Sword of Apollo (30 page)

Nikias dropped his head. “Then Chusor has not told you everything.”

“I don't know what you mean?” she replied uneasily, obviously sensing the gravity of his tone.

“When I returned to the Oxlands I married a woman—a woman who was bearing my child. She was pregnant before I met you. We've known each other our entire lives.”

Helena's mouth opened to speak, but then she stopped herself. She stood up very slowly and smoothed her tunic.

“I—” began Nikias, but she cut him short.

“What is her name?” The question was not spoken in anger—rather in a tone of morbid curiosity.

“Kallisto.”

“Pretty name. And the child?”

“Twins,” said Nikias. “And another in the womb when I was forced to leave Plataea.”

“Blessed woman,” Helena said.

He got to his feet and faced her. The world disappeared. All that Nikias saw was Helena—her bright eyes, her long neck, her high cheekbones, her haughty nose. The very air seemed to throb with her breath from her full and parted lips. The ground beneath his feet seemed to be connected to hers.

Without a word she pulled off her tunic, standing naked before him. Here was the bold hetaera he remembered from Athens—regal, beauteous, splendid, shimmering silver in the moonlight as though she were made of marble. He stared hungrily at her full breasts, then down to the dark patch between her thighs and the curves of her shapely hips. She touched herself, stroking her breast with one hand, reaching between her thighs with the other.

Nikias felt himself swelling and forced himself to turn away. “Why are you tempting me like this?” he asked. “Gods! This is torture.”

“Are you just going to stand there? Won't you come to me?” she asked.

“I can't.”

“I would risk dying to be with you now. I would risk the deaths of others as well,” she added, embittered.

Her words terrified him. He didn't know what to say.

“Touch yourself, if you won't touch me,” she commanded. “Let me see your beautiful body. Let me feast upon you with my eyes. I want to see what you won't give me.”

He could not help himself. He obeyed, taking off his tunic and standing before her. Then he took himself in his trembling hand and started stroking, gazing hungrily at her loins, her breasts, her face. She did the same while her gaze passed all over his body. Her hand started working furiously between her legs while the other stroked a swelling nipple.

Suddenly their eyes locked.

“I'm inside you now,” Nikias said.

“So deep,” she replied. “Oh, gods!”

“Helena—”

It did not take long. Their knees buckled at the same time and they bowed together on the temple floor like supplicants before the altar, gasping, reeling from the power of their desire—a palpable force that seemed to fill the temple like the heat from a forge fire.

“What was that sound?” Nikias asked suddenly, breaking the silence. The wind had shifted and carried on it he heard the distinct sound of a blaring horn—the same sound that he thought he had heard before … a quarter of an hour ago now?

“What's going on?” asked Helena.

“Something's wrong at the camp!” said Nikias, standing up and throwing on his tunic. He heard the sound again. Were the ships under attack? He dashed out of the temple and looked around. He saw a path going up the hill from behind the temple.

“Where does that path lead?” he asked.

“Up the ridgeline. Back to the stronghold.”

“How far?”

“Three miles from here.”

“Can you run?”

“Yes, but—”

“Go back there now,” he commanded. “Don't follow me. Go and don't look back!”

She dropped her head.

“I love you, Helena,” he said. “Always remember that.”

He sprinted down the rocky path from the temple, back down toward the cove.

 

FOURTEEN

Nikias bounded from the olive grove and onto the beach. He stopped short, looking about the camp with astonishment. The cooking fires kindled for breakfast still burned. Goats waiting to be slaughtered stood bleating in their pens. The makeshift hovels that the men had fashioned over the last two weeks sat silent in the dawn.

But there was no sign of anyone else onshore. The ships and all the mariners were gone.

He peered at the empty cove. The four triremes were nowhere in sight. All that was left was the swamped hulk of the
Democracy
—a black mass floating in the dark water like the corpse of a giant beast.

