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Authors: Noble Smith

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After an hour of reacquainting themselves with each other's bodies, Zana fell asleep sprawled on Chusor's chest, snoring softly. He recalled his first glimpse of her seven years ago. She had been dressed as a man, brandishing an axe over his neck. “Why
shouldn't
I kill you, stowaway? You stinking bilge rat!” she had demanded.

“Zana,” Chusor said now, gently stirring her awake. “How did you find me?”

“It was Barka,” she said in a drowsy voice. “He was sure you were here. Then I remembered that story you used to tell about the legend of the gold hidden under Plataea, and I knew Barka was right. That you'd come here. We arrived only yesterday. The bird found you.”

“Her name is Jezebel,” said Chusor. He glanced over and saw the pigeon nestled in his clothes, sleeping contentedly with one eye half opened. He realized the animal must be ten years old by now. He wondered how long a pigeon could possibly live. “Who else is left of your crew?” he asked.

“All gone except for Ji,” said Zana. “We were at port in Tyre when a fleet of Persians came into the harbor unexpectedly. The ship was seized. Ji and I weren't on board at the time. We fled to Italia. That was where we eventually ran into Barka. Or rather where
he
found us.” She put one elbow into his chest and rested her head on her palm, looking him in the eyes. “When you left me I swore that I would find you and kill you one day.”

“Because you loved me?” asked Chusor sarcastically.

“Because you took two of my best men,” came Zana's reply.

“And gold as well,” added Chusor.

“The gold was your fair share,” she replied. “But
not
the men. They were loyal to me—would have killed themselves for me—before they met you.”

Chusor sighed. “I didn't ask them to come with me.”

“That makes it worse,” said Zana.

“I grew tired of marauding and murder,” said Chusor.

She traced a finger across his lips and looked at him coldly. “I should murder
you
now.”

Chusor felt the hairs on his forearms rise. He knew she wasn't making idle threats. “You already killed me today,” he said and closed his eyes. “Put me in a funeral jar. I'm dead.”

She smiled, showing her pearly teeth, and moved her hand down to stroke him between his legs. “And that's why I always liked you the best, Chusor. Because you were never afraid of me
or
death. When my men found you hiding on my ship—a miserable stowaway, reeking of filth, fleeing the wrath of the Tyrant of Syrakuse—I asked you why I should spare your life, and you made some stupid joke.” She grabbed his balls quickly and squeezed.

Chusor clenched his teeth and said, “
Life
is a stupid joke.”

She smiled and relaxed her grip, stroking him sensuously again.

Chusor thought back to his days in Syrakuse where he'd studied with the inventor Naxos and learned the secrets of the sticking fire. The city-state of Syrakuse was a flimsy democracy—one firmly under the reins of an oligarchy. And Chusor had made a mistake of monumental proportions: he had seduced the wife of a wealthy man named General Pantares. The leader was so powerful in Syrakuse that he was known far and wide as “the Tyrant.” Chusor had escaped the general's henchmen by jumping into a pipe that carried waste into the bay. Fortunately Zana's ship was nearby.

“Have you found the treasure?” asked Zana, moving on top of him and grinding her hips. “Ummmm,” she groaned softly.

“No,” he replied.

“Are you telling me … uhhhh … the truth?”

“I wouldn't still be here if I'd found it, Zana.”

“Is it … uhhhh … there?”

“I think so,” he said. As they made love again he told her about the night of the Theban invasion and how they'd found the secret tunnel entrance under the Temple of Zeus. “It fits with the legend. We haven't had time to explore the place. But I've created a map of the entire citadel. I've brought it with me. I'll show you—”

“Stop talking.” Zana grunted. She obviously hadn't been listening to him for some time. She was touching herself now as she moved faster and faster. She put one hand on the back of his head and guided his mouth to her left breast. Chusor cupped her dark areola with his generous lips, biting her nipple gently with his incisors. She sucked in through her teeth and he pushed himself deep inside her, again and again.

At last she breathed, “I'm almost there.” He lashed her breast with his tongue and she let forth a cry of pleasure as her body jerked uncontrollably. She brought both hands to the sides of his face and leaned down, meeting his lips with her own.

“Stop thrusting,” she said between kisses.

He did as he was told. She gave a sultry smile and adjusted her body. Then her muscles clenched and unclenched rapidly on the crown of his manhood as though she were stroking and squeezing it with a hidden hand.

“Gods!” he bellowed, his legs going rigid. It felt as though Zeus's bolt had just shot from his loins … as though he had melted inside her.

He fell back, staring at the ceiling of the cave. She laughed softly, toying with him awhile longer, taking her own pleasure while he was still firm. When she was satisfied she pulled away from him and draped herself across his broad chest, stretching like a cat, and purring like one, too, with her hair completely covering her face.

“Where did you learn to do
that
?” he asked hoarsely.

