Spartans at the Gates (35 page)

The smith tugged on his goatee with excitement. It was so simple! “So could you read it?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” said Barka. “And you were right. They're instructions on how to find the ‘treasure trove.' You must start with the ‘navel of the city,' as they called it. Everything is paced out from there to an arm's length with the use of a special rock for directions—magnetite I think it is called in the Greek.”

“A compass,” said Chusor. Then he started laughing. “Zeus's Thumb,” he said. “The ‘navel of the city' is Zeus's Thumb.”

“Whatever are you babbling about?” asked Barka.

He pointed down into the city. “In the oldest part of the citadel is an ancient stone. Some kind of marker worn by centuries of rain. The people call it Zeus's Thumb because it looks like a great finger jutting from the ground. That is where we start.”

“I'm happy to have helped,” said Barka. “Now I need to go back to bed.”

Chusor grabbed Barka's arm and said in a low voice, “No one must learn about our secret.”

Barka glanced at him. “Who would I tell?”

Chusor seized Barka under the arms and raised the eunuch up in the air as though he were a child—lifted him up near the tower's battlements. The eunuch let out a terrified scream, but Chusor brought him back down to his feet and hugged him to his chest.

“I thought you were going to throw me to my death,” said Barka, wide-eyed.

“Only a madman would throw away his treasure,” said Chusor, laughing.

 

THREE

“Lad! Lad!” said General Agape with a cheerful and excited tone, probing him with his foot where Nikias lay in the hold of the ship, covered in sick. “We can see the Parnes Mountains!”

Nikias groaned and curled up into a tighter ball. He would have enjoyed seeing the famous sight, but he could barely open his eyes, let alone utter a reply. He'd been felled by Poseidon's wrath for the last two days, shivering and vomiting until there wasn't even bile left in his guts, dry heaving like a dying dog. If Agape were to announce that he had come to slit Nikias's throat, the young pankrator would have smiled and welcomed a quick death, such was the profound agony of his seasickness.

Every so often during the voyage General Agape had come to visit Nikias in the dark hold—where the Plataean cavalrymen had carried his incapacitated body—and fill him in on the journey's progress, droning on like a persistent and irritating Olympian tour guide. But Nikias had missed it all, alone in the hold, listening to the ceaseless creak of the oars and the slap of the waves on the hull, cursing the day he'd been born, cursing the day he'd decided to set out from Plataea, and even cursing the man who'd built the first boat.

“Here,” said Agape, kneeling down and holding a skin filled with water to Nikias's parched mouth. “Take a sip.”

Nikias shook his head. He tried to say the word “no” but it came out as a feeble moan. Even the thought of water repulsed him. But Agape poured some in his mouth anyway, saying, “Just a sip. You must not get dried out. Your blood will become thin.”

“Thanks, General,” Nikias forced himself to say after he'd swallowed.

“It will be dusk in an hour or so,” said Agape. “The wind is picking up. We're going to put into the next cove and beach the boat for the night. You might be able to eat something and get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll be on the last leg of the journey. Captain Phoenix says we'll arrive at Delphinium before zenith.”

“Praise Zeus,” said Nikias with a shuddering sigh.

“Ships!” called out the voice of a lookout on deck.

“What's that?” said Agape, cocking his head to one side. “What did he say?”

Nikias listened. He heard Phoenix's voice asking, “Who are they?”

“They're Athenian,” replied a voice from the other side of the deck. “Fifty-oared attack ships by the look of them. I count two. They're flying the proper flags.”

“They're flashing a shield signal,” said a second voice. “It says: ‘Put up oars.'”

After a pause Nikias heard Phoenix say, “Poseidon's prick! Why do they want us to put up oars?”

“They say: ‘Urgent news,'” called out the second voice again, relaying the signal.

There followed some muttering between Phoenix and a few of his men at the tiller—a disagreement that Nikias couldn't quite hear. After a few minutes Phoenix said, “Stop pulling. We'll wait for them to get within shouting distance.”

“I wonder what news the other ships bring?” said Agape. “I reckon it's about the siege of Potidaea.”

