Heart of Fire

Chapter 2 - Memories in Bronze-1

Chapter Two

Memories in Bronze

Μνήμες σε Χάλκινο

Megara was choked with a long file of warriors heading for the Peloponnese and the sanctuary of Olympia, or back to their native villages or polei for the period of the Sacred Truce. Most were in a jovial mood, and one would have thought that they had not spent the last few years plunging both spear and blade into the bodies of their fellow Greeks.

Stefanos, Kratos, and Pollux travelled without worry, the three hoplites walking over the rocky mountains with the islands of Salamis and Aegina set in a sparkling blue sea to the south. They passed by Kakia Scala where a great monster was said to have always lurked in wait for travellers, to apprehend and devour them before tossing their bones down the cliffs into the sea. Both Kratos and Pollux's grips on the shafts of their spears lessened as they passed safely through.

As their sandalled feet trod through beds of spring flowers of purple, red, and yellow, Stefanos shook his head at the light moods of all the travellers around them.

They would trade it all, the shield wall, the blood, the thrill of an enemy kill, for games. How can they so easily forget? he wondered.

The truth was that Stefanos, son of Talos had only known war since the age of nineteen when the Spartans attacked Argos at the battle of Hysiae, in the aftermath of their victory at Mantinea. Despite the horrors he had witnessed, including the death of many friends and neighbours, Stefanos had found he excelled in war, and the shield wall of the phalanx became his home.

But he did not remain in Argos. The elite force of the Argive Thousand had been, at the time, a close-knit group of men who seemed to spit at the efforts of anyone outside their circles, even if they had proved themselves worthy of the task.

Stefanos' family began to experience hard financial times after the death of his mother, Hermia, a priestess of Hera at the Heraion of Argos, and so he chose the mercenary's way of life. His father had been unable then, to carry out the bronze commissions that were coming his way, epinikion works among them, due to the sadness lodged deep in his creative heart.

Stefanos enjoyed the mercenary life, the independence of it, though it broke his father's heart that his only son had turned his back on the craft that he so revered and loved. Talos had never been the same since, and though he did begin to work again, his bronzes became more pained, and sinister, displaying the darker side of Eris and ponos, the strife and toil that were every man's lot in life.

Stefanos had competed in some of the crown games, and had been victorious in the javelin, hoplitodromos, and boxing at both Isthmia and Nemea, but he had never stayed for the victory feasts that came after the crowning. When the pine, and wild celery of Isthmia and Nemea had been placed upon his head, he had left the sanctuaries, his point made, offered his rewards to Hera at the temple where his mother had spent most of her life, and then got on with his own.

Sitting around a camp fire the night before they came out of the mountains of Megara and into Isthmia, Stefanos, Kratos, and Pollux shared freshly-cooked meat and memories of recent battles.

The constellations in the cool night sky looked down on them as they leaned against a grouping of massive boulders that protected their backs. Each man's hoplon, doru, and xiphos were beside him, even though most of the travellers that night would not have dared to set upon three experienced hoplites of Argos and Sparta.

"How long since you've both been home?" Pollux asked as he tore into a hunk of steaming goat meat fresh off the spit.

"Six years," Stefanos said casually, as he ate.

"Long time."

"What about you, Pollux?" Kratos asked. "When was the last time you saw Sparta?"

"I see Sparta every time I stand in the phalanx shield wall," he said, smiling. "I've spent all my time with you amateurs, keeping you alive!" he laughed, his voice echoing off of the rocks about them, Stefanos and Kratos joining in. "In truth, I long to see the Eurotas valley again, to climb Taygetus and smell the fresh mountain air of my home, but I don't know how long I'll stay. Things are heating up with the Persian bastards again, so there might be a good bit of work to be done for Sparta. I assume you two would like to be a part of that should the opportunity arise?"

"You know us better than to ask a question like that," Stefanos said, tossing a bone into the coals of the fire and sending sparks into the night air.

"Actually, I was considering taking part in the Olympiad," Kratos said, causing the other two to look up at him.

"Really?" Pollux asked.

"Yes," Kratos straightened. "We're not getting any younger and, well, I think I could compete in the pentathlon. What better way to honour the Gods than to take all that I've learned on the field of Ares and win glory before the eyes of Zeus himself?"

Pollux nodded knowingly at Kratos, his pious Spartan side always seeing the right in honouring the Gods, but Stefanos shook his head.

"Why waste time at Olympia, Kratos? If King Agesilaus is waging war against the Persians in Ionia, then there will be work to be had, no? The Sacred Truce doesn't apply to Persians." Stefanos stopped eating and stared at his best friend. "Olympia is supposed to be hot and stinking during the Games. Why would you want to pack it in with all those crowds?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Kratos said. "If this is my last chance... I could die on the battlefield tomorrow, or the day or year after that. I don't want my legacy to be blood, and sacks of coin. I want to give some kind of glory to my family's name."

"You've never told me any of this."

"I've been thinking about it the last few days. It makes sense."

"Sense?" Stefanos said out loud.

