Lawyers in Hell

by Morris, Janet

  But even the most devoted among them stopped and stared at the sight of armed Spartans cresting the plateau. Whispers arose, and Leonidas heard his name spoken like a susurrant echo. He gestured Simonides to his side.

  “These ephors, I take it they adjudicate claims and render binding judgments?”

  “They do, Lord. They act under the auspices of she who is the Kore, to mitigate somewhat the violence of Tartaros; the aggrieved may come before them and know their cause will be heard and fairly judged. And she only chooses Spartans for this task – for who else can offer impartiality in matters of war?”

  “The Kore chooses them?”

  “With Lord Hades’ blessing,” Simonides replied. “When next she declares an Olympiad, all fighting in Tartaros must cease and she will select five Spartans to serve as her ephors until she calls for another Olympiad, and another truce.”

  “So they serve four years instead of one?”

  Simonides waffled. “Perhaps it is four years, perhaps it is but one. Time has an odd quality here, Lord. A day might pass in the blink of an eye, or it may drag on for an eternity. It is easier to embrace the notion that an Olympiad is as long as it pleases the Kore and let that be the end of it.”

  Leonidas gave the poet a distracted nod as they neared the temple: it was a tholos, more a meeting house than a place of worship, and it looked as though Titans had dug its foundations and erected its walls. Half a hundred steps led up to the iron-studded doors, thrown wide open and guarded by a pair of obsidian statues – many-headed Kerberos, the Hound of Hades. They seemed to glare down at the Spartans as Leonidas set foot on the bottom course of stairs. He turned slightly.

  “Dienekes, you’re with me. The rest of you, stand ready. Lead the way, Simonides.”

  “We must wait –” the poet said.

  “I think not.” Leonidas ascended the steps. Before he reached the half-way mark, he heard a voice tinged with petulant anger echoing from inside the temple:

  “Is that your final decision?”

  “It is.” The respondent sounded old, weary. “We do not seek to ally ourselves with you, Alexandros of Macedon. Instead, you should seek to ingratiate yourself with us! We are the ephors! We are the Chosen of Persephone, not you!”

  “So be it, Lawgiver! But know this: I have extended my hand to you in friendship only to have it rebuffed! I will not extend it a second time!” Hob-nailed sandals clashed on tile.

  “You arrogant whelp!” another voice bellowed.

  “Arrogant? I conquered Persia without your kind, Spartan! I can conquer Tartaros just as easily!”

  Leonidas was but steps from the head of the temple’s stairs when a cluster of figures stormed out its doors. Six ruddy Macedonians – scarred fighters clad in black iron and linen – ringed a seventh: a golden-haired youth whose clean-shaven face was a mask of anger.

  “Hidebound fools!” the youth said, switching from Doric Greek to the guttural argot of Macedon. “We dwell in a new land, where new rules are in play, and yet they prefer to sit on their backsides and bask in the dusty glory of forgotten Thermopylae!” The youth caught sight of Simonides, two imposing Spartans at his side. Tossing his hair back, shaking his mane like a young lion recovering its dignity, he offered Simonides a smile – though his eyes remained cold black motes of rage. “Well met, good poet of Keos! And you, friend Spartan!”

  “It is counted an auspicious moment,” Simonides replied, “when two kings meet under the banner of truce. King Alexandros of Macedon, I give you –”

  “A Spartan,” Leonidas interrupted, “for whom the glory of Thermopylae is neither dusty nor forgotten.” His smile matched Alexandros’ own, predatory and devoid of warmth.

  The young Macedonian looked him up and down. “A Spartan and a king? You are Leonidas, then. You must forgive my ill choice of words. It’s your peers, they … vex me.”

  “I understand.”

  Alexandros’ eyebrow arched but he said nothing. After a moment, one of his Macedonian companions leaned closer to him, a spare and leathery fellow who wore a ferryman’s coin on a thong about his neck. “Alexandros, we tarry too long.”

  “Of course, Nearchos.” The young king stirred. “I would consider it a favor of the highest order if you and your men would come with us, Leonidas. And you as well, good Simonides. There is much I would talk with you about.”

  Simonides opened his mouth to answer, but Leonidas silenced him with a brusque motion, saying, “I have business with the ephors that cannot wait.”

