 
The Apocrypha of Luke

Ken Kelly
Chapter 1

Dad had promised to bring them to a place where the scars of a centuries old battle were clearly visible. Luke the eldest and, more pertinently a self-important teenager, rolled his eyes inconspicuously and began to text a bored friend saying how bored he was stuck in the family going nowhere in the middle of nowhere. Paddy immersed in his football magazine and wondering which club he would sign for on his fifteenth birth day wasn't listening. Johnny the next in line was trying to peek at Paddy's magazine and Luke's text only to find himself attacked on two fronts as he sat between his two older and impatient brothers. Only Mikey in the jump seat in the back responded to his father's enthusiasm.

"Will there be swords and spears?" he asked, his mind already picturing armoured knights on snorting white stallions their shields painted with lions and unicorns, and their terrified eyes peering out from silver helmets.

"More power than all the swords on the planet" said a reassured dad, glad not to be totally ignored by his four children.

"Bombs?" replied Mikey stretching the word to its limit and he imagined soldiers dashing over smoking, broken ground, the muzzles of their machine guns flashing fire and a tank crushing a barb wire fence as it emerged from a gloomy forest.

"Greater than any bomb Mikey".

But Mikey didn't hear. He had one grenade left and the turret of the tank was turning towards him. This was a defining moment and Mikey had big decisions to make.

Conscious of his wife beside him dad didn't drive like a lunatic although occasionally he let his eyes wander as he surveyed the landscape. This led to frequent readjustments and swerves to avoid oncoming cars, cattle and old farmers, and bends where the road fell away to the sea. These readjustments in turn led to minor cardiac arrests on the part of mother and some unconvincing lying on the part of dad as he tried to reassure everyone that he knew exactly what he was doing.

The road itself was picture postcard spectacular, a long black snake that followed a course between the soft green hillsides on the right and the harder unwelcoming slate grey sea on the left. At first the hillside had the straight line geometry of farmers' fields and the sea's waves politely washed against smooth round pebbled half-moon coves. But as they travelled further west, the farmers gave up trying to tame the land which became steeper and freckled with grey limestone outcrops which nature's blanket of green had never managed to smother. Similarly the sea became hungrier, savagely tearing at the land which now began to bristle with spear like rocks that snapped like dragon's teeth at the frothing waves.

Seen on a satellite map from space this fringe of the continent was what geographers called a peninsula. It resembled a long finger of land, a misshapen, sapless twig with knuckled intervals. Posted in the sea around it like discarded splinters were small islands and islets, undisturbed sanctuaries to gannets and petrels. At the end of the peninsula the finger raised itself imperiously in defiance of the sea only to be separated from a lost shard which like a ripped fingernail had been violently removed by the angry waters in a time long before men had been around to witness.

The sound of the tyres on loose stone signalled that the car had halted and the four boys, in their own individual ways showed relief that they had stopped. Luke was still thumbing his phone, while Paddy busied himself concealing a page about Bolton Wanderer's summer signing from his younger brother Johnny. Mikey alone in the back was smiling triumphantly as he had singlehandedly destroyed the now smoking tank and would surely get a shiny medal for his courage.

"Well lads I promised you a battlefield. Is there any greater than that?" said dad proudly sweeping his arm in an arc across the view in front. They were at the end of the peninsula where the sea raged relentlessly against the land on three sides.

"No respite in this conflict hey? "And he parked his backside against the bonnet of the car in order to consider the spectacle more comfortably. Unfortunately he had, and not for the first time forgotten to put on the handbrake, so hasty had he been to get out of the car.

"Jesus" said Luke "my phone's still in the car" as he contemplated its destruction. Fortunately his mother was also in the car and saved Luke's phone, the car, Mikey and herself by pulling up the hand brake sharply. She flashed dad one of those "what the....... "Looks that always made dad turn silent and go red. Dad on cue went silent and turned red and signalled, with an apologetic hand gesture, his embarrassed state.

Paddy felt sorry for the old man and generously brought him back from his shameful exile.

"Where exactly is the battlefield father?" Unlike the others Paddy always called his dad "father". It was an early adolescent thing.

"Well in the blue corner Paddy, weighing in at a lot and comprising of many million square miles is the Atlantic ocean." Paddy nodded as Luke finished his text. "And in the green and grey corner we have the Dingle peninsula defending the honour of Europe and resisting the advances of this very aggressive sea".

Paddy looked below at the very unequal contest where the sea was pummelling the rocks.

"Land's looking battered and bruised father. Will the referee stop the contest?" dad smiled and winked at his son.

"Smart answer, but you know the contest was stopped about ten thousand years ago". Paddy looked confused.

"How?"

"Ah ha" said dad pleased to have a captive audience and just about to return his backside to the car when he saw his wife emerging with one threatening eyebrow raised.

"Well" he continued a little less vigorously "back then everything stopped -the sea, the grass. It was the time of the great ice age when ice sheets covered every acre of this land and froze the sea. Imagine these waves frozen in mid punch."

Paddy stroked his chin with the sarcastic theatrics known only to certain teenagers discovering the beauties of sarcasm for the first time.

"This isn't a real battlefield" said Johnny disappointedly. Johnny hadn't yet discovered the possibilities provided by the filters of sarcasm.

"Well there is a Spanish ship out there from the Armada of 1588 which was broken on the rocks "said dad struggling. The boys' imagination was slightly stirred and dad noted their faces. He would have liked to be able to give the name of the wreck and the details of the crew and cargo but he realised he had driven into a dead end.

"What was the name of the ship dad?"

Dad hesitated. He could have made something up – "San Cristobal de la Trinidad" but he decided to come clean and shook his head.

"Sorry lads I don't know"

The disappointment was palpable "ah father why didn't you make something up? We would have believed any old guff that you said. We always do."

Dad struggled briefly "I couldn't do that Paddy. History is about the truth not about fiction."

Luke immediately perked up with a mischievous light in his handsome young face. "Didn't you once say that all history was fiction- lies told by the winners?" He allowed a wave of smug triumph to roll over him but he felt short changed in his moment of glory by his father's reaction.

"Yes Luke I did say that and I believe it. But we should strive to uncover the truth all the same. That can sometimes mean a dull silence in place of an exciting false symphony. History isn't always a great page turner." Mikey was somewhat deflated and began to see his smouldering tank evaporate into a dream. Mam came to the rescue yet again with her picnic bag. "C'mon handsome, take me for coffee".

"If Madame will follow me."

Dad led the way over a dry wall made of stones shaped like a baker's loaves which separated the hillside from the road. He lifted Mikey over with a "whoosh" while the other three declined assistance, Johnny doing so after his brothers had shown the way. It made him feel older. As they started to ascend the slope, their summer sandaled feet felt the long uneaten grasses soaked in the dew and saw the liquid mist which obscured the hill twenty metres ahead of them. "Let's go into the cloud daddy" said Mikey excitedly and he started to chase uphill after the mist. Daddy, Johnny, and Paddy followed but Luke realising that he was no longer a child felt he had to pretend that such delights were not for him. "Come on Luke" said his mother pulling his ear playfully. "I'll race you". And the older boy realising he was blissfully alone from the judgemental gazes of the world gave in to the simple pleasures of cloud chasing.

A strange thing then happened, for as the six bodies scrambled uphill, a warm south westerly wind blew in from the sea. It had been born somewhere in the tropics and had obediently followed its course across the wide Atlantic shedding its stifling heat and picking up berries of moisture from the moody sea until it reached landfall as a strong breeze. And if one could see a wind one would have seen it touch land and start to climb upwards, creeping up on the boys and their parents and then overtaking them. It softly blew the raindrops off the long bending grasses which sprung upright relieved of the liquid weight. Finally it reached the curtain of cloud which billowed like a cotton sheet on a clothes line, and then started to retreat to higher ground. The wind insisted on total unconditional surrender and the mist gradually gave ground until the entire hillside was visible.

The warm tropical air felt good on the boys' backs and spurred them on till they were within metres of the cloud. "Look daddy the clouds escaping" squealed Mikey.

"And it's taking its treasure with it. Quick lads stop the cloud escaping." They chased, all the more keenly but their enthusiastic attempts to grasp the elusive mist were fruitless. Finally they gave up panting loudly as they watched the last droplets of mist disappear like ghosts into the sky.

They had reached a crest in the hill which gently rolled into an even platform of soft grasses protected to the north by random slabs of soaking limestone. These in turn pointed to the summit of the hill which rose steeply beyond them. Their action had scattered a half dozen shaggy mountain sheep who now chewed clumps of grass from a cautious distance.

"Cool" said Johnny "what a great fort".

Three corbelled beehive huts stood about eight feet tall occupying three points of an invisible scalene triangle. They dominated the western end of the grassy platform their stony spines to the ocean and its gales like three stoic sentinels guarding the land. The four boys ran towards them, the younger two racing like greyhound puppies while Luke and Paddy showed less exuberance but just as much interest. As is typical in these parts the sun for no reason broke through the banks of slow moving clouds and transformed the place into an ideal picnic area.

"Care to dine?" said dad taking the picnic bag from mam and spreading the foil backed blanket on the ground.

"It's not a fort Johnny. It's anything but. This is a monastery. Pretty good builders hey?" said dad slapping the lichen covered stones. They've stood here for a thousand years night and day, winter and summer. He paused, letting his hand run over one large stone married to another by gravity and the care and artistry of the long dead mason. "Great silent witnesses to history. They'll be here long after were pushing up the daisies. You'll bring your kids here just as granddad brought me". And with that dad gave them another slap which made one of the stones rumble, threatening to dislodge itself from its brothers to which it had been invisibly glued for a thousand years. The boys laughed as dad, red faced once again, tried to redeem the situation. "Yes the same as when I came here with grand dad."

"Was this place exactly the same when you came here as a boy dad?" asked Luke trying to imagine his father in short pants with dodgy hair like in the black and white photograph on the piano at home.

The question threw his father into a reflective silence as he remembered his own now deceased father holding his hand as they stood sheltering from the drenching rain in the first beehive hut.

"No it was raining heavily and granddad and I stood in there" he pointed at their shelter "and the huts were open to man and beast back then, there was no ugly green metal door like that". Dad gave a "tut tut" in disgust and gently kicked the offending door with his foot. "And the road wasn't as good, more pot holes. But everything else was here. Dad closed his eyes as if in a dream and trusted his ears "the breeze and the breaking surf and the cranky sea birds...

"Lunch" mam interrupted.

"And granny." Dad opened his eyes. "Granny was there too". The boys were looking at him waiting. "There was magic, back then lads. Magic! Before the scientists got hold of the world and answered all the questions and spoiled the mystery and turned us all into faithless heathens". And then as if to disengage from his reverie he suddenly grabbed Johnny's arm – "Along with the magic there were hungry bellies and ham and cheese sandwiches and hot sweet tea and tickles for the last to touch the picnic rug". And with that he took off towards mam leaving the children in his wake. The others sprinted after him but Mikey who had scaled a limestone boulder and was sitting on top was at a clear disadvantage. Dad slowed down to give him a chance but then held him back teasingly, inches from the rug. "Oh dear looks the tickle king has his victim" and dad tickled Mikey to exhaustion.

The best thing about dad's pointless excursions was mam's picnic. Today was one of the best although if the boys were to tell the truth they would have to admit, however reluctantly, that the location especially now with the hot sun heating their freshly freckled faces, was an important element in the picnic's success. Conversation gave way to silence as each person plucked something from the scene. Dad in particular seemed uncharacteristically subdued as he remembered fondly, times past when he was simply a son and had not yet assumed in his own fashion the raw burdens that settle differently on the shoulders of all fathers.

"So father" said Paddy who had the hungriest appetite for knowledge "Do you know anything about this place?"

"A lot more than about the Spanish wreck out there son" replied his father in a relaxed mellow voice. It was a monastery in Celtic times, a place in the wilderness where men came to think and study and pray. They tried to find remote places where they wouldn't be distracted by things like women" he winked at mam who smiled in return, "and money and fighting and anything else".

"Sounds awful" muttered Luke. "I mean why would you so that?"

Dad shook his head at how the world had changed. "They were trying to understand why we are here, what's our purpose in life. Get a handle on what it's all about".

"And did they find the answers to such great questions father?" said Paddy sounding like a voiceover in a 1950 sword and sandal epic movie.

"I don't know. They got some rough lessons though. The place was sacked on four occasions by the Vikings. The last raid was particularly brutal axe job by a nasty piece of work called Tomar according to the ancient annals".

"Ancient annals?" asked Luke

"Records by medieval monks which give us a brief account of the catastrophes that befell the land."

"Daddy can I go to the toilet?" interjected Mikey.

"Wees?"

Mikey nodded.

"Go on over there" said dad like a knowledgeable guide.

"I suppose Tomar and his boys burned all the wooden buildings, killed all the older monks and sold all the younger ones into slavery.

"Mikey no! Not over there" shouted dad as Mikey was about to pee against the side of one of the beehives. "Those stones are sacred fellah show some respect. Do your wees over there."

Mikey smiled and went over to the place designated as a latrine by his father. Of course he was unaware that this was the most sacred place in the old monastery for it was here that the first nine abbots had been buried and their saintly bones lay encased in stone three feet below where Mikey now urinated copiously while singing a nursery rhyme. "I need to wee too" said Johnny. "Ok" said dad, "over to the unholy toilet. Stay away from the sacred stones." And so Johnny too went off to pee all over the dead abbots.

"How about we get a metal detector up here and hunt for treasure?" suggested Luke remembering the gold chalices he had seen when dad had inflicted a day in the museum on them.

"I'd say all you'd find is grass and stones Luke. This wouldn't have been a wealthy monastery like the ones in richer parts of Ireland and besides these Vikings were a pretty thorough bunch. If there had been any gold old Tomar would have swiped it as quick as you'd pull up this grass." And to make his point more dramatically dad ripped up a clutch of grass from the earth.

Of course he was unaware once again, that less than two feet below the exact point where he was sitting was the largest undiscovered hoard of Celtic gold which had lain in a leather bag under a flat block of limestone, buried there on the morning of that fateful raid which the analysts had recorded.

There were fourteen monks in the monastery and that summer's morning as the sun broke on a calm ocean they had seen and heard Tomar's single ship with thirty warriors hugging the shore. It was apparent to all that he would have to beach his long ship at the first beaching point two miles further along the coast. Mass was said and the abbot an old man of forty called Dualta, issued instructions for an evacuation. He alone would stay to face the northmen. He dismissed the monks with a solemn blessing. Some wanted to fight and others wanted to die the martyr's death. Most were happy to run off and scaled the heights of the hill unaware that Tomar had divided his squadron and that a further thirty berserkers were moving in their direction as they ran. One young monk Fionan stayed alongside the old abbot. He had suggested poisoning the mead which the Vikings would naturally make for and of which there was a copious supply. But the old abbot would not condone murder so he laced the honey mead with a heavy laxative which caused the two men to chuckle. Fionan then carefully dug a hole away from the huts to conceal the monastery treasures; two finely wrought chalices and an equal number of patens, a bell and a jewel encrusted crucifix. So as not to know where they were hidden the old man retired to the first beehive cell where he knelt in prayer to speak with the god he would soon meet. Fionan carefully replaced the sod so that the earth would bear no marks of disturbance, the Vikings would know of no buried treasure. He released the sheep from their pens to scramble into the hills and hearing the hoots of butchery as the fleeing monks met the Vikings coming from the north, he hurried to the west assuming correctly as it happened – that the Viking raiders would not seek him there where the land tapered dangerously into the sea. Many years later as a half-starved crippled old beggar, disillusioned and dying without faith he told his tale to the annalist who gave it three lines in his embellished vellum book.

"Are the annals very big?" asked Luke. Imagining a dusty leather bound doorstep of a book with magic between its covers.

"Tragically short" replied dad once again puncturing the silent atmosphere of wonder. "Two or three lines. Just the date, Tomar, the monastery was sacked and not much else".

Luke shook his head and he showed annoyance in a facial scrunch that might end up giving him worry lines before his time. "Only a couple of lines in what was such a big event in those people's lives. Deserved a lot more."

Dad agreed but suggested that recording history was for much of human existence an expensive luxury. "Too busy just trying to get by. It was a hard slog just putting food on the table". And he popped the last ham sandwich into his mouth.

They all then fell to finishing the delicious rolls that mam had rustled up and so conversation surrendered briefly as mouths were used for other purposes. The descendants of the sheep who had once filled the bellies of the dead monks and Vikings without discrimination looked on, casually chewing clumps of fresh grass. While the bees whose ancestors once furnished the world with honey and mead and the accompanying stings sang their summer symphony in the wild flower meadow. Dad who always wolfed down his food finished first and so broke the silence.

"Well boys imagine it's the summer of the year 925 A.D. and you hear an alien sound on the sea and you look out and behold a great Viking long ship with a dragon's head at the front and a blood red sail slapping in the wind and thirty bearded warriors, their arms and shoulders rippling with muscle singing a rough song to their war god and the prow of their boat ploughing intently a road of white froth through the calm sea. You have an hour before they get here. What do you do?"

Mum lay back and watched the marriage of two clouds in the sky overhead and let her mind drift to things other than the early middle ages slaughter. The boys on the other hand were thinking of the very few permutations available to them in this tricky situation. Mikey, who was a prodigious poker player, was thinking in terms of bluff. Cardboard soldiers on the hillside like the three beehive cells would make the Vikings think twice about trying their luck. Johnny who had been exposed from early on to the thuggish fists of his older brothers was a hardened warrior for whom life was a series of (mostly lost) brawls. He was all for meeting the invaders on the beach as they got off their ships. If there was going to be a fight than there was no point in waiting for it to come to you. And he could see himself smashing them to pieces like one of the movie heroes who wins against the odds.

"I'd take out Tomar dad" said Paddy who nearly always saw conflict in terms of sport. "You know like in rugby match you whack their hard man and it weakens the other teams psychologically. Yeah I think if you got to Tomar early they might lose their stomach for the fight."

"Interesting approach Paddy. I don't know if Tomar would be would be so obliging. Would you be brave enough to go looking for him?"

"Ah sure you're probably going to die anyway". Both son and father, player and coach smiled. Most games they knew were won before the first kick. Luke was pursing his lips, shaking his head unconsciously yet intently. "This was bad, very bad". He was thinking, he was processing the data, the landscape, slope , distances, numbers, weaponry, skill in battle and eventually came to the conclusion that the monks hadn't a chance and had only themselves to blame.

"What do you think Luke?" invited dad. "Hopeless" he blurted in a hopeless voice "you might as well jump off the cliff over there. They were amateurs when it came to defence. No wonder the place was sacked so often and then abandoned. For smart men they were right fools."

"Maybe defence wasn't a priority fellah".

"I think I'd have been a Viking" replied Luke. Dad laughed.

"Here my warrior lord" said mam handing her husband a steaming hot cup of coffee. The clouds decided that the sun had hogged the heavenly stage too much and started drifting across his face reducing the temperature instantly by a couple of degrees. Dad wrapped the coffee with both hands feeling its warmth on his ageing fingers on whose rough knuckles were written the chapters of fights which he had won and lost.

"Do you know what I'd like?" he said slowly, deliberately aware that unanswered questions evoke the curiosity of all humans. All that is except his sons who showed no interest in what their father would like. Slightly crestfallen, but stubbornly determined he continued.

" I'd like to get a hoist and suspend myself over that beehive hut" he waited for the inevitable inquiry which inevitably didn't come.

"Would anyone like to know why I'd like to be suspended over the hut?" He paused. There was silence. Luke and Paddy were enjoying themselves ignoring their father's clear need for attention, but Paddy couldn't hold in the laughter and it burst from him in a big guffaw which frightened the curios sheep on the hillside. Luke followed his brother and the two rolled on the grass laughing together.

"Mam I think these two were switched at birth. We have nothing in common genetically" complained dad.

"Hooray the gods show kindness at last" replied the two older boys as their laughter started to subside.

"Ok father" said Paddy still giggling "I'm sorry, please tell us why you'd like to be suspended over the hut like an eejit". More belly aching laughter.

Dad waited until the comedy subsided. "Well you see that capstone sticking up. I'd say the last thing to touch that was the hand of the monkish builder. So imagine I could touch the D.N.A. of that builder resting undisturbed for a thousand years" he wrapped his hand around the mug and drank. "You'd be touching history lads". And then as if to emphasise the profound nature of the point he slowly repeated "touching history". Paddy stroked his beardless chin and rolled his eyes skyward.

The old abbot also wrapped his hands around the wooden chalice and drank what his faith told him was the blood of his god. His eyes were closed but he could hear the raiders around him and he could smell the sweat of one no more than a metre in front of him. He cared not to open his eyes to look upon his murderer so he kept them closed in prayer. But he heard the swoosh of the battle axe through the air mingle with the breaking waves below him to the west where the world tumbled to oblivion. The sea birds scratched the air above his head wondering if the Viking raid might provide them with some cheap pickings, and the angry bees whose hives had been turned over mingled their buzz with the curses and unholy vows snorted in a foreign tongue. A good time to die and the battle axe did its work.

The raid had yielded little for Tomar but he was content to butcher older monks, enslave the younger ones, roast a few sheep and drink heavily of the monks' mead. In a feat of athleticism amid the burning barns and sties the drunken chief leapt onto the top of the beehive hut to the applause of his brothers in arms. He drained the phlegm from deep inside his lungs and spat heavily onto the capstone. He then took another deep draught of mead but quickly started to feel his bowels loosen. Fionan's laxative had worked its magic and a river of liquid diarrhoea poured out of the great man onto the capstone of the hut.

"Yes" said dad still imagining the builder proudly patting the last stone in place. "Just imagine what you'd be touching".

Luke and Paddy gave one more of those juvenile sarcastic "hmms" while stroking their chins and then chuckled some more.
Chapter 2

Luke's Story

Luke was not just a self-important teenager. He was also bored. There is a time in the affairs of all teenagers when they outgrow the family. Summer holidays with his dysfunctional parents and brothers, punctuated by meaningless excursions, bad weather, trips to the same old same old places which hadn't been interesting the first time, and so many rows didn't do it for him anymore. He wondered how he ever found the family holiday anything but the equivalent of a two week relationship with a polite ugly girl. You hate it but you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so you let it linger.

He had been saving the big chip with its sharp carbonised point till last. Still thinking about a polite but ugly girl he had managed to escape from, he lost himself in a day dream prodding and pushing the beast of a chip around the now empty plate, imagining it to be a savage Minotaur that had to be controlled and manipulated at a safe distance. The chip seemed to snarl at each contact with the metal fork which Luke was starting to use as gladiators of old used Neptune's trident. He then considered the option which a large net would provide. A well timed and precisely targeted cast and the manic, growling chip would be reduced to impotence. However miss and the crazed bloodthirsty creature would grow in confidence and now be able to focus single mindedly on the trident. Luke swished the chip across the plate and with one rapid swoop stabbed it while still in motion piercing its crisp hide and feeling the softer mushy flesh beneath its armoured coat. He twirled the fork while the chip still writhed and wriggled, then satisfied that the combat was at an end he popped it into his mouth. "Thanks mam and dad that was delicious" he lied.

The 'treat' of fish and chips in a restaurant overlooking the crashing Atlantic as his dad had promised had turned into a disaster. His younger brothers both wanted to sit facing the sea but Paddy the older of the three had craftily occupied one of the two seats with the necessary view and had steadfastly refused to budge. Dad was about to declare war and give the long winded, over used account beginning with the hated words "when I was your age" and ending fifteen minutes later with a sulky "so a bit of gratitude would be appreciated, thank you". Mam knew that if dad got to make this speech all would be lost, so she went into United Nations mode digging deep into her deep wells of tolerance and patience. "How about we share?" she smiled wearing her imaginary blue helmet. "Mikey you can sit there for ten minutes then Johnny you can sit there for ten minutes".

"And what about Paddy?" they both complained in chorus.

"Ah ah" said Paddy teasing most unhelpfully "possession is nine tenths of the law" he said recalling what his dad had said in a conversation only yesterday.

"Isn't that right dad?" he added smugly. Mam looked at dad and then all eyes turned to him. Dad was about to explode but a grumpy waitress had arrived and everyone had to put on their happy family faces.

Of course Johnny and Mikey didn't like anything on the menu except the cheese burger which was predictably off the menu because they had remarkably run out of baps for the burgers. Eventually they grudgingly settled for fish and chips which dad promised would be exquisite. Chapter two of the disaster struck when the waitress brought out four glasses of lemonade. Mikey had only taken his first sip when he replaced the glass on the table accidently knocking it over and creating a Noah like flood everywhere. Dad didn't need to go to the bathroom but was sent there by mam. Mikey began to cry while the others hugged their lemonade tightly in case they were asked to share.

Chapter three began when dad tempted fate by heartily observing how hungry he was. "I'm starving. I'm really looking forward to a big plate of fish and chips. Cod straight from the ocean". The cod in fact came from a box in the freezer. The plate was big but the fish was a skeletal dwarf from a famine stricken part of the ocean, accompanied by a countable number of chips who had failed P.E. at chip school, the empty space on the plate filled by sagging pieces of lettuce who were in need of therapy for depressed lettuces. The silent disappointment was loud.

At this stage the disaster was upgraded to a catastrophe, in the long wait for food Mikey had unscrewed the top of the salt seller. Johnny now picked it up and emptied a small mole hill of salt which as it was Johnny quickly became a mountain, all over his dinner. He instantly burst out crying, while Mikey equally instantly burst out laughing. In his defence Mikey told mam who was trying to rescue Johnny's unrescuable dinner that dad had told them how he had done something similar to his friends when he was a kid. Mam turned with fire in her eyes towards dad who red faced and silent covered his eyes and went to eating.

Johnny's dinner, like the promised treat was beyond hope trapped, in the ninth circle of hell reserved for hopeless causes. The ship was sinking and dad was frantically trying to salvage some of the floating wreckage of their excursion. His eyes lighted on the ice cream menu which pictured all sorts of attractive desserts at inflated prices that would have been a rip off in down town Paris. He was dangling these in front of Johnny and Mikey as a weary parent dangles a rattle in front of a screaming child who looks like they've got another couple of hours of high octane crying left in the tank and has every intention of using it. The boys naturally weren't impressed by the idea of the banana split "can I have it without the banana?"

Mam took the desert card and gathered the chicks together to explain and entice in her primary school teacher voice. Dad seized the moment. "Here", he said to Luke and Paddy handing them a five euro note each. "Stay together. You know where the car is. We'll see you back there in thirty minutes. Remember stay together." Luke and Paddy were glad to escape but their siblings saw what was happening and Paddy couldn't resist letting them see the five euro note as he needlessly changed it from one pocket to the other. As Luke reached the door of the restaurant he could hear his father saying "when I was your age"...... the ship had finally sunk.

The general warmth of the late afternoon sun felt good on his face and the cocktail of wave sound and salty fragrance from the sea was refreshing to his senses. He briefly felt like a man unfairly condemned who had escaped and was scouring the breeze of freedom and sanity.

"What will we do with our unimaginable riches, Luke?" inquired Paddy who was two years younger than Luke. They had shared many pages from the book of life, not always harmoniously but in time this would be the glue that would cement their relationship.

"What are the options?"

"Main St. man for two reasons."

"Which are?"

"One, it's the only place with shops. "

Luke nodded, the reason was sound. "And the second?" he enquired

"There's a sport store there."

Not so sound thought Luke but the first reason was good enough. They walked along the marina towards the main street past the pleasure craft bobbing on the oily waters. On the far side a large commercial trawler was unloading boxes of frozen fish into waiting trucks whose doors smoked with icy vapours while seagulls cackled like aggressive beggars their hungry bellies aggravated by the bloody smells and sights in tantalising abundance before them. The fishermen themselves scurried about like the gulls, and like the gulls they spoke a language which Luke could not comprehend. It made him think of the wider, rougher world from which these strangers had come. Had they wives and children waiting for them in some backward country where the very fabric of nature and life was different to this relaxed and sun dappled marina. He took in the people drinking ice cold drinks in designer clothes. Here was a country of law and order, of fresh running water and electricity where the stuff of life was so plentiful and white toothed ladies had big decisions to make about whether to wear their designer sunglasses around their neck or use them to push up their freshly laundered hair.

Luke had reached the age where life, his own and that of the planet he was trying make sense of, was no longer simple. It was all so very complex at times throwing up big thoughts that hurt his brain.

They had come to the sports store a small colourful cave of overpriced clothes and foot wear. A pyramid of precariously balanced footballs was the only evidence of sports otherwise it was really a clothes shop. Paddy was immediately drawn towards a pair of Nike football boots whose tag screamed out "half price" in psychedelic colours which reminded Luke of the lures used to catch fish. These metal baits swam like quicksilver in the ocean, their magic twists too powerfully irresistible for the beguiled fish. He thought of the dead fish frozen in boxes at the marina who should have resisted the charms of the fishermen. Luke had some sense that these shoes had been made by someone younger than Paddy in a Vietnamese sweat shop being paid a bowl of rice a day. Some poor half educated kid who would be dead before he was thirty from exhaustion and environmental poisoning, coughing up his guts in a twenty first century workhouse, then dumped without a prayer in an unmarked pauper's grave and sheeted in lime to accelerate the process of decay. The price had been slashed from 215€ to 104€ and was a" must buy! "Luke shook his head in disgust.

"Can I help you?" Said a smiling young and very attractive shop assistant who was folding some clothes that a previous customer had left in a disorganised heap.

"Actually Yes. I'm having a really crap day. My younger brothers have spent a large chunk of it fighting, my parents are at the end of their shelf life and my other brother is going to spend twenty minutes in here trying on shoes that he has no intention of buying because all we've got is a lousy fiver, which let's face it, won't buy you anything here except those dodgy tennis balls which are probably made in slave labour camps in China by undernourished four year olds. And I'm still starving because in the fancy restaurant down the way they give you a big plate and no food and I don't have a girlfriend. But hey you're a fine looking babe with a fit body and although you're a few years older than me why don't we give it a try? "

Luke thought about saying this but decided on the less adventurous "no thanks, just browsing."

The girl smiled back and was about to return to the cash desk when Paddy asked her if they had the special offer €104 rip off in size eleven. He had big feet for his age. "I think so. Let me have a look". She disappeared through a door behind a life-size cut out of some unknown famous sweating female athlete whose piercing gaze told you that you needed Powerade isotonic thirst quenching flavoured drinks to relinquish lost salts and make you a winner. Luke retched. He'd had enough "Listen Pad. I'm going next door. When you're finished here follow me into the next shop. Is that clear?"

"But dad told us to stay together", Paddy taunted.

"I'll be five minutes max in the shop next door so I'll be back before you've tried on your precious boots. So wait here"

With that crystal clear instruction, Luke made his way to the exit while Paddy began to explore the rest of the shop.

There are different types of disappointments in life. When a girl you really fancy goes out with a guy you really loathe, that's at the serious end of the disappointment spectrum making it around 8 of 10. If she leaves you to go out with him after he has beaten you up in front of everyone and posted it on YouTube and it goes viral, that's probably a 10. Going to see a movie you've been eagerly anticipating and finding it sold out is probably a six. Exam results are always a five or a four, they are among the more easily bearable disappointments. Flopping down in front of the TV not expecting anything to be on and finding out there's nothing but cricket, current affairs, shows about gardening and cooking is about a two or "disappointing but I'll get over it". As disappointments go, the shop next door was about a two but given Luke's dour mood since being forced out of bed that morning by his irritatingly happy parents, it was about a three.

The shop itself looked like a house whose windows were too big. The windows themselves were remarkably clean precisely square and plainly framed by dark ebony wood. A dust free pine coloured wood venetian blind obscured all life behind the glass. And that was more or less it. Luke wondered if it was a specialist opticians or a solicitors practice, till he saw in gold leaf lettering in medieval script above the door "Antique Adventures Shop" below which was a sign seemingly suspended in mid-air that simply said "Open".

Luke stood back to the edge of the pavement and considered the two shop fronts. The sports shop was a master class in marketing, dynamic and energetic with luminous colours screaming at you to enter and famous sports men and women insisting that sport wasn't just something you played, it was a life choice for winners. Losers needn't apply. With chiselled chins and sculpted torsos they told you to come to the battlefield. Beyond Wayne Rooney's scowl, Luke could see his brother Paddy examining the pyramid of differently coloured footballs which were precariously balanced in the middle of the store guarded by the cardboard stars. Suspended overhead was the imperative instruction "Failure comes to those who never try!"

His eyes returned to the "shop next door" which was as attractive as a disco in a nursing home. And just as Luke was shaking his head he noticed a sign in the window in a script that he could only describe as "yawn" on what appeared to be a rectangle of thick, white card the sort one expects undertakers to hand out with their business details for cut price coffins and burials.

He wondered how he had missed that white card the first time. It had the opposite effect of the flashing neon sign- it almost suggested "keep walking; there's more life in the old folks' home at the end of the street." Luke headed towards the window and read the text to himself "Due to a serious lack of customers we have lowered our price. All currencies accepted signed the manager. Antiques adventure shop." What a loser thought Luke. This guy must have had a worse business teacher than me." Luke as you might have guessed had a very bad business teacher, the sort who ironically wouldn't have made it in business. "People who need counselling become counsellors and people who couldn't run a business become business teachers", his dad would often quip.

Just then his gaze returned to the sports shop where he could clearly make out Paddy closely examining a luminous orange football which was at the centre of the base of the precariously balanced football pyramid. He found himself saying softly "" Paddy I hope you're not intending..." but his eyes were pulled back to the vacant plate glass window of the "Antiques Adventure Shop." The sign about the "serious lack of customers" was no longer to be found and there suspended in its place was a new bolder, bigger effort informing Luke "all adventures €5 today".

What struck Luke most was that there was a black star at either end of the appeal. "Woooo" he thought. "We're starting to lose the run of ourselves".

And then he saw Paddy place both hands on the luminous orange ball. Luke only had time to mutter "I don't believe..." before the entire edifice of footballs began to spill like a fevered dam burst of colour. Luke's survival instincts kicked in and just as a soldier in a bombardment dives into the nearest shell hole without appraising the dangers within, he put his hand on the brass handle of the door of the shop before him and entered.
Chapter 3

As the door opened it triggered a quaint sounding bell which announced his arrival. Luke felt a surge of wind which ruffled his sand coloured hair as if in opening the door he had created a draft. But then everything was still except the single tick of a clock. Luke waited at the door for the expected second tick but none came.

What did come were the words "Ah welcome young man" packaged in a strong but gentle, manly voice. The owner of the voice was standing upright behind a polished walnut desk surrounded by a polished brass rail whose perfect bend skewered the reflection of both Luke and the owner of the voice. Luke thought he had detected a hint of a fruity fragrance, which he now realised was due to a large orange sitting untouched by the brass rail. Beside it slightly larger in size was an hour glass. The hour glass was not filled with the usual fine free flowing sand but with what seemed like, small but not tiny, perfectly round glass heads mostly black and white but with an occasional stand out red. Seeing the boy's focus linger on the hour glass, the manager tapped it with the index finger of his left hand and said in a pleasant voice "it appears your time has started."

Luke noticed that a white bead had dislodged itself from the upper section of the hour glass and had remained suspended just below its stable, sleeping brothers above.

"It doesn't seem to be travelling very fast" observed Luke pointing as the motionless bead. The man was what polite people call elderly. Luke struggled to put an age on him. He seemed to have the wisdom of an ancient and yet he had the energy and vigour on someone his father's age. Unlike his father, he didn't seem to have the care worn lines which life's battles etch on the faces of life's fighters. Nor did he have the bloodshot tiredness that he often noticed in his dad's eyes when he was making an effort, but struggling. Forty Luke thought. No 80 eighty, and then gave up.

Luke noticed that his comment about his bead not travelling very fast briefly struck the not so old, old man in a way that made him dress his face with a look of mild surprise. "An astute observation young man. Me so old and you so young. But then time is relative. We could have a very pleasant and enjoyable conversation for..." He stopped and sought Inspiration and an answer in the air above him. "Say half an hour and it would only feel like five minutes. But if we were to find ourselves in the darkest dungeons of the Spanish inquisition." He paused as if remembering something, the colour of his face drained to white momentarily and Luke detected the faintest of shivers. "Well I have to say five minutes in one of those places feels like five days. Yes", he continued his colour returning. "Time is relative."

Luke found himself nodding. The big treat dinner of shrunken fish and chips had felt like five hours. As the old man had been speaking, Luke had been multitasking. He had listened because it was both polite to listen and because the man had vitality in his speech which made him want to listen. Furthermore his accent was puzzle wrapped in an enigma. Luke found himself hearing words pronounced in a spectrum of accents. He heard two or three clearly Irish inflections. The flat Dublin tone which often slipped from his father, the musical Cork lilt which reminded him of his grandfather and the rather black heavy rain drenched dialects that the terrorists in films about Northern Ireland spoke. But he also caught echoes of Cornish pirates, premiership footballers, New Zealand rugby players, American presidents and BBC newsreaders. It was like a stew of sound as if this man had learnt English from every environment and from none.

But while Luke had been listening to this man's playful musings on time, he had also been taking in his surroundings which by comparison to the clutter next door, were spare to the point of monastic. The space itself was the size of a large living room. The floor was white marble through which thin streams of black twisted and coursed in unpredictable directions. Luke tried to remember from his geography classes what ancient forces had caused these black veins to penetrate the pure white of the stone. But he quickly gave up. The walls were also of white marble but this time without the dissecting rivers of black, and set into them were white sconces in the shape of medieval shields from which clean white light illuminated the room. The desk itself was in the far right, its thick rich honey colour a pleasant relief from the overwhelming white. The far wall was draped with white curtains which fell like a thick sheet of snow from ceiling to floor. Luke wondered what lay beyond this material which carried a feint motif of thorned roses growing around upturned swords with ornate cruciform handles. His eyes having finished their odyssey around the room absorbing, decoding, deciphering and processing his surroundings finally remarked the dust free cleanliness and the silence. In particular he wondered why the noise of the human and mechanical traffic from the street failed to penetrate, or how it was not possible to detect even a decibel of the rap music that he knew was still blaring in the shop next door. He tried to make sense of the roses and swords realising that the same pattern was delicately inlaid on the shields shaped wall sconces.

When his gaze returned to the oldish man Luke noted that he had removed the black jacket of his suit to reveal a matching waistcoat buttoned tight against a stomach which gave no hint of a middle aged spread. Meticulously he hung the jacket on a beautifully crafted silver clothes hanger, hanging it in turn on a peg on the wall behind him which Luke hadn't noticed before. This reminded him of the sign in the window which he could have sworn hadn't been there when he had looked first. Things seemed to magically appear. The jacket having been hung up the man now pulled from his desk a neatly folded apron the colour of a brown paper bag. It was then that Luke was taken a back as he saw, on the walnut desk beside the solitary orange and the sand glass with its still suspended white bead, a large metal helmet that one associated with films about Normans and Vikings. Surely that hadn't been there when he came in.

"Where did that come from?" Luke asked in a bold assertive voice born out of his surprise.

The mystery man had just pulled on a pair of soft white cotton gloves and held the helmet aloft. "This is Mambrino's helmet. Which as you might have guessed came from Mambrino's head. It's one of our most popular adventurers well at least among the male customers. The ladies don't care for it. In fact I might be wrong but in all the time I've been here I don't think any lady has ever chosen this fellow" he said, holding up the helmet for examination. "And" he continued tracing his finger over a large gash in the side, "I don't think it has ever returned from its adventure undamaged." He shook his head in playful resignation. "Look." The invitation brought Luke closer to the desk in order to inspect the object.

"That's a nasty gash alright. I hope for Mambrino's sake he wasn't wearing at that time."

The man smiled and Luke smiled back. The joke wasn't exactly a cracker but it had lightened the atmosphere.

"Unfortunately I can't reveal what happens in each adventure. An intrinsic part of an adventure after all is the mystery about what's going to happen. The explorer after all doesn't know what's behind the line of eucalyptus trees on an unexplored ridge opposite does he? A pioneer doesn't know whether the river is alive with crocodiles before he crosses it. Adventure is a risky descent" he paused "or ascent into the unknown. So I can't tell you what caused this" he pointed at the scar in the metal helmet "nor what the consequences were. For you to find all that out you'd have to take the artefact. That's how we refer to the adventurers."

"So if I take this artefact" replied Luke proudly using the official word." You'll tell me all about these things."

"No no that's not how it works. I'm just the Curator of the artefacts, the Guardian some might say; others might call me their Doctor." He tapped the damaged helmet and spoke with an almost childish giggle. That coupled with his apron which was the colour of granny's tea dispelled the last cobwebs of a strained atmosphere. Luke found himself infected with the curator's good humour. He even felt like telling him a few home truths about advertising and marketing and above all window dressing. He wanted to point out the fact that the room was far too white and most of all that as the potential customer, the only potential customer, he still hadn't a clue what he was buying or if there was anything for sale apart from Mambrino's damaged headgear.

"Unfortunately" the curator interrupted Luke's thought flow. He was holding the helmet aloft examining the damage to the inside "Mambrino's Helmet will be off the menu today." Luke frowned in disappointment although not really sure why exactly he was disappointed.

"I know, I know," said the curator "it's the nature of the beast. I'd have to say that apart from Charles Martel's battle axe or Tomar's war hammer, Mambrino's helmet is the artefact that comes back in the most need of repair." "Tomar" whispered Luke. Wasn't he the Viking that dad had said had raided these coasts and ravaged his way up the rivers plundering and slaughtering. He pictured him with a war hammer imagining him with muscles of a WWE wrestler salivating like a savage dog, mercilessly swinging his mammoth weapon which cut the air leaving vapour trails of freshly smoking blood.

"Of course the compensation is that the final part of Mambrino's adventure takes place the orange Groves in Valencia. Whoops I shouldn't have told you that." He said with a guilty look which was quickly replaced by a more carefree expression. "Sure nobody's going to be the wiser. You look like a chap who can keep a secret." He tapped his nose in the way that old people do when they want to keep things quiet. "Anyway the helmet always returns with an orange inside." He picked up the fruit which as if in recognition of its role in the conversation, started to shed its fruity scent.

"Certainly smells beautiful" said Luke " but it's hardly great compensation for all the work you're going to have to do to restore a Mambrino's head gear." Luke felt a little smug with his irrelevant vocabulary and his mature if a little cynical insight.

"Head gear hmmm" chuckled the old man. "That's all it is really, but the orange? You know what you are wrong there friend. No amount of your dosh" he smiled at his own reverence "could buy this chap"

"You can get one even bigger in the supermarket around the corner" countered Luke triumphantly. "And I'd say you'd be charged no more than fifty cent"

"As I say you're wrong there. What you'd buy and probably be over charged for is not Mambrino's orange from the Cid's orchards outside Valencia. You would buy some deformed descendant of this fellow whose genetic structure has been twisted and mutilated to suit the commercial endeavours of the traders. Its juice would be a form of poison, it flesh as nutritious as paper, its flavour as sweet as wood." He shook his head and a deeper look of disgust captured his face and held it for longer than the other emotion. "All they've succeeded in doing is growing five imperfect clones of this chap" he rolled the orange in his hands with the deft touch of a casino card dealer. Luke was impressed almost mesmerised as he carried on delicately messaging the fruit releasing more of its fragrance while continuing to talk.

"So instead of having one perfectly natural reward for the farmer's labour, you now have five semi edible, perfectly unnatural disfigured creatures. You might eat one and throw out the others because they don't appetise" he replaced the orange on a small ornate silver saucer like tray on the counter. Before Luke could ask where that had come from, the curator requested his permission to cut the orange open so that they could share the fruit.

"By all means" consented Luke, slightly overwhelmed.

"I like to use Moliere's pen knife for this type of operation." He produced from an apron pouch a small knife with an ivory handle on which was carved what Luke recognised as the scouting crest. The blade itself was a perfect scimitar of shining steel about the length of his small finger. "It was a gift from the king of France. You know in recognition of a play he liked. I can't remember which one. Louis you know the fourteenth Louis wasn't always generous. But that's the way kings are". He paused. "Were I suppose would be a better word. Not too many of them left". Luke shook his head and muttered a polite "no" in agreement.

"Of course, it's a pen knife, not a fruit knife. You can imagine how Moliere would have used it to sharpen his goose quills before dipping them in his ink pots. I like to think of him frantically shaving away at the quill's end, suffering from writer's block as he struggled with that great speech in 'Tartuffe' do you know the one?

Luke didn't feel this was the appropriate time to tell the old fellow that he'd never heard of the ever so famous Moliere, nor was he familiar with the great speech in the ever so never heard of 'Tartuffe'. He thought of bluffing with a dignified "ah yes Tartuffe, how could anyone forget the beauty and music of those lines. How does it go again? "

But the old man was lost as if in a dream. And Luke realised he didn't need endorsement or encouragement. He began to quote in what seemed to Luke like perfect French, assuming the personality of the weary clown from the play. Luke recognised the sweet luxury of the French tongue but while he didn't understand the words he felt the deep resignation of one who was sick of wearing the mask the world had stuck on him.

As he spoke with total focus on the words the Curator began, seemingly unaware, to peel the orange. And as the knife pierced the skin it was as if the air all around was assaulted by an army of nymphs carrying the sunbursts of sun ripened fruit. The citrus drenched sylphs of fragrance danced undisturbed in the air. Luke's senses had never experienced such an overwhelming attack he could taste, smell almost feel the orange blossom. It was how he imagined sunlight would taste. He gulped deep breaths of the perfumed air craving more and more.

The old man had finished his speech and upon opening his eyes noted the transformation of the young gentleman before him. He spoke slowly and profoundly. "We have lost something. N'est pas?"

Luke nodded.

