The helots were tasked with burying the women and the Heraklid Company continued inland, past a burned village that perched on the top of the cliff with a view to the west. They encountered straying farm animals, including some cows, lowing with pain from not having been milked. As the attendants rounded these up and milked them, Brotus watched the way they pulled at the udders and the milk spurted. He wondered if women’s milk spurted like that if you squeezed the breasts of a nursing mother. He pictured grabbing the big breasts of the dead woman and squirting warm milk into his mouth.
“Here, have some!” A helot handed him a black mug with fresh milk in it. Brotus gulped it down and turned away before anyone noticed he had an erection.
Brotus lay down to sleep like the others, his himation wrapped around his helmet to make it softer, and the helmet under his head. The day was warm. Bees hummed in the nearby olive orchards. Goat-bells tinkled in the distance. Brotus saw the breasts of the dead woman swaying before his eyes. He brushed the flies away and reached for one. He put his mouth to the nipple, closed his lips around it, sucked in—
“Up, up!”
The section leader was kicking them awake. “Up, up! The Argives are just five miles away. Fighting kit!”
Brotus started shaking. The excitement was overwhelming. Although every man knew exactly what he had to do—although they had practiced it dozens, scores, hundreds of times—this was different. Brotus could sense it. This was it. The real thing. He was about to engage in real combat.
At the edge of the camp, the company commander swung himself onto one of the scout horses and galloped away, apparently intent on seeing the enemy for himself before making his final dispositions. The enomotarchs were left with the task of forming up their troops.
Brotus’ attendant could see his master was trembling so violently he couldn’t re-pin his chiton at the shoulders. He reached forward to help, but Brotus knocked his hands away, furious that his temporary weakness had been noticed. “Get my aspis, you asshole!” The man withdrew sullenly. There were times he pictured hitting Brotus back or just abandoning him, but he had a wife and two children. He couldn’t risk it. The best he could hope for was that the Argives would take care of Brotus for him. He glanced to the east. The front ranks of the company were forming up, shields on their arms and their helmets down, but spears still at the slope.
Brotus squirmed his way into his bronze breastplate and snapped the metal hinges shut, closing them with a metal pin. He yanked his helmet down over his face and grabbed his shield.
The company commander was back. He signaled the three enomotarchs over to him and gave orders, gesturing. A moment later the other two enomotia marched out, but Brotus’ was left standing in the sun. Their enomotarch came over. He inspected them critically. Brotus felt the officer pause much too long in front of him, and he started sweating profusely, wondering if something was out of order; but then the commander moved on without comment. When he was finished, he ordered, “At ease. The other two enomotia are going to surround the Argive patrol and drive it this way. We’ll see if any live long enough to face us.”
“Shit!” someone said, putting their collective emotions into words. It was easier to do something than just to wait. Standing here on the road and waiting for the enemy was nerve-racking. But they did it.
The sun was getting higher and warmer. The bees had gone silent. So had the goat-bells. Brotus strained his ears for the sound of conflict. When he stopped expecting it, it finally came—on the wind from far away. Shouting; the clang of weapons. His blood quickened in his veins. Why wasn’t he there?
As abruptly as it had started, it was over. Everything went silent again. A turtledove was calling from somewhere. A rider trotted up. The Argive patrol had been eliminated except for two prisoners. “We should have all the information we need out of them within an hour or two,” he predicted.
The men were stood down, but Brotus could no longer sleep. He drifted to the command tent.
The other two enomotia returned. There had been no casualties. They were in good order and except for a cut forearm here, a bleeding lip there, the odd pulled tendon in knee or ankle, there were no casualties. The men were relaxed and joking. “Like killing fish in a barrel!” they bragged. “They squirmed a bit, but they didn’t have much bite.”
