Download 4. Discord From Aspasia`s, Styphon returned to the

4. Discord
From Aspasia's, Styphon returned to the Tholos in time for the evening meal to be attended by
Agis, the members of Brasidas' and Styphon's own messes, and a handful of Athenian collaborators
being groomed for positions of power in the soon-to-be-installed tyranny. Styphon's late arrival was
scarcely noticed by the crowd of forty or so. Taking a spot against the wall (the Spartan attendees
reclining on the bare tile, the Athenians on cushions), he ate cheese and bread and cold barley, laughed
as did everyone at a few pasty Athenians' attempts to choke down Spartan 'black broth,' and listened to
Equals compete to tell stories of their battle prowess, in the hope the king would overhear and invite
them to join the royal guard.
Styphon kept quiet, for he had no particular desire for more attention from Agis. He did not
receive any. In fact, for some reason Agis seemed distracted and in a foul mood, almost a different man
the personable king he had escorted from the port. Or perhaps it was by some sort of strategy that Agis
seized an opportunity, opened by someone's tale of bravery in battle, to ridicule a particular proposal
that Brasidas was purported to have made privately to Sparta's five supreme magistrates, the ephors.
“We shall need courage like yours when Brasidas has us charging an enemy phalanx without
our spears,” the king remarked, with a humorless glare at the latter. “Actually, what we'll need are
prayers and bandages!”
A few present chuckled, but stopped quickly for lack of company. Agis himself did not laugh.
Brasidas produced his sharp smile, hawk eyes levelly meeting the king's gaze.
“My grandfather never would have believed Sparta would exchange bronze armor and faceplates for leather and bare faces in the battle-line,” the polemarch returned. “Yet we did, and still we
persisted in winning battle after battle against men encased in metal. My father would have laughed at
the idea of a ship that can sail into the wind, yet we took Athens with such vessels. Just the same, our
sons will yet win battles with arms and tactics which we find laughable today.”
“Hmm,” Agis said, but the sound was ominous rather than thoughtful. It seemed to Styphon
that the dearth of laughter scored by his last remark was driving the edgy king to redouble his attack.
“Well, then, why don't we all agree to ride chickens into the battle at Dekelea a few days hence and see
who winds up laughing?”
This line scored him a few more chuckles, but they were nervous ones. Fully half of the men
present were the members of Brasidas' mess, and they were stone-faced. Though they might savagely
tear one another down in private, mess-mates did not look well on one of their own being mocked by
an outsider, even a king.
Brasidas' composure showed no sign of strain. He casually sat on the tile with his back against
the wall. His smile patronized Agis and any who had laughed as feeble-minded boors incapable of
knowing how truly dull were their wits.
“By all means, laugh,” he said. “I welcome it. But a man should know what he's laughing at,
so let me explain Yes, I do believe the sword should be our primary weapon, but not only that. The
phalanx should be put to rest, too. Currently when a unit's cohesion is broken, the battle is lost and no
choice remains, even for the bravest of men, but to flee the field or die. Worse still, what can turn even
the most disciplined hoplite regiment into fodder for light infantry? Some trees. A swamp. A stream.”
Brasidas shrugged. “I risk droning on, when we should be eating, but I only mean to say that it makes
scant sense to me a Spartan should be the ultimate instrument of war yet remain vulnerable to far lesser
men in any terrain other than clear, level ground. We are missing something, and if you listen carefully
enough, you can hear the laughter of those who truly have a right to laugh: the gods.”
By now, there was no thought of laughter among the crowd, nor of eating. All eyes went to the
king in anticipation of reply. Agis, being an astute enough observer of his surroundings to ascertain that
the time for mockery was done, changed his tone.
“Quite right,” he said, in a way which made it clear he had no plans to concede the argument.
“Change is inevitable. It can bring improvement or it can bring disaster. But tradition is the foundation
on which positive change must be built.” He sounded as if he were quoting some childhood tutor of
his, but not for long. “I wonder whether most here would count the freeing of the helots—all of them,
as I understand is your advice to the ephors—as a positive or negative change?”
The king furrowed his brow and fixed Brasidas with a look of exaggerated interest. The
position of which he had just accused the polemarch of holding was a new one to Styphon, as indeed it
must be to all present, for all eyes joined those of Agis in demanding from Brasidas either confirmation
or denial.
For the moment, Brasidas gave neither. “At Amphipolis, the battle during which I was captured
two years ago”—doubtless, this reminder of his defeat was intended as a show of humility, which in
turn proved his confidence—“I led a force of helots who gave their service in exchange for freedom.
