The Isle of Stone

4.

The testimony of the son of a free-born Spartiate, and the fact that the dead boy was under Thibron’s supervision, were enough to bring an indictment. The Gerousia met to hear the evidence. In his defense, Thibron made a brief account of his service to the army and to the boy-herd. And while no one could dispute his record of excellence, a certain reputation for mischief-and rumors of private drinking-weighed against him in the elders’ minds. Isidas, who still had a bald spot where one of Thibron’s proteges had shaved hairs from his leg, was most adamant for the prosecution. In the end they voted twenty-six to four to convict, with both kings voting guilty.

Discussion over punishment ran well into the night. The prescribed penalty was death, but in light of the defendant’s distinguished pedigree, King Archidamus moved for permanent exile. There was no consensus when the elders broke up at last to make their way home, torchless, over the empty paths. The final vote was a contentious sixteen to fourteen for banishment. On pain of execution, Thibron was obliged to cross the boundaries of Laconia by the following nightfall. In such cases this meant the convicted had to leave right away, without a pause to collect his personal property or bid his messmates farewell.

Thibron’s trial and disappearance preoccupied public discussion for days. That Antalcidas, son of Molobrus gave the decisive testimony was the object of much comment, for his mother’s prediction that her son would grow up to be “the shame of Sparta” was not forgotten. The ruin of a young man as promising at Thibron, who came from one of the most ancient Heraclid families, might have qualified as such a disgrace. Questioned about this by Lampito in front of witnesses, Damatria neither confirmed nor denied the fulfillment of her prophecy. She still had plans for her eldest son.

Antalcidas took a big step toward that future with his appearance in the Plane Stand. It began with a chance encounter on the Eurotas, when his pack and a rival gang of sixteen-year-old Yearlings met on the shoreline path and refused to give way to each other. The customary manner of resolving such conflicts was to fight it out in a special arena: an artificial island ringed with plane trees and a moat, with wooden bridges on opposing sides. From time immemorial Spartan boys had settled their differences there, under the eyes of Herakles and Lycurgus, in any manner short of the use of weapons. Many a hardened Spartiate, if asked how he had earned that gouged-out eye or torn, fishhooked mouth, would boast that he had not received it on the battlefield but, in fact, in a boyhood scrimmage on the Plane Stand. Every young man was expected to fight there sooner or later.

The Lacedaemonians tempered the passions of the moment with a heavy dose of procedure. As leader, Stone was expected to conduct the sacrifice of a puppy to Ares Enyalios at his shrine near the village of Therapne. The animal had to be perfectly black, with no spots or imperfections; a regular part of the ritual was for each antagonist to disparage the other’s offering as unworthy. His counterpart, a small-bodied but bigmouthed character named Gylippus, made much of a few gray hairs on the underside of the puppy Antalcidas had stolen from a yard in Limnae.

“Seems like a simple thing to me, to find a black dog,” crowed Gylippus. “Maybe all our friend Antalcidas is good for is selling out his teachers!”

To invoke the fate of Thibron in the service of a petty squabble was to slap Antalcidas in the face. He didn’t answer, but swore inwardly to make Gylippus pay for this remark.

The next preliminary was a fight between wild boars specially kept for the purpose. These animals were brought out by a deputation of Spartiates who seemed to relish the chore. Their eyes shined with amusement when, after Antalcidas and Gylippus cast lots, Gylippus won and picked the larger boar to represent his pack. The root of their humor became clear when the boys assembled to watch the animals square off: after trading snorts, Gylippus’ champion turned rump and wriggled through the boys’ legs to escape. Antalcidas led his pack in a cheer, for the affiliation of the boar that kept the field portended victory on the Plane Stand.

The next day, the sides cast lots to determine by which route each pack would take the field. Gylippus won again and chose the Herakles bridge. As the opponents gathered on the far side of the moat, the perimeter became crowded with spectators from every age-class, from Grubs to Yearlings to Cows to Firsties, as well as many full-grown Spartiates and women. The mood was one of anticipation but not quite joy: if the combatants fought as they were expected, some would watch their children maimed that morning. Conspicuous injuries on the Plane Stand, like death in war, were supposed to be grounds for celebration for the patrons and families of the wounded. In practice, those who gave damage were more genuinely cheered than those who took it.

The teams, Herakles versus Lycurgus, filed across to the island. Endius taught that the victory was decided by divine favor, bestowed on the pack that displayed the most manly excellence. There was therefore no huddling or cheerleading once the boys stepped on that sacred ground-inventive tactics, if attempted at all, were repugnant in Ares’ sight. As he mouthed the ancient prayers in a voice too low for Antalcidas to hear, Alcander the Elder poured a libation to the god into the moat. With that, he sat on a field stool and raised his hand for the contest to begin.

