Spartan Beast (The Hellennium Book 2) Page 3

  If he violated custom, Aspasia took it in perfect stride. “If I can fill the request as made, the bill will be but a drachma,” she said. “My reward will be helping two women make their way in these troubled times. But if I need to pay my own girls, the cost will be twenty.”

  Styphon, being little used to coinage, did not even know how much silver was in the pouch of official funds he carried as a privilege of rank in Brasidas's temporary regime.

  “Agreed.” He started to empty the purse into his palm, but Aspasia's gentle hand came up and stopped him. “The bill is not yet known,” she said with her disarming smile. “Come back and pay after your mystery man is satisfied. Fooled, if need be.”

  Something in her speech suggested she knew the customer was someone important. Perhaps that much was obvious, since the client otherwise would have come himself. But could she suspect it was the king? His arrival was not not quite common knowledge, but neither a secret. More likely, she thought the client Brasidas, although if she had known the polemarch, she might have realized Brasidas was well-placed enough in Athens by now to get what he wanted himself instead of sending a proxy to beseech an aging courtesan.

  Letting her think what she might, Styphon instructed her on where and when to dispatch the women. Then he gladly made his leave, noting as he passed the empty couch which shamed Geradas had already vacated.

  * * *

  4. Discord

  From Aspasia's den, Styphon returned to the Tholos in time for the evening mess, which was to be attended by Agis, the members of Brasidas's and Styphon's own units, and a handful of Athenian collaborators being groomed for positions of power in the soon-to-be-installed tyranny. Styphon's late arrival was scarcely noticed by the crowd of forty or so. Taking a spot against the wall (the Spartan attendees reclining on the bare tile, the Athenians on cushions), he ate cheese and bread and cold barley, and laughed along with all at a few pasty Athenians' attempts to choke down Spartan 'black broth,' the nearly sole ingredient of which was pig's blood. He listened to Equals compete to tell stories of their battle prowess in the hope the king would overhear and invite them to join the royal guard.

  Styphon kept quiet, for he had no particular desire for more attention from Agis. He did not receive any. In fact, for some reason Agis seemed distracted and in a foul mood, almost a different man than the personable king Styphon had escorted from the port. Perhaps his mood was foul, or perhaps it was by some sort of strategy that Agis seized on an opportunity, opened by someone's tale of bravery in battle, to ridicule a particular proposal that Brasidas was purported to have made privately to Sparta's five supreme magistrates, the ephors:

  “We shall need courage like yours when Brasidas has us charging an enemy phalanx without our spears,” the king remarked, directing a humorless glare at the man in question. “Actually, what we shall need are prayers and bandages!”

  A few present chuckled, but they stopped quickly for lack of company. Agis himself did not laugh. Brasidas produced his sharp smile, hawk eyes levelly meeting the king's gaze.

  “My grandfather never would have believed Sparta would exchange bronze armor and encompassing helms for leather and bare faces in the battle-line,” the polemarch returned. “Yet we did, and still we persist in winning battle after battle against men wrapped in metal. My father would have laughed at the idea of a ship that can sail into the wind, yet we took Athens with such vessels. Just the same, our sons will win battles with arms and tactics which today we find laughable.”

  “Hmm,” Agis intoned, but the sound was ominous rather than thoughtful. It seemed to Styphon that the dearth of laughter scored by his last remark was perversely driving the young king to redouble his attack. “Well, then, why don't we all agree to ride chickens into the battle at Dekelea a few days hence and see who winds up laughing?”

  This line scored him a few more chuckles, but they were nervous ones. Fully half of the men present were the members of Brasidas's own mess, and they remained stone-faced. Though they might savagely tear one another down in private, mess-mates did not look well upon one of their own being mocked by an outsider, even a king.

  Brasidas's composure showed no sign of strain. He casually sat on the tile with his back against the wall. His smile patronized Agis, and any who laughed, as feeble-minded inferiors.

