Sword of Apollo (50 page)

“How did you get here?” Nikias asked.

“Long story,” said Baklydes. “I practically crawled my way here through the smoking mountains. That old Megarian hermit helped me, Zeus bless him. The citadel was already surrounded by the enemy, so I headed here.”

“We haven't heard any news from Plataea in weeks,” Adonis said to Nikias in a whining tone. “What's happening?”

“How should I know?” said Nikias. “I came from the sea.”

“You have a story to tell,” said Baklydes, looking at the ships. “We thought those were Korinthians at first, come to storm the fort. Adonis here practically soiled his tunic.”

“How many men do you have here at the fort?” asked Nikias.

“It's just me and Baklydes here with my kin and slaves and the fishermen,” said Adonis. “Thirty men and boys. Nobody else could be spared from Plataea—all the fighting men were called back to the citadel months ago. So what are you doing here? Did our people make it to Athens?”

Nikias quickly told them the tale of the flight to Athens, his return by sea, and about his plan to reenter Plataea. While he spoke, the men from the ships assembled on the beach. When Nikias was done talking, Adonis said, “I think you're crazy and you'll most likely all die, but it will be an exciting way to go.”

“The citadel is completely surrounded by a wooden wall,” said Baklydes. “The distance between the barricade and the walls of Plataea is two bowshots. And they're building a dirt ramp up against the Gates of Pausanius. I snuck up into the Kithaerons the other night and spied on them by moonlight. Thousands of Helots have been dumping dirt like a horde of insects. The ramp is nearly three-quarters of the way up—the gates are completely hidden by dirt now. In another week they'll be at wall height and they'll be able to march up this sheep-stuffing ramp and simply jump over the bastions to the other side!”

“Describe the counterwall,” said Nikias.

“It's made of logs, nearly twenty feet high, and braced. There's only one entrance and that's on the southern side. The Spartans patrol the perimeter of this barricade night and day—thousands of them. You'll never get close enough to even attempt to scale their barricade, let alone make a dash for the walls of the citadel.” Baklydes paused and looked down at the beach. “Not even with all of those men you brought.”

Nikias looked to the northeast. Two miles away, high on another hilltop that overlooked the cove, stood the Hill Tower—a Plataean watchtower that afforded a view of both Plataea and the fort of Kreusis.

“Can you send a worded message to the Hill Tower,” he asked, “and tell them to relay it to the citadel?”

“Of course,” replied Adonis. “The size and position of the torches each represent a letter. But the message must be short, otherwise it can get muddled. Once we sent them a signal telling them that a Korinthian ship had been spotted in the cove and they thought we'd said—”

“‘Sword of Apollo,'” interrupted Nikias. “Send that message to the Hill Tower.”

“‘Sword of Apollo,'” repeated Adonis. “And if you make it to Plataea, tell your grandfather that the fort of Kreusis stands strong. But that we're out of wine,” he added grumpily.

“Let's go,” said Baklydes to Nikias. He slapped Adonis on the back and said heartily, “Thanks for all the fish and beans, old man. But I'm going home.”

*   *   *

Nikias said good-bye to Helena in the
Spear
's cabin. He had no words, and neither did she. They held each other and kissed, and Nikias put his hand on her belly. She wept quietly, clutching the statue of Hera, moving her lips silently in prayer.

Nikias's heart felt as heavy as marble—a cold stone object sagging in his chest. He was about to leave this superb woman—a woman who was bearing his child!—on a marauder ship. She, Chusor, and the Serifans had lost their home. They had nowhere to run to. His child would be born a bastard and an exile. A citizen of nowhere.

And where was he, Nikias, going to now? Most likely to his own death at the hands of the hated Spartans in a futile attempt to rejoin a doomed citadel. Even if he made it back into Plataea, he would be forced to watch his wife and child—if the baby had even lived—starve to death as the city's supplies slowly dwindled. In the end, if the city was overrun, he would have to slay his own wife and child to prevent them from being captured and turned into slaves. He saw himself cutting Kallisto's long neck and putting his dagger through a baby's soft breast … and he shuddered.

