by Michael Ford
Phlebas moved.
‘He’s alive!’ gasped Prokles.
‘Just,’ whispered Phlebas, with barely moving lips. Blood had soaked his tunic and his face was white.
‘We’ll get you back to the forest,’ said Lysander, taking his arm.
‘No,’ said Phlebas, ‘I’m halfway to the Underworld already.’
‘Your wounds can be tended,’ said Lysander.
Phlebas opened his eyes a crack, and smiled. ‘My wounds are beyond tending.’ He frowned. ‘You are the boy who dared to argue with Nikos.’ He coughed, and blood spattered his lips. ‘You were right. Our tactics were … flawed.’
‘That’s not important now,’ said Lysander.
Phlebas’ lips twisted and his back arched. He squeezed Lysander’s arm, exhaled a long breath and sank back. His eyes closed.
‘Come on,’ said Prokles, turning to go.
Lysander lowered Phlebas’ limp arm to his side, then looked back along the road. So many Spartans slaughtered. And for what? A piece of land in a foreign country.
Chapter 21
The light was fading as they entered the forest. Lysander had been worried they might not be able to find the camp again, but the way was clear from the churned footprints on the ground. The smell of woodsmoke drifted through the trees and soon they saw the orange glow of the Spartan campfires.
The camp had turned into an infirmary, and the sound of moaning mixed with the clanging of metal as weaponry was mended. The women and children were busy fetching water and looking after the injured soldiers. Lysander saw a man whose hand was hanging off. With a spit of wood between his teeth, the injured wrist was placed over a rock and a soldier sawed through the remaining tendons and bones with a short sword. The man writhed while three others held him down. Several men wore eyepatches or had bloody bandages on their heads.
‘Lysander! Prokles!’ Aristodermus approached through the crowds. He had no obvious injuries other than a thick swathe of linen wrapped around the top of his left arm. ‘We thought you were dead.’
‘How many are left?’ said Lysander.
Aristodermus cast his eyes over the camp. ‘We have around two hundred men able to fight, and forty-one from our barracks.’
‘Only forty-one?’
Aristodermus looked to the ground. ‘Twenty-seven are confirmed dead, and eleven more are unable to fight on. It is a heavy toll, but they died with honour.’
Twenty-seven from the barracks dead. Twenty-seven empty beds in the dormitory.
Lysander felt sick.
‘Take some food,’ said Aristodermus, ‘and get some rest. We’ll keep watches throughout the night. Tomorrow the Gods may favour us.’
‘What happens tomorrow?’ asked Prokles.
‘We take back the town,’ said Aristodermus grimly.
Prokles barked a laugh. ‘With what? We’ve lost half our men already.’
‘We still have half our men left,’ said Aristodermus. ‘The retreat was tactical.’
‘We ran away,’ said Lysander, suddenly angry. ‘They defeated us.’
‘The battle isn’t over,’ said Aristodermus. ‘What did I tell you at the barracks? We adapted.’
Aristodermus’ eyes gleamed as he spoke. Lysander didn’t know what to believe. Since his earliest days in the agoge, he’d been told that retreat was not an option, that a Spartan would rather die than turn his back on the enemy. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive if it came at the cost of cowardice.
I won’t ever retreat again, he promised himself.
Having eaten some cold roasted meat, Lysander borrowed a sewing kit from one of the women. The needle was made of a piece of carved bone. Prokles was already asleep by the fire when he found him, but he stirred his comrade.
‘Go away, I need to sleep.’
‘Let me look at your eye first,’ said Lysander.
Reluctantly, Prokles sat up. The wound above his eyebrow was partially scabbed over, but Lysander could still see a patch of raw flesh beneath. Using a sponge, he dabbed lightly at the wound. Prokles’ jaw flexed, but he didn’t protest.
The air was full of snoring, and quiet mumblings as the soldiers spoke in their sleep, traumatised by the day’s fighting.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Lysander, cleaning the last of the dirt from the cut. ‘You could have been killed distracting those Messapians by the crates.’