One of the prisoners screamed like a stuck pig, but he didn’t tell them anything. The other proved more intelligent. The Argive force was almost one thousand strong, minus the troops guarding the ships. It had taken and burned the port of Skandia and was besieging the walled city on the hill behind it. Those who had managed to escape from Skandia had sought refuge here, and the city was hopelessly overcrowded. From what the Argives could see, there were hardly any fighting men in the city, just a bunch of farmers and merchants with makeshift panoply—and women, of course. The Argives had surrounded the city and cut off the water supply. They figured the city would surrender soon, and meanwhile they were feeding themselves on their spoils from the surrounding countryside.
The Spartans killed the informant and his more courageous companion and left the bodies to the scavengers. The troops were ordered to have a meal and rest.
“What?” Brotus asked, incredulous. “The Argives are just a few miles away! What is this? An army or a holiday excursion?”
“Are you a Spartan or a loud-mouthed Argive?” came the sharp retort.
Brotus frowned and looked over his shoulder to see who had insulted him. The man was tall, wiry, and good-looking. He was barely two years older than Brotus, but he was already a section leader and had a reputation as an exceptional fighter. Brotus bit his tongue, but noted the man resentfully. His name was Dienekes.
Leonidas felt as if he had only just drifted off to sleep when one of the sentries woke them. “Strike camp! Form up by unit! Marching kit!”
Aristandos cursed as he rolled to his feet.
Marching kit meant that they wore their breastplates and their swords, but spears, hoplons, greaves, and helmets were carried on their backs. While the hoplites got their kit rolled and stowed in their backpacks, the helots were taking down the tents and preparing to transport these and all the other accouterments of camping, from provisions to the pots and fire for cooking them. They had brought no pack animals on this expedition and would have to hump everything themselves.
They marched out by enomotia; and very shortly after setting off, they turned sharply to the right and started winding up the barren mountainside on a narrow track. One of the senior rankers, a man close to going off active duty, called over to Diodoros, “Where are we going, then?”
“We are to find the Argive ships and kill any Argive that makes it back to them. The Heraklid Company has been charged with making the assault on the Argive camp.”
A ripple of discontent was audible in the ranks. The Heraklid Company, always the Heraklid Company, was to have the glory of the fight, and they were just to sit around and mop up any cowardly Argives that fled to their ships.
The steepness of the climb soon silenced them, however, and all that was heard was their heavy breathing and the occasional clatter of a dislocated stone rolling down the mountainside from the track. They marched inland first, and then along a plateau. The low scrub brush of the barren slopes near their landing beach gave way to richer vegetation. There were olive groves and other orchards, some already in bloom, their white blossoms like a distant mist on the face of the hills in the darkness. However, the farmsteads were darkened and abandoned. No sheep or goats grazed in the fields, and no hounds sounded the alarm as they trudged past.
After roughly four and a half hours’ marching, they came to a fortified town. Here people were awake. Torches along the ramparts were waved to and fro and they could hear horns blowing, apparently as signals. As they approached the gate, a voice shouted down at them from the tower, “Who goes there?”
“Diodoros, Kastor Company, Pitanate Lochos,” their commander replied simply.
“You’re Spar
tan?”
“Do you have to see the color of our cloaks?”
The men on the tower huddled in consultation. Not surprisingly, they suspected a ruse. After a moment they shouted down, “Send us a herald, and we will speak with him.”
Diodoros nodded, turned, and called for Sperchias.
Sperchias’ family had property on Kythera, and Sperchias had visited more than once on holidays. He slipped out of his rank and file and reported to Diodoros. Diodoros gave him the herald’s staff and sent him toward the gate.
“Remove the rest of your men a hundred paces!” ordered the man on the tower; and by the gleam of the torchlight on the ramparts overhead, Leonidas could see a man aiming an arrow at Sperchias, the tip following his every move.
A small door cut into the massive gate cracked open, and Sperchias was yanked inside before it slammed shut again.
“Well done,” Diodoros remarked, nodding with approval.
