‘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.
11
KLEIDEMOS
THE 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.
Ephialtes entered, his face nearly hidden by a large broad-brimmed hat that he wore low on his brow. He was famished. He leaned for a moment against the plaster reed-grated wall and looked around.
A group of Arcadians sat around a long table, intent on consuming a whole roasted mutton, grabbing handfuls of olives from a common plate with hands dripping oil. At the centre of the large smoky room, some Thesprotian mountaineers, their curly hair full of chaffs, were sweating under their heavy goatskin clothing as they devoured half-cooked sausage and blood pudding. In a corner a drunken peasant interrupted his snoring with an occasional loud burp.
Ephialtes sat down as soon as two sailors from Corinth got up, cursing as they followed their crew-master who had just appeared at the door.
‘Food or drink?’ asked the host, coming up to him with a jug of wine in his hand.
‘Both,’ answered Ephialtes without raising his head. ‘Set some wine down here, and a piece of lamb.’
‘There isn’t any lamb.’
‘Mutton, then, and some bran bread.’
‘You’d better believe it,’ said the host, heading towards the hole that served as a kitchen. ‘There’s nothing left but bran: with all these armies and these fleets to supply, bran is all we’ve got.’ He returned to his customer’s table with the mutton and a chunk of bread.
‘That will be five obols,’ he said extending his greasy hand.
‘Take it, you thief,’ said Ephialtes, pulling out the coins. The host slipped the money into the pocket on his belly without a word; he was used to such comments. Ephialtes began eating, forcing down the meat between gulps of wine. Every so often he looked towards the door as if expecting someone. He had almost finished when a boy of about sixteen approached his table.
‘The commander of the cargo boat Aella has sent me to say he accepts your offer. The boat will be loading in about an hour at the small wharf. Tomorrow the ship sets sail for Black Corcyra. The crew-master is waiting for you outside,’ he said, and slipped away among a group of Megarian sailors who had just entered and were bawling at the host. Ephialtes got up, threw a pack over his shoulder, and left.
A man was leaning against the wall outside the tavern. He was wearing a long cloak with a wide hood of waxcloth. As soon as he saw Ephialtes coming out he gestured for him to follow and headed towards the port. They walked for a while along the ill-lit curving roads that led to the pier. Ephialtes was the first to break the silence.
‘Do you think the crossing will be bad?’ he asked his mute companion.
‘I don’t think so,’ answered the other. ‘There are pirates in the western sea but the route that we’ll follow is safe enough and the commander knows what he’s doing.’
‘Thank the gods for that,’ said Ephialtes. ‘Any kind of long journey is always full of dangers, isn’t it?’ They crossed a small square and turned behind the corner of an old warehouse onto a dark, deserted street.
The man stopped, turned around, and bared his head. ‘You won’t have to worry about any danger from now on, Ephialtes. You’ve reached the end of your journey.’
‘How do you know my name? Who are you?’ stammered the wretch. ‘You’re Spartan—’
‘No,’ said the man darkly, tossing his cloak behind his enormous shoulders and reaching towards the traitor with two hands that seemed the paws of a bear.
‘But then . . . why . . . ?’ gasped Ephialtes, stunned, as those hands closed around his neck like pincers. His face turned blue, his eyes strained in their sockets. He tried to struggle free with a last spurt of energy, then collapsed into the pool of urine that his body had expelled in its last agonized spasm.
Thus died Ephialtes, son of Eurydemus, he who had betrayed Leonidas at the Thermopylae, by the hand of a stranger.
*
It was late spring, and a new regent had been named in Sparta. After the death of Cleombrotus the regency had passed to his son Pausanias, since Leonidas’ son was not yet of age. While the second king, Leotychidas, was in Asia with the allied fleet, Pausanias prepared to battle the Great King’s army in the new Persian attack against Greece. This would be the decisive encounter: the Spartan government had recruited all the men that it could, including Helots, who were equipped as light infantry.
As soon as the troops were concentrated, the army began its advance, gathering up allies along the way. Warned of what was happening, the Persian general Mardonios, who had been conducting his army back towards Attica, retreated to Boeotia, where he could count on the support of the Thebans.