"I think you'll agree my friend no such fruit can be purchased today." And with that he allowed time and silence for the appreciation beauty of the fruit. Luke agreed privately that both were appropriate. "But," he re-engaged with a vitality that suggested purpose, "the past can also be a terrible place. There is much that we have lost and good riddance I say. War, want, famine, pestilence, suffering on an unimaginable scale." He shook his head profoundly, tormented by what Luke surmised were images of misery and horror. For some reason Luke remembered the ragged fishermen he had seen earlier unloading fish at the marina, and then imagined the boy who had made the football boots on sale next door, coughing up the industrial solvents from his young , dying lungs.

"There is a lot of suffering and misery still. It hasn't gone away," Luke added.

"Indeed." And as if to show that the point deserved deep consideration he repeated the word. "Indeed". The Curator suddenly looked older and more vulnerable; a sadness crept into his eyes which seemed to water slightly. "But suffering has many faces, some of which aren't so obvious. We can mistake rags for misery and a fur coat for happiness."

Luke's interested face invited him to continue.

"It's as if we have forgotten to roam. No more frontiers, no more exploring, no more adventures. People are like the oranges they eat- safe, conformist, tasteless." His eyes which had roamed round the empty room now returned to engage Luke directly.

"A woman came in not long ago. Talked a great deal and listened very little. She told me how stressed she was and how her work was taking over her life. She was working so hard she couldn't get any exercise and was afraid of growing fat. Thankfully, her word my young friend not mine, because she worked so hard she was able to afford to fit a mini gym in her house. Her treadmill kept her fit while she 'walked' alone in her expensive house stopping herself getting fat. She came in here talked a lot looked around and left. So sad. Such a waste of life's gifts."

The old man shook his head and Luke was reminded of a football coach shaking his head when the kid with all the talent turned out to be a waster. "She brought to mind the passage in Homer." Once again he stopped and sought in the space beyond the words of the Greek whose name had a dusty familiarity for Luke. "'The Gods envy us because we are mortal. Because any moment now may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. We will never be here again upon this sun warmed earth.' Such a waste indeed."

Luke knew when silence was required and this was one of those moments. He could picture the well preserved but ageing middle aged woman frantically sweating on the treadmill and for some reason in his mental picture she had pet hamsters in a cage beside her doing the same thing. The old man was right - sad and wasteful.

"But anyway" , the righteous old man bounced back, his mood swings reminding Luke of the ticking metronome gathering dust on the piano at home. His face was suddenly hearty and positive and brimming with enthusiasm. "We could talk all day but you'd have no time left for your adventure. Remember time may be relative but the clock is still ticking and he tapped the hour glass.

"To be perfectly honest" and Luke felt strangely comfortable in this quirky old man's presence to be honest and perfectly so, "I'm not exactly sure what's going on. In fact I haven't a clue. Please could you explain to me what ' Antique Adventures' actually is?"

"Why it's what it says it is. 'Antique' by definition is anything over one hundred years. That's the health and safety part to use the modern lingo." Two broad smiles broke out at the awkward effort to be cool. "We don't want you meeting someone you might know, do we?"

"Like who?"

"Grandparents, parents, friends," he paused for effect, "yourself," he added finishing with a look of parental protection. "And 'adventures' is fairly self-explanatory too, no? So you get an adventure that is over one hundred years old. Nothing that would break the trade descriptions act, hey? Exactly what it says on the ..."

"Tin." Luke finished the advertising jingle and the Curator chuckled. But it was clear that he was even more confused and despite the fact that he liked this likeable old codger, he was thinking that for all his likeability he was several cents short of the full euro. If Luke had not been the polite, tolerant person he was he would have guffawed with laughter and taken the mickey out of this simpleton. The old chancer was nuts and he wasn't going to part with his fiver here but would be spending it making himself a tad fatter in the shop around the corner, on some attractively, unhealthily, fattening, energetically packaged products that told you comfortable fictions on their wrappers. '100% of your daily vitamin X needs!"

But instead for some inexplicable reason Luke asked simply "how?"

"Well," said the Curator excitedly, "let's first see the colour of the time bead." He set a pair of pince nez glasses on his nose and held the hour glass aloft turning it carefully before his tired eyes. "One must be certain that there's only one bead. It is a rare bird indeed but two beads can fall like twins, but never triplets. That would be too much."

Luke nodded as he had often nodded many times to his physics teacher. Both the teacher and the Curator accepted the nod as meaning that he understood and agreed but what it really meant was that he hadn't a bull's notion about what was going on. A part of him wanted to turn on his heels and leave but it seemed unacceptably rude to do so, like getting up from one of granddad's endless memory lane trips before it had ended.

"White! White is good."

Luke's eyes were drawn back to the hourglass and he wanted to ask why the bead had still not fallen and was seemingly breaking Newton's famous law, what conjury was at work to keep it slightly suspended beneath the others, and why only one bead had fallen despite the large aperture which surely allowed the others to tumble out too. But the response of the Curator to the colour of the bead shifted his interest to why 'white' was good. He asked.

"Well of course they're all good. It's just they are different. White means you'll leave something there in the adventure itself which you can retrieve later, at your own convenience as they say."

"And black?"

"Well you didn't get black did you," said the Curator playfully. Luke smiled at the childish teasing, a smile that was so wonderfully endearing and disarming that the Curator was left with no choice.

"A hungry mind. That's good too. Black young man," he sighed a fake sigh as if he were regretfully breaking some secret rule, "is the reverse of white. So instead of leaving something there you take something from the adventure."

"Like Mambrino's orange?" hazarded Luke.

"Hmmmm" struggled the Curator. "Not exactly like the orange. I've already told you that the fruit is a reward for me, compensation for my work." And he threw his eyes over the helmet's gash. "Besides Mambrino is a red bead." He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Red is a risky fellow. It's for those looking for a bit more spice. 'Adrenalin Junkies' I think is how they are called." The words seemed ridiculous in the old man's mouth. "But" his voice now returned to its normal cadence with the hint of a giggle, "they often get more than they bargained for. You, my friend with the hungry mind will get the right measure with 'white'."

"Tell me more about the red," demanded Luke beginning to feel short changed with the boring white bead.

The old man's face took on the troubled look that Luke often saw in his parents' faces, when they were asked a question which involved a level of knowledge they were struggling to impart to their innocent children.

"Red leaves a mark. A scar for example, a lost tooth, a bad bruise or even a limp. In the case of one eager fellow a tattoo in a very private place. I'm sure that took some explaining," he chuckled.

Luke chuckled too. "Perhaps I'll steer clear of red so."

"Oh no you didn't choose your little white friend. The bead recognised the need. You need this adventure at this time in your life. Maybe you'll return when you're older, and I've a feeling you will, and then you might get a red fellow if that is what you need."

"Ok" said Luke who had a more immediate need at this moment for order and tidiness. "I'm going to get an adventure that's more than a hundred years old where I can leave something that I can retrieve later." He paused and then they both completed the contract with a light hearted flourish, "at my own convenience."

"A good listener with a hungry mind. A powerful cocktail."

Luke dismissed the flattery which made him blush. "Is it some kind of virtual experience? Do I have to wear a visor and a special glove?"

"Virtual! Virtual!" The Curator spat out the words as a MasterChef spits out substandard soup. "Where's the adventure in 'virtual'. That would be like running on a treadmill when you have the hills and forests on your doorstep." Luke was slightly embarrassed as he was lumped in with the sad wasteful lady but he also got a distinct whiff of salesman's hype.

"Visor? Why would you need a visor? As for the special glove. Yes, you will need a protective glove."

"Ah ha" thought Luke. It was one of those advanced computer games where he would be empowered in a virtual world by wearing one of those hi-tech black gloves made from synthetic materials only a few freaked out scientists in Palo Alto knew about.

"Those ones over there should be an excellent fit."

Luke turned around to see a small table again in polished walnut on which lay, crossed right over left, a pair of brilliant white cotton gloves similar to those worn by the Curator. Luke didn't recall seeing the table when he had entered first. In fact he clearly remembered the monastic emptiness of the place.

"Was that," he pointed at the table "always there?"

"Don't be silly," replied the old man dismissively. "Of course it wasn't." Luke's relief was momentary. "Nothing is always," and he placed heavy emphasis on the word "there. Now come, come, you don't want to waste anymore of your time gabbling with a withered, old, has been like me. When that white bead touches the base your adventure is over. "

"It doesn't look like doing it any time soon." Luke was mildly bewildered by everything that had happened. There was no such thing in Luke's world as magic and he was still trying to work out how the bead trick worked. He had a notion that some form of vacuum was at play or maybe magnetism but just as he was about to enquire further he was pre-empted by the Curator fussily instructing "gloves, gloves, gloves. Come on. It's the highlight of the day. I always find it exciting to see what adventure each client takes. I have to say I'm particularly intrigued with your case after our very enlightening chat."

Obediently, Luke walked over to the table and put on the cotton gloves which were remarkably well fitting, soft and white but otherwise unremarkable. 'If you don't change that awful front window, it'll be the only highlight of your day' he thought to himself.

"Now the gloves act as a shield preventing contact with the artefacts. They allow you to explore, to touch and hold the artefacts, but you cannot in any circumstance allow them to come into contact with your skin. Contact seals the contract." He paused as if trying to remember something vital. "Or your hair. Don't let them touch your hair. One very foolish fellow, very silly indeed, put on Lady Godiva's wimple as a joke. Not exactly the adventure he'd bargained for I can tell you. Steer clear of that one is my advice."

"Didn't Lady Godiva have to ride naked through the streets?" asked Luke glad to have been listening the day dad bored them with that story.

The Curator nodded with the trace of a mischievous grin. "Yes she did and so did the silly fellow. Even a fool learns something but sometimes he has to wait until it hits him. Served him right for haggling over the price."

While Luke didn't feel that the remark was a subtle reminder, he did realise that he was about to make a contract and that being an honourable person all contracts must be honoured. He dug his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out the wrinkled fiver he'd got as a bribe from his dad earlier.

"Oh right," said the Curator in embarrassment. "In the cash box on the table, behind you."

Luke knew for sure there was no cash box on the table. He had just taken the gloves from it and would swear in court that there was nothing else. Still facing the Curator he challenged "there is no cash box behind me."

"Well I suppose you've got me there young man." Luke smiled triumphantly, glad that he hadn't been tricked into turning around to an empty table. Such things had happened before.

"It's actually Benvenuto Cellini's alms box. I don't suppose you're familiar with his work? No didn't think so. So much mass production in today's world, I wonder at the skills we have lost. They say there isn't a man left in the country who can make a proper barrel you know. Anyway the box was rescued from the sea off the coast of Malta after the great siege. Obviously too dangerous to have as an artefact."

Luke turned round, gobsmacked to see a silver box about the size of a half sliced pan with richly detailed figures from a biblical scene acting out their story of charity and love around an opening for coins. Slightly numb with the shock Luke absently dropped the five euro note into the slot thinking how vulgarly out of place the paper money seemed beside a thing of such beauty.

"How did...?" he was about to ask about the immediate provenance of Cellini's alms box, stammering to come up with the necessary formula of words. But as he turned to engage the Curator on this matter, he saw the white curtains which fell to the marble floor like drifts of snow, start to part as if activated by the full payment of his five euro fee.

"These young sir are the artefacts."
Chapter 4

The Artefacts

Luke's eyes bulged in amazement as the curtains slowly opened to reveal a space the size of a large classroom but far tidier and far more interesting than any classroom, teacher, school, book, website, library or any museum he could imagine.

The walls were of fine cut stone, sandstone Luke guessed, whose warm tones varied subtly from the colour of light rust to that of digestive biscuits. They had been expertly carved so as to make a perfect circle interrupted only by an arc where the curtains had once been and which had now made way for the entrance. A hemisphere of pine beams created a honey coloured sky above them. No outside light penetrated but the absence of windows was offset by soft light which appeared from mysterious spaces in the walls. Hugging these walls to a height almost in line with Luke's eyes was a labyrinth of shelving, once again of finely crafted wood but this time not walnut but thickly varnished spolted beech. And although no two shelf spaces were the same dimensions, the whole unit seemed to meld together in a visual harmony which appealed to Luke's sense of order and aesthetic. The wooden arms of the shelves reminded him of the embrace of a Claddagh ring and completed an architectural design which was warm and secure. The snow white drapes had disappeared into openings in the wall just as the sliding doors of a metro train retreat out of sight into their temporary homes. In the centre of the room was another hemisphere of shelves, lower than the other standing about hip height but otherwise mirroring their bigger protective brother.

Luke gasped. Had he ever heard the term 'cornu copia', then this was it. A horn of plenty, truly an Aladdin's cave of stuff like one of those Victorian attics with the booty of hundreds of years of empire. Each artefact was differently housed in a differently shaped environment exactly designed to fit. His first thought was that it was some kind of museum but it had an openness to it that museums lack - an invitational 'come and explore' tag as opposed to the usual 'behave yourself and show great reverence'. The most obvious difference was the absence of sheets of protective glass enclosing the exhibits and preventing any meaningful access. Equally there were no ' explanatory cards' written by long winded professors sent on this earth to butcher the mystery and poetry of life with their pompous condescension.

"Now feel free to explore the artefacts, but remember the fellow who put on Godiva's wimple." The Curator spoke from his desk where he was twisting the torn metal of Mambrino's helmet with a precise looking pliers. "Do not let the artefact touch you. Keep the gloves as your barrier. Otherwise..." And he wagged the pliers and tapped his head as if by way of warning.

"It's ok to pick the stuff up?" asked Luke, somewhat taken aback by the unexpected, untrammeled freedom, feeling still unsure of the rules.

The old man had returned to his task tapping the helmet now with a tiny hammer that came from the same surgical tool kit as the pliers. Remaining focused on his job of restoration he spoke without lifting his eyes. "Hard to say how you can make an informed choice if you don't probe the adventure a little. But it's up to you young man."

The casual response and the lack of eye contact released Luke from any feelings of guilt that Luke might have had. "The old bloke says I have the run of the place so what am I waiting for," he thought to himself. And with that thought in his head he stepped over the threshold into the beating heart of Antique Adventures.

Like a toddler let loose in a kindly uncle's sweet shop, Luke's first big decision was where to start. Initially he was drawn in all directions by the inviting sights of various different artefacts which stood out from the others by virtue of their size, shape or colour. But he steadied himself and took a breath to control his excitement. He then determined that he would see every item- he reckoned there must have been over two hundred. He would start with the artefacts on his left in the outer shelves and work in clockwise direction.

He walked straight across to where an ancient looking scratched saddle slept or rather sulked in its shelf space. Carelessly and without consideration Luke ran his hand over what he had already assessed to be a dull object not really worthy of his precious time. Immediately his gloved hand came close, his nostrils filled with the smell of leather mixed with dung and straw as if someone had flung open the door of a stable. His ears simultaneously began to ring with the snorting of a powerful stallion and the coconut clopping of iron hooves charging at a terrifying gallop. Leather twisted and bridles clanked. Startled by the cocktail of smell and sound and its accompanying emotion of fear, Luke pulled his hand away at once and the cocktail receded as quickly as it had encroached.

"Hints," came the monosyllabic explanation of the Curator at his desk, still assiduously tapping with his tiny hammer. "Clues to help whet the appetite and assist in making the right choice."

"Oh of course" answered Luke still slightly punch drunk from his moment on the angry stallion's back. He remembered how Mambrino's orange had teased and almost overcome him with its flavour burst. Perhaps these old guys on the shelves do the same thing with mechanisms hidden in the wood. Applying twenty first century logic he convinced himself that it was natural for such an old saddle to emit leathery smells and those less savoury stinks of the stable where it more than likely had spent most of its life forgotten and unloved. As for the sounds attacking his ears Luke ascribed them to his over excited state. He decided to approach the next artefact with a premeditated coolness.

Below the saddle was a battered and sad looking violin an instrument which Luke had a gooey affection for as it reminded him of his grandfather who used to play maudlin Irish songs on winter's evenings by crackling fires. The tunes were always forlorn as if the old world had been washed away only to leave faded memories wrapped in the discarded rags of a song. His grandfather had belonged to that sad world of want and poverty which he would never know. The fiddle in front of him seemed to belong to the same world. It still had its strings attached and a ghostly sheet of rosin powdered the area above the bridge. The chin rest was worn thin almost to a point of translucency and the ebony neck where the players' fingers danced was discoloured to a dirty brown through wear. Presenting a casual, unconcerned appearance, Luke none the less felt a certain trepidation as he extended his right arm towards the artefact, as if he were putting his hand into a dark, unknown void, the consequences of which were spookily the stuff of guesswork.

His fingers, protected only by the soft white cotton, neared the instrument and he began to hear the manic strains of a violin played at what he felt was three hundred notes per second. The air was heavy with the unpleasant smell of human sweat and Cologne, and his mouth felt dry, his shoulder aching, his racing fingers almost detached from his exhausted body.

He jumped back sweating and in a panic searching for the refuge of silence provided by the room. Still facing the old violin which lay there as if asleep, he could hear his own breathing and his heart beating behind the caged ribs of his chest. The fingers of his left hand were still ravaging an imaginary fingerboard and his now finely tuned ear heard the sound of a single droplet of his own sweat fall through the silent air and splash like the clash of a cymbal on the pristine marble floor underneath his foot which was still tapping out time.

"Can be tiring no?" came the reassuringly familiar voice of the Curator. "You know," he continued with a welcome calmness in his words," nearly everyone is determined to sample every single artefact at first but no one ever has. It's not only emotionally and physically draining, but it ends up being just too demanding a task." Without lifting his gaze or diverting his concentration from trying to resuscitate Mambrino's helmet, he shook his head at his own draining task, like a mechanic who lifts the bonnet of a clapped out car and observes with disbelief the mechanical catastrophe before him.

Luke waited, thinking that some deeper insights and sound advice would follow, but as the seconds passed he realised that the old gentleman was fully immersed in the surgical predicament presented by the broken metal of the helmet, immune to the concerns of his only customer. It made Luke a little infuriated but just as he was going to tell the Curator that a tiny bit of direction would be ever so appreciated; he saw an old worm-eaten, splintered sign with what Luke assumed was Russian lettering pointing him in the direction of a spinning coin. And so, only two artefacts into his quest Luke found his resolve to see all the objects broken. He would not be exploring the entire contents of this strange place after all.

He suspected that the signpost which spelled out' Mokba' would give him an unwelcome dose of frostbite, but the coin which was spinning horizontally as if a referee had flicked it into the air of its beech wood shelving was a different more appealing case.

It was in the centre of a unit about the size of his dad's briefcase and gyrating so rapidly that Luke was unable to make out the faces on either side nor the legends stamped on its edges. The coin itself was bigger than any he had seen in circulation and more resembled in size a medal, while its dull metal had a smokey silver lustre. Luke craned his head around each angle of the shelf to see how the coin was spinning and what energy source sustained its continuous easy uniform motion. Exasperated he gave up in frustrated defeat but it made him all the more determined to try to catch this strangely intimidating but simultaneously attractive artefact.

He could have moved on but this being Antique Adventures he decided to be adventurous, and fixing his eyes on the target in front of him his hand darted out with the speed and accuracy of a serpent's tongue. Luke had fast boxer's hands. The coin gave no resistance and allowed itself to be snapped in the cotton glove. But once removed it began to release intoxicating flavours of cigar smoke, urine, sawdust and rough whiskey. Glasses were clinking and a tinny piano could be heard in the smokey mist. Luke gripped on to the coin despite the screams from his lungs to be released from the smoke and stink.

He closed his eyes which were beginning to water and tried to focus through the din. He could hear English words spoken in a coarse American drawl by what appeared to be deep voiced middle aged men who moved in a tense atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Not a nice place concluded Luke, opening his eyes and feeling a distinct but indefinable unwillingness to explore this adventure any further. He returned the coin to its home, placing it respectfully on the polished wood noticing when he did so, the American eagle with its arrows in one set of talons. It then sat motionless for a moment as if sulking at its orphaned neglect, before casually relaunching itself back to its original free spinning motion. Luke despite all the inexplicable things that had happened up to this point blinked his eyes repeatedly in disbelief.

He turned to the Curator for guidance and a last effort at logic and reason as a climber grasps hopelessly at nonexistent grips when he loses his footing at a rockface. But the Curator just gave a shake of the head as if to say that the coin and its story were not suitable. Putting it back was a good decision.

Below the coin and running the length of the entire shelf space was a long- very long, oar. It was beautifully smooth and carried near the blade the scratch marks and scars of the sea salt, and then further towards the handle the faded expression made by first the sun, and then the calloused sweating hands of the rowers. Luke estimated its length at four metres and suspected that this belonged to no ordinary row boat and his mind raced at the possibilities as to whether it was from a Viking longship or a Mediterranean galley. Even then he couldn't place a date on it - Roman, Greek Venetian? Still, he had limited interest in a maritime adventure and a spell of seasickness and given how spoilt he was for options he quickly decided to move on. Nor was his newly honed eye attracted by the scientific adventures provided by a swinging pendulum, a brass telescopic device and a series of discoloured test tubes in a greasy frame with rusting steel stirrers.

A silk fan spread out in another compartment bearing the image of an oriental garden Japanese or Chinese, Luke wasn't sure, in which two ladies with too much make up shyly eyed two Samurai with too much weaponry. The samurai kept their hands on their sword hilts ignoring the women in the game of lovers' cat and mouse. Luke guessed a love story and passed on.

The next block was a line of fierce looking weapons. The first space was empty which Luke congratulated himself on surmising to be the home for the absent Mambrino's helmet now residing at the artefact A and E. Next to that was a double sided battle axe with notches in its handle and chips in the sharpened steel of its blades. Charles Martel he remembered congratulating himself a second time. Beside this great beast of a weapon was a much smaller one that resembled an alpine climber's hammer. One head was flat and ideal for hammering crampons into sheer rock faces while the other was sharpened to a beak like point. Perfect for burying into a crevice or was it a crevasse. Luke liked the idea of mountaineering and thought he'd give it a try. He picked it up in a matter of fact way expecting to find an adventure with heights and summits and snowy crags, something which he was mildly excited about.

He was holding the artefact for no more than a second when he relinquished it, letting it fall with a harsh sounding clang that echoed through the silence of the shop. Horror and blood, muscular slaughter and terror and terrible shrieks from both the killer and the killed. "Tomar's war hammer" he whispered in a shaking terrified voice. His eyes were fixed on the instrument of death which seconds before had seemed so impotent and innocuous. His whole body was trembling at the taste of the unimagined evil that had just engulfed him. Rooted to the spot he stared at the object itself as if mesmerised by its awful world and life destroying power. He felt his knees buckle and he was brought back from this trance of doom by the effort needed to prevent him from falling, his right hand now reaching forward to use the top of the shelving to steady his jelly limbs. Recovering his composure he decided not to hazard any more of the weapons and their horror stories and moved on in pursuit of a fairer adventure.

He was happy and relieved to come across a number of unthreatening garments, first a lady's medieval headscarf- Lady Godiva's wimple? This made him chuckle as he recalled the Curator's warning. As a proper gentleman Luke thought it would be inappropriate - indecent and ungentlemanly- to explore this story any further. Lady Godiva, he declared silently, could ride imperiously through Coventry's streets stark naked and unseen, her modesty unblemished.

Below the wimple was a pair of eccentrically furry boots as one would expect to find on intrepid explorers smiling with frost bitten faces in black and white photos. A bloodstained toga and an intimidating metal gauntlet lay to the boots' left and right. There was also a multicoloured feathered headdress which no doubt belonged once to an American Indian chief. A scattering of miscellaneous jewelry pieces were cobbled together in a series of small compartments - a signet ring, a diamond necklace with one obviously absent stone, a leather wristlet, a single pearl earring, a broken iron tiara. Luke pondered each item separately and briefly wondered at the story that lay behind or within. He was now feeling like the sensible kid let loose in the kindly uncle's sweet shop who knows that if he gobbles up everything he sees first, he will never get to savour the goodies hidden at the back of the store. It was time to show a sense of proportion, what his parents would call ' discernment'.

He had realised by now that the adventures were arranged in sections; items of travel, instruments of war, articles of clothing, pieces of jewelry, and so on. But occasionally as if it were a clumsy attempt at humour a joker was thrown in amongst a set like for example the coin with the travel artefacts or the pair of dice he now found blushing in the middle of the jewelry like a colourful weed among a blaze of roses. They were not dice as Luke knew- a standard cube with numbers one to six- but what he assumed were a set of Roman knuckle bones which he had never seen but which he had heard described. He wondered what the wager might have been. By nature he wasn't a gambler, he preferred to move in a world of certainties rather than in the foggy streets around whose corners surprises lurked that were never worth the risk. Yet he was, like all humanity, occasionally drawn to the fascination of gambling, of staking all on a random card which could make the difference between everything and nothing. He picked up the knucklebones.

At last he had found an adventure that did not ravage him, and yet the knucklebones induced in him a deep feeling of isolation married to a heavy burden weighing with wearisome strain on the shoulders of the holder of the dice. A solitary man old in years and the wisdom of life but vital and energetic, paced back and forth rolling the dice between his fingers. Luke sensed a decision of great importance was to be made and he felt the turmoil inside this man as he wrestled with the varied outcomes of his possible actions. It was a silent, sombre exercise and Luke was struck by the drain caused by the emotional restraint of the decision maker who must of necessity decide alone. All things in life are a gamble he reflected with a sad heart made heavy by the hint of the adventure. Still with the dice in his cotton gloves he thought how even in prevailing, when one casts and wins, there is a sense that something of oneself has been lost in the process. The greater the gamble the greater the loss. There is suffering and loss in victory, in the knowledge that others have fallen so that you could rise. Luke gently, respectfully returned the dice to their place among the jewels, a sobering symbol surrounded by the rich baubles of this life. He tried to shake off the residue of the adventure but it was as if a dark belly of cloud had drooped down and sat above him with its melancholy cargo and smothered his ability to laugh and smile. His mind was still fixed on that lonely, brooding figure who was gauging the odds. Luke sympathised hoping that he would never be faced with such an ordeal, that he would never empathise.

Luke was starting to feel weary, like a tourist who had got more than his fill of ruins, tumbled pillars and empty gilded churches. He had anticipated two dimensional virtual sorties into poorly crafted synthetic landscapes as one got in a game console. Instead he had been convulsed with emotional avalanches and had found himself shunted along white water rivers of human turbulence, of hate and misery and anguish and fear. He ran his hand over what he felt to be his tired and jaded face feeling the exhaustion one feels after a funeral. It's not as if you have done anything, just stood around looking responsibly gloomy and gone easy on the iced cakes at the reception. But you're knackered as if you've run a marathon of monosyllabic grimness. Time for a bit of joy he concluded and he moved with dubious optimism to the next compendium of artefacts.

The motif here was obviously sport with old leather footballs, half laced, their bodies scratched and worn, bats, rackets, sticks, helmets, a bridle, a pair of mud caked goggles. None of these managed to brighten Luke's dreary mood. Nor did the next selection dedicated to artistic creativity, a smudged paint brush spearing a shabby wooden palette, a chisel lying crossed on its hammer, a slender metal pen like object, a mason's square and rolled plumb line. This last caught Luke's eye provoking an image of the great Cathedral builders of the middle ages raising monuments of cut stone where once there had been a field for cattle to pick grass from the weeds.

But the sight of the footballs a few feet away had lit a delayed fuse and he found himself thinking of his brother Paddy next door, who no doubt was doing a good job explaining why he could hardly be held responsible for deconstructing the pyramid of balls. They were on sale after all and he wanted the one at the bottom. Luke being the eldest was the conscientious one in the family and reminded himself how he had told Paddy he would be only five minutes and no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise he had to acknowledge that he was running a bit late. He looked back at the old man who seemed to be close to fixing his beloved helmet of Mambrino. The white glass bead in the hour glass still hadn't moved. "Time is relative" he whispered but without conviction.

He had to rush. He had only reached half way in the outer horseshoe of walnut shelves. The centre compartments seemed a sporadic mish mash of stuff whose name and purpose Luke didn't know. There was a peculiar looking porcelain mug with a blocking lip on one side to prevent you drinking from it. There was a device made of copper, green with age, that was a cross between a pincers, a scissors and an ice cream scoop. At the bottom was something that looked like a watch or a compass but was neither, then a board like a chess board with different coloured smooth stones like marbles. Finally a merchant's purse with the strings loose. Luke leaned in and saw that the pouch was empty. What had been in the bag? "A veritable mystery Watson" he said impersonating the famous sleuth. "But wait old chap," he continued "what do we have inside this fellow?" His focus shifted, or rather was drawn to a cigar shaped cylinder of creamy ivory, capped at one end with silver. The other end was open, its silver hood sleeping beside it. Peeping out was a tiny roll of what could not be described as paper. It was not smooth enough nor perfect enough but wrinkled and tired like old skin. This, thought Luke, was parchment. "Worth a punt Watson wouldn't you say?" said the young Holmes to his imaginary partner.

He was about to reach in and taste the hints and clues which floated around like invisible energies when some other unknown, and equally invisible energy forced him to pause. A voice began to argue. "Real adventures Luke" it began "are journeys into the unknown. The pioneer is the pioneer because he is first to cross the river. The adventure comes with the awareness that he doesn't know what is on the other side." Luke nodded to himself and withdrew his hand. There would be no clue or hint. A true adventure.

"I think I'll choose this chap", he said breaking the silence and still talking as if he were Holmes which made him immediately blush. The old Curator looked across to where his young client was standing and pointing at the white baton. He took time to consider the situation and then nodded slowly in return.

"And sir", he began, putting down his little hammer "is making his choice I see without any". He stopped, pursed his lips while he searched for the correct word. "Without exploring the adventure through the hints provided."

"Sir", Luke replied with an engaging smile of innocence and hope, "would like to do exactly that."

The old man returned the smile, disarmed temporarily by the landscape of youth and hope that infused the room. But slowly, imperceptibly the smile drained from him as the borrowed youthful energy drained from his side the room. Adventures he knew, were about the destruction of innocence. The adventurer emerges wiser, toughened by experience as a sword is toughened by the scorching fire and the smithies hammer blows. The boxer is a better man for his first taste of the ring but he is no longer the person he was when the bell first rang for seconds out.

"A true adventurer you are, a 'rara avis' as the Romans would call you- 'a rare bird'. Well my young friend our time together has been a pleasure." All this time Luke had been facing the pleasant old man with his back to the object of his choice. He was wondering why the Curator was speaking as if they were saying goodbye.

Still standing behind the desk which he hadn't left since Luke had entered the shop the old man proceeded to give instructions with a hint of mild disappointment. "If you sit in the curule chair behind you and remove your gloves you may begin your antique adventure. At your own convenience of course" he added by way of humour but a tad unsuccessfully.

"Chair? What chair?" The old man motioned Luke to turn around. Luke obeyed to find a simple wooden chair sculpted from what seemed like two half circles of walnut staves mingled together like interlaced fingers. In front of the chair was a table exactly like the one on which Luke had found the gloves. He turned round, his eyes darting towards the place where the table had been only to see the entire area by the door vacant as it had been when he had entered the shop first.

"That table was over there" said Luke firmly as if he were citing scripture.

"And now it's over there" said the Curator playfully. "You are a very observant young man as I have already remarked."

"But" and Luke stuttered with the inevitable question "why is it here?"

"It's there" replied the old man with a mischievous wink and a slight flick of his head to where the table once was, "because it's not there."

"I think it should be there," said Luke sticking to his guns and indicating its previous home.

"Should be, could be, was, may and might be and who knows where it will be. But it isn't there or there or there, is it?" He glanced at three random spots. "It's" and he gestured towards the table again "there."

The conversation was becoming hypnotic and Luke felt a little ridiculous to be associated with it. He decided to yield to the reality of the chair and sat down into it. A feeling of intense ease and comfort overcame him, a sensation of calm relaxation as if the contours of his body had been enveloped in a warm mattress of downy feathers floating on a carefree Jetstream and caused him to momentarily close his eyes. And yet all he was sitting on was a finely crafted but in reality sparse wooden chair. As if in a dream he lifted his drowsy eyes from the uncomfortable looking comfortable chair and saw the table before him and found himself sighing with defeat and resignation at what was on it. For there on its polished top was the ivory case this time with both ends closed by the silver corks and the parchment presumably tucked safely inside. Luke didn't blink or gasp or splutter. He didn't ask how the artefact had come to magic itself onto the table which itself had been up to some pretty dodgy carry on. He just shook his head slowly and ran his left hand through his soft hair. It came to rest on his left cheek where it stayed a moment while his eyes remained focused on the object before him whose adventure was pure, distilled mystery. Gradually his shaking head began to nod as he swopped one for the other in his vain effort at comprehending the incomprehensible. "Time and space" he thought after all," may not be absolute."

He began to unpick the fingers of the glove on his left hand, digit by digit as if he were preparing for a gentleman's duel. As he was doing this he asked the old man if he thought he would enjoy his adventure. The question briefly threw the Curator who lapsed into a temporary pensive trance, his eyes on the almost restored helmet in front of him but his words then directed at his young associate.

"I don't think 'enjoy' is the word most appropriate to the experience. I like to compare it to a grueling hike up a very demanding mountain, a hike that asks questions of you, and that in turn gives back a few unasked for replies. It's as if the mountain deliberately throws obstacles in your path- boulders, scree, water and unpleasant people. It's trying to wear you out, to discourage you, to impede your progress and make you turn back. It wants to defeat you." Luke nodded. He remembered as a scout tackling one such brute of a mountain when it seemed able to call on even the weather to break him. As if reading his thoughts the Curator continued.   
"And then the rain sets in and the fog creeps over the ground and your visibility is hampered. But you persevere despite the discomfort and the danger." He stopped and gave Luke a look that brought attention to the final word. "And finally you make it to the summit and you see things that others will never see except perhaps in a postcard. They will never see the reality because they haven't got what it takes to face the hardships of life's climbs." The old man paused a while to gather his remaining thoughts and maybe to remember a draining experience of his own when he struggled to make it to the summit.

"And as you descend the mountain and return to those sleeping in their comfy cots, their bellies full and their feet warm and dry, you know that your adventure has hardened you and shaped you as a smith toughens steel in the white heat of the forge. No, I would not say you will enjoy your adventure" and he laid strong stress on the verb "but I think you will be grateful for it. Our fate, my young friend, is born the day that we are born. But the journey is the thing."

There was anguish in the old man's voice, an emotion that could not be hidden despite his efforts. It was as if he was trying to obscure some reality from the youth before him. Luke felt he understood in a way one can guess at objects glimpsed through a fog. He laid the two gloves softly on the table, carefully crossing them right over left. He and his father had shared a secret hand shake known only to themselves which culminated with the knuckles of their clenched fists touching as they simultaneously swore "For our sins". His dad had told him it was a phrase used by soldiers before going into battle. It seemed as good as any phrase now. He inhaled deeply and as he exhaled whispered so that only he heard the words "for our sins". As he did so he grasped the artefact in his gloveless right hand.
Chapter 5

Luke felt himself hauled up into the air where he hovered momentarily before being yanked at sickening speed into what first seemed like a cloud and then a dim empty void. He was flung with considerable violence through the darkness which fizzed with white static and nauseating, spiraling lights that were the colours of an electric spectrum. All this happened so abruptly that he had no time to make sense of it and just as his intelligence was about to kick in he landed with a forceful thud on his left shoulder. Breaking his fall was a bed of hot gritty sand which scraped his exposed skin. Dazed and in some pain Luke blinked his eyes several times trying to recover and focus. He was badly winded and a stinging pain seared through the muscles of his shoulder and neck giving him deep pins and needles and a numb feeling which felt like a form of temporary paralysis. One time, he had been clotheslined in a game of rugby and had spent an indeterminate time counting tweety birds around his head. That was as bad as it ever got. Until now.

His eyes were still struggling to impose vision and deliver defined colour to his brain rather than the fuzzy blur of his semi-conscious state. He started to become aware of things. Firstly it was hot. His lungs felt as if they were smothered in glue so intense and stifling was the heat. Ireland hadn't been this hot since the last volcanoes spilled their entrails millions of years ago. Then there was the sand. It not only scratched, it burned. Why did it burn? No sand on a windswept Irish beach ever burned. And the smell -garlic and sweat and urine, as if his mother had been cooking in the school changing rooms close to the toilets that were never cleaned. He could hear a cacophony of ill-defined sounds, a jumble of noise that reminded him of an orchestra scratching itself into tune. Gradually he took in the distinct sound of what he recognised as the guffawed, mocking laughter of men, like the sounds you glimpse on the urine scented breeze wafting from the open door of a dingy city pub. Luke winced as he recoiled from this unpleasant cocktail of stink and sound.

His left shoulder was scorching hot and as the sensation returned to the numbed muscle its ache made him want to whimper. The rest of his body was trembling with adrenalin overload. He found himself placing his right palm on the sandy floor beneath him and pushed himself upwards, still gasping for the life giving oxygen his lungs were screaming out for. He straightened up, steadying himself to a solid kneeling position. But just as he was anticipating some return to normal, a heavy stinging slap landed on his right cheek and toppled him backwards onto his aching shoulder.

Luke let out one of those primeval shrieks using the moment to shout out that one taboo word which decent people reserved for occasions that deserved the ultimate expletive. He had no doubt that this was one of those occasions. But despite the pain and the injustice, despite the nauseating stink, the mocking laughter and the overpowering heat, Luke recognised that the words he had spoken were not English. And yet whatever language he had spoken, if it were a language, he seemed to have a full grasp of it. Now while Luke was what his German teacher called an industrious student, he wasn't exactly a language prodigy. Left alone on the streets of Berlin he would have struggled to cross the road in German. And yet here he was apparently understanding with remarkable ease an unknown language.

"This is no place for girls".

The voice was rough and guttural and as male as a big bollocked bull, and it so pleased the onlookers that it gave rise to a chorus of jeering and laughter clearly at Luke's expense. Luke looked up through a watery film that still impeded his vision and picked out the owner of this mocking voice. It was a big man somewhat over weight, very hairy and very naked. This was the last straw. Luke had had enough. He wanted his fiver back. In fact the old chancer back in the shop with Mambrino's stupid helmet could keep the fiver, Luke just wanted out. But instead Luke found himself measuring up the man beast. He stood tall and proud, sucking in his gut for effect and pushing out his big hairy chest. His huge hands were braceleted and ringed, with thick black dirt buried deep in the finger nails. His naked thighs were trunk like and dripped with sweat which matted the tufts of hair against the skin which was the colour of fake tan. Most disturbingly of all his private parts dangled like a menacing trinity, and very unpleasantly in full view. The naked psycho's head was a big bullet shaped affair and it sat like a stone on his shoulders with no obvious neck connecting it. It made Luke recall a semi-human French prop warming up before a rugby international close to where he was sitting. The prop had an IQ in single digits and belonged in a cell rather than on a football field. Muscle, madness and anger.

What disturbed Luke most about the nutcase close by was his mad eyes. They were dark, the irises almost the colour of the pupils. They were wide open and seemed to snort hate in Luke's direction. Luke was afraid and very confused. What have I done to this nut job? He thought.

After the slap the giant had strutted like an all-conquering boxer away from his fallen victim, milking the applause and adulation of his audience which Luke now saw was about a hundred or more equally naked men. This was very annoying. He wondered if he had stumbled onto the set of a gay porn film and thought it would be a good idea to get out of there before the real action started. Luke was as open minded as the next man but all this nudity, male nudity at that, was making him very uncomfortable. Then he understood why the sand burnt. He was bollock naked too. WTF. The customer has rights! He tried to look down to see if he was in fact naked but his eyes didn't respond. They were fixed on the big hairy back and big hairy wobbling buttocks of the bloke before him. Meathead was clearly in the same IQ percentile as the French prop and was struggling to come up with another comment to work the crowd.

Piece by piece Luke took in his surroundings. They were in a roofless building with a post card blue sky and Costa del Sol sun above. The ground was dry golden sand, again the sort you get in a post card and the walls were a series of stone fluted columns set apart at perfect intervals of about three metres. On another day Luke would have admired the architecture and its eye pleasing order. But today wasn't that day. The bad guy was curdling his throat, searching deep inside his windpipe for the thickest of green phlegm which he rolled about on his big ox tongue and then suddenly fired in Luke's direction. It landed, a thick disgusting ball of green snot, about six inches from where Luke was kneeling with both hands supporting his broken frame, his head bowed in the pose of a beaten dog. He could feel his own sweat rolling from his chin and dripping like a rapidly ticking clock onto the sand below. Opening his eyes Luke saw that mixed with this watery sand was blood, his own blood. Instinctively, he wiped his nose and looked at the mucous red streak on his forearm.

"Why am I wearing jewelry?"

Luke asked himself this as he saw his wrist imprisoned in half a dozen copper bangles. He staggered silently through the question as a drowning man staggers in the water for something solid on which to reconstruct his disappearing world. He desperately wanted to examine these newly acquired bracelets and rings at length and without any interference from the fists of the cave man but instead, found himself much against his will rising to his feet. He could feel the blood still trickling from his nostrils and was aware that his cheek was swollen and red. Likewise he could feel the pain in his shoulder but he couldn't recall his brain instructing his arm to roll so as to massage the lot back to life.

During all this Beefcake was realising that his audience was impatient for something more, verbal or physical, to be hurled at his petrified victim.

"Toddle off to your bed now and leave real men to their work," he said dismissively turning his back and gesturing with his hand that proceedings were at an end. Luke was relieved that the ordeal was over but he was also astonished that he had understood every word despite the fact that it bore absolutely no resemblance to any language he had ever heard. Deeply perplexed he felt overwhelmed by the irrationality of all that had unfolded in what could be no more than a few minutes since he was sitting in the strange chair in the old shop in Dingle. What had happened? It was like a dream where you find yourself unable to do the most basic physical movements like walking, but at the same time you are capable of seeing as perfectly normal, things like talking turnips and dancing lamp posts. For a brief relieving moment Luke convinced himself that it was a dream. But his bloody nose, his red cheek, his aching shoulder and all these naked men were no dream. This was a bloody nightmare.

"Polyneices."

Luke knew that his lips were moving and he was speaking but the words were not his and he had no control over what they uttered.

"If I toddle off back to my bed, I'll only disturb your mother."

There was a swift intake of breath on the part of the crowd and a scatter of giggles, followed quickly by library silence. The brute who Luke assumed to bear the name Polyneices stopped in mid strut. The silence was demanding. All 'muscles' could come out with was a furious "what?" Which was more of a grunt than a word. It smoked its way from his mouth as the first sulphurous cloud belches from an impatient volcano. Dumbstruck Polyneices turned around. Luke tried to stop the next words as he caught them forming in his brain but his protest went unheeded.

"Listen shit for brains. Ask your mother. She's always talking about her ugly son. Says he has a face like a camel's arse. Bit harsh on a camel's arse I think."

The crowd erupted and Luke found himself smiling to the gallery. Inside however he was in a panic. Why had he said what he said? But there was no time. Polyneices erupted too. He clenched his fists till they blenched white while his face reddened with humiliation. If fire could, it would have oozed from his ears and nostrils and any other orifice all of which of course were on view. He then cracked the knuckles of his right fist into his left palm, finally pointing a spear like finger in Luke's direction.

"I'm going to smash your fucking face to a pulp you snot nosed puppy."

"It'll still be a better looking face than the camel's arse sitting on your shoulders."

More laughter from the audience enjoying the free show. But as it rang against the stone columns, Polyneices dropped his bull head and began to charge, snorting headlong towards Luke. It was all very terrifying but Luke hadn't time to consider the matter in full. Time for an evasive side step he thought. Fortunately his body agreed this time. Like a Torero anticipating the bull, he allowed Polyneices to come almost within touching distance, then stepped nimbly to his right. Polyneices, missing the expected resistance that Luke's body would have presented, continued charging head first into one of the stone pillars which marked the perimeter of the building. There was a crack as skull met stone and then his body shuddered and teetered before finally falling motionless face first onto the sand below.

"Jesus" shrieked Luke, breathing a sigh of relief at the heap of comatose flesh on whose lifeless hairy back he now placed his triumphant shoeless foot. While Luke was wondering if Polyneices was dead, he looked dead, everyone else was celebrating the unexpected victory and the day's talking point, with shouts and applause and very unpleasant slaps on his naked skin. Still, now that the drama had passed Luke was in recovery mode swatting the butterflies that had recently made a home in his system, happy his fine face hadn't been reduced to the threatened pulp. Now that the immediate crisis was over it gave him time to take stock of what was actually going on. He walked with some purpose through the crowd which parted for the hero of the hour and made his way towards a large bronze dish filled with water into which he sank his head. The water was cool and refreshing and he enjoyed the moment it gave him away from the nightmare world beyond. He was further happy to see a wooden post on which were draped a stash of similar looking white garments one of which he carelessly threw over his soaking head. It hung like a long tee shirt as far as his knees and Luke felt grateful not to be naked anymore. He was further glad to see that everyone else was following suit and the banquet of swinging male privates on parade was at an end. Much better. He then slipped his feet into a pair of surprisingly comfortable sandals. Excellent.

He was carried along by his feet which were not exactly his feet. He could feel the shoe leather on the sandy ground underfoot as a passenger on a train feels the shunting of the rails underneath. And just as he's aware of rain on the train windows so too he could feel the water cooling his skin. He felt part of this body as if it actually were his but he also felt that it made decisions independent of him. And he wondered how it knew the dish of water was there and the clothes, and what was this language he was a master of. They were his feet and eyes and lips he concluded, but they weren't very obedient.

"My house will have satisfaction", came another threatening, demanding voice.

"Who are these guys?" thought Luke and turned round to see Polyneices standing before him, only now he seemed more sober and determined. Luke felt his heart sink and his recently found courage desert him.

"My quarrel was with Polyneices not with his twin. I have no quarrel with you."

'How do I know all this?' said Luke but his private musings were overtaken by the speed of the unfolding events. Somehow this twin seemed far more dangerous.

"Well, his mother is my mother and if my twin has a face like a camel's arse.."