Prokles threw a piece of wood on to the fire, and stared into the flames.
‘But I wasn’t.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Lysander. ‘We’ve never been good friends. You fought me back in the mountains.’ He threaded the needle with black cord. ‘Lie down.’
Prokles lay down on his back. ‘You called me a coward.’
‘I’m sorry for that – your courage speaks for itself. You put your life on the line for me. I’m grateful.’ Lysander brought the two edges of the wound together with his finger and thumb.
‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ asked Prokles.
‘Of course.’ He’d watched his mother stitch in their tiny hut in the Helot settlement. How different can this be?
Prokles shifted on the ground.
Lysander brought the tip of the needle to the bottom edge of the wound, and pressed it against Prokles’ skin. ‘Ready?’
Prokles grinned. Lysander pushed the tip into the flesh.
‘By Kastor and Polydeukes!’ hissed Prokles.
Lysander pushed further, through one side, and then the other, drawing the cord with the needle. Blood dribbled down Prokles’ cheek, and he wiped it away with the sponge.
‘Only seven more to go, I think,’ said Lysander.
Prokles rolled his eyes. ‘Make it quick.’
With a steady hand, Lysander completed the stitches. Fresh beads of sweat had formed across Prokles’ forehead.
‘How does it look?’ he said.
Lysander wiped the remaining blood from the wound, and looked at the ragged stitches. ‘It’ll be a fine scar.’
Prokles laughed and took a swallow from a water flask. ‘I should never have listened to that Helot of yours.’
‘What do you mean?’
Prokles looked away. ‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
Prokles sighed, and shrugged.
‘I wasn’t meant to tell you, but before we left Sparta your Helot – what’s his name? – came to me and asked me to look out for you. He offered me money – gold.’
‘Idas offered you gold?’ said Lysander. ‘Where from?’
Prokles shook his head. ‘I don’t know. He said someone important was looking out for you, and there’d be honour, as well as money, if I could keep you out of harm’s way; get you back to Sparta in one piece.’
Someone wants to keep me safe? Who could it be?
‘So that’s why you risked death, for gold?’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Prokles laughed a little and lay back again.
‘I gave him the gold back. What does a soldier need with riches? It made me realise though, a Spartan is wealthy when he can rely on the man next to him in the phalanx. Sacrifice is the Spartan way. Nothing else matters.’
Lysander had never heard Prokles speak in such a way before, but it made him remember Demaratos. Despite the heavy weariness that seemed to hang from every limb, he dragged himself up, and picked his way over to the fire where Aristodermus lay. His tutor was easy to spot by his white shock of hair.
‘What is it, Lysander? Sit down.’
Lysander crouched, and sat on a fallen log.
‘It’s Demaratos, sir.’
Aristodermus nodded. ‘He was a brave soldier, and I know he was your friend. But his death will be remembered and his mother need fear no shame.’
‘I think he might be alive,’ said Lysander. ‘I saw him dragged away in the fight.’
Aristodermus shook his head. ‘He’s probably suffered the same fate as Nikos, poor wretch.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lysander, pushi
ng the image to the back of his mind. ‘Or perhaps they’ve kept him alive for a reason.’ Aristodermus didn’t look convinced, so Lysander pressed on. ‘What if they’re torturing him for information, about our location, or the tunnels.’
‘You think he would tell them?’
‘Of course not,’ said Lysander. ‘He’d rather die first.’
‘Then we don’t have a problem.’
Lysander looked into Aristodermus’ pale pink eyes. They betrayed no sign of emotion.
‘We can’t let him die.’
‘There’s nothing we can do now,’ said Aristodermus. ‘When we attack again in the morning, we’ll look for him then.’
‘It will be too late by then.’
‘The men are tired now,’ said Aristodermus. ‘They can barely stand. We can’t risk everyone for the sake of a boy who’s probably already dead.’
Lysander walked back to his place at the fireside. He’d spent the Ordeal with Demaratos. Five days in the mountains, on the cusp of life and death. They’d fought, bonded, and learned to rely on one another, and Lysander knew he owed his life to his friend. He was sure Demaratos was still alive.
