9.
The Lacedaemonians were safely inside the old fort when the sun was at its highest. With nostrils caked by dust and ashes, lungs burning, and wounds begging for care, they were desperate for water. The island’s main well was, alas, now in Athenian hands. The new one by the fort, beyond the bones of the old cyclops, had so far produced little more than a trickle. Epitadas allowed the men to take turns crawling down to wet their lips.
The Athenians made another series of landings, swelling their contingent on the island. Xeuthes, Timon, and the rest of the crew from the Terror were on the left, having advanced as close to the Spartan lines as Demosthenes dared. The heat tortured them too, as months of confinement on ships and crowded beaches had ruined them for marching, and their commanders had not yet organized distribution of water to troops that far up the slope. They had hoped, after all, that the longhairs would be crushed on the flats, in the first hours of the battle. That the enemy had escaped to the high ground was the first thing to wipe the smile off Cleon’s face that morning.
With almost a hundred well-born Spartiates lying dead below, it was already an expensive day. At that point, with more fighting ahead, it would have been unseemly to remind Epitadas of his misjudgments. Antalcidas made nothing of it, contributing only what he could to help secure the fort. At least a defense was feasible: with no way to approach the Spartan position except from the south, they could not be enveloped. The men guarding the helots also kept watch on the steep ground leading down to the Sikia Channel. So far the Athenians had made no attempt to land there, though they could easily have swum across the channel from Koryphasion.
Meanwhile, against widely held expectation, the helots took scant pleasure in their masters’ difficulties. There was no cheering as they watched the disaster unfold before them, no uprising when the Spartans returned exhausted and fewer. Antalcidas caught Doulos’ eye as he walked by on inspection: the latter smiled, as if glad to see his master alive. Something in Antalcidas’ face caused his good feeling to fade, however. As a rule, Antalcidas was seldom aware of what expression was on his own face.
In a rare feat of personal discipline, Frog also kept his tongue. He would not meet Epitadas’ eyes as the latter issued his orders for the defense of the fort; he was heard to mutter as he stalked between the old stones. Yet he made no outward challenge for the leadership. It was too late for that.
Epitadas made a final inspection of the defenses. They were safe from arrows and infantry where the walls remained intact up to three courses. Their remaining front against the enemy was short enough to place one man every few paces. If the attackers managed to drive his men off the blocks and clamber over, he kept a reserve squad of his best fighters, including Antalcidas, to deal with them.
Then they waited. From his vantage at the very top of the island, Antalcidas could look out at the Lacedaemonians on the other side of the bay. It was impossible they would not be aware of the Athenian attack, yet the allied ships remained stuck on the beach. Why?
As if overhearing this question, Epitadas appeared at his side. “No use looking for help over there. The Peloponnesians are too terrified to come out.”
“Then they should let our men take the oars.”
Epitadas laughed. “They need more reason than a few trapped Spartans for them to risk their precious ships!”
10.
By nightfall, the Lacedaemonians were still in possession of the heights. Demosthenes had sent his men up in continuous waves, hoping to wear out the defenders by weight of numbers. The Lacedaemonians fended them off with spears, and if those broke, with swords. Some lost their swords too, and fought with shields or stones; most had spent so much time striking at metal armor that, for hours after, their hands vibrated like struck bells.
At sundown Demosthenes called off the assault. He had already sacrificed more than a hundred men to inflict only a few enemy casualties. He couldn’t use his archers when his infantry attacked the fort, and when they weren’t attacking, Nestor’s tough old walls gave the Lacedaemonians cover.
Cleon, unmussed and undaunted, demanded a night attack. Demosthenes restrained the temptation to laugh in his face, calmly explaining that the Spartans were masters of night fighting. “We have the advantage,” he said, “and so we must have the strength to be patient.”
“Then forgive my ignorance, my dear Demosthenes, but how do you propose to supply five thousand men for a patient siege on a barren island?”
Demosthenes dismissed him with a toss of his head. It was, however, the most perceptive question Cleon had asked since his arrival.
The captain of the Messenian exiles, Protesilaus, came with an answer. Dressed in a set of armor that seemed thrown together from corpses found on a dozen battlefields, he towered over little Cleon, who had a reflexive mistrust of anyone he had to look up at. What the Messenian had to say, though, delighted him.
“The Lacedaemonians need incentive to give up. Give me fifty archers and you’ll have their heads-or their surrender-by nightfall tomorrow.”
“How do you propose to accomplish this?” asked Cleon.
“We’ll circle around behind them. We can use that bunch of rocks to defend ourselves, then use the archers to make things hot for them.”
Demosthenes glanced at Leochares, whom he understood to have some experience with the Messenian. But Leochares just shrugged.
“By what path,” Demosthenes inquired, “do you think you’ll ‘circle around’?”
“There is no path,” came the easy answer. “That’s why they won’t expect it. But we can scale around on the cliffs, just below where they can see us.”
“In the dark? With equipment?”
“It can be done. We’ve done it before.”
“You’ve done it here?”
“Not here. In Aetolia, Phocis, Achaea. Worse places.”
“Perhaps. But as for my men, I won’t risk-”
“Fifty archers are too many for you to defend,” interrupted Cleon. “Can you manage with twenty-five?”
“If we must.”
“Good. Then we expect to see you behind the fort by sunup tomorrow.”
Protesilaus, exultant over his new prominence in the campaign, flew away to assemble his party. Demosthenes could hardly look at Cleon. He wanted to knock the party-favor helmet off his head, smack the ignorant smile from his lips. But instead, he had to content himself with sarcasm.
“Yes, I see now how you trust my judgment,” he said.
“I expect you want to hit me,” Cleon replied, smiling. “But what is there for us to lose? At most, we’re out a few archers and some bad-smelling pirates. Let him try.”
Demosthenes’ face cracked into a grimace.
Lost in the canyons, some of the Athenians tried to climb straight up the jagged walls. The ones that didn’t plunge to their deaths were picked off by the Aetolian slingers, who made a game of it. He could hear his men scream until they hit bottom; their bodies made a wet, popping sound as they struck, exploding like overfilled wineskins.
Cleon clapped a reassuring arm around Demosthenes. “And don’t look so sick, my friend! It is not for our sake that we take risks, but for the People. Athens demands action!”
11.
The Athenians slept huddled together on the ground. Though the air was no colder than in the stockade or on the ships, it felt more chill on the island at night, as if something in the rock sucked the heat from their bodies. That
