Sword of Apollo (38 page)

“You took a great risk coming to me with this thing,” said Pantares. “Only Apollo can make men act so recklessly, and I thank him for it.”

The Tyrsenians dragged Nikias and Diokles away, beat them savagely, then left them to bleed in a storeroom. They came back in the evening and yoked them to the wood beams, then led them into the courtyard.

Now, standing in front of the general, surrounded by his partygoers, Nikias felt his heart grow cold with hate and rage. The blood dripping from his nose had made a little pool in front of his feet. His shoulders ached from the heavy timber across his back. “A prideful man always thinks himself invincible,” he thought. “And that's when he's weakest.” He glanced up. Pantares stood only a few feet away, jabbering on and gloating as he held up the head of Apollo in triumph for all to see.

“—so I took it from these thieves—these cutthroats who so brazenly came into my house,” Pantares was crowing. “Look at them now. They won't tell me where their ship is harbored, or if they have any more relics—pilfered, no doubt, from sacred temples.”

Nikias breathed slowly, getting ready for what he knew would be his final act in this world. All he had to do was whip his torso around, turning the timber across his shoulders into a powerful weapon. One blow from the heavy thing to the side of Pantares's head would kill him. Of course, the Tyrsenians would be on him and Diokles in a second. But Nikias was ready to die, as long as it was on his own terms.

“Now, tell us your real name?” he heard Pantares say. The general was smiling at him, peering into his face with a gloating look. “Before I cut out your tongue? Eh? What's your name?”

“Death,” said Nikias. But as he started to twist his body around for the killing blow, someone leapt forward and seized hold of his right arm and pulled him off balance, then kicked out his legs from under him. He looked up at a familiar face leering down at him. It took a moment for Nikias to remember exactly where he'd seen this man. Then it hit him: he was the Korinthian he'd met on the plains outside of Attika when he'd gone to trick the Spartans.

“
I
know this one's name,” said Andros, turning to Pantares with a jubilant smile playing across his face. “He's Nikias of Plataea, and I claim him as my prisoner under the authority of Arkidamos, king of Sparta.”

 

FIVE

Pantares took a step back and glared ferociously at Andros. “Who are you, Andros, to make a claim on my prisoner?” he spat.

His Tyrsenian guards edged forward, hands on the hilts of their swords, but Pantares held them back with an upraised hand. The guests in the courtyard crowded around in a semicircle, watching this strange scene playing out before their eyes with a combination of shock and titillation—as though they were witnessing a play in a theatre.

“I'm an emissary of the king,” said Andros. “This Plataean is an important prisoner. At this moment, fifty thousand men surround the citadel where his grandfather is the Arkon. Nikias is a wily Oxlander. He's already deceived the Spartans twice: starting a forest fire on Mount Kithaeron and leading his people to safety in Athens, then tricking the king into thinking that he was infected with the sickness that is plaguing our enemy. I don't know how he came to be in Syrakuse, but my guess is that he has something to do with a small fleet of Korinthian ships that were destroyed on the island of Serifos.”

“This Nikias seems to be a miraculous young fellow,” said Pantares with a curl of his upper lip. “And yet I knew that he was a deceiver from the moment I laid eyes on him. And here he is, bound on the floor at my feet, as helpless as that other Plataean the Spartans foisted upon my house—that young man I watched over while they played his father Nauklydes like a fish on a line. And yet Demetrios of the Oxlands is long dead, and he, too, was one of your ‘wily Oxlanders'—and Demetrios was far more clever than this fool here.”

Nikias, sprawled on the floor, choked back his grief. All these years he had kept the faint hope alive that his best friend had somehow escaped the net that the Spartans had laid for him in Syrakuse. But here was final proof that he was dead. He tried to get up but two Tyrsenians grabbed him by either arm and flung him on his back, pinning him there.

“I need this man,” said Andros. “I need to take him back to the Oxlands—to Arkidamos.”

“Perhaps I'll let you have him when I'm done with him,” said Pantares.

“He's no good to me if he's been ruined,” said Andros. “We have our own ways of getting information out of men. I need him whole.”

Pantares walked slowly up to Andros and put his face inches from his. “You can't have him,” he said in a low voice.