Prokles was already asleep, snoring on his back.
The Gods send help in the strangest of forms, thought Lysander, as he lay down beside the fire.
He didn’t sleep well. It wasn’t only the cold, or the fear of attack, or the grumbles of pain from around the camp. His mind kept shifting images around. He remembered his harsh words for Kassandra, and the broken vase.
I should have apologised. Why didn’t I?
Stubbornness? Anger? Shame?
Orpheus was gone too. A Spartan unlike any other.
And what of the Helots on Kassandra’s settlement? Lysander recalled dimly the cold winter days with his mother, when firewood and food were short. The slaves would find no help from Tellios.
Pick the battles you can win, his friend Timeon had always said.
So many gone: Timeon, Orpheus, his mother, his grandfather Sarpedon. All the victims of Sparta.
He wouldn’t be a victim. Sparta wasn’t a set of rules to be followed. There was nothing to be gained by following Lykurgos blindly. Were these the shackles the Oracle had spoken of – the ones that bound him?
Being a Spartan was about honour, putting your comrades first. He wouldn’t sit here, bound by orders, the chains of tradition. Not when one of his friends might be alive in Taras.
I have to act. I have to help my friend.
Nothing else mattered. He wouldn’t wait like Achilles in his tent at the edge of the battlefield while Patroklus perished. He’d throw himself into the fray.
The Gods can do with me what they will.
He crouched in the darkness, and looked over towards Aristodermus. His tutor’s chest rose and fell slowly. Should he take his sword? No, it would be better not to be recognised. He stripped off his cloak.
A simple boy from Taras – that’s all I am.
Goose pimples stood up over his skin in the chill pre-dawn air, and his bones cracked as he made his way away from the dying fires. He stepped lightly between the sleeping men. If any saw him, they didn’t speak. Soon he was among the trees again, heading for the forest edge.
He crossed the fields leading back to Taras, and met the track as dawn broke, the sky streaked with red like wine stains. On the road, ravens and crows were already alighting on the dead bodies, looking for soft tissues to scavenge: eyes, tongues, lips.
The first sounds he heard from the town were the dirges of mourning. High wails and low-pitched guttural sobs rang out. Everywhere smelled of charred wood, with a sickly scent lingering beneath. He heard people ahead, and peered around the edge of a potter’s shed.
He saw dozens of red cloaks lining the ground. Spartan corpses.
A hole had been dug in the ground, and men, working in pairs, were lifting bodies by the shoulders and feet, and throwing them like sacks of grain into the burial pit. They wore cloths around their mouths and noses, and worked in silence. The smell reached Lysander in waves: stale blood, sweat and rottenness.
As he watched, another cart approached and tipped a pile of bodies by the hole. Two Spartans, a Messapian and several civilians. All equal in death.
Lysander took off the sash that girdled his tunic, and tied it over the lower part of his face, then stepped out from his hiding place and joined the queue of men. It was a risk, but he had to see if Demaratos was there. He shuffled forward until they reached the pile of corpses, then took the feet of a dead Tarantian while another lifted the head. They heaved the body over to the pit, and swung it in.
Lysander couldn’t see Demaratos among the dead, but he saw several others from the barracks: Philo, Klemen, Dorixos. All boys he’d trained with, eaten with, slept alongside. Boys who’d faced the Persian hordes with him in the phalanx.
They were all dead for a piece of Sparta they would probably never have seen if it wasn’t for Lernos arriving at their barracks.
He slipped away and rejoined the track towards the market square. As he left the residential buildings, the sound of wailing diminished.
In the square, blood stained the walls and left dark patches on the ground. The hall was blackened with soot around the lower parts of the walls, the door completely off its hinges and lying in pieces inside. The smashed statue of Lysander’s ancestor was outside, and someone had scrawled writing across it.
Looking out towards the small harbour, a few corpses and bits of equipment were stranded on the narrow beach. The sea rolled and lapped at the shore.