The opponents formed up in single-rank phalanxes, their arms linked, and charged at each other across the pitch. They met in the center with a crash of unprotected ribs, heads butting, chest-to-chest. There was a murmur of approval from the Spartiates as both phalanxes remained intact after the shock.

The boys strove to push their opponents off the island, legs and backs bent to the task. The lines undulated as segments of each gained and gave ground. With flanks pouring with sweat, the antagonists began to slip past each other, straining against the linked arms before them. Antalcidas, struggling in the center of his line, found good footing in the ruts left by his ancestors. With a shout, he drove forward, ignoring the stabs to his feet from generations of teeth and severed toenails lodged in the dirt.

Gylippus’s front broke. Encouraged, the Lycurgus pack shoved them backward, step by begrudging step, until they were mere yards from the moat. Facing defeat, the enemy unlinked their arms to scratch and bite and rip. Cricket suffered a split nostril, and Antalcidas was unnerved to feel someone’s fingers snaking into his mouth to administer the fishhook. He bit back, his teeth sinking straight through the ligaments. Gylippus screamed and fell back into the water with blood shooting from the stumps of his fingers. The rest of Herakles joined him in rout; Antalcidas’ phalanx, meanwhile, had never been broken, though many of his mates were bloodied from gouges and bites.

The verdict among the spectators was that the melee was a qualified success. Gylippus’s humiliation was aggravated by the fact that he had cried out with the pain of his wound. Antalcidas, fortunately, saved the dignity of the occasion by making no vulgar celebration. Instead, he spat Gylippus’s fingertips out of his mouth and extended a hand to help him out of the water. As the other turned away in his shame, Stone overheard some of what the Spartiates were saying about his performance:

“… never seen it done so fast…”

“… that face with such a body…!”

“He seems pretty enough to me now!”

“Say what you will about him, but the boy absorbs.”

The last voice belonged to Zeuxippos. As befitted any patron on such an occasion, with his peers lining up to shake his hand, he basked in the reflected glory of his protege.

But it was a figure that said nothing at all that drew Antalcidas’ attention: a thin female with her back to him, her head tilted slightly to the left. After nine years, he could still recognize that receding form. He felt an impulse to run after her, to seize her in some single manner that would express the totality of his feelings. Instead, he found himself surrounded by the faces of his packmates, assaulting him with the force of their admiration. When he looked again for his mother, she was gone.

His showing on the Plane Stand landed him in the front row of the minor chorus during the year’s Festival of the Unarmed Boys. The day of his choral performance was not as hot as during the Flocks, but it was cloudless and the sun strong as it bore down on the dirt of the dancing circle in the marketplace. Except for the tasseled wreaths around their heads, Antalcidas and his packmates took the stage naked. The dance began as a simple march that grew into a complicated series of steps particular to his age-class. As he concentrated on the dancing, he had to remember the words of the paean to be sung, and endure the taunts of the older men as they scrutinized the boys for every imperfection in physique or conduct. At certain points in the performance the boys, in unison, had to stop, raise their fists, and proclaim, “By the glory of the Muses, we will be braver than our fathers!” The crowd would roar back, and the dance begin anew, only faster.

On and on it went, as the hours passed and the sun soared midway between Parnon and Taygetus. By then the temperature was irrelevant: all the performers gleamed with sweat and swooned with exhaustion as the audience only seemed to get bigger, more delightedly hostile. By the nineteenth round some of the boys could barely stand, and their promise to exceed their fathers had a decidedly uncertain ring. By the twenty-sixth the dancers in the back row collapsed. By the thirty-fifth, Antalcidas had stopped caring whether the words or the steps were correct, but thought only of the joints in his legs screaming, and the pounding on the balls of his feet, and the sensation like the tip of a knife searching the clefts in the back of his skull. He stopped, raised his arm, and declared nothing at all as his voice betrayed him. Coughing up the dust of the marketplace, he croaked the declaration as the adult faces seemed focused only on him, on his failure. Despite himself, he felt the rising of tears in his eyes. He commenced the marching step again, balancing himself on the insensate clubs of his extremities. But Endius and Zeuxippos were beside him then, holding him by either arm, as the sound of distant applause rose around them.

“It’s over, my boy,” Endius was saying. “You can stop moving your feet…”

“They say many see great Phoebus for the first time during the minor chorus,” asked Zeuxippos. “Can we hope you were so lucky?” Antalcidas saw his lips move, heard his voice, but could only stare back without understanding. If Apollo had truly come to him during the ordeal, he would not have understood a word the god said.