But Andros did not flinch or back away. “Then you will not find the Spartans as agreeable after this. In fact, you may find them antagonistic.”

“You think I care about the Red Cloaks?” asked Pantares. “Would they dare attack mighty Syrakuse with their puny fleet? I don't think so.” He held out his hand toward one of his guards. “Sword,” he said.

A guard stepped forward and bowed slightly before placing a sword in his hand.

“What are you doing?” asked Andros.

“I'm going to cut off this Nikias's right hand,” said Pantares. “And then if he doesn't tell me where his ship is beached, I'm going to cut off other things.”

“Stop!” said Andros, reaching out a hand to grasp Pantares's arm.

Pantares's face went slack for the briefest moment, and then his sword swept through the air and Andros's head tumbled from his shoulders, landing next to Nikias with a heavy thud. The Korinthian's neck erupted in a fountain of blood as his headless body sagged and fell, dousing the partygoers standing near with gore. Men and women screamed and fled from the courtyard, and Nikias stared at the dead face of Andros—frozen in a look of incredulity—his lids twitching ever so slightly above his dead eyes.

“Clear them all out!” Pantares ordered, and the Tyrsenians started pushing the partygoers from the courtyard.

Pantares stood over Nikias, holding the sword tip to his cheek. Andros's blood trickled down the blade to the point where it dripped into the corner of Nikias's mouth. Nikias spat out the blood but remained still. He looked up at the balcony and saw someone standing there in the shadows—a lad with dark hair and a pale face—staring back at him with mute horror.

“Now,” said Pantares with a sigh after all of the partygoers had departed the room, leaving only Diokles and the guards. “Let me ask you one more time, Nikias of Plataea: Where is the ship that brought you to Sicily? I have had my men make a sweep of the entire harbor while you have been my prisoners, but there have been no new arrivals for several days, and none of the ships are carrying Athenians or Plataeans. So, tell me where they are. Upon which shore? Which of my enemies is giving you safe harbor?” He moved the tip of the sword to Nikias's groin and started to press.

“He won't tell you,” said a soft female voice.

A slender and beguiling woman slid, catlike, up to Pantares's side.

“I saw you standing in the balcony this whole time, Barka,” said Pantares. Addressing Nikias, he said, “My soothsayer has taken an interest in you.”

So this was Barka! The eunuch walked over to the kneeling Diokles and put a finger under his chin, lifting his face to his own. Diokles was smiling, but tears coursed down his cheek.

“Hello, Diokles,” said Barka.

Diokles smiled sadly. “My Lylit,” he replied in the softest voice.

“You know this Helot?” asked Pantares.

“He was my servant,” said Barka. “He ran away after I had him beaten.” He patted him on the head. “Sullen thing, he is. Wicked little dog.”

Nikias knew that the eunuch's words were a lie. Chusor and Leo had both told Nikias that Barka and Diokles had been the best of friends. “Lylit” was the Helot's pet name that he used for the eunuch. Why didn't this Barka tell Pantares that he and Diokles had been shipmates? That they were friends? Why did he not try to at least save him?

Barka glided over to Nikias, kneeling with his back to Pantares, staring hard into his eyes. When the eunuch spoke it was in the faintest of whispers—for Nikias's ears alone. “The Ear of Dionysus. Tell him that I listen at zenith.” Then Barka stood and faced Pantares.

“What did you see in his eyes?” Pantares asked.

“I saw fear,” said Barka. “But he will not reveal the whereabouts of his ship. He'll die first to protect his friends. But it is no matter. The head of Apollo is all that he had in his possession.”

“Are you certain, Barka?” Pantares asked.

“Have I ever been wrong about anything?” asked Barka. “Did I not name all of the conspirators who secretly opposed your rising power?”

“Yes,” said Pantares, staring at the golden head clutched in his hand. “And you told me that this object would come to me from the sea—a symbol of my ascendency.”

“Now,” said Barka, “you must listen to me. This Plataean must not be killed.”

“What am I to do with him?”

“You must make him a quarryman,” said Barka with a cold laugh. “I foresee a time when he will be useful to us. Do you remember me telling you that a nine-fingered man would bring you the gift?” He pointed at Nikias's missing finger on his right hand and Pantares gasped. “And that he would be invaluable to you?”

