by Casey Lane
We climbed a set of stone steps, leveling out into a busy courtyard. Immediately, we were waved down. “Ahh, Preturias! I see you brought the boy today…showing him how to haggle?” a husky store clerk asked from his booth, grinning. We walked towards him. I noticed the sign above his stand. The Warrior’s Way, it read.
The clerk leaned over the counter. “Hello, boy…well…just look at all that yellow hair,” he crowed, grinning. I had been told I had the look of my mother from the people in our village. I’d never met her, but I certainly didn’t look much like Father, other than my defined nose. It appeared as if it had been cut by a blade, boring some might say, with almost no curve to it.
“There is no haggling; you know my prices, nothing’s changed,” Father replied, towering over the clerk in this armor. He was a sight to be seen, like Perseus in the flesh. He was the only Spartan warrior around these lands. He was a large, muscled man to begin with, and layering over the chiseled lines of his armor made him even more imposing.
“Father, everyone is staring at us…or, you, rather…” I observed. Greeks were cutting their eyes at him, waiting until he had his back turned to stare.
“Perhaps it is my handsome face that draws them.” Father smiled with his eyes, bouncing his brow. He poked my arm. His face was almost completely obscured by his Corinthian-styled helmet. He was handsome though, according to women I’d heard speak of him in our village since I was young. They would gossip about his chiseled facial features and striking grey colored eyes, some even called them silver. I often wondered if I would look like him when I was older.
His helmet’s lines were aggressive, but beautifully crafted. His thick, dark, curly hair highlighted his silvery eyes, sprouting under the bottom of the helmet, giving him a wild, yet heroic appearance. I wondered why he wore his full armor today, but I dared not ask.
“Take a look at some of the weapons the other craftsmen brought. You might see something you like. Maybe a trade is in order?” the clerk said, dipping his eyes.
“I doubt that, but I’ll have a look anyway,” Father said. We posted up next to his booth as Father examined a few weapons while I took it all in.
White stone bricks were inlaid in the ground beneath our feet, with an overgrowth of weeds covering most of them. Toppled arches, walls, and columns were scattered about, leaving its occupants to navigate around them without a second thought. Much of the wall around the perimeter was still standing, but a section about ten paces wide near the castle had been destroyed. I zoned off, imagining some horde of invaders long ago overtaking the people that lived here. Whatever had happened, it was long forgotten.
I had asked Father for weeks to bring me here. I wanted to experience something different. My day-to-day life was my village, a small olive-farming community filled with the same faces and chores. I had imagined life beyond my village for years. I’d heard my Uncle Icar’s stories of foreign lands and battles. Father, on the other hand, never said much. I looked up to them both. They assured me life inside our quiet village was better, but I wanted to decide for myself.
Today was my first glimpse into that life.
Despite being reduced to rubble, the ruins served as a bustling market, host to a slew of shady dealers, buyers, sorcerers, and slaves. Everything from figs to fighter’s wear was for sale. I noticed an older man with two slaves following him, their heads slumped down in submission. The slave owner looked well fed, and his garments were pristine. However, his slaves appeared malnourished and filthy.
I felt guilty glancing down at my own clean garments. I had washed my white Chiton thoroughly the day before to look my best. As I looked back at the slaves, I observed huge welts up and down their arms and legs. The man continued on, gallivanting his slaves around like status jewels.
I had seen slaves once before when I was much younger, but only briefly. Now, much older, I could see it. I could smell it. I could sense the hopelessness on their faces, desperation, defeat. A man owning another man.
Father saw me staring at them. “Calm yourself,” he told me, staring at my hands
I looked down to see I was clenching my fists, but I slowly uncurled them.
“Their ways…are not ours,” Father continued. He loved Sparta, but one aspect of the culture he despised was the owning of helots, or slaves. Father called slavery cruel and an embarrassment to Spartan culture. He, my grandfather, and my uncle were known to oppose slavery, but they were in the overwhelming minority. Politicians argued that helots were the core of the Spartan workforce, and removing them would cripple the economy. My family disagreed.