  “I would insist, but I see that would be an exercise in futility with you.” Alexandros sighed. “Pity. Another time, perhaps. I am honored to have met you, my brother king.”

  “And I, you.” With a nod, Leonidas brushed past the Macedonians.

  “That one’s trouble,” Simonides muttered, once he was sure Alexandros was out of ear-shot. “Even in life his arrogance was well known, or so I’m told. His mother claimed he was the son of Zeus and that was a notion he embraced, even if no one else did. And like a scion of the god, he went on to ally himself with the Thracians, conquer the Athenians and their allies, raze Thebes, devastate Asia Minor, shatter the Persians in two battles, and march into the very heart of India. He might have gone to the very ends of the earth had a jealous countryman not slipped poison into his wine.”

  “All well and good,” Leonidas said, gaining the temple portico. Its pitted columns were like ancient tree-trunks. “But did he conquer Sparta?”

  “No, he did not. Indeed, a scholar from a little village called Ox-ford told me that Alexandros, or perhaps his father, I do not recall – regardless, he told me one of them sent a message to your countrymen. ‘If I enter Laconia,’ so the message ran, ‘I will raze Sparta to the ground.’ Your peers sent back a single word in reply–”

  “‘If’,” Dienekes interrupted. “The word was ‘if.’”

  “Yes. You’ve heard this story?”

  But Dienekes shook his head.

  Already monumentally ugly, the sudden frown twisting Simonides’ face lent him the aspect of a fearsome Gorgon. “Then how did you know?”

  Dienekes and Leonidas exchanged knowing smiles. “We are Spartan, poet. What other answer could there be? But, enough. We will deal with this upstart Macedonian later. Come.”

  Simonides gnawed his lip, glancing from man to man as they marched past the brooding images of Kerberos and into the heart of the temple. The air inside was still, heavy with incense and the sour stench of fear. Things waited in the Stygian darkness; Leonidas saw nothing, but he heard the rustle of leathery wings, the scrabble of claws on polished marble, the faint hiss of infernal laughter. Perhaps they were the dreaded Erinys, waiting to deliver the judgment of the ephors; perhaps they were something else….

  Ahead, hellish light seeped down from clerestory windows to illuminate a conclave of five men. Four of them sat uncomfortably on oversized seats carved of living rock, black basalt etched with silver runes and whorls; the fifth, a giant of a man clad in an antique cuirass, stood beside an empty seat.

  “Mark my words!” the giant said, his voice a basso rumble. “That strutting little peacock will cause no end of trouble!”

  “He is not our concern, Menelaos,” replied the man in the center seat. Though frail through the shoulders and gray-bearded, he spoke with the power and conviction of a trained orator. “We are here to prosecute the Kore’s will, not to become embroiled in petty politics.”

  “Petty, Lykourgos?” a third ephor said. He, too, had a beard more gray than black, with deep-set eyes that had seen too much of Hades’ realm. “No. Menelaos is right – this Macedonian is dangerous. Dispatch the Erinys….”

  “We have no cause, Agis!” Lykourgos said, ignoring the eager rustling of wings that erupted from the inky shadows. “No charges have been leveled; thus it is not within our writ to mete out judgment against Alexandros. We are not thugs, my friends!”

  “Leave this Alexandros to me,” Leonidas said, stepping into the circl
e of ruddy light.

  The giant, Menelaos, whirled. “Hades’ teeth! Who are you, wretched shade, to intrude upon the business of your betters?”

  Leonidas met his gaze. “I do not see my betters standing before me, Menelaos, once king of Sparta. I see only my peers.”

  “Your peers?” Menelaos took a menacing step toward Leonidas.

  “Wait,” Agis said. “You are Leonidas son of Anaxandridas, are you not?”

  Menelaos stopped.

  Leonidas nodded. “I am.”

  “Then,” continued Agis, “you are my kinsman, though our bond is diluted as much by time as by death. As such, I tell you this: you risk much by barging in on matters that do not concern you.”

  “I have not ‘barged’ in on your proceedings, kinsman,” Leonidas replied. He gestured to Simonides. “I was summoned to stand before the ephors. Thus, here I am.”

  Menelaos eased his bulk down onto his seat, glanced sidelong at Lykourgos.