“So you did,” said Pantares, stroking his beard pensively. “And the other? This Helot? Shall I have him killed?”

“He is my property,” said Barka. “Throw him in the quarry until he's learned to be submissive.”

“So be it,” said Pantares.

As the Tyrsenians dragged Nikias out of the courtyard he looked up at the balcony and saw the young man in the shadows making the pankrator sign—a fist slamming into a palm. And then the lad vanished from sight.

 

SIX

The Tyrsenians locked Nikias and Diokles in a chamber for an hour or so, then returned abruptly, pulling them from the house and leading them through the streets of Syrakuse by chains. Almost immediately a crowd formed up behind them, taunting the prisoners, for the people knew where they were headed.

Nikias had been playing over and over again in his mind the strange, nightmarish scene in the courtyard. Andros the Korinthian—an emissary of King Arkidamos—slain for merely putting his hand on Pantares's arm. Barka saving them from certain death, but sending them off to the notorious quarry—the Prison Pits—a place, it was said, from which no one had ever escaped. And how had Barka known that “a nine-fingered man” would bring the golden head? And who was the lad up in the balcony who made the pankration sign? How did he know the symbol that he and his grandfather shared? And what of the strange whispered words of Barka: “The Ear of Dionysus. Tell him I listen at zenith.” What did they mean? Perhaps nothing. The eunuch was most likely mad.

A bucket of filth hit him in the face, blinding him for a few seconds. He spit out the human waste and piss and saw a laughing teenager holding an empty pot and dancing while the crowd laughed and clapped.

Nikias cursed himself for being so foolish as to walk into General Pantares's house like a stupid insect flying straight into a cone-spider's web. He grit his teeth, wincing in pain from the wood digging into his shoulders, ignoring the crowds' jeers. Up ahead he saw the bridge that led from Ortygia to the mainland part of the citadel. He could see Ji standing by the bridge entrance. The exhorter's face was inscrutable as he watched Nikias approach, but he slid his hand to the handle of his sword as if to say, “Call on me and I will help.” There were ten Tyrsenian guards. Helping Nikias would be suicide. He shook his head ever so slightly to let Ji know not to interfere, and the little man nodded his head with the merest hint of a gesture.

When they arrived at the quarry, the guards led Nikias to a wooden contraption at the edge of the great pit. It was a crane, like the ones used for stacking the sections of marble columns, attached to a scaffolding that went from the top of the quarry all the way to the floor nearly a hundred feet below. The men who operated the winch removed Nikias's wrists from the post shackles, and they laughed as Nikias's arms remained stiff and frozen in the position in which they had been locked for the last five hours, like outstretched wings.

“Another Ikarus, ready to fly away from the pits,” sneered one of the crane operators.

“I hope you like getting your arse drilled,” said one of the others. “Because it's going to be as wide-open as this pit when they're done with you down there.”

“The Quarry Lord will have his fun with this one.”

“Oh, yes! The Quarry Lord will have his fun.”

Nikias looked over the edge into the deep pit that was scored with huge shafts, boreholes, and caverns that had been dug over the centuries. There were enormous columns of limestone that had been left standing in places, as well as vast arches and caves that seemed to delve deep into the walls. It was an eerie place, like nothing he'd ever seen before—a disordered landscape that looked as though it had been carved and scooped out by deranged Titans, a maze to hide the Minotaur and other beasts.

The workers fit him into a leather harness attached to a rope that was connected to the crane, then pushed him off the edge. Nikias hung in midair, kicking his legs instinctively, and peered down at the ground so far below. His stomach immediately felt as though it had leapt toward his throat like a frightened cat. The men turned a big crank and the crane lowered him down, down along the wall of the quarry, and he saw the little niches and score marks in the flat limestone where the first stones had been cut from the pit centuries before.

Suddenly his feet hit the floor of the quarry and he looked around in fear, expecting to be attacked by the prisoners all at once. But the space nearby was empty of men. In fact, he didn't see anyone at all. He slowly took off the harness and the instant he was free of it the thing shot toward the top of the wall.