  “By all means, laugh,” he said. “I welcome it. But a man should know what he is laughing at, so let me explain. Yes, I do believe the sword should be our primary weapon, but not only that. The phalanx should be put to rest, too. Currently, when a unit's cohesion is broken, the battle is lost and no choice remains, even for the bravest of men, but to flee the field or die. Worse still, what can turn even the most disciplined hoplite regiment into fodder for light infantry? Some trees. A swamp. A stream!”

  Brasidas shrugged. “I risk droning on, when we should be eating, but I only mean to say that it makes scant sense to me that a Spartiate should be the ultimate instrument of war, yet remain vulnerable to far lesser men on any terrain other than clear, level ground. We are missing something, and if you listen carefully enough, you can hear the laughter of those who truly have a right to laugh: the gods.”

  By now, there was no thought of laughter among the crowd, nor of eating. All eyes went to the king in anticipation of his rebuttal. But Agis, being an astute enough observer of his surroundings to ascertain that the time for mockery was done, changed his tone.

  “Quite right,” he said, in a way which made it clear he had no plans to concede the argument. “Change is inevitable. It can bring improvement or it can bring disaster. But tradition is the foundation on which positive change must be built.” He sounded as if he were quoting some childhood tutor of his, but not for long. “I wonder whether most here would count the freeing of the Helots—all of them, as I understand is your advice to the ephors—as a positive or negative change?”

  The king furrowed his brow and fixed Brasidas with a look of exaggerated interest. The position of which he had just accused the polemarch of holding was a new one to Styphon, as indeed it must be to all present, for all eyes—not least those of the Helot slaves serving the meal—joined those of Agis in demanding from Brasidas either confirmation or denial.

  For the moment, Brasidas gave neither. “At Amphipolis, the battle during which I was captured two years ago”—doubtless, this reminder of his defeat was intended as a show of humility, which in turn proved his confidence—“I led a force of Helots who gave their service on the battlefield in exchange for freedom. They were no Equals, naturally, for how could they ever be? But they fought well, were loyal, and in the end they died for each other, for me, for Sparta, and for their families. I was glad to count them on my side and not the enemy's, for at present, are the Helots not as much our enemy as Athens was? Every year we renew our declaration of war on our own slaves, and when we fight wars abroad, we are forced to leave garrisons behind to guard against rebellion. Our Helots are a resource, yes, but at the same time they are a drain.”

  Brasidas might have intended to finish there, or might have gone on, but he was forced to stop: Agis, who thus far had only provoked others to laughter, began himself to laugh. He did so alone, and made a convincing display of amusement which he surely did not feel.

  “And I suppose after freeing our slaves,” the king taunted, “you'd have Equals give up training for half the year to push a plough and harvest wheat?”

  There was no reaction from the forty-plus diners. Styphon wished the king would find a graceful exit from this conversation, but that seemed less and less likely. There was no doubt in Styphon's mind that Brasidas had a ready and convincing answer—regardless of whether he had come to it himself, or been fed it by his star-born ally Eris.

  “Perish the thought,” Brasidas answered. “Spartiates are born and bred to war, and it would be criminal to suggest it become otherwise.”

  Brasidas knew, better than any speaker whom Styphon had heard, how to ingratiate himself to an audience, even when speak
ing unwanted or unpleasant truths.

  “I would dare not suggest we do without slaves,” Brasidas continued. “I simply think that our slaves ought not also to be our neighbors. We should import them, as most do, from conquests abroad. We could do with far fewer, then, since their labor would be solely for our benefit, and not also for their own families and communities.”

  Abruptly, Brasidas abruptly threw a hand in the air and smiled. “Come now, Agis, serious talk like this has its place, and that place is not the mess! Doesn't anyone have a good joke?”

  No one spoke. Agis smiled intelligently. “I could say that you just finished telling a joke yourself, polemarch,” the king said. “But instead, I yield. I can see when I have been out-tongued. Really, if I did not know better, I would swear you were one of those Athenian demagogues sitting over there, looking pale for fear of giving anyone offense.” Agis gestured at the future tyrants and laughed, amiably. “Or maybe the food is just not to their liking. I admit my error. This is not the place for such debate. But I can see you have taken it in the spirit in which it was intended,” Agis doubtless lied, “that of brotherhood. The traditions we share are only strengthened by the raising and rejection of new ideas. Whichever side one takes, whether that of reckless change or respect for tradition, and no matter what one's rank, we in this room remain, forever, Equals.”