They waited. Gradually, as the sky lightened behind them, Leonidas became aware of more and more noise coming from behind the walls, as if the whole city were coming to life. It almost sounded like cheering. Diodoros called them to order. “Helmets!”
The gates creaked open, and the sound of cheering became less muffled. On the ramparts, too, people started cheering. Sperchias came out of the gate grinning. Behind him the streets of the little town were filling with people, all of them shouting and cheering, “Spar-ta! Spar-ta!”
Diodoros turned and walked along the front rank, redressing it with a gesture here and there, then inspected each of the remaining twelve ranks. “This may not be Sparta and you aren’t in parade dress, but try not to look like a bunch of Argives!” he admonished them before turning on heel and ordering, “Right march.” A moment later they took up a song to help keep themselves in step.
The inhabitants of the town were going crazy. The boys were jumping up and down; some had even climbed onto the rooftops. Women and maidens were waving shawls from the balconies. Youths and men reached out from the packed crowds on the sides of the streets to clap them on the shoulder and call out thanks.
Sperchias, back in his place in the ranks, muttered to Leonidas, “I don’t think they’re going to be very pleased when they find out we aren’t staying.”
They weren’t. The town elders were outraged that their presumed “defense” was moving on. They showered protests, bitter recriminations, insults, and outright threats on their erstwhile saviors. One of the older men was weeping tears of rage as he insisted Diodoros had no right to leave them undefended.
“My orders are to secure the Argive ships and ensure that none of the enemy escape alive. You should not wish to hinder us in that task.”
“They may have killed us all by the time they get to their ships! We have only survived so long because they are laying siege to Acro-Skandia. We cannot defend ourselves against them! Look what we have here!” He indicated the handful of armed men collected around him. They were armed with a ragtag collection of old weapons, and their armor was even worse—mostly scruffy leather corselets. Not one had hoplite panoply. On their faces, fear cast a strong imprint, overshadowing their individual features.
“You stood your ground against us today. Behave no differently to the Argives, and you will have nothing to fear.”
“Why not fight them here? Why take a chance that they will do to us what they have done to so many other towns?”
Diodoros was getting annoyed. “I have my orders, and I do not have to explain them or myself to you. We are here to rid you of the Argives, and we will do so in our own way. Be thankful for the results and stop bickering about the means!” He still faced unanimously sullen and resentful expressions from the native men. “Damn it! Trust us!”
“Trusting you has resulted in half the towns on the island being turned into charnel houses!” the old man reminded him.
Brotus’ company was roused at sunset and marched out at dusk. The sun had set, but the sky glowed a luminous blue in which the first stars glittered. A stiff, cold breeze came off the water. They were ordered to march in fighting kit, and despite the grumbling, most men were not unhappy with the order. It meant their commanders expected to fight tonight.
Brotus had control of his nerves. He fell into his position in the file with a grin at the men beside him. They grinned back, although Brotus thought Alexander, the man on his left, looked nervous. Forgetting his own bout of nerves earlier, Brotus sneered inwardly at the young man, calling him “old woman” in his mind, although he was a year younger than Brotus.
After about two hours the battalion was split up again. The Argives were besieging Acro-Skandia, they had been told, and had completely surrounded it. The Spartans wanted to attack in at least three places at once.
After another couple of hours’ march, the commander ordered his men to stack up their breastplates and spears and darken their arms and legs with mud. Leaving the armor and spears defended by their attendants, the hoplites then went forward armed only with their shields and swords. They were under orders to remain as silent as possible: no singing, no talking, no running.
The Argive camp was readily visible by the campfires, even though these were burning low this time of night. Most of the men slept out in the open under the stars, but here and there were tents, evidently for the noblemen and officers. Some of these were still lit from the inside, indicating their inhabitants were awake.
