The Isle of Stone

7.

The next day the sea was too high for the Athenian ships to rest in the cleft. For three days after that Namertes was assigned elsewhere; since Antalcidas couldn’t budge the stone by himself, their attack would have to wait. It wasn’t until the fifth day, with the wind blowing from the east, under a sky filled with plump clouds in slowly drifting archipelagoes, that conditions seemed right for the attack.

He found Namertes in the same posture as before, peeping down on the Athenians. When the younger man heard him come up he greeted him in a loud voice, prompting Antalcidas to silence him abruptly. There was no way to know how much the enemy could hear from below.

Antalcidas looked down: the lithe vessel had only just cocked her oars, the oblong blades alive with the glint of shedding droplets. The peculiar pattern of the current in that spot made the cleft a perfect vortex, holding the hull in a state of almost imperceptible rotation. Just then the bow turned through the imaginary bull’s eye where the boulder would strike the water. Antalcidas summoned Namertes to take his position behind the rock; in a few moments the stern would come around and they must be ready. The time passed reluctantly, and Antalcidas thought what a miserable kind of warfare this was, to hide and watch the unsuspecting movements of men doomed to die. It was not out of pity for the Athenians that he thought this-a Spartiate could feel no sadness for the enemy archers carousing there, laughing, passing a canteen of water between them in what they believed to be a moment of peace. Nor could he feel much empathy for the helmsman, an ancient man with a pate flecked with the liver spots, as he released his oar to spread sweat over his scalp with a slow, spiraling movement of his hand. Antalcidas was restive, instead, because he was a mere man in a position that was proper only to the immortal Fates. Such presumption was ruinous to the order of the world. Yet to forsake an opportunity to kill his adversaries, while they were in Lacedaemonian territory, was just as surely a sin against his ancestors. There was nothing else he could do.

He braced himself behind the boulder, envisioning the turning of the ship in the water. Locking eyes with Namertes, he pushed forward to relieve the weight on the braking stone, then kicked it away. The whole mass of the boulder was bearing down on them now. Antalcidas, his heart leaping in his chest, squared his shoulders and drove toward the cliff.

“Now, boy! Push!”

The rock seemed to have settled in that precarious spot, stuck as if glued there, but after they managed to roll it the last few inches to the edge, it seemed to shoot out of their hands. Antalcidas fell forward with his own momentum; he saw the boulder tumble over as it fell, revealing more of the Athenian deck as it receded. In the instant before it hit he didn’t think to notice who was standing under it, but only lay grimacing, his gut filled with disgust and suspense.

Their aim was perfect: the rock’s arcing path took it down amidships, to strike the body of the trireme not with a crash, but with a discrete, hollow sound, like the slamming of a door on an empty room. The ship recoiled on itself just before the first screams went up. It reminded Antalcidas of what a man’s body did when he took a spear on the run, the point sinking straight through to his spine.

The aftermath was like the frenzy of a disturbed anthill. The Athenians scrambled as if they were not sure where the blow had come from. The old helmsman, who wasn’t injured, swore before the gods that they had not run aground, as the oars lost all semblance of order, falling across each other as their operators struggled to flee the ship. It seemed as if no one was in charge; some men were diving into the water to save their lives, others falling as the top deck pitched in the chaos. Antalcidas and Namertes had no need to hide themselves because no one thought to look up.

Before long the ship began to sink. Swells broke over the wales, forcing the last of the topsiders into the water. The shoreline in that area was pitted but sheer, leaving them no place to swim for refuge. The survivors, who seemed to number more than a hundred, clung around the waterlogged hull on broken strakes, oars, and each other. It would have been easy to kill a few more of them with another rock, but there were no more sizable ones at hand. Antalcidas noticed that several other Lacedaemonians were watching the commotion from a vantage up the coast.

Namertes nudged him and pointed south: a second Athenian vessel was rounding the point. As it came closer, Antalcidas saw that the archers on that ship were looking right at him, arrows slung in their bows. A grayheaded figure whom he took to be the captain was standing on the bow, his hands cupped to his mouth.

“This is Xeuthes of the Terror! Who is that?”

“Isocrates of the Sounion,” replied a voice from the water. “Our keel is broken, Terror!”

“So I see. You are still in danger.”