Lysander didn’t know where to start looking for Demaratos. He crept quickly around the precincts of the temple, looking for any sign of a red cloak, then paced up towards the stables where they had freed the prisoners the previous day. There were a few larger houses, presumably once belonging to wealthy Spartans, and Lysander searched through courtyards, not daring to enter the villas themselves. He walked back and forth among the narrow alleys separating the workshops, peering into the door of each.
He heard a muffled cry, and froze. The sound wasn’t one of mourning, but of pain.
Rounding a row of stables, he listened for the sound again. The horses hung their heads in their stalls, and eyed him dispassionately.
Another shout of agony nearby.
Lysander picked up a horseshoe that was lying on the ground. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing.
At the far end of the line of stables was a building with a smoking chimney. Lysander heard the hiss of hot metal being plunged into water. A blacksmith’s forge?
A spine-chilling scream pierced the air, and Lysander broke out into a run, reaching the door where the sounds came from. It was open a crack, and he put his eye to the gap.
The heat from the interior blasted his face, and his skin tightened.
The sight inside made his heart thud.
Demaratos was lying on a wide bench, his hands tied together and pulled taut by a cord attached to a ceiling hook. His feet were off the ground, tied together. His tunic had been pulled off his shoulders and was loose around his waist. Sweat dripped off his torso, and several deep red welts had been seared across his chest and abdomen.
Lysander ducked away slightly as a man came into view. It was the same Tarantian who must have spared Demaratos’s life in the market square. He held a branding iron in his hands, glowing orange.
‘No. Please,’ pleaded his friend.
But the man didn’t listen, and held the red-hot metal over his chest again. Then he let it wander upwards towards Demaratos’s face. Lysander’s friend twisted away, the tendons in his neck standing out.
‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘What have I done? Tell me what I’ve done wrong.’
Lysander kicked open the door. ‘Don’t touch him!’
Chapter 22
The man with the branding iron turned slowly, and looked Lysander up and down. Holding the horseshoe in his hand, Lysander suddenly felt ridiculous.
&nb
sp; ‘Another Spartan boy?’ said the man. ‘When did the mother country stop sending real men?’
‘You’ll find out what this boy can do if you don’t back away,’ said Lysander. The heat from the forge was overwhelming, and Lysander’s eyes stung with the smoke.
The man looked down casually at Demaratos. He still held the iron a few finger widths from his face.
‘Put down that horseshoe, boy. You’re in no position to make demands.’
Lysander gripped his only weapon even harder. His palm was already slippery with sweat.
A voice grunted behind him, and with it came the stink of stale wine. Lysander felt the tip of a blade against the back of his neck.
You idiot!
He dropped the horseshoe, and it thudded on the hard-packed floor of the blacksmith’s chamber. A hand pushed Lysander to one side and he saw a small, older man with a face like a stray dog. A few whiskers of grey hair stuck out under his chin, and his grin revealed rotten teeth like burnt tree stumps. He was carrying a Spartan sword.
‘Better do as Cato says,’ said the man. ‘He may not speak your Greek tongue, but his sword speaks a language you can decipher.’
Lysander stood back against the wall. The man who spoke Greek was clearly no simpleton. His eyes gleamed in the orange glow of the fire, and he plunged the iron back into the flames.
What can I do? thought Lysander, eyeing Demaratos’s bonds. His friend wouldn’t be of any use if it came to a fight. He’d have to talk his way out of danger. If only Timeon were here – he was always the persuasive one.
‘Why don’t you let him go? The battle’s over – you won.’
‘The battle may be over,’ said the man, ‘but the war has only just started. The Spartans will return.’
‘No,’ said Lysander. ‘Our numbers are few. Nikos, the commander, is dead.’
The man snorted and turned the iron in the flames.
‘Spartans treat their soldiers like slaves. There will be another Nikos.’ He nodded to Demaratos, whose chest heaved with panic. ‘But this son of Sparta will not be there to see that fight. The Gods will save special punishment for him, and the pain he will suffer here is only the start.’