  The king raised and drank from his clay water-cup, no different than that used by anyone in the room. Amid a muttered chorus of agreement, or more likely plain relief at the easing of tension between the two leaders, the forty or so Equals and Athenians lining the walls gladly followed suit and drank.

  Brasidas was last to raise his cup, in silence, hawk-eyes watching Agis.

  * * *

  After some reasonably good wine and brief entertainment presented by the future tyrants, when about half the diners had filed out, an Equal entered the mess fully armored with sheathed sword on his hip. He was Therykion, one of Brasidas's trusted lieutenants, and ignoring all others he made a line straight for the polemarch. His breach of protocol in wearing arms into the mess hall, Styphon assumed, would share its explanation with the half-dried blood which stained the lower half of his face.

  On seeing his aide arrive, Brasidas rose and went to him without bothering to excuse himself from the cluster of mess-mates with whom he conversed. Agis, seated on the wall opposite in a similar cluster, watched the pair closely. The look on the king's young features, if Styphon was any judge, seemed one of worry, not of the general kind, but a more pointed variety

  Therykion spoke emphatically and with urgency, but since he did so in Brasidas's ear, none of it could be overheard, not even when the whole room fell silent in the pretense of ignoring what was clearly a sign of some developing emergency.

  Styphon's first thought, which must have been shared with others present, was that the Athenian resistance, led by a man known only as Omega, had added another Equal to the list of five whom they had murdered thus far, one here and one there, typically with arrows from the dark.

  Others in the room might have persisted in that belief, but Styphon dismissed it when he saw Brasidas's sharp eyes dart to the king during Therykion's report. He knew that look, and grasped, too, Agis's apparent agitation.

  Whatever had transpired, Agis was involved.

  Brasidas gave his aide a brief, inaudible instruction, after which Therykion raced out.

  The polemarch proceeded to the center of the room. “Matters of governance beckon,” he said tersely to the crowd, for whose attention he had no need to ask, for he had it. “Fortunately, I am blessed with the presence of our king, with whom I shall now consult in private. Good evening.”

  The silent crowd caught his true meaning: that all but the two leaders should excuse themselves from the hall. A prompt evacuation ensued, in which Styphon took part. Unlike some others, perhaps, he understood that in the private meeting soon to take place, Agis and Brasidas would not be partners in tackling some emergency; they would be open adversaries.

  Just before he left the chamber, Styphon turned at the sound of Brasidas calling his name.

  “Stay near,” the polemarch commanded.

  Styphon acknowledged with a nod. Outside the Tholos, under the orange sky of early evening, the dismissed crowd dispersed quickly. Though doubtless curious, Spartiates were perhaps the least prone of any men on earth to indulge in gossip and rumor; they would know what they needed to know when and if their superiors deemed it necessary. Given his rise from accused trembler to Brasidas's 'dog' and partner in the recruitment of the she-daemon Eris, to leader of the marine assault which had taken Athens, then finally into the polemarch's inner circle, Styphon was likely to learn the truth sooner than most.

  While the rest went to retrieve their arms and report back to their various duties in the occupation of Athens, Styphon took up a position around the corner from the mess.

  Within a quarter hour, Agis strode out. Crimson cloak billowing, he walked with purpose. Styphon pressed closer to the wall of the alley in which he hid to avoid the king's notice. It was hardly necessary, for Agis evidently saw nothing but his destination, whatever it was.

  When the king had gone, Styphon reported to Brasidas's office in the Tholos.

  The polemarch stood in his open doorway, and the look he wore was one Styphon knew: behind his hard eyes, flanked by the scar on his temple received at Amphipolis, where Demosthenes had dealt him his greatest defeat, a keen and vindictive mind was in motion.

  The target of his fearsome mental energy, Styphon knew without asking, was Agis, their own king, the product of a dynasty which stretched back into the mists of time to a demi-god's seed and which had emerged unchallenged through twenty generations of Spartiates.