The twin broke off the argument with its irrefutable logic. Nobody was laughing. Unlike his thick brother this twin had a frightening focus and an IQ that reached triple digits. The clever brother. One twin always gets the smarts Luke thought. This fellow moved with purpose taking long precise strides, the muscles of his arms flexing as he readied his clenched fists to pummel Luke's brains. 'Time to run', he thought, but he was hemmed in by the crowd whose garlic breath he could smell in the suffocating air around him. So this is how it ends. Luke tried to assume a boxer's stance as he had learned from Master Cho his Tae Kwan Do teacher. But his arms froze and clung stupidly to his sides as if weighed down by heavy shopping bags. He saw the fist, encrusted with metal rings swoop through the air, heard its swish and scrunched the soft flesh of his face like a stupefied ostrich. He waited for the first shattering of skin and crushing of bone. But instead of the anticipated thump he heard a smack as if someone had swatted a fly.

His eyes which had involuntarily closed, tentatively opened to see, inches from his exposed and vulnerable nose, the fist of his enemy encased in the palm of another. Luke did not know the owner of this palm but he was certain that his nose and teeth, his life even had been saved by this most welcome guest and for this he was most grateful.

The welcome guest was a big man but not so big that he was awkward. Like everyone else he was dressed in the same simple white shirt but there seemed to be a power and dignity about this man that marked him out from those around him. His body was well proportioned, big and athletic but built more for power than for speed. His hair was cut short and was the colour of dark sand as was his beard which covered his chin and upper lip and was flecked with the beginnings of grey. There was a six inch scar on his right cheek which wasn't the work of a surgeon and Luke noticed another scar, much longer running the length of the forearm which kept the attacking twin at bay. Grizzled thought Luke. His eyes were blue but a weak version of that colour as if too much water had been added to their original paint. They were fixed on the man whose fist he now lowered stepping between him and his intended target.

"I am Cailimachus. I have returned from Eretreia where you all know by now that it did not go well for us. The town has been sacked and burnt its people sold to slavery. The Persians intend to do the same to our mother Athens. I was in the rearguard of our retreat. This young man" - Cailimachus pointed at Luke- "is Eukles the son of Polycrates. His father died beside me at Eretreia."

Hang on thought Luke. That's a bit insensitive your dad's dead kid just like that.

"I am now adopting him as my son. Anyone who intends harm to Eukles,"

Cailimachus paused and put his hand on Luke's shoulder, his left one unfortunately.

"Will have to answer to me."

Luke felt a smug grin invade his face and direct itself towards the clearly worried twin. Cailimachus continued, directly addressing the twin

"My son has spoken intemperately. He wishes to apologise if you will be so gracious as to accept."

Any kindness that might have been in Cailimachus' eyes now evaporated. He stared into those of the twin as if to say ' accept the apology or I will cut you open here and now on this spot where you stand'. He nodded his acceptance, where upon Luke's newly adopted father indicated it was time to say sorry. Fair enough thought Luke but when he tried to articulate the words nothing came forth. Cailimachus now turned his withering stare on Luke whose lips thankfully gave the right response although he felt the intense struggle within which it involved. The twin turned to tend to his brother. Cailimachus gave a slight shake of the head towards Luke who wanted to agree with what the head shake intended and explain that his body wasn't behaving itself. But instead he found himself just staring bitterly at the man who had just rescued him.

Cailimachus stared back and then gave what was barely a nod. It said in a language that was clearer than any spoken 'follow me and don't continue to disappoint'. Eukles as Luke now knew was his name, paused as a demonstration of his independence and then followed his new dad who had already turned his back. Luke had a feeling however that it wouldn't be long before this Eukles fellow would once again disappoint.

Now that the drama was over or at least temporarily suspended it gave Luke time to try and rationalise if that were possible what had happened. He rolled over in his mind a chronology of recent events. The drive along the coast, the old monastery, the big plate no food restaurant, dad's fiver, the old curator, artefacts, the ivory baton with the silver tips, lights out. 'And somehow I'm trapped in the body of a crazy guy called Eukles who has a death wish. I can see, feel, taste, hear and smell the world through him, but I can't influence this body'. Luke was happy with his thought progress. So that's the adventure the old curator spoke about. But the sudden realisation that he had been thrust into what he could only describe as an asylum with no exit strategy threw him into a panic. He felt helpless like a sailor marooned and forgotten on an uncharted island. Perhaps he had lost forever his angry dad and his kind mother and his annoying brothers and Paddy the spiller of the pyramid of luminous soccer balls. Images of them all flashed onto his hard drive. This was scary stuff.

Luke cut the thought short. He wasn't one for poetry but with a dad who was an English teacher it was unavoidable in his house. "If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs..." he found himself quoting from Kipling's 'If...' It was the only worthwhile poem his dad had thought him and it had steadied him in times of crisis before, although they seemed like childish affairs in comparison with where he found himself now. Panic he convinced himself was no use and certainly wasn't going to rescue the situation. He determined that he needed to understand more about the person whose body he was in and the world into which he had been so unexpectedly plunged. He felt calmer now that he had some sense of purpose which was how Luke knew he functioned best. This guy's name is Eukles and he's under the protection of top cat Cailimachus who has just come back from some place called Eretreia which has been wasted by the Persians who gave the Greeks and big boy Cailimachus a good kicking. And that seemed to be it. Not a lot. More data needed.

They had left what Luke now understood to be a gymnasium where the men of these parts come to get naked together and to be hard asses and hard asses they all clearly were. They certainly left the hard asses back home in the halfpenny place. Polyneices wasn't exactly on the Christmas card list but Luke wondered whether he was dead. And death seemed to be very much part of the plan when his brother had swung that fist or when Cailimachus had given the twin that silent stare. As they walked away from the nuthouse full of angry men Cailimachus striding powerfully in front, Luke became conscious of an effort to hold back tears at this confirmation of the news that he already suspected that his father was dead. Of course Luke's father wasn't dead; he was in that overpriced restaurant delivering that speech to his annoying younger brothers Mikey and Johnny. But whoever owned this body had to deal with a dead dad and was doing so in a very manly way. Respect. Luke found himself having to quicken his pace to keep up with Cailimachus but he was keen to do so. It was obvious that Cailimachus was the main man and being next to him was a passport to survival. Luke was impressed by the way he moved confidently through the throng of people giving strong handshakes to some and charming words to others. However Luke also noticed there were some who cast seething, resentful looks in his direction and who whispered in clusters, bitter conversations poisoned with jealousy and begrudgery and eyes that threw pointed daggers at Caillimachus' back. The big man has his share of enemies thought Luke. Perhaps it was for this reason that Cailimachus didn't travel alone. Two gooks went with him: both were big, the one in front sour and dour the one behind cocky and full of himself. Swaggerhead and the Mr. Dreary.

Luke consumed all the information his body, which he co-owned but not exactly on a 50-50 basis, allowed him to consume. He now found himself in a narrow street no wider than the width of a truck, which stank heavily with the odour of human urine and excrement and what Luke's senses categorised as the smell associated with a stable. His ears took in a gobble of conversation at times too rapid to be understood or in drawling accents that reminded him of farmers who had spent too much of their lives alone chatting with cows and goats. Human voices sat easily in this street with the yelps, grunts and wheezes of farm animals. Pigs, goats, chickens and one very upset and stubborn donkey could be heard and smelt. There were obstacles in the street itself; the pecking hens especially made him recall the far too intrusive pigeons of Trafalgar Square. Occasionally the obnoxious stink was masked by a cart or stall laden with herbs and spices whose smell Luke recognised but could not name. Some like garlic were obvious. Others he knew were used in cooking but he could not rightly tell if they were mint or rosemary or thyme which he vaguely felt grew in his mother's herb garden outside their front door. It made him think of his mother who would mildly flavour meals with the stuff he saw before him, or perfume the living room with fragrant oils after she had tidied the house on Thursday nights for her book club. Luke felt so distant from that comfortable, safe world which he had all too often and easily taken for granted.

For here he was locked inside the body of this angry bloke called Eukles who had just been abruptly told that his father had been killed in some far away battle that now appeared to threaten the survival of Athens itself. News delivered as casually as a gas bill. Luke concluded that time had been in some way bent back in the Adventure Shop, where let's face it, strange things had occurred. Some part of him had been tossed back across the centuries to ancient Greece. But which part of him exactly? This was certainly not his body. It felt older and less relaxed. Eukles whose body it definitely was, had a few unexamined anger issues and needed to see the school counsellor ASAP. But for all that it was not unlike his own body in terms of shape; average height, lean in the way healthy teenage boys are, hairier with a tan some girls would die for, and very hungry. This body hadn't eaten for some time. Thankfully, Luke observed, the body, or Eukles as Luke was getting used to calling him, was blissfully unaware of his intrusion and what Luke found himself describing as a form of occupation. For some reason Luke concluded that he should trust the words and integrity of the man in the Adventure Shop. He would return to his own world soon. This was like a roller coaster ride designed to frighten and get the heart racing but ultimately safe, because you know that you're never going to be exposed to any real danger. Luke relaxed and resolved to enjoy the ride.

Eukles' eyes were focused on the calf muscles of Cailimachus which exuded strength and power. They were two trunks of tough; leathery skin encased muscle with sinews the size of telegraph wires. They propelled their owner's body up the alley of filth past vendors for whom Cailimachus was a sort of pope. One of these sellers of fruit tossed him a golden peach as if to test his reflexes. Cailimachus caught it cleanly and the entire street seemed to smile. Even the dour henchman who led the way loosened up at the reaction.

They made their way through the throng of sweating humanity with bad skin and breath, past cripples and beggars and sad looking girls and bored, yawning boys. The dwellings on either side were haphazard and built by what Luke's dad would call cowboys. The street twisted itself uphill until it broke into an open space which future students of Greek history would call the Agora. This was a market place which also served as a meeting place for the supposedly good, free men of Athens. The square was packed with hawkers of bruised fruit, vegetables yet to reach their sell by, frayed cloth, stinking fish and ox heads feeding a swarm of buzzing flies. It was a whirl of noise and smell and colour. Cailimachus stopped to talk to an elderly man by the cloth stall in what looked like a serious meaningful conversation involving much head shaking, breath sucking and lip pursing. Luke rested his backside against an ancient rock deposited millions of years ago and that had survived the building works around but which would eventually yield when another generation of engineers and architects had their way. Luke was distracted by the thought that all cities grew slowly eliminating the bits of nature that have slept for millennia only to be bulldozed to oblivion. While chewing this thought his eyes panned the scene until finally picking out a line of young men, boys maybe, looking either terrified or lost as a cluster of well-dressed men argued with the man who controlled these prisoners. It took time for Luke to register that this was a slave auction. The pompous fat auctioneer was shaking his head and affecting a face of disgust at the prices being offered for his human goods. Eukles moved nearer and stood at the back of thirty or so faintly curious bystanders observing the drama of the transaction.

"300 drachmas each. Two grand and they're all yours. Scythians all of them. Healthy teeth and muscle. Good for the fields. Excellent for the mines."

Luke collected the shards of conversation that made up the deal. Eventually a flat faced, squat, bald, thuggish looking man bought the lot after a prolonged haggle. His overseer who looked as if he had been born to bully men, then marched the line of humanity away and the crowd fell to chatting lightheartedly about who had got the better bargain. Half the slaves looked as bored as a child in church, while the other half reminded Luke of first years on their first day in big school. He wanted to scream out at the injustice and unfairness and wrongness of what was happening but he knew he couldn't. He knew that even if he had control of the body he was in he still couldn't. He had as much influence over events as a spectator has over the outcome of a football match. This was a terribly inhumane world where human flesh was trafficked in their version of Tesco's and people lined up so that they'd have something to tell their wives over a nice cup of willow tea.

Seeing the slaves led away to a shortened life of drudgery in the baking hot olive orchards, Luke felt homesick for his own safer, more civilised, humane world. He wanted to break the spell that bound him, but nothing he tried worked. He was trapped and because Eukles kept staring at the small stream of human misery so also did Luke. It was like the times when watching a good film on TV and tucking into a bar of fruit and nut, an ad for famine relief in Africa would suddenly come on the screen without warning. And you would fumble for the remote to quickly remove the unpleasant faces of starving children with distended bellies and flies on their lifeless lips. Luke would finish the chocolate but of course it had lost its flavour. At least he had the remote.

Now, thanks to Eukles his eyes were trained on the sad frightened face of the final slave. He was a boy about Luke's age. He seemed alone in the world and on the precipice of despair, unable to make sense of what was unfolding in his little life. A captive of some raiding party, or perhaps just an unwanted son from the bottom of the economic ladder whose father had traded him for a bad debt. Why, Luke wondered, was Eukles looking at this kid? And it was at that moment that Luke realised he not only could feel the heat of the sun and hear the flies buzzing on the camel's backside less than a couple of metres from his face. Not only could he taste the dry thirst in his mouth or the receding pain in his left shoulder from his recent wrestling match, he could also feel the emotions of his host.

Eukles' eyes remained focused on that last young lad being led away and they were struggling to fight back tears which were a combination of self-pity and fellow feeling for this poor young stranger. Luke understood. But he also wondered why Eukles felt this way. Surely he was used to this. Life here was nasty, brutish and short. This wasn't the first slave market he'd come across. And then Luke started to be aware as he trawled through Eukles' conscious and subconscious that Eukles felt in clear unequivocal terms that 'but for the whims of the gods there go I'.

Luke took his time sifting through the foggy, dusty chambers of his host's mind. Some of the doors to these chambers were reluctant to reveal their secrets and Luke nodded to himself knowing how he too hid things not just from the world but also from himself, mortifications and humiliations buried deep but never destroyed. The files relevant to Eukles' tears revealed how a school friend, by all accounts his only real friend had been captured at sea while on a trade mission and sold into slavery in Lydia. Ransom was demanded but his family suddenly impoverished by the abrupt loss of the family fortune that had perished with their son had no means to pay. Eukles had begged his own father to intervene. Luke suspected a violent exchange between father and son which Eukles had hidden so well that Luke could not access it. However his father's death at Eretreia had now left him dispossessed and at the mercy of a rapacious uncle who had evicted Eukles from the family home. This explained the stomach rumbling hunger; Eukles was destitute, alone and starving, not too far away from where the slave boy was, who now disappeared with the others into the shadows. The whims of the gods.

Luke stopped his searching; slamming the book closed on his exploration into the most private cavities of Eukles' life. This was unmanly, an inappropriate liberty, an unacceptable intrusion. And yet despite Luke's noble decision it was impossible. He was irrepressibly attacked by his host's thoughts, dreams and despairing nightmares. Memories collided and crashed into Luke as mischievous asteroids in a void smash heedlessly against each other. It was like trying to sleep and ignore the fire alarm in the house next door.

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder, thankfully his right one. It was the bigger of Cailimachus' henchmen who dragged him without words back towards his saviour who had finished his business. Whether he liked him or not, Cailimachus was his saviour, his protection meant that he would not now work himself to an early death like the downcast skeletons in the ovens of his father's orchards in Attica, or the already dead ash grey creatures who shoveled and scratched the earth for silver in the hill mines of Laurium.

Luke was sickened by these images of enslaved, lost humanity which flashed across his eyes as Eukles recalled them and he was glad to have the conveyor belt of visual misery interrupted when they came to what amounted to a doorway which Luke took to be the entrance to Caillimachus' house. The doorway in turn led into a sun filled courtyard. A healthy looking slave jumped at the unexpected entry and moved to serve his master's needs. Cailimachus ordered food and then gave the slave a task whose details were whispered. The slave nodded and then left the house with some haste and a clear sense of mission.

It wasn't really a house more like a small barracks and reminded Luke of the times his mother was away and quickly their house would become after a few hours without mam, what his father would angrily call "a shithole". Mam's absence also had a negative impact on dad's language. Nobody would notice the condition of the house until an hour before mam was due to return. Dad would then get everyone to spend a frantic half hour cleaning the place up, at the end of which it still measured up to what even Mother Teresa would have to concede was as fine a definition of a "shithole" as she had ever come across. Dad would kid himself that it wasn't, then mam, the domestic goddess, would come home and shake her head while dad, red-faced, tried pathetically to explain that they had spent the entire afternoon cleaning.

Luke guessed, correctly as it turned out, that there was no Mrs. Cailimachus.

The main man as befitted his status, sat on the only chair, an important looking piece of rustically carved wood whose purpose, Luke cynically but again correctly surmised was to give the sitter a sense of importance. It had overtones of a throne but was not so grand nor pompous. The two bodyguards picked up some fruit from a straw basket and made themselves comfortable on a bench in the shade. Eukles was bid to stand before his new master.

"This is my house and these are my people," his hand and eyes indicated the fruit gorgers behind. "The big guy is Daemon and the bigger guy is Phaedo" Cailimachus laughed at his own joke as did the ' bigger guy'. Daemon continued eating in a surly, withdrawn manner. Daemon and Phaedo thought Luke to himself; these guys' parents had a sense of humour. "I know who you are," continued Cailimachus, "that your mother died at your birth and that now with your father's death you are alone in the world. I owe your father a debt, of that we'll speak later. But first we must establish the order of things. I am in charge in my house. My house is anywhere I go. While you are in my house you will obey me completely. Are we clear?"

Eukles nodded his assent but Cailimachus wanted something more tangible.

"Men don't nod when they make a contract. We are men Eukles. Speak to me."

Eukles paused a moment, looking into the eyes of a man who would give him shelter and food in return for servitude. He needed food, and another night on the streets with the twins prowling like wolves made him shiver.

"While I'm in the house of Cailimachus I will be grateful for his generosity and be obedient to him."

Cailimachus let out a sigh of disappointment, shook his head and said with an air of resignation, "spoken like a true politician Eukles. In this house we despise such serpents. Do you know your Homer?" Caillimachus didn't wait for a nod or any reply. "Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid," and he cocked an eyebrow at his own borrowed wisdom in the direction of his new burden. Eukles stared back fixing his new master with a suspicion that said he was unimpressed.

"How cautious are the wise. That's Homer too."

Caillimachus slapped the chair's arm with his palm. "The kid has wit. But have you just enough wit to get your throat slit or have you got the measure of yourself and men to serve you until your hair turns grey?" He then turned to his more loyal and less troublesome brothers "lads benches around the table, the food will be ready soon."   
Cailimachus busied himself dragging, without ceremony, his throne like chair to the top of a long rectangular table whose surface was an uneven but pleasing marriage of three sturdy oak boards. The contours of their summer growth had almost been obliterated by uncountable banquets and the carelessness of drunken men. The boards bore the scars of spilt wine and knives slashed and stabbed into them in anger or in drunken displays of bravado. They had endured the scorching of overturned candles and oil lamps and red hot iron cauldrons lifted straight from the flames. And peppered into their resistant fibres were the marks of hobnailed sandals striking hard, as heroes danced in celebration of their bloody deeds. Yes thought Luke, definitely no Mrs. C. This was a man's table and a man's world without a drop of moderating estrogen, and scary, very scary.

But the table could rest easy tonight. Now it would witness another type of feast given over to thought and discussion and the memory of absent friends. Eukles' Father would be celebrated along with others who had fallen and who now resided in the land of the shades. There would be no dancing or bragging or wrestling. Questions would be asked tonight, imaginations stimulated, ideas generated, opinions shattered, dreams nourished, action contemplated and provoked, friendships bound more deeply. But first there would be food.

Phaedo lifted one of the oak benches as if it were cardboard and the other sullen beefcake, Daemon, did the same with the slightly smaller one. Eukles following their lead made to draw a similar sized couch which hugged the wall, casually aiming to lift it with ease. The bench however was as stubborn as the noisy donkey they had passed in the street and Eukles found himself in an embarrassing and unwinnable fight with the furniture beast. To compound his mortification, the three mighty warriors began to convulse with laughter, even the stoney faced Daemon who Luke had decided hadn't laughed since he saw the ugly guy in the mirror when he was four years old. Phaedo still guffawing, at Mr. wimpy's furniture removals crossed the floor in two giant strides and shifted the bench into place with a single easy sweep of his powerful right arm. Then in a final flourish he completed the comedy yanking Eukles by the scruff of his tunic and, swiveling his arm like a mechanical crane, deposited his human cargo on the waiting bench. Cailimachus and Daemon clapped. Eukles red faced and smouldering slapped Phaedo's hand away aggressively but in an all too girly manner. The big man feigned pain and teased Eukles with a fake "Wooooooh". Eukles then tensed his fists until the knuckles were white, the tension of the skin reflecting the tightened muscles of his face.

In the midst of his rage Eukles felt a heavy hand on his fist, its weight dispelling the intoxicating cloud of laughter and derision that engulfed the room.

"Relax young Eukles" came the steadying voice of Cailimachus who was also the owner of the steadying hand. He paused until he had the full attention of his newly adopted nuisance who was staring at Phaedo.

"How old are you Eukles?"

"Almost eighteen" came the timid reply.

"So you're seventeen" said Cailimachus in a no nonsense fashion. "Why do you lie, are you ashamed of what you are? How have you made it this far?" he added in a tone that mingled disbelief with relief. "The Gods work in strange ways. I'm going to have some task getting you to your eightieth birthday. "Cailimachus shook his head; it seemed to be part of the conversation with Eukles. "Young man you still haven't grown your first beard. Luke was conscious of some wiry stubble on his chin that even the fertiliser of Eukles' regular wishful thinking couldn't accelerate. Luke understood that one all too well.

"Look at that fellow there." Callimachus pointed to a lion skin one of a pair which adorned the cold bare plaster of the gable wall. "He was a courageous fellow. Could have run. Chose not to. Should have run. And if he had run he wouldn't have ended up a trophy on a wall far from his home, a conversation piece to puff up an ageing man's ego." Cailimachus smiled and broke off his lecture briefly. Follies and vanities he thought. In younger days he would boast of feats and brag of deeds but now he had seen how Nike's temples of glory were hollow places - fictions and lies, empty boasts of empty, stupid, frightened men. When he had killed that lion he was himself young and frightened out of his wits and in his fear he had stumbled causing the mighty beast to impale himself on his spear. Otherwise he often thought in the silence of the few peaceful nights he had known before Morpheus would close his eyes with his spell, otherwise "I would be nothing more than lion dung on a parched African hillside".

The blurted phrase left Eukles staring with a puzzled look, awaiting an explanation. "Never mind. Take a peek at the fellow you're going to punch with those big fists of yours." Eukles did as he was bid. "He's bigger than you, faster than you, stronger than you. He's everything you're not. I'll bet you've never killed a man." Eukles understood that this was a question. Luke remembered the corpse like Polyneices but Eukles shook his head half ashamed of his lack of experience in this field coming as it did on top of his failure as a beard grower. Cheer up thought Luke; it's not exactly a badge of honour where I come from.

"Well Phaedo here isn't a carpenter or a cook or a..." he paused and looked for assistance from Phaedo who suggested with raised eyebrows, "fisherman, blacksmith, priest" which caused them all including Luke and Eukles to laugh. "No", continued Cailimachus, "Phaedo is not a priest." Phaedo began rolling his eyes, moving his hands and chanting mumbo jumbo in what Luke assumed was a caricature of a temple priest. Eukles chuckled at his clowning and the mood lightened.

Then suddenly Cailimachus gripped his hand firmly as if announcing that this was the point, "What is he so? What is he?"

Eukles looked into his master's eyes with a confusion that showed he hadn't fully grasped the question. In that brief moment Luke saw the weariness in Cailimachus' own eyes as if he were a man who had tasted all that life had to offer and had found its flavours over rated. He looked like his own father looked after he had been given the silent treatment by mam or when a day at work had got the better of him.

"He's a warrior" replied Eukles

"A warrior" laughed Cailimachus in what Luke would describe as a scoff, "Are you happy with your promotion, Phaedo?"

Phaedo twisted his lips to show that he had been called a lot worse. "Warrior will do very nicely, thank you kind sir. And here I was thinking you were about to smash the few brains I have with those killer paws of yours, and now you call me warrior."

Eukles gave a painful smile acknowledging how ridiculous it must have appeared when he had clenched his fists at Phaedo.

Cailimachus finished the ambush. His tone was chillingly casual.

"Phaedo is a killer. He kills people. People like you, people like me. Most of the time he kills people he doesn't know. Anybody who is an obstacle in his path or in our path. He could have smashed your skull open on the oak wood that you're going to dine on, and it wouldn't have spoilt his supper. That's what he does." Cailimachus winked and Luke got a hideous feeling that behind the wink was the hint that the table had been used for just such spilling of brains prior to an unspoilt supper in the past. Thankfully that thought and the entire conversation was brought to an abrupt end by the arrival of flasks of wine and earthen drinking cups. A slave girl, the same age as Luke, brought the refreshments and received a lurid look from Phaedo whom she carefully avoided coming near. Although too young to know what was going on Luke smelled the unpleasant chemistry and the girl's fear and powerlessness. It made him like Phaedo even less if that were possible.

Luke had taken an occasional sip of his mother's wine and wondered how anyone could look forward to a glass of such bitter fluid with nothing to say in its favour. But Eukles polished off the first cup and held out his hand for more. Luke recoiled from the taste and the rough impact on his gullet and gut. But he also recognised the beginning of lightheadedness which he often saw in his parents after one of their nights out. Cailimachus finished the first cup quickly too and then filled all four cups. But now that they were filled a second time he sipped and he gestured to Eukles to follow his example. "Wine tempts men to blurt out things better left untold. Although you seem to do well enough without it." Everyone laughed. It wasn't a good joke but the wine had lightened the air in the room.

"You have the courage of a lion young man but as things stand the wits of a donkey. We need to change that. You must bury your foolishness in a deep pit and you must learn to harness your courage. I have seen many dead lions." He raised his cup to the dead pelt of the animal king on the wall. Luke acknowledged the excellent advice, Eukles was more begrudging.

"Why did Polyneices pick a fight with you, son?"

"Cause he's a fat, useless prick." Luke's ears reacted to the looser language and put it down to the loosening of Eukles' tongue due to the wine.

"Foolish." Cailimachus' response was precise and judgmental. "He and his brother were paid to do away with you, to provoke you so that it would look like self-defense. Your uncle has taken all your property but while you're still alive he feels insecure with the windfall from your father's death. He has to kill you. The twins have the contract. It's worth a decent sum to them. If they don't deliver they'll be derided by everyone and your uncle will do for them. And then he'll just get some other low life to cut your sweet talking throat, which with your carry on, won't be that hard. It's time you recognised the danger you're in." Cailimachus paused to allow the severity of what he had just said sink in.

"There's more. Your uncle in turn is beholden to Miltiades, you know who he is?"

"Of course." Luke understood through Eukles' thoughts that Miltiades was the main man in Athens, their version of the President but a little murkier.

"Well, Miltiades will see that his man - your uncle- will not be short changed. I am going to sort this. It won't be easy but I will sort it. I don't need you to make it harder. For the next few days do as you're told. Clear?"

Again there was hesitation which reminded Luke of one of those difficult kids at school who are magnets for confrontation. It hurt to say it but he eventually answered, "Clear".

Cailimachus' tone and straightforward honesty however was slowly disarming Eukles of his begrudgery. That and the wine and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.

"Good, then go see what is taking the cook."

Eukles got up and left the room by the way the slave girl had left. This brought him into a roofless hallway off which there were doorless chambers. At the end of this corridor with its walls of peeling rust coloured plaster could be caught the sounds of a foreign tongue and more importantly the aromas of mouthwatering food. Luke might have just dined on fish and chips but it had been days since Eukles had put anything substantial in his stomach. And it was Eukles' stomach that Luke now felt grumbling, growling to be filled. The closer they got to the kitchen itself; Luke could see the source of the belly rumbling odours. Half a dozen tan coloured sacks lay with their mouths gaping, exposing a rainbow of colour and fragrance. A cockroach darted out and Eukles stamped on it with his sandaled foot. Not very appetising thought Luke as he examined his first dead cockroach seconds after witnessing his first live one. Another two took their chances making for a crack in the far wall. With impressively swift feet that reminded Luke of a hip hop dancer, Eukles stamped twice, squashing two lives as fast as one could click one's fingers. "Baum" said Eukles clicking his fingers, celebrating his work and pointing at the flattened corpses. "Good shootin" said Luke to his deaf audience of one.

They moved on past the sacks and into the kitchen which was also the sleeping quarters of the slave girl and what appeared to be her mother or aunt. "The master would like food," said Eukles trying to avoid deference or dismissiveness. The two slaves bowed. Luke sensed Eukles' thoughts. Barbarians from the North, probably enslaved when their village was overrun by a neighbouring tribe. With their silly language, dress, looks and customs, destined for a short life of palatable servitude no worse than what they left behind. They would live a silent life, silently die and silently be forgotten. History will never include them in her story. Luke felt the pity and warm humanity in Eukles and admired him for his silent generosity towards these voiceless ones whose screams and dreams would never be known.

"Good" said Eukles, nodding his head avoiding anything as scandalous as gratitude towards these less than human humans. He turned round and Luke was grateful to leave behind the kitchen with its cesspit stink where food was butchered and gutted. Before he had reached the end of the hallway another three cockroaches had bitten the dust, only this time Luke felt anger rather than grace in the movement of the sandaled assassin.

Eukles returned to find the three men deep in conversation as if plotting something. As he entered the room he passed the slave who had left when they had first come. Clearly he had returned from whatever mission he had been dispatched to and that was at the heart of the discussion. But he didn't get an opportunity to find out anything further as the kitchen slaves arrived with the food.

"Ah lentil porridge", a dish greeted by everyone enthusiastically. Luke wondered at the fuss of these country bumkins drooling at the chance to tuck into some hot rabbit food. It was like that moment at a kid's party when the mammy breaks out the crisps, sweets, treats and ice cream. But lentil porridge? Come on lads, it's not exactly Michelin star material.

The slaves put the steaming pot down on the table and Daemon began shoveling the thick gunge into the wooden bowls. Luke grimaced as he beheld the green swill. "You really don't want to go anywhere near that" he advised Eukles who of course couldn't hear him and ignored him just as the others ignored the old slave. Eukles was salivating at the sight and smell of the viscous green slurry and plunged his paw in ravenously. Luke retched and felt the fish and chips from the overpriced restaurant were going to make an unscheduled appearance. "Oh Jesus" he groaned, feeling nauseous trying to think of anything that would divert his mind away from the slop. But Eukles had an appetite and wolfed down fingerfulls making Luke feel feint. He began to sing "Mary had a little lamb" to get his mind elsewhere but in his confused desperation the song quickly morphed into" Mary ate some lentil jam."

By this stage Eukles had reached the end of his bowl and was scraping it clean with his hand. Luke could taste the woodiness of the dish on his tongue along with the revolting lentils. He sighed with relief at the sight of the empty bowl as a mariner sighs at the passing of a tempest and a sea at last empty of anger. "More?" asked Cailimachus. "Please," replied Eukles. "Christ", moaned Luke. And a couple of healthy helpings of slop plopped into the bowl. Three bowls later Eukles pushed his dish away and Luke finally relaxed into a collapsed exhaustion. He felt as if he had bathed in a vat of lentils, the taste, texture and stench of the green demons clung to him like laughing parasites.

The slaves arrived again, this time carrying more wine and a wicker basket of hot, flat, crusty breads. The fragrance of the garlic and other herbs mingled with the toasty flour and soothed Luke's senses. It was like the Nan in Indian restaurants and was to be heartily welcomed as it would chase away the smear of lentil. Then the solemn faced cook deposited what appeared to be a white bag which sat like an oversized buttock on a terracotta dish. "Ah the goat's cheese" slabbered Cailimachus. Luke's nostrils' flared at the stink of bad toilet that came from the bag. "You guys are taking the piss", he shouted. But his pleas were in vain as, with a big smile on his face Eukles proceeded to take the piss in earnest while the sagging almost empty buttock bag of liquid manure sat there laughing at him. Time after time Eukles smothered the delicious bread in the sickly white muck and rolled it round in his mouth savouring the flavour dribbling 'Good' through drooling lips. Luke screamed at his own helplessness as he suffered slowly this final culinary humiliation.

Eukles belched and the sickly wind from his stomach wafted up his nostrils. He had hoovered up everything put in front of him as a puppy licks up the regurgitated sick of his mother. Luke would have taken thumbscrews or electric shock treatment over what had just been inflicted.

"So the puppy is hungry" remarked Cailimachus. "That bastard of an uncle will pay for dumping you out on the streets."

"My uncle's not my keeper," said Eukles proudly wiping some of the liquefied scum from his mouth and licking the congealed results from his wrists.

"Well he intends to keep your father's property and wealth. Those merchants are all the same, money grubbing worms. It's them and Miltiades that have us in this mess with the Persians in the first place."

The sound of the word 'Persians' evoked an image of turbaned princes and veiled belly dancing princesses in Luke's mind. He imagined cool fountains waltzing in marble halls while the sun sought to impose its withering Persian heat through the architect's clever defences. Burly, bearded body guards squinted suspiciously, their hands on their ornately engraved, steel scimitars unmoved by the charmer's flute or the girls dancing sensually and rhythmically to the music's flow. Persians, he concluded rich and cranky.

The table was cleared and the four were left alone in their cups. "Let us sing of arms and the man." And with that Cailimachus tossed a wooden flute to Daemon who struck up a melody which Luke found uncannily familiar. It made him think of a Connemara crossroads with a dark haired, shawled beauty singing a song about a lost love in a lost land whose culture had been eclipsed and forgotten by all except the hardiest of poets, while turf smoke danced a slow set with the salt from the Atlantic and a corncrake sang its last in sympathy. Phaedo closed his eyes as Luke had seen many balladeers do and began to sing in a fine tenor voice. The words told of a boy's first taste of the soldier's life- the drill sergeant's kick and the drill sergeant's punch, and forced marches with a 60 pound pack on your back, freezing by night and baking by day. It wasn't a song of self-pity just a list of the warrior's hardships. Then as the verse ended Daemon's whistle broke loose like a horse left off to gallop after a restrained canter. His foot beat out the quicker time on the earth floor and Phaedo and Cailimachus smashed out the same rhythm on the table with their fists.

"We'll snarl and we'll jeer at the Lydian's spear

And we'll sing and we'll dance at the Persian's fine lance

And the blood bonds we've sealed

On the sword and the shield

And feast at the same table in Hades"

Luke listened half drunk on the wine which Eukles swirled in his cup mesmerised by its waves and eddies which waltzed in time to the music. It was a soldier's song, sung with different words on a million battlefields but with the same emotion for thousands of years. Every soldier had sung it whether he carried a machine gun or a stone axe. Americans had sung it at Normandy and Russians and Germans across the debris at Stalingrad. Romans had sung it the Parthian deserts and Vikings sang it as they rowed across the North Sea. Normans had sought sanctuary in it when the gales and Gaels howled at their keep doors and Sioux Indians hummed it on the great open prairies before being extinguished forever at Wounded Knee. Every soldier knew what it was to be part of this fellowship not a vast impersonal army but a pocket of brothers not more than would fill a teepee, who would risk all on the dice of battle, and if it was your turn rather than theirs, they would remember you in their barrack room toasts long after the generals and the people had forgotten. Shakespeare's band of brothers. The happy few.

Evening had crept up on them without being noticed but torches were not needed as the moon or Hecate as these fellows called her, threw a veil of soft silver light over the courtyard. Eukles looked intently for a moment at the white disc in the evening sky thinking- believing- in the tradition of his people that it was now the home to his father and all the other shades who had passed from this world to the next. Luke felt the still, deep sadness of humanity in that focus; a vain, implausible effort to answer that great question which other generations would strive with greater tools to solve but whose outcome and answer was just as vain. There was no one on the moon. There wouldn't be for at least another twenty five centuries. He thought of the American flag alone up there with a few footsteps and assorted space junk. Eukles' dream of a tranquil home for the shades was a finer more sensitive belief as soft as one of granny's prayers.

"Tell me how my father died", demanded Eukles slightly slurring the last words.

"He died well, as befits an Athenian. May we all face death as well as your father did." Cailimachus raised his cup and the others followed. Luke noted that tears began to well up in Phaedo's mud coloured eyes. Eukles, feeling like he was part of this close brotherhood emptied his cup. Luke could feel along with the sharpness of the wine which raked the lining of his oesaphagus, the massaging relaxing effect it had as it attacked his bloodstream and took advantage of his fatigue. It had disarmed him as it had disarmed the others.

Luke had always been dismissive about the attraction of alcohol as he wheeled the shopping trolley past ridiculously priced bottles of spirits standing to attention like soldiers on supermarket shelves. He had often- too often- witnessed its transforming effects on his parents and their friends. Their slurred words, childish exuberance and plainly silly carry on laughing at stupid things and speaking in louder voices than necessary with flushed red faces wasn't much of an endorsement for the product. On other occasions he had seen drunks staggering on the street, their legs buckling under them, pretty girls in short dresses vomiting in the gutter shorn of the last of their dignity while the slightly less drunk friend records it all on her mobile for YouTube and the unborn grand kids. And then more frighteningly, once in Spain a bunch of what his father had called English hooligans, had started breaking up furniture and throwing bottles and glasses and punching and kicking. "They're drunk" dad explained by way of explanation although he'd had a few himself.

Cailimachus smiled a sad, sweet, human smile and filled Eukles' cup before passing the flask to his comrades. He then put his own cup to his big misshapen nose, no doubt twisted into its present shape by the violence of another who lived, or maybe died, to regret the deed. He closed his eyes and inhaled the gift of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry.

"We had to run for our lives. It had been a disaster from the start. Poor intelligence. Outwitted and outnumbered. The Persians had arrived in their thousands; they wanted to make an example. Eretreia was the first mainland Greek town, they wanted to breed fear. Perhaps we should have stayed and died there but there will be a bigger battle than Eretreia and we'll be needed there."

Luke could see that Daemon didn't agree, a warrior didn't run. "So yes we ran away. We were in the rear guard covering the army's retreat, slowing down the Persians who smelled blood. Your father being a senior commander volunteered to do his duty with us. There weren't too many who did. A troop of Persian cavalry attacked us, big horses, big men, real soldiers not like some of the spear fodder who make up the Persian levees. These were 'Immortals' part of the king's life guard. 'Immortals' don't run; they win or they die. We saw them coming, chose good ground which was unfavourable to their horses but they had the numbers and pressed the attack."   
Cailimachus spoke slowly choosing his words, as if, out of respect for those who had died, he did not want to err. He closed his eyes again allowing the vapours of the wine to rise unimpeded to his brain through the channels of his nose from which greying hairs grew and shivered with each breath. He then opened them and faced Eukles and Luke noticed that his eyes were glazed with tears. How could such a tough guy be such a cry baby?

"Fights are never clear affairs like the ones you see on the stage or hear told by poets. They're unscripted, you improvise each act. Your father fought well, we all fought well. We forced the Persians in on themselves, using their numbers against them, their horses crushing them; they were unable to wield their spears. But we were only a dozen and after the first charge we were down to eight." He looked at Phaedo who stood up, raised his beaker "Philo and Parmeno and the two without names". The wine spilled like tears from his overflowing cup before it reached his lips.   
"Another troop of Persians would have broken off the engagement and made a run for it knowing that Eretreia had been taken and that we had been scattered like yelping dogs. We were no threat to their victory nor were we much of a prize. But as I say, these were the king's men. They had eaten his bread and drunk his wine. Their oath to serve their master was a true one." He paused to remember a worthy opponent.   
"When you're in a fight like that there is no quarter, you smash and cut and slash and bite and tear and pull and butt, you rip and kick," the others snarled their approval for the warrior poetry and rattled the table with their fists. "You are overwhelmed by the need to keep fighting because you've seen too many who have stopped even just for a flash". He clicked his fingers and let his hand rise as if it were smoke rising slowly upwards towards the moon with its ash grey ghosts.

"But you don't know if a blow will come from some unexpected quarter, a slinger's lucky shot from a hundred paces, or a miss timed spear that comes out of the dust cloud. I didn't see it. One of the horses, rider less and terrified, sprung up from where it had fallen and crashed in to me. I was dazed and winded, my spear knocked from my grasp. Seeing their opportunity four Persians bore down on me as I struggled to rise and get air into my chest. That's when your father came between me and them and that is where he died, his head cleaved in two by a Persian blade. Phaedo."

Phaedo rose and went to the far wall where a cloth draped over an object which he soon revealed as what Luke guessed was the offending blade still bearing the father's blood. Eukles took it, examined the ornate metalwork-obviously an officer of rank- and the flakes of his father's blood. He did not speak but nodded his gratitude for the story and the grizzly trophy.

"Like a Greek", concluded Cailimachus. "Like a Greek" replied the others in chorus and they all drank the dead Greek's memory.

There was a sudden knocking on the door and the warriors sprung immediately to arms. A pale looking, malnourished boy entered panting for breath. He bowed to the two henchmen who sheathed their weapons.  
"Well?" said Cailimachus.

"They are in the Sailmakers Tavern with two women. Only the tavern keeper himself no one else."

"Good boy. But remember not a word of this. Go to the kitchen and fill that belly of yours."

Cailimachus gave a knowing nod to his two men and they rose with serious expressions picking up the blades which Daemon had spent the evening sharpening with a grizzly, rhythmic music.

"No", said Eukles in protest and Luke was so scared he couldn't bring himself to voice his dissent. This was murder.

"Yes", said Cailimachus, "this is the way of the world, son." And he put a big boned hand on the young man's arm. Luke felt its kindness and strength and the reassurance and protection that it promised. As he did so the door shut softly as Daemon and Phaedo slipped into the night. Polyneices and his smarter twin would not see the rose coloured light of morning.

Cailimachus left Eukles to his thoughts, got up and rolled out some sacks of straw and rough woolen mantles on which they would sleep. There followed a long pause in which Eukles felt the frustration and helplessness he felt when watching a murder on the stage. This bloody war changes everything.

"Why is there a war?" asked Eukles.

"There's always a war, son. If there weren't, men like me would be out of business." The joke was lame as was Eukles respectful smile. "I suppose there is a war because people like me exist, but that is not what you mean is it? You're talking about this war we have with Darius and his Persian empire and you're talking about it because this one affects you. Your dad wouldn't be dead and my boys wouldn't be on their way to the sailmakers tavern and the twins on their way to the banks of the Styx." Eukles thought that the logic was cruel and while Luke agreed, he felt that the observations would one day mean something to him that he had presently missed.

"Greed and envy and fear and of course pride." Cailimachus stopped tossing the bedding on the floor and told his enquiring young friend to sit down. Eukles made himself comfortable on the soft sacks. He was pleasantly exhausted and drunk

"Pride is at the heart of it all. Darius is a proud king. Proud kings are dangerous creatures; they need to feel that the world is in awe of them. Darius should be busy making sure that his people have enough to eat and are sheltered from the storms of this world. That is a king's job. But I've met a lot of kings and I've met very few like that. But Darius is greedy too. He wants the world; he wants it to send him tribute, even Greece with the little we have. And we Greeks are a proud bunch too and we have told him to sling his hook. So it comes to this: if Darius doesn't teach us a lesson then the rest of his restless subjects might decide to tell Darius where to go. Darius, believe it or not is envious of the one thing we Greeks have." And he paused to give effect to his point, "freedom."

Luke thought of the line of slaves and the mother and daughter sleeping on the kitchen floor and didn't think much of Greek freedom but he was struck by the heart felt honesty of Cailimachus' tone.

"But we're as much to blame as old Darius. We singed his Persian beard and poked him in his Persian eye when he wasn't looking" continued Cailimachus playfully with a wink which made Eukles smile despite the gravity of the matter. But then his tone turned serious again as he stretched himself out for sleep.

"If the truth be told this isn't Darius' war it's Miltiades' war. And since Miltiades is the boss in Athens it has become Athens' war. About a dozen years ago Miltiades left Athens to make a career and a fortune for himself across the great sea. He was always an ambitious one. There he became the Tyrant of a Greek trading colony in the North of Asia Minor. "Turkey thought Luke." But the colony was never big enough to satisfy Miltiades's thirst and hunger for greatness. He's a proud one too. Also it was part of Darius' empire and he owed tribute and loyalty to the Persian. He had to cough up gold every year and he had to fight battles for him. One year Darius led his armies against the Scythians, wild men who'd eat their own mothers for a night out with an ugly woman. You could see a whole army swallowed in the waste and wilderness of Scythia and all you'd hear is a distant Scythian belch."

"You've been there?" interrupted Eukles.

"Being there fought there and nearly lost my life there. It's hell only uglier and the women...."

Eukles smiled again. He liked this old man's no nonsense manner. No made up exaggerated stories. No need. The truth seemed stranger than any fiction and more compelling.

"Anyway Miltiades was part of Darius' army and was given command of the only bridge across the great river that marks the boundary of Scythia. Miltiades waited until Darius was deep in Scythian territory and then for a bribe some say, tried to destroy the bridge which would have left the mighty Darius trapped and at the mercy of the wild men."

"Who eat their own mothers"?

"Exactly young Eukles. Darius survived and swore vengeance on Miltiades. Miltiades realising that his goose was cooked got all the Greeks in Asia Minor to rise up against Darius. He can be very convincing. There was a prolonged war which only ended when the Greeks were finally beaten with some terrible slaughter at the city of Sardis. I was there too. Darius would have rumbled into Greece after that but he had to turn his attention to a revolt on the other side of his empire. But it is said that he has since kept a slave for no purpose other than to whisper in his ear every evening before he ate 'Master do not forget the Greeks'. So for nearly five years he's had to listen to that slave and now he intends to make a terrifying example of us."

Eukles had heard what everyone else had heard, vague talk about Persian fleets and armies. But the people were used to rumours of war. He remembered vaguely the refugees from Sardis and their nightmarish stories, but they were no more nightmarish than the stories of those poor souls shipwrecked at sea or attacked by bandits in the Southern mountains.

"He means business. His fleet has been taking each of the islands and they are not interested in bribes or surrender. Eretreia was the first town to fall on the mainland. And he let his troops enjoy it. I am a soldier and I've seen some terrible things Eukles, but Eretreia is up there with the worst. It's only fifty leagues from Athens, maybe five days' march but he won't chance the mountains. He has control of the seas and will land his forces within a day's march from Athens. Then he'll come here..."

