Spartan (7 page)

‘He was a great and generous man; his was a warrior’s and a champion’s death. The Greeks will remember him!’

Brithos nodded thoughtfully and rose to his feet. ‘I must be going home,’ he said. ‘My mother’s alone and she’ll be waiting for me. See you tomorrow at the training
field,’ he added, turning to his friend. Leaving the house of Adeimantos, Brithos walked quickly down the road towards the northern gate from which he had entered. At the gate, he turned
right towards Mount Taygetus, in the direction of his own house, which was nearly at the foot of the mountain.

At the side of the road, he noticed a small crowd of old men, women and children. They were the families of the Helots who had followed the Spartan army as servants and baggage carriers. The joy
of these people was tremendous. Many of them had seen their loved ones depart with great fear and anguish. They had heard terrible things about the Persian army, and even though the Helots were not
used in combat, there was reason for worry. If the enemy had won, at best their men would have been captured as slaves and taken far away. The poor wretches would have had no hope of ransom or of
bargaining with the Persians, since their families had barely enough to survive. The news of frightening Persian massacres on the islands added to their terror. They had heard that entire
populations had been deported to distant countries with no hope of return.

Young Brithos watched them with a sense of contempt. People who thought of nothing but saving their own squalid lives didn’t seem worthy of being called human beings. At the same time, the
embarrassment of the futile intervention at Marathon weighed upon Brithos, as on the whole warrior caste, quite heavily. The unthinkable and striking Athenian victory obscured the prestige that the
Spartan military forces had always enjoyed. It seemed to Brithos that those wretched Helots were delighting, even if they dared not show it, in their masters’ embarrassment.

As Brithos drew nearer, the excited voices fell silent, and every gaze dropped to the ground save one: that of a boy a little younger than he, who looked him directly in the eye with a strange expression, then
took off in the direction of Mount Taygetus with a curious rolling gait.

T
HE LAST PART OF
that tumultuous year passed uneventfully for the mountain people. They returned to their monotonous existence, punctuated only by the
passing seasons and their work in the fields.

Talos had become a strong young man and, as he was often out on his own, he began to seek the company of other young people. The remote position of his grandfather’s cottage, near the high
spring, had kept him separated from other children throughout his boyhood. But the Helots were used to living such isolated lives in the fields and pastures because the Spartans had always
prevented them from gathering in villages. Only the old men recalled the ancient times when the Helot people had their own cities, surrounded by walls and crowned by towers.

They told of the dead city, abandoned on Mount Ithome, in the heart of Messenia. The towers, crumbled and corroded by time, now served as nests for crows and sparrowhawks. Figs and wild olive
trees had sunk their roots among the dilapidated houses.

But beneath those moss-covered ruins slept the ancient kings. The shepherds who passed with their flocks during the seasonal migrations had strange stories to tell. On the night of the first
full moon of spring, they said, eerie flashes of light pulsed through the ruins, and a great grey wolf could be seen wandering among the fallen walls. And if the moon disappeared behind a cloud, a
lament would be heard, coming from beneath the earth, from deep within the mountain: the cry of the kings, prisoners of
Thanatos
.

Talos listened fascinated to these marvellous stories, but he considered them imaginings – fables told by old men. His thoughts were occupied, instead, by the work that needed to be done
and by his daily tasks: it had become his responsibility to deliver their produce to the family of old Krathippos. He knew that they could continue to live untroubled as long as nothing was lacking
in the home of their Spartan master, down in the valley.

On his daily journey from the mountain to the plain he often met up with a Helot peasant who farmed another stretch of land near the Eurotas river that was also the property of Krathippos. The
elderly peasant, Pelias, was a widower. He had only one daughter, and had been finding it quite difficult to carry on his work in the fields alone. And so Talos sometimes brought his flock down to
the plain and entrusted it to the care of Pelias’ daughter, Antinea, while he took care of the heaviest and most pressing chores himself. He sometimes stayed several days in a row on
Pelias’ farm.

‘It seems that you have forgotten where you live,’ teased Kritolaos. ‘We see you so rarely here! It wouldn’t be, by chance, little Antinea infusing you with all this new
enthusiasm for working in the fields? By Zeus, I wanted to make you into a shepherd, and here you are becoming a farmer!’