“Here’s why we don’t trade…you see this, Acula?” Father said, nudging me, breaking my concentration. He handed me another blacksmith’s work, a spear.
“Iron?” I asked, examining its edge. He had shown me other examples of this new method.
“Yes. Many Greeks are turning to iron. Do you remember why?” he asked.
“Iron is like the common man—easy to find, but doesn’t hold up in a fight,” I answered.
“You’re paying attention. I’ve heard of iron craftsmen that do good work, but for now, bronze is the way,” he said softly, smiling as he looked me in the eye. Everything around me vanished in that moment. I tried not to let on how satisfying it was that I impressed him, but I couldn’t help it.
“I’ve got many new buyers in town,” the clerk said, leaning in, glancing up at my father. I noticed his eyes had dark makeup around them, emphasizing his vibrant green eyes.
“War is upon us, of course you have new buyers,” Father said.
“They want bronze weapons, lots of them, just the way you make them,” the clerk said. Father slowly looked up at him and paused.
“Hm.”
“Maybe a partnership is in order?” the clerk asked.
“These buyers…are they foreigners, perhaps?” Father asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Seems after the battle of Thermopylae, everyone wants Spartan bronze,” he said.
“I thought we lost at Thermopylae?” I asked aloud.
“…We did,” Father replied. I noticed he was staring intensely at the clerk. Something was bothering him.
“Indeed, we lost, but did you tell your son we were outnumbered twenty to one?” the clerked injected.
“No…I didn’t.”
The clerk went into a theatrical posture, looking up into the heavens as he began to paint the picture. “A small Spartan army led by the King Leonidas himself killed so many Persians they had to stop fighting so they could move all the Persian corpses. The Greeks had Persian bodies stacked three times the height of a man! This is why they want Greek swords and warriors, boy!” he said, widening his green eyes, raising his voice and waving his arms.
“The phalanx is the key to Spartan defense, and that solidarity is not something the Persians can buy.”
I marveled at Father for a moment before turning back to the merchant. “What happened to the Spartan king?” I asked.
“Eventually, the Persians whittled down the Greek numbers with arrows and the king was killed. But when the Persians tried to take his body, the remaining Spartans defended it to the last man, using stones, bare hands, even their teeth to fight back against the Persians. Not a single Spartan surrendered. To the death!” the clerk concluded.
“A beautiful death!” a passerby chanted, overhearing part of the story. Surely he wasn’t a Spartan. Father had told me some Greeks seemed to glamorize our culture.
I looked up at Father, assessing his reaction. There wasn’t much to see, but I could gauge his emotions only by the small slits in his helmet for the eyes and mouth. He glanced away, nodding his head in agreement. “Many warriors died that day.”
“So…you didn’t answer my question earlier,” Father said.
“…what?” the clerk asked, waving to a passerby and smiling
“Did you sell my weapons to the invaders?” Father asked slowly, raising his voice louder with each word.
“…wel
l, let’s see, maybe they asked about them, but I don’t recall—”
“You maggot!”
Father moved like a lightning bolt from Zeus’s arm as he reached over the counter and grabbed the large, flabby clerk by his throat. “You. You sold those Persians weapons that could kill Greeks? Your own countrymen?! There will be no partnership between you and I,” Father thundered.
“I-I-I don’t know,” he struggled to answer, gasping for air. He glanced over at booth next to us, his eyes beseeching another clerk. “H-help!”
“You don’t know? Liar! The Persian army sits at our doorstep even now, almost a million men waiting to ravage this country…and you’re helping them?! As if they need your assistance?” Father shouted. His voice echoed off the ruins.
I felt my heart race. The busy market had suddenly silenced. Then a gust of wind howled through the ruins. I could smell spices from the various booths rustling around as the other clerks closed their storage bins.
