1: The Lesson
The warrior moved in perfect balance, his grace belying his massive frame. His sword probed intelligently at my defences, eyes hard, hungry and confident, with the utter conviction of a born victor.
I ceded ground before the onslaught, doing enough to balk my adversary's blade without risking my kopís's fragile bronze in the parry against the full force of my opponent's heavy blows. It was barely perceptible to those outside the warrior's circle, but there was a measure of fatigue in the bigger man, now, chest heaving as he gulped down Aither's good air.
You need to feed the fire, but when you need to use the bellows, you have lost control of the blaze, and will yourself be consumed. Tutor's words, taken well to heart.
Time to test him, I determined, risking a parry to measure my man. There was an almost-imperceptible shiver in the contact, the enemy's hand trembling slightly due to fatigue. Raking out a strike of my own in reply, flowing into the aggressive forms of my own attack, I felt the quickening of my own heartbeat, the blood-song in my veins, in response to the increase in my own effort. My interrogating kopís was turned aside time and again, but now my opponent appeared to have no energy left for anything except dogged defence.
My daímōn rose to see him flagging, and I redoubled my efforts. My bronze was blocked later and later, a cut to my opponent's groin deflected by a leaden parry at the last possible instant. The warrior's sword-arm dragged lower and lower and all the grace had left his stance, fatigue making him flatfooted, but the man was still dangerous, and he glared at me, defiance in his eyes. With a raw-voiced shout, he threw himself forward in a defiant charge, refusing to admit defeat, sword singing out.
Dismissively, I rapped the questing kopís aside and with a burst of acceleration, whipped my own blade forward to take my opponent in the abdomen. Mortal wound.
I arrested the strike at the last possible instant, the blunted bronze of the practice blade lightly touching Héktōr's prodigiously muscled torso. With a cry of fury, seventeen-year old Héktōr spun on his heel, casting his sword away to skid and spark across the stone flags of the practice ground, for an instant not the dangerous warrior he was becoming but only a beaten, petulant child.
You may be sure that I heard the applause of the spectators – all for me! – and drank it in like the ambrosia of the Gods! No, say rather that dark Falernian wine that emboldens a man past sense.
I caught the eye of a pretty noblewoman, arousal in her eyes, excited by the intensity of what she had witnessed, the nearness of Death's shadow passing over. Careless, I dropped my own blade, and crowed laughter to see Héktōr's discomfiture.
Feeling the pressure of hand upon shoulder, I turned around, ready to graciously accept the felicitations due my victory.
I was looking into the faded blue of my tutor's eyes and they were wroth. The old man's bony fist lashed out in a vicious right hook which caught me unprepared, a blow that landed flush on the temple, spinning me from my feet.
I looked up at the world from the flat of my back, dazed, as the grizzled Spártān warrior rounded on Héktōr. "Absolutely pathetic. So tell me this, Héktōr, prince of Troy. The Gods gift you strength, and talent with a blade. So why do you cock leg and piss upon them?
You lost that bout for worst of reasons. Because you lack the requisite physical fitness for extended contest! You are a far more talented fighter than Aineías. Older, stronger. But still you lost because all he needs to do is defend and wait for you to tire. Then when tongue is lolling from your mouth like a rabid dog, and you are no more able to defend yourself than a babe in arms, he can pick you off at his leisure!"
Héktōr was rendered speechless, and for good reason. Not least because this was the longest speech either of us had heard pass the lips of the Lakonian. He spent his breath like a miser spends good coin.
Turning his ire back upon my good self, as I sat up, rubbing my head where he had cuffed me like a cur. "And as for you, O Ólympian victor, you, you are even worse! Mind full of gods, heroes and rutting wenches, it makes me sick to see you play to the gallery as you despatch exhausted opponent!
Let me tell you a thing. When it matters, there will be no audience of damp-thighed maidens, no pantheon of Gods upon high marvelling at your every move. No – there will be naught save the screams of the wounded, and your nostrils will not be full of the aroma of wine and ambrosia, but of offal and the dung of dying men!"