Having passed the isthmus, Pausanias penetrat
ed into Boeotia, drawing up his troops along the Asopus river. Such an army had never before been seen: men from Athens, Corinth, Megara, Aegina, Troizen, Tegea and Eretria, thousands of hoplites were assembled to drive the Persians out of Greece once and for all, and to avenge their fallen at the Thermopylae and at Salamis.
But on that open terrain, the quick and agile Persian cavalry was at an advantage and the Hellenic army was often reduced to a position of defence. Cut off from their supply stations, Pausanias’ army could not maintain communications and risked running out of provisions. The incursions of the Persian cavalry repelled all of their attempts to get water from the river; the Persians had even filled the Gargaphia spring with mud and polluted it so that the men were in danger of remaining without water.
Pausanias sent a detachment of servants and porters to seek provisions, but they never returned; the cavalry of General Mardonios must have finished them off at the mountain pass of Cithaeron.
Talos learned all of these things from the Helots who were attempting to replenish their water supplies from the Oeroe stream, which was farther from the front and less exposed to the attacks of the Persian cavalry. From the top of a hill, near the village of Creusis, he scanned the Greek campfires on the plain: they were scattered randomly here and there, revealing the laxness and discouragement that had spread among the combatants. Brithos, observing the scene at Talos’ side, pounded his fist against his thigh.
‘By Ares!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re setting themselves up for a massacre; either they get out of there, or they attack and get it over with.’
‘Neither would be easy,’ responded Talos. ‘A retreat could be disastrous: Pausanias has practically no cavalry and we’re not at the Thermopylae, here. But I think that the critical moment will come tomorrow.’ He turned towards his companion who had fallen suddenly silent.
‘So this is the critical moment for me, too?’ Brithos asked.
‘If you hold to your decision, yes; tomorrow your comrades and your king will know what kind of a man they repulsed as a coward.’
Brithos sat down on the dry grass. It was a beautiful night, thousands of fireflies flitted among the stubble and the persistent song of the crickets spread through the hay-scented air.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Talos.
‘Of these past months . . . of tomorrow. I’m alive because you stopped me from killing myself and because you gave me a reason to go on. Tomorrow I’ll go into battle. If the victory is ours, if I prove myself, I’ll go back to my house, to my city.’
‘I know what you’re trying to say,’ interrupted Talos. ‘You’ll be a Spartan again and I’ll be a Helot. Does this sadden you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Brithos. ‘My hands are all clammy and that’s never happened to me, not even at the Thermopylae. I’ve been waiting for this moment for months, and yet now I wish that it would never come. There are so many things I still need to know, about myself, about you. But our time has run out. If I win my battle, my life and yours will take different roads. Even if I lose it, I still won’t know any more than I do now.
‘We’ve fought together, protected each other’s life hundreds of times. We’ve killed to live, or just to survive, just as you said that night on the sea. Yet I still don’t know why any of this has happened; why a Helot saved my life, a man who once found the point of my javelin at his throat. I don’t know what kept me from killing you that day. I don’t know who put that ancient bow in your hands, or why you left your mother and your people . . .’
Talos, who was leaning against a wild olive tree, his back to Brithos, sat down and turned around to face him. He wrinkled his brow as he twisted a stalk of wild oat between his fingers, as if he were trying to recall something. Then he spoke:
‘The dragon and the wolf first
with merciless hate
wound each other.
Then, when the lion of Sparta
falls pierced, tamed by the javelin
hurled by the long-maned Mede,
He who trembled takes up the sword,
the herd-keeper grips the curved bow,
Together to immortal glory running.’
The verses, shaken from the depths of his mind, were suddenly clear: the verses of Perialla, the fugitive, the Pythia.
‘What are you saying, Talos?’ asked Brithos, jolted from his own thoughts.
‘It’s a prophecy, Brithos, that has become clear to me only now. The dragon of the Kleomenids and the wolf of Taygetus first wound each other with merciless hate and then run together to glory. “He who trembled” and the “herd-keeper” are you and me.’
‘Who pronounced those words? When?’ insisted Brithos.
‘They are the words of a true prophetess. Do you remember the Pythia Perialla?’
‘Yes,’ murmured Brithos, ‘and I remember the atrocious death of King Cleomenes.’
‘I met her once, a long time ago, in Karas’ cabin, and she foretold my future. These verses have lain buried in my mind. I’d never made sense of them until, just now, I heard them echoing inside me. Something unites our destinies, Brithos: it’s what stayed your hand that day on the plain and what urged me to stop you that night in the forest. But I don’t know more than this, I can’t see. The gods know, Brithos, but rarely can we learn their thoughts.’