They were no Equals, naturally, for how could they ever be? But they fought well, were loyal, and in
the end they died for each other, for me, for Sparta, and for their families. I was glad to count them on
my side and not the enemy's, for at present, are the Helots not as much our enemy as Athens was?
Every year we renew our declaration of war on our own slaves, and when we fight wars abroad, we are
forced to leave garrisons behind to guard against rebellion. The helots are a resource, yes, but at the
same time they are a drain.”
Brasidas might have intended to finish there, or might have gone on, but he was forced to stop:
Agis, who thus far had only provoked others to laughter, began himself to laugh. He did so alone, and
made a convincing display of amusement which he surely did not feel.
“And I suppose after freeing our slaves,” the king taunted, “you'd have Equals give up training
for half the year to push a plough instead?”
There was no reaction from the forty-plus diners. Styphon wished the king would find a
graceful exit from this conversation, but that seemed less and less likely. There was no doubt in
Styphon's mind that Brasidas had a ready and convincing answer—regardless of whether he had come
to it himself, or been fed it by his star-born ally Eris.
“Perish the thought,” Brasidas answered. “Spartiates are born and bred to war, and it would be
criminal to suggest it become otherwise.”
Brasidas knew, better than any speaker whom Styphon had heard, how to ingratiate himself to
an audience even when speaking unwanted or unpleasant truths.
“I wouldn't dare to suggest we go without slaves,” Brasidas continued. “I simply think that our
slaves ought not also to be our neighbors. We should import them, as most do, from conquests abroad.
We could do with far fewer, then, since their labor would be solely for our benefit, and not also that of
their own families and communities.” Brasidas abruptly threw a hand in the air and smiled. “Come
now, Agis, serious talk like this has its place, and that place is not the mess. Doesn't anyone have a
good joke?”
No one spoke. Agis smiled intelligently. “I could say that you just finished telling a joke
yourself, polemarch,” the king said. “But instead, I yield. I can see when I've been out-tongued.
Really, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were one of those Athenian demagogues sitting over there
looking pale for fear of giving anyone offense. ” Agis gestured at the future tyrants and laughed,
amiably, but once more without company. “Or maybe the food is just not to their liking. I admit my
error. This is not the place for such debate. But I can see you've taken it in the spirit it was intended,”
Agis lied, “that of brotherhood. The traditions we share are only strengthened by the raising and
rejection of new ideas. Whichever side one takes, whether that of reckless change or respect for
tradition, and no matter what one's rank, we in this room remain, forever, Equals.”
He raised raised and drank from his clay water-cup, no different than that used by anyone in the
room. Amid a muttered chorus of agreement, or rather relief at the easing of tension between the two
leaders, the forty or so Equals and Athenians lining the walls gladly followed suit and drank.
Brasidas raised his cup last, in silence, his hawk-eyes watching Agis.
***
After some reasonably good wine and brief entertainment presented by the future tyrants, when
about half the diners had filed out, an Equal entered the mess fully armored with sheathed sword on his
hip. He was Therykion, one of Brasidas' most trusted lieutenants, and ignoring all others he made a
line straight for the polemarch. His breach of protocol in wearing of arms into the mess hall, Styphon
assumed, would share its explanation with the half-dried blood that stained the lower half of his face.
On seeing his aide arrive, Brasidas rose and went to him without bothering to excuse himself
from the small cluster of mess-mates with whom he conversed. Agis, seated on the wall opposite in a
similar cluster, watched the pair closely. The look on the king's young features, if Styphon was any
judge, seemed one of worry, not of the general kind, but the more pointed variety
Therykion spoke emphatically and with urgency, but since he did so in Brasidas' ear, none of it
could be overheard, not even when the whole room fell silent and pretended to ignore what was clearly
the sign of some developing emergency. Styphon's first thought, one which must have been shared
with others present, was that the Athenian resistance, led by a man known only as Omega, had added
another Equal to the list of five whom they had murdered thus far, one here and one there, typically
with arrows from the dark.
Others in the room might have persisted in that belief, but Styphon dismissed it when he saw
Brasidas' sharp, dark eyes dart to the king during Therykion's report. He knew that look, and
understood too Agis' apparent agitation: whatever had happened, Agis was involved.
Brasidas gave his aide a brief, inaudible instruction, after which Therykion raced out.
The polemarch proceeded to the center of the room. “Matters of governance beckon,” he said
tersely to the crowd for whose attention he had no need to ask, for he had it. “Fortunately, I am blessed
with the presence of our king, with whom I shall now consult in private. Good evening.”
