Antalcidas had just returned from maneuvers in Messenia when he was surprised to learn that the Spit Companions had already voted on him. He was bread-bowled by a single ballot. Zeuxippos was more angry about the slight than Antalcidas, for he had sponsored his candidacy and spoken in favor of him before the vote.
“Mark my words, if it’s the last thing I’ll do I’ll find out who insulted you!” the old man raged.
Antalcidas’ knowledge of his servile origins had the effect of tempering his expectations. “No need,” he said.
“I can’t think it was Isidas, or the king,” Zeuxippos went on, oblivious to Antalcidas’ presence. “Eudamidas owes me for admitting Herippidas. So it must have been Damonon, that little climber!”
“No matter.”
“Did you know that Damonon had been promised Thibron’s cousin? I only heard about it after you came to the table. But the veto is not supposed to be used for settling petty scores! Really, it is a scandal! What is this city coming to, I ask you, when our traditions are abused in this way?”
“I see,” replied Antalcidas, unable to rouse himself to disappointment. Nor did he feel any particular sense of alarm, considering that the Companions was the only group to invite him as a guest. His indifference melted only later, when Zeuxippos told him the results of another vote: it seems that Isidas, Damonon, Eudamidas, and Co. did see fit to admit an old acquaintance of his. It was Frog-stupid, hapless Frog from his boyhood pack-that merited a place at that eminent table.
Without membership in a dining group Antalcidas could not be nominated for the King’s Knights. He was likewise passed over for service in the Hidden Service, though the idea of creeping around by night for the privilege of ambushing helots never held much appeal for him. The possibility that he might unknowingly eliminate a member of his father’s family filled him with painful ambivalence.
At this point Zeuxippos promised to find him another mess, but Antalcidas preferred to hear nothing more about it. He found himself daydreaming instead about life as a mercenary, traveling to Asia and Africa, hiring himself out to kings and tyrants to bring Lacedaemonian-style discipline to the foreigners. In his more grandiose moments he even imagined bringing his troops back to invade Laconia, at long last seizing the respect his countrymen begrudged him. No one would laugh then at his questions about diplomacy; Thibron’s exile would be a faint memory, and they would never, ever call him “Stone.”
10.
Scant weeks later he saw his first combat on the borders of Arcadia. That rustic backwater, situated in the heart of the Peloponnese, had long been dangerous ground for the armies of civilized Greeks. The Lacedaemonians maintained a string of satellite towns, such as in Sciritis and Thyreatis, that acted as buffers against incursions by Arcadian raiders. These places were populated by noncitizen Nigh-dwellers who kept their local autonomy in exchange for their military service. In the last two centuries or so, which counted as “recently” in the Spartan mind, a policy took shape that sought to reduce Arcadia, like Messenia, to a helotized province. This ambition was never a matter of open discussion in the Gerousia or in the elite messes-the campaign just seemed to gather momentum on its own, as ambitious Spartiates were drawn north to take part in the manifest destiny of their people.
But Arcadia did not resemble the gently rolling arable of Messenia. Its periphery was torturous, with mountains stacked shoulder to shoulder, slashing and unpredictable rivers, and winding valleys so steep they seemed submerged in perpetual shadow. It was a place where to take a wrong turn on a path was like sinking in the sea; over the years entire columns of Spartiates and Nigh-dwellers had gone down certain tracks, never to be heard from again. Inside its sentinel peaks the Arcadian landscape was lush, sun-dappled, somnolent. The meadows were innocent of buildings or the plow, the grottoes fathomless and haunted, the old trees decorated with frightful faces by anonymous carvers. It was confidently held that tribes of talking wolves dwelled there, and Amazons, and Centaurs; some said that goat-footed Pan, ever ready to afflict intruders with lust or terror, still gathered reeds for his beloved syrinx along Arcadian streams.
The Arcadians themselves were notorious for their independence. It never seemed to occur to them to concede defeat when armies came to burn their settlements; their talent for treachery made all invaders feel perpetually surrounded. The few individuals the Lacedaemonians managed to helotize turned out to be liabilities, either running away or inciting the Messenians to defiance. It was fortunate for those Spartiates who coveted estates in Arcadia that their plan of conquest was never officially debated. If it had, it would have become obvious how bad the idea was.
Antalcidas was blooded at last in a haphazard action in the north of Sciritis. He was part of a border patrol of thirty-two other recent graduates of the Rearing that included, by chance, his old packmates Redhead and Cheese. In command was a young Spartiate named Praxitas who was anxious to make his reputation on the frontier, but whose single accomplishment so far was to grow his beard to a precocious length. Antalcidas, by contrast, had a growth of only a few fingerwidths, and had yet to be elected to a dining group.
A messenger from the Sciritan town of Asea encountered them on the road. Someone had stolen a dozen head of oxen from the pastures. When the Nigh-dwellers set out to find them, they were am-bushed by Arcadians with slings. A handful of Sciritai were killed, and the thieves were still in the vicinity.
“How many are there?” Praxitas asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where are they now?”
“I couldn’t say for sure.”
“Sounds like a job we can handle,” Praxitas concluded.
As the Arcadians had not even bothered to remove the cowbells from the rustled oxen, they were not hard to find. They were making their way up a narrow track into the mountains. The ragged group of twenty or so, dressed in everything from goatskins to stolen tunics of the Nigh-dwellers, seemed high-spirited as they turned to defend the herd. The distinctive crimson and bronze of the Lacedaemonians did nothing to faze them. Praxitas, who had led the patrol so far with a look of iron determination, was somehow surprised as the Arcadians took up positions to use their slings. It fell to Antalcidas to summon the attendants to bring up the troops’ shields and spears. Doulos, who seemed a full foot shorter than any of the other helots, straggled to deliver his master’s panoply.
“By the gods you are slow!” Antalcidas chided him as he took up his arms. The logical rejoinder, of course, was that hoplites had attendants precisely because it was a burden to carry the equipment for long distances. But helots, alas, did not make rejoinders.
Antalcidas had just fitted his headgear, a conical bronze helmet of the “pilos” shape, when the first shots from the Arcadian slings flew past his ear. The Lacedaemonians instantly assembled in close order, locking their shields to present an unbroken front of metal. The slingers concentrated on this target, popping stones off the yard-wide faces of bronze like raindrops in a summer downpour. Crouching behind, the hoplites looked to Praxitas, who issued no orders but stared into the cave of his shield as if expecting a voice to emanate from it.
“Praxitas, what’s the plan?” asked the shakeyvoiced Redhead.
“Stay here, until they run out of stones.”
Redhead looked to Antalcidas, who said nothing. It was obvious to all-except Praxitas-that the hill the Arcadians held was carpeted with a supply of smooth rocks perfect for slinging. To directly contradict a commander in the field, however, was a grave offense that, in the chaos it invited, brought deeper shame than losing the battle.
All this suddenly changed when a stone cracked through Praxitas’ shield. The shot only just penetrated, and bounced weakly off the horsehair brush of his helmet. The shock, though, seemed to sink their commander deeper into a state of immobility. Antalcidas risked a peek around his shield: one slinger had fired at them from twenty yards, and more were edging closer. In a few minutes their shields would be of no use.
“Praxitas, what do we do?” a man asked from the end of the line.
“Should we attack?” asked another.
“Don’t be a fool! Any closer and the stones will go right through!” snapped a third.
“If we wait any longer they will anyway!” Cheese retorted.
“Praxitas!”
Fragments of wood and metal flew from the rims of their shields. Antalcidas looked to Praxitas, who had
