. They were like iron claws. Demaratos leant further over, pushing more of Lysander’s weight over the lip of the well. He could feel the abyss below him, the emptiness tugging him down. He stopped struggling. He was completely at Demaratos’s mercy. The Spartan was all that stood between safety and the long drop.

  How deep is the water? he wondered. Could I survive the fall?

  ‘So, who is afraid
now?’ spat the Spartan, the veins in his forehead standing out. ‘You should not be here, Helot. You cannot make it as one of us. Your sort are born to hold a rake or a brush, not a spear. No one will care if you take a tumble.’

  ‘Do it, Demaratos!’ came Prokles’ voice. ‘We have had our fill of this impostor.’

  ‘Yes, drop him,’ echoed Ariston. ‘We’ll say it was an accident.’

  Demaratos turned back to Lysander. His jaw flexed and his eyes looked cold as a hawk’s.

  ‘The Underworld awaits you, Helot.’

  Demaratos let go. Lysander felt weightless for a moment, and then gravity pulled at his shoulders. Panic shot through his chest like lightning, and his head fell first into the blackness. There was nothing he could do to stop himself falling, and he heard his own screams echo off the well.

  CHAPTER 15

  Pain shot through his ankle and his breath caught in his chest. He had stopped falling. A hand gripped his foot tightly and hauled him slowly out of the well’s mouth. Lysander landed in a heap on the ground, gasping for breath. As the blood rushed back out of his head, he saw that Demaratos was standing well back, his face pale and afraid. Lysander’s rescuer was Diokles, who stood with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily. Diokles looked from Lysander to Demaratos and back again, his mouth twitching beneath the shadow of his stubble. He seized hold of an arm of each of them and marched off, dragging them with him. All the other boys followed, like a pack of dogs, whispering to each other. Lysander didn’t know what to expect.

  When they reached the training square Diokles stopped.

  ‘If you are going to fight,’ he bellowed, ‘you will do so properly.’

  With the sword from his belt he scraped a circle on the ground, with a radius perhaps four times Lysander’s height. Lysander felt dread gathering in his belly.

  ‘You!’ Diokles pointed at Demaratos and then in the centre of the circle. ‘You need a taste of your own medicine,’ he shouted as Demaratos made his way towards the middle.

  ‘But he deserved it,’ protested Demaratos. ‘He said –’

  ‘No excuses,’ interrupted the tutor. ‘One against many!’ Diokles stalked towards the crowd of students, and quickly pulled out five boys. ‘You know the rules. Go!’

  Lysander watched as the boys quickly entered the circle and surrounded Demaratos, who dropped to a crouch. Suddenly he looked alert, powerful. His arms were spread, ready to take on attackers from all sides. Lysander realised that ‘one against many’ must be a form of wrestling. The first boy darted forward, but Demaratos was too quick for him. He grabbed the boy’s foot and lifted it high in the air, sending the boy sprawling back out of the circle. Two more boys came in from opposite sides. Demaratos rolled smoothly out of their midst and repositioned himself so that one was blocking the other’s path. He dealt with them one at a time, the first with a powerful punch to the leg which dropped the boy to the floor with a howl of pain, the second by ducking under a swinging arm and lunging at the boy’s chest with all his body weight. The opponent crashed to the floor with a sickening thud. The final two did not look at all confident stepping up against Demaratos. He took one down by sweeping his legs away, and the next by an elbow to the chin. A spray of blood spattered the ground. Lysander could not believe the ruthless efficiency of his enemy.

  ‘Very good, Demaratos, very good.’ Diokles clapped slowly, before turning to the attackers, who lay about rubbing their sore bodies. ‘You five, clean yourselves up.’ Then he pointed his sword at Lysander. ‘You next, half-breed. You need to practise looking after yourself.’

  ‘But I have never wrestled before,’ protested Lysander.

  ‘Well, this will be your first lesson,’ said Diokles.

  He nodded to Ariston, who dashed back into the barracks complex.

  Lysander waited in the centre of the circle, and Ariston came back out carrying a wooden rod as long as his arm.

  ‘To make things a little more interesting …’ said Diokles. Up close Lysander saw that the rod had some sort of twine attached to each end, which Diokles tied around Lysander’s ankles so that the rod rested between his legs. It meant that his feet were positioned at a set distance apart, and moving comfortably was very difficult. Another five boys were selected.

  ‘That isn’t fair,’ said Lysander. ‘I don’t stand a chance!’

  ‘Painful lessons are always the easiest to learn,’ shot back Diokles. He spoke to the five on the edge of the ring. ‘Teach him.’

  Lysander tried to mimic what Demaratos had done, crouching low and turning quickly to face each side, but the wooden bar meant he could only take clumsy steps, and he could not use his feet to fight back. He sent the first boy flying with a dizzying cuff to the ear. The others fanned out, and they began to dart in and out, testing Lysander’s reactions. Anger tightened in his sinews.