The southern clouds began to turn black as my father let go of the clerk. He coughed and massaged his neck, attempting to catch his breath. Then the clerk nodded behind us towards the storm. “What is it?” Father demanded as he turned around. His ire with the clerk seemed to evaporate, and I could see his mouth set into a grim line, flat across his face.
Everyone’s attention diverted away from us; something was coming besides the storm. In the distance, I could see a group of twelve men. Foreigners. They wore bright-colored armor of purples, golds, and reds.
Underneath their armor was a shiny fabric I had never seen. It looked very light, as it fluttered in the wind. They had dark features with thick beards and gold jewelry. I had never seen warriors wear exotic ornaments.
“Persian soldiers?” I asked, looking up at Father. His eyes seemed to go into a vacant stare. I noticed his forearm flexed gripping his spear tightly. The portion of the spear he held for thrusting had been worn down over time, creating an indentation that seemed to sit comfortably under his palm.
“Yes. Stay close,” Father said.
Two of the Persians carried bows, while the others had swords or spears. They strolled casually towards us, picking up various trinkets as they walked, sometimes throwing them back down after a quick inspection. Spices spilled and pots broke, but the Greek vendors just scrambled back, not daring to protest.
The man in the middle of the throng of newcomers rode a horse, a large, dark-colored steed. He trampled through the traders’ goods with no regard, stepping on crates of olives or knocking them aside as if they weren’t there. The Greeks stood in silence, allowing them to do as they pleased.
“If only all of Greece were like Sparta,” Father commented.
“But what could they do? Most of these people have no weapons.”
“Wear war in their hearts and minds. I dressed in war, but understand that it was my heart first. These invaders haven’t left Greece for a reason, and today, you see why. These people have submitted. Even this castle, the crumbling ruins are from another invasion long ago, a symbol, a warning to these people they refused to heed.”
“Preturias!” the Persian on the horse called out. I glared up at Father, confused. How did the Persian know his name? I didn’t like the way he pronounced my father’s name, either—not because he had an accent, but because it sounded lazy and disrespectful. Father looked back at the store clerk. The clerk shook his head, raising his eyebrows and throwing up his hands up.
“No one else knows my name here—but you,” Father said, pointing at the clerk.
“You’re the Spartan who makes the purest bronze, they say?!” the horse-mounted captain called out.
“They?” Father asked. He regarded the clerk for a moment, deadly calm. The clerk put his hands up, shaking his head. Then, in the blink of an eye, Father stabbed the clerk through the neck with his spear.
“Traitor!” Father shouted. Blood splattered all over my face, but I didn’t flinch. There was no time for me to react. I felt like I was watching the motion from outside my body. I felt my arms stiffen up as I gulped. I could feel my toes drawing up tightly, digging into my sandals.
The clerk cringed in pain, gripping Father’s spear tightly, but then his eyes rolled back in his head. He spat out blood, attempting to breathe. Then, his arms dropped lifelessly. Several people gasped, but not me. I had been raised by a Spartan. Even though I had never seen a man killed, a part of me felt the action was natural, just. Still, it was different seeing it in person, the clerk’s life so quickly extinguished. My stomach leapt into my throat, and suddenly it was hard to swallow. A drop of the man’s blood started to trail down my cheek, sickly warm.
“Rrrrr-rrr!” Father yanked the spear out of the clerk’s neck as his body crumpled behind the booth. I heard a few gurgling sounds, then nothing. Father looked down at me after killing the man. His look was not of concern, but of confidence and pride. He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to see what the consequence for treason looked like.
I glanced back at the foreigners. The man on the horse raised his eyebrows, observing the action as if watching beetles wrestling in the dirt. I could feel the clerk’s blood touching my bare feet as it flowed under the booth and out into the street. Uncle Icar once told me that the warmth of his enemy’s blood felt like taking a dip in a hot spring, at once claustrophobic and relaxing. But to me, it just felt tacky, sticking to my skin as it spread.
The Persians strolled up within earshot of us. The market was now divided; everyone had moved away from the middle, standing on both sides, watching in complete silence.
