Spartan (21 page)

Meanwhile the hoplite sent another to the ground with a great blow of his shield, and ran through the third with his sword. The three survivors, terrified, tried to flee but found themselves
surrounded. The villagers, recovered from their shock, began to pelt the soldiers with a thick shower of stones. They were soon beaten to the ground and finished off by the savage blows of the
enraged peasants.

‘The interpreter!’ shouted the archer. ‘He must not escape!’

The villagers looked around: from under a large straw basket, a strip of fabric betrayed his hiding place. He was dragged into the centre of the small dusty square, and brought before the two
mysterious figures who had appeared so suddenly from nowhere.

Wriggling out of the grasp of the two men who held him, in a fit of unsuspected energy, the interpreter threw himself at the feet of the hoplite, embracing his knees.

‘I’m Greek, I’m a Greek like you are!’ he gasped with his lisp. ‘Sir, spare me, take me from the hands of these animals!’

The stench of that great sweaty body nauseated him, his nostrils being used to delicate oriental perfumes, but his terror of being torn apart by the enraged peasants kept him wrapped around
those powerful legs.

The hoplite kicked him sharply, sending him rolling. Pale, dirty, dusty, the wretch closed his eyes and awaited the killing blow.

‘Get up,’ the commanding voice of the hoplite ordered. ‘Are there other groups in the countryside requisitioning wheat?’ he asked.

‘Will you save my life if I tell you?’ asked the interpreter opening his dazed eyes.

‘I don’t think you’re in any position to bargain,’ interrupted the archer mockingly.

‘Yes, there are. A group of soldiers with an officer will be at the village of Leucopedion tomorrow. I was supposed to meet them there. I don’t know of any others.’

‘Very well,’ said the archer, smiling. ‘You will meet them as planned!’ The interpreter’s large protruding eyes bulged. ‘And so will we, naturally. And
now,’ he said to the peasants, ‘Tie his hands behind his back so we can take him away. We’ll put him to good use.’

‘Who are you?’ the one who seemed the village leader asked, drawing closer. ‘Tell us your names so that we can remember you.’

‘You’ll remember anyway, friend,’ said the hoplite, washing the tip of his spear in a small trough. ‘For now it’s better that you not know our names. Get to work
instead: get rid of these corpses, clean all traces of blood from the earth, burn their wagons and wipe out their tracks. You can keep the mules if they’re not branded. If any Persians arrive
tell them that you haven’t seen a soul. Hide a part of your wheat and keep it in reserve. They may try again.’

The archer took hold of the interpreter and they dragged him off in the direction of a hill to the north of town, as the crowd of peasants watched them from the village square.

After crossing the hill, they descended into a small valley sheltered from inquisitive eyes. Tied to an olive tree was a mule with its head drooping, flicking its tail every so often to chase
away flies. The hoplite took off his armour and loaded it onto the mule along with his companion’s bow, then covered everything with a heavy cloth.

‘You fought magnificently, Talos,’ said the hoplite. ‘I never would have thought you could use that weapon so well.’

‘This weapon is deadly,’ answered the archer, gesturing towards the bundle on the mule’s back. ‘As old as it is, it’s still tremendously powerful.’

‘Keep in mind, though, that these men were mediocre combatants: with the Immortals it would have been completely different. My armour is designed for fighting in a compact formation,
protected on each side by my comrades’ shields.’

‘That’s why I insisted on coming with you,’ said Talos. ‘You need an archer to cover you from behind and to scatter the enemy when they attack you in force.’

They retreated behind a large rock and sat in its shade waiting for night to fall.

*

The next day, at dusk, a satisfied Lydian officer was leading a few men from the village of Leucopedion with a good-sized load of wheat and barley, when he heard a cry for help
in his own language, in an unmistakable Sardeis accent.

He thought he was dreaming. ‘By the Great Mother of the gods, what’s a man from Sardeis doing here?’ His men, too, had come to a surprised stop although they couldn’t
tell where the cries were coming from since the path before them passed between two rocky crags and then curved sharply down towards the ford of the Ascreon torrent.

