Spartans at the Gates by Noble Smith Page A

Just so long as he was willing to kill Spartans.”
    Konon laughed at this prospect. “My father’s heart would freeze up if I did that. And my poor mother would throw herself down a well. I am their youngest son and still a child in their eyes.”
    They were a half mile from the walls of Athens when they passed a long arcaded building that Nikias recognized as the Akademy. He saw fifty or so bearded athletes training in the gymnasium—they were running footraces, throwing the javelin, and practicing the long jump with weights. In an arena next door some prepubescent boys fought in the pankration with padded gloves on their hands. Nikias’s grandfather had never let him train with gloves and would scoff at the “Athenian” style of training their young.
    The cart continued on a well-rutted road lined with tombs on either side. In the distance, through the gaps in the plane trees that lined the road on either side, Nikias could see glimpses of the redbrick walls of Athens meandering across the uneven ground.
    â€œDo you think you’ll enter the pankration in the next Olympics?” Konon asked Nikias.
    â€œI will,” said Nikias, staring to his left at the hundreds of tombs and monuments that lined the other road. “I mean … my grandfather and I were planning on it.”
    Nikias wondered now if he would be able to journey to the Sacred Games this year. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that the impending Spartan siege might completely disrupt movement to and from Olympia. The Olympic committee had demanded truces in the past. Maybe they would this time? Hopefully, the Spartans would decide that besieging mighty Plataea was a foolhardy option and just decamp from the Oxlands. At least that’s what Chusor thought would happen.
    He thought of his best friend Demetrios, whose father had sent him away to Syrakuse two years ago to live with a famous general. Demetrios and Nikias had trained together in the gymnasium since childhood, pushing each other to the edge of endurance, the dream of Olympic glory burning in both of their hearts. Nikias missed Demetrios and wondered if his friend would ever return to the Oxlands. He hoped that, for Demetrios’s sake, he would not. For he would learn how his father, Nauklydes, had been tried and convicted as a traitor and given the dreaded “tunic of stones” as punishment. And Demetrios’s heart would be broken when he found out that his beloved sister, Penelope, had been raped, tortured, and murdered by the Thebans, all because of his own father’s treachery.
    â€œPlease stop here for a moment,” Nikias asked, touching Konon’s armless shoulder and pointing to a little glade where carts could pull off the grooved road.
    Konon looked questioningly at Nikias, but pulled on the reins and clicked his tongue. The disconcerted mule, not used to stopping here, looked around with a daft expression and let out a bray.
    Konon said, “Come on, you silly beast,” and gave the mule a gentle tap on the rump. As soon as the cart came to a stop Nikias got out and started walking across a patch of grass to the Cemetery Road. Konon followed without speaking.
    Nikias had only been here once—when he was ten years old—but he remembered the way. He walked past the marble and limestone miniature replicas of temples and homes that displayed the funeral jars with pictures of loved ones. There were dozens of unveiled and painted women loitering about in this area. They eyed Nikias as he walked past. This was the most popular place in Athens, Nikias knew, for men seeking a quick copulation. These prostitutes were also the cheapest. “Paying my respects to the dead” had a double meaning in Athens.
    â€œOnly two drachma for you, love,” an older woman said with a ghastly smile. “I’ve a nice place for us to lie down in the shade.”
    â€œNo, thank you, mother,” replied Nikias