  With a flick of his head, the polemarch beckoned Styphon into his office.

  “Agis sent his guards and his seer to the sanctuary of Apollo,” Brasidas began bluntly when they were alone behind the closed door.

  The explanation caused Styphon to curse himself. The king's black-robed Minoan, Phaistos, had not left to pray or sacrifice, but to visit the corpse of Eris. And Agis has sent his royal guardsmen not to protect the seer, but to aid him in whatever was his purpose.

  “Apologies, polemarch. It was I who let slip her location,” Styphon said swiftly, choosing to take a lesson from Brasidas himself in taking quick responsibility for failure.

  With a wave, Brasidas silenced him. “It is not your place to suspect and second-guess your king. Under most circumstances.”

  A sharp look accompanied the latter remark. Styphon understood it: such things now were to be his place.

  “Clearly, their intent was to steal the body from the cave. Fortunately, brotherhood prevailed. My men and his refrained from drawing weapons on each other. They fought fist and shield instead, and Agis's party was beaten back.” Brasidas chuckled darkly. “They are lucky that she yet remains dormant. They might have met a far worse fate.”

  No men knew better than the two present in the office what superhuman violence Eris was capable of, for they had witnessed it first-hand on meeting her. Fourteen Equals had gone into the woods a year prior on the mission to persuade her to aid Sparta. Twelve had not returned.

  “Naturally, the incident will be kept silent.” Brasidas tapped Styphon's 'loose' lips with a rough fingertip. He walked a small circuit around his office, appropriated from some Athenian democrat, and came to stop behind an overly ornate writing platform. “Agis has taken a liking to you,” he observed. “The clash at the cave notwithstanding—after all, it did not happen—he leaves tomorrow to command the operation at Dekelea.” He laughed. “By command, I mean he will take credit for success I have already ensured. He asked to take you with him, and I of course agreed. It is an excellent opportunity for you to further win the confidence of your king, don't you think?”

  “Aye. Thank you, sir.”

  The polemarch searched Styphon's black eyes for evidence that he understood the unspoken purpose of
gaining Agis's confidence. Styphon did.

  “One last thing,” Brasidas added, leaning on the writing platform. “I am sure I need not remind you what is the single most important object inside Dekelea. Whatever it takes, I want it.”

  “Sir,” Styphon ventured reluctantly, “what if it... lives?”

  The polemarch scoffed, then chuckled darkly. “Well, you have a special relationship with her from Sphakteria, do you not? She was ready to help Sparta before you, in your vast wisdom, turned her down.” He smirked. “Maybe you can talk her out of her alliance with that cunt Demosthenes.”

  * * *

  5. Inglorious Conquest

  Leaving the Tholos, Styphon went to the place just off the agora where Aspasia was to send Agis's entertainment for the night. The two women were there waiting, standing arm-in-arm in the lamp-glow, flashes of finery showing underneath brightly colored, unblemished cloaks. Their pale faces, which were unpainted—women of standing in Athens, as in Sparta, used no cosmetics—bore looks of concern. Their presence in this spot was conspicuous, for even prior to the occupation, Athenian men never let their female relations venture out alone in the night.

  That the two looked worried even before they saw Styphon approaching hinted that they were the genuine article, although possibly they were just highly accomplished professionals. Either would do. The real thing was cheaper by twenty-fold, but then, the coin was the enemy's anyway.

  Awkwardly, Styphon spoke exactly the words that Aspasia had instructed him to: “It is a fine evening. I will take you to your appointed place.”

  The women gripped each other's arms more tightly and lowered their gazes to the stone-paved street to let themselves be led to their unknown client. With no more words shared, Styphon guided the pair to the seized mansion which once had belonged to the Athenian general Nikias, slain at Eleusis by one of Eris's unerring shafts. The garden gate was attended by two Spartiates of the royal guard, who leered and smiled knowingly, sharing a few lewd remarks before letting them pass. Another Equal at the door beckoned them into the house's megaron, where they were told to await Agis.