"Makes sense to me," Pollux said. "What does it matter? If Herakles began the games to honour his father, that seems right enough."

"And, if I were to win, then any man in Argos would willingly betroth his daughter to me. I could finally have a family."

"You're both mad. A family?" Stefanos stood. "The fighting never stops, you know."

"True," agreed Pollux, "but the Gods are more important than butchery in the shield wall, and the Gods like the Games."

Stefanos turned from the camp fire, picked up his doru, and disappeared into the darkness beyond the light of the fire.

Kratos jumped up to go after him, but Pollux stayed him.

"Let him be. You know how he's always in his head. This is one of those times. They sat back down to finish eating.

Stefanos walked until he came to a rock outcrop jutting out over the clifftops to the sea below. The light of the moon and stars shone on the black depths and he stared at them, his spear across his shoulders, his arms up to hang from it.

He chided himself for being nervous to return to Argos, of seeing his sister Cleo, and his father. The last time he had been home, he had argued with Talos and they had parted with angry words. He loved his father, dearly, admired his work, but he also resented Talos' lack of understanding or acceptance of his chosen life, a life that he had been forced into by circumstance and the Gods' design.

Seeing Cleo again worried him even more. The last time he had been in Argos, he had changed her life, and though he was sure it had been for the better, he feared that she did not agree with that sentiment.

Ocnus, son of Nemos, had always been a lying cheat, and cruel beyond measure. When Stefanos had returned to Argos after another campaign in Boeotia to find that Ocnus had made an offer to Talos for Cleo's hand in marriage, he had talked his father out of it, and at the same time, denied Cleo a family of her own.

The dowry offer had included, among other things, the bronze smithing business and family lands. Stefanos knew that Ocnus would treat Cleo like a slave, that he only cared for the profits in bronze and the selling of their lands.

Stefanos' father had told him at the time that he was going to accept Ocnus' offer because there was no chance that Stefanos himself would ever return to Argos to head the family, and because he was getting old.

But Stefanos had not wanted to see his father's artistic legacy, much as he did not want to be a part of it, turned over to a fiend like Ocnus who would transform it into a base smelting business, cranking out ingots instead of works of art. He did not see himself as a bronze smith, but he certainly could see the beauty in what his father created, even though he had never told him as much.

When Talos agreed to call off the betrothal, Ocnus went on a rant against their family in the Agora. It was then that Stefanos approached him with witnesses, prodded him into attacking first, and then pounded his face into a pulp until he took back the things he had said.

The next day, Cleo, publicly humiliated, went into service at the temple of Hera.

Stefanos loved his father and sister, but the choices he had made, choices he had stood by, had caused them great pain. He had not been there for them, and the guilt, much as he hated it, was crushing him the closer he came to Argos.

Stefanos took a last look at the night sky, at Centaurus glinting down at him, and turned to go back to the fire and his friends.

As they came into Isthmia the following day, the welcome scents of pine and the salt-sea filled their nostrils.

Most of the travellers along the road carried on west to head over the mountains of Arkadia to Olympia, in Ellis, but Stefanos, Kratos, and Pollux turned south west toward the sanctuary at Nemea. Here, at the long altar before the temple of Zeus, they made offerings to the Protector of Travellers for helping them come this far, and asked that they might gain their destinations without worry.

With the sheep's blood still fresh on his hands, Pollux turned to Stefanos and Kratos. "I guess this is farewell for now, brothers."

The two men embraced their Spartan compatriot, not a little moved to see their warlike triad broken for a time.

"May the Gods guide us to you again soon," Kratos said.

"If they desire it," Pollux said plainly, "I'll see you. And I'll send word if there is room in the mercenary shield wall of Sparta."

"Yes, do, my friend," Stefanos said. "And forgive my glumness yesterday. Peace time makes me itchy."

"Sometimes I wonder if you're more Spartan than I am," Pollux laughed. He then turned to Kratos. "Good luck in the Games. May the Gods grant you victory, and Nike's crown rest lightly on your brow."

With those parting words, Pollux hoisted his hoplon, satchel, and doru, and turned in the direction of Tegea, and then Sparta.

"I'm always sad to see that red cloak fade away," Stefanos said as he watched Pollux march down the narrow track away from the sanctuary.

"Me too," Kratos said, putting his hand on Stefanos' shoulder. "So, you ready to go home?"

"No. But let's go anyway."

Together, they took the Argos road directly to the south, their hoplons on their backs, and their spears pointing the way home.

"Six years..." Stefanos mused. "I wonder how your sisters are."

"Don't even think about it!"

The next day, when the plain of Argos opened up before their eyes, both men stopped to look at it, quietly leaning on their spears in the fading light. The city was coloured by a pink sunset over the mountains to the West, and the smoke from the sanctuaries of Hera, Athena, Apollo and Aphrodite rose up over the city giving it a dream-like countenance.

High on the hill of Larisa, south west of the sanctuaries of the Aspis, the heads of sentries could be spotted along the fortifications where the Argive Thousand stood watch over the plains to the south and west, ever-ready to meet an attack by Argos' enemies.