In the noon heat of the sweltering Athenian summer, she stood on the balcony of Perikles’s old home, twisting the half spear in one hand in gentle repetitions of old combat training moves. It felt good to have the lance in her grasp again. Herodotos had salvaged it from the ashes of Sphakteria. Barnabas had brought her good leathers too—a warrior’s shell. She swirled the spear once more then slid it into her belt, feeling strong. Many days of rest, good bread, honey and nuts had recharged her body once again.
Ikaros floated down to rest on the balustrade and she stepped over to preen him, kissing his head. He was an old bird now, she realized sadly. She looked out into the silvery heat of the east, seeing the Athenian fleet setting to sea, sails bulging as more than thirty vessels cut north toward distant Amphipolis. Kleon was gone to claim his glory. But the city was still his and the Cult’s. Or more accurately, given Sokrates’s update—that four more members of the Cult had been killed during her stint in jail—it might be Kleon’s alone if he was the last of them.
The last and the darkest, he had said.
Behind her, voices rose and fell as the survivors of Perikles’s retinue squabbled about this grim truth. She plucked a grape off of a vine dangling from the balcony trellis and popped it into her mouth. The explosion of cool juice could not sweeten the scene as she turned to look upon them. Sokrates, the ever-underdressed Alkibiades, Herodotos, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles and Hippokrates stood around the dead leader’s dusty planning table, faces wracked with tiredness and indecision.
“Call upon Thucydides,” Herodotos insisted. “There are boats and regiments who are loyal to him. They will stand against Kleon.”
“Not enough.” Herodotos sighed. “And he languishes in exile, far from here, for his part in Amphipolis’s original fall from Athenian hands.”
“We are here, in Athens, in her pulsing heart. She needs us now,” Hippokrates bleated, clapping the table.
“What do you suggest?” Sokrates scoffed. “That we form a brigade armed with shovels and brushes and seize control? We would look ridiculous. Worse, it would make us tyrants.”
“Kleon wrested power by sheer force. It is his way,” argued Aristophanes. “But there are other ways—more refined and lasting—with which to win the hearts and minds of Athens’s people.”
“He’s going to suggest a play,” Sophocles said, his eyelids sliding down in exasperation. “And let me guess: only he is witty enough to compose such a work.”
Aristophanes shot him a sour look. “Nonsense. I’ll let you hold my tablet and fetch me drinks.”
Sophocles exploded in outrage. Sokrates wheeled away from the table with a sigh, only to bump into Alkibiades, who helpfully offered to massage his shoulders and alleviate his stress… then began to nibble on his ear. When Sokrates shrugged him off, exasperated, Alkibiades threw out his hands in innocence. “What? Is it not the purpose of a loved one to exude love?”
Sokrates melted into a throaty chuckle. “So you have been listening to me? Perhaps it is, yes, but not now,” he said, gesturing back to the table.
Kassandra watched, longing for these great minds to produce a jewel of a plan. But days passed, with no resolution. One day, Barnabas came to her side as she watched.
“I feel it too, Misthios. An itch that cannot be scratched by standing here.”
She turned to him. “Even after all the strife you have been through with me, you yearn to travel to Amphipolis?”
“They didn’t tell you, did they? About the Spartan garrison there.”
She frowned. “There are thousands of Spartiates there, I hear. Kleon will gather up nine thousand of his own along the way. He will have a tough fight on his hands. He will not seize the gateway to the north easily.” She thought again of Kleon’s boasts about the Thrakian horde beyond those gates, and mouthed a prayer in support of the Spartans.
Barnabas shook his head. “There are little more than one hundred Spartiates there, and a few allied hoplites.”
“What?”
“Since the disaster at Sphakteria, the ephors refuse to allow the purebred regiments to march to war. To defend Amphipolis, they commissioned just a knot of Spartiates and filled out the ranks with masses of Helots.”
“Helots?” Kassandra gasped. They were effective support skirmishers and baggage handlers. But to make up an army almost entirely of them was madness. “May the Gods be with them. Who leads them?”
“General Brasidas,” Barnabas replied.
She stared.
“He was rescued from the ashes of Sphakteria too. All this time while you were incarcerated, he has led his Helot army around the north, seeking allies, searching for cracks in Kleon’s iron empire.”
She heard the group inside reciting the lines of the play they had concocted in these last days. Euripides stood on a crate, playing the part of Perikles, imperious, solemn, plainspoken. Aristophanes then entered the scene, skipping, waving his hands as if picking flowers, then squealing like a tortured pig. “No, listen to me, listen to me! Look, there is a dark cave. Come with me, let us leap blindly inside!”
Alkibiades roared with laughter as he sucked on a wineskin. Herodotos clapped. Sophocles beamed with delight, tapping the tablet, reading along with the script as the two acted it out.
“The assembly gathers tomorrow,” said Sokrates, coming over to Kassandra’s side. “This play will show the people Kleon’s cynical ways, and that he is no champion or hero. His reputation will be left hanging in ribbons.”
She noticed his sideways gaze resting on her.
He arched one eyebrow and smiled. “I can see words burning behind your lips. Say what you feel.”
“Destroying his reputation alone is not enough,” she mused. “We cannot merely wound him, for he has the means to wreak a terrible revenge. We must destroy him utterly.”
“Exactly,” Sokrates said, his smile fading.
“Then my part in this affair will be on the stage of battle,” she said, standing straight, looking to Barnabas.
“The Adrestia is ever ready. We await your command, as always, Misthios.” Barnabas half bowed fondly.
SEVENTEEN
A hot wind furrowed Brasidas’s hair as he rested one foot on Amphipolis’s sun-bleached southern parapet, staring across the parched grass outside. The River Strymon forked around the city’s northern walls, and a hill lay an arrow shot to the south. The morning before, the hill had been a pleasant, quiet hill and no more. Then Kleon’s boats had arrived at Eion harbor, a small Athenian-held dock where the Strymon spilled into the Aegean. Now, the hill was capped in the silver, white and blue of first-class Athenian hoplites. Thousands and thousands of them. Ironclad riders and a sea of allies too. They sang bold songs, mocking the Spartans’ defeat at Sphakteria. The chorus was unending, humiliating.
“There are too many of them,” said Clearidas, his deputy.
Brasidas saw from the corner of his eye the jumble of men down inside Amphipolis’s walls: the army he had been granted to take and hold this vital northern city. The one hundred and fifty Spartiates stood like statues near the gatehouse below. But the rest? The Helots had served him well in this northern campaign—standing their ground and attacking bravely, but never against a foe such as this. They wore their dogskin caps in place of helms, and shabby brown capes instead of Spartan red. He glanced to the north, across the River Strymon, seeing nothing but a warping band of heat. The Thrakians lay somewhere out there. Woe betide Hellas should the red-haired bastard on that hill win this land and throw open the doors to them. But the darkest danger stood with Kleon on the hill. The beast who had almost killed him at Sphakteria.