He walked to the water's edge and stood there with his hands on his hips. “What's happened?” he asked aloud, conscious of how stupid he sounded talking to himself. “Where did they go?”

A goat bleated in response.

Nikias forced himself to think logically. Why had the ships departed without him? He thought back to the first time he had heard the horn faintly on the wind and how he dismissed it as fancy. That was over twenty minutes ago. The mariners had been trying to signal to him to come back to the beach, but he didn't hear them. For some reason they had to ship out. But why? There was no sign of a sea battle or sneak attack on the camp. No corpses floating on the water or lying on the beach.

Perhaps the lookouts on the hills had seen enemy sails in the moonlight coming toward the island and they went out to meet them in battle so that they would not get bottled up and trapped in the cove. He ran to the right—to the end of the beach—and scrambled up the rocks, trying to get to a higher place so that he could look out onto the sea. When he got to the ridge he stared to the west, in the direction that the fleet would have gone on the next leg of the journey. But there were no ships in sight. He looked to the right, in the direction of the rising sun.

“There you are!” he exclaimed, for he had caught sight of the convoy, the sun-bleached oars of the four proud ships gleaming in the rosy light of dawn. But why were they heading southeast.

“
Where are you going?
” he yelled. “
Come back!
”

“They're going to a cove on the eastern side of the island!” came a breathless voice from behind.

Nikias whirled. Konon was coming up the slope from the beach, clawing his way up the rocks.

“Konon! Thank the gods!”

“I've been looking everywhere for you!” said Konon, smiling with relief as he got to Nikias. “I told them I wouldn't go without you, so they left me behind.” He held out Nikias's sword. “Here. I kept this safe for you.”

“Why did they leave?” asked Nikias as he took the proffered sword, quickly slipping it over his shoulder and strapping it tightly to his back.

“A rider came with news that an army of Korinthians has invaded the island.”

“How many?” asked Nikias.

“A thousand or more—they landed in coves all over the south side of the island, burning the villages and capturing women and children. It turns out that the mariners on Chusor's ship have a stronghold in the center of this island on the top of the mountain.”

“I know,” said Nikias. “All of their families dwell there. That's why they didn't want anyone leaving the cove. They didn't want to infect everyone who lives there.”

“Everyone who
did
dwell there,” said Konon. “The rider told us they abandoned the place and fled to a cove on the eastern side. They knew they couldn't hold their fort against an army of Korinthians—not with most of their men on Chusor's ship. They're waiting to either be rescued by our triremes or captured by the Korinthians.”

Nikias turned and started walking fast up the hill, away from the water. He felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. He had ordered Helena to go back to the stronghold—across an island crawling with the enemy. He had most likely sent her to her doom when all that she had wanted was to be with him. The thought of her captured and raped—forced to be another man's thrall for the rest of her life or sold to the brothels of Korinth—made him sick.

“I'm an idiot!” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“That's what Phoenix said,” replied Konon. “He called me one as well when I said I was staying behind. Hey, where are you going?”

“Follow me!” shouted Nikias over his shoulder as he took off running along the hillside. After half a mile he came to a spot where he could look down on the little plateau with the temple—the place where Helena had taken him. He came to a stop, calling out her name frantically. But she did not answer and there was no sign of her anywhere. He found the path—the one he had told her to follow—and took off again.

“Where are you going now?” asked Konon, trying to keep up with him.

“To the stronghold!”

“But that's where the Korinthians will be!”

Nikias didn't speak. It was hard going. The way was steep. But he did not slow down and left Konon behind. After he crested another hill, the mountaintop in the center of the island came into view, a mile away. In the dim light of dawn he could see the gray stones of the fortress walls and a thin trail of smoke issuing from the stronghold—a black and twisting plume.

The Korinthians were already there. They had sacked the place.

“Look what I found,” said Konon.

Nikias stopped and looked back. Konon was running toward him carrying something in his hand—a straw goatherd's hat.

“Where did you find that?” Nikias asked, his heart leaping into his throat.