The Spartans stopped a second time. Selected men were sent forward to take out the sentries. Only after these returned, wiping the blood off their short swords, was the order given, with a silent gesture, for the rest to advance. No one had to explain the objective to the Spartan troops. They were to kill as many Argives as quickly as possible without raising the alarm. They could accomplish this best by moving by stealth between the campfires and carefully slitting the throats of the sleeping men. This was not work that could be done in rank and file. It was not about walls of bronze. This work required the stalking and cunning of the hunter.
As they approached the perimeter of the Argive camp, the men spread out. Those that immediately encountered a victim bent to slay him; others penetrated deeper into the camp, seeping like water between the fires. Each man searched for a victim, and then another and another.
Brotus had his eye on one of the tents. He was an Agiad prince, and he wanted to kill men worthy of him—officers and noblemen. He briefly fantasized about killing the Argive commander. Not while he slept, but in a man-to-man duel—after Brotus had killed his attendants and the Argive nobleman had had time to arm himself, of course. Snatches of the Iliad describing the encounter of Achilles and Hektor came to mind: “Come nearer, so that sooner you may reach your appointed destruction.” “… Weaker as I am, I might still strip the life from you with a cast of the spear …”
Brotus approached the tent purposefully, only vaguely conscious that sounds were starting to bubble up from around the camp. Here a gag, there a short groan or a startled word, abruptly cut off. He pushed back the tent flap with his drawn sword. Subconsciously he registered several chests, and armor hung on some kind of a hook rigged from the tent frame, but his eyes were focused on the bed. A man and a woman lay stretched out on it. Both were naked. Not the noble fight he had imagined, but Brotus did not hesitate. In two strides he was beside the bed. The man lay on his side with his right arm and right leg thrown across the woman, pinning her down to the bed as he slept.
The woman was awake. She looked straight at Brotus as he plunged his sword down into the neck of her companion. The woman reared up. She was young and big-breasted, and between her breasts someone had recently cut, with deliberation and careful cruelty, the letter “alpha.” The wound was still red and inflamed, but a thick crust had formed on it.
An Argive whore, Brotus thought to himself; he caught her by the throat and pressed her back onto the bed with his left hand as he straddled her with his knees. Blood flooded her face, but she struggled, tearing the edges of the scab away
from the wound between her breasts. Fascinated, Brotus put a knee on her stomach and watched the way the alpha stood out ever more clearly as her dark blood oozed from the edges of the scab onto her white skin. She was making choking sounds, however, so he closed his hand more firmly until her tongue started to protrude, her eyes rolled back into her head, and her limbs went limp.
Instantly Brotus released his grip on her throat, dropped his sword, and slipped his left arm out of the grips of his aspis. He reached down and hooked a hand under each of her knees. He pulled them up and shoved them apart. The pressure in his loins was so intense that it was blinding him, obliterating all other thoughts and sensations. He did not realize another man had entered the tent until the kick hit him hard in the rib cage and sent him crashing off the bed. The second blow connected with his chin and flung his head back so violently he heard his neck crack. A foot thumped down on his belly just below the end of his rib cage, pinning him to the ground beside the bed.
The woman was gone in a swirl of linen, and he was staring up at a crested helmet and a sword—a short Spartan sword. The man in the helmet hissed furiously, “We haven’t finished fighting!” Dienekes! Brotus recognized his voice.
Dienekes reached down and yanked Brotus to his feet, spun him around in the direction of the still-open tent flap, and put his boot in Brotus’ backside with so much force that Brotus staggered clear out of the tent. He stumbled over something, went down on his knees, and only then started to come to his senses.
The bitch! The whore! She had bewitched him! Distracted him from his duty! He’d dropped his sword and left his shield inside the tent!
Frantically, Brotus looked around and found the sword of one of their slaughtered enemies, but he could not be seen without his aspis! It would be utter disgrace. He circled back around the tent, cut his way inside, and recovered his shield. Then he started running toward the sound of fighting, because by now some of the Argives had indeed woken up, raised the alarm, and offered increasingly organized resistance.
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