Spartans at the Gates by Noble Smith

Mirth!” He raised his hand and slammed a fist onto the table with such force that the ink pot jumped and spilled ink across the parchment like a spray of dark blood. “Because this adventure of his is a pathetic joke. He’ll be lucky if he makes it to Athens alive, and even luckier if he comes home with his balls intact, let alone with a band of cutthroats from the port of Athens!”
    â€œI wanted to assist him,” said Chusor, abashed. “He was going to Athens no matter what I said to him. I reckoned the gold could be put to good use. When your grandson sets his mind to something, he cannot be diverted from it.”
    Menesarkus ground his teeth together, staring back at Chusor under heavy lids.
    The door opened and the servant peeked in his head, saying, “Arkon, you’re needed for a moment.”
    Menesarkus got up, scowling, and limped toward the door on his bad right knee. “Stay here,” he said to Chusor, and shut the door behind him.
    Chusor swiped at his forehead, wiping away the stinging sweat that dripped into his eyes. He could hear the sound of activity in the offices on the other side of the door: the chattering voices and scribes hard at work. His gaze wandered to a big vase sitting on a table behind Menesarkus’s desk. It was painted in the old style, from perhaps a hundred years before, when artists colored the bodies of men with black paint. The vase bore the image of a preposterously muscular man, the hero Herakles, lifting a much larger opponent—the Libyan giant Antaios, son of Mother Earth—and squeezing him in a bear hug. The artist had captured the action of this moment vividly. Antaios had thrown back his head and howled in pain and surprise, his toes straining to reach the earth. Chusor could almost hear Antaios gasp as Herakles crushed his ribs, driving the bones into his organs.
    Chusor had seen Menesarkus beat a man in a pankration bout in just such a manner. By squeezing the air from his lungs until he’d passed out.
    The door opened again and the Arkon came back in holding a jug of wine in one hand and two drinking cups in the other. “Leave me,” he said to the servant, who was trying, ever so gently, to pry the jug from his hands. “I can do it myself! Now leave us.”
    The servant bowed, scurried out, and shut the door behind him. Menesarkus hobbled back to his desk, placed the jug and cups down with a sigh, then poured the wine. He handed Chusor a cup, then took a long draft from his own, wiping his mouth on his forearm, then nodding his head as though responding to an unspoken question.
    â€œNo, I can’t blame him for having my blood,” he said at last, though more as if speaking to himself than for Chusor’s benefit. “I would have done the same at his age.” He stared at Chusor and gestured at him with his cup. “You are an interesting man, Chusor,” he said. “I didn’t trust you when you first came to Plataea. Not because you’re half Aethiope. But because you seemed to be too clever a fellow to merely be a vagabond. I reckoned you must be either a spy or a criminal on the run. I encouraged the old Arkon to have you watched closely and he agreed. Every aspect of your life was scrutinized that first year you were here. But after you became friends with my grandson, and I saw what a good influence you had on him, my feelings about you started to change. Nikias talks about you constantly, you know? You’re one of his heroes. And when I saw what you have made with your hands, well, I was convinced you were some kind of genius. The beautiful armor and helms”—here he gestured toward the armor on the rack behind him—“and your inventions! Nobody has ever seen the like, I’ll wager, not even in Athens. You have a gift that few men ever hope to have.”
    Chusor didn’t know what to think. His head was spinning. The revelation that he’d been spied