Cailimachus broke off and lay with his head facing upwards looking at the moon above. Perhaps thought Luke, he believes he might be living there soon.

"But we'll fight him, won't we?" said Eukles with gritted teeth.

"Hmmm. Yes, well we'll have to, we have no choice, that or run away into the hills and let him burn the place and butcher those who cannot make it. But he has maybe four, five times our number, many of them like the 'Immortals' trained, picked troops, not farmers and bakers like we have here. Miltiades wanted glory, now him and his cronies are going to reap its bitter harvest. My guess is that there'll be a deal but only after Darius has flattened the houses and temples and enough Greeks have been sold in the slave markets to impress all the world with the lesson of what happens to those who do not kiss the royal toe and arse of the mighty Darius."

"But we could win couldn't we?"

Cailimachus' big chest heaved as he sighed heavily. "Imagine Phaedo is the Persian army and you are the Greek. How would you call the contest?"

Eukles was disheartened by the analogy. "But Polyneices was as big as Phaedo and I beat him today. You saw it yourself," argued Eukles proudly.  
Cailimachus let out a big manly laugh and ruffled Eukles' hair playfully. "Indeed you did my young warrior. But some might say that Polyneices beat himself with his own arrogance. Darius may be haughty and proud and insufferable but his generals are good at what they do. They have to be; the penalty for failure isn't pretty. Datis, the Persian general is a wily old fox. I know; I've danced a bit with him. He is good at what he does."

Cailimachus took a knife and placed it carefully under a cloth which acted as his pillow. Then turning towards Eukles and resting his face on his hand he casually explained, "I told you Phaedo wasn't a carpenter. Well I'm not a carpenter either."

"So what are you?" asked Eukles who was enjoying this free flowing conversation in which an adult happily and respectfully answered his enquiries. It was something he had never known with his own father. Caillimachus too found the exchange liberating. It was lonely at the top and somehow he had found his way there without ever wanting too. It was a friendless place without any kindred souls.

"Each man delights in the work that suits him best said the blind poet. Sadly my experience is that many of us have never got the chance to do what we were destined to do.

"At this moment I'm a frightened old man who can smell the future and it's not all that fragrant." Despite the gravity of his words and the peril facing his homeland, he spoke about the impending apocalypse in a careless nonchalant way. He didn't strike Eukles as being frightened. "But once upon a time and not so long ago I was a mercenary- a spear for hire- and I cut the throats of those with whom I had no quarrel for a purse of gold. I was good at what I did. I'm still good at it. So good that the king of Persia himself gave me the biggest purses of gold. But I took no delight in it kid."

Eukles' face showed shock and it registered with Cailimachus. He turned back over and again allowed his eyes trace the lakes and seas on the moon.

"Yes, sad to think that out there in the lands where the sun is born, there are widows and orphans who curse me and mine and pray at their shrines for Nemesis to do his work, which I've no doubt that lazy god will someday do. Their prayers for retribution are deserved."

He laced his fingers together across his massive chest as if in prayer and stared out into the stars picking out the constellations which his mother had thought him on her knee as a child before he grew up and became a ruthless murderer.

"I have many debts to pay. Many of them I will not get a chance to redeem. But I will start with you son. I will protect you as if you were my own, the son I never had. You will survive this war."

He straightened his head.

"Anyway there is something more immediate than Darius and his fearful Persians. Your uncle is Miltiades' man, part of Miltiades' power network in the city. It's a poisonous web with Miltiades the spider at its heart. It may not be possible to get your lands back just yet. That will, I suspect take a little time. A good general must learn patience and win small battles and wear out the enemy to win the war. But your house and any wealth in it will be redeemed tomorrow. You will go there with Phaedo and Daemon and they will complete the business with your uncle. You must promise me that you will let them act on your behalf. Promise?"

Eukles promised. "Good lad. Now there is a time for many words and I have enjoyed our chat. But there is also a time for sleep."

This finished the conversation and Cailimachus turned on his side and within minutes was asleep despite the howling widows and orphans and the book of sins which peppered his dreams every night. Eukles listened to the rhythmic breathing of his new found father. Despite the confession of murder and misery, Eukles thought he was a good man, an honourable man who had drifted with the irresistible currents of these turbulent times and whose deep felt remorse was in its own way a thing of greatness. Luke concurred.

Luke also recognised Eukles' overwhelming exhaustion which like an anesthetic, made him slip from consciousness of his thoughts about Cailimachus to the numbing other world of sleep. And so with a much clearer conscience than his master, Eukles tumbled into the land of dreams. Strangely Luke himself didn't feel tired. In fact a rudimentary examination made him conclude that he felt as fresh and energetic as when he had left his brother Paddy with the white toothed assistant in the psychedelic sports shop. And yet it seemed so long ago now.

Even more strangely, now that Eukles was in the land of nod, Luke found himself plunged into darkness yet he was conscious of the sounds and smells around him- of Cailimachus heavy snoring, the crickets in the warm Mediterranean night, the mice scuttling onto the table for the scraps lodged between the boards and the mischievous mosquito with its cargo of fever. He did not care for sleep and yet his logic suggested that he must be knackered.

Quickly bored now that he was shut away like a blind man, Luke began to analyse this dreamscape in which he found himself and from which he could not flee. The image of the 'Slow Mo ' guys with their Youtube videos of real life events slowed down to almost but not quite frozen time, flashed into his mind. He remembered how the old gent in the adventure shop had shown an obsession with the sand glass whose bead seemed not to move. "Time is relative". It was a big thought and hurt his brain the more he wrestled with it. He pictured in the darkness the night sky which had seemed so clean. The stars glistened like polished diamonds, holes in heaven's canvas of blue which had not yet been besmirched by centuries of human progress that would cover everything in a film of filth and pollution.

Lost in these thoughts he heard the door bolt rustling in its sleeve. He heard Cailimachus rise up, and imagined him alert and upright, his sharpened blade ready for any surprises the night might throw at him. Eukles remained deep in sleep and Luke had to see with his ears. He was relieved to hear the familiar voice of Phaedo and what he assumed were the footsteps of the silent killer Daemon.

"Done", siad Phaedo in a heavy whisper.

"Both of them?" asked Cailimachus. Luke assumed a silent nod was the answer

"Witnesses?" Again there was no verbal reply and Luke this time suspected a shake of the head. Liquid trickled into cups and Luke followed in his mind's eye the course of events from the giveaway sounds. The flask replaced on the table, the cups drained, knowing looks, hand shake or embrace, another cup filled. Thirsty work, killing twins.

"Tomorrow you will both go to the house and sort out the uncle. Only use violence if provoked and try not to kill him. We don't want to annoy Miltiades any more than we have to. Stay with the kid in his house until I have settled things with Miltiades. There is a council of war in his house at first light. It appears the Persians are looking to land and have the traitor Phydias with them. A good chance they'll have beached their advance craft by morning."

"We'll sort the uncle but you know that Miltiades won't like it. Are we pushing things?"

"Leave Miltiades to me. With a hundred thousand Persians after his head he's not going to be too bothered about small fry. Besides the house belongs to Eukles."

There was a long silence, only the men's breathing and the night's natural music could be heard. The resulting tension made Luke nervous and feel all the more frightened in his dark world. Had Phaedo's question overstepped the mark, would the comrades come to blows? Luke craved for the deathly quiet to be gate crashed by some soft spoken reassuring speech. He turned his ears to the stillness and heard the creaking of wood under a weighty burden- Cailimachus sitting onto the bench. That was good, thought Luke; men don't sit down to fight.

"It's time for us to rein in Miltiades." Cailimachus' tone was calm, deliberate and purposeful. "He seeks glory for which all Athens will pay. His palace is decked with the fruits of other men's toil and sacrifice. He holds court with lackeys and foot lickers who do his bidding and then bid others in return for the left over bones from the banquet. He gives power to men like the uncle and the poison seeps down. His dreams crush and smother the happiness of others. He's like them all, him and Darius and all the other so called great men who never labour, who never fight."

Cailimachus spoke slowly and broodily into the suffocating night air. Luke pondered that the description of the false Miltiades could easily fit the vain politicians and captains of industry that his own father always ranted about.

"He has brought this catastrophe on Athens through his own greed and corruption and as sure as the ram mounts the ewe he will escape while the rest of us burn. We were once men. Now once again we must be good, strong, decent men." There was a slap of skin on skin as if Caillimachus was embracing his loyal friends.

"So we're no longer fighting for purses of gold, boss?" asked Phaedo in a playful voice.

"No more of that. Now we will be men."

Luke heard the sacred contract sealed in silence, a wordless embrace of brothers in arms who know their duty and know its cost. It was a fine contract; unbreakable, a hundred times stronger than any made by what his dad called the army of suited legal parasites. Dad would like these guys. Exhaustion was confessed and within minutes all save Luke were fast asleep.

Alone and awake in the darkness and without distraction Luke found himself like some Trappist monk thrown in on himself forced to confront things in a way that the diversions of TV and playstation, and the distractions of his phone and friends and school had helped him to blissfully avoid. He wondered at the capabilities of man. These, in a way, likeable fellows, had just conspired successfully to kill two of their species and now they slept. Somewhere out on the calm, blue Mediterranean a Persian armada was cruising with the singular purpose of annihilating Athens. The Persians were probably sleeping too on the lulling waters their spears fresh with the blood of Eretreia as the blood of Eukles father lay in dried flakes on the sword of the dead officer leaning against the wall under the skin of the butchered lion. Below deck in the holds of their galleys the new crop of slaves hoovered from the conquered lands sat in misery and despair. And, Luke thought, while he was tucking into fish and chips in Dingle American warships cruised the same blue Mediterranean, the accumulation of twenty five centuries of human ingenuity, their freshly launched warheads with their own tale of death. Their sailors too slept. The Gods slept too; there was no revenge or retribution, no rain of thunderbolts from Zeus only the incessant drone of the mosquito before he too was slapped dead by a sleeper.

Eukles shifted on the soft itchy fleece where a million bugs had made their homes and now went about doing what bugs do. He seemed oblivious to the annoying intrusions. His sleep however was haunted by phantoms of dreams that darted like indignant ghosts before Luke's eyes, cobwebs of his host's consciousness, before dying unheralded like smoke from a wizard's wand. There were so many of them that Luke could not follow their tales, so quickly did they flit like camouflaged birds which seemed to evaporate into the ether. Some he recognised instantly like Eukles' father a severe man whose eyes never made contact. It was a cold aloof dream like a hardened February frost. The day's events recurred, replayed over and over again. The triumphant victory over Polyneices, the cold sweat as his brother approached, the warm feeling of protection at the heart of the bedtime chat with Cailimachus so at odds with the wintry disdain of his now dead father who he saw as a corpse, white faced and bathed in dust, food for worms and rats. Then the dead blank staring eyes of the twins and Daemon cleaning his soiled blade on their tunics. But what intrigued Luke most throughout these assaults was the repetitive apparition of a disagreement, some type of contest, an unwanted confrontation, a deep well of disappointment and disillusion. Luke wanted to catch this ghost of a memory as it raced by but it was banished almost as quickly as its rags emerged. Once as he was just about to catch a glimpse of its protagonist, a healthy looking young man it suddenly shattered and crumbled to dust. The more Luke tried to grasp it the more it wrestled itself free from his grip. Agitated and annoyed by this deprivation Luke found himself diving into the abyss of Eukles' subconscious in order to retrieve from its murky depths the illusive disintegrating shadows of the dream itself, when suddenly there rose out of the darkness like one of Zeus' thunderbolts, a picture of himself.

Luke was frightened by the image of his own face in this most unlikely of places. Eukles jumped up, his eye lids pushed open and his eyeballs stabbed by the first rays of sun light that were rising out of Persia. His lungs let out a fearful scream and the three warriors bolted up with the energy of a coiled spring.

Quickly judging that their youngest brother had had a nightmare they began to laugh the sympathetic laughter of those who once knew, but who have now forgotten, all fear. Eukles' scream was in any case a good alarm clock which signalled sleep's end and the start of a significant day's work. Each took turns ruffling their new brother's hair.

Phaedo woke the slave with a shout calling for breakfast the thought of which made Luke groan. The older men busied themselves dunking their heads into a basin of cold water to wash away last night's hangover and last night's sins. They then shovelled the remains of last night's lentils down their throats and belched. The sight and smell made Luke retch and he prayed fervently to any god with ears that the lot would be polished off before Eukles got to the bowl. But this was a brotherhood and Eukles a brother within it. Phaedo tossed a heap of mush into an unwashed bowl from which a squadron of flies barely escaped and which Luke knew had been well licked by the mice during the night. It was shoved under Eukles' grateful nose. Luke hated Phaedo at that moment. Eukles on the other hand sniffed the bowl like a gourmet chef sniffed a prize winning dish, smiled and then went to war on it scoffing it in large mouthfuls and once again scrapping the woody edges with his dirty fingers. So much for hygiene. If the Persians don't get us, the food and the germs will.

"Right", said Cailimachus slapping his hands together alive with the energy of morning. "We have a busy day".

The busy day started with a walk through the narrow streets of Athens which were still dozing in the morning sunlight. Slaves stretched and yawned, wiping away last night's sleep from their eyes as they went about their labours preparing a pampered world for their pampered masters. Half a dozen queued with wooden buckets by a well and a couple of girls gossiped and giggled as they carried empty baskets to be filled at the Agora with the ripest fruit of the day. Phaedo who led the way flashed them a bawdy smile and mouthed something which made them blush and giggle more. Daemon acted as a rear guard with Eukles sandwiched in the middle. They passed a bakery where the owner had just fired his ovens. He tossed Phaedo a chunk of bread who in turn squeezed the baker's stomach asking if he'd been eating the profits again. Both men laughed conspiratorially and Phaedo dug his big hands into the loaf tearing it into three parts casually firing two of them over his shoulder to the waiting hands of Eukles and Daemon. It was the last of yesterday's bread but it had no vomit masquerading as cheese to dunk it into. For once the food tasted good. Phaedo shortened his stride so as to come along side Eukles and began to talk as he chewed, crumbs of saliva soaked bread falling at intervals onto his beard. They lingered there like white chicks in a nest only to be discarded by the scarred knuckles of his right fist.

"If you're gonna pick a fight, do so when the other fellah's still sleeping. Always look for the advantage. Never fight fair kid. Never." Good advice thought Luke if not exactly noble. And as if reading Luke's insight, the muscle man continued. "There's nothing noble about fighting no matter what Homer or any of those other poet ponces tell you. Fighting's for the savage dog that growls inside all men. Savage dogs don't have rules- they either eat or they get eaten". He stopped and Daemon stopped too, and Phaedo looked at Eukles cupping his face in his killer's hands as if to emphasise that the next point was the key one. Luke felt the hardness of Phaedo's palms aware that less than a few hours previously they had cut another human's throat and were probably still soiled with that work. "This could get messy kid. Don't get involved. Stay behind me and Daemon. Leave this business to us. Yeah?"

Eukles nodded and Luke could feel the fear starting to work itself into his gut.

"You don't understand my world. Your kind," and he waved his hand around the wakening city. "Your kind needs me but you don't want me. You need me to get the justice that others like me rob from you. Your uncle lives in your house and eats your food while you starve on the streets. He put the twins up to their mischief. He's a bully and a thug, remember that. He'll try to twist things with honey words. Don't soften your hatred for this liar and thief. Understand. Don't soften."Eukles understood and so did Luke but neither had any relish for the forthcoming 'work'. Phaedo read the thought and flashed an assuring smile. "Don't worry kid your uncle's also a coward. He'll run. "And the smile was followed by a reassuring wink." Now," the tone changed from poignant to exuberant, "let's go pick a fight with the fat bastard".

He gave a knowing look to Daemon who nodded knowingly in return. They made their way in silence to the end of a fashionable street dominated by a large tidy dwelling which Luke recognised as Eukles' home yet his emotional reaction on seeing it had all the warmth of a Siberian fridge. No fond memories spilled from his heart. Whatever the Greek equivalent of Christmas presents, bedtime stories, football with dad and blowing out birthday candles, they certainly didn't exist for Eukles. There was no memory of being swept up in dad's strong arms or being snuggled by mam when his tummy hurt. No once upon a time and no happy ever after. Luke remembered watching a film based on some book by Dickens, a real misery fest populated by nasty, small minded bullies who had been empowered by circumstances to prosper at the expense of the angels. Such a gloomy, dreary world with not a solitary moment of hope or redemption. Here, he thought, was Dickens half a millennium before Christ. Luke was beginning to wonder if nine tenths of humanity lived in a Dickensian dystopia and that as things went, things didn't get much better than the bubble he knew as life.

The door was not bolted- precautions like that were not necessary for a man as important as uncle and Phaedo was a tad disappointed that he didn't get to kick it in if only for the dramatic impact of its flying splinters. Once inside he took control as if he had been born for this moment. Luke recalled people who seemed perfect in a certain environment a rockstar on a festival stage, a master chef in a kitchen, his dad in the classroom. This was Phaedo's stage.

A slave made to block his path and he was soon unconscious from a punch so quick that Luke and Eukles only heard the whack and saw its result as the slave lay motionless on the floor. The commotion and turmoil brought the household alive including the steward, a burly thuggish man with a bald head and a nasty scar that ran from his forehead to his cheek across his right eye. He made to pick up a mace that rested on a shelf with a number of other weapons. "Tut tut" said Phaedo, "touch it and you'll need a penny for the ferryman." The steward looked at Phaedo and then at Daemon and decided that today wasn't the one for crossing the Styx. Acknowledging his decision Phaedo told him he'd made a smart call and to go and fetch his master. The steward not wanting to be the messenger, flicked his head in the direction of a house slave who understood the wordless command and went to fetch the master.

The steward having been his father's servant recognised Eukles, and being a smart fellow began to quickly process the information and the shifting landscape trying to anticipate the likely outcomes of the morning's unexpected business. "Master Eukles your return is most welcome", he said taking his next step in the fraught path towards survival. He might still be alive at sun down but would he have any means to keep himself?

Remembering Phaedo's instruction, Eukles said nothing merely nodding at the steward for whom he had no fond memory. He felt uncomfortable in the silent room which was once his cold, loveless, motherless home. But he took heart from the postures of his two comrades. They were risking all for him. Uncle had the backing of Miltiades and Miltiades' thugs, who could appear at any time. Yet his comrades were by his side with no obvious gain for themselves, a fraternity that stood by its brothers in their time of need.

Eukles' uncle arrived, arrogant and smug. Nothing happened in Athens without the say so of Miltiades and he had paid his dues to be counted as one of Miltiades' men. He walked as one who was untouchable; an aura of pompous impregnability surrounded him. He had never had to invoke Miltiades' name; everyone knew how things stood. Before entering the room he had sent a boy to Miltiades' palace to demand an appropriate troop of butchers to avenge this insult to the forces of the establishment and order. In the meantime he would bide his time.

His arrogance faltered briefly when he saw his scrawny nephew and his quick witted mind, sharpened by a thousand transactions in the marketplace appraised the basics of the situation. He gave a dismissive look of disappointment to his steward, then nonchalantly sat in his dead brother's chair at the top of the table from where he intended to control things. As he did so four swordsmen entered and stood behind him in an intimidating manner. Happy with the favourable odds brought about by this new state of affairs uncle held out his goblet for another- unarmed - slave to fill.

"Good to see you nephew. We have been worried by your absence. I have had men looking for you..."

"I'll talk; you'll listen, "cut in Phaedo.  
"How dare you, you guttersnipe. No doubt you haven't been to school but don't you at least see the math's are against you. I'll have your dirty bollocks in your dirty little mouth for this." The swordsmen half drew their weapons from their sheaths, their fists clenched on their hilts as a threat of further action. "Now crawl back to the shit hole you came from." And with that he drained the wine from his fancy golden cup and snapped his fingers for a refill.

Uncle was as obnoxious as they come but he had the whip hand given the mathematical odds, and how these odds were probably going to improve in the near future should Miltiades get word. Even Phaedo might recognise that this wasn't a battle that could be won. There was a lot of steel and testerone in what was increasingly feeling like a very cramped space. Luke craved the street with its tunnel of breeze and its harlequin mottle of sunlight and shade. He was also aware of the riot of emotion breaking out inside Eukles whose heart and thoughts were racing like two ferocious, untamed stallions. He hated his uncle and he hated the unfairness of the moment, but he did not have enough hate to strike a blow. He realised that he would never be like all the others in the room. Eukles, like all men, was capable of violence, but he could only be violent in a reactionary way. His sharp mind told him the best way was to seize the initiative and to hit before being hit but something stopped him from doing what he knew to be tactically right, but just not manly. It would be breaking a code that defined how one lived.

His eyes moved round the room as if it were a stage and he was surveying the actors momentarily frozen in their poses. Two of the swordsmen were just for show, a front, he recognised them as his father's slaves, but Phaedo wasn't to know that. The other two were cut throats for hire and Luke felt that Phaedo had some fleeting association with them. The steward, for whom Eukles did not care, was trying to make a call on the situation which would preserve his life and cushy employment. He seemed to have moved closer to the mace by the wall, a club of dark wood, pock marked with rusted metal studs and nails on its bulbous head. Daemon stood statue still, only his eyes moved, counting the possibilities, his body as stiff as the short stabbing spear in his right hand.Two knives like menacing fangs snarled in his belt.

Uncle was a portrait of contempt, sucking a date through his teeth, his upper lip curling with disdain. He was used to bullying merchants with perishable cargos and poor men who had slipped hopelessly into his debt. He shifted his large well fed flesh on his throne like chair which made the wood groan and creak. The returning silence was stiffling. "You're stink is still in my house. Let me tell you that as we are sitting here a detachment of Miltiades' men are on their way. I'm going to make yours a slow one."

Phaedo ignored the icy threat. "You're a businessman. A very successful one I'm told. So let's see if we can do a deal hey? "Luke was impressed by Phaedo's composure but felt it to be recklessly foolhardy.

"I don't think you or that filthy little brat have anything I could wish to buy but, yes I'm a businessman, a very good one so I'll give you the time it takes me to drain this cup to beg. But be warned I have a thirst." He waved his hand dismissively and then attacked another date with his yellow and brown teeth, its juice squirting out onto the table for a slave to mop up later.

"Hmmm" said Phaedo, again coolly ignoring the insult. "Firstly I'm not sure you've done the maths right, though I'm told by many your sums are often crooked. That fellow" he nodded at one of the slaves, "hasn't decided which side he's on and the steward has already shown his reluctance to have his guts spilled to save your fat arse." Uncle made to rise at this insult to his dignity and his figure of which he was very proud. That 'fat arse' had cost him a lot of money to get it to its present state. The swordsmen drew their weapons. "Sit down you fat fuck or my friend here will fire a knife into your eye, don't tempt him." Phaedo had taken on a new persona, which lowered the room's temperature. Daemon had drawn his knife, the blade of which he held ready for throwing between his fingers. Uncle did the maths and decided to wait for Miltiades' men who must soon arrive. He sat down.

"My master, the brave Cailimachus, and your master are currently discussing the city's options now that the Persian army has landed a day's march to the north. Yes, the enemy is now at the gates." The mention of the Persian landing was a bomb shell. It was as if everything now had to be rewritten, as if all life that up till now had seemed at best precarious, was infused with the all-consuming shadow of the irresistible, blood thirsty hoards marching cockily towards Athens. "Miltiades needs my master's loyalty and support more than he needs the trinkets that once bought you his protection. The Persians have done for you fat man." Phaedo smiled to show that he had finished and that the business was near conclusion. The steward seeing that the game had changed, now declared his discomfort by taking a very obvious step away from the mace. Uncle crushed a date in his hand. His left eye began to twitch nervously. He then smiled and raised himself from his throne and began to slide a bowl of fruit along the table which he offered to Phaedo who examined the contents and chose a juicy looking red apple.

"Then", began uncle with a clear change of tack in his approach "if our masters are friends, surely we are now friends which of course changes everything. In my line of business one has to be suspicious of strangers. I have, as young Eukles' uncle, the brother, the beloved brother of his slaughtered father, a family obligation to the boy. I am prepared to welcome him into my house. Let us seal the deal with a draught of my vineyard's finest". A trembling slave boy no older than Luke's brother Johnny, placed silver cups by Phaedo, Daemon and Eukles.

Phaedo had the whiff of victory in his nostrils. He knew the face and the body language of broken men. Here before him was uncle, who five minutes ago was behaving like some pompous, eastern tyrant. He was now snivelling and begging, trying to salvage something from the flotsam and jetsam of defeat. Phaedo stayed silent and left the cup untouched long enough for the smile to wither from uncle's face leaving him confused and forlorn, his fat hands still clutching his own vulgar metal goblet.

Phaedo pulled a knife from his sleeve. It was about the length of a ruler sharpened lovingly on both sides with a perfect stiletto point. Perfect for slashing and stabbing and finishing. Luke winced wondering what DNA a CSI team would extract from its metal fibres and the microscopic canyons of the polished steel. He thought of the twins and what that blade had reduced them to. It was an ugly thought from an ugly world. His own father had once played the part of a clownish cow boy with two white board markers, the tools of his trade as makeshift six guns. And here before him was another craftsman skilled with his murderous scalpel. Different worlds with different tools.

Phaedo enjoyed the effect of his drawn knife, ratchetting up the tension in this small enclosed cockpit. Unle's eyes followed the blade relieved when it was used to slice open the apple.

"Good fruit picked only yesterday from my orchard", said uncle as if he was selling it at a stall by the side of the road.

Phaedo slipped the slice into his mouth. "I hate apples. They bring out the worst in me. Let's get things clear. This apple is not from your orchard nor is that wine from your vineyard. Both belong to Eukles whom I serve in this matter." He turned to the steward asking how many bites there may be in the apple. The steward replied a touch bewildered that he believed there might be three maybe four.

"Let's say four. We won't quibble," continued Phaedo. Uncle looked at him with a mix of puzzlement and hate. "I'm not a carpenter you know", the tone was ice cold and Luke and Eukles froze at the revelation. "I'm not a businessman either. In fact I don't care for businessmen. I think we all know what I do. So I'm going to fillet and eat this apple and you're going to leave this house and take nothing with you. And you are never going to come here again nor talk to master Eukles. If you're still here when I'm finished the apple I'll show you what I do. I will kill anyone who stays here with you and I will then do my own bit of rough gelding on you. I'll make it a slow one, very slow." He then popped a slice of apple into his mouth, the crunching of his teeth on its crisp flesh the only sound in the pulsating heat.

Uncle looked to his swordsmen who seemed uncertain. He fixed Phaedo with a glare and began to breathe heavily as his knuckles clicked and whitened. Then he cracked.

"You're all the same. Nothing to offer. All the same and you'll all end up the same face down in a pool of your own piss and blood." Phaedo said nothing. There was nothing to say. He cut another slice of apple and began to eat. Luke saw the apple through Eukles' eyes. There were two maybe three slices left. Everyone else shifted their glance from one protagonist to the other except Daemon, who let his gaze drift from the steward to the swordsmen. Phaedo cut a large slice of apple, speared it on his knife and held it up for examination before dispatching it like the others.

Uncle lashed out with a kick that sent his chair flying into one of the body guards. He flung his goblet at the steward hitting him squarely on the forehead which began to stream with blood. Neither Phaedo nor Daemon moved but Eukles instinctively moved closer to Phaedo terrified by the sudden eruption.

"We'll deal with the Persians first and then we'll deal with you." Uncle spat the words covering the room with his acid spit, incriminating Phaedo first and then turning his serpent stare on his nephew. Phaedo coolly deposited the final segment of apple into his mouth and began to chew.

Uncle screamed out in frustration and humiliation and stormed from the room followed by his relieved body guards who would happily swop his ire for what Phaedo was offering.

"Auchhh" said Phaedo spitting out the final segment of apple. "Damn it kid you need to do something about your orchards. That was the bitterest apple I've ever tasted. "He drank straight from the wine flask to rid his taste buds of the acrid taste. Daemon laughed at his brother's distress and Eukles, just happy to be still alive, burst out laughing too. Luke sighed with exhaustion. It wasn't even noon.

As they filled the sweaty room with their belly laughs, Daemon slid across the iron bolt that fixed the door in case uncle got second thoughts and the slave boy who had served drinks was sent to watch for suspicious behaviour in the street. Briefly alone, Eukles looked at Phaedo and asked the question troubling his young brain. "You wouldn't have done what you said, would you?"

"About gelding? You mean do I speak empty words?" said Phaedo with a snort. "Just part of the game kid. I take no pleasure in prolonging another man's death, unlike your uncle I suspect who'd get a right kick out of mine. Have put a few out of their misery in my time though. Your uncle had to believe that I liked the job. Was I convincing?"

"You convinced me. I was more scared of you than I was of him," replied Eukles and Phaedo took it as a compliment.

"Most battles are won before they are fought kid. I told you he'd run. It's just a matter of steering him towards that course. That bit of colourful language helped him to choose the door. But let me make it clear, he's a mongrel who won't give up too easy. You" he continued seamlessly turning to the steward, "assemble the household so that they can swear allegiance to their true master." As the steward left with puppyish obedience, Phaedo faced Eukles. "Sir, myself and my comrade Daemon beg the hospitality of your house".

Eukles making every effort to appear manly replied "my house dear brothers is, and will always be your house." Luke was just relieved yet again that another drama of life and death had concluded and that we were all still sucking the earth mother's sweet oxygen. "Who are these people?" he groaned with exhaustion.

Chapter 6

"We are men." Luke was struck by the lonely sentence. Not just by its simple manly formula but also by the muscular poignancy of its delivery. When Phaedo had said this terse defining phrase, it fell from his mouth with the gravity of a creed spoken by a true believer who would die for the words and what they stood for. It was a code that no lawyer could make and by which he and others like him would live and, given the choice between failure and death, by which they would also die. It had the craft and music of a poem, Luke concluded, but it had the strength and force of a prayer.

After uncle had scrambled for the exit leaving behind his newly ill gotten wealth and his dignity, Eukles had shown remarkable maturity in establishing himself within his house. Because of his age Cailimachus would hold the properties for him in trust but he would not interfere. He addressed the household of five and then did what Luke described as an audit of his possessions. Luke was impressed by Eukles' control and thoroughness, after being thrown a task that many others older than him, he thought of his teachers, might find overwhelming. His host might be a skinny, headstrong, teenager trying to cultivate a beard before its time but he had a steeliness that even Phaedo noted with some admiration. He was particularly surprised by Eukles' last act when, after milking the burly steward for all the information he needed, he informed him coldly making sure that Daemon was at his shoulder that he was dismissed from his service and should now leave immediately. The steward who had been slavishly helpful in order to ingratiate himself into the good offices of his new patron was dumbstruck. He made an undignified effort to retrieve the situation but Daemon's stoney stare did its job, convincing him that his only option was the door which he took with a parting curse.

"You've made an enemy for life there young sir", remarked Phaedo casually sucking in air as if to say it wasn't the new master's brightest decision of the morning.

"He was no friend before this," answered Eukles tersely, looking in complete control but Luke knew otherwise. It was a front. Throwing someone out on the street and incurring their lifelong hate wasn't easy and Eukles was trembling inside with nerves and adrenalin.

"Well he's your enemy now and that's one more creature on this earth who wants to feast on your misery." Phaedo paused before adding, "You'll find enough hatred and enough enemies in this world kid without having to generate any more. I've pissed into the wind too many times and each time it's come back to wash my face. It's never been pleasant."

Eukles listened to the older, wiser man's crudely delivered advice but still felt he had done the right thing.

"He's a disloyal, nasty, self-serving man. He was always disloyal and selfish and dishonest. My father should have known better than to give such a two timing crook a position of trust. Should I keep such a man in my service?"

"No, no my young friend. You've probably done the right thing. I'm just wondering if it's the best thing."

A house slave who Eukles was clearly fond of came running up to his returned master with a pair of sandals which the master was grateful to see again. "Fine footwear", remarked Phaedo.

"The most important thing I have in life." Luke could feel the enthusiasm for the shoes and was reminded of his brother Paddy with his obsession for the never to be found perfect football boot. Luke didn't get it.

"They're not that fine kid" answered Phaedo dubiously. Luke agreed.

"They are to me. You know Cailimachus' spear. It's clear he holds that in great esteem couldn't see him parted from it. It's part of who he is. Well these are part of who I am."  
"I get the spear, he's a warrior, but the shoes?" quizzed Phaedo.

"I'm a runner."

"Oh." There was a hint of polite disappointment. "Are you good?"

"Yes."

"How good?"

"Very."

"Very, very good?" teased Phaedo.

"I'd say I'm the best."

"Not my sport kid but I thought that Pheidippides was the best. Am I wrong?"

Eukles' good humour evaporated like a striker's confidence after he'd missed his first penalty. His smiling face turned sour, and deep within, Luke saw that this Phedippides was the fellow in the dream who last night kept eluding him. At this moment Luke could feel an ulcerous gurgle in Eukles' stomach and a sickly dryness in his mouth. Phaedo also sensed the transformation and probed. Eukles was reluctant to speak but Phaedo told him that he was now part of a brotherhood who shared whatever pain they had with their brothers without fear of scorn or judgement. A fine brotherhood thought Luke and so, although more slowly, did Eukles.

"There was a race last spring with our neighbour and ally Platea," he began nervous as if he were a baby taking his first steps, but the quiet strength of Phaedo and Daemon and their fixed, interested gazes helped him continue. He lowered his eyes. "Athletes from each city ran to a pass that was the half way point between Athens and Platea to celebrate the alliance between the two cities. It was a big affair I'm sure you remember it." Both men nodded. They remembered, it was a big affair. "The grandees from both cities Miltiades among them, made their way to the finish line during the night and awaited the winner from either Athens to the South or Platea to the North. A flaming arrow at dawn fired from the finish line was the signal for the start of the race to the runners at both cities. It was going to be my introduction to the world, a race that would say that a new champion had arrived. Pheidippides was the favourite of course and I was in awe of him, had always been, and I was looking forward to running against him. He had always been my hero."

Eukles felt more relaxed now and began to speak more fluidly. "The runners soon began to break apart as they always do in distance races and Pheidippides took a commanding lead of maybe two or three hundred paces, but I knew I was strongest on the steeper slopes which mark the last four miles. I started to gain on him with about two miles to go. Had him where I wanted him. It was between the two of us the next runner was maybe five, six hundred paces behind, out of sight. He kept looking behind and saw that I was striding, easily within javelin reach. Three or four times he kicked trying to shake me but I had him I had the great Pheidippides. He was struggling."

Daemon listened intently as did Phaedo. It may not have been their sport but it had the feel of a battle to it, a contest of iron will against iron will. "About a mile from the finish the road becomes treacherous and snakes wildly because of the steepness of the gradient. I could smell the smoke from the fires of the grandees and the roasted meat in the thin air of the pass. So I decided to go for it. Nobody can take me at the finish of a race. Nobody. Pheidippides saw me on his shoulder. I was smiling, not at him, but with the elation that I would be recognised as the new champion. I breezed past him at a point where the road widens." Eukles then fell exasperatingly silent.

"And?"

"And then my hero deliberately tumbled me over the side of the track. I fell down a scree of pointed stone and could hardly walk. I was lucky to cross the finish line. And that was it. Pheidippides went on to win and even you guys have never heard of me."

Nobody spoke. The silence was funereal and embarrassed.

"Ouch", said Phaedo with feeling and Daemon shook his head at the unfairness of it all. Luke listened and felt, more than any in the room, what had happened that day. He could follow the events through the vivid memories of the body where he now resided. But along with those strong visuals he could feel the emotional spectrum shift from exuberant elation to lonely despair until Eukles finally lay at the foot of the sharp scree, his body and spirit broken. Eukles' faith in himself and in the decency of the world and of its men had been shattered making him question the former and retreat from the latter. Phaedo seeing his pain, rose and put his arm on Eukles' shoulder. "Come on kid, let's go and have a look at the world. Some times when I'm on the floor it does me good to look at others and realise that it's not over yet." He smiled a big warm hearted smile at his damaged friend who returned with a weaker but genuinely grateful smile. Luke noted that things seemed to have reached their low and like a float pressed to the floor of a pool everything was now starting to rise again

They climbed a ladder onto the flat roof of hot, neglected plaster baked endlessly by the Athenian sun. Beyond the crumbling foot high parapets they could see the city in turmoil as news of the Persian landing filtered through the cabins no doubt growing like an inflated Chinese whisper as each man spread the tale with an added 'fact' forged by fear and ignorance. The markets had closed down as traders hoarded produce while prices soared with the panic and the inevitable shortages. One of the many unseen consequences of war, masked and forgotten amid the carnage. A line of townspeople were scrambling their way for the port of Piraeus. It reminded Luke of the columns of refugees which he saw on the news from the six monthly conflicts in Africa that nobody cared about. 'Africa fatigue' as his dad called it. They were people from countries he couldn't find on a map, people whose fear and pain and want meant nothing to him in fortress Europe. But now he could taste the fear of mothers for their children, of the old who were all too aware of their lowly place on the ladder of survival, of the rich who thought they had the most to lose and who had the coin to bribe a sea captain, and of the poor who had nothing except their lives, and whose every thought was of the torments of captivity and the butality of a life as a slave. If there had been civil law in this place it had broken down completely. All seemed now in the hands of a rough and nervous militia. There were pockets of helmetted, spear carrying men guarding what Luke assumed to be places of importance- granaries or treasuries or armouries. The black market had already begun. These soldiers ordered the throngs back dealing harshly with them with kicks and boxes and one or two cracked skulls. It was a frightening descent into chaos.

"Our beloved Athens is falling apart," observed Phaedo resting a foot on the parapet and nonchalantly eating a peach that didn't disappoint as the apple had. "Beautiful peaches. This is how people behave when there is a rumour of war. It would be better for them all to see the Persians. Men's minds are terrible breeding grounds for fantasies and phantoms."

"Aren't you scared Phaedo? Shouldn't we all be afraid?"

A rat crossed the street, happy that the Persian threat had emptied the place of the terrifying humans. Phaedo picked it out as it stopped to gnaw some garbage and fired the peach stone hitting it square in the ribs. The rat bolted for a hole in a poorly made wall. He faced Eukles and read his perplexity at his casual disregard for the anarchy.

"Nobody will die today so we've nothing to be scared about for the moment. Things will calm down soon, once they've let off steam. Exhaustion is a great policeman. The rich boys going to the docks will find that all shipping has been commandeered. There'll be a call to muster and everyone will join up. That'll give us all a sense of purpose even if we haven't a clue what's happening. There'll be no blood for a couple of days at least. The Persians aren't going to march a force as big as the one they have, thirty leagues over mountains in one day. Nor will they jeopardise their supply lines. Datis, their general is no rampaging lion. He's more like a python, he'll try to strangle us, tightening the noose slowly." Phaedo closed his fist dramatically to make the point.

"And will he?"

"Will he what?" replied Phaedo playfully, teasing some annoying peach skin from his teeth.

"Will he strangle us?" persisted the irritated Eukles.

"Depends on many things. Ultimately depends on the roll of the dice of battle. But I'd say the odds are greatly stacked in his favour. Some say he outnumbers us twenty to one but that's just talk. All say he has complete control of the northern sea lanes."

"So the battle is lost. Shouldn't we run? Leave the bricks and streets to him and hide in the hills. "

Eukles asked the question, not from fear; it was hard to feel afraid so close to Phaedo, but from a logical appraisal of the situation. That logic had a clear expression in the river of human panic in the city around them. If the battle couldn't be won all these people would be slaughtered or enslaved. If they run many will live. Phaedo nodded at the young man's fine logic. "You'll make a fine general kid but generals aren't always soldiers."

He turned his back on the anarchy and sat on the parapet offering his face to the sun. Having fed off its heat he bowed his head in search of shade, and with his eyes looking at the ants playing on his toes, he began to speak.

"Sometimes there comes a fight you can't run from. No matter how bleak or stark, it is a fight you just can't say no to. It defines you, it says that if you turn and run and save your skin then you will lose everything, everything kid, and end up no better than a serf. There are battles not worth fighting; meaningless, pointless affairs and you wondered why men even bothered. You'll have rows in your own life that won't be worth one of these lads" and he pointed at the ants. Behind him the traumatised crowds bustled and bullied their way in search of some spurious salvation but all seemed calm on the roof top. The first sacrificial fires were starting to send their smoked offering to the skies from the Temple of Athena. "The way we mortals blame and pamper the Gods kid." Phaedo then raised his head and looked at Eukles in the way that fathers maybe once or twice in a life time look at their sons. And then he spoke.

"We are men. We have a purpose. We are here to humble the proud and the arrogant and to discipline the transgressor. We wander this earth and put manners on the bully in the street and we make the rich lord tremble at his banquet for the sins he has committed and omitted. We protect the weak, the old and the young and the women. We stand as a barrier against the badness of this world. We speak when others fear to speak and we do what we have promised we will do. We use our wits and our muscle and our iron will. And sometimes when it comes to this," he threw his head back at the frightened helpless herd of humanity behind him" and the wise man says run, we stay and we fight. Because we are men. If we run, then what are we?"

Eukles listened and so did Luke, and both understood the beating heart of Phaedo's words despite the fact that neither had much in the way of manly muscle or wit, and did not yet know if their will was made of iron or made of paper. But they knew that there was a responsibility on all men to play a manly role, which meant fighting every day against the desire to be something else, something meaner, some degraded state to which too many men slump. And both in their own thoughts converged in agreeing that they had misjudged Phaedo labelling him as a cut throat beekcake which he clearly was not. The world was in need of men like him and they were in pitiful short supply. Luke's school yard for one could do with someone fitting that bill, and the housing estates of his city cowering under the shadow of the drug gangs. Parliament too with its snivelling, conniving, compromising politicians. Or the hapless U.N. he finally thought, getting to the top of the power ladder, with its dismal record of failure and inaction as tyrants thrived and slaughtered their own in the killing fields of Africa. Men were needed who called it as it was. Luke was withered by the conveyor belt of hopelessness that appeared to infest the world. The world needed men.

"Were you always such a man?" asked Eukles and Luke was grateful for the distraction away from his own morbid thoughts. Phaedo gave him the smile of an unbeliever. "No kid. I wasn't and I'm still not." He stood up and stretched his big frame filling his big chest which heaved with the new delivery of air and then slowly exhaled as if unburdening himself of some great guilt. "We are all failures kid but sometimes we get a chance, a second chance, to put things right."

"And this battle, it will help to put things right?"

Phaedo squinted in the sunshine and peered at the innocence of youth before him not yet tarnished by the gutters and sewerage of life. Was I ever so clean as this kid?

"You're a clever kid. No it won't make things right. Stuff that's done cannot be undone. It took me a while to learn that. I've always been told I'm a slow learner. Not half as clever as you kid. Can't quote Homer like you." He chuckled to himself and flicked an ant with his finger. "Men do things they regret, bad things, and those things haunt them. And men need to do something to redeem themselves, something good to make the torments that sing in their dreams stop. But you get to realise that the torments have nested in your head for good. Like cuckoos they end up evicting everything else. You learn to live with them kid, like an old man learns to live with his limp. Like you sleep with the scratching of the rats and bats in the attic." He wiped his lip as if trying to sweep away a bottleneck of words to make way for ones most appropriate.

"They are part of your education kid. Some men go mad and surrender to evil thinking that they have waded so far into hell's river that there is no redemption. So they keep on wading till they finally choke on the filth. Others set out on foolish journeys trying to do something good."

"Do the twins sing in your dreams?" Eukles hazzarded.

Phaedo only shrugged his shoulders. He was silent and looked out over the city but Luke felt he was looking into a space where the torments raged like accusing ghosts pointing their boney fingers at him. Eukles searched for his own torments dredging the dark corners of his own conscience for the hostages that his mentor had spoken of. But Eukles could find none. Nor for that matter could Luke. Only pity for the tormented one.

"I want to be a man. I mean I want to be the man that you describe with the code of honour by which you live."

"You are a man kid."

"Don't patronise me Phaedo," said Eukles abruptly.

"Not sure what your fancy word means but I guess you think I'm buttering you up. I don't do that sort of thing. Men should be straight with each other without giving unnecessary offence. I wouldn't have fought the twin at your age, I wouldn't have dismissed the steward and I wouldn't have asked your questions. You are a man kid and, I suspect, you always will be. "

Eukles shook his head and blushed, so unused was he to any type of flattery or compliments. He stood up and offered his arm to Phaedo who caught it at the wrist. "We are men." The big warrior nodded "Men." Yes indeed agreed Luke blubbery with the moment's emotion. "We are men."

Cailimachus' instructions had, as always, been clear- to evict the uncle, redeem the house and establish Eukles as master. When that had been done he was to await further orders from a comrade called Polyphon who arrived about the first hour after noon and told them to proceed to the west gate of Miltiades' mansion. Polyphon was left in charge of the house while the three set out onto the street which was empty as everyone had gone to the Agora to try buy up the last of the city's food stocks. As they walked Phaedo explained the purpose of their visit to Miltiades was to bring Eukles before Miltiades who would acknowledge publicly his rightful ownership of his dead father's properties.

"Why will Miltiades do such a thing?" asked Eukles who understood that he would be ditching uncle for an anonymous boy.

"Politics and power games kid." Phaedo watched with eyes squinted against the sun, half open doorways as he talked, and approached sharp turns as if they harboured bad guys which of course Luke conceded they very well might but this was a strange way to live your life. As he kept an eye out for cut throats he explained as best he could.   
"Miltiades wants to march the army out to fight the Persians. He knows that Datis the will be in no haste to fight us. Time is on his side, he can supply his forces by sea and he probably feels that Athens will be so overawed by his army that we will capitulate on any terms. Not everyone agrees with Miltiades. The generals are split down the middle five want to stay and five want to march. Cailimachus as Polearch or eldest general has the deciding vote."