He heard Helena utter the names of Hera and Zeus as she held him tighter.

He thought about what Aristophanes had said in the jail in Athens … about how people in that city—angered by the coming of the terrible sickness and so many pointless deaths—had stopped believing in the gods, claiming that they had never existed. Demetrios had been certain that the gods were made up, and had asked Nikias, “Isn't the belief in the self enough?”

Nikias had a disconcerting thought all of a sudden. He still believed that the gods were real. But what if they had all
died
? What if they, too, had contracted some contagion of their own and vanished like so much vapor? What if humans were all alone now? What if prayers and sacrifices were all useless? What if temples were nothing more than tombs for the
memory
of the gods?

These dark thoughts made him sick to his stomach. He left Helena weeping in the cabin. As he climbed down the landing ladder he saw Diokles and Chusor standing on the beach. “Watch out for Helena,” he said, and Chusor and Diokles both nodded. He embraced them in turn, then said good-bye to Ji, Ezekiel, and the Serifan sailors. Then he put on his crimson cloak and walked up the beach where the men—all wearing red capes and helms—were milling about by the stream that ran down the valley to the cove. Kolax was amongst them, fidgeting like a restless horse.

“Did you say good-bye to Melitta?” Nikias asked. “I couldn't find her.”

“She was angry,” said Kolax in a hurt tone. “She wanted to come with me, the crazy girl.” His voice was full of admiration, however. Melitta was Kolax's sort of crazy, and the Skythian obviously admired her for it.

Nikias gathered together the nearly one hundred Plataean warriors, and got up on a large rock so that everyone could see him. He stared into the faces of these fellow citizens, all of whom he knew by name—men he had grown up with, men he had fought with against the Thebans and the Spartans and the Megarians, men who had made the long and treacherous journey around the Peloponnese or with him by way of Lydia and Syrakuse to get here, so achingly close to home. They had already been told the plan: they would march to the end of the valley, then walk brazenly into the heart of the Spartan camp and then to the counterwall. “You'll be just like Odysseus and Diomedes sneaking into the Trojan camp,” Chusor had told him.

“Brothers,” Nikias said to the men, “we are eight miles from our home! But the land that we departed months ago is now occupied by a hated and treacherous enemy, and they have surrounded our beloved citadel with a wooden wall—to cut off Plataea from its allies, to starve our defenders out like trapped animals. Tonight we play Spartans with these red cloaks.… Tonight we risk our lives to join our kin inside the walls, to help defend against the coming onslaught. We will all die tonight if this subterfuge does not work. But I hope you die fighting the Spartans—clawing at them with your final breath, like a pankrator who refuses to raise his littlest finger, even in the face of defeat.

“Perikles told me once that the gods honor our deaths in battle more than the deaths of the Spartans, because we, as members of a democracy, have more to lose than they do. I tell you this: they don't hate us for the freedom that we share. Rather, they do not even
comprehend
it. For they are slave masters who are
themselves
the slaves of kings. But we were born and bred in freedom, and freedom will give us the strength of gods!”

The men were silent as they gazed back at him, but he knew that they had been affected by his words. Their faces had become stern and grim as he was speaking, and they now stood up straighter—full of pride. A burning light was in their eyes. He saw Argus of Korkyra grinning back at him. And Kolax beside the giant man—there was a look of feral excitement on his young face. Nikias made the pankrator sign: right hand smashing into left palm, and all of the men repeated this action. They were warriors.
He
was a warrior. Fear had been cast aside like a useless crutch or a bone stripped of meat. They were ready to kill the enemy, or die trying.

“Baklydes,” said Nikias as he came down from the rock. “You walk next to me out front.” He glanced at the tower and saw two torches raised up and down.

“That's the first signal,” said Baklydes. “To let the Hill Tower know that a message is coming from Kreusis. If they're watching up in the tower, they will respond with two torches.”

Nikias hadn't even thought that the men in the Hill Tower might not be paying attention. He counted the seconds. Twenty went by before he saw two tiny torch lights moving up and down in response.

