The Isle of Stone

6

Endius took him to a place in the fields where a wide circle of grain had been trampled flat. Fifteen other boys his age romped inside the circle. There were no introductions and little talking-just the vegetal crack of fifteen bodies jumping, wrestling, and flopping on the stalks. Endius stripped off Antalcidas’ cloak, leaving him with only a thin tunic. The boys halted to examine the new arrival. When Antalcidas looked up at him with a questioning look, the boy-herd winked and walked away through the rows of barley.

Antalcidas wondered if he was supposed to follow, until he was shoved from behind. Turning, he was confronted by an older boy, about twelve years old, who bore a striking mole on his right cheek.

“Are you really just seven years old?” asked Birthmark.

“Yes.”

“He’s too tall,” he said to the other boys. “Betcha his mother kept him at home an extra year, maybe even two!”

“Did not.”

“Don’t argue, Grub!” a redheaded boy ordered, holding his little fist under Antalcidas’ nose.

“Grub?”

“It’s a kind of useless worm… Grub!”

“We call all the new ones grubs,” said Birthmark. “If you’re lucky, you get a real name when you prove yourself.”

“Wake up! Scarecrow due east!” a third boy announced with hushed excitement.

All eyes looked to Birthmark, who Antalcidas realized must be the pack’s leader. The boy crouched suddenly, and was joined in the huddle by everyone else. Redhead turned back to Antalcidas.

“What are you doing, Grub? Get in here!”

The others made a space for Antalcidas to join them. Birthmark was in the middle giving orders, jabbing a finger at each boy in turn.

“Frog, Ho-hum, Cricket, and Beast take flanking position. Redhead, Rehash, and Cheese guard against the countermarch, while the rest of you circle around with me to the front…”

“Wait, what do I do again?” asked Rehash.

“I said, guard against the countermarch! New kid, you come with me too… on the double!”

As they scattered, each of the boys picked out a handful of stones from between the broken barley stalks. Antalcidas didn’t understand what they were attacking-until they all crept through the grain and fixed their target.

The “scarecrow” was a solitary helot, walking along the verge with a hoe across his shoulders, a sun hat on his head.

Birthmark led his party through the barley a short distance ahead of the helot. He paused, synchronizing his approach with the flankers and the rear guard. The helot halted too, cocking his head as if he’d heard something, bringing the hoe down in blocking position across his body. There was a pause as hunters and quarry held still; Antalcidas had stalked hares on his own, in the grove behind his house, but had never before felt his heart beat with such anticipation. And then it began: the squad closed in on three sides with rocks on high, letting loose a collective squeal that seemed more rodentlike than dangerous. But there was no avoiding the ferocity of the attack as the stones pelted the helot from all sides. His hat fluttering off his head like a wounded bird, he collapsed to the dirt with his face covered. Birthmark and his more brazen foot soldiers came in close to hurl their missiles from inches away. The helot, who seemed to have some experience with these things, convulsed on the stubble to avoid the blows.

They tortured him with every rock they could find, and when they ran out of rocks they tried sticks, pebbles, and cow chips. Climbing to his feet, the helot uncovered his face to see where he might run. That was when Birthmark served up his last surprise-a shard of granite he had held back just for that moment. It struck the helot square in the mouth. An arc of blood, like a libation uncapped, poured out of him. He escaped into the woods adjoining the next field. Frog and Beast moved to go after him, but Birthmark called them back.

The boys gathered around the splash of helot blood and broken teeth on the ground, cheering. Birthmark broke into the middle of them.

“Quiet, all of you! What do you have to celebrate? Doing your duty?”

“That’s one scarecrow who won’t raise his head for a while!” declared Frog, a seemingly neckless, dimpled lad. He picked up the stump of a broken incisor and tried to fit in into the gap in his own mouth.

“Maybe. But there are always more slaves than men like us. Remember that.”

“Look! New kid didn’t throw!”

They all looked to Antalcidas-the only one of them who still had a sizable rock in his hand. As they all scrutinized him he burned red with embarrassment. The rock dropped from his fingers.

“Well, I’d say we’ll be calling you Grub for quite a while yet,” Birthmark said.