Eukles gathered that Cailimachus had some serious leverage. "And how will Cailimachus vote?"

"This is where you come in kid."

"I hope he won't compromise his vote for me. I won't let it happen."

"As I said, you're a man kid" smiled Phaedo, congratulating Eukles on his integrity. "No, Cailimachus knows that Miltiades' way is the best strategy. They may not be friends but Cailimachus thinks very highly of Miltiades' talents. He is a gifted man, it's just they share a different view of life's outcomes. Anyway Cailimachus knows we can't run from the Persians and the quicker we drag them into a dogfight the better for us. Five years ago I'd have been with the guys who want to cut and run. But times change kid and we change with them."

"And Cailimachus will have a price for the vote he's going to cast anyway and I'm that price. I mean, my security."

"I said you were a clever kid and I was right" and Phaedo patted Eukles on the head with his big mitt.

"Why?" Eukles was geuinely puzzled. "He hardly knows me."

"Yep, it's a queer one. The way I see it kid is like this." Phaedo kept walking and looking but that didn't stop him talking. "Cailimachus thinks he's going to be killed. Don't worry," he quickly added, "he's been thinking that for the last ten years. I suppose someday he will get killed and be able to tell me and Daemon 'I told you so lads'. "Phaedo chuckled but stopped when he saw that Eukles was struggling with the humour. "Never mind" he continued. "He also thinks that Miltiades will survive this conflict and even emerge stronger. He therefore wants Miltiades to recognise you in public as the rightful heir of your property. He can be a moody fellow. Your father did save his life; he has no son of his own. Who knows? Besides he's going to vote with Miltiades anyway so maybe he feels like he's putting one over on the arch wheeler dealer."

They continued walking uphill and the streets became thicker with frantic, lost people. Luke could feel the fear and despair, a powder keg of human frustration and angst that was waiting for a spark. He had never seen such horror and defeat etched on the faces of so many people. Eukles found himself squashed between Daemon and Phaedo. Uncomfortable, but Luke was happy to be the meat in the sandwich. They reached a cordon of no nonsense soldiers who kept the crowd at arms length with menacing threats. This ring of shields and grove of spears separated the swarm from the pleasant airy compound where the burghers of Athens were arguing best as to how to address the Persian landing. Phaedo chatted with an officer, a humourless conversation where the gravity of Athens' peril was reflected in the body language and facial gestures of the participants. A simple fountain threw sunlight off its mirrored waters. Deep beneath the ground a subterranean spring fed the refreshing liquid into the rich man's garden to grow the flowers and fruit trees that cast their welcome shade from the early afternoon sun. It was to this fountain that the officer directed Phaedo. Daemon began drinking the nourishing water which rolled like silver down his coal black beard. Seeing Eukles, he stopped and offered a ladleful. Eukles thanked him and took the gift, "It's good". Daemon agreed with a grunt.

Phaedo had gone off to let Cailimachus know of their arrival and Eukles began to engage Daemon in what Luke's mother would call 'small talk'. Luke could feel Eukles' awkwardness and discomfort and empathised as he knew all too well such socially difficult moments.

"You and Phaedo go back a long way?"

Daemon nodded.

"He's a good man."

Daemon nodded again.

"Brave but you know decent." Eukles wished he could shut himself up but the void of silence seemed to need filling and Daemon with his nodding wasn't up to much. Daemon nodded again.

"I mean not that you're not brave I mean, you are brave and em..." Eukles mind was a fog and he started to sweat even though they were under the shade of two fine orange trees. "Em ... You're quiet. Yes you're very quiet." This time Daemon didn't nod, he just looked.

"I mean quiet is good. It's good to be quiet. It's good to sit and say nothing. If we all sat and said nothing it would be a very em... "Luke was cringing, and whispering as politely as possible to Eukles to put a cork in it. "Em...it would be a very quiet world." Daemon looked at Eukles his eyes like still immovable dark pools. Eukles felt his lack of response and eye contact was an invitation to elaborate.

"Still it would be nice if you said something." Daemon shook his head and so did Luke.

"Nothing?" struggled Eukles, his voice showing strain and irritation.

Daemon shook his head again.

"Have you nothing to say man?" Luke was startled by Eukles' demanding and frustrated tone. "Say something for god's sake." Daemon just shook his head but this time there was a look of disappointment.

"I like you Daemon but I have to say I think this nodding is just a bit rude. Phaedo more or less said men should be straight so I'm going to be straight with you Daemon. You can be insufferably rude."

"Who's rude?" came the welcome voice of Phaedo. Eukles was delighted to have an opportunity to have a two way conversation at last. "Daemon is, I've been trying to talk to him for five minutes and all I get from him is nod, nod, nod, we should call him Noddy." And Eukles exaggerated a silent nodding movement with his head but as he did so the penny began to drop and Luke started to clap sarcastically "At last you dip!"

Eukles slowed down and then looked at Phaedo who was looking at him the way mam looked at dad when he'd messed up. It was a look that asked how can you be such a clutz?

"He can't speak can he?" whispered Eukles apologetically, almost as quiet now as the mute, Daemon.

"Got no tongue kid. Hasn't had one since his father in law cut it out when he married the daughter without his consent. He's a Spartan. They have funny ways. Daemon." Phaedo wiggled his own tongue by way of a hint and then Daemon opened his mouth.

Luke had seen a man with no arm once in the street. He knew it was rude to stare but his eyes kept being drawn back to the missing limb. The image had stayed with him making him wonder at how life could be impaired by such a loss. The half limb with the curve of soft skin at the elbow was a magnet for his dreams that night. Now Daemon stood before them, his large mouth agape his fine white teeth and his lonely tonsil vibrating at the back of his throat. He pushed out what was left of his tongue which failed to reach his teeth. Daemon shut his mouth and Eukles wished he had done the same five minutes earlier. He was about to make the most grovelling apology when Phaedo cut him short. "Don't kid. You didn't know." But then he made a popping sound with his mouth and added "but being a clever kid maybe you should have. A real warrior anticipates the ambush before it happens."

Daemon seeing the lad's mortification extended his hand which Eukles was happy to grasp. "Forgive me Daemon." Daemon nodded and laughed as he did so. Then everyone sharing the relief nodded together. When all had finished laughing Daemon punched his chest twice and tried to mouth something as he pointed at Eukles and Phaedo. Eukles' eyes shifted to Phaedo in search of an interpretation.

"He's saying 'We are men'."

Daemon smiled to show that Phaedo had translated correctly. Eukles smiled back as did Luke and together the four punched their chests close to their hearts.

The council of generals was still deliberating so the three men or two men and a boy who was no longer a boy but perhaps not yet a man, sat down on the dusty earth under the thick umbrella of the orange tree. The heavy citrus perfume fell like mist and reminded Luke of the Curator's desk and the battered helmet of Mambrino and the mortified fool who chanced to put on Godiva's wimple. Dangerous and at times embarrassing, these adventures. What else is in store?

"Tell me Phaedo is there anything I should know about you or Cailimachus so that I don't put my hoof in it as I did with Daemon." Phaedo, although he was a killer and little else, was partial to enjoyable conversation and the questions that the curious Eukles posed were a fine balm to the insufferable silence that, of necessity, was part of his relationship with Daemon. A lizard popped his head out of a crack in the dry stone wall against which they rested their backs. It was as if he'd come to hear the story. Another lizard, bored before it had started, scrambled across the dirt and disappeared into the refuge of a small hole.

"Not much to tell about myself. I have a tongue and some would wish I used it less. Hell, I wish I used it less. It's caused a lot of harm to me and to others."

"I know what you mean", interrupted Eukles and all three laughed. "I'm sure there's lots to tell about you. Where do you come from, who was your father? How did you end up doing what you em...do?"

"The first two are easy to answer. I grew up in Piraeus within earshot of the sea and the smell of its salt and the traders' sweat. I knew your uncle although he wouldn't have known me nor my kind. He was always a smug, selfish bully of a man who had underlings do his dirty work and took pleasure in his power over others. I got a lot of sinful pleasure myself from today's work. "He gave a weak, weary laugh that didn't convince. "As for my father he worked on the cargo ships running olives and timber between the islands. So I didn't see much of him which wasn't so bad, as he wasn't much of a father."

Luke was shocked that a son should say such a thing. The subject of one's father seemed so sacred and not suited to being talked about so casually in public. But he noticed that he was in a minority as Eukles listened sympathetically hinting that his own experience of a father was far from the healthy, loving one of his own flawed, but Luke had to concede, excellent dad. Phaedo wouldn't have cared either way if he had been able to hear Luke.

"Homer tells us that sons are rarely similar to their fathers. Most of the time they're worse. Is he right?" asked Eukles.

"If he is kid then the world of men hasn't got a lot of time left."

Homer seemed spectacularly stupid to Luke. Each generation was better than the last because each generation got to stand on the shoulders of the previous one. But as he considered the matter further he also realised that each generation got to bathe in the slime of the previous generation's errors. Big thoughts. Happily Phaedo interrupted them with the next chapter of his life.

"Anyway better or worse, and I suspect a bit of both, one day my old man got on a ship to Chios and that was the last I or anyone else saw of him. Perhaps the ship sank, perhaps pirates threw him over board or sold him for a barrel of cheap beer in Lydia. If they did they got a good deal. Or maybe he just didn't want to go back to a nagging wife and a hungry son. When I got older I used to look at the old men in the taverns of Lydia and Cilicia wondering if I'd recognise him. But all you see is a stream of worn out; tired creatures who get drunk too easily and you'd be ashamed if one of them were your father."

Phaedo's picture of tired old drunks made Luke think of the hobos on the street corners with their damp overcoats and beards, their haggard faces and eyes that long ago forgot what it was to be proud, and their hands out for what dad would call 'a few coppers for drink'. They couldn't be fathers, could they? He listened through the ears of Eukles to a story that humanised and softened the hardened Phaedo. He knew what it was like to be embarrassed by his own dad and he had of late tried to avoid him when he was with his friends. But the idea of leaving him old and drunk in a quay side tavern seemed barbaric and heartless. He thanked the gods that he would never have to do such a thing.

"My mother didn't miss him. The women of the docks are used to useless, feckless men and the feckless sea. She wasn't going to miss me either; she sold me as quick as she could to the service of a sea captain who carried anything and everything to Cyprus and Africa. I didn't blame her"

"So you're a son of Poseidon," said Eukles seeing the story as a romantic one where Luke saw only varying levels of horror. Phaedo plucked a sun ripened orange from where it was hiding in the thick foliage overhead and sliced it into three perfectly equal parts offering a third to each of his listeners.

"I hate the sea kid and Poseidon has never been a friend of mine. The sea is worse than a moody woman. She'll lure you away from the land with her intoxicating skies and waters like polished marble. And when she's got you all to herself she'll spew forth her hatred of men like a fury seeking revenge for some unknown violation. We're not fish kid. I've seen enough men face down in the drink to know that." He was lost for a moment in his memory then snapped his head and returned to his tale.

"I had a temper and it cost me. I was poor to take orders from the rough impatient types who battle the sea for a living and was dumped on a foreign coast one night for what they called my 'insubordination'. Why they didn't just feed me to the fish I'll never know. So there I was across the sea as mute as Daemon here as I hadn't a word of their lingo. I worked as a labourer at the docks carting goods to the warehouses. One day I was minding my own business." Daemon guffawed at the idea that Phaedo was capable of such a thing. "I was" continued Phaedo appearing offended but without any real belief in his act. "I had been paid to transport a cart of wine from a ship in Smyrna to a tavern at the edge of town. I was well paid cause I always delivered. Two roughnecks who happened to be mercenaries, ugly boyos from Sparta where they're all ugly" Daemon ignored the jibe. "Well they thought they'd help themselves to a jar of my wine. I politely told them it wasn't mine to sell. They told me they'd no intention of buying. I ended up delivering the full cart of wine as promised. That evening while was I drinking with my back against the wall a bloke called Cailimachus told me he had just been at a couple of funerals and was two men short and would I take their place."

Luke was equating the funerals with the boyos who weren't going to pay for their wine when Eukles pressed for more detail from Phaedo who had set his jaws to work on the orange. "So you became a soldier?"

"No kid that would be dishonest. Soldier's too glamourous. I was a mercenary. A labourer for hire, only instead of delivering carts of wine or grain or oil, I now delivered death or more often its threat which was usually enough." But not 'always' thought Luke who was fascinated by this life laid bare, that seemed so natural to the drifting currents of human existence of this crazy, wild time.

"And Cailimachus was a mercenary too?" probed Eukles.

"Yes and no. Unlike the rest of us he was what you would call an honourable man. Don't get me wrong he did his share of mayhem but he took no pleasure in it and always took measures to moderate men's passions if you know what I mean." Neither Luke nor Eukles fully knew and both felt that they were better off. But they nodded all the same. "The reality was that we were tax collectors for Darius the Persian king. I know, I can see by your face what you're thinking. But we Greeks were Darius' best enforcers until Miltiades messed things up. Nobody likes paying tribute least of all to a far away king and Darius' empire is vast and he was always far away. So we travelled around the wastes of Persia reminding those who had forgotten to cough up. It seemed easy at the time but when you think about it, it's not the most straightforward of jobs. Cailimachus out there, in the middle of nowhere at the head of a couple of hundred murderers who'd eat their mothers for the price of a good night out, often weighed down with bags of collected taxes. A lot of temptation there for a weak mind."

"Were you tempted?"

"That's the thing kid, we never questioned Cailimachus", and as if to emphasise the point he reiterated the single word "never". Eukles listened, raptured, and followed the story of mercenaries in the same far off places he'd overheard his father's business partners speak of in their fantastical stories. "Why did they never question him?"

Phaedo sucked the juice from the last segment of orange he had been ignoring as he talked. The question seemed to bring him back from some private reverie, reliving one of those moments when his life suddenly had great value because he had so nearly lost it. Some glorious fight against the odds in the parched exotic lands across the great sea, or maybe the memory of a fine woman who almost made him give up his mercenary ways. Almost.

"He always delivered kid, always. He has intelligence; he can see things before they happen. And he has what all the other captains lack- integrity. You can trust him. Cailimachus is as straight as my spear", Phaedo looked along the shaft of his spear as a rifleman looks along the barrel of his gun. "Straighter. You can trust his judgement and you can trust the man". Phaedo grew animated and Luke could detect his clear fondness for his chief.

"He's a genius. He can manipulate everything; lie of the land, the soldiers under him, those sent against him, other generals, me, you, the weather."

"I doubt he can change the weather," said Eukles.

Phaedo ignored the doubt, swatting it away like an irritating fly.

"Uses it kid, knows how to, when to wait for it to change. He can smell it like a cat. Knows when a rainstorm will turn a plain to mud so that caravans of supplies cannot pass or see that a coming sandstorm will blow into the eyes of a cocky cavalry squadron. I've seen him plant fires so that the wind carries them across a city and hold the attack until the moment when the sun's sharp rays blind the enemy. I've been there when he's blocked an army's escape with an avalanche of freshly fallen snow or used the same as a wall to hinder an enemy's pursuit. He understands land, how to make a marsh your friend and how it can cripple a force ten times what you have. How a river can be a ready made fortress for you and a prison for the other guy, how to rob cavalry of their strength by sucking them into a forest or use low hills and bluffs to hide your numbers and lure the unsuspecting, foolhardy general who thinks he can outwit Cailimachus. When he promises something he keeps that promise and many have surrendered to him because they trust his word."

Phaedo fell silent nodding to himself, torn between envy and admiration for his master. Eukles remembered the promise Cailimachus had made him that he would protect him, that he would survive this war. How can he deliver that promise?

Phaedo shifted his body slightly raising a brief cloud of dry dust and causing an historical storm in the community of invisible dust mites who were napping in the Greek sun.

"He knows when to fight and when to wait, not a headstrong fool like me. He knows which battles can be won and which can't. He can make the big calls; sacrifice a few so that the next engagement can be won. Eretreia wasn't his making and it hurt him to have to run. It was Miltiades' lack of planning and foresight. We could never have saved the place and the people. We would have been caught like a fly in a web. Hunger and thirst- Datis' favourite weapons would have done their job. The Persians would just have to sit and sneer and wait. But it takes a big man to abandon so many." Phaedo stopped talking and looked at Eukles with pleading eyes. He was no longer a mercenary. He was a soldier sworn to defend the defenseless and humble the proud and he had failed in his duty at Eretreia. That anonymous town fifty miles north of Athens was the Persian statement that Darius had come to annihilate. His treatment of Eretreia was a graphic announcement of his intention to lay waste Greece, to leave it a desert as an example to all who cross Darius.

"In the retreat from Eretreia we could hear the Persians at work. That's a terrible song to have ringing in your ears. Perhaps we should have stayed." Daemon looked up at this point in Phaedo's story. The silent Spartan whose people came home on their feet or as a corpse on their shield. Spartans wouldn't have run. His eyes and breathing betrayed his shame and remorse. Eukles' words broke the embarrassment of both men's silence. "We ran in order to win. There'll be a price for Eretreia. The Persians will pay it with their blood." It all sounded flat and silly and was little consolation to those left behind to be raped and enslaved and to those carrying the shame and stain of retreat.

"Fighting words kid but not much comfort for our brothers up north. The Persians are feeding off the fat of the land, drinking the cellars of Greece dry and other stuff not fit for ears so young. The skies of Greece are black with smoke from the Persian fires and the slave markets of Smyrna will be packed with Greek boys and girls no older than you." Eukles winced. Luke remembered the auction from yesterday.

"Why does Darius do such things? Does he not know the misery that comes from his wars?"

"Because kings are bullies kid. And great kings like Darius have to be greater bullies. But this one has a bit of personal spite to it. Darius is your fat uncle with a hundred thousand swordsmen behind him."

"Because of what Miltaides did in Scythia and the Greek revolt against him in Sardis?"

"You're more informed than me, kid. We were at Sardis and I suppose it's why we're here now. As paid servants of Darius we were called back from the east to help crush the Greek revolt. When we arrived, we had no appetite for what we saw. The last embers of that fight were fading. Darius was like a raging animal insisting on all sorts of miseries for those who had dared defy him especially in what was the breadbasket of his empire. He wanted Miltiades' head then, and has been unable to sleep until he gets his scalp."

Eukles was silent trying to digest all that Phaedo had told him and compare it to what Cailimachus had revealed last night. Luke also was processing what he had just heard. What struck him most was how close the man in the street was to the great affairs of state. Athens where the ideas of democracy and freedom were born and nurtured, seemed a lot smaller and a lot less populous than his own, anonymous home city of Limerick. Eukles appeared to know half the people he passed in the market place and everyone seemed to have some hand, part or influence in what was unfolding as opposed to his own world where decisions were made by remote bungling politicians who one never passed in the street. Treaties were signed, roads built, hospitals closed, taxes raised, laws passed by faceless grey men for whom you'd have complete contempt if they were your teacher. Caricatures of fun. Yet weren't we the slaves to let them run our lives.

And here the city was at war, on the eve of destruction with a terrifying enemy almost at the gates. Eretreia had been abandoned to the horrors of Darius' men. Now in Athens, carpenters and cooks and bakers would give up their day jobs to defend their city by killing or by trying to kill a host of others who had travelled great distances to kill and enslave them. Facing all these people was the prospect of death and slavery, for themselves and their families, the destruction of their homes and culture, of their language and their Gods, and of their story which would never be told. Who were the Scythians, Luke wondered, those hard men of the north? What happened to them? Who extinguished their story? How many others were like them?

This was war Luke thought. Man's bloody method to resolve man made problems. This was how the world's maps were drawn. This was how it was decided that one tribe or nation dies of malnutrition and a thousand curable diseases and another of obesity and surfeit. War was the theatre where self regarding men like Miltaides and Darius massage, and have massaged, their great, hungry egos. His own world had its share of such men.

"Couldn't Miltiades surrender himself and avoid the slaughter?"

Phaedo guffawed at the simple solution which Luke actually thought quite sound. One life sacrificed to save an entire nation. Good maths. "That's not going to happen", snorted Phaedo.

"Why not?"

"Well in the first place Darius has chosen the Greeks to be an example. Last year it was the Carians. Before that the Scythians. This year he's coming to a theatre near you. We get the pleasure of his undivided attention. Once he puts on a show like this he needs to stay for the standing ovation at the end. He's put together an army which now needs to be paid and all the gold in Darius' treasury won't be enough. Greece will pay for that army. It'll plunder all that it can find; livestock, people, ships, food, coin. Darius will rape the country and then sell it back to the cronies who are left whose children will still be paying tribute when their hairs are grey. An army is a terrible thing kid, a very hungry, mindless, untameable animal. Besides, I'm sure Darius has a few empty alcoves in his palace waiting to be filled with the spoil of this war. So there's no stopping this party now.

Luke contemplated the aftermath of victory, after the killing and destruction and the white flag had been raised, when the cameras had been packed up and had gone to record the next episode of man's foolishness and pride on some other battlefield. He had once seen a company of drunken young men on the streets of his town when out driving with his dad late one night. They had fire in their eyes and a primal urge to kick out and smash and wreck. He wondered now how it would be with thousands of such unrestrained angry psychopaths let loose with no police to temper their behaviour, no fear of law or reprisal. A victorious army, relieved to have survived and ready to reap its reward. He imagined the tornado of destruction, greater than any force of nature, once they realised their power and the powerlessness of their victims. That was the Persian army. Apocalypse.

"In the second place" Phaedo continued, his easygoing manner as out of place as a grazing gazelle in a pride of drooling lions, "our friend Miltiades ain't the type of bloke who'd sacrifice himself for the greater good. More like what can the lot of you do for me. Politicians kid. I think they'll always be the same." Luke could have told him he was on the money with that one.

Eukles took time out to absorb Phaedo's pessimism, his young face wrinkled with concern for all those helpless people beyond the cordon of guards. "So the misery and the torments, all this is down to the vanity of two men? All this pain?"

Eukles' simple innocence brought a smile to the face of the unconcerned Phaedo who never let emotion cloud his view of a people's predicament although Daemon looked more solemn and sympathetic, acknowledging the young man's words with a thoughtful nod. Phaedo spat at a petrol coloured beetle who struggled to free himself from the unwelcome missile and then hurried blindly to avoid a second bombardment. "Stupid thing" thought Phaedo.

"If it weren't Darius and Miltiades it would be someone else kid. Behind them on the greasy pole of power there are those like your uncle who are scrambling on the heads of others. There are thistles and flowers kid, hawks and sparrows. The weeds of this world always seem so much stronger than the blooms. The flowers are so fragile and the weeds so resilient." He was about to finish the petrified beetle off with another spit but for some reason held his fire. "There are men who are born to watch this world burn."

He began to massage his lower back as Luke had often seen his own father do. The varicose veins on his legs and the gnarled knuckles on his blackened toes made Luke realise that Phaedo was an ageing warrior. Someday perhaps tomorrow or next week, a younger, faster, cockier cut throat would end his life as no doubt Phaedo had done to so many others who had been slowed and weakened and frightened by old age. There would be no pension at the post office for Phaedo, no bingo, no tea and reading the Sunday papers in a sunny conservatory as the silver threads lightened his dark hair and the lines of time carved deeper into his face. No telling stories to wide eyed grand kids. But also, thought Luke, no being kept alive in a hospital ward, surrounded by a dozen ash grey skeletons whose air came from a barrel and whose food came from a tube. He had seen his grandfather die this way, a human shipwreck artificially kept alive, robbed of dignity in death. Better Luke thought, to go boldly the way of Phaedo than what his own world saw as progress.

"For every man like Cailimachus, honest decent men of integrity, there are five maybe ten like Miltiades, dishonest, corrupt, self seeking. And greedy bastards, fat sacks of lard like that uncle of yours. Below Miltiades are a thousand like him from which he gets his power.They feed him and he in turn creates the world they want. They can't live simply- they want stuff more than they will ever need. Bigger palaces with rooms they'll never visit, finer robes, more slaves to pamper them till they can't move, more food and wine to make them fat and drunk, more coin to buy the things that should not be for sale. And the only way they can have more is for us to have less. It's all theft, robbers and thieves the lot of them." Phaedo plucked another orange and performed a perfect surgery distributing an equal part to his audience. Luke wondered if the taking of the orange from Miltiades' tree was a deliberate irony, and he suspected by Phaedo's mischievous smile that it probably was. "They are not men. But they have always made it to the top of their dung heap and they always will."

That's reassuring said Luke to himself sarcastically. Then more soberly he agreed that there was and always will be a vast web of selfish men. He'd seen them in his school where the useless teachers and students hijacked everything. He wasn't that interested in what the newspapers peddled, but he was apathetically aware that his world was awash with leaders who were as bent as a boomerang. Businessmen, politicians, lawyers, bishops, bankers and union bosses all feathering their empires as Darius feathered his. Luke was at that age when he was starting to ask questions of the once impenetrable adult world and finding it starkly wanting. It seemed a shabby place populated with cowards and shirkers and builders of gated havens from which the honest and industrious like his parents were excluded.

Phaedo took a branch from Miltiades' tree and stripped it of its leaves until only a stick about a metre long remained. With this he started to draw shapes in the dirt between his feet. Luke felt sorry for this man who wanted to be, and to do, good but seemed neutered by the world's greed and wickedness. He was reduced to drawing childish circles and swirls, unable with all his grit and wit, with all his muscle and iron will, to solve a problem which long ago he had resigned himself to consider as insoluble.

"Can Cailimachus and you and Daemon and all the rest not play Miltiades and Darius at their own game?" asked Eukles, still young enough to want and believe in answers.

"That's a fairy tale kid. You end up becoming what you despise. I knew a man who foolishly walked with lepers. Guess what happened to him?" replied Phaedo enigmatically.

"He became a leper too?" guessed Eukles

Luke's mind through that of Eukles' was awash with the images of the scabrous, deformed creatures in rags in the exhausted quarry beyond the southern hills. Luke retched at the picture of their faces, their noses and ears half devoured by the disease. War meant little to those forgotten ones already eaten by pestilence. Would it mean much to the slave girl who had served them food last night? Or to the line of freshly purchased human meat he saw in the market place? They were already losers in life's game.

"Stand up kid." Phaedo didn't request but ordered and Eukles jumped up like an obedient soldier happy to be distracted from yet another run of dour images that this day seemed to endlessly spawn in his head. Immediately he had scrubbed away the panoramic vista of lepers and was eagerly awaiting Phaedo's next instruction. Luke too was happy that the lepers were gone although he could have done with the remote control to have made it happen earlier.

"If we had a fight who'd win?"

They faced each other, a ridiculous mismatch. Eukles' skinny almost boney frame was dwarfed by the sinuous muscular flesh of Phaedo. Eukles' pride sought vainly for an alternative to the obvious, and not willing to admit defeat he temporized.

"As things stand you're older, stronger and more experienced than me, but given time, and it's on my side old man, I think I could take you." Still facing each other both smiled at Eukles' light touch.

"You'd never take me kid." Phaedo said condescendingly and turned his back. "Would you put a knife in me kid, right here where the neck meets the shoulder blade, where there's no bone to stop the passage of a long blade to the heart? Would you kid?" Still with his back turned he stabbed with his index finger a mound of his own muscle. Luke wasn't sure what to make of Phaedo's clear grasp of human anatomy and its vulnerable points.

"I'd rather do it when you're facing me," replied Eukles, who was also struck by the precision details of the question.  
Phaedo turned round but he was no longer smiling. "Exactly kid, you have a sense of honour, you are one of the virtuous, and you will not betray that in order to gain advantage. Within seconds kid I could rip both your eyeballs out of their sockets, bite off half your face, crush your testicles in my right hand while cutting off your air supply with my left and then crack your skull off that jagged white rock over there."  
Daemon chuckled to himself. Eukles and Luke both looked at the lump of jagged fissured marble which protruded from the wall like a serrated blade and wondered why they'd failed to notice it before. Reading Eukles thoughts, Phaedo continued, "I noticed it, the rock and its murderous possibilities the moment I arrived as I suspect did Daemon." Daemon grunted an affirmative, almost insulted that it might have been in doubt. "I could blind you with a hand full of grit from under your feet," Phaedo was showing off now as he threw a hand full of the self same grit into the air, "or with just a slight movement of my shoulder which would give me time enough to open the artery in your neck with the blade you didn't see."

Eukles was struggling to keep up and was about to blurt 'what blade?', when suddenly the big man moved slightly. His shoulder had been blocking the sun which now burst like a firework temporarily blinding Eukles. Seconds later Phaedo shifted in order to return Eukles to the shade. As his sight readjusted he found that Phaedo had his stiletto less than a centimetre from his Adam's apple. Or whatever the Greek's called it thought Luke.

"What's the underworld like kid? You should have knifed me in the back when you had the chance. Miltiades and your uncle and the rest of them would have. Point made?"

And with his dark sense of humour that Luke was very uncomfortable with, he teased Eukles'eyes with the point of his blade before secreting it like a magician into the fold of his sleeve. He then turned to Daemon and took a theatrical bow and his audience returned with a few seconds of ironic applause. Phaedo had had his fun and saw now that it was a little at the expense of Eukles. He apologised for taking things a tad too far saying he was a shameless performer who loved the stage.   
"Should have been an actor kid, but I suppose that is my point as much as what I've just done. I can't act. Just like you can't do any of the things I just demonstrated. Cailimachus can't dance. Your uncle can't be honest and Daemon here can't talk. And Miltiades and his kind can't be happy with the simple things of life. And so the world will burn. The world will still be burning thousands of years from now, as it burned when Agamemnon had to have his way."

"I could learn", burst out Eukles defiantly." We can all learn. Where did you learn these things? You could teach me."

Phaedo let out a deep sigh and shook his head several times impatiently. "No, no, no, and I'll never be a good teacher if I haven't yet taught you the obvious. You're missing the point kid. Where did I learn them? I learnt them in my mother's womb, on the streets where my kind grew up, on a boat out at sea where there's no land for days in any direction. I learnt them in the eyes of dead men who didn't sit with their backs against the wall in the company of strangers. I learnt them because I'm fond of my eyeballs in my eye sockets and these balls sitting pretty right here where the ladies like them and not the other way around." Crudely but effectively Phaedo squeezed his testicles through his tunic. Daemon laughed and both Luke and Eukles laughed also, although the two of them simultaneously closed their legs and blinked subconsciously.

And then came the coup de grace. "And if I were running beside Phedippides I would have seen him coming and I'd have pushed him first. And kid I'd have won the race and got to shag the ladies."

Eukles forced a smile but it was a tepid failure that only served to highlight the deep hurt he felt. Phaedo immediately understood this was one more episode in his life when he'd wished he was the voiceless Daemon for a day. "Sorry kid," was the best he could muster. Then Daemon rose to his feet and turned the boy towards him, his strong dark eyes the picture of Spartan suffering and honour. He held Eukles at arms length his large claw like hands cupping his face silently telling him that he felt his pain. That in this world we are all wronged as he himself had been wronged by his own wife's father. But we live with injustice and bear it silently like men for that is what we are. Eukles grasped what lay behind the sympathetic stare; he took a step back, clenched his fist, and brought it to land with a thump against his heart. Daemon gave a slight intimate nod of his head followed by a feint intimate smile. Then purposefully and with great care he repeated the gesture mouthing clearly the words that had been robbed from him long ago. "We are men."

Luke knew that sharing this moment in the way he found himself sharing it was a privilege, like seeing from the mountain top the view that the old curator told him he would see. Not everyone got to the height. Some would never get the chance; others would give up along the way. Only a very few would reach the summit. He felt tears in his own eyes and in those of his host. For Luke too had known injustice and had buried it from the gaze of the world. One tear managed to escape the controlling dykes of masculinity put up to prevent it from leaving its overflowing duct. A beautiful tear thought Luke, one beautiful droplet of human brine deserving its freedom from the pent up ocean of emotion, and Eukles left it go free without any effort to restrict its flight.

But the sweetness of the moment with its quiet empathy and understanding between three of life's victims, hurt by different injustices was cut short. There was a noticeable murmur among the crowd heralded by the appearance of many more helmeted and metal breasted men.

"At last" said Phaedo tossing his stick carelessly like a substandard spear at a passing butterfly, which danced around it carelessly unaware how close it had just come to death. "Gentlemen or should I say fellow mugs, here comes the pageant of the great, the selfish, the dishonest, the corrupt, the cowardly, I give you humanity's last resort- our leaders." Miltiades emerged first, a confident, vigorous, determined looking figure with cropped short hair in what a twenty first century barber would describe as a blade one.On his chin he sported rough stubble rather that a full beard. Luke was surprised at how old he looked - about sixty. He walked however like a warrior with a mission, but alone and in front and he had all the trappings of a general and leader. He was clearly the man in charge and his coolness and dignity steadied the masses who stilled their panic in the presence of their messiah. Behind him were a cluster of notables; the city's generals, priests and men of substance. Some were obviously more reluctant than others. A divided city thought Luke, just what Darius was hoping for. Miltiades knew his task: he called Cailimachus to his side at an elevated position to talk in whispers about something. Once the conversation was over he and the equally dignified but more retiring Cailimachus were standing together. Miltiades took the opportunity as any modern politician would of this excellent photo op and addressed the crowd briefly."Let us all walk together to the Agora where we will set forth our strategy to deal with the menace from Persia which now besets our homeland. "

"Now that is a man who knows how to pull the puppets' strings. 'Us', 'our', 'we', standing with Cailimachus, getting the despairing faces of the others out of the public eye. 'Menace that is besetting'. Nothing to fear and panic over so. Look at the sheep following him." Phaedo spat his summary out in disgust and did an impression of a baaing lamb. "Good move all the same to get the people to walk to the Agora. It will create a sense of togetherness and steady them. He's robbed them of their fear."

A section of about forty soldiers formed a human shield around Miltiades and the military council who were all cradling helmets and rustling in full battle dress. Some of the crowd began to move up the hill towards the Agora in order to get the best view. Those who remained, reverently made space for the city's messiahs who, looking confident and purposeful behind the shield wall, made their way towards the same venue.

"I thought he did rather well. I think you might be misjudging him Phaedo but his sincerity was impressive," said Eukles asserting his independence.

Phaedo looked bewildered and spat angrily at the ants under his feet. "Impressive. Impressive!" And then with nothing to vent his spleen he kicked out at the insects crwaling over his toes."Fucking ants!"

Cailimachus arrived. "I thought old Miltiades did rather well there don't you think?" remarked their newly arrived chief. Eukles raised his eyebrows and looked at Phaedo with a condescending mockery which Phaedo returned with a scowl. Cailimachus noticed the facial antics of the two but ignored them. "Something I said?" but neither enlightened him.

"Anyway," he continued, "so sad to think that there are so many fools who can't see through the mask. The lack of sincerity in the man is at times appalling."

"Yes boss," gloated Phaedo, his mood suddenly changed. "Fools they are. Imagine being so thick, so foolish and stupid as to, how shall I put it, to be impressed by him. Yes that would be the word, 'impressed'. That would be a real case of misjudgment boss, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose it would Phaedo" answered Cailimachus looking at Phaedo suspiciously, before asking him if he had been drinking.

"Only crystal water from the 'impressive' fountain of the impressive Miltiades."

He winked at Eukles who squirmed before eventually scowling back.

"Right men we have much to do" Cailimachus began, addressing his burly comrades. He was about to begin a summary of the work when he remembered the morning's mission. "Ah well young man, I trust you are now master of your house?"

"I am sir, thanks to you and my brothers."

Cailimachus smiled and looked to Phaedo silently demanding a report.

"Fat lazy uncle expelled. Boy has shown great maturity as master of his house. The world can expect great things of him. In fact I'd say he is most impressive." Phaedo smiled at his joke and this time Eukles did too.

"Good "said Cailimachus and he broke into his own smile extending his arm to Eukles who shook it at the wrist. "Use your authority and position wisely. Power brings with it certain requirements and burdens. Now I need a stick."

"Like this one" and Eukles picked up the recently discarded stick with which Phaedo had failed to murder the dancing butterfly. Cailimachus looked at it and quipped "excellent young man! When I want a stick in a hurry I'll know who to ask. Its sticks like this that might just help us beat the Persians. Sticks draw maps and maps give clarity to the chaos of battlefield. Glory can be forged with a stick and some dirt. Remember that."

Despite the gravity of the moment everyone seemed relaxed and the scene reminded Luke of a summer evening before the barbeque was sparked. Cailimachus used the stick to draw his battle winning map in the dirt which when he was finished resembled an upside down Pi.

"Every available hoplite is being mustered. We're marching today.We reckon around ten thousand men. The main force will leave in about two hours. Each of the ten tribes is responsible for its munitions rations and transport. About a thousand will arrive later having requisitioned food and drink.

'Requisition' thought Luke; it was one of those sanitised words which really meant something else. Like collateral damage or friendly fire. A way to pretend that we live in a victimless world. Ten thousand male bellies had to be fed which meant that women and children had to go hungry. The longer the war went on the more ribs you'd get to see on their wallpaper flesh. They'd start to die of weakness and starvation. They weren't exactly well fed as things stood, sweaty uncle excepted. There'd be bloodshed, but behind the battlefield and unrecorded by the scribes and historians was a half starved countryside thanks to the 'requisition'.

"Datis has landed twenty five miles away at the bay of Maratonos."

"A good place to disembark a large army, long gentle beach, wide valley with no overhanging cliffs by the sea."

"Yes," agreed Cailimachus. "No doubt the work of Hyppias the traitor. But he'll have to march them to Athens." He took his stick and swept it along the roof of the Pi he had drawn."This is the beach, long and gentle as you say, Phaedo, shaped like one of their sickle swords. If he follows the coast he risks getting his army bogged down in the Vrexia marsh which stretches a couple of miles down the coast. Besides he won't want to expose his cavalry to the steep valley beyond the marsh."

"He has cavalry?" groaned Phaedo.

"About two thousand."

"Whoa", whistled Phaedo. "That's a lot of angry meat."

Cailimachus ignored the pessimism. "Cavalry suits our immediate purpose as it will take him days to disembark his forces and materiel. Strangely the horses which should speed things up are actually slowing him down. Anyway the only other way to Athens is up the valley which sweeps into the bay." He drew a line between the two legs of Pi. The valley is perfect for him. It's as wide as a thousand men standing shoulder to shoulder and long enough to allow him penetrate deeply into our heartland. We must get there before he's fully disembarked and block his route.There are about two thousand men ready.I will lead them. If we force the march we will be there by evening and we can work under night's cover.

"Only two thousand?" said Phaedo doubtfully.

"We'll make ourselves look like ten. You know Datis; he won't attack until he's certain. We'll bring as many axes as we can and cut down scrub and branches and litter the flanks with it to deny his cavalry a clear charge. We'll need to sink at least three wells too and see if the Persian boys like the taste of all that salty water and the marsh flies feeding on their sweat."

Luke listened and remembered how Phaedo had praised Cailimachus' awareness of what makes and unmakes a battle. Twenty miles from a place he'd probably only seen a few times, he was plotting how to use the land, how to anticipate and beguile his opponent, how to use his own limited forces to neutralise a much stronger foe.

"We'll need a runner. Pheidippides", at the mention of the name Cailimachus noticed the clear disgust on the faces before him."What did I say?" he pleaded half apologetically.

"Nothing. Long story. Tell you another time" said Phaedo hastily. "What about Phedipshit?" Daemon and Eukles sniggered and Cailimachus shook his head and frowned aware that he was out of the conspiracy of mockery hatched at the great runner's expense.

"He's volunteered to run to Sparta. If the Spartans can get here we stand a real chance.Together we'll still be outnumbered but I would be surprised if Datis would roll the dice against the two of us. But we need another runner; he doesn't have to be in Pheidippides class..." The three listeners gave the look that every parent would recognise as "the whatever look".

"What?" said Cailimachus impatiently.

"You need a runner. We got that bit. Just don't mention Dipshit's name again."

"We need a runner to carry the news to Platea to get them...."

Cailimachus didn't have time to elaborate as Eukles immediately volunteered."I'll do it. I know the route."

"No no, you're too young. Besides it's a fair distance. We need a runner who can ..."It was clear that Cailimachus was trying to protect the boy whose life was now so precious to him. Phaedo took control.

"Boss, he knows the way better than anyone. He's run it before. Trust me on this. Let him go. Let him. He has to smell his own piss sometime. If he's too young now he'll always be too young. These are dangerous times boss, perhaps the most dangerous times we've ever known. None of us may see another sunrise. The safest place as things stand is probably the road to Platea. And in those sandals you have to think that he'd leave Dipshit for dead." All laughed except Cailimachus who looked hopelessly at Eukles' Just Do It footwear and bewilderingly acknowledged that he was outside of the Pheidippides joke. He then nodded resignedly although his face showed the struggle that raged inside.

"You're right my friend" and he signalled to a square jawed sergeant who was waiting at a distance. "Give me the message scroll."

"Yes General." The sergeant flipped the flap of a leather satchel on his shoulder. What he took from it startled Luke more than any miracle. Stiffly in an age old military fashion, like any subordinate addressing a superior officer, the sergeant stood arrow straight and broad shouldered with big chest extended an arm in salute. Between his stubby and grimy index finger and his stubbier and grimier thumb was the ivory case. There it was as Luke remembered it, the length and shape of a cigar, creamy white in colour and each end pinched closed with snugly fitting silver caps.

It was the artifact itself, the one from the adventure shop, the one he had selected ahead of all the others, whose touch had bought him across time and space and to an adventure that the old curator promised, would be something of a test for which he would ultimately be grateful. It had taken him from a world of motor cars and frozen fish and chips and quarrelling brothers who had hissy fits over restaurant seating arrangements and dessert menus. A world of sports shops where his brother Paddy had just destroyed someone's week by collapsing his marketing pyramid for peddling massed produced footballs. It had taken him to this brutal world where life was cheap and bought and sold for coins, where murder was a credible solution to everyday problems and where frightened masters who ate hamster food trembled at the prospect of Armageddon at the hands of a poser called Darius.

Cailimachus took the baton and slipped off one of the silver bungs tapping out a scroll of paper at which Luke still dazed, whispered to himself the word 'parchment'. The older man began adding an extra paragraph to the text with its funny Greek letters. "This is a request to the elders of Platea to join us with their Hoplites at Maratonos bay. It is signed by me, Miltiades and the other tribal generals. When you get to Platea insist on seeing a man called Arimnestos. We are friends. He will do the rest. Understood?"

Eukles nodded with excitement his heart racing at the mission and the responsibility entrusted to him. Cailimacuhus then added in a sombre, weary voice.

"You must get through Eukles. The Plateans are hardy mountaineers, great fighters and a thousand strong. Their arrival will bolster our men's courage and drain it from the Persians. Keep an eye on the track, stay to the centre to avoid snakes coiled among the rocks or wolves jumping from cover. The passes might now be alive with bandits; war always brings that out in men. If you're stopped tell them you carry a message from Cailimachus and he will find out the name of anyone who did harm to his servant and slice them up slowly."

And with that gruesome image he tapped the parchment back into its case, imprisoning it behind the close fitting silver. He then held it up for inspection.

"Strange how things work out, if objects could talk the stories they might tell." Luke smiled ironically.

"This was a gift from Darius himself. Arimnestos of Platea to whom you will deliver it was there when he presented it to me. It was taken from a disloyal satrap in the Eastern desert who failed to pay up in a dusty dump called Cappadocia. Darius told me I could use it to send messages anywhere in the empire because 'news from the noble Cailimachus', his words Eukles not mine, 'is always good to hear'."

Cailimachus chuckled a private lonely chuckle lost in the memory of the moment now long past from which the players had moved on to different stages and dramas, only to find themselves once more reunited.

"And now it will carry a message that will doom his general Datis and his army. Curious things happen. Great kings should be wiser with their gifts." said Eukles opportunistically.

Cailimachus chuckle turned to a smile which was forced and unconvincing. "I admire your youthful optimism my young brother. Now go with care." A heavy wave of emotion broke over him that this great man who had undertaken to be his father should now also call him 'brother'. He nodded to Daemon and Phaedo who gave him a wink and the smug "impressive kid, very impressive." Then fixing him with his eyes welcomed him into the ranks.

"You're a soldier now man. Out there on that road if the bad guys want to mix it remember that there are weapons everywhere, the sun in the sky, the dirt on the ground and the rocks." He threw his head in the direction of the jagged white rock. "Give me your hand brother and we'll see you at Maratonos with those crusty Plateans." They embraced and Eukles felt in the embrace, the strong meaningful hug that only brothers in arms who value life because they may not see tomorrow, reserve for each other.

Eukles seeing that his time was done and that he had an important task to execute, broke into a skip and began to run down the hill whereupon he was called back with a whistle from Phaedo "Hey kid it's that way."

"Got to set my affairs in order before I leave. I won't delay." The older threesome laughed that one so young could grow up so fast.

Eukles sprinted away showing off his pace to his brothers. The houses in the near empty streets flashed by in a blur as he slalomed between islands of people and fresh cakes of thick excrement and puddles of bile coloured urine. He ducked under flapping cloths drying in the hot breeze and hurdled over startled hens scattering feathers into the air. There were only women in the street, their men having gone to the Agora for their orders.They were standing in twos and threes just as Luke had often seen women gather in similar numbers two and a half thousand years later. Frightened souls locked together in whispers of panic or talking loudly at breakneck speed like South American sports commentators. Some had babies wrapped tightly to them by means of rags, the baby sucking at its mother's breast oblivious to the unfolding apocalypse. The mother swayed at the hips that lullaby sway which all mothers quickly learn, as quickly as all men learn to fight.