“Perhaps I always had that skill,” said Zana coyly. “I was just saving it for a special occasion.”

“You should have done that sooner,” he replied. “I might never have left you.”

“I have you again,” she said softly. “At least one of my treasures is found.”

“So good to see old friends reunited,” cooed a honeyed voice from the darkness.

The sound of that voice, like a chill wind on bare flesh, made Chusor shiver.

“What are you doing, lurking there?” asked Zana, sitting up and glaring. “How long have you been watching us, you little owl?”

Barka crawled into the light and sat at their feet. The eunuch's black, limpid eyes regarded Chusor with a placidity that unsettled him to the core.

“Hello, Barka,” Chusor said to the creature he'd hoped he would never lay eyes on again. Barka the Sooth—a walking oracle who could look into a man's eyes and tell him his past as well as predict his death.

“Chusor,” said Barka, “I had a funny dream about you. I think you'll laugh. You were in a ship laden with treasure … but the hold was slowly filling with water. And you were far from shore.”

“I don't find that dream amusing,” said Chusor, moving away from Zana and covering himself with his tunic.

Barka pulled a map from his sleeve and dangled it by two fingers. “This is quite interesting.”

Chusor's skin crawled. Barka had managed to find the map in the secret compartment in his staff. He forced himself to smile back at the feminine, feline face—the pretty face of a Phoenician girl on a boy's body. “I'll look forward to hearing about your dream,” he said at length, trying not to betray his unease. “And maybe you can use your skills to see if the treasure exists.”

“Oh, it is there,” said Barka, nodding his head confidently. “I've already seen it. Enough gold to buy a fleet of ships.”

Zana sat up straight and her eyes shone in the firelight. Chusor could tell she was already standing on the deck of a new ship, sailing into the unknown.

“Now!” said Barka, setting aside the map and clapping his hands together. “Since Chusor-the-Cunning has already revealed that my darling Diokles is still with him, may we know what happened to our other friend who ran away with you?” The eunuch snickered. “I don't need the sooth-sight to see what Ezekiel is
doing
right now: drinking himself into a stupor. But I dreamt that he'd set up the sign of his skull in…” He closed his eyes, shifted his head back and forth, then popped open his lids. “Athens? Am I right? Ezekiel the Babylonian is living in Athens now?”

Chusor did not need to answer, for Barka was smiling confidently. The eunuch
knew
that his guess was right.

“Ezekiel will meet your young friend,” said Barka in an offhand manner. “Whether good or ill will come of the meeting, I cannot say.”

 

NINE

Konon drove Nikias to Athens in a mule cart. The young farmer had jumped at the chance to help the Plataean, telling Nikias that he was happy to get away from the farm for a few hours.

Konon was nearly eight years older than Nikias but had yet to serve in a military expedition, and he never would. He'd lost his left arm in a childhood accident—it had gotten caught in the mechanism of an olive press. Without the ability to hold shield and sword at the same time, or to pull an oar, he was useless as either a hoplite or sailor. He devoured Nikias's stories of battle with a combination of wonder and unconcealed jealousy.

Nikias felt sorry for Konon. He would rather be dead than share a similar fate. Even this injury to his shoulder—an injury he knew would eventually heal—gave Nikias a feeling of impotence. He couldn't even put a tunic on without an old woman's help! He couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose his shield arm.

He told Konon about the Battle of the Gates and his fight with Eurymakus, the Theban assassin who'd led the sneak attack on the city and who'd burned down Nikias's farmhouse. Eurymakus had tried to kill Nikias with a poisoned blade, but the Plataean had used the invader's own weapon against him, slicing his hand with the knife. Eurymakus had instantly drawn his sword and chopped off his own arm at the elbow to keep the poison from coursing upward through his veins.

Nikias would never forget the sight of that evil man fleeing the battlefield, blood spurting from his severed limb. He had tried to chase down the Theban, but he'd been thrown from a horse and been knocked out.

“Well, it makes me feel a little better,” said Konon, “to think a Theban now shares my fate.”

“Do you know how to use a leather sling?” asked Nikias.

“Of course,” replied Konon, indignant. “I can kill a hare at a hundred paces.” He paused and smiled. “Well, maybe fifty paces. But I've got a good eye.”

“Then you could be a peltast,” said Nikias. “Kill Spartans from the walls of Athens.” He gestured at the mighty western walls of Athens looming a mile down the road.

“I tried to enlist with the Guards,” said Konon and sighed morosely. “But they wouldn't take me. And you can't be a knight unless you're stinking rich and can afford your own mounts.”

“Come to Plataea,” said Nikias, half joking. “We'd welcome a man with one arm. 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.

“Do you think you'll enter the pankration in the next Olympics?” Konon asked Nikias.

“I 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.

“Please 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.

BOOK: Spartans at the Gates
13.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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