‘Oh, stop that, grandfather,’ Talos replied brusquely. ‘That girl doesn’t interest me at all. It’s poor old Pelias that I’m worried about. If I weren’t
there to help him with the toughest jobs, he could never manage on his own.’

‘Naturally,’ replied Kritolaos. ‘I know that you have a good heart as well as strong arms. It’s only that I have heard that little Antinea is becoming very pretty indeed,
that’s all.’

In fact, Pelias’ daughter was beautiful. She had long blonde hair and eyes as green as grass moist with dew. Her body, although forged by the hard work of the fields, was lithe and
graceful, and Talos was often distracted from his work as he saw her pass with her quick step, carrying an earthenware pot full of spring water on her head.

But that wasn’t all. Sometimes he tried to guess the shape of her breasts and the curve of her hips under the short chiton that she wore gathered at the waist with a cord. And this threw
his normally serene spirit into such confusion that he was quite brusque with her, almost rude. He was afraid that she could read how he felt plainly on his face, and he did everything he could so
as not to be discovered. And yet, he couldn’t help but watch her as she bent down to gather a sheaf of dry grass for the animals and her thighs were bared: a sudden blaze rushed to his head
and his temples throbbed madly.

What confused him the most was that Kritolaos didn’t need to guess at anything: he seemed to know Talos’ every thought. It was unbearable to be considered a young ram in heat! So, at
times Talos preferred to set out alone to listen to the skylarks and blackbirds or to lay traps for the foxes in the forest.

Was this what it meant to become a man? Yes, this, but so much more: mysterious sounds resonating within, sudden tremors. Wanting to climb up to the highest peaks, to let out a yell and wait for
it to echo back from far off pinnacles. Tears in your eyes when the sun at dusk sets fire to the clouds, like thousands of lambs, fleece in flames, grazing in the blue and then dissolving into the
darkness. Your chest swelling with the melody of the nightingale and the raucous shrieks of the sparrowhawk. A desire for wings with which to fly far away over the mountains and over the valleys
glittering with silver olive trees; over the rivers, between the willows and the poplars in the scented silent night, by the pale light of the moon . . .

These were the things that Talos, the cripple, felt in his heart.

*

One day, Talos was bringing his sheep down from the mountain to Pelias’ house so he could lend the old farmer a hand. The great feast of Artemis Orthia, when the young
Spartiates would be initiated as warriors, was drawing near. Krathippos’ house had to be put in order and decorated, the wood for the hearth had to be prepared, and a lamb had to be
slaughtered for their banquet. Talos had left home at the first rays of dawn, taking the path that led to the plain. He emerged from the forest just as the sun was rising above the horizon.
Suddenly he heard yelling from a nearby clearing.

‘Come on, Brithos, grab her! Hey, don’t let her get away, you slow-moving oaf!’

‘Get over here, yourselves, then. This little savage runs like a hare and scratches like a cat!’

Talos sensed immediately what was happening. He shot out of the forest and burst, running, into the field where several horses were grazing next to a stream. Their masters, all young Spartans,
had encircled Antinea who was now at their centre, terrified, her clothing ripped and her hair dishevelled. Goaded on by his companions, the youth named Brithos circled close around the girl as she
drew back, clutching her torn clothes to her breast.

‘Hey, Brithos, let’s see if you can tame this little filly, too!’ shouted a boy with reddish hair and freckles, with a vulgar laugh.

‘Leave her alone!’ bellowed Talos, hurling himself into the centre of the circle, moving close to the trembling girl who clutched at his side.

‘What have you done, Talos?’ she sobbed. ‘They’ll kill you.’

‘Friends,’ shouted Brithos, recovering from the shock of the sudden apparition, ‘the goddess Artemis has shown us her favour today by sending us not only a fawn, but also this
goat!’

Talos felt his blood boil in his veins and pound at his temples. He grasped his cornel staff with two hands, standing firmly on both legs.

‘Oh, but he’s dangerous,’ sneered another. ‘He has a stick! Let’s be careful not to get hurt or we won’t be able to take part in the initiation.’

‘So, who’s going to take care of him?’ asked a third boy.

‘I will,’ shouted the boy with the red hair advancing behind Talos, who reeled around to face him.

