The Isle of Stone

2.

“Epitadas, I would speak with you,” said Frog as he planted his defiant squatness athwart the path. Epitadas, bending to the inevitable, turned an impassive face on the other; Frog had been insisting on yet another public confrontation since they had driven the enemy from the island, but had been frustrated so far. At least this time he chose a place away from the other men.

“I am concerned about the tactics we used against the Athenians from the ship,” he stated.

Epitadas replied, “Do you mean the tactics we used with such success?”

“If we must call it that. I call it a foretaste of disaster. The threat of their archers-you have not solved it.”

“I recall that they had archers last time.”

“They came with only a handful. But ask your brother, who killed more than his share: did the arrows slow him down? Ask him.”

Antalcidas stood nearby, blowing into his clenched hands. The days dawned colder now. He had been listening to the exchange between Epitadas and Frog, but chose this time to play the stolid Equal who responded to questions only when directly asked.

“Brother, were you bothered in the least by their arrows?”

“No.”

“He’s lying,” asserted Frog. “I saw him shifting his feet to avoid them. And did he not have an arrow stuck in his helmet?”

“It barely went through.”

“But it could have! These buckets will be useless if the Athenians shoot their arrows down on us. If they aim high-”

“If need be, we can fight without helmets at all,” replied Epitadas. “Recall that is why our fathers invented boxing.”

“Zeus save us, are you suggesting the Athenians want to box with us?”

“I am always amazed at those like you, elder, who can turn a success into a defeat for the sake of what might have been!”

Frog squared his shoulders, hand on swordhilt. “If we are fated to die-so be it. But it is not for us to throw our lives away for want of taking simple precautions-a few dozen slingers, for instance-”

“And where would you find anything to make slings, with everything burned?”

“I’ve thought of that. We can strip the carrying straps from the backs of a few shields. Slingers don’t need shields anyway.”

Epitadas strode up to Frog, staring down at him from a distance only slightly more than the length of his nose. With his arms hanging easily at his sides, he seemed unconcerned by Frog’s hand on his sword.

“Hear me, elder. If I die, you can waste as many shields as you want. But not until then.”

“I do believe Epitadas thinks he is Leonidas,” Frog said to no one in particular. “His own little Thermopylae-and we are his three hundred.”

Epitadas smiled. “Say another word. Just one more word.”

Frog scowled, spat on the ground, but said nothing more.

That evening the breeze freshened from the east. The wind brought with it the smell of the live trees on the hillsides. Only then did Antalcidas realize how the odor of fire had come to permeate everything in his world, from his clothes and beard to the hides of the men around him and, of course, the still-smoking ground. He was walking to the windward side of the island, the fresher air attracting him, when he discovered Epitadas standing on a ledge above the cliff. He had said nothing to him since the last confrontation with Frog.

Antalcidas knew that the Neckless One was right: the Athenians, when they came, would not risk a shock attack against elite Spartiates. Instead, they would land missile troops. Yet this, of all possible truths, was the one most awkward for him to broach; Epitadas would no doubt call him “Stone” again, saying he had spent too much time as a boy throwing rocks at helots. He could have no more luck with his brother than Frog had. Yet the voices of Andreia and Melitta were talking to him now, as the time in the siege grew late; their faces appeared to him nightly in his dreams. Could he deny them a mere word in defense of their future? If it was so destined, could he make his descent into Hades in good conscience, without even making the attempt?

Epitadas was looking out at the campfires of the Peloponnesians along the eastern limb of the bay. They seemed close, and far more numerous than the Athenian ones under Koryphasion. Yet in all those weeks they seemed as immovable as the stars. He was thinking, without resentment, that the men around those fires were painfully idle; he presumed that at least the hunting was good. There was a hint of roasting stag meat on the breeze. He had heard that Messenia, particularly around the deserted slopes of Mount Ithome, was still good country for red deer.

“Brother, Frog is a fool, but-” Antalcidas began. He let his words trail off, expecting that the other would interrupt him, but he did not. “Could it be so unwise to do as he suggests? Some of the shields were damaged in the fire.”

“I know that,” said Epitadas.

“We could designate two platoons of the under-thirties to be slingers, and give their shields to the Equals who have lost theirs.”

“I suppose we could.”

“Then… why…” Antalcidas shrugged, though his brother was facing away and could not see the gesture.

“The Athenians might try what Frog fears,” Epitadas said, “but it is not so easy. The ground will make it hard for them to land, and break up their formations.”

“Maybe.”

“We can be among them in time-remember their faces when we attacked them on the beach? They’re cowards-children. They will always run without a fight.”

“Which of us are you trying to convince, Brother?”

For the first time since he saw Epitadas kill that boy in the olive grove, his brother turned to him with eyes full of suspicion.

“Do I need to remind you, Stone, of your promise to our mother?”

“No, you don’t. But if you’re wrong?”

“It will be decided as the gods will. But if I’m wrong-if the fight is decided by arrows and rocks-then I say it is not a battle worth winning.”