Nikias drifted into a dreary and fitful state, half between waking and sleep. Several minutes must have passed in this way, for when he opened his eyes with a start, Agape was no longer by his side, and men were shouting on the deck above—frantic and surprised shouts and the rapid thump, thump, thump of dozens of objects peppering the hull.

Arrows!

And then a massive bronze spear point—like one of Poseidon's trident prongs—ripped through the side of the boat a few feet above Nikias's head. He lurched to his feet. Water was rushing through the breach in the ship, swirling around his ankles.

A scream cut through the din: “Board the other ship!”

It was Phoenix's voice. A desperate call to arms followed by the sound of many feet treading on the platforms above.

Nikias stumbled over to the stairs at the aft of the boat. He clambered onto the deck. An arrow whizzed past his head. He ducked, crouching low, surveying the chaotic scene. Dead men on the decks. Athenian oarsmen leaping onto the bow of the enemy ship: a fifty-oared warship—the one that had rammed them—stuck in the hull like a colossal swordfish with its painted eyes glowering.

Phoenix's men had grabbed shields and axes and were chopping their way onto the enemy ship, some falling into the water, others spurting blood as their limbs were hacked from their bodies. Nikias saw Phoenix barreling his way through a mass of enemy fighters with old Agape by his side. He saw Teuker the Plataean cavalryman beheaded—

“Boy!”

Nikias looked down. Krates was slumped with his back against the wall of the ship, an arrow protruding from his left shoulder. He stared at Nikias with a wild, terrified look in his eyes.

“Krates—”

As Nikias bent down to inspect Krates's wound, something shook the ship and pitched him forward, slamming him against the wall. He looked to the other side of the deck and saw that another fifty-oared ship had rammed the dispatch vessel from the opposite side. Enemy warriors were already leaping onto the top deck, running toward Nikias and Krates.

There was no time to grab a shield. No time to board the enemy ship and join the others. Nikias reacted without thinking. He grabbed Krates around the collar with his good hand, pulled him to a standing position, and flung himself backward over the side of the ship, taking Krates with him.

Nikias hit the shockingly cold water and all sounds were muted for a few seconds, and then he floated back up, his head breaking the surface. He swam to Krates, who was flailing and gasping. The waves pulled them toward the prow of the enemy ship—to the spot where its ram was stuck into the
Sea Nymph.
Here they were hidden from the view of the enemy mariners above—warriors who were peering over the side, searching for them with spears in hand.

An Athenian fell off the enemy ship he'd just boarded and the enemy leaned over, skewering him in the water with a long spear. The man died and sank under the water.

“Can you swim?” Nikias asked Krates in a harsh whisper.

“A little,” said Krates.

“Get on your back,” Nikias ordered. “And start to kick.” Krates obeyed and Nikias wrapped his left arm around the man's neck and kicked hard, swimming along the hull of the dispatch vessel. When he got to the prow he kicked off it and moved them away from the cluster of ships. Nikias was a strong swimmer and soon, helped by the rising tide that moved toward the shore, they were racing away from the sea battle. From this vantage point Nikias could see the two enemy ships stuck into either side of the dispatch vessel and the fight raging on the decks. He looked behind him. They weren't far from shore. He could see the waves crashing on a rocky beach in the setting sun.

He glanced back toward the pandemonium of the battle. The Athenians were still fighting. They had seized shields and weapons from the enemy ship and had made a shield wall at the prow of the ship they'd just boarded, stopping the mariners from the second vessel from coming across the captured
Sea Nymph.

He saw the distinct figures of Phoenix and Agape. His cousin had grabbed an oar and swung it back and forth, screaming insanely, knocking the enemy over the side. And Agape brandished an axe like a hero. It was a desperate battle and the Athenians were fighting bravely. But the enemy had overwhelming numbers.

Nikias saw oars start to pull on the ship that Phoenix and his men had boarded. The Athenians were attempting to disengage the enemy boat from the
Sea Nymph.
They were trying to escape in the captured ship!

“Lead them, Phoenix!” Nikias shouted.