Luke found himself once again having these uninvited heavy thoughts for which he had had little time or inclination in his previous incarnation. Flashes of humanity not much more real than the occasional snatches of forlorn third world refugees without refuge as their world descended into indescribable violence around them. Instead of the Call of Duty boys with their AK47s and belts of semtex, these warriors had darkened steel spearpoints and scratched and scarred bronze shields whose weight made their muscles flex menacingly. Hidden behind the masks of their fierce some helmets with their almost comic horsehair plumes, they could crush these streets of women whose only weapon was the love they bore their children. The sexual punchbags of this and every war, thought Luke and he hated this place and yearned for home.

"We must win for these people" Eukles whispered softly to himself as if reading Luke's thoughts. Luke in turn felt the protective manly gene within him flutter. That gene handed down by the good men of his species, the ones who had stood at the cave's mouth and guarded the young and the women from the men beyond the cave where the gene had withered and died. The same gene that forced Phaedo to fight this battle though he felt it would be his last. The same manly gene that defined Cailimachus and whose absence defined Darius and Miltiades.

Together they had reached the bolted door of his newly redeemed home and he thumped on it with his fist to demand entry. His recently appointed steward answered in his recently acquired steward's tunic. Eukles ordered him to assemble the household and to fetch his armour and weapons.

This bloke may be little more than a boy, thought Luke, but he was the master and the household obeyed with astonishing speed. Serious fear at work he concluded. Couldn't see him or his brothers responding with any such haste in his own house. Luke could also feel the decision making processes at work in Eukles' mind as he tried to sift and streamline the things he wished to say. Being a master might mean immediate obedience to your every word, but it also brought with it burdens and duties. It was clear that Eukles was mapping out a pattern of leadership that bore the hallmark of the selfless Cailimachus rather than the self seeking Miltiades.

"I am not my father, nor am I my uncle", he began his big speech and so far so good was Luke's assessment, but the servants just looked at him with that monochrome servant look. "I am Eukles and I will run the house, lands and mines for the benefit of all." Eukles blushed conscious of his first lie. The servants and slaves in the household would be easy to incorporate into his new dynamic vision of life. He also knew that the olive groves might just yield more by treating the slaves there with a more humane consideration. But the silver mine brought forth its precious bars of metal that the world fought over. And these shiny silver ingots filtered and purified from the bare rock plundered from the earth's bowels, could only be found and processed with the sweat and misery of dozens of slaves. Eukles did not yet have a solution to these wretches who worked themselves into skeletons and dust. He shook himself free from their haunting, shrunken, accusing faces and retrieved his composure.   
"I don't expect you to believe my words. Words are a cheap commodity often used by salesmen to peddle dubious products. You will know me by my deeds. I have a commission from the City elders to bear a message to Platea. From there I will rejoin the army at Maratonos. Steward you will take as much food, grain, oil and wine as the cellars will give without leaving those here hungry. You will transport it with my armour to the front. When we have dealt with the Persians, I will return. There will be no more violence in this house. We will be as family with me as head. Girl", he directed his words towards a maid. "You will no longer have to feign a limp and dishevel your appearance in order to avoid unpleasant advances. You will serve with a fresh smile and you will fear nothing within these walls."

The girl looked perplexed momentarily but then slowly a smile of great beauty began to break out on her relieved face.

"Good" smiled Eukles in harmony. "We shall all smile. After all there hasn't been too much of that around here since ..." He stalled, searching to complete the sentence, then threw up his arms."Well there hasn't been any smiling here ever. So let's get happy, hey?"

An embarrassing sweat started to break out at Eukles' hairline as his words started to drift from the script and take on sentences of their own. Everyone smiled forcefully; they had to as servants and slaves. Eukles felt he had shown himself to be nothing but a foolish child whose ridiculous ideas and inability to shut up underlined how far out of his depth he was. That evening the servants would giggle and titter and mock his stupidity.

"Anyway." He wanted to rush away, craving the loneliness of the road. "Look, you will all see. Things will be different. Things will be," he paused fingering through the vocabulary in his head for some life vest of a phrase, but now everything was a whirlwind of disorder."Things will be better" suggested Luke cringing for his embarrassed host.

"Yes" said Eukles at last, "things will be better."

"Yes master", replied the new steward and then all the others mumbled the same two servile words with their eyes addressing the floor, but there was as much belief in the room as you would find in a conclave of agnostics.

"Good." And with that Eukles rose, red faced, bumbling and awkward, fumbled the door and left.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." Luke heard him say as he ran towards the city gate. "A foolish, silly boy," continued Eukles berating himself, "trying to be someone you're not, trying to use the big man's words and be the big man." And then in a parody of himself, he repeated in a mocking tone, "I am Eukles, and I want you all to sit there and watch me make an ass of myself." Luke nearly burst out laughing at the self mockery which was an accomplished piece of comic delivery, funny because it was true. But there was also a mix of empathy and relief. Empathy because Luke too had experienced his own share of socially difficult and mortifying moments. And relief because there was comfort to discover that others suffered like him and that he wasn't the only one who retreated into a sealed chamber of self deprecation.

Eukles was still spitting verbal nails at himself when he reached the gate house where two exhausted and defeated looking guards waved him through without much hindrance. The air beyond the thick red walls of Athens seemed freer, and the countryside that greeted them was a plain of well laid out fruit trees interspaced with areas of stubble whose sheaves of golden straw stood like tripods of honey in the afternoon sun. The road as befitted one used for commerce was good and firm underfoot and Eukles glided along it without any demand on his body. Luke felt the ease of movement, the rhythmic, gentle touch of each foot on the dusty surface, the steady pulse of his heart, the mouth open drinking in the lung's fuel, sipping rather than gulping. The eyes were focused ahead to anticipate any irregularity in the surface and to make any adjustments so that he wouldn't have to break stride. Eukles was indeed a runner, an efficient, fluid, ground devouring machine.  
Eukles turned his brain away from his recent mortification to mapping out the journey ahead. Before them lay about six miles of relatively flat track where slaves were busy harvesting the early ripening fruit. Peaches, apricots and above all olives, pruned and cared for by sunbaked men. The first fruits were being carried in wicker baskets to hand carts or bored donkeys laden with straw panniers. Between the trees sheep grazed on burnt grasses and wind falls, something to fill their bellies and to fill their teats for their still demanding lambs. Occasionally a mud walled byre would conceal its litter of snorting pigs whose sounds and smells would give away what the eye could not see. In general the field hands showed no concern regarding the traffic on the track and Eukles, though he would never admit it was a little deflated that no one cheered him in his execution of this most important commission upon whose success the future of Athens and Greece rested.

Beyond the plateau, Luke saw in the distance how a half moon of mountains rose steeply and acted like a hoplite's shield to protect the city and seal it from the north as the sea did to the east. He could make out the track as it corkscrewed itself into the stark unfriendly uplands. Drawing on Eukles' mental mapping of the run, he knew that this road was good at first as it was used to transport silver from, and slaves to the mines which were dotted in these hills. But after that it was uneven and clogged with debris- stones, boulders, gorges and fallen scrub. Luke traced Eukles' troubling speculation, not just about the difficult terrain and its energy sapping gradients, but also about its well founded reputation for lawlessness.It soon became a useless wilderness where escaped slaves hid from slave catchers and where mountain bandits would wait at the narrow passes for anyone foolish enough to travel without an appropriate guard. He remembered his father ranting about the loss of a suspiciously undisclosed cargo there, and Eukles was haunted by the stories of the servants and slaves who had disappeared with it into the nightmare void of that ghostly wasteland.

To chase away these unwelcome thoughts, Eukles began to focus on the journey's maths and his calculations had an impressive precision about them. He was not daunted by the distance of nearly fifty thousand paces that stretched out before him. He seemed to see the road as a challenge like a Herculean beast to be tamed or slain. It reminded Luke of the kid who excels in maths who relishes its problems when the rest of us groan. When an apparently insurmountable sum is put in front of him, one which everyone else either shakes their head at in immediate surrender or retires from in eventual defeat, he chews his pencil and smiles. He knew that only a handful of men in the city could fulfill the task; himself, Phedippides of course and at most one or two others.

Luke became increasingly aware as the city walls receded behind them of the utter loneliness of the road ahead. The prospect was so unlike the few road races that he himself had reluctantly run for charity with cheering crowds and an army of uniformed medical people with their radios and satchels of medical stuff, ambulances, defibrillators and feeding stations with their tables spilling over with isotonic energising drinks. The route for those races was mapped and secured with policemen on motorbikes and indicators to mark each kilometer and a watch accurate to the milisecond on every wrist. Eukles had none of these luxuries.

Yet he had a powerful sense of how each component of the journey would unfold, of the road side springs that would refresh him at intervals, how he would snack on olives, apricots and grapes to nourish him, and how in the several small villages he would demand bread from the headman to replenish his failing strength. Eukles also foresaw the stretches of danger about ten miles in the waterless hills with their steep climbs that would crush the spirit of a lesser runner. And then the descent into the valley of Platea where it was too easy to sprain an ankle or turn a knee, or get a foot locked in a mischievous pot hole and break ones leg.

He looked up at the sun which burnt golden like the barley stubble around him. It was making its lazy journey to the west and he realised it would be shining directly into his eyes until it finally sank into the far off mountains where the moody Gods juggled men's fates. Calculating time and distance, he would have just enough light to illuminate the tricky descent. After that he would have maybe five more miles in the dark. Last night the moon had been close to three quarters and he said a prayer of thanks for the clear white light that would guide him through the last half hour.

Eukles' measured scientifc approach made the task ahead seem eminently doable. But Luke found the entire exercise daunting when he mulled over the basic facts. Running for fifty kilometers, most of it in searing heat over at best an uneven path, across mountainous country where bandits might slit your throat or a snake take out its frustration on your ankle, completing the final chunk under a precarious moonlight. As he was ruminating on all the negatives Eukles had turned his attention to a hawk that hovered patiently over a point where the sheaves of barley straw hugged a line of twisting olive trees. It had been hovering for some time as Eukles had spied its solitary black shape in the cloudless sky four hundred yards ago. Now within fifty yards of the field of conflict the hawk swooped without warning, diving like a thrown stone that momentarily pauses before crashing with Newtonian inevitability. Eukles followed the blur and picked out the target- a vole as small and black as the stones on the ground. It had strayed from its hole by the sheaves, lost its way and become disorientated in the heat and so exposed itself to the sharper hunter who was driven by primal hunger. In the silence intruded upon only by his soft footfall and the rhythmic pulse of the crickets, he heard the brief high pitched squeak and death delivered.

Eukles kept his focus on the road but allowed his eyes to turn periodically towards the unfolding drama of life cut short. The vole had been careless. It shouldn't have been out in this heat at this time. It was either sick or stupid he concluded. The weak are prey to the predator. On a grand scale he wondered if Athens was weak, sick or stupid and whether like the vole it would be savaged by the Persian hawk. The actual hawk stared stonily at Eukles as he passed, one foot imperiously spearing the vanquished vole. A hot bloody sinew hung like drool from the sharp pointed beak curved like the sharp pointed daggers of the Persians. Eukles shivered.

Luke was relieved that Eukles had shrugged off the self-loathing which had plagued him after his less than masterly performance in front of his household staff. Occasionally one of the vacant remarks he had made would taunt him to the point of blushing but as the road wound its way with him on it, the teasing errors began to lose their power. Something from the road itself would grasp his attention, fueling a thought briefly before being overtaken by something else. In a way the road was alive with life's varieties. Sheep and goats grazed lazily while sparrows bathed in the fading sunshine secure among the generous arms of an ancient oak. This was Eukles' theatre, his stage where he could strut confidently knowing that he was master of the road. He knew he would never be the soldier that Phaedo was, and that no matter how much he wanted to better the lives of those who served him, he would never have the commanding presence or dignity of Cailimachus. But here was where he excelled. It made Luke question where his own stage was. Once on the dojo in Tae Kwan Do, he had surprised himself at the ease with which he dispatched far more violent opponents. But he had tired of the sport and what he deemed its fatuous demands. In front of a computer he was capable but also aware that there were geek's way ahead of him who could make a PC talk. In time he argued, he too would find his stage just as Phaedo has found his with a blade in his hand or Eukles with a pair of trainers on his feet.

And so Eukles jogged on alone with his thoughts stimulated by whatever the road with its ditches and and the minor unseen dramas and events the roadside threw at him. This was where he had known happiness. A hare stood up to say hello or maybe to scan the terrain for a sneaky fox. Eukles flashed him a smile and the hare hopped away as only hares do dancing and prancing like a village idiot past a herd of idle goats. It all made Eukles think about the value of an examined life which was something the road always forced into his head. Man is capable of so much more than these lazy creatures, obsessed as they were with food and sex and sleep and not being eaten. And yet so often man's talents bring him only sadness and misery. Anger, greed, hate, selfishness, jealousy and all the other stuff that the bleary eyed goats seem oblivious to. One Billy was pestering a nanny in a vain attempt at courtship. She wasn't interested and hissed and bared her teeth at the frustrated and forlorn caprine Casanova. Eukles had seen similar behaviour in the streets of the poorer quarters where women were looser and roamed with greater license. Beyond the billy goat, a lamb, obviously a late arrival, played a solitary game of chase with his shadow, the rules of which were known only to himself. In the middle of his game he suddenly got bored and without warning darted towards his accommodating mother burying itself into the waiting teat in search of a thirty second drink.

The mother's patience with its young struck Eukles. He had never known his own mother. His only experience of parenthood was his father, cross-grained, short tempered, and unforgiving. He was a man who demanded what could never be given and who gave nothing in return but condescending frowns and eyes of withering disappointment. Eukles had learned quickly to avoid his father and cultivated a remarkable talent for invisibility. In a way this shaped him, making him the person he was; suspicious of others, unaware of the kindnesses in the world and its people that he had never found, bereft of self confidence and short on self esteem, used to being ignored. But being invisible also allowed him to be a silent witness to things that someone of such tender years might never have been exposed to. Half hidden like a forgotten statue he had seen his father conduct business, not always honestly. He had heard contracts made to defraud others and he had seen his father thunder like Zeus at some whimpering underling who had failed in some venture. What struck him most during the course of this education was the old man's arrogance and his unwillingness to acknowledge his own faults, flaws and shortcomings. He feared his father but he also loathed him as a hypocrite and a bully. At first subconsciously and then later in an explicitly conscious way he endeavoured to be all that his father wasn't. Some men he concluded wish to be like their fathers. Others are oblivious to the paternal example. Eukles wondered as he left the generous ewe and its greedy lamb behind, how many had travelled the road he had taken.

Luke was fascinated by the ravelling of Eukles' thoughts. It was far more absorbing than any lesson in a classroom delivered by some droning disinterested teacher as asleep as his students. It was more insightful than any textbook sucked dry of the realities of living and feeling, more provocative than anything he had experienced in the eleven years he had spent as an obedient cog in the machinery of the state's education system. The system was a milkless teat that gorged itself rather than the lambs it pretended to feed. Luke felt shortchanged, as if grey civil servants who constructed his education had stolen youth and its fruits from him and everyone else.

The road took on a mild slope which was hardly perceptible to the eye but which was immediately felt by Eukles' legs. The stubbled fields gave way to staggered contours of vines on which the clusters of purple fruit sweated in the life giving sun. South facing slopes thought Luke remembering a throwaway fact from Geography class which now made so much sense. All those other throwaway facts learned in a vacuum which had no meaning for him because he had never seen grapes growing, or glaciers melting or nomads overgrazing a soon to be desert, these facts suddenly seemed more relevant to him and to life. Learning he pondered, was about being on the road.

The tiers of vines rose like uneven lines of spectators in a football ground each peeking above the one below in order to grasp the heat and light that spawned life. Finally where the soil began to run out and the lifeless rocks of the foothills encroached, a line of olives stood like big brothers, their twisted sinewy trunks resembling the muscular limbs of tense athletes about to unleash a discus.

Eukles slowed down and ambled off what was now a track and began to pluck some early ripening fruit from a low lying branch, the energy hit his body needed. He pulled a dozen or so green balls from a branch, keeping four in his hand and stuffing the rest into a makeshift pocket in his tunic whose stains showed that it had been used in such a manner on previous occasions. As his heavy breathing subsided he heard the buzzing noises of a hive suspended in the middle branches of a neighbouring tree, and his mouth watered and his belly ached at the thought of its guarded sticky sweet treasure.

But he turned away knowing that the bees' honey was not within his grasp and restarted his methodical, patterned jog. "Sweet things always have a price", he said with a sigh, the monologue of the lonely runner. "Pleasure has an evil step brother and his name is pain" he added darkly. But once he had processed this thought inspired clearly by the memory of a half dozen bee stings for a tongue full of honey, he began to search for further examples of where life's sweetness was bought for a measure of unpleasantness, and when the outcome was not worth the price. But try as he could Eukles was unable to recall a single moment of happy reward. Life had been a drudgery; largely solitary, reclusive and oppressive. Its happiest times had probably been those most recent ones provided by Cailimachus and in the afternoon's exchanges with Phaedo. Otherwise he had spent seventeen years in the suffocating presence of his father only to be evicted onto the streets by his uncle who had tried to end his life. He was angry and without realising it began to squash the four olives in his right fist which he was clenching tightly.

Luke too, in the increasing wilderness now that they were leaving behind men and their tended fields, and swopping them for the bad lands of the uphills, found himself reflecting on the sweeter things of life and how they only come with effort and ache. He reflected also on this conveyor belt of reflections that he was experiencing, realising that in this world shorn of the distractions of phone, TV, PC and XBox, he was forced to confront things that he could too easily ignore back home. He had emerged after nine months from his mother's womb only to find himself immediately thrust into another womb in which his development was determined and circumscribed by a faceless system. The law, parents, teachers, social workers, councilors and counsellors and insurance companies, a whole army of protectors had steered him away from such things as climbing trees and running in schoolyards, from teenage drinking, smoking and sex. They had told him of things that were bad for him when he didn't even know the things existed, and they had told him what to tolerate and what was correct and the list of things to be vilified. Nannies entrenched in their self built empires in multiple forms and wearing multiple uniforms would tell him what was good for him and legislate his path from the cradle to the grave.

"I was right after all" blurted Eukles abruptly and loudly, revelling in the solitude of the road which allowed him to speak without embarrassment. "I was right to tell the household that things would be different. Life is not for the manufactured misery that the old boys in power would serve up to all of us. I for one won't be smothered by those stale old men with their dirty little tricks. "Images of his father and uncle swooped across his mind." I will be happy and so will the house of Eukles. Just because I'm young, doesn't mean I can't be right. Just because they're old doesn't mean they get all the honey while the rest of us get all the stings."

Luke felt the smile breaking out on Eukles' face as he began to contemplate a new world in which the house servants would get the fairness they deserved and in return would show a loyalty and industry born out of gratitude and respect rather than fear. And the field hands would work honestly because their labour would have its just reward rather than the lash. And all would look and wonder how the House of Eukles prospered, and a path would be beaten to his door to find out what magic he cast that brought such success. "Yes there will be honey for all."

His anger started to subside, and at the mention of honey he remembered the olives in his fist which had now been pressed to pulp and oil. He cursed the waste and pushed the residue into his mouth licking the oil off his palm.

Luke had been enjoying Eukles' enthusiastic dreams of a new order with him as the flag waver at the barricades. He had been swept along magically past gardens of exotic fruits whose fragrance perfumed the air of the lonely road gradually rising into the arid, parched hillsides with rock faces the colour of bleached skeletons. And all the time there was this metronome of emotion married to the stimulating stream of heroic thought, a confession and an ambition honestly held. One couldn't help but be struck, if not convinced by the beauty of its version of the truth. "There won't be honey, kid" said Luke aware he couldn't be heard. "Dreams don't come true. The dream smashers will hunt down your dreams and smash them kid, they always do", he added with twenty first century cynicism, aping the tone and voice of Phaedo.

And as if to prove that life was indeed a valley of honeyless tears, Luke got the first bitter taste of the less than ripe olives. He had always regarded olives as something visually attractive but which he suspected could never taste anything like they looked. When mam made popcorn with olive oil it was always a culinary comedown from the artery clogging heart attack option by dad who smothered the lot in butter on the boys' night in far from the judgmental eyes of his food fascist mam. When olives had come as a garnish on a salad, Luke always pushed them to one side with his fork despite the teasing of his mother who would pop them into her mouth and say, dishonestly Luke thought, that they were delicious. And now without warning nor permission, he had an unwelcome confirmation that his mother had indeed been lying. Eukles' unceremonious shovelling of the olives into the gob they shared made Luke retch and gag. It was like chewing vinegar and it almost made him yearn for the lentil porridge of that morning. But Eukles was deaf to Luke's pain and misery. He even refused to swallow wholesale as one does with medicine to get it over with quickly. No, Eukles rolled the purgatory snack around his mouth as a kid does with the last square of chocolate in order to savour the pleasures for as long as possible. Seconds felt like hours for Luke and no matter how much abuse he roared, nor how much high octane inappropriate language he used to encourage Eukles to get the fruit beast away from his taste buds, his pleas remained unheard. "Jesus" said Luke as he realised that Eukles had another dozen of the green demons in his pocket, and they being in pristine condition, would spend even longer been devoured in his mouth. "Jesus" he groaned again at his own helplessness.

The road had morphed into a track as it became decreasingly used for commerce. It had risen steadily and now began to undulate bobbing up and down like a series of ocean waves. After about a mile of this the real climb started as the track corkscrewed like a repetitive "S" hugging the mountain on the left with a drop to the right. The higher they went this drop became more perilous except for a collection of gorges which became impassable with winter rains. The last human he had seen was a shepherd tending a flock of noisy sheep on some scrub that had been ignored when the last vines had been planted. He had smiled at him from a sick looking oak that was struggling to survive in the dead soil and the wilting heat. The shepherd had used the tree to make a pen of sorts to corral his ewes and lambs at night when the wolves would slink and skulk, lean and hungry from their shaded hideouts in the hills."Perhaps those wolves are watching me, thinking I'm a better option than the well guarded sheep".

Lost in this thought he rounded a bend too close to the rock face, and came face to face with a coiled viper sleeping undisturbed till now on a pedestal of stone. Both were frightened, both felt the eruption of adrenalin, both recoiled from contact. Eukles accelerated with a swiftness he could never recreate, unless of course someone threw another snake in his path. He steadied himself with a nervous chuckle, "good idea for getting a head start in a race". Then retaking the centre of the track he admonished himself for stupidly staying so near the rock face on a blind turn. Thoughts of the wolves and the hissing snake made him acknowledge that the hills, as he well knew, held dangers other than the heat and thirst and the bandits and convicts.

The road thankfully began to widen out and lose its claustrophobic stuffiness. As the overhanging cliffs started to fall away he could see the shadows of the quarried scars that signalled the silver mines on which so much of Athens wealth was based. Along with its maritime pluck, this is what made Athens rich, and in a way this is why Darius had sent an army to lay waste the city and its citizens. If Athens had nothing it would be ignored like a beggar in the street while the invadres moved on to fatter pastures elsewhere. "Without the silver we'd still eat," argued Eukles out loud. "And we wouldn't need to buy slaves or plunder them in war in order to work the mines, which in turn gives us the silver which makes us a target." Luke could see the fumbling logic behind Eukles' argument. Here, war was about commodities- slaves and silver- which made life luxurious for some Athenians, but it also brought the city onto the radar of Darius as a spider is attracted to a juicy fat fly and so passes over the boney ones.

Luke knew in an unconcerned way that war in his world was about commodities too- diamonds, gas, and oil, the stuff the richer lads didn't have enough of. If you were unlucky enough to have these babies then you were no doubt going to feel the interest of those who wanted them but didn't see why they should pay top dollar for them. His religion teacher had babbled on endlessly about the injustices of our world divided as it was between us with our pointless luxuries, the raw materials for which are stolen from these places which we cruelly keep impoverished. He felt her rant to be a bit hollow as she clicked her way down the corridor in her designer heels and then slipped, (she kept the pounds down in her exclusive gym), into her gas guzzling Audi which wasn't of course a luxury but an absolute necessity. Just like the Louis Vuitton bag that hugged her shoulder, and the turnip of a blood sparkler on her left hand, and the gucci glasses that kept her designer hair in perfect place. Hypocrites!

Yes, there were wars everywhere for these commodities, but despite the burning cities in the Middle East and the frightened faces of toddlers in Africa, there was always hot water for a shower in his house and petrol in his dad's car that was cheaper than the bottled water on sale in the same garage on a rainy day. The shelves of his supermarket were always stocked and stacked and the doctor always had an antibiotic for something that didn't need one. War didn't bother him; it didn't keep him awake at night.

The smelting fires of the mines blew their filthy toxins into the still; breezeless air and they drifted as the smell of sausages from a summer barbque drifts easily, infusing every particle with its flavour. However the memories the pollutants stimulated in Eukles' mind did not make him salivate in pleasurable anticipation of a hunger that would be pleasantly satisfied. Eukles had spent time at these mines and knew them well. He had run errands here carrying messages for his father, and lingered, sometimes for hours as the return message with the numbers of ingots cast and slaves lost was prepared. Just as he had managed to be invisible in his irascible father's presence, so too during those hours of waiting at the overseer's hut, he was overlooked and ignored as the tyranny of the mines continued unabated. Not that anyone in that gully of human misery would cause work to cease out of sensitivity to his age.

Dozens of men with dead eyes and dying bodies disappeared into the dark open mouths where the pits began. A line resurfaced laden with baskets of dusty ore which others pummelled in the sun, their dehydrated bodies no longer sweating but caked like Zombies in the chalk grey dust of their work. The dust whitened their hair and reddened the whites of their eyes so that they looked like spectres- the living dead.

Eukles knew the mine's appetite for slaves was voracious, the human turnover horrific. He was more aware than most of the death rate as it was part of the balance sheet he carried to his father's office. The foreman would shake his head and tell the master's son believing him to be as heartless as the master, how his human stock had been depleted by disease or by being buried alive due to a collapsed pit or just by natural wastage. Once he had explained how a batch of 'useless' Macedonians had succumbed to fatigue and a wish to die after only a few weeks. "Hopeless cases" he said with the scorn of all businessmen for idlers and the indolent."Give me Scythians and Sarmatians any day. You'll get at least a year out of a good Scythian."

The thick, toxic soup in the air was the slag and scrap from smelting and pulverising the ore. It lingered like an orphan with nowhere to go, a fingerprint of stink as individual to the mines as a man's body odour is to himself. And just as the smell of freshly mown grass evokes the happy laughter of summer, so the unique smell of the chemical furnace evoked in Eukles a vision of hell made by man. Its feint hint from far off would open up a dark closet in Eukles' hidden recesses as the smell of alien perfume on a husband's shirt would provoke the most primal of responses from a wife. Here was man's great betrayal of himself.

Luke was touched by the smouldering disgust working itself into something between anger and pity. He had seen the mines through the ghoulish images that floated uninvited but irrepressible, through Eukles' head. But he was still hopelessly unprepared for what suddenly came into view as they rounded an escarpment which had acted as a visual shield against the human catastrophe beyond. Now he saw the mine in all its horror. Lines of skeletal men, for the most part naked, moved like ants, only slower and without any conviction. If hell had circles this was the final one.

Luke was grateful that Eukles kept his eyes away from the nightmare after the initial stabbing sight, and made the road itself his complete focus.But his nostrils were filled with its stink and his ears could hear the sounds coming from this pit of despair: the overseers whiplash, the shackles on their bloody ankles, the ring of the stone breakers, the harsh inhuman orders of the guards and one single, solitary whimper of a slave who was close to his end.

"The world the adults make" spat Eukles. "Their great construction" he mocked "where the palaces of the rich are furnished on the destruction of men." He snorted in frustrated anger. "Athens has to be better than this. If this is all that Athens can promise and offer then we are no better than Darius and his Persian serfs." Eukles knew that his father and uncle and Miltiades saw the mines as an essential part of their world which guaranteed the excess to which they felt entitled. But Cailimachus, he suspected, had no interest in the useless layers of wealth that these places brought. His frugal home and frugal fare were proof of this. The mines robbed not only the slaves who perished here, of their humanity and dignity; they also destroyed the humanity and dignity of the masters who prospered from them.

For some reason as Luke acted as silent witness to Eukles' social conscience, he found his thoughts turning to the sports shop where he had left his brother Paddy. Everything in it was made by twenty first century slaves, working under the pitiless, bullying stare of twenty first century overseers. And just as the citizens of Athens had never seen the mines, so too the customers who bought the overpriced replica shirts and footballs never got to see and hear and smell the human misery which made these things. The poor, semi educated drone in Vietnam working seventy hours a week in a factory without windows or ventilation, sucking in the poisons into his young lungs. Contracted by the day with no sick pay, holiday pay, pension or welfare. The shirt he stitches will be out of date in months, discarded by its owner as food for moths. Half blind and physically withered he'll die of exhaustion or some curable illness before Luke gets to drive his second car and have his third skiing holiday.

I have much to consider thought Luke. I have much to do thought Eukles.

His father's mine which whether he liked it or not, was now probably his or at least might soon be so, was on the outskirts of the mining zone where the veins of silver began to run dry. Beyond it was a small barracks. He would stop there and get some bread and water from the foreman before making his way into the mountains themselves.

Happily and that word seemed so inappropriate here, a blanket of rocky outcrop shaped over thousands of years by the forces of wind, rain and sun, signalled the boundary of the mining acres. On the North side of this was the wooden barracks which acted as a refuge of sorts for those who spent the day whip in hand dehumanising their fellow men and then degrading themselves with hard liquour. When Eukles had taken messages to the mines he was often offered refreshment here, and was glad to retreat behind the curtain of rock which obliterated it, if only from sight, from the theatre of suffering behind. Eukles of course was aware that just because he was sealed away from the misery of the mines didn't mean that the misery had ceased to exist. Luke too was thinking about this strange human capacity for self deception. It was a conspiratorial hypocritical ignorance that allows us to go about our comfortable lives without being challenged or confronted by the wants of others whose needs placed an unwelcome burden on our tired shoulders. Luke knew deep within himself that his granny was lonely and would appreciate a visit from her grandson. Yet he always had some reason to put it off. He knew that going without something small like a mars bar every week and giving the money to charity would do him no harm but might relieve misery in a country where the price of a mars bar could feed a family for years. Yet he never went without and granny rarely got her visit.

We seal ourselves away from the want of others in a delusional landscape of pretense, a spinning carousel of self indulgence and self justification which blurs the brutal landscapes of reality that lurk beyond, much the same as a drunk finds the world more amenable place after downing a bottle of vodka. Luke ate his mars bar and Granny passed the day alone.

Demetrius or Demu as he was known was the barracks' dogsbody who kept the building clean of vermin and looked after the guards' rations. Eukles knew him well, a chancer who spent his time pretending to work, or avoiding work or complaining about the amount of work he had to do. He reminded Luke of his school's caretaker who everyone diagnosed with the same symptoms.

Aware that Eukles was the master's son and unaware that the master was now dead, Demu showed the correct level of deference to the young visitor who was sweating, panting and demanding bread. Demu provided what was asked and Eukles fell to eating and drinking, grateful for the shade. Demu picked up a long term unemployed broom which he started to use and then worn out by the effort of sweeping, leaned his skinny frame on it.

"What's the news from Athens young master?" he inquired using the conversation to excuse him from further work. So like the caretaker thought Luke, who'd seen him use the same ruse when emptying the bins in the school yard.

But Eukles found the question unwelcome and suddenly became aware of the responsibility of having information that others didn't have. He realised without fully grasping the extended ramifications, that if he told the old man of the Persian landing the news would spread to the mines quicker than a summer plague. There might then be panic as there had been in Athens that morning, but there would be no one in charge like Miltiades to chase away the panic and calm the situation.

"Same old stuff old man. Old men looking after each other. Whatever happens I'd probably be the last to know." Eukles reddened slightly. He was a poor liar and Demetrius being a resonably good one detected the boy's discomfort. He fixed Eukles a demanding stare knowing that it always yielded results with the likes of the master's son so little versed in the murkier ways of the world. But Eukles understood the importance of being tight lipped as if silence now was a sacred military oath. He pulled at the barley loaf before him and stuffed a fistful into his mouth which offered the excuse of being unable to answer. This gave him time to procrastinate and he even started to enjoy this small contest of wills. The old man continued to stare. "No news at all then?" Eukles kept chewing and when he finally finished he ran his tongue along his teeth pretending to have trouble dislodging some seeds that had embedded themselves there.Then he looked at Demetrius who was still leaning on the broom and still awaiting news from Athens. Eukles considered the best form of defense was a question so he asked about bandit activity on the road to Platea.

"Platea? Should be clear. Two runaways were captured near the top of the pass yesterday.The rest are lying low so as not to end up the same. Why Platea?"

"Good", said Eukles polishing off the jug of spring water and pressing the remaining crust into his pocket. He stood up and pushed out his chest as if stating to the world in the form of this old man that he himself had become a man. "I'll be off then." And he returned to the road, his road, cantering along it as if he had never left it in the first place. "Smooth kid", said Luke with a smile. "Smooth and smug."

The rest had been good for both Luke and Eukles. It had allowed the runner's heart to take its break and the two boys could erase, at least temporarily, the memory of the mine. Now Eukles' thoughts turned to his great awareness, undermined by Demu's ignorance, of the thirty thousand Persians who had landed to the north east.He wondered about the pockets of people in their fragile homesteads who, like Demu were oblivious to the presence of a savage, pitiless army bent on destruction. Outside of Athens many did not know what he knew. A man would finish his supper and climb into bed beside his wife. But while he sleeps and dreams, the world in which he has lived, loved and worked is collapsing completely.

The sun was starting to die in the mountains of the West and he felt its warmth on his left cheek, the one the twin had warmed with a stinging slap only yesterday and now the twin was dead. He pictured the people in the villages of Attica the province with Athens at its heart, people and villages he had seen vaguely and thoughtlessly in his solitary life as messenger boy. He could still see their peasant faces traipsing in from the fields discussing crop yields and the weather and gossip of a local nature. Or the lonely outcast shepherds on the road gathering their sheep in for the night making their own prayers to their own chosen gods to keep the robbers and wolves at bay. They would be kindling their tiny fires which on black nights he would see from Athens' walls twinkling yellow like discarded stars on the empty hillsides. And the children disturbing the exhausted silence of the evening with their violent play, a knot of boys slapping the ground with rope as they cornered a petrified rat, or whelping with delight and terror as one of them held at arms length a wriggling snake which he had pinned with two forked sticks. Or the girls hiding in the narrow gap between two cabins, endlessly rehearsing the steps of a dance they had seen their mothers doing. Soon the sun would yield to the gods of night. And all those people would close their weary eyes only to be woken by the nervous growling of a dog, followed by its whimper as a red eyed Persian silenced it forever with his axe.

The thoughts distracted Eukles from the sudden steepness of the gradient which heralded the end of the foothills and the beginning of the mountains. The track itself began to resemble a goat path disappearing into gullies and dry ravines hair pinning its way to the pass which sulked between two mighty peaks.

Luke too thought of people whose world descends into chaos as they sleep, only to wake up to the frighteningly altered landscape. He found himself remembering a conversation with his father as they crawled through gridlock traffic on a dirty evening in January. Luke's friend's father had just lost his job, a job which had allowed his friend's parents to borrow what dad had described as 'huge sums' to buy a massive house and complimentary massive cars and a lifestyle and holidays which made Luke envious. Dad explained that the house was now worth half what they had paid but that the mortgage and car loans still had to be paid in full. They were screwed.

Luke asked what would happen to them and was taken aback when his father, whose motto was 'all problems have a solution', was flummoxed.

"Don't know son," he said, "it's scary territory."

Luke found the reply itself scary and his own response tumbled out. "Should we be scared dad?"

Dad laughed and Luke immediately felt reassured, but stuck in the traffic with the faces of the pedestrians etched with their post Christmas gloom probably caused dad to elaborate.

"Ordinary folk like us have little control over big issues. We don't know until we read it in the morning papers or hear it on the six o' clock news. Decisions are made over which we've no influence. Sometimes" and Luke detected a vulnerability in his dad's voice, "I wonder what type of world I'll wake up to. Will something have happened that has undone all the hard work of mam and me? Will the money we've put aside for you guys to go to college be worthless because of some global collapse? Will I still have a job? Will the entire house of cards just tumble?"

Luke looked at his dad who stared out into the black January evening and felt a whisper of the burden that comes with being a father. He liked it when his dad drew open the curtains on the older person's world and allowed him to glimpse in. But he always found it a joyless, heavy place populated with pressures and bills and awkward decisions. And now on the road to a town called Platea, five centuries before Christ was born, with an unrelenting army of bloodthirsty Persians only hours away, he remembered exactly his father's despairing words.

"A bit like on the Titanic son. I suspect most of the passengers weren't aware that the unsinkable was about to sink. Only a few at the top had the exclusive information. The rest spent the first hour oblivious and the second hour in a frantic, helpless panic. Sometimes I feel I'm on the Titanic and I look at those bankers and politicians and think what is it that they know that I don't. Perhaps I should have started panicking months ago." His dad finished with a contrived guffaw that was half way between a sigh and a belly laugh.

Luke remembered that dreary evening when his father seemed so overwhelmed by the world. It was the moment when dad ceased to be some invincible superman, when he finally realised that his dad's flesh was clay and his heart a chamber of fear.
Chapter 7

Who knows what the sunrise will bring?

They had negotiated three or four sharp twists in the road which reminded Luke of the interlocking spurs in a mountain which scrap for ownership with a river in its youthful, energetic stage. At times they were hemmed in on both sides by steep escarpments which were turning to a shimmering bronze in the evening sun. Occasionally the escarpment on the right gave way, revealing a naked hillside devoid of life and centuries of loose scree tumbling like a waterfall of stone until finally damned by a line of boulders a hundred metres below.

It was at this point that Luke began to feel the approaching waves of the memory of the race with Pheidippides. It loomed like a thunder cloud on the horizon spawned by the contours of the road and by the fact that they were nearing the actual point of the confrontation where Eukles had been robbed of victory. It was as if the memory had been left to grow more savage in a dark cage in his mind and Luke could feel the great negative drivers of humanity- anger, frustration and revenge- welling like a bubbling kettle. It was a great brute of a thing which rattled away in a corner of Eukles' consciousness refusing to die, growing stronger with every vain effort to avoid it. But with every step they took nearer to that point on the road, the cage with its foul memory started to shunt itself forward into the light where it could not be denied. Luke saw the entire event like a broken news reel. The announcement of the race itself, the excited talk as people discussed the honour of Athens, the terrain, the sure thing that was Pheidippides. The fiery arrow in the sky just before dawn to release the runners from both Athens and Platea and the dawn light creeping over the fields and orchards and yawning shepherds, the sun's spring heat on their backs. Then the field of athletes thinning out as the road steepened at the mines. By the time they'd reached the barracks with old Demu snoozing on the porch, Pheidippides was fifty paces ahead and Eukles was sharing second place with an old timer called Crastinus whose name and deeds seemed now to have been forgotten and lost in the shadow of Pheidippides.

Eukles had heard grey haired men sing tales of Crastinus who had won laurels at Olympus before Eukles ever saw light. But Eukles could now feel the old battler's discomfort with the hills. It reminded Luke of the first time he had overtaken his father, cruising past the old man wondering why his dad didn't respond only to realise that he couldn't. It made him guiltily aware of his budding youthful power and of the transience of all things.

Eukles had run side by side with the ageing Crastinus, both men keeping the leader in their line of sight. But Crastinus smelling the way of all flesh and the coming power of youth, urged Eukles to make his move. Eukles still remembered the dignified and generous tone in the rough farmer's accent. "Go on lad feast at the altar of Nike. Sup well lad. You'll find it a wonderful brew." And with those words Eukles shifted up the gears and slowly began to narrow the gap on Pheidippides, leaving the forlorn Crastinus to shimmer in the mirages which swallowed the road behind him.

By the third hairpin bend Eukles found himself shoulder to shoulder with the invincible one. Stung by the presence of this unknown upstart Pheidippides kicked and immediately put a dozen metres between them, but Eukles closed the gap effortlessly. Pheidippides kicked again and this time Eukles stayed with him from the start until they were almost sprinting, snorting like mad bulls, the champion champing and straining alongside the pretender.

The road twisted as the attrition continued and Eukles felt the pace slacken. That's when he knew he had him. Pheidippides was knackered. Eukles started to dream, he could see the race unfold. He could easily stay with Pheidippides until the crowds came into view. With a quarter mile to go and Pheidippides a few yards behind him he would empty the tank and everyone would see a finish that would signal the start of a new reign. Perfect.

Bang! He did not see the fist that missed his chin but slammed into his throat, starving his pumping heart of oxygen and blurring his vision. He couldn't fully recall the rest but he must have been pushed. Next thing he knew he was falling uncontrollably down the hillside smashing his shins and knees off the sharp stones down which he slid unable to control his shattered body. He lay there dazed by the fall, stupefied by what had just happened. Blood streamed from his right shin and his body was a patch work of bruises and grazes.

He made an effort to rise, but lay still like an old man in a nursing home with bones eaten by arthritis. He had always known that a body ignores pain and tiredness during a race and only surrenders to it afterwards. Now his body assumed the race was done and exhaustion flooded his limbs and muscles. He strained to move over the uneven carpet of shifting stones and then onto the road where a peloton of runners looked at him briefly before continuing in their pursuit of glory's scraps. Then realising that all was lost and that once again he was all alone he burst into tears.

He had limped back to the barracks where Demu gave him bread and water and a couch of straw to sleep on. His body gave up sleeping and at that moment lost in his own self-pity he felt nothing for the slaves.

Luke had followed the memory through all its intense turmoil. It was heightened by the sense of place as an old soldier might weep when returning to a farmer's field which was once a place of slaughter for his mates. He wanted to console Eukles, to show some sort of solidarity, and perhaps to feed the need within himself to empathise with life's victims.

"They're all cheats" Luke blurted "all those fake heroes feasting at the altar of Nike. Frauds and cheats " he finished disappointed with the limits of language. But he knew his words would not be heard and he felt Eukles' inconsolable sorrow.

"They were all cheats" Luke concluded in a mad fit blinded by momentary misanthropy. The doped cyclists who made it to the top, the sprinters in the Olympics their bodies drenched in steroids or the shirt pullers and divers in soccer, or the lads in his own school glorying in the dark arts of rugby. Modern day Pheidippides toasted and hosted while the real honest heroes are forgotten or held up as models of mediocrity, specialists in failure. High achieving sport was often a dirty place, its podiums soiled with the cynical grins and bloated egos of its self important victors. Luke felt another well spring of anger and bitterness. All this engagement with the world and its processes was having a negative effect on his mood. He wished he could have the diversion of his phone and the social womb which kept these things at arms length.

Eukles started to slow down. The reason for his deceleration was that they had finally come to the place. He stopped and looked about, then pushed a stone over the edge where he himself had been pushed. As it bounced down the uneven staircase of scree, his eyes followed it listening to its flinty crackle as it smacked off its sleeping brothers. It came to rest close to the spot where he himself had ended his fall and he squinted to see if there was any trace of his blood or skin on the unkind rocks. But the rains had long since washed all away. He wished some other rain could wash away the memory that seared his brain. It clung to him like a foul odour, like the bad breath of old men that lingers there till death.

Luke felt for Eukles but he also found himself wondering how many human stories would unfold on this stoney road before he himself would be born. His knowledge of history was by the standards of his mates good, but it was pathetically patchy for the purposes he wanted it for now. He had a foggy notion of the great upheavals yet to come. Of Alexander the Great and then the Roman legions, both followed by the snarling tax collectors who would enslave these hills with their Imperial thirst for cash. And then the anarchy of the dark ages when ordinary folk would long for the return of the Roman eagles and their lost order. Muslims would chase Christians through this pass and then when centuries had passed and the tables turned Christians would become the chasers. These stones would witness a million dramas of flight and refuge, of cowardice and heroism, sacrifice and betrayal. Men would plumb the depths of human depravity among these lifeless hills and they would also soar higher than the angels. In the scheme of things Eukles' big event seemed like a Montessori hissy fit.

Stones the size of fists lay scattered on the track like dead vermin, the ignored shards of an ancient boulder which had crashed down unseen from the rockface on the left. Eukles picked up the nearest of these and playfully juggled it in his right hand testing its weight and shape. Then suddenly, willfully and with an explosive venom he flung it against the rockface. The stone worn out by long summers of baking heat, and winters of drenching rain, and coats of angular frost surrendered its pointless existence and splintered along the cracks and fault lines which the weather had exposed in the face. Eukles then engulfed himself in a whirlwind of anger firing stones against the wall of rock, hurling curses into the air, snarling, spitting, kicking out.

"Let it go mate let it go", said Luke and if he could have he would have put an arm round the lost young man's shoulder.

Eukles did let it go and unleashed his frustration violently. Slowly he emptied the road of its stones the witnesses of his humiliation and filled the void with the anger and curses within him that were looking for another home. One solitary stone remained. Panting, he took it coolly in his fist, unlike with the others, and turning right he faced the scree beyond which rolled the tidy countryside of Attica with its tired farmers living out their little lives like dots in the distance. His chest was heaving from the recent outburst. He took aim at the far off horizon and launched his final missile, watching it fly with apparent purpose before finally, losing the energy that had launched it, it started its descent eventually falling out of sight behind a line of boulders. Eukles heard its click, clack, cluck before it came to rest. Probably still there now, thought Luke.

Calmer , Eukles stood upright inhaling slowly for some time, his chest expanding each time like a gradually inflating baloon. He planted his hands on his hips and then clenching his fists raised his arms above his head closed his eyes and in a clear audible whisper prayed to Nike the Goddess of victory.

Luke felt the darkness and the silence and understood now why old people shut their eyes in church. They were obliterating the world of man to focus on their conversation with their god. Luke didn't do the god thing except when obliged to do so by his parents. There was no god or gods, half the priests were phoneys and hypocrites and the other half deluded, well meaning fools. Religion was something that made men mad, made them kill for Allah or Jehovah or Christ. It had nothing to offer him.