The silent crowd caught his true meaning: that all but the two leaders should excuse themselves
from the hall. A prompt evacuation ensued, in which Styphon took part. Unlike some others, perhaps,
he understood that in the private meeting soon to take place, Agis and Brasidas would not be partners in
tackling some emergency; they would be open adversaries.
Just before he left the chamber, Styphon turned at the sound of Brasidas calling his name.
“Stay near,” the polemarch commanded.
Styphon acknowledged with a nod. Outside the Tholos, under the orange sky of early evening,
the dismissed crowd dispersed quickly. Though doubtless curious, Spartiates were perhaps the least
prone of any men on earth to indulge in gossip and rumor; they would know what they needed to know
when and if their superiors deemed it necessary. Given his rise from accused trembler to Brasidas' 'dog'
and his partner in the recruitment of the daemon Eris, to leader of the marine assault which had taken
Athens, and finally to Brasidas' inner circle, Styphon was likely to learn the truth sooner than most.
While the rest went to retrieve their arms and report back to their various duties in the
occupation of Athens, Styphon took up a post around the corner from the mess.
Within a quarter hour, Agis strode out. Crimson cloak billowing, he walked with purpose.
Styphon pressed closer to the wall of the alley in which he hid to avoid the king's notice. It was hardly
necessary, for Agis evidently saw nothing but his destination, whatever it was.
When the king had gone, Styphon reported to Brasidas' office in the Tholos.
The polemarch stood in his open doorway, and the look he wore was one Styphon knew.
Behind his hard eyes, flanked by the scar on his temple received at Amphipolis, where Demosthenes
had dealt him his greatest defeat, a keen and vindictive mind was in motion.
The target of his fearsome mental energy, Styphon knew without asking, was Agis, their own
king, the product of a dynasty which stretched back into the mists of time to a demi-god's seed and
which had emerged unchallenged through twenty generations of Spartans.
With a flick of his head, the polemarch beckoned Styphon into his office.
“Agis sent his guards and his seer to the sanctuary of Apollo,” Brasidas began bluntly when
they were alone behind the closed door.
The explanation caused Styphon to curse himself. The king's black-robed Minoan, Phaistos,
had not left to pray or sacrifice but to visit the corpse of Eris. And Agis has sent his royal guardsmen
not to protect the seer but to aid him in whatever was his purpose.
“Apologies, polemarch. It was I who let slip her location,” Styphon said swiftly, choosing to
take a lesson from Brasidas himself in taking quick responsibility for failure.
With a wave, Brasidas silenced him. “It is not your place to suspect and second-guess your
king. Under most circumstances.”
A sharp look accompanied the latter remark. Styphon understood it: those things now were to
be his place.
“Clearly their intent was to steal the body from the cave. Fortunately, brotherhood prevailed.
My men and his refrained from drawing weapons on one another. They fought fist and shield instead,
and Agis' party was beaten back.” Brasidas chuckled darkly. “They are lucky that she yet remains
dormant. They might have met a far worse fate.”
No men knew better than the two present in the office what superhuman violence Eris was
capable of, for they had witnessed it first-hand on meeting her. Fourteen Equals had gone into the
woods a year prior on the mission to persuade her to aid Sparta. Twelve had not returned.
“Naturally, the incident will be kept silent.” Brasidas tapped Styphon's 'loose' lips with a rough
fingertip. He walked a small circuit around his office, appropriated from some Athenian democrat, and
came to stop behind an overly ornate writing platform. “Agis has taken a liking to you,” he observed.
“The clash at the cave notwithstanding—after all, it didn't happen—he leaves tomorrow to command
the operation at Dekelea.” He laughed. “By command, I mean he will take credit for success I have
already ensured. He asked to take you with him, and I of course agreed. It's an excellent opportunity
for you to further win the confidence of your king, don't you think?”
“Yes. Thank you, sir.”
The polemarch searched Styphon's black eyes for evidence that he understood the unspoken
purpose of gaining Agis' confidence. Styphon did, and showed it.
“One last thing,” Brasidas added, leaning on the writing platform. “I'm sure I need not remind
you what is the single most important object inside Dekelea. Whatever it takes, I want it.”
“Sir,” Styphon ventured reluctantly, “what if it...lives?”
The polemarch scoffed, then chuckled darkly. “Well, you have a special relationship with SeaThing from Sphakteria, don't you? She was ready to help Sparta before you, in your vast wisdom,
turned her down.” He smirked. “Maybe you can talk her out of her alliance with that cunt
Demosthenes.”