Just then a big rolling wave slammed into his face and he took in a mouthful of water. When he finished coughing he looked back toward the cluster of boats—but they had spun around so that now he couldn't see the ship that Phoenix and the others had boarded. The screams of men were carried away on the increasing wind.

Lightning flashed in the distance: a storm front coming in from the east.

Nikias kicked hard, putting more and more distance between themselves and the battle. The tide pushed them quickly toward the shore, and the sun was about to set. Night would soon hide them.

“Who were they?” asked Nikias with outrage.

“Korinthians,” replied Krates. Then he said simply, “I'm dying.”

“I can swim us both to land.”

“Thanatos,” said Krates, uttering the name of the god of death.

“Hold on,” Nikias said in his ear. “Just kick with your legs.”

“You must get back to Plataea,” said Krates. “Bring your message from Perikles.”

“We both will, old man. Now just—”

“Nikias. Your father … he had the most beautiful voice I had ever heard…” Krates's words trailed off and he stopped kicking. His body became very still, rising up and down on the waves like a piece of driftwood.

“Krates?” asked Nikias urgently.

Nikias refused to let go of the old man's body, and he swam with it all the way to the beach, where they were tossed to and fro on the rocky shore. He finally managed to pull Krates's corpse from the shore break and drag him to a dry place.

The beach was empty. It was dark now. Nikias peered out onto the water, but he could barely see the ships half a mile away, still locked together. The storm clouds were directly over the ships now. The wind shifted, and Nikias heard a lusty victory shout—the sound of many men celebrating as one—carried on a gale.

He was filled with despair.

He sat on his haunches for a while over the dead body. Krates looked so small and frail and childlike. There was a faint smile on his craggy face.

The Athenian ship was taken. Phoenix, Agape, the Athenian oarsmen, and the Plataean cavalrymen were either dead or captured. Krates was a shade. He was alone on a beach, many miles from home, with only one good arm. And he had lost the sword that Perikles had given to him.

He went to work, quickly stripping Krates of his belt upon which was fastened sheaths holding a sword and dagger. He readjusted the leather straps, fitting them around his own waist. Krates had a small leather purse around his neck filled with coins. Nikias took this off and slipped it over his own head.

He started to walk away, then stopped. He opened the leather pouch around his neck, searching in the dim light for a Plataean coin amongst the Athenian owls. When he found one he went back to Krates and knelt, placing the coin on Krates's palm, then closed the dead man's fingers around the silver disk—payment for the Ferryman.

“Here comes a warrior of Plataea,” said Nikias, uttering the ancient Plataean farewell.

Then he stood and walked up the beach on wobbly legs toward a path that wended its way up a cliff face, climbing toward dark mountains beyond.

 

FOUR

“Pretty skull cup, my best drinking cup—

Don't put down the cup, raise it up, up, up!”

Kolax sang happily, nestled in his father's lap where Osyrus sat cross-legged in front of a roaring fire. The Skythian boy had never felt happier in his life. His father's strong arms were wrapped around him, and he was thousands of horse strides from that hateful city of Athens. The god Papaeus was smiling on him. He didn't even mind the searing pain from the whip marks on his legs that still burned two days after his father's lashing.

Nothing in the world mattered anymore, for he had found his father.

They had made camp for the night on a flat outcropping high in the mountains, with their backs to a wall of stone. Beyond the fire was a dark forest of pine trees swaying in the wind. Their horse was tied to a tree nearby, staring at them with one black eye shining in the light of the fire. Kolax felt safe and content. He stared up at the stars twinkling in the sky and sighed.

“Are you comfortable, my son?” asked Osyrus in a gentle voice. He adjusted his cloak so that it covered Kolax's legs.

“Of course, Papa!” rasped Kolax. “Please tell me all about the stars. What are they made of?”

Osyrus laughed and held Kolax tighter. “The stars are needle holes made in the tent-skin of the sky.”

“Papaeus made those holes in the sky-skin with a giant tattoo needle,” said Kolax. “You told me that when I was little.”

“Yes,” said his father. “You have a good memory. It was a needle made from the tooth of the biggest dragon that Papaeus slew with his lightning arrow.”