And yet here on this solitary height in the temple of nature, he listened to the beauty of Eukles' prayer. It was a noble, selfless thing. And while Luke did not share the belief, he respected, admired and despite himself, envied.

Having spoken with the goddess, Eukles opened his eyes and Luke was aware that the ghost of Pheidippides had been laid to rest. The great sweep of Attica was turning to a fabulous gold in the evening sunshine and the long black shadows of the mountains were starting to creep across the land. Almost twenty miles to the west the wine dark waters of the great sea washed the gentle beach that Phaedo had spoken of. There, the Persians were unloading stores and men, their advance guard terrorising the unsuspecting families in the valley. It was time to move on.

Eukles took three olives from his pocket and set them on a table of stone a makeshift altar now made sacred by this gift to Hermes the god of travellers. And as if lightened of his burdens he took off up the mountain towards the pass that bounded Athens and led, after a no man's land of unwanted rock to the territory of Platea.

The donkey track on the north side of the pass was as tricky as Eukles had anticipated it would be. But there was enough light to guide him to where the track became a recognisable surface for human use. Luke was struck by how fast the sun had given up the sky, sinking within minutes into the sea that he knew separated Greece from Italy. But the moon was a friend, almost full as Eukles had foreseen, and its silver beams provided the necessary illumination. Luke recognised the few constellations he knew-the great bear and Orion the hunter with its star Betelgeuse more brilliant than all the others marking his shield arm. Once on a frosty night in Ireland when the sky stretched out like a giant rugby ball of blue granite with its random specs of twinkling mica, his father had pointed the star out to him. Betelgeuse was, he said probably a dead star but because it was so many million light years away, what we were seeing was the light emitted from it at the time of the dinosaurs. This was a big thought that Luke struggled to get his head around as he lay on his pillow that night. Now he wondered if there was a star which was two and a half thousand light years away, whose present light would only be reaching earth when his family would be looking for him in the streets and fields of Dingle.

He found it strange how he didn't feel overly concerned about his family. It was as if he had full confidence in the integrity of the old Curator. Everything would work out although he was sorely put to it to explain how.

The outlying hamlets of Platea were a fillip for Eukles who was clearly starting to tire. About six miles from his final destination, he stopped in one of those villages and after surviving an initial life threatening encounter with a rabid dog, he was offered refreshment by the headman who Luke understood to be a type of Mayor. When this man saw the ivory message case his eyes showed an instant recognition.

"You carry a message from Cailimachus friend."

"I do" replied Eukles tentatively, and slowed the progress of the water and bread he was shoving into his mouth. "I carry a message to Platea."

"To Arimnestos I suppose?"

"Perhaps." Eukles stopped chewing.

"Relax friend. I am with Cailimachus as is my boss Arimnestos. I fought with him in Lydia. Was there at Sardis when it all went belly up with Darius. And was at Eretreia too, to my shame. Shouldn't have run away. The smile of 'Lydia' turned to a chuckle for 'Sardis' and then a sombre drooping head for 'Eretreia'. This guy was genuine concluded Eukles. He threw a question out for a further test.

"You know Phaedo and Daemon?" he asked the Platean with a conniving smile.

"Saved Phaedo's life once!" he laughed, a big soldier's laugh.

Eukles' eyes betrayed his respect and also begged elaboration which the older man was happy to relate in this dreary lonely village.  
"Yes indeed, talked him out of marrying a Princess in Caria. Her father would have killed him if marriage didn't do so first."

Eukles laughed at the humour which he considered typical of the barrack room and which he suspected had been told and retold over time in a hundred different encampments.

"As for that Spartan Daemon, he's a hard man to shut up. Philemon's the name. I know it's a ridiculous name for the likes of me, but my parents bless them couldn't have seen how I'd turn out. A good thing they never got to see the fruit of their efforts. You on the other hand must be quite a kid for Cailimachus to trust you with a message from Athens. What happened to Pheidippides?"

"Ouch" thought Luke, but he was impressed by Eukles calm response. "Pheidippides has run to Sparta. I was chosen to run to Platea."

"Sparta" said Philemon nodding. "I suppose only the great Pheidippides could make that one. It must be all of a hundred and twenty miles. He taught us all a bit of a lesson in the Spring race to the pass. Some athlete hey?"

"Something else," acknowledged Eukles but Philemon didn't detect the sarcastic irony in his voice.

"Were you in that race kid? Don't recall seeing you."

"Took a tumble near the end." but it was clear that Philemon's mind was elsewhere.

"Sparta indeed. So they must have landed. Where and how many?"

Eukles tugged a large crust from the bread and tossed it into his mouth with his self made trick for stalling a response and giving himself time to think. He pointed to his mouth as an excuse for not speaking.

"Ah the old food in the gob trick. Don't worry lad you don't have to tell humble Philemon. But there are a dozen hoplites in this village. Do you think I should give orders for them to be ready at dawn in full armour with three days rations?"

Philemon looked at Eukles quizzically who used his eyes to indicate that a greater ration amount was needed.

"Six days?" asked Philemon. Eukles nodded.

"Good kid. Now you've done your bit. It's thirty miles to Athens from here. That's some run you've done. The rest of the road to Platea is smooth enough for my chariot. We'll travel together. There are a few more hungry dogs between here and the house of noble Arimnestos, not to mention a few nasty drunks. Finish up and I'll yoke the nag.

Old Philemon as befitted a friend of Cailimachus took a big woolen cloak from his shoulders which bore his smell and warmth and wrapped it round the exhausted frame of Eukles. Almost immediately he felt his body melt into a dreamy half sleep. He knew that the race was run. The cosy, homely feeling of the cloak reminded Luke of a time as a baby being wrapped by his mother in a blanket when he was worn down by flu. No such memories of maternal love sat softly in the memory of Eukles.

Eukles had no time or little inclination to object to the chariot offer. Besides he assessed Philemon to be a trustworthy man and the reasoning behind his decision he judged to be sound. Only a runner could have made it over the broken tracks of the mountains with their impassable gullies and barricades of fallen rock. But now it was sensible to use wheels. Luke concurred.

The chariot covered the coarse unforgiving ground, sometimes sailing over the surface, sometimes jarring the teeth and bones of its passengers as it trundled over those parts where the road was rutted and broken. Within ten minutes they could see the fires of Platea. Eukles was grateful for the protective, muscular presence of Philemon and despite the regular shunting and rattling of the chariot his eyes began to droop.

The gates and walls of Platea were far from imposing and Luke wondered how the place hoped to withstand any Persian effort at assault. But of course Platea's strength was its remoteness, its inhabitants' willingness to abandon all and live in the mountain fastness, and its friendship with Athens.

Philemon knew the sentry and after a brief hearty chat, laden with expletives on both sides he was admitted. He dismounted the chariot while it was still in motion and with a forceful "this way kid" began to stride up the dark sleeping main street quickly reaching the house of Arimnestos.

"My name is Eukles. I come from Athens bearing a message for Arimnestos of Platea." He stood arrow straight as he imagined a soldier would.

"Well you're talking to him soldier. Where is this message?"

Arimnestos was lean and his hair black and oily as an Irish roof slate after Atlantic rain. It was tied at the back in a pony tail. The fragrances of various spices hung around him like veils, and a feminine moan could be heard from behind a curtain from which he had come. B.C. after shave and to die for hair because this guy thinks he's worth it, chuckled Luke at this most unwarrior like man. Eukles was clearly disappointed in the very unmartial looking Platean commander, who in no way resembled his preconceived notion of a hardy Platean mountaineer. He was so far from the rustic knuckle dragging Neanderthal, the untamed killer of the mountains whom only Cailimachus could hold on a choking leash that Eukles had imagined.

"You ran from Athens?"

Eukles resented the emphasis on the 'you'. "Left when the sun was three quarters way through the sky. Phaedo was leaving with an advance guard."

"Phaedo", smiled Arimnestos with teeth made in Hollywood, but keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the powder keg of a woman beyond the curtain. "You know I saved his life once."

"Did you?" replied Eukles suddenly feeling like an old hand. "Tell me more."  
Arimnestos' smile broadened as he delivered the punchline. "I talked him out of marrying a Lydian princess. Her husband would have killed him if marriage didn't first." He burst out laughing and Philemon shifted guiltily while Eukles remained at attention.

"I heard it was a Carian princess with a murderous father. And that it was Philemon here who saved his life," said Eukles with relish.

There was silence as the two Plateans looked at each other and then after a brief pause simultaneously doubled over with laughter. Eukles forced a smile but was too aware of the dignity of his position to indulge in such childish carry on. Luke on the other hand was searching for a word to describe it all. He did not yet know the word 'incongruous', meaning out of place, but that was probably the word he was seeking. Adolescent clowning and pointless mirth seemed not to befit the gravity of the situation. Only weeks ago these men had abandoned the women of Eretreia who had begged them on their knees not to leave them to the far from tender mercies of the randy, big bollocked Persians. The women had grabbed at the soldiers' cloaks and thrown their bodies in front of their marching feet beseeching them to stay and defend them and their babies. And when those women had realised that their pleas were futile, they had stopped, their faces etched with the poisons of hatred and spat on the ground and cursed their betrayers with oaths that would freeze the blood and end all sleep.

Now these men, these battle hard men had an army of Persians about to unleash itself with a fury whose appetite had only been whetted at Ertreia. And their response was to carry on like something out of a bad Tuesday night TV sitcom. Some perspective gentlemen please. At least Eukles has retained a soldierly behaviour.

On cue, Eukles followed up his quip about Phaedo's brushes with death with "and as for Daemon he still doesn't shut up." The silence of the night had only just recovered from the first symphony of belly laughing when Eukles' latest joke caused all three to break out again. A distressed dog started barking in the street outside while a more distressed baby with its even more distressed mother added to the music of the night. Luke rolled his eyes and despaired.
Chapter 8

The warriors ears, attuned to sounds other than the domestic concerns of distressed mothers and babes did not hear the unimportant drama of the bleary eyed woman trying to soothe her frightened child. The older men's greying beards were still shaking with the death throes of their belly laugh at the tasteless jibe at Daemon's expense, when Eukles, fired with the giddiness that accompanies exhaustion and his first real successful joke, decided to go for the hat-trick.

"And as for Caillimachus."

But he was immediately cut short by a stare as icy as a winter stone that came from the four eyes of his audience.

There was a long silent pause, almost a standoff, during which Eukles' smile slowly melted as the frosty stares hardened. Down the street inside the mud and straw walls of her cabin the baby latched on to the nipple of its mother and the comfort of warmth, food and love. The night returned to its silence except for the whispered lullaby of the anonymous woman as she rocked and sucked her infant to sleep away from the world of men. Would she and the child survive the winter in the mountains wondered Luke?

Arimnestos held up along boney index finger the nail of which was manicured. It was so unlike the meaty sausages that made up the digits of Phaedo. Phaedo's fingers could crush a man's skull and probably had done so. Luke and Eukles both winced and took the necessary evasive action as they remembered how Phaedo told them he could rearrange the various balls in their bodies. But Arimnestos' finger with its polished and carefully filed nail looked more like that of a piano player or a concert violinist.

He held it in front of Eukles' face swaying it from side to side with the slow rhythm of a lazy metronome and wielding it with the authority of a tyrannical conductor of an orchestra.

"Not Caillimachus friend. We don't make jokes about Caillimachus." Fair enough thought Luke, good point well made, yellow card given we'll shut up and move on.

But the stubborn worm in Eukles who dozed for the most part suddenly perked up and started to wriggle mischievously as it had wriggled that first day in the gymnasium. It was part of Eukles' impetuous confrontational character which Luke felt someone needed to tell him about. With some shallow psychologising Luke decided that Eukles had been brow beaten long enough by this world and by his father in particular that he had developed what Luke's teachers would have called an 'attitude'. Luke was able to grasp in a vague way the origin of this 'attitude' and in a similarly vague way began to realise that behind every troublesome and troubled kid with an 'attitude' there was a worm that wriggled and which danced madly the more the teacher gave out. In Eukles' case the worm went into overdrive with a fit of irrational aggression when the odds were massively stacked against him.

"Why not?" he snarled. "Why is it ok to make fun of Phaedo and Daemon and not Caillimachus? Aren't we some sort of special brotherhood? Aren't we all men? Or is Caillimachus above us all like some sort of superman?" The last word was delivered with that swirling sarcastic tone which all adolescents perfect.

Arimnestos exhaled through a smile that teetered on the precipice of becoming a laugh.Luke exhaled with relief as did Philemon. Eukles on the other hand waited his eyes a statement of cold demand.

"Because, young man with much courage and much to learn, Caillimachus doesn't make jokes at our expense. We are a special brotherhood as you say, and it is Caillimachus' nobility that helps above all to make it special." Unlike Eukles' childish sarcasm, Arimnestos spoke with a dignity, shrewdly measuring the moment and the man before him. "Perhaps with your young years, you have never met someone who deserves respect. Perhaps" his tone lightened to a mellow masculine which suited his dress and appearance "all the men you've met in this dirty, dishonest, world are rogues like me and Philemon here." Philemon didn't seem too put out by the defamation. "Caillimachus is different my young friend. He is the one who shames us all into trying, and failing, to be better. He is all the things that this world of ours is empty of, and he is everything that this world of ours needs."

And as if to show that his speech was at an end, he lowered his finger and extended his slender arm, the motion of which fanned the perfume that drenched his skin. Eukles understood the words and took the older man's hand to show that he had learned and was grateful for the lesson. Their arms gripped one another, a manly contract that needed no signature and no lawyer to record in ink and make it legally official with a superfluous seal. "We are men" Eukles thought to himself and Luke added to the thought. "Men are measured by their integrity."

Luke also found himself pursuing his earlier thoughts about the origins of Eukles' attitude and how it was disarmed and dealt with so smoothly by the worldly Arimnestos with his straight words delivered without anger. No screaming, ranting teacher threatening detentions as he had seen so often. But it also made him consider what 'attitude' he himself presented to the world and what were the origins of his own dysfunctional behaviours. These were scary chambers of self analysis where Luke was unsure if he wanted to prize open the dungeon doors which he locked against the unsavoury memories that were part of who he was. Dodging the issue he dived for the safer question of how we as human beings were prisoners of our own past. What, he asked, is my relationship to this murky world of violence and murder? Am I descended from men who thought nothing of killing another and what molecules of their DNA run in my blood? This was a heavy thought and Luke was happy for the distraction of Arimnestos' voice.

"Now let's have a look at this message you brought from those Athenian girlies. By the way how come it wasn't brought by Pheidippides? Some runner. Myself and Philemon were at the finish line in the mountain pass last year. Nobody near him. Only old Crastinus and he must have been a thousand paces behind. He just pushed all the others aside."

Eukles took it all philosophically. "He has run to Sparta. Caillimachus chose to entrust me with this mission and if the truth be told he would not have delivered the message any quicker."

As a worldly wise son of the earth and reader of its men Arimnestos felt the subterranean rumble of hurt. "Sparta is a long way," he replied testingly.

"It is and away from the Persian host. It will take the runner," Eukles couldn't bring himself to say the name," two days to get there. By the time he gets back the outcome of our trouble with the Persians will have been settled. One might suggest that the runner has got himself a nice passport out of this mess. I on the other hand intend to rejoin my tribal regiment within the day at the battle site immediately."

Arimnestos acknowledged the young man's forcefulness, "quite so. Quite so. Philemon fetches Idomeneus so we can have him read what our Athenian brothers have written.

Eukles realised that this Idomeneus fellow was needed to read the contents of the message on the tiny scroll. He was embarrassed for the men robbed of literacy aware that their shortcoming would be all the more highlighted by his youthfulness. He hesitated briefly before informing them that it would not be necessary as he could read the contents if they wished. Reading and writing was something Eukles had learnt at the feet of his father's secretary who kept the family's accounts and grumpily recorded contracts and miscellaneous documents. He was aware that for those bred from an early age to plough stoney ground or to ply freight across the great sea; such arts of knowing the mysteries behind characters sketched by a scribe's hand are of no use. He also knew from experience that this ability in one so young could embarrass those much older in whom it was absent. He understood that he had to be tactful. An element of humility was needed.

"I can read it if you want. I run and I write. Not much use in a battle, that's a skill for another. Perhaps I can learn something about that business from you." Philemon was happy to accept the face saving offer from the new recruit and told him in his broad farmer's accent as if feeling sorry for the scrawny kid in front of him, "We need runners and writers kid as well as fighters."

Arimnestos, more worldly as evidenced by the impatient moans of his princess behind the curtain, acknowledged Eukles' diplomacy with a nod and finished by saying in his smooth calm voice, "well my young brother, read for us grizzled warriors."

Luke felt the camaraderie in the room, the togetherness and the sharing of skills. Decent men aware of their different limitations in pursuit of what is right and honourable. Mindful of his junior status Eukles offered the ivory case which Arimnestos took with grace silently communicating with his eyes the compliment paid. He flipped the silver cork open and tapped out the parchment inside, unfurling the paper with his elegant fingers. He perused its contents briefly pretending to be impressed by them then handed the message to Eukles.

He tried to hide his mortification as Arimnestos had been holding the paper upside down and re rolled the paper so as not to make the readjustment obvious. At first Luke understood Arimnestos' difficulty.The characters on the page reminded him of a ridiculous piece of modern art, the sort that could be hung upside down for decades and no one would notice the difference. But as Eukles fixed the message correctly between his hands Luke was startled to realise that he could read perfectly the Greek letters, words and sentences speaking to his eyes.

"A great Persian force estimated at forty thousand has landed at Maratonos Bay. Datis is the commanding officer, his subordinate is Atraphernes."

Philemon and Arimnestos listened intently and shared knowing looks and nods as each detail was revealed.

"There are significant numbers of missile troops- slingers and archers- around two thousand cavalry and the entire division of Immortals."

At the mention of the 'Immortals' both men frowned as if the slim odds of victory had suddenly been halved.

"The Athenian hoplite army under Miltiades" both men shook their heads and grimaced, "will rendezvous there to offer battle." Both heads nodded and both smiled.

"We request the support of our friends and allies in the noble city of Platea."

"And by Zeus and all the Gods they will have it. Any more?"

Eukles was about to read aloud but seeing that they referred to him he quickly scanned them first. "The young man who bears this message is like a son to me. He has done a great service to myself and Greece in carrying this message. Treat him well as would befit a son of Caillimachus and keep him from harm. Your brother in arms Caillimachus."

Eukles was overwhelmed. He found himself holding back tears that welled in his eyes at the undeserved parental concern of this great man who he imagined leading his bronze shielded Hoplites through the Greek night. But he quickly realised that if word of this reached the ears of his Platean protectors, he would be wrapped in soft blankets and kept away from his duty in the killing zone. "No more," he lied and surprised himself how well he did it. "It just signs off with the signatures of the ten generals of the tribes."

Eukles rolled up the parchment and returned it to Arimnestos but he saw that both had tears in their eyes.Their breathing was heavy and they spoke for several minutes with animation about the terrain at Maratonos, the character of Datis and the strengths and weaknesses of the Persian host.

"So we will march at once to the great battle. As great as any fought by Achilles. We will need his strength and the guile of Odysseus if we are to prevail." Eukles followed the conversation like a spectator follows a ball at a tennis match, but his body was shattered with exhaustion and without knowing he yawned.

"Our new brother is tired. Philemon take him to Crito's house where he can sleep. Tell Crito to help you send out the orders for general mobilisation at first light tomorrow with six days' rations. Send runners to the villages and hamlets. Platea will play its part honourably." He clapped his hands together decisively with energy. "Men are made for this and we are privileged to be alive at this time when the greatest of fights beckons. But men are also made for love. If I am to go to war tomorrow I must leave all my love here in Platea. My princess awaits and her anger and wrath will be far greater than any legion of Datis' eunuchs if I do not tend to her needs. So let us all retire to our duties, you to sleep young Eukles, you to the road Philemon and me ..." He broke off with a nod to his princess as if what lay beyond the curtain was a dreadful ordeal.

Wearily Eukles made his way down the street directed after no more than a minute to the house of Crito

Crito was a generous, soft spoken and welcoming host who did not seem at all put out by the inconvenient intrusion. In the moonlight his house though large appeared rustic and simple. A cup of tepid wine and a bed in a corner beneath a window with its cool breeze was offered and accepted. In the disarmed relaxation that comes with sleep when man is closest to being truthful with himself and his world, Eukles was aware of the web of brothers of which he was beginning to feel a part. The members of this fraternity were for the most part unassuming men like Philemon or Daemon or this pleasant fellow Crito who had opened his home to a complete stranger. But they gave without thought of repayment. Their way was far distant from the greedy accumulation of needless luxuries that pointlessly adorned the house his uncle or that of Miltiades. They valued other things more highly than the baubles and vanity toys of the rich with their insatiable thirst. It was among the likes of tough Phaedo or the perfumed Arimnestos or the rough edged Philemon that he would find a confederacy of men who valued the things that men should value. All too often men had not been the things they should have been -loyal, decent and courageous, all that and all the other manly virtues that he had glimpsed through the beautiful mist when Phaedo had told him "We are men." He yawned and sighed and his eyes began to droop.

He swallowed the wine in one draught feeling its warmth flood his insides and lubricate his body's pathway to sleep. Through a fog of fatigue he tried to mouth a prayer of thanksgiving to Hermes remembering his offering of olives at his makeshift stone altar. But the words tapered half way as his entire body surrendered itself to sleep and he floated on the calm waters provided by the gods of dreams.

Plunged once more into darkness Luke was again like a blind man thrown in on his other senses. Philemon's woolen cloak brought not only warmth but also several dozen hungry fleas who started to go to work on the delicious meal which had surprisingly come their way. Along with the cloak's rough fibres they itched Eukles' and therefore Luke's skin, and Luke wondered how he could snore through such a merciless assault. But Eukles was snoring and a million dreams were racing through his head like the flashes of traffic that zoom past in a blur in cartoons. And then suddenly without warning the stage of the subconscious is emptied and a shimmering mirage of a newly forming dream, more powerful than the others begins to slowly encroach. It does so with a commanding, purposeful march like a well drilled army of brightening shadows relentlessly bearing down on its objective. Through the haziness of scattered light that resembles a dazzling but incoherent art work, shapes like the careless brush work of a drunken impressionist gradually begin to appear, until finally the dream comes sharply and abruptly into focus with a frighteningly aggressive skid mark.

Luke judged that these big dreams which banished all minor dreams as a hawk scatters twittering song birds, all had one thing in common- they were the stuff of big emotions. Pheidippides laurel crowned head and face beaming with arrogance still lurked there as did the lonely slipway of scree where he had cheated his way to victory. That dream was drenched with feelings of humiliation, anger, disgust, despair and self loathing, all of which wrestled for supremacy like savage mongrels over a carcass. But unlike the previous night this tired sequence of disappointment and regret did not have the supremacy it once had in Eukles' inner self. It had not been banished but neither was it all consuming. Other more pleasant dreamscapes sat alongside it and when these appeared Luke felt the smiles breaking out on Eukles' sleeping face. Phaedo was there carving the orange into three equal parts- 'impressive', and half tongued Daemon thumping his manly chest. Farmer Philemon putting his cloak round his jaded shoulders and Arimnestos'long piano playing fingers wagging before his eyes.And Caillimachus, strong and noble and a father. "The young man is like a son to me." Luke heard the words babbled by the sleep talker, they tumbled like a waterfall descending in slow motion-"like a father to me."

He was happy for Eukles. He was one of the good guys on the side of the angels. He got it wrong and made some howlers but he was trying. He had his anger issues and needed to learn to keep his trap shut. But the way he saw it Eukles hadn't had much of a childhood, no mother a father worse than no father, a world peopled by very unpleasant creatures who at best ignored him but who more often abused him and sucked his reservoir of self worth dry. Luke was amazed that he hadn't been more bruised and damaged than he was. Now he had got a break and found kindness and protection under the far reaching umbrella of Caillimachus and co.

Yes thought Luke in the darkness, the world is full of angels and demons; a man is forced to choose where to pitch his tent. Does he pitch it with the bankers and politicians and all the other thieving, lying parasites with their flash cars and designer rags? Or does he seek out the more meaningful but less worldly barracks where men measure each other by something more than the width of their wallet?

He could hear the sounds of the town the activity on the streets as men probably slaves busied themselves with the logistics of moving and feeding a thousand men with the limited resources of a place like Platea. Armour, weapons, food, drink, transport were being commandeered and mobilised and probably also secreted. Beyond that the militia- ordinary men not dissimilar to his own father, were saying goodbye to their ordinary wives whose faces he imagined like that of his own mother.These men and women who ploughed the land and bent iron and planed wood, or crushed olives and grapes to oil and wine, were about to take a week away from the day job to defend their homes and children and everything that defined their place on this earth. They had trained together for this eventuality just as his own dad trained twice a week with his far from successful football team. They could stab, slash and parry as his father could tackle, dribble and pass. Some could do it better than others and he often heard his dad moan about a striker who couldn't score on an Amsterdam stag night, or a full back who had the pace of a one legged granny. These Greeks could make and remake a shield wall the man to the left protecting you with his shield just as you protected the man to your right. No room for dodgy left backs in the formation. If he failed to correctly position his shield you could find a lump of sharpened iron slicing through your liver.

And with their right hands these ordinary men had learned to juggle the spear which would slash at a man's exposed skin or stab at the points of the body least protected by bone or just batter with its ash shaft until a man had died or submitted. And this dense scrum of men, neighbours together, would rumble across the battlefield like some great human machine, killing all before it and crushing beneath it the Persians who had come to do the same. Their sandalled feet would become slippery with the blood and tripes of those at first screaming and then lifeless bodies underfoot whom the second would dispatch gritted teeth and hate in their eyes.

Luke had this vision of battle through Eukles eyes even though Eukles had never tasted mass conflict. His knowledge of it came from exercising with others whose battle scars were witnesses to their own experience, each scar a story of heroism and pain. He enjoyed listening to these semi fictions embellished for the most part, but sometimes there was a whiff of truth in some old timer whose hand would tremble as he recalled a brush with death an escape measured in inches when for some reason which the story teller himself had never managed to identify, he had triumphed when the other had fallen. These men had killed.

Once again Luke assessed this world as a nasty place with nasty work to be done by all. Despite the blood-soaked history of his own country where every crossroads had long ago been the scene of a massacre or an ambush, and every scenic valley had its moment of slaughter, it had been generations since armies had terrorised its cities and villages. So much peace had passed that his bloodless generation looked back at the butchery, seeing those chapters as heroic moments of some great struggle. Stuck in the middle of such a struggle now there was nothing heroic about the deprivation and fear that was descending on these half starved people. And if he were put to it he would have to concede that peace in everyday life was not the lot of most of the planet. Luke knew without caring that there were dozens of wars going on in godforsaken, anonymous countries while he nonchalantly tucked into his milk drenched cornflakes at breakfast.

War was filtered to him through the lens of the cameraman having been through the scissors and paste of some nanny who would protect him from the trauma. The censor would excise the obscenities of conflict, the severed heads and mutilated bodies, the tortured and raped and the limbless left to rot in a ditch. What made it into his living room was a sanitised, bloodless, gutless version, stagnant stats and facts shorn of their human content and story. Occasionally film critics would talk of a war film's graphic realism, but what would they know of war as they sat in front of their type writers overlooking their English gardens on the Sussex coast. Even the soldiers who returned with their emotional and physical wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan and whatever other theatre the politicians had decided to smother in T.N.T. and depleted uranium, even those hardened veterans with their post traumatic stress had escaped the worst of it. The bombed out cities without food, order, water, gas and electricity. The streets of orphans and widows and the hospitals clogged with the hopeless. The beggars left to the aftermath who had to be fed after the apocalypse. The women pregnant with a stranger's child and the men tormented by the shame of their defeat. The nutcase dictator who takes control in the midst of the chaos and the new wave of carpet baggers who swoop into the vacuum created by exhaustion. The con-men who survive and then prosper after the bravest and best had died honourable, futile deaths. Luke wished he could turn off his brain.

What did he or anyone else in fortress Europe know about life beyond its invisible walls? Once on the six o'clock news he had seen a group of ranting West Africans on a runway as they were deported by and from his country, their efforts to be recognised as refugees turned down. By the time he had polished off his supper they would be back in their awful country, dumped on the tarmac of a third world airport while he was settled in bed reading his Kindle. Tucked away in bed and crawling into the safe fictional world of mythical adolescents with magical powers seemed supremely more attractive to Luke just then. He yearned for the lies wrapped inside his Kindle to extricate him from the physical and moral darkness where he found himself now.

But thankfully, dawn with her rose tipped fingers was yawning in the east and sending her rays tiptoeing across land and sea. Luke felt its light tapping on Eukles' closed eyelids but he nevertheless continued to sleep and dream. Still in semi darkness as a result, Luke imagined the life giving sun banishing the shadows and the demons that lurk in the dark corners of men's minds. He saw it in his mind's eye stroll across the plains and fields of Attica unmolested by motorways and flyovers and cities of glass and steel and pitches of concrete housing whose roofs bristled with antennae snatching the news of the world from the satellite broadcasting to them from space.

"We have lost something" Luke thought. The sun was fighting a losing battle as it tried to force open Eukles' eyelids. The continued sleep almost made it possible for Luke to consider what exactly he felt had been lost when a roar from a sergeant in the street scrambled Eukles' senses making him jump from his makeshift bed like a startled soldier.

Recovering from the jolt, he shambled over to the window where the early dawn's light was ambling down the street behaving in a gentlemanly way to his eyes. He could see a regiment of about a hundred men spilling from the doorways where their wives were stealing a last hug or a tortured lingering kiss through eyes filled with tears. The street was alive with metallic sounds as bronze shields mirrored the sun's low rays flashing like semaphore signals their secret codes to the surrounding hills. The dead ringing sounds of spear points on shields were drowned out by the sergeant- big chested and bull necked and ill tempered- who bellowed uncompromisingly, slowly imposing order on the raggle taggle humanity before him. Gradually his swarm of men fell into lines and an army began to mushroom.

"Where the fuck is Glabulus?" he spat and Eukles felt very sorry for the poor absentee. Moments later a young man vaulted off a roof top with a simple athleticism that belied the heavy weight of weaponry and armour he was carrying. He had a cocky smile and a cocky swagger which Luke recognised in the cocky dossers whose dossing disarmed the angriest of teachers back at school. The ones who always sat at the back of the bus, the likeable rogues as his dad knew them, affectionately remarking that every team needed its compliment.

Glabulus found his place in the line of men who held their breath while the sergeant demanded an explanation.

"Your mother's appetite is insatiable sergeant sir!" explained the youthful, redfaced Glabulus and the entire column of men were convulsed in a choral belly laugh. The sergeant shook his head at the raw material he had to work with but which he clearly loved.

"She was always one to take pity on ugly bollockless eunuchs" snapped the sergeant when silence had resumed and the laughter had subsided. The laughter burst forth once more and Glabulus grinned his grin as only likeable rogues know.

"Fall in lads." That's what they were, his lads and he their father. "Let's show those Persians that they're fucking with the wrong Greeks." And the warriors went off to war laughing, and their women closed their doors and sobbed. Luke saw only the jolly soldiers. Shakespeare's band of brothers, he thought enviously. The few, the happy, happy few.
Chapter 9

Eukles vaguely recognised the kindly features of Crito which he had seen briefly the night before in a fog of exhaustion and moonlight. His voice was as soft and soothing as his smile which inevitably brought a return from Eukles. Luke felt a smile coming on also, so infectious was the happiness that Crito's presence alone brought into the room.

\- Breakfast for the condemned this way.

And he signalled with his left hand the way to the dining room. Although Eukles felt the call of duty to march off with the boys in the street, he also felt the calming effect of Crito's confidence and control and reasoned that it would be unwise not to eat before he set off on another long march or run to Maratonos.

The dining area like the rest of Crito's substantial dwelling was monastic in its simplicity. Luke judged that Crito was a man of some wealth but he appeared to care not for the things of this world. It made him wonder at the foolishness of the billionaires and oligarchs with their competitive need to have the largest yacht or the most exclusive fleet of cars. What drove such shallow behaviour and why did the world allow it. Why was it the stuff of TV shows and magazines and the strange conversation of adults who seemed to condemn and condone at the same time.

It was tidier and more ordered than Cailimachus house.The table itself was not the rough, careless haphazard, boards with the marks and scars of drunken men with too many issues and too much testosterone. Care had been taken to finish its surface and edges so that it was pleasing to the eye and the same timber, perhaps even the same tree, had been used for the chairs so that there was an organic sense, a feeling that everything was linked. Nothing grated or intruded. The walls of clean whitewashed plaster betrayed the fact that the room was for dining and not for boisterous vandalism, for thought rather than action. The shutters on the four rectangular windows which were set at perfect intervals had been thrown open and the resulting light completed the room's ordered architecture.Luke liked order. He liked when things were in their place. It was, he often thought in private moments alone in his own ordered bedroom, a constant conflict between those who wanted chaos and those who wanted a world of straight lines and corners that did not irritate the eyes, and behaviour that matched. Luke liked Crito and his way of doing things.

The table was set with wooden platters of bread and porridge and a dish of fruit straight from a renaissance still life sat in the centre. Crito offered the young man a seat and after the customary prayers were said he placed a dish of cold porridge before Eukles which was gratefully accepted.

Still yawning and relaxing under Crito's spell, Eukles wiped the traces of sandy sleep from his eyes and it was then that he noticed the verses engraved on the wall opposite the windows whose light was designed to illuminate them. Fragments of thought, insights, opinions, questions whose answers were demanded from the reader.Here was a compendium of why, where, who, what and how of humanity's continuous thirst for knowledge to make sense of this world and man's purpose in it. Eukles recognised some of the lines; the more famous propositions of Thales of Miletus and Anaximander, Heraclitus and his foil Parmenides and the saintly Pythagoras. Although hungry for the delicious porridge in front of him, Eukles left the food on his wooden spoon and his spoon on the plate and let his eyes feed on the wisdom of the walls.

-You can read, intruded Crito after a proper period of time.

-Beautiful, mumbled Eukles, spell bound by what surrounded him. He shifted on his chair as he took in the conversations and monologues of the dead men who had tried to lead the examined life

Crito smiled at the young man's sweet innocence and wonder and as Eukles eyes continued to waltz over the marvels of the wall his smile became a chuckle. It was one of those moments in life when the world seems full of possibility and the future is a zoo of potential. Luke understood the feeling. He had experienced such moments himself and for some reason he was reminded of a girl he liked who had returned a smile to him, a wonderfully beautiful smile that could crush and scatter the darkest of clouds.

-The letters help stimulate the mind, explained Crito though no explanation was needed.

\- When we eat we should feed our minds with the life wisdom of those we eat with. I think it a waste of good food if I rise from the table no better than when I sat down. The words speak to you when you are alone or when you're dining with grand company such as a young man from Athens.

Crito raised his plain terracotta cup of weak wine with an informal toast to his guest who was happy to be the subject of such hospitality.

\- Platea after all is not a renowned centre for culture and learning, and Crito laughed in self deprecation as a good and loyal Platean for which if it came to it he would give his life.

-But while there's more to life than bread and porridge we must not fail to look after our stomachs. Eat, my young friend.

Eukles remembered his hunger and raised the porridge which had been patiently waiting on the spoon to his lips.The first taste released all the chemicals and acids in his digestive tract sending him into a tail spin of hunger. Luke wondered at the process and how well he understood it from his rudimentary science classes in which he had no particular interest but which he followed as a slave to the system he didn't question. He thought at how intellectually superior he was to the others in the room but how he had never shown the appetite for knowledge that was so evident in his host. Eukles for his part was focused on satisfying another appetite. He tried not to gobble but his stomach got the better of him and gobble he did.

Crito ate as he lived, with measured refinement, judiciously removing flecks of husk with a delicate motion of his spoon. Luke was impressed by the man's self containment and composure in what had up till now been a mad world peopled with mad men. He was at ease and did not feel the need to pierce what for others might be an uncomfortable tranquility. Luke felt that silence could reign comfortably in this room without anyone having to cripple it with words. This was indeed something fine, like one of those classes without disruptive morons and a teacher who knew his stuff but knew also how to create the right atmosphere. Sadly he had very few of these in his educational experience. Luke relaxed into the warm bath of silence.

Both diners continued eating in the manner that served the needs of each other. Eukles having satisfied the first burst of his belly's ache for food began to slow the pace and his eyes returned to the verbal odyssey so beautifully sketched on the white walls.His face betrayed his difficulty with some of the concepts and he pressed his lips together in vexed confusion as he tried to make sense of Heraclitean flux.

-It's as if life is like a fire, shapeless and forever changing. Nothing is permanent. If you step into a river, even before you register the feeling of the cold water on your skin the river has changed. Everything is in a state of flux.

-Everything? Quizzed Eukles.

-A philosopher's response by way of a further question. Crito was impressed.

-Perhaps some things never changed. This table will change.Crito tapped the table for effect.

-It will decay, maybe even be destroyed if the Persians get their hands on Platea. But my idea of a table up here, and this time he tapped his head for effect, my idea will not change.

The lines of anxiety born of confusion on Eukles' face smoothened a little. - Like a good man is always a good man?

Crito smiled and Eukles felt the warm glow inside that comes to those who feel on the side of the angels.

\- Do you have a favourite?

Crito shook his head.

\- A father should not have a favourite son. He should love all his sons the same. These words are like so many different fruits to sate so many different moods. Their taste and flavour changes with the reader's outlook. Maybe we will savour them differently after we have settled with the Persians. Eukles could not imagine the man before him as a fighter. Nothing about him belonged on a blood-soaked field.One could never see him swinging a spear or smashing skulls to a pulp with his shield.

\- You're going with the army?

Crito noted the surprise in the question's tone.

-It is my duty to stand with my neighbours at this time of great danger. Fighting, Crito grimaced as his mind briefly explored the word, - killing if we're to be more honest is unpleasant but perfectly rational in the circumstances wouldn't you think?

Crito stopped and waited for a response. Eukles wasn't used to being asked his opinion and was taken aback when he realised that Crito's inquiry was genuine. This he knew was how the Milesians had explored the world. He had heard without ever thinking that the great thinker Thales had asked questions where others had just accepted. And here in the house of Crito in a Greek backwater called Platea both he and Luke had a simultaneous epiphany. For Eukles this was what differentiated the Greek way from the wild tribes of the North or the great empire of slaves across the sea. For Luke it was what defined his increasingly beleaguered world attacked on all sides by fanatics and witch doctors who would have us believe nonsense and behave as fools. Some Greeks, not all but some, were driven to question things, their thirst unslaked until they had an answer that rationalised and explained and made the world coherent. Eukles was struck by this great yet simple revelation - the Greek examined.

And now this soft spoken, generous and humble man was inviting him to examine the goodness of war.

"We can't sit idly by and allow the Persians to kill, plunder and enslave." These were verbs thrown about by everyone when talking about the Persians, but Eukles was uncomfortably aware that the Greeks were not averse to their own small scale plunder and destruction. "It is our duty to defend ourselves and our homes and in doing this we must take life, sometimes ruthlessly." Crito winced slightly before sucking the juice from a date. "One would hope in time that the world will discover a better way."   
"Believe me man," said Luke pessimistically, "the world will only get better at what you guys do."

Eukles felt moved by this man who was disappointed with the limits of his solution. His hair was grey before its time and his face though lean and gentle had the lines of one whose life had been constantly spent dealing with the catastrophic outcomes of man's impact on his own species. Despite the many hours of thought and examination his solutions were by his own judgement tiresomely shallow.

"You think the world a sorry place," blurted Eukles spontaneously, an overflow of speech spawned by what he had been thinking.

The older man shrugged and allowed his eyes to rest dejectedly on the remains of his date. Luke saw it as a gesture of surrender like a physicist who must resign himself to a scientific world where there are no miracles and therefore only frustrating limits imposed by the imperfect laws of his trade.

"It could be a better place.We men could make it so. We could spend our time and energy building so much- roads, bridges, harbours. We could make the land more fertile and make the night time safe. We could set our minds to taming rivers and building ships that ride through storms and granaries that laugh at famine. We could learn from the Persian and the Egyptian and share our knowledge and skill with them. We could make our minds wiser and our lives happier and our youth would not be a time for killing and our grey hairs would know kindness and peace." He broke off abruptly and began to use his spoon to draw letters in the watery residue on the wooden platter before him.

"But we won't do any of these things this week. Will we?" He sighed a heavy sigh of resignation. "We need to do what we humans are best at. After all if the Persians wipe us from the soil then our contribution to the world is over. But if we win they will come again next year and the next and we will have to spend our energies in destruction. I wouldn't say the world is a sorry place but I would say that we are trying hard to make it so."

But Eukles, though he liked this amiable man was getting sick of these old timers with their dark take on life. This was a room for debate and philosophising and he was in a mood to throw in his drachma worth.

"Perhaps" he began impatiently, "if, no when we beat the Persians and send them packing back across the great sea, perhaps then there will be peace and a golden age when we can turn our minds to doing the things you just outlined.

"Perhaps my young friend," but there was no real belief and an annoying touch of condescension. "But it would seem that men were born to bring strife to the earth, to greedily pursue their own selfish ends at the expense of others."

"No" said Eukles firmly. "I have met men who are not like this and I suspect you are, or were, one of them. My master Caillimachus and his brothers will sacrifice all including their lives for the common good." Eukles now felt the restraining leash that had kept him silent and reticent snap. He gloried in the freedoms that the conversation offered. With each sentence he was understanding more about his role: duty, purpose and responsibility. He and his new found brotherhood would bring about the republic of men that Crito thought was a phantom. Luke wondered if it was all going to end up in cringe mode as it had with the speech with the household servants.

"The first step is to beat Darius. Then we will be free to arrange our own affairs. It will be up to all men to decide the path if they wish these affairs to be directed by the likes of Miltiades or whether there will be a real dawn under Caillimachus. Will you sir sit here among the words and thoughts of those who examined in pursuit of progress and not play your part?" Eukles stared at Crito, his youthful eyes demanding an answer. Luke didn't know if it was time to cringe or to applaud.

Crito felt the demand and was a little uncomfortable, as an old man is uncomfortable when he looks in the mirror, or when he attends the funeral of an old friend.

"You are a fine representative of Athenian youth. Your fire is persuasive. I envy it. Perhaps I have spent far too many hours in this room with those like me whose minds and attitudes have been frozen by age. We need to listen to the young, to let their heat warm us. Thaw the icicles we have become. I fear the old have always disempowered the young. You are right; Persia and what it stands for must be crushed even though Darius himself will die in his bed. And then we can see what we can build. I would be grateful if we could march some of the way together."

"That would be a great honour and education for me" beamed Eukles in reply.

Beyond their solitary feast with its dessert of words and thought, the streets were emptying of their last companies of militia. Crito rose and bid a slave to gather his weapons and armour.

"You will find a basin of water in there to wash away the stuffiness that clings after time spent with an old man. I'm glad we have spoken. There is always much to reflect on when youth collides with age."

Eukles thanked Crito and then left alone allowed his eyes to glide once more over the verses that decorated the plaster walls. As the verses transported Eukles, Luke realised how much he himself took for granted. His father was overly fond of the song lyric ' You don't know what you've got til it's gone'. Perhaps he mourned the loss that comes to all men as they get older. But now Luke thought that the lyric had a corollary of sorts. Eukles was clearly an exceptional student who had through sheer bloody-mindedness taught himself to read and write and who devoured knowledge greedily. Yet there were no books in this world, no libraries, no internet, no documentaries, no six o' clock news and no school. Luke had never thought to be grateful for the ocean of knowledge at his fingertips and in which he grudgingly bathed every day. School itself was something to resent, the teachers an uninspiring spectrum of inadequates with sadists at one end and clowns at the other. None of them could change a light bulb without a manual. And as for the subjects- history geography, science, business, german, poetry- what use were they?

And yet here in this room there was a tiny oasis of learning and it had been to Eukles something more precious than the silver dragged from the mines at Laurium that enriched Athens materially and impoverished her morally. Luke knew more than Eukles just as he knew more than most kids his age in the cruel world beyond the sentinelled walls of Europe and the west. He knew more but he didn't deserve to know more. He took it for granted that there would be food in the fridge, that there would be credit on his phone, that the roof wouldn't leak and that the nameless bad guys wouldn't kick in the door. The teacher would show up in the heated classroom, there would be books and paper and courses with exams.

His ramble was shattered as Eukles plunged his head into a bronze basin brimming with cold water. It felt good and Luke was relieved to let go his rant while the water washed over him. As Eukles' head emerged he kept his grip on the basin's sides and allowed the water to drip, drip from his face and chin into the pool below. He blinked several times to dislodge the droplets from his eyelids and finally the basin with its rippling contents came into focus. Slowly the water began to settle and Luke found himself looking straight into the face of his host.

It was a kind face with smooth tanned boyish skin a generous mouth and a round chin. A face that meant no harm. His eyes were almost as dark as his eyebrows and had a tinge of sadness in them. His hair had the beginnings of curls which had been cut short and was as black as the squares on a chess board. Luke could make out two angled, boney shoulders, the collar bones stretching the skin.

"So that's what you look like," thought Luke a little shaken by the sudden unexpected appearance like a jump scare in a film. Eukles for his part continued staring at his reflection in the water mirror. Luke had often done this himself- a long period of self contemplation away from the world's gaze. But as the seconds passed he began to feel a little uncomfortable as one does when someone fixes you with their eyes.

"Who are you?" Eukles spoke to the watery image and Luke stiffened as he saw the lips move in the still liquid. There was no one else in the room.

After a long pause during which he continued to eyeball his reflection Eukles repeated the question, "who are you?" Luke remained frozen and silent. He was reminded of a pheasant he had once seen in an Autumn ditch pointed out to him by his uncle. Its defense mechanism was to stay statue still until the danger passed.

"Who are you?"

