The Isle of Stone

8

The raising of Epitadas consumed almost all Damatria’s attention until it was time to let him go. In those years she fed him, bathed him, swaddled him, and taught him with the fierce possessiveness of a lover. She rarely let Lampito hold the child; Damatria had no patience at all with Molobrus’ paternal fumbling. Of his other kind of clumsiness, the one that afflicted him in the bedroom, she no longer took notice. The act interested her only insofar as it resulted in the salvation that was Epitadas.

In a most un-Spartan manner, she took pleasure in her son’s cooing helplessness. The freshness of his smell possessed her, as in the night she tended to his little cries, his spit-ups, his chubby arms held out to her. Upon the spectacle of his first steps, she wept. For four years she nursed him, seeking privacy so she could gaze into his eyes. The power of his suck kindled a sensual glow that Molobrus’ blunt pokings could never match.

When the day came for him to take the Rearing, she felt as if a piece of her heart was being cut out. She made Endius come three times, telling Epitadas to hide in the fields on the first two occasions. By the time his surrender could no longer be avoided, she left it for Molobrus to hand him over. Damatria watched him leave from a safe place, her hands grasping her milk-swollen breasts, too full of rage to let a sound escape the contorted mask of her grief.

She had to know where Endius took him. She followed them through the barley farms east of the villages, over the pelleted sheep tracks, to a hollow formed by two cypress-clad hills. An altar to mirthless Demeter lay in the center, its mass built up from centuries of solid ash tarred by dripping animal fat, scorched hair and bones and, on this occasion, the tears of a single Spartan mother as bereft as the goddess facing her daughter’s exile to the underworld. From there she watched the boy-herd take the boy into the field to meet his fellows.

After a few days tracking the pack, Damatria learned its movements and could predict with fair accuracy where her son would be at any moment of the day. The paradox of it, that the movements of a group meant to be in a perfect state of freedom could be so easily forecast, was not lost on her. It was of use, though, in her efforts to keep the boy fed. Heedless of the scandal it would cause, she supplemented Epitadas’ diet in secret, bringing him baskets of bread, apples, figs, almonds, olives, and cheese. The boy learned where to find his mother in the woods. They met without exchanging words-Damatria keeping watch for intruders, Epitadas stuffing the provisions into his mouth as fast as he could. On occasion, their eyes would meet. In her glance, there was the urgency of a need that transcended any prospect of shame; in his, Damatria saw neither thanks nor affection, but only the appetite of a starving animal.

From her vantage nearby, she could see the fruits of her crime. Where the other boys became undersized on their scanty diet, Epitadas came to tower over them all. In six months he outweighed boys three years his senior. With these advantages he dominated the competition, ruling his pack with intimidation backed by capricious outbursts of force. Damatria would watch him humiliate the other boys, strike them down, kick them, grind their faces into the dirt. She wished it didn’t need to be so, and hoped that one day he would not take such joy in it, but mostly she was thankful it was Epitadas who gave the beatings and not the other way around. Then she set her mind to the pleasurable task of thinking in what other ways she could enhance his supremacy.