“You’re a long way from home, Spartan,” the Persian captain said.
“As are you,” Father replied. The Persian looked back to the east, pausing. It appeared he lost himself in thought for a moment.
“Yes…But everywhere the king of kings Xerxes goes is his home, our home. Now, King Xerxes has heard your name. He knows of your skill as a bronze craftsman. He is prepared to give you land and a title in his empire if you agree to supply our captains and officers your weapons…” the captain said. His horse neighed and shifted in place, and the captain pulled tightly on its reins to draw it up short.
“Your king is prepared to give me land that was my own to begin with?” Father asked.
The captain paused, raising his eyebrows. “It was never yours; it is only for those who bow to King Xerxes…lay down your weapons and pay tribute to your king,” the captain said. Father glanced at the bystanders briefly, then he began nodding his head. He glanced down at me briefly, then out into the Greek countryside.
“How about…you come and get my weapons!” Father shouted, echoing the words King Leonidas had told the Persian captain at Thermopylae only months ago. The crowd seemed to gasp in unison. Father’s words seemed to enrage the Persians. One of them pointed his sword at Father from a distance, yelling aggressively in their foreign tongue. Even though the Persians had won the battle, it had been an embarrassing display for their army. The Persians waited for the order, staring up at their captain.
“Take him by force—kill the boy!” the captain ordered furiously.
Dust and sparks flew from the ground as Father slammed his bronze shield into the stone brick, pointing his spear at them. He roared, creating a sound I had never heard from him. It sounded primal, like a lion defending his cub from a pack of jackals. I couldn’t see much from inside the protection of his shield. I looked over at his face; he was gritting his teeth, his canines overlapping his lip as he bit it. He glanced back and forth at them savagely.
I knew Persians would die this day.
“Father. Your short sword, please. Let me die a Spartan’s death,” I pleaded, beholding the sheathed Xiphos on his hip. He had trained me since the age of four in combat; now fourteen, I was more capable than most grown men. I was terrified, but I wanted Father to be impressed with my courage.
He looked off into the distance for a moment and sighed, staring back at the Persians. He said nothing, and his eyes danced bac
k and forth like a fire whipping around in a brisk wind. For a moment, I thought he considered allowing me to fight, but something stopped him.
I could hear the Persians getting closer; it sounded like one of them was dragging a spear or sword across the brick. It grew louder. Then, I felt a great force pushing me back as I toppled over on my backside. Father had shoved me behind the booth of the merchant he’d killed.
I landed in a tacky puddle of blood, the sudden fall creating a splash that covered me in it. I could feel it in my hair now, the warmth touching my scalp. I turned to my left as I lay down. I was parallel to the dead merchant, staring into his eyes. I froze for a moment. His eyes were open, but lifeless and cold. I felt my skin flush as blood pounded in my ears, each pulse in rhythm with the beating of my heart.
I rose hurriedly, kneeling as I peeked over the booth counter. Father stood low in a balanced stance facing three Persians. One swordsman each on his left and right, with a spearman at his front. They looked at one another as if to signal a plan of attack.
“Please! Just lay down your weapons, Spartan,” a middle-aged Greek woman called out.
“Come on!” Father yelled, ignoring her. Instead, he banged his spear against his shield in defiance. The clanking echoed off the ruins and mountains in the distance. Then, rain began to fall suddenly and heavily as thunder rumbled.
The swordsman to Father’s left dashed in with an overhead strike, but Father countered the blow with his shield high, parrying early in his attack. This exposed the Persian’s body. Father blocked, then stabbed him immediately after. Lightning flashed just when his spear jabbed inside him.
I could hear bones scraping as the spear penetrated his ribcage. The man tried to scream, but nothing came out of his mouth but blood. Father bashed the man’s face with his shield, knocking his lifeless body to the ground. Blood coated his shield in a streak where the man’s now broken nose had impacted. Several Greeks turned away from the carnage; some hurried out of the market, while others covered their children’s eyes.
