The Isle of Stone

3.

A letter from Nicias reached Demosthenes. Withdrawing at once to his tent, the general broke the seal and scanned the lines, his expression darkening with each word: To Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, deme Colonus Agoraeus, General-select?geides, etc. etc., from his friend Nicias, son of Niceratus. The peace negotiations are over. The proposals of the Lacedaemonian envoys were not only rejected, but they were denied fair consideration by certain wrong-headed people. The emissaries themselves were most poorly treated. As they were escorted to the gates our mutual acquaintance-you know who-had them taken through one of the affected quarters of the city. While the plague itself has subsided for the present, the Spartans were given a good look at the looted houses. Meanwhile, they were jeered by the masses of exiled souls who have been forced by crowding to follow in death’s wake-

So the fools meant to ruin him. For if there was anything that could end a career faster than losing a battle outright, it was squandering the promise of an easy victory. Nicias was an honorable fellow, Demosthenes thought, but he had no head for Assembly politics; of course “certain wrong-headed people” had opposed the peace! If Demosthenes took the island, Cleon would share the glory of advocating the decisive stroke. If, on the other hand, the siege failed, Demosthenes would be finished and Cleon would still benefit, having forced a rival into retirement. It was rather a beautiful piece of gamesmanship, in fact; he would almost have believed that Cleon had a future as a strategist.

Demosthenes again felt that heaviness in his legs. Bending one at the knee, the tendons seemed as brittle as desiccated sticks. No, he thought, he would not be hobbled in the very hour of his greatest test! He began to pound his thigh with his clenched fist, declaring, “Just flesh! Just flesh!”

A dispatch from the archons arrived on the next supply ship. The war must continue, they wrote, because of the intransigence of the Spartans. All deliveries of food would henceforth stop, and hostilities against the troops on the island commence at the commander’s discretion. As for the matter of the ships captured by the Peloponnesians and returned to the Athenians as part of the truce-there was a peculiar sentence that might have been dictated by Cleon himself. It read: The general is advised to release the ships in his custody back to the enemy if, in his judgment, they have adhered to the truce in spirit and in letter. The implication could not have been clearer to him: it would be up to Demosthenes to find a pretext to keep the ships.

He sent for Leochares. The officer, who never seemed to stray far from his tent flap, arrived as Demosthenes reread the letter, and stood so quietly that the general was startled to look up and find him already there.

“You called for me, sir?”

Demosthenes looked into those gray eyes, so pale that they seemed to repel all light. How, he wondered, can a man stay so blanched after weeks of waiting on a beach?

“The truce is off,” he said. “Prepare your men.”

Leochares’ face twisted into an unfamiliar configuration-a smile. For the first time since news of his brothers’ deaths, his chance had come to kill Lacedaemonians. Demosthenes, perceiving this sudden enthusiasm, raised a finger in warning.

“You know your orders. Accomplish your goals, and take no unnecessary chances. Control the Messenians!”

The smile faded from Leochares’ lips, but not from his eyes.