The officer sent a pair of soldiers ahead to see what was happening, but after passing the gorge the men did not return and no amount of shouting would bring them back. In the meantime, the sun
had set and it was getting dark. As the officer was about to give the command to advance in open order towards the gorge, another cry for help was heard coming from the peak of the impending cliff
to the left of the pathway: all turned in that direction, gripping their weapons, just as something shot through the air with a sharp whistle and one of the soldiers dropped to the ground with an
arrow in his forehead. Before his comrades had recovered from their surprise, another soldier collapsed, struck full in his chest.

‘It’s an ambush!’ shouted the officer. ‘Take cover, quick!’ and he flung himself at the base of the rock, imitated by his men. ‘There can’t be many of
them,’ he panted, ‘but we have to flush them out from up there, otherwise we won’t be able to pass. You go that way.’ He gestured to three of his men. ‘And we’ll
go this way. Whoever they are, we’ll trap them between us and make them regret this joke bitterly.’

They proceeded to follow orders when from behind them resounded such a chilling cry that their hair stood on end. The officer reeled around and had only the time to see, on the cliff’s
peak, a black demon heaving its spear at him before he collapsed, cursing and vomiting blood, run through from side to side.

The apparition barrelled down from the cliff, still howling, and hurled itself at the terrified survivors, helpless against the arrows that continued to rain from above sowing the ground with
cadavers. The few surviving soldiers fled into the forest.

That evening the commander of the Persian detachment camped near Trachis noted that two squads and a Greek interpreter had not re-entered. He dispatched groups of horsemen to search for the
missing soldiers but they returned late at night without having found a single trace; the men had simply disappeared.

In the last few months of that torrid summer and into the autumn many other strange and inexplicable happenings were reported in the villages spread on the slopes of Mount Oeta and Mount
Kallidromos, and along the banks of Lake Copais.

The most incredible of these incidents occurred when a group of Paphlagonian soldiers in the service of the Great King were surprised by a cloudburst and sought shelter in an abandoned temple
dedicated to Ares, venerated by the Greeks as the god of war.

The building had been violated and looted months before, but strangely enough the statue of the god was still on its pedestal, intact with its gleaming armour and carrying a great shield with
the image of an open-jawed dragon.

One of the barbarians immediately thought that it was a pity to leave those splendid things at the mercy of the first person to come along. He drew closer to the statue with the intention of
completing the looting that his comrades-in-arms had evidently left unfinished in the spring, when to his immense surprise he saw the statue turn its head towards him, its eyes shining with a
sinister light in the darkness of its helmet.

He had no time to react, or even to cry out: the god Ares smashed his shield into his face with such force that it broke his neck. Then the god gripped his enormous spear and flung it at the
others, piercing the throat of one of the Paphlagonians and nailing another to the doorpost. At the same time, from the crumbling roof of the building resounded dreadful cries, certainly inhuman,
and a deathly rain of arrows felled a number of the soldiers to the ground, lifeless. When the survivors, mad with terror, related the incident to their commander, they were not believed; rather
they were punished severely – it is well known that the Paphlagonians drink immoderately and when drunk are capable of any excess.

Certainly many of these tales seemed incredible and exaggerated, but such incidents multiplied instead of subsiding as is so often the case with unaccountable events. It was thus that among the
Phocians and the Locrians, and even among the traitorous Boeotians, and in every village between the summits of Mount Kallidromos, the massif of Helicon and the disease-ridden banks of Lake Copais,
news spread of the solitary hoplite who would appear suddenly along with an archer who had a strange, rolling gait. They were as quick as lightning and as relentless as fate itself.

*

‘I’m sure that he’ll show up,’ said Talos to his companion, all bundled up in a dark cloak. It was late autumn and the evening wind threatened rain. The
two men stood in the shelter of an ancient olive tree laden with fruit. Thirty paces away was the Plataea and Thespiae crossroad. Not very far from there, at the foot of a little hill that hid the
Asopus river bed, was a shrine with an image of Persephone carved in olive wood. Talos pointed it out. ‘Karas knows it well, it was he who described it to me. This is the first full moon of
the autumn, so we can’t be wrong. You’ll see, he’ll be here.’ After some time, as it was beginning to get dark, a massive figure appeared on the road from Plataea, perched
on an ass that swayed beneath his weight.

‘It’s him!’ exclaimed Talos.

‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Brithos, sharpening his gaze. The rider spurred on his ass, forcing it off the road and urging it towards the shrine next to the crossroad. He
tied the animal and sat down on the base of the sacellum. Talos and Brithos exited their hiding place.

‘Ah, here you are,’ said Karas, getting to his feet. ‘I was afraid that I’d have to wait here and get soaked; it’s about to rain.’

‘Let’s go, quickly,’ said Talos taking his arm. ‘Let’s leave here before someone comes by.’ They pulled the ass after them, along a path tucked behind the
hill, towards the valley of Asopus. They entered an abandoned pen that shepherds must have used some months earlier, before the horde of invaders had passed. Since then there had been no sheep to
look after. They took off their cloaks, spread them on the ground, and sat down on them.

‘You’ve turned the whole region inside out, from what I’ve heard,’ began Karas. ‘Wherever I stopped I heard tell of the hoplite with the dragon and of the archer
who accompanies him. Some even speak of supernatural apparitions. The old men say that the hoplite could be Ajax Oileus, come back to help his people and to combat the nations of Asia like at the
time of the Trojan War.’

‘What about the archer?’ asked Talos with a smile.

‘Oh,’ continued Karas, ‘with that lame foot they’ve already taken you for the hero Philottetes. Add the fact that they’ve never seen a bow like yours and you can
imagine how you’ve worked up the people’s imagination and their superstitions. Your fame has spread all the way to Sparta, and that’s not all. The city has its informers all over
this area to study the movements of the Persian troops, and they transmit anything that they hear said. I don’t think they mention Ajax and Philottetes, though; the shield of the dragon is
too well known down there. It’s the archer that’s perplexing them. I think that the ephors would be quite happy,’ he nodded, turning to Talos, ‘to study you close
up.’

‘My mother?’ asked the youth.

‘She knows you are alive but she lives each day in the terror that you’ll never come back.’

Brithos lowered his head, not daring to ask anything.

‘I can’t tell you much about your family,’ Karas told him. ‘I know that your mother mourned you as dead, that I’m sure of. If she’s nurturing any hopes or if
she’s had some news of what’s been happening here, I can’t say. Your mother doesn’t speak with anyone; she leads an extremely secluded life. It’s as if she
didn’t exist.’

Karas fell into silence. They heard, far off, the screeching of the cranes that were beginning to gather along the banks of Lake Copais, preparing for migration.

‘Next spring a great confederate army will come up here to face the Persians,’ he began again. ‘Preparations have already begun.’

‘What can you tell me about the other task that we’ve entrusted you with?’ asked Talos.

‘I think I’m on the right path,’ he answered. ‘The man who led the Persians to the pass of Anopaea is named Ephialtes, and the government of Sparta is actively searching
for him. It won’t be easy to get to him first. The only advantage that we have is that he won’t know that we’re looking for him.’

‘Do you think that he’s trying to reach the Persian army?’ asked Brithos, roused from his silence.

‘No. As far as I’ve heard, he’s wandering somewhere on the gulf coast. He’s staying wide of the Peloponnese, but he’s probably trying to embark on some ship, or
escape to Asia or Italy. Tomorrow I’m meeting a man from Trachis who may be able to tell me more.’

‘You know what you must do if you find him,’ said Brithos.

‘I know,’ responded Karas darkly. ‘He’ll never even realize that he’s dying. I hope you know that you’re not doing your country any favour.’

‘I know, and I really don’t care. Only we have the right to punish him, not the city that decided to sacrifice Leonidas and my comrades.’

‘Then,’ answered Karas, getting to his feet, ‘we have nothing more to say to each other. Be careful if you want to make it through to next spring, because they’re looking
for you everywhere. If you need me you know where to find me.’

He untied the ass and began to walk alongside it, holding it by the halter. A flight of ducks passed through a sky that seemed empty.

‘Tomorrow they’ll be flying above the banks of the Eurotas,’ murmured Brithos, as if talking to himself.

T
HE TAVERN STANK OF
burnt oil and fish. It was packed full of sailors from the port and pilgrims on their way to the sanctuary at Delphi. The lights of
the sacred city could be seen sparkling tremulously on the side of the mountain.