Reaching down, he grabbed me by the front of his tunic and hauled me to my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I observed the young hetaîra who had been favouring me with the charms of her limpid eye now tittering at the indignity I was forced to endure.
I began to grow angry, the colour fading from my cheeks. I felt his point already well made, a boy's pride already well-micturated, but no! Let the heavens be wrenched open, Zeús' phallus descend, and fill gaping mouth with stream!
"I have failed you, boy, because where I have taught you the sword, I should have instructed you." Agēsílaos of Spártā declaimed, voice soft and cold as first flakes of winter's snow.
Slowly, reverently, the old man drew his own blade from his left hip. It was functional, a bronze so old and hammered to sharpness so often that the edge was discoloured into a rhapsody of sepia, so work-hardened that the blade's grain was visible, its patina so dulled no amount of polishing could make it gleam.
"This is my blade, boy, and my father's before mine. I have carried it all the days of my long life, and into my exile here. And like me, it is nigh the end of purpose. This bronze is brittle, from being hammered into an edge too many times. A blade's life is of two generations, boy. If hallowed Dēmétēr, She Who Walks the Rows, had seen fit to bless me with a son, he would have to take ingots of tin and talents of silver – the wealth from a town's sacking, or a dowry – to a smith and have a new blade cast.
Boasting is folly and shame, but let me for once in life be a fool for your edification! If we are talking the currency of a man's life, I was first sword in Spártā, a life-time ago. The polémarkhosof a king's taxeis! My name was spoken of in whispers of awe around the free kingdoms of Akhaia wherever warriors gathered. Then – because my cock knows not reason! – I did sard a woman whom I ought not. A woman of high degree. The sister of my lord king.
Now I am exile in a land not my own, and I teach princelings like you and Héktōr to play games with swords. I am cut adrift of almost everything that makes a man a man. But I am a man, and I will do my duty by you, to raise you as men!
When a sword is forged, it is the final firing that determines its' worth. The blade a man carries cleaves closer to him than children or wife – or even the comrade who stands in the shield-wall at your right hand. The man whose shield covers you. If the blade is brittle, the man will fall. The test of a man and the test of a sword are the same. It is of utility, that they can be depended on. That they can be relied upon."
"Fame and glory are piss and shit. Hubris. There are no blades of heroes. A sword is just a sword. And if there are gods, they have troubles enough of their own – why should they bother themselves with ours? It is enough to be of worth. To be that man who can be depended upon – by his gwasiléus, by his brothers in arms. To bear the shield to protect those that cannot. That is what a man should aspire to – and nothing more."
The old man looked down at the sword again, and there was a long pause. "I thought that I might outlive this blade. We shall see. Pick up your sword."
Automatically, I bent down to grasp the hilt of my practice sabre, where it lay. The Spártān stamped upon the blade, snapping it close to the tang. I looked up him, uncomprehending, this hardy old man who always treated the tools of war with the care a master craftsman has for his livelihood.
"Not that one. Your father's blade. For I invoke the karpaia."
"No!" Héktōr shouted, dumbstruck. "Gods, Agēsílaos, have you lost mind? I forbid it!"
There was a horrified hubbub from the onlookers now that blood was to be shed in truth, but none dared the grim face of the seasoned Spártān.
"You can forbid me nothing, boy. I have come to the end of long life. I would know I have not laboured in vain."
"Then fight me, old man. Not Aineías. He's not ready for this!"
There was a surprising gentleness in Agēsílaos' eyes. A flinty compassion in his voice.
"That is the price of failure, Héktōr. You forfeited the right to choose when you lost your duel with Aineías. That, if nothing else, should impel you to better yourself. Your strength is not for your own exaltation, but to be able to choose life for others."
Héktōr's face was white as chalk, framed in rapt horror. "And if Aineías dies?"
"He should not. He is well-trained, and I am old." Agēsílaos shrugged.
"Then know this, Agēsílaos. If you kill him, there stands no power in Ólympos or Tártaros below that will prevent me cutting you into pieces!"
Agēsílaos nodded, seemingly pleased. "Agápē. Perhaps there is hope for you yet, boy."