  ‘Come on, you cowards,’ he said, casting a sneer, and gesturing with his hands. He saw the boy in front nod to one behind, as he stepped within range. Only as he swung his fist did Lysander realise it was a feint. The attacker ducked and Lysander felt pressure on his ankles as the wooden rod was yanked away by the boy behind him. Lysander saw the ground rush towards his face and threw out his arms to protect himself. At the same time, a knee crashed in his temple. Then, black.

  Cool water moistened Lysander’s dry tongue. He opened his eyes, squinting in the light. Someone was holding a cup to his mouth. A trickle escaped over his lower cheek. As he shifted slightly on to his elbows, a dull ache spread across the right side of his head and his stomach churned. He started to choke as water filled his throat.

  ‘Take it slowly.’ came Timeon’s voice.

  His friend was sitting over him, wearing a concerned expression.

  ‘I didn’t win the one-against-many?’ asked Lysander. He attempted a weak grin but the pain in his head made him wince.

  ‘No, and if you don’t come quickly, you will miss lunch.’

  Despite his protesting head, Lysander climbed to his feet and accompanied Timeon to the dining hall.

  Ariston and Prokles sniggered as Lysander walked past them in the dining hall.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ jeered Demaratos. ‘Not full after eating all that dust?’

  Lysander ignored them, and none of the other boys seemed to take any notice of him. He supposed someone getting knocked unconscious was nothing special in the agoge. Prince Leonidas did give him a small nod, though. Towards the end of the meal, there was a banging at the far end of the table. Lysander saw Diokles standing with his arms folded.

  ‘Silence, students,’ he called out. ‘The Council of Elders has announced the date of the Festival Games in honour of the Goddess Artemis Ortheia, Protector of the Young. They will take place in thirty days’ time, on the night of the full moon.

  ‘Each of the two squads must nominate ten boys to represent them in the athletics competition. Demaratos will lead one squad, Leonidas will command his. First you will all have to wrestle a boy from the other team. If you win you go through to round two – the javelin. Here the five furthest throws will progress to the final: the foot race. Quickest over two lengths of the stadium is the winner of the competition. Train hard and do not let me down. Good luck, boys!’

  The whole room erupted in a cheer, but Lysander kept his eyes on his plate. He wanted to prove himself, but the task seemed impossible. There were over a hundred boys in the barracks and only twenty places. Over the last few days he’d been battered, starved, bruised and scorched by the sun. His strength had vanished and the passion that had once driven him was cold and dormant. The memory of the Fire of Ares gleamed red and burned in his mind’s eye.

  ‘Have cheer,’ said Orpheus from beside him. ‘The Festival is the most exciting time of the year. It can make a boy famous for the rest of his life.’

  ‘I won’t even get in the team,’ said Lysander.

  ‘Not with that attitude,’ replied Orpheus. He put a hand on Lysander’s back. ‘You need to put your faith in t
he Goddess Artemis Ortheia; she’ll guide you to victory.’

  Lysander wasn’t so sure. ‘I haven’t seen much evidence of the Gods lately!’

  ‘That’s because you aren’t looking hard enough,’ said Orpheus. ‘You’ve a great deal to give thanks for. Without the Gods, Demaratos might have pushed you down that well.’

  ‘It was Diokles’ hand that stopped me falling, not the Gods’,’ said Lysander.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Orpheus, rising from his seat, ‘they are the same thing.’

  It was javelin practice straight after lunch, and Lysander was dreading it. He had never even held a javelin before. He came out of the dormitory, where he had concealed a couple of oranges to give to Timeon later on. He found the barracks students queuing behind the dormitory huts by a wooden rack that held around ten javelins. Lysander joined the back of the queue.

  Diokles stood in front of them, by a line he had drawn on the ground. He scanned the row of boys.

  ‘Leonidas, you will be first.’

  The prince stepped forward, and took a javelin from the rack. It was not as large as a Spartan spear – the shaft was shorter and thinner. Around the middle was tied a piece of leather. Lysander followed closely, as Leonidas threaded his index and middle fingers into the two loops of the leather thong. He steadied himself, then took five steps and launched the javelin. Lysander watched as the shaft spun and sailed through the air. For a long time it seemed to hang horizontal before the tip dipped. Then it thudded into the ground just a few paces beyond the well.

  ‘Very good,’ said Diokles. ‘Lysander, you are next.’

  ‘But I haven’t –’ he began.

  ‘No excuses!’ bellowed the tutor.

  Lysander did as he was told, and lifted one of the javelins from the rack. He tried to do the same as Leonidas and placed his fingers in the thong. But it didn’t feel natural. The shaft didn’t balance well on his hand.

  ‘Hurry up!’ said Diokles.

  Lysander stepped to the line, and drew back his arm. He concentrated all his power in his shoulder, as he brought it forward. But as he was about to release it, he heard Demaratos behind him.