‘Oh, but he’s lame!’ yelled another. ‘It doesn’t count, Aghias, too easy!’

‘That’s all right,’ said the red-haired youth, continuing his advance towards Talos. ‘I’ll take him bare-handed.’

The Spartan flung the javelin he held in his right hand to the ground and lunged forward. Talos dodged him and pivoted on the staff which he had planted forcefully in the ground. He tripped his
adversary and drove his heel into the back of the young Spartan’s neck, knocking him senseless. Talos immediately returned to his guard, gripping his staff in both hands.

An astonished silence fell among the group. The boy they called Brithos, their leader apparently, turned livid with anger. ‘That’s enough!’ he shouted. ‘Duels are for
warriors. Let us squash this miserable louse and get out of here. I’m tired of these games.’

They rushed upon Talos as a group, veering to avoid the staff that he wielded in the air with deadly precision. Two of the Spartans fell, struck directly on their sternums, twisting in pain and
vomiting. The others were upon him, wildly clubbing him with the shafts of their javelins. Talos struggled furiously, howling like a wild beast, trying in vain to break free as his adversaries
rained down kicks and punches onto his stomach and back. They nailed his shoulders to the ground, and one of the boys drove his knee into Talos’ chest.

‘Move over!’ commanded Brithos. The other boys scrambled aside, panting heavily. Brithos raised his javelin to deliver the mortal blow. Talos, shaken by tremors, stared up at him,
his swollen eyes full of tears. Brithos faltered, and in that moment Antinea, who had been paralysed with terror, threw herself with a cry onto Talos’ body, covering it with her own. Brithos,
furious in his rage, stood a moment as if transfixed. He stared stupidly at the girl’s back, which was shaking with sobs. Slowly, the youth lowered the javelin.

‘Pick up those idiots,’ he said to the other boys, pointing to his two battered companions still on the ground, ‘and let’s get out of here.’

The boys reached their horses and took off towards Sparta. Brithos was thinking of that gaze that had caused him to falter. These eyes . . . he’d seen them before, staring at him, but he
didn’t remember where, or when. He remembered, without knowing why.

*

It seemed to Talos that he was waking from a deep sleep. Sluggish limbs were racked with piercing cramps. A sweet, warm touch, the throbbing body of Antinea, awakened life in
his shivering skin. Slowly, his swollen eyes opened. He saw the girl’s face soiled with his own blood, lined with tears, as Antinea caressed him, quietly sobbing. Her small rough hands moved
through his matted hair.

‘Talos, you’re alive,’ she managed to say, as if she couldn’t believe her own words.

‘Looks like it,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘But I don’t know for how much longer. They massacred me, those bastards.’

Antinea ran to the stream, and soaked a corner of her chiton in the cool water. She crouched next to Talos and wiped his disfigured face, his tumid mouth and eyes.

‘Can you stand up,’ she begged, ‘or should I call my father?’

‘No, don’t,’ he answered. ‘I’m all bruised, but I think I’m still in one piece. Help me, that’s good. Hand me my staff.’

The girl gave him the staff and Talos used it to brace himself. His left arm around Antinea’s shoulders, he lifted himself to his feet, painfully stretching his limbs. They started out
slowly, stopping often to rest, and reached Pelias’ farm when the sun was still high. Alerted by the barking of his dog, Antinea’s father stepped out into the courtyard. Shaken by the
scene before his eyes, he ran towards them.

‘In the name of the gods, what has happened?’ cried the old man. ‘What have they done to you?’

‘Father, help me, quickly,’ gasped the girl, weeping. ‘Talos defended me from some Spartan boys. It’s a miracle he’s alive.’

They laid him out on a bed, covering him with a woollen blanket. The violent fever brought on by the ferocious beating racked his trembling body with convulsions.

‘Please,’ he begged in a feeble voice, ‘don’t let my family know about this. It would kill them.’

‘Stay calm, my boy,’ Pelias reassured him. ‘I’ll send word that you’ll be staying with us for a few days to help me prepare the feast and gather the hay. As soon as
you’re better, you’ll be able to invent some story. You’ll say that you fell into some crevasse.’

‘Yes, all right,’ murmured Talos, his eyelids dropping.