Xeuthes pointed to the top of the cliff. A hundred pairs of eyes turned up at Antalcidas and Namertes, who reflexively withdrew. As they struck inland they heard a few desultory bow shots from the Terror fall around them, striking sparks as they hit the rocks. This was the first time Antalcidas saw the Athenians waste arrows in this way.

The two men separated on the high ground along the spine of the island, clasping hands but not looking into each other’s eyes. They never indulged in whoops of triumph; they never exchanged congratulations. Their attack evidenced more cleverness than virtue, and was by their mutual reckoning only marginally honorable. The whole regrettable business was the Athenians’ fault, Antalcidas told himself, because they had been so foolish to place themselves in danger. Though they were on a small island, he hoped never to see Namertes again.

The unapproachable shore prevented the Lacedaemonians from seizing the waterlogged hulk as a prize. Instead, after a transport ship arrived to rescue the crew, Xeuthes had a bowline rigged to tow the Sounion into the prevailing northerly current. The garrison watched as the Terror labored nearly the entire length of Sphacteria, not reaching the Sikia Channel until the sun sank into the sea. It hardly seemed possible that the enemy would refloat the wreck. Then again, they would need all their ships to defend their position and keep up the blockade. If nothing else, these Athenians had proved themselves a tireless people.

Antalcidas reached the summit fort just in time to hear Frog speaking. Long before he could make out his words he could discern his tone: mocking. His brother was listening to him but not responding, his eyes turned away to face the dying day. The rest of the garrison was spread over the slope, clearly as uncomfortable with the argument as children before their bickering parents.

“So this is your victor’s strategy, Epitadas? Spartiates reduced to behaving like Arcadian hillmen, toppling rocks on people? My, my, what would Leonidas have accomplished at Thermopylae if he’d just rolled a few stones! I guess both you and your brother are just chips off the old block!”

“How do you know it was Antalcidas?” Doulos demanded. “What proof do you present?”

Hand on his sword hilt, Frog gaped in the direction of the helot as if a worm or a weed had spoken. Then he turned back to Epitadas.

“We may well ask whether you have control over your brother. After all, he is the elder between you!”

“No one controls me!” Antalcidas declared. “And I affirm before the gods that the attack was mine alone. My brother had nothing to do with it.”

This admission caused a pained expression to wash over Epitadas’ face. Frog smiled.

“There was never any doubt of that, Stone.”

Antalcidas loomed over him. “Would you care to see my skill with the sword?”

The other turned to face him. A rare moment followed-one that was not lived like most others, with the next moment much like the last, but where a thousand possible fates ramified from the smallest choice. Antalcidas slipped his sword from its sheath.

Epitadas rushed in to interpose himself between them. “How happy the Athenians would be, to see Spartiates quarreling like their democratic rabble! Both of you, stand down.”

“Yes, stand down, Antalcidas!” cried Frog. “Can’t you see that your little brother will always defend your dishonor for you?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but Epitadas broke in first, saying, “Dishonor? Not at all! Our duty is to kill the enemy-Antalcidas killed them. There is nothing for him to defend.”

Frog scowled and spat at his feet. Antalcidas waited until he turned away to replace his sword. Epitadas ignored Frog and watched his brother; there was a commander’s fixity in his eyes, a determination to fight by his side if necessary. But not far beneath it was a plaintive, almost womanish hurt-the question, why do you test me this way? Antalcidas felt compelled to explain himself.

“Brother, I…”

“No need!” Epitadas cut in. “I suppose we know now why they discourage relatives from serving together. Our ancestors were wise.”

He found Doulos preparing his sleeping hole for the night-removing stray burrs and rocks, laying down his chiton as a liner. Antalcidas dropped his shield at the helot’s feet.

“Frog would have been within his rights to run you through, the way you disrespected him.”

“So be it,” said Doulos. “I recall my Ibycus: ‘An argument needs no reason, nor does a friendship.’ ”

“If you must. But remember, our enemies have friends of their own.”

The dispute between Epitadas and Frog left an ugly cloud over the island. There was little chatter as the men gathered in their hillside rookery to comb their hair and bind their lacerated feet with strips of fabric blackened with old blood. Lacedaemonians were used to short campaigns and clear lines of command-circumstances that were not in evidence as the siege wore on. But just before the day ended, as the last rays of the sun reddened the highlands, the mainland army flashed a message across the bay. The Spartiates gathered on the summit to read the news.

A truce had been negotiated with the Athenians. The next day, a Peloponnesian ship would arrive to feed the garrison.

V

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