‘What else did the Pythia tell you?’
‘She said other things that I still can’t interpret; the moment surely has not yet come. You ask why the great horn bow is in my hands. Well, it was entrusted to me long ago, so that I would preserve it. The same person who gave it to me taught me how to use it, as he taught me to manoeuvre my lame foot and my body, as he educated my heart and my mind. That bow holds the secret of my people. Don’t ask me to reveal anything more to you because you are a Spartan, Brithos, and your race has subjugated my people.’
‘You are a warrior . . . Talos, you are a warrior, aren’t you? A warrior and a leader of your people. Perhaps this is what has united us and yet keeps our destinies separate; even if our spirits will it, we cannot disregard the limits that the gods have assigned us.’
‘Not gods, Brithos, men. Look at me, no one is born a slave. Have you ever seen me afraid? Have you ever seen me betray? And yet for years I pastured old Krathippos’ flocks, I cultivated his fields, obeying without rebelling, crying in secret from the humiliation and the pain. My Krios was torn to pieces by the fangs of your hound: but which of the two was more courageous? My little mutt, who gave his life to defend the flock, or your bloodthirsty monster? My people, at times, find the children that you Spartans abandon as prey to the beasts of the forest, and they raise them: this takes more courage than you know. Who then, deserves to be a slave? No, Brithos, don’t tell me that fate has made us slaves, that the gods have given you power over us.’
Brithos stared at him, and if Talos could have seen the expression in those eyes in the darkness, he would have recognized the gaze of astonished pain of the warrior of the dragon, down there on the plain, that long ago day of his boyhood.
‘Talos,’ gasped Brithos with strange excitement in his voice. ‘Talos, but you—’
‘No, Brithos, what you imagine is not true. My father was called Hylas, son of Leobotes, Helot. And my foot was injured by the midwife who pulled me from my mother’s womb. This is the truth told to me by Kritolaos, my grandfather, the wisest and most sincere of men, and this is why he whom you Spartans call “the cripple” is known among his people as “Talos the Wolf”.’
The two youths sat in silence watching the fires on the plain. The calls of the sentinels reached them from time to time, blending with the song of the crickets. Talos spoke again:
‘And so,’ he said, ‘with the light of the new day our ways will part. Tomorrow I will help you to don your armour, as is befitting for a Helot, but then you will proceed alone, because on that field there will be no glory for my people – only death. Remember, though, that behind that bronze breastplate the heart of Talos will be beat
ing, along with yours.’ He fell silent, twisting the oat stalk, because a knot closed his throat and Brithos wept that night for the first time in his life. In silence.
*
Pausanias consulted his officers and allied commanders and realized that it was no longer possible to remain in that position, where his hoplite infantry was unable to withstand the continuous and deadly raids of the Persian cavalry. Their only option was to withdraw to a more protected position that would be more advantageous for an attack.
The king agreed to put a plan of retreat into action. The allies moved first under the cover of night without extinguishing their fires to give the enemy the illusion that they were still camped in the same place. They would try to reach the narrow stretch of land near the temple of Hera at Plataea. The Peloponnesians and the Athenians, who occupied the right part of the formation, were to follow their allies in two parallel columns. But the darkness that protected their manoeuvres also hindered their march, and the King of Sparta soon realized that troop liaison had been lost.
Only the Athenians managed to proceed together at approximately a stadium’s distance from Pausanias’ Peloponnesian troops, marching along the line of the hills, keeping halfway up the slope so as to protect themselves from possible cavalry attacks.
In fact, they didn’t need to wait long for the enemy: as soon as the first rays of the sun illuminated the plain, Mardonios’ scouts realized that the Greek camp was deserted. The general immediately ordered the army to march, and launched the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating Greeks. As soon as they came into contact with Pausanias’ rear guard, a furious melee ensued. Groups of cavalry hovered around the marching columns, showering clouds of arrows and javelins at them. Many warriors fell, powerless to drive back their attackers whose long-range bows kept them at a safe distance.
The situation was critical. Pausanias was furious with the allies, believing that they had abandoned him. He ordered his troops to form a compact front against the enemy and the two retreating lines managed to unite, but not without heavy losses.
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