Luke wondered if Eukles was having one of those surreal conversations with self, the ones that were the staple of daft French films. But try as he did he was unable to access Eukles' thoughts as he himself was so flustered and Eukles' mind seemed as impenetrable as an icefield.

"Do you mean me?" Luke chanced in a whisper.

Eukles' face was almost blank in response except for a slight twitch of his left eye.

"Yes," came the monosyllabic reply.

A long confused silence followed. Then Luke saw Eukles' face relax and his voice asked once again only this time in a more matter of fact tone, "Who are you? What is your name?"

"Luke Kelly. My name is Luke Kelly." Luke answered that most common of questions with a sense of conditioning like Pavlov's dogs answering their bell.

"Lukelly I am not familiar with this name."

"No you wouldn't be, it's not from your world" fumbled Luke.

"So you are sent by the Gods. Have I done something wrong? Do you bring a warning? Do the shades demand something? My father perhaps or maybe," he paused and Luke felt his heart race, "maybe you are here because of the twins?"

"Relax mate. I'm not from the Gods or your Dad or the twins."

"Then who are you and why are you," Eukles struggle to articulate his thought, "Why are you where you are?"

"My name is Luke Kelly. I'm sixteen years old and I'm as confused as you are. But somehow I think everything will work out. Don't get me wrong if I were you I wouldn't be dancing for joy. But believe me I'm the prisoner here."

Eukles frowned and Luke retuned the frown with one of his own. "Can you see me Lukelly?"

"That's the thing. I can see anything you see, taste, hear, smell and feel the world as you feel it. If you close your eyes I'm in the dark. When you eat that green lentil vomit I unfortunately taste every last slug of it." Luke retched at the memory.

"You don't like lentil porridge! You cannot be an Athenian."  
"I'm not an Athenian. I'm not even Greek."

Eukles became suspicious. "Are you some sort of Persian trick, some spirit from an Eastern necromancer?" he demanded aggressively.

Luke wanted to snigger. "No mate I'm from a place you've never heard. A place you couldn't imagine. I paid a man five euros- a small sum of cash- for an adventure and bingo I end up here."

"Bingo?"

"It's just an expression. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that neither of us is nuts even though I don't expect you to believe me."

Luke saw Eukles' face in the water. He was clearly struggling to process the data and information just received. His head swayed from one side to the other as he tried to consume each part and then finally raised his eyebrows in relief, pursed his lips and nodded.

"No, I believe you. It makes sense. But we must come to some accommodation. How long are you going to be wherever you are?"

Luke was flabbergasted at Eukles casual acceptance of such a bizarre circumstance. Yet he had been asked a fair question and felt duty bound to answer.

"I'm afraid I've no idea. But I would guess that it all has to end soon. In the adventure shop, where I paid for what has happened, there was a timing device which suggests that I'll only be here for a defined period. Then you my friend will have yourself back."

"Friend?" queried Eukles doubtfully.

"I don't think we're enemies. I'm on your side mate. If anything bad happens to you..."

"Like the lentil porridge" quipped Eukles.

"Exactly," smiled Luke feeling more at ease now that he was lodging with at least the landlord's knowledge if not his consent. It all seemed less intrusive. He had been starting to feel as guilty as a beggar outside a bookies.

"Alright then. I'm sure there's more to this than you say and I have every intention of consulting the priests. And if you misbehave I'll consume bowls and bowls of lentil porridge." Eukles winked at his image. But for the moment I've a battle to win at Maratonos although I don't know what you'd call it in your language."

The throwaway comment jerked Luke away from the lightheartedness of the conversation as a horse is jerked with a sharp tug of the reins. All this time he had been thinking in Greek and Eukles suggestion had made him casually translate the word which he now realised was 'Marathon'.

"Sorry?" said Eukles.

"In my language it's Marathon."

"Not very different. Have you heard of it? It's not that well known. I've been there a few times on messages for my father but most Athenians would struggle to place it."

"I've heard of it" said Luke definitively.

"I thought you said you weren't Greek."

"I'm not and I know very little about Greece, I've never been there till now. Look mate I'm from the future."

"You mean tomorrow?"

"Yes only like thousands, millions of tomorrows." Luke wasn't sure and didn't want to do the maths.

Eukles tried to digest this idea. Luke grasped that the madness of the situation wasn't that overwhelming for Eukles as his gods and his beliefs were fairly crazy anyway. He clearly didn't even question all the nonsense about Zeus and his thunderbolts so having a passenger from the future talking to you in a bowl of water wasn't exactly stretching it.

"And yet you've heard of Maratonos?"

"It's famous."

"Why?"

"A great battle is fought there."

"But we know that a great battle is going to be fought there soon. I know that and I'm not from the future."

"Yep," said Luke aware of his limits and regretting his lack of interest in Dad's dull history lessons. "I'm from the future but I didn't pay a lot of attention to what happened in the past. The battle's obviously massive if I've heard of it. I only do big history mate. Besides there's a story to it."

"My young friend." Eukles was startled by the soft accent of Crito which robbed the dialogue with Luke of further progress. "We must away. The Persians won't wait."

"Yes of course" replied Eukles wrestling himself away from his new found guest. "Before we leave I must thank you for your hospitality."

Crito smiled. "My pleasure, my young friend. Come our citizen army awaits beyond our citizen wall."

So Crito and Eukles stepped into the sunshine of the street made dusty by the footfall of a thousand men the last of whom were disappearing through the gate that Eukles had entered with Philemon the night before.

Crito's untimely arrival had cut short the conversation. Eukles was not going to compromise himself by talking to the air in front of semi strangers. And so the three men carrying their own silences strolled out into the Platean sunwarmed earth.

Luke imagined the march across the hills and valleys to Marathon would be like the bus journey to a cup match by his school's rugby team. Lots of nervous tension, lots of anxiety, some unable to wait for impact, others quietly concealing their fears, one (there's always one) who needs to throw up. But the soldiers walked as if on a school outing of a different kind. He caught fragmented conversations about domestic issues, overbearing wives, troublesome neighbours and children, a sore back in the morning. Then there was the tough guy talk laced with expletives, rough as moonshine whiskey about drinking bouts and exaggerated adventures with extraordinarily randy and inexhaustible ladies. On a few rare occasions there was something of a more intimate nature: one man regretting how he had parted with his wife with quarrelsome words; another wondering if he'd get to see his unborn child inevitably in his eyes a fine healthy warrior son. A knot of grizzled fellows spoke awkwardly about the retreat from Eretreia before snarling about how they'd set things right at Maratonos. Luke was only party to snatches of these conversations which flitted by like swallows on a summer's evening, but throughout he silently eavesdropped on what passed between Eukles and Crito who marched together, and as the long trek slipped into a monotonous rhythm, their chit chat became more and more absorbing as Luke followed its ping pong course. Initially Crito acted as an excellent stimulator but slowly the conversation unfolded and grew and as Eukles self esteem rose he began to provoke proceedings as much as the older man. Luke noticed how Crito's sympathetic listening allowed the ideas sleeping inside Eukles to be unwrapped. Eggs of wisdom waking and hatched by Crito's warmth. And so while the sun strolled languidly upwards and then ambled idly towards the west the two broke lances tackling enthusiastically a half cooked stew of stuff.

Crito wondered why and how the rocks around them were different colours and textures, and soon they were puzzling about the height of the sky and what supported it and the depths of the ocean and what drained it. They speculated about what lay beyond the frozen lands of Scythia or below the burnt deserts of Ethiopia where the sun turned a man's skin black. Thoughts led to queries which led to fantasies or sometimes to a dead end. But talk did not die for long and was soon resurrected with discussions on more practical subjects like how their spear points were once rocks in the hills and how well built and well pitched ships could ride out storms or even where these storms were born and what great force acted as a midwife to their destruction. Crito drew attention to the similarity between the innards of man and beast. He grasped that each organ had a purpose but was unable to understand what that purpose was. What makes the hand move? Why does a man fall over after too much wine? Why are some fruits bitter and others sweet? How is it that sheep can eat grass and man cannot. Often the path led to the feckless and impish Gods who had a hand in everything that could not be rationalised or answered.

Luke listened to the discourse which sometimes had the speed of a pinball fizzing from one point to another. At first he smirked and shook his head at the ignorance of the two men. He started to rant at them as one rants at the TV in frustration when the people on it are missing the bloody obvious. He told them proudly about metamorphic, igneous and, after a while trying to remember, sedimentary rocks. He was less sure of the atmosphere and just told them to accept gravity because everyone else did. He was more sure footed on geography and gave them a smug lesson on the countries of Northern Europe and of sub Saharan Africa- sort of. Metalwork and shipbuilding brought him down to earth from his self constructed pompously high pedestal. He acknowledged at this point that Crito knew things that Luke's world had lazily deposited into the hands of a few specialists. But when the lads started talking about the God Aeolos and his bag of winds and Poseidon unleashing his moods on the sea, Luke rolled his eyes towards the empty heavens.

Eukles was unaware of the sarcastic head shaking going on inside him. Emboldened at one stage by Crito's complimentary judgement of one of his insights he decided to take the wheel as it were.

"Do you know what has often perplexed me?" He began.

Crito was rooting in a leather satchel that was slung across his shoulder and fished out an envelope of bread which was stuffed with cold lentil porridge which he tore in half and offered to Eukles. He was about to accept when he remembered his internal guest's aversion to the food.

"No thanks. Maybe later though depending how I feel," he added with a playful smile. Crito missed the nuance but Luke didn't.

"Thanks mate" he exhaled in relief.

"No problem" continued Eukles to the wind and then to Crito "but if you have any olives I'd butcher some."

"No problem" replied Crito obligingly and deposited a half dozen of the green ovals in his friend's outstretched palm. Luke groaned at the thought, and retched at the taste as Eukles popped them into his mouth two at a time.

"What perplexes you my young brother?" rejoined Crito with a tone that was the correct mixture of interest and encouragement.

"Well I find myself asking why men are not all the same."

"How do you mean?"

"Well you know how some are tall and others short, some strong and some weak. Some are smart and inquisitive like you..."

The musing was cut short by a scream from the hedgerow. A half dressed russet faced man had gone there in search of a toilet and had awoken a sleeping snake who hadn't taken too kindly to the man's gift.

"And some are not so smart and should be more inquisitive." Both men shared a giggle at Eukles' quick wit.

"You Crito have blue eyes while mine are dark and your hair is like the sand while mine is the colour of night."  
"They say we get our hair from our mothers and our eyes from our fathers although I have seen many who would dispute this. Is your mother's hair dark?"

"My mother is dead. I never saw her."

Crito nodded his sympathy and Eukles accepted the silent moment. "We also inherit our mortality from our parents" he added to steer the conversation slightly.

"I hope I got nothing else from my father. He was a brute and a bully." Eukles felt a strange mix of guilt and elation at this confession.

Crito was a little shocked at the severity of the judgement but recognised the deep felt anger that had inspired it to be genuine."Parents disappoint their sons and sons disappoint their parents."

Steady on thought Luke. A few too many home truths starting to roar out loud here.

"I didn't say I disappointed him. I don't think he cared. I stayed clear of him. But with others he was a bad man. Why was he bad and cruel and a cheat, and why is Caillimachus the opposite- good and honourable. Are we born the way we are or do we choose to become who we are?"

Luke was struck by the passion released from its dark cage where it had silently resided for so long, and he felt the burden of that pent up silence lifted off Eukles. It reminded him of muscle relieved of its tightness and pain by the healing hands of a masseur. He needed to get the father thing off his chest but he needed to do it in stages.

Eukles felt that he had strayed from his original point allowing his anger to cloud his exploration which he was enjoying. "What I mean is, as we're different in terms of our physical appearance are we also different in the way we behave. I can't choose the colour of my eyes or the height I'll grow to, but if I eat too much I'll be as fat as my uncle. How much do I determine whether I'm good or evil?"

Crito listened respectfully and without prejudice. He was not in search of points to score but the higher target of truth if it were to be found. He remained silent after Eukles had finished, digesting the point and allowing for any further insights. Eukles looked across awaiting with youthful impatience some response. As he waited Luke was struck by the clear struggle going on in Crito's brain as if the issue was actually important. After lengthy consideration and without being pressured by Eukles' impatience, he eventually broke the silence.

"In order for something to be you have to know what it is. That fellow back there can easily supply us with evidence about snakes and how they don't like being disturbed." He turned his head to face Eukles who was clearly puzzled and took this as a mute request to clarify. "You can only be 'good' or 'evil' if they exist. Do they exist?"

"Of course they do" ejected Eukles with obvious frustration.

Crito dismissed his young friend's temper. "Then show them to me," he said coolly.

"That's silly. I can't show them to you anymore than you can show me ..." Suddenly Eukles became aware of the question's purpose that we can only speak about the things we know. He paused. He began to realise that he was in danger of looking ridiculous. And then seeing an eagle in the sky buffeted by the air currents on which he sailed a thought struck him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

"I cannot show you the wind. But you know that it is there. You see what it does feel its impact. 'Good' is like the wind just because it can't be captured and caged and put on a table for people to gawk at doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

A round of philosophical applause for you buddy said Luke and he began to feel the awakenings of interest in these sunny day musings about the big questions that nobody really cared about but everyone thought about at some time. And all this on a slow fuse to Armageddon which was now less than a dozen miles away. Crito pursed his lips then chewed the substance of the dialogue as he chewed the date which he had just begun to nibble. Slowly as was his way he savoured the juice of both the date and the thought.

"So if we follow your argument for the moment." Crito broke off his words reminding Luke of the school geeks who talked about physics and applied maths at lunch break. Then he swiftly resumed. "I see a line of olives to our right. I do not see the wind but I'm aware of its reality because the leaves and branches are trembling." Bravo thought Luke. For a smart guy Crito was fairly slow on the uptake. But Crito was speaking to himself rather than an audience. Eukles enthusiastically confirmed Crito's summary.

"I can accept that as a rational basis to explore the question further. So tell me, the wind shakes the leaves or cracks the branches or rips a tile from the roof of my home or drives a sail boat to Tripoli. How does good show itself? Or if you wish how does its twin brother evil reveal himself?"

Like a warrior who had begun to feel his own muscle and strength, Eukles charged headlong into the vacuum which Crito's question had created. "The Persians and Darius with their killing and robbing and burning are surely 'evil'. And we Athenians" he paused conscious that he was the only Athenian, "we Greeks in resisting them and bravely throwing them back across the great sea, we are surely at least on this occasion 'good'  
Eukles had a sense of how pompous his words must appear. His face reddened first with agitation and then with embarrassment and his speech to the house servants flashed across his mind. Awkwardly he fumbled the last few olives into his mouth.

"I'm sure Darius would disagree" said Crito his face wincing as he tried to work through the issue. Luke was reminded of his class mates when his maths teacher threw an intractable maths problem in front of them. "Darius might say that Greece threatened to undermine him and that to preserve peace and order he has to teach Greece a lesson. Otherwise everyone will become as insolent as the men of Athens, em Greece I mean." Crito finished and the painful grimace left his face. He began to nod his head and pout his lower lip. "Darius has a point."

"Then why are we fighting? Why are you and all Platea marching towards Maratonos?" Eukles tone was aggressive and demanding, but Crito ignored the tone and merely addressed the question. He stopped, shrugged his shoulders and then after a moment of mental effort shook his shoulders again. "These are my people."

Eukles knew the story of the indecisive donkey who finding himself equidistant between two bales of straw dies of starvation. Crito's Luke warm response wasn't good enough. You have to decide in life. You have to take sides and stand with your tribe and know that you do it because despite everything your tribe is right. There must be action in life.

"Not good enough" he blurted. "We're as right as can be possible. Our fight is the 'good' one; 'evil' lives in the Persian camp. "Eukles was happy with the plain simplicity of his unembellished speech. Crito didn't want verbal ornaments. Luke concurred. Sometimes in life you stand up for what is right even though it involves pain in the doing and even though the outcomes are rarely what you hoped for. One could sit through one's life and do nothing and Luke now reflected that too many adults he knew did exactly that but this was not the action of men. Men do.

But Crito wasn't convinced. "Beating the Persian will surely enhance the reputation of the house of Miltiades. Is it for Miltaides' prosperity that you are willing to bleed?"

Crito asked the question with a twist of his head and squinted against the sharp darts of the afternoon sun. Luke felt its impact on Eukles like a dagger of words more pointed because it was true. Once when he was playing rugby he had delivered a precision pass to a player on his team, an obnoxious, self centred tosser. Self same Tosser went on to score a try which everyone celebrated and which Tosser milked. Despite winning the match Luke was ambivalent about that pass.

"Perhaps beating the Persians will strengthen Miltiades and that won't be a good thing. And all of us- you, me, Caillimachus, all the good brothers will have to fight to curb his pride and tyranny when the time comes. Life is not a stroll Crito. Life is a brawl."

Luke was dazed by the last line. It was something his father always said, "Life's a brawl son." Sometimes he said it with a hearty appetite for life but lately he detected a weariness in his dad's approach to the contests thrown at him daily. As we get older we lose the fire. Perhaps Crito never had it.

"So young" he said softly shaking his head. "I suspect you will rise to greatness in your city and I will follow your career with interest and a smile. I pray to Athena and all the gods that you will never lose that which defines you."

Luke was used to Eukles' discomfort with compliments. He could feel the young Greek's clumsy, confused response, half embarrassed and half flattered, and the awkward smile that broke out on Eukles' face was a testimony to his inner turmoil.

Thankfully the sound of a horn from further up the column saved any further blushes. The bullnecked sergeant who had joked with the nimble footed late comer Glabulus, let fly one of those sergeant's shouts which scattered the birds and told the men to fall out. The men did so, throwing their gear onto the ground with a tumble of thuds and clanks, quickly followed by reinvigorated chat and hearty laughter, and Olympic standard spitting and belching. It resembled a river of human movement like a Mexican wave as the actions of each group responded to and took their cue from those citizen soldiers further up the line. They were soon resting in pockets under yawning olive trees. Slaves went among them with pitchers of wine and wicker baskets of fruit.

The sergeant seeing that his order had been obeyed, turned sharply on the dusty track and marched his squat frame at the double towards Crito and Eukles.

"You the lad who brought the message from Caillimachus?" Eukles had just stuffed his mouth with bread so the sergeant had to make do with a nod. "Good. Follow me. General wants to see you." The sergeant turned immediately leaving Eukles with no option except to follow. "We'll finish our discussion later," he said to Crito as his teeth grappled with bread and words together. "My pleasure". And Eukles knew that the response was not just the stock response of a mild mannered man with impeccable behaviour. He knew that Crito had genuinely enjoyed the exchange.

Eukles had to jog to keep up with the sergeant as they passed the hungry, thirsty, tired and increasingly nervous soldiers. At a distance of thirty or so paces he turned to look back at Crito who was fumbling with his pack and pacing gingerly to avoid crushing a throng of ants whirling busily about his sandals. "Some killer" thought Luke with twenty first century sarcasm.

Less than twenty miles to the east where the gentle waves of the blue Mediterranean kissed the stoney beach at Marathon, a farmer called Nepho was tying a newly forged arrow head to a newly fletched shaft. He had learnt his trade as bowman in the far off satrapy of Caria where his skill with the bow was good for game. Press ganged by his local headman into a military levee, he now found himself on this stoney beach in Greece, part of a huge army let loose on these people about whom he knew little. For two months he had moved through a dozen islands and cities burning, killing and robbing urged on by his general Datis and his blood thirsty lieutenants. Now to pass the time, to kill the dull tedium of war he was making and unmaking a quiver of arrows. The one which he now held to his eye was the perfect dart. He twirled the shaft and the point flashed like a mirror shard in the Greek sunshine. He would not waste it with his first shot. Once he had found his aim with two or three test shots he would let this beauty fly.

Nepho would pull back his bowstring at the battle of Marathon and the perfect arrow rolling now in his archer's fingers would fly straight. The goddess of fortune would direct it and the fates would feel the threads of a life flowing through their fingers strain and then snap. A thousand arrows would land on the Platean shield wall and all but one would bounce harmlessly on the ceiling of bronze shields. Nepho's arrow would find the smallest of gaps and slice open the thoracic portion of the left carotid artery of Crito. He would fall and clutch his throat vainly trying to staunch the hot gurgling blood on which he was choking. And there under a roof of shields among a forest of muscular calves with a rain of mist dripping from the Greek phalanx, and within earshot of Homer's wine dark waters, Crito would think his last thought. But for now Crito took himself to an antless spot on the sunburnt grass and once again began to snack on a juicy date and a juicier thought.
Chapter 10

The Road To Marathon

The sergeant's powerful, squat legs gobbled the ground and Eukles found himself jogging to keep up. Having assessed the sergeant to be a brooding, anti-social type obsessed with his rank and conscious of the need to present himself to the world as 'sergeant hard ass first class', Eukles held back a few metres behind his strutting frame so as not to suffer the awkward silence that would ensue. Alongside him in clusters and files were the men whose faces were now starting to give a hint of things to come. Gone was the hearty bravado which had so impressed Luke as they had marched out of Platea. Now they all seemed quieter, more sober and subdued. It was not the quiet of exhaustion or physical weariness - these men could, if asked, have walked a hundred miles in full battle dress. It was more the silence of those whose thoughts were darkening. Occasionally there were guffaws and lusty laughs, but they seemed out of place and highlighted the heavy atmosphere which now hung over the army. Luke remembered the good humour of the general mourners at a funeral whose mood is transformed when the coffin is lowered and the priest recalls everyone to the right level of sorrow with his ancient hallowed words.

Eukles meanwhile was wondering how he'd explain to Arimnestos why he had not read the last paragraph in the message. He was sure this was why Arimnestos had summoned him. He would be sent back to the sanctuary of Platea so that no harm would come to the adopted son of the great Caillimachus. Well that wasn't going to happen concluded Eukles with angry determination. He'd let Arimnestos know he was his own man and head of his own house and going to Marathon whether he or Cailimachus liked it or not.

The Platean was drinking from a wineskin looking very much a man at arms so unlike the perfumed lover he had met the night before.

"Ah young Eukles" he began, tossing him the skin as he spoke. "Drink." Eukles took a deep draught believing that it made him look older, something that was most important at this moment.

"I'm my own man" he said impetuously wiping the spilt wine from his lips. "Know this Arimnestos. I obey Caillimachus but my first loyalty is to Athens."

"Indeed" replied Arimnestos with an air of puzzlement. "You rested well?" he probed.

"Very well" said Eukles firmly overextending himself to avoid being sent back to Platean safety. "So rested I could run from here to Marathon and fight the Persians single handed."

Arimnestos laughed and the sergeant smirked. Eukles reddened with self mortification, Luke groaned for his friend who was at it again. "I wish I were young and fearless and had the puppy's energy of youth sergeant, don't you?" The sergeant agreed with his commander. It was his job to agree.

"Well since you're so full of running I wonder if you'll consider a mission." This was it, thought Eukles some stupid message carried as far from Marathon as Arimnestos thought would be safe.

"I have affairs to see to in Marathon. I must be there by nightfall."

"Grand." Eukles was ambushed by Arimnestos' agreement. He was confused and blurted out a question as to what the mission was. Arimnestos took his spear which was resting against a cart and juggled it with a circus flourish so that the point was directed at the ground. He then began to use the dirt beneath his feet as his artist's canvas, sketching what was a map, only quite beautifully drawn unlike the rudimentary effort of Caillimachus beside Miltiades' orange tree. When he had finished drawing, he began to gently explain pointing rather than stabbing with his spear the various parts of the sketch. Platea and Marathon were at the edges. Slightly nearer Marathon was a series of dots which represented their present location.   
"We're here." He pointed at a spot of dirt."To get to Marathon we have to march through this valley." He traced the spear along the proposed track. "It's straightforward enough but if the Persians have broken out from Marathon..." Eukles cut him short and the sergeant snarled at the impudence. "If the Persians have broken out then Athens is destroyed!"   
"True lad Athens will be done for, but Platea will still be breathing and we then will have a different situation. Anyway as I say if the Persians have broken out then we might be walking into an ambush from which we won't... Well you know." He stopped and gave a warrior's smile that said one can't always expect the dice of war to be kind. For a moment he was lost in thought and scribbled meaninglessly in the dirt. Then while still scribbling and without looking up from his campaign map in whose beautifully carved lines and contours he foresaw the coming slaughter he addressed Eukles.

"What I need is a man, someone nimble, unencumbered by armour who can act as point guard walking along the old goat trails near the top of the south facing hills. From there you'll be able to see any enemy movement several miles in advance and signal it to us." He finished and raised his eyes as a question.  
Eukles was once again flattered to be considered for a task and felt the warm feeling that comes to young men when they are shown trust by another whom they admire. Luke felt the body system go into overdrive but was aware that Eukles was trying to play it cool, like those girls who pretended that they weren't interested but deep down really were.

"No problem I'll do it. Anything that gets us to Marathon quickly." His response angered the sergeant who wanted to give him a clout on the back of the head and a boot elsewhere, But Arimnestos slapped him on the back with a chorus of 'good man' and 'Caillimachus chooses well'.

He then shoved a satchel of rations into his hands and a short horn. "You need to get ahead of us so you can scoff the rations on the march. See if you can get some noise out of the horn."   
Eukles took it and blew unsuccessfully two or three times. The best he could get was a high pitched, ear splitting screech which the sergeant described as a disappointed woman.

"It'll do" said Arimnestos. "It might even remind Datis of his wife. We need it as a warning. We're not going to be dancing to it. One hoot means that there is activity ahead in the valley. Two hoots means there are troops on the north slopes, three means there are troops on the south, your side."  
"Lots of hoots?" asked Eukles.

"We'll start saying our prayers lad."  
Eukles tried the horn again and the surrounding laughter indicated that he was never going to make it as the regimental trumpeter. "No matter" said Arimnestos reassuringly," we only need a signal and sure there's every chance you won't need it." He then gave Eukles a meaningful looking nod whose meaning Eukles didn't quite get. A little bashful, he nodded back as meaningfully as he could and took off with a sprightly walk which soon became a light, rhythmic jog. On the road again thought Luke and he felt the internal satisfaction that bubbled inside Eukles now that he was back where he belonged.

He dodged the tightly planted olives which rose gently with the kind lazy slope of the valley's foot hill. Soon he was scrambling among a stand of fir trees baked as dry as paper in the parching sun and a company of frightened partridges shot from their cover of scrub as he passed too close. A playful hare rose up on its hind legs before bouncing off in a zigzag to a set of boulders which some forgotten ice sheet deposited at the moment of its melting death. The hare brought a boyish smile to Eukles and he bounced along in imitation forgetting for a moment that he was pretending to be a man. Luke too forgot as he had briefly forgotten when he chased the cloud up the hill with his parents and brothers. Now he played along with Eukles as they rambled up a different hill in a different time for a different purpose, placing their feet only on the splashes of sunlight avoiding the death traps of shadows which were part of the Eukles' game.

The slope became steeper and it was necessary to climb gripping the rugged rocks with hands, disturbing the hardier birds who build their nests nearer the sky. Showers of pebble and scree were dislodged and sent the hare chasing for cover. A party of lazy goats were unimpressed by Eukles' athleticism and didn't allow this intrusion to interfere with their munching of the rougher grasses. Luke enjoyed this interlude of real rock climbing in a landscape alive with living things. But the stupid indolent faces of the munching goats made him think. In a couple of thousand years, his species will have extinguished these creatures and the wild flowers they ate and avoided by turns. The hardy birds will sulk in cages while tourists make faces at them as an underpaid unenthusiastic guide tells the deaf listeners how they were once plentiful occupiers of the land. Tidy farms and precision orchards with their murderous pesticides would swallow everything. The ants that Crito so kindly avoided and the lizards who darted in and out of the shaded cracks and crevices would all take their place on the conveyor belt of victims of the farmers' poisons.

Eukles pulled himself up onto the top of an outcrop. The suddenness of his final vault caused a minor stampede among the mountain goats who sprang effortlessly onto the top of the next tier of the mountain. They had learned to avoid these two footed ruthless killing machines. Luke read their fear and wondered how many tiers of escape this herd had left.

The slow process of soil creep had worn furrows in the hill side and the goats had made use of these to facilitate their trekking, wearing one of the furrows into a noticeable path which trickled along erratically like the contours in one of Luke's geography maps. Eukles rested, filling his lungs with the thinning air his chest heaving and his heart pounding. He felt the stress in his shoulder muscles; he was a runner not a climber. The sun was starting to die in the west and he felt its warmth on his upper body drying the recent sweat from his skin. He saw his long shadow which it cast, stretched out before him pointing towards Marathon. Luke looked at the silhouette of his host and remembered the kind slightly sad face he had seen that morning in the basin of water. It was as if the memory stimulated Eukles who recovering his breath began to scan the valley into which the sun's long rays were now straining.

"Well Lukelly tell me what you see?"

Luke was taken aback by the sound of his name which seemed so foreign with its Greek inflections. But the question was genuine and the pause sympathetic to response.

"I see nature as it was. I see a very beautiful valley that we- men - haven't yet had a chance to wreck."  
Luke knew that his answer perplexed his listener who, waiting a few moments shook his head and noted that apart from a few shepherds and some villagers there was no one else. "Well I don't see any nasty Persians. No need for me to hoot this silly horn."

In the time that it had taken Eukles to climb to the height, the column of militia had rested, eaten and drunk, and was now on the move, a thousand men four abreast with Arimnestos near the front and the baggage at the back. Luke realised that Eukles was trying to pick out Crito but at this distance they all seemed the same in their armour.

"He's a good man that Crito" said Luke breaking the ice.

"Yeah, he is" replied Eukles turning to move along his newly discovered roadway. "I hope to share many bowls of porridge with him when this is over." And then he guffawed as the thought struck him. "You knew I was thinking about him Lukelly didn't you? I'd better be careful what I think. Come on let's get going."

"If you say so" said Luke cheekily and helplessly and the two boys laughed together.

They ran where the terrain allowed and then walked picking their way over the rougher inhospitable ground. Eukles' eyes were alive for the formations of enemy troops or even a suspicious wanderer who might be part of a Persian scouting party. Luke was confident that they would make it to Marathon unmolested. There was something about the place that was wrapped up in an epic sense of destiny. Marathon was the adventure he had bought for a fiver. It was like in a movie when you know the star is not going to get wasted in the first scene. They would make it to the end of the valley. So with the same eyes as his friend, he took in the unspoilt blanket of green and grey, of brown and blue and the other colours embroidered into nature's fabric that winked occasionally. Streams tumbled like shattered crystal and great monsters of trees slept in the heat. The sky was as blue as the robe on the Virgin's statue in his school and birds glided along its warm currents. Man's conquests were still confined to the valley floor where red tiles slumbered on the white washed walls of the rich man's palace while thatch the colour of Van Gough's chair told Luke that was where the poor man dreamed himself to sleep. Flocks of bleach white sheep grazed meadows of green that were flecked with yellow and red and purple flowers.

"So what does your world look like Lukelly?" Luke wasn't grateful for the intrusive question. He had never found a panorama of nature so beguilingly beautiful, so free of the filth of man. Eukles had to ask the question again.

"Not like this," came Luke's listless reply. Eukles waited for more, so Luke tried to condense into words a snapshot of the twenty first century as viewed through the prism of a sixteen year from middle class Ireland.

"I suppose it's a lot greyer than this for a start. A lot of concrete. A lot of shadows, less light, not much vegetation where I live and birds are much smaller. A lot more people. Millions of them, no billions."

"Billions?" quizzed Eukles. Luke understood that some stuff would be impossible for Eukles to grasp so he quickly resolved not to lie but to keep the truth manageable.

"I live in a city like nearly everyone. There are probably more people in my little insignificant city than there are in your Athens and Attica. We've covered the land in buildings and big roads which are wider than the walls of Athens are high."

"Why do you need such wide roads?"

"For cars and trucks-like chariots and carts only bigger. There are lots of them racing up and down the country carrying stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Food, machines, you know stuff." Luke wondered what exactly was going on in all those cars and trucks that fizzed up and down the motorway beyond the fence near his home. He decided to move on.

"There are a lot of wires on high poles. We don't need runners like you any more. The wires carry messages and signals as fast as you can say them." Luke then realised that the wires he was speaking about were being superceded by phone masts and satellites. He himself was becoming a dinosaur. A bridge too far for his audience and himself. "There are other wires that carry power and they light up streets and houses at night time."

"How?" said the struggling Eukles.

Luke sighed in resignation knowing at this early stage that any explanation was impossible. "Ask me something else, sometimes the differences between your world and mine are beyond any words I have." But Luke could feel Eukles' annoyance at this insipid cop out and felt that he had to make an effort. "We have discovered a thing called electricity which can be turned into heat and light. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes, of course" said Eukles pompously the way people pretend they understand what a black hole does or what the hell E=mc2 actually means. Luke knew he was lying.

"Tell me what does your world smell like?"

"That's a bit easier," thought Luke. "Well there's less of a stink than there is here. I mean your precious Athens is like one big multi species toilet. We don't have such a mess in the streets and such a pong in the air." They passed a bush of jasmine and then a waterfall of wild lavender which tumbled from a moss covered rock. "My world is a perfumed one. Lots of aromas and scents in bottles to mask the stink of the billions of sweaty people I told you about. I suppose" continued Luke thinking the point through," if you took away all the chemicals and fragrances the place would probably smell much like Athens. The air is not as pure like it is now. Lots of dirty fog coming off the cars and trucks. The electricity causes a lot of smoke."

'Christ' said Luke to himself thinking how far we humans had come. He was floundering. With every description he gave he could see the images in Eukles' mind. His notion of aromas and scents was not deodorants in cans and bleach in a plastic bottle, but slaves with steaming cauldrons of vapourous liquids filing like a religious procession through the streets. Electricity sat in Eukles' imagination as a miraculous power source magically sucked from the sky, subsumed into a large square temple and then radiated out through its porticos. Luke decided it was easier to leave Eukles be with his fantastical interpretations.

"What sounds would I hear Lukelly?" Luke remembered the streets of Athens alive with chatter and the moonlit conversations with Phaedo and Caillimachus. His own streets seemed quiet by comparison, humanity silenced by traffic and the frantic need to get from A to B.

"The cars and trucks growl a lot. In our homes we have a box that entertains and informs people called a television. I'm sad to say that it makes more sound than the people in the house. We've forgotten how to talk like the way you did with Crito. We still have our tongues but we're as silent as Daemon. Night time is fairly quiet. When I'm lying awake in bed I often hear a few drunks on the street or a dog barking." He decided not to mention sirens and trains.

"Not unlike Athens so?"

"I suppose so", and it made Luke strangely home sick for things he had never cared about.

"And the taste?" The question punctured the brief nostalgic journey Luke was on. "The taste," shrugged Luke finding the questions stimulating yet difficult, aware as he was of the two and a half thousand year gulf that separated them. He wondered how it might be if someone crash landed into his life from the future. Would he be able to conceptualise the changes?

"My world definitely tastes better. No contest mate. There's more variety and a lot more to eat. There's stuff you Greeks won't get to tuck into until Columbus comes back from America." Luke was in full flow and knew that his frivolous comments made no sense. So he rushed ahead to fill the void of confusion. "Yummy stuff like pizza and chips and chocolate and ice cream. You don't know what you're missing. And nobody, believe me absolutely nobody, except a few of life's real losers, eats lentils and goat's cheese or olives." The face of Luke's smiling mother popping an olive into her mouth flashed across his mind's eye.

Eukles was shocked that a world would forego such delicious treats. "I can't believe that your chocolate and chips would be a match for a juicy bowl of lentil porridge."

"You'll just have to trust me on this one mate," said Luke with a confident internal smirk. "And let me answer your next question about how my world feels. It's a lot softer; beds are flea free and kinder to your bones and joints. Pathways are smoother and there's nobody going round trying break you up and rearrange your body's balls." Both laughed at Luke's recollection of Phaedo's threat. "My world's a lot less violent. We haven't done the war thing for generations."

Whatever about power lines and electricity, this world without war was an impossible concept for Eukles who was lost as he tried to grapple with it. Luke felt the confusion and was about to give the mother of all history lessons about history's most violent century, but then decided to leave Eukles chew over a world where fathers didn't pack in the day job for a week to go off and do a spot of summer killing.

"So there are no battles, no wars in the future?"

Luke was about to say there hadn't been for ages but then he began to realise that his definition of the world was a very narrow one. Of course there were wars and plenty of daily butchery and savagery only none of this was on his doorstep. 'Rumours of war' as his dad poignantly called them.

"Well actually there are lots of wars and they're brutal affairs but they happen in the guts of the planet where nobody cares what goes on. If someone gets killed by a truck at home it's a bigger news story than some massacre in Africa. The wars are usually over the stuff that makes electricity at least they're the ones that get our attention" added Luke with a sprinkle of adult intelligence followed by an equally adult resignation and cynicism.

"Yes" murmured Eukles in reply. "All war really comes down to theft and greed and plunder. Isn't that after all why the Persians are here? Are they still here in the future?"

"The Persians? I couldn't say for sure" answered Luke sifting uncertainly through his knowledge of Middle Eastern nations. I think they might have gone the way of the Lydians and the Scythians who I've never heard of. I wouldn't swear to it. My geography teacher wasn't the most inspiring woman and I suspect she herself wouldn't know the answer."  
"Hold on" said Eukles abruptly, sensing a question more significant than the end of all wars. "Did you say your teacher was a woman? How can that be?"  
Luke had up till now felt Eukles willingness to stretch his imagination to grasp twenty first century science, technology and geography, but he could palpably feel Eukles genuine agnosticism when it came to tackling the big gender issue. He simply couldn't believe this one.

"Women and men are equal. They have the same rights and duties. They're still different of course if you know what I mean" Luke quickly dismissed a few images from his head. "But women are not treated differently. Well women get cheaper car insurance but they're definitely not better drivers." But he quickly regretted this frivolous and overly complex concept. He finished sensing that he had muddled his host's brain with cars and insurance but Eukles had just started laughing after the first comment regarding gender equality.

"Next you'll tell me that humans can fly." Eukles giggled at his add- on but noticed the uncomfortable silence coming from his lodger and understood what it meant.

"You can fly can't you?" he said slowly emphasising each word.

Luke was beginning to realise that his flippant revelations about a world that had not yet happened could easily crack asunder the pillars on which Eukles based his entire existence. With a few facts about the moon, the sun, the origins of thunder and wind he could shatter Eukles' whole ridiculous belief system, making a mockey of the gods to whom he prayed so earnestly and, Luke had to admit, so beautifully. Luke realised that knowledge brings with it responsibility. He paused and took stock aware that in this world without the guiding hand of adults and the head shaking of the state's nannies; he was making the script up with a reckless spontaneity.

"Look mate, I'm not sure how much I should tell you about the future. I mean things have changed, is it healthy you knowing these things? There's stuff in your world that I'm struggling to get a handle on. I think I should spare you some of the heavier stuff from mine."  
Eukles imagined he was Crito and listened in the manner that he thought Crito would listen. He considered Luke's argument and found it had some merit. "Perhaps you're right. We'll take things slower, you can filter. That'll make it easier for me to digest the fantastic things you come out with like men flying and women teaching. "

Above them two eagles circled effortlessly, gliding on the invisible beds of air in a sky the colour of Lapis Lazuli, a gem for which Luke's mother had a penchant. He saw the Lapis pendant she wore and then he saw her in his mind's eye as she lay on the picnic blanket smiling lovingly at his father as they winked at each other knowingly. He had always taken her for granted, expecting the myriad of little things and the bigger things she did and never once considered acknowledging them. That's what mothers did. You wouldn't thank a teacher for teaching you or a postman for delivering the post. But here, imprisoned in the body of one who had never known a mother's love it made him think until once again his brain whirred with the fuzz of too much thinking.

"What are you thinking of Lukelly?" Luke didn't feel comfortable sharing his thoughts about his mother with a kid who'd never had a mother of his own, so he blurted out something about never having seen eagles in the wild before. Eukles wondered where else one would see eagles if not in the wild but realising that Luke was dependent on his eyes to see he raised them to where the great kings of the sky were gliding overhead. Luke was grateful for the sustained focus that his host gave him. They were indeed royal and majestic, lords of the heavens and terrors of the land. Their razor sharp talons brought grief to many a farmer whose stock they had ravaged with impunity. And that thought Luke was why I'll never see you in the wild. You'll be hunted to extinction because you kill the lambs which feed my kind. Luke imagined the valley below over which the eagles reigned. A motorway would carve through its floor with petrol stations like knots on the twisting thread of grey. People would settle at each end - hotels and factories, municipal dumps full of cheap Chinese plastic, generating stations with their chimney stacks and their sleepy plumes of steam soaring where the eagles once soared. Shopping cathedrals where people spent money they didn't have on things they didn't need. The price of progress. Luke snorted.

"Why the snort Lukelly?"

"Just having one of those snort thoughts that makes you think about something you never really thought about, and then when you start thinking about it you wish you never had. Do you know what I mean?"

"I do Lukelly. The brain is a funny thing, at times very disobedient." And both friends laughed at the idea of their misbehaving brains. "So what was this devilish thought?"

"I was thinking that you marvel at the concept of men flying in my world while I marvel at the sight of eagles doing what's natural to them but which they no longer do in my time. It seems for all our great advances we have lost a great deal. Strangely I find the whole thing very sad. I never really cared about stuff like that."   
But Luke realised that he had lost his solitary audience when he had reached the part about men flying. Eukles creative mind was busy strapping feathered wings to the muscular arms of men, who after flapping furiously began to glide and swoop in densely populated, congested skies where man and bird vied for space. Luke toyed with the idea of enlightening Eukles but once again the technological gulf between them obliged him to silent resignation. How could he explain something as massive as a metal temple with three hundred souls on board watching movies and scoffing food, flying smoothly for three thousand miles and then casually landing on a tarmac surface greater than any engineering project in all of this ancient world in a country not yet discovered where red men were still in the stone age. It was a maze inside a labyrinth. He gave up.

So Luke left Eukles with his equally fantastical and probably more credible vision of the future and took in the landscape before him which Eukles was now scanning once more for Persian nasties. But all that moved was the column of Plateans and their baggage train. Along the hill side occasional herds of deer, sheep and the ubiquitous goats sprang to the security of the high ground as the files of warriors began to encroach on their territorial limits. It was a stunningly beautiful panorama of nature's bounty at ease with itself with as yet no all conquering species. Luke felt the great privilege bestowed on him.

The sun was now in decline in the western sky and the shadows of the hills lengthened like great solar clocks spreading their first fingers of twilight across the trees, bushes, shrubs, meadows and rocks which had staked their own territorial claim on this rich and magical landscape. Eukles had exhausted his images of birdmen of the future and his focus had returned to the task in hand.The end of the valley was in sight and beyond it in the evening haze he glimpsed what he thought were patches of the great sea. He estimated the distance at less than ten miles. They could make Marathon with the help of the moon's light which again would be a friend and guide to the Greek cause.

"Maratonos Lukelly!" and Eukles pointed unnecessarily as Luke had read his thoughts. "Yes" replied Luke politely thinking that 'I know' would have been a touch insensitive. Eukles was clearly excited. "So what were you telling me about it back at Crito's before our conversation was cut short?"

Luke remembered that first conversation, the innocent face on the boney shoulders staring into the still watery mirror of the bronze basin. They had known each other for less than a day but Eukles seemed such easy, uninhibited company. Luke had, he thought and chuckled at the pun, grown attached to this fellah with whom he had so little in common and yet so much.

"Well Lukelly?" Eukles reminded his guest that he had an unfinished tale to tell.

"Look Eukles, my knowledge of history isn't great and although Marathon is in the future for you it's ancient history for me. But it's epic, it must be or I wouldn't have heard of it and the Greeks win it, and with it I remember my dad telling me the individualism of the West triumphs over the slavery of the East. In the future, in my time we call Greece the 'cradle of civilisation' because the Greek way, not that of Darius and his Persian lackeys," Luke's partisan commitment to the Greek cause made Eukles' chest heave with pride. "Because your way becomes our way. So I suppose if you, if we had lost at Marathon our way- the way shown by Crito, would have been crushed and eliminated by the nasty bad guys and the world would be a darker place."

"So the Gods are with us Lukelly."  
Luke stalled. In one sense the Greek way caused us to question everything including the Greek Gods who no doubt would receive thanks and offerings for the victory. Marathon and the triumph of the Greek way would in time dispatch those Gods to ridicule and oblivion. Ironic or what.

"Anyway" said Luke dodging the comment as he would dodge any reference to another's faith which he considered hocus pocus nonsense, "the battle has a story to it. At the end a runner is sent to Athens. He runs through the night to announce the Athenian victory to the sleeping city. Luke pulled himself up as he scratched about for the dusty files in his hard drive where the story lay forgotten.

"And?" said Eukles impatiently.

"And today" continued Luke but he was faltering, "em in my time in the future, there is a race to commemorate the event and it's called 'The Marathon'. It's perhaps the most famous race in the world."

Eukles wanted to say or utter something but the story had overwhelmed him and left him tongue tied. He walked in silence visualising the route from Marathon to Athens. It was reasonably kind, no crushing gradients, a track that has its share of ravines and obstacles but a good route for a race all the same.

"So you have races in your time Lukelly?"

"Oh yeah sport is big business. You'd be a hit."

"A hit?"

"An expression, never mind. With your talent you'd be appreciated by the money men and by the ladies. You'd get fortunes just for wearing the sponsor's clothes." Again Luke realised he'd strolled down a dead end and felt the confusion welling up in Eukles' head.

"Ah of course you know that I'm a runner" said Eukles feeling mildly embarrassed as he began to sense that Luke knew other things. "And you know about the race with Pheidippides?"

Luke hesitated aware of the pain that the mention of the name still caused. He felt the cocktail of insecurity, humiliation and wounded pride which lingered despite the fact that he had reached an accommodation with the episode and its villain. Luke recalled his father telling him how in life you stand with your tribe, that if someone hurts your buddy then that person is your enemy. Life and its choices are sometimes that simple and