“Just over there, off the trail.”

“Take me to the spot!”

Konon led him back to the place. Nikias saw many footprints and signs of a struggle. Warriors had been here. At least ten. And they had captured Helena. He could see the direction they had gone and marks where the butts of their spears had dragged in the dust. They couldn't be far away. Only a quarter of an hour or so had passed since he had left Helena at the temple.

He followed the trail, running low and hunched over like a dog on the scent of its prey. When he was certain of the direction the Korinthians were going—to the southeast—he took off at a sprint. Nikias was a fast runner: he could run the two-and-a-half-mile circumference of Plataea in a quarter of the time it took an hour water clock to spill its time—while wearing a bronze breastplate. Now his sandaled feet flew over the barren ground. He glanced back. Konon wasn't keeping up with him. But it didn't matter. He would face the enemy alone.

He went on, going out of his mind with frustration and fear. Would he find her in time?

Minutes passed but they seemed like hours. Then he saw a light flicker near a grove of trees up ahead. Torches. As he got closer he made out the shapes of men standing in a semicircle. Ten or eleven. Korinthians wearing leather armor and bearing short spears. Through the spaces in their ranks he caught a fleeting glimpse of a naked woman on her hands and knees, raped simultaneously from the front and behind, her breasts jerking wildly from the men's brutal thrusts. Was it Helena? He couldn't tell.

All he knew was that the enemy had foolishly stopped to take pleasure in their prizes. Their lust had gotten the better of them. They were not looking behind them. They had posted no sentries. Four or five children as well as another woman and a teenager lay nearby, all of them bound at their hands and ankles, facedown and gagged. He saw a baby crawling toward the circle of men—the Korinthians hadn't bothered to tie the infant. One of the Korinthians shoved the baby aside roughly with his foot and the little creature was quiet for an instant before sucking in its breath and letting forth an enraged howl. The man who had kicked the infant raised his sword, ready to quiet the baby for eternity.

Nikias burned with outrage.

He pulled his sword from the sheath as he sprang onto a large rock and leapt the last few feet to the enemy. The double-edged blade of Apollo gleamed in the dawn as if with an inner light. The Korinthian with the raised sword brought his arm down to slay the baby, but suddenly his arm was no longer attached to his shoulder and Nikias plowed straight past him and into the other enemy warriors at full speed, cutting off the heads of two men standing side by side with the same fell stroke, then lunging forward with a backslash—the Korinthian thrusting into the woman's mouth gasped and toppled over with a severed spine.

Before the other astonished Korinthians could draw their weapons, Nikias blinded the other rapist, raking him across the eyes with the tip of his sword, then rolled onto the ground and swept out with the bloody blade, hacking off a warrior's legs at the knees. He was like a whirling scythe of death, reaping men instead of wheat.

“Stop!” was all that one of the Korinthians managed to say.

Nikias jumped to his feet and parried a sword blow aimed at his guts. He kicked the man in the testicles, and sliced off his jaw with an uppercut from the fattest part of the blade, screaming like a madman and striking out with the flat of his foot, breaking another's knee. Then he plunged the sword into the warrior's abdomen.

He stood in front of the naked woman sprawled face-first on the ground, guarding her from the remaining three warriors who were still unhurt. Nikias's breath came in ragged gasps—an animal sound emanating from the back of his throat.

The three Korinthian spearmen backed away and pointed their javelins at Nikias, spreading out to surround him in a circle. The man Nikias had blinded was crawling on his hands and knees within the circle. Then he stopped and drew forth a dagger, stabbing at the air in futility. The Korinthian with the missing arm slumped to the ground, clutching his spurting stump, and looked about him in a daze, saying, “My arm! Where is it?”

“I told you to post a guard!” spat one of the spearmen to the other.

“Kill him!” bellowed the one-handed man, seizing his severed hand.

“Where is he?” asked the blinded man, spitting out the blood that had trickled into his mouth.