“Good,” said Baklydes. “They're ready to receive the message.”

They didn't wait to see the rest of the exchange between the fort at the cove and the tower on the hill. They marched up a winding path that ran through the olive groves, heading away from the cove and up the valley. Nikias took one last glance at the tower before he entered the heart of the grove and caught a glimpse of more torches being raised and lowered. He wondered if his grandfather would get the message. Would he understand that his grandson was coming home? If he did not receive the message, or interpret the meaning correctly, this all might end in disaster beneath the very walls of Plataea. Because even if they got through the Spartan barricade, they still had to get from the top of the unfinished ramp over the walls. They might be shot down by their own Plataean kin manning the bastions, or trapped by the Spartans—hemmed in against the walls of their own citadel.

But there was no reason to contemplate this desperate gamble. The dice were rattling in the cup. Now he had to make the throw.

 

SEVENTEEN

Chusor started to panic.

Twenty minutes had passed since Nikias and his hundred warriors had departed the cove, and he could not find his daughter. At first he had looked for her on the
Spear
and the
Briseis
, but Melitta was nowhere to be found. Then he, Diokles, and several of the Serifans lit torches and went through the olive grove near the beach.

He heard Helena calling to him urgently from the ship and ran back to it. She was standing on the prow, holding a lamp and a piece of papyrus. Her face wore an expression of horror. “I found this by her bed!” she said, holding up the papyrus. “A note in Melitta's hand. She's run away. She took her sword, that Nikias gave her—”

“
Run away to where?
” asked Chusor with a stricken voice.

“To Plataea!” she cried. “To stand by Kolax!”

Chusor found Diokles in the grove and grabbed him by the shoulders. “If I don't return with Melitta, you are the captain of the
Spear
. Return to Naupaktos with the
Briseis
and the Athenian triremes.”

“Where are you going?” asked Diokles.

“To find my daughter!” Chusor replied.

He ran away from the cove, heading into the dark grove. The path glowed like a long white snake. Chusor had not run in a long time and he was almost immediately short of breath. He used to be a fast runner. Before he became indolent. His lungs burned and he felt an oppressive dread—as if he were being squeezed in the fist of a Titan, as if his legs were made of lead. He uttered a growl of rage and pushed himself through the pain, pumping his arms harder. He pulled both of his long knives from their sheaths and held them in either hand to keep the sheaths from slapping against his legs as he ran. He banished all thoughts from his mind, save one: Keep running.

Soon all that he could hear was the sound of his own harsh breathing.…

*   *   *

Prince Arkilokus lay on the pallet in his tent, arms wrapped around his young lover—a gift from the Persian siege master Darius the City-Killer. The pretty teenager's name was Jishti, and making love with him was one of the only diverting things that Arkilokus had found to do in the Oxlands. It was still some time before dawn; they had spent several hours engaged in love play, but Arkilokus was far from satiated.

He sipped a little wine and held the cup to Jishti's beardless lips. Some wine spilled and Arkilokus kissed it off his lover's mouth, causing the lad to giggle. Arkilokus knew that Jishti had been given to him by the City-Killer to spy on him—so that the Persian could know what was going on in the Spartan camp. But Arkilokus didn't care. He had no secrets to keep from the Persians. They both had the same objective: to bring Plataea to its knees.

Arkilokus's tent was set up near the barricade by the Plataean cemetery. The Persian Fort would have been a much more pleasant place to bivouac, since it was so sheltered from the damnable winds that blew crazily across the valley and up the slope; but the Plataeans had poisoned the wells there, and so they had been forced to set up the main camp on this miserable spot just west of the citadel. The City-Killer, who had arrived in the Oxlands soon after Arkilokus returned from Megaria, made his base in Thebes and rode the eight miles to Plataea every day to inspect the counterwall and the construction of the earthen ramp.

“I have half a mind to take you back to Sparta with me when all of this is done,” said Arkilokus, kissing Jishti on the forehead. The teen's skin was wet and salty from his exertions. The lamplight showed a pretty, smooth face grinning back at him.