  “You are as arrogant as young Alexandros, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas,” Lykourgos, called the Lawgiver, said after a moment. His eyes narrowed in disdain. “You think yourself a king in Tartaros when, in fact, you are nothing. You are a shade who tasted the nectar of glory in life! What of it? We all, every man here, have tasted the same nectar! In this world, it is those whose trust you keep who define your place. We are your betters, Leonidas, because it is the will of the Kore!”

  Leonidas nodded in acquiescence. “Perhaps you are right, great Lykourgos. But if I am not as much a king in Tartaros as I was in the world above, why does this not register in the eyes of your companions, here?” Leonidas indicated the two silent ephors, who had been gazing upon him with something akin to religious ecstasy. Both men flinched and looked away.

  Lykourgos frowned. “Brasidas and Lysandros are young, as the dead are reckoned. They were soldiers in life; neither ever felt the weight of the crown.” The one called Brasidas started to speak, but Lykourgos shouted him down. “And they know when to keep their tongues between their teeth! You stand accused, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas!”

  It was Leonidas’ turn to flinch. “Accused? Accused of what, good Lykourgos? What is my so-called crime?”

  “Impiety!” a voice bellowed from the shadows. Wings beat the still air and claws clashed on marble; a chorus of hisses nigh drowned out the clatter of chains as a gruesome apparition thrust himself into their midst. As one, Leonidas and Dienekes drew their swords and slung their shields forward. Simonides gave a bleat of terror and fell on his belly.

  The figure laughed, a sound like nails scraping flint. At first, Leonidas thought it a man clad in blood-soaked rags. But, when the figure turned toward him he understood that what he took for cloth was actually ribbons of mangled flesh that hung from his lower limbs and belly. Pitted bronze manacles circled his wrists, and a veil of stringy black hair hid one eye from view. The other glowed with the light of madness. He pointed a black-nailed finger at Leonidas. “Impiety and murder are your crimes, dear brother!”

  Leonidas lowered his sword. “Brother? Is that you, Kleomenes?”

  “Kleomenes!” The figure tittered. “Poor, mad Kleomenes! Is that not what you called me, Leonidas? Poor, mad Kleomenes? Curse your abusive words! You may have had the power to utter them then, but I have the power to do you real harm now, dear brother! Dear, impious, murdering brother!”

  “Calm yourself, Kleomenes,” Agis said. “How do you answer these charges, Leonidas?”

  “With scorn!” Leonidas sheathed his sword. “This is why you summoned me? To answer the ravings of a lunatic? I am saddened beyond words to see you in this sorry state, brother. Especially here. But you know as well as I that you died by your own hand! Did he tell you that, great Ephors? Did Kleomenes tell you how he came by those grisly wounds? He pilfered a helot’s knife – one used to skin hares – and slashed himself from his ankles to his crotch!”

  “Bah!” Kleomenes spat. “Your mouth opens and lies spew forth! You gave me the knife, Leonidas!”

  “No, brother.”

  “Yes! You put it in my hand and watched as I made that first cut!”

  “You were alone in your cell,” Leonidas said. “Put there by our mortal ephors.”

  “No!” Kleomenes screamed. “You put me there, you bastard! You left me alone! Alone in the dark!”

  “No, brother.”

  “Enough!” Menelaos’ voice crashed like thunder. “Leonidas is right! I see no murder here, Lykourgos!”

  “Nor do I,” Agis said coldly. Brasidas and Lysandros, too, murmured their assent.

  The lawgiver, his face a mask of solemnity, nodded. “We are agreed. The accusation of murder holds no weight, and the witness you have borne is false, Kleomenes. Willfully false! There must be a reckoning with the Erinys!”

  Leonidas held up a hand. “Leniency, Ephors. I ask for mercy. Even in death, my brother is not right in his mind.”

  “Mercy.” Kleomenes’ shoulders sagged. “Mercy for poor, mad Kleomenes.” Then, quick as a darting serpent, the blood-stained apparition lunged at Leonidas; it looked as though the brothers would embrace – until jags of light gleamed from the curved blade of a skinning knife streaking for Leonidas’ throat. “Liar!” he howled.

  Yet for all the madman’s speed, Leonidas was quicker, still. He caught the wrist of Kleomenes’ knife-hand, twisted it, and mercilessly drove the bronze-rolled edge of his shield into his brother’s elbow.

  Bone snapped. Kleomenes howled in pain as the knife clattered from his nerveless fingers.

  Leonidas shoved him away.

  The madman fell into a crouch, clutching the injured limb to his breast. He panted like a cornered animal, eyes darting as he sought an avenue of escape.

  “That was necessary, brother,” Leonidas said. “To keep you from hurting yourself further.” He took a step toward Kleomenes…

  …who screamed an incoherent curse and sprinted for the temple doors, barreling through Simonides. The poet fell heavily. The shadows exploded in rustling and clashing, hissing in rage. Menelaos and the other ephors leapt to their feet.

  They might have given chase had Leonidas not stayed them with an upraised hand. “He is my responsibility. I will fetch him back so you may pass judgment on him. Even now, after this, I still ask for mercy. Do not set the Erinys on him!”

  “We will see,” Lykourgos said. “Bring him back and we will see.”

  Leonidas nodded. “Dienekes?”

  The other veteran of Thermopylae, who had been helping Simonides to his feet, looked around at the temple doors and the silhouette of Kleomenes, who seemed to have paused on the temple’s threshold and was hesitating.

  Dienekes gauged distances. “I can catch him easily enough.”

  “Come, then.”

  But before either man could get off the mark, Agis called them up short. “Wait. Look. He returns of his own volition.”

  True enough: Kleomenes had stood there a moment more, limned by hellish light, then turned and staggered back in the direction of the ephors. He made an eerie mewling sound, like a wet sob. His broken arm hung slack; with his good hand he plucked at his throat.

  “Kleomenes, my poor brother!” Leonidas walked toward him. “Let us be reconciled. Here, no doubt, we can find good uses for your madness.”

  Kleomenes sagged at the edge of the clerestory light filtering down from above. Leonidas reached him before he could topple and eased him to the tiled floor. The madman could not speak. Gouts of bright red blood cascaded from Kleomenes’ mouth. Standing out a hand-span from his throat, Leonidas saw the ragged black fletching of an arrow.

  And in that one galvanizing instant he forgot his dead brother. “Dienekes, outside!”

  In tandem, the two Spartans bolted for the temple doors. The ephors followed suit, with Simonides and Lykourgos struggling to bring up the rear. The shadows around and above seethed with sound – a cacophony of shrieking, flapping, hissing, and scraping matched only by the howls and screams that bled in
from outside.

  The younger man reached the threshold first. “Zeus Savior,” Dienekes muttered.

  Beyond the temple doors, Leonidas beheld a scene of raw and bloody chaos. Caeadas was under attack. A horde of misshapen figures boiled over the distant edge of the plateau – grotesque caricatures of humanity, their filthy limbs askew or missing, their faces snarling and deformed. Some staggered on stumps of legs, others trotted on three, and still others ran on all fours like feral beasts. Leonidas saw an Athenian advocate savaged by a pair of thin, childlike creatures wielding daggers. A Cretan hero tried to intervene only to be split nigh asunder by an ogreish thing with an axe strapped to its sole arm. An instant later, a Nubian sent a bone-tipped spear straight into the ogre’s gaping maw, then fell under a swarm of jackal-like figures. And at the edges of the fray, archers capered and loosed a hail of black-feathered shafts, their powerful bows sending the arrows arching over the heads of the combatants and into the ranks of those fleeing their advance.

  “The Ataphoi!” Leonidas heard Simonides gasp. “Someone’s armed them!”

  An arrow shattered on the temple steps; another rang off Dienekes’ shield – doubtless from the same contingent of archers who skewered Kleomenes.

  Lykourgos’ iron-shod staff of office sparked as he rapped it on the marble floor. “Close the doors! Let them waste their strength against those below!”

  “No!” Leonidas replied, coldly. “If you be men of war, come with me!”

  With that, the dead king of Sparta turned and stalked down the temple steps, Dienekes at his side. Brasidas, Lysandros, Menelaos, and Agis fanned out at his back, leaving Simonides and Lykourgos alone.

  Poet stared at lawgiver.

  Lykourgos tried to disguise his fear beneath a snarl of contempt: “Fools! Help me close the doors, Simonides.”

  Shaking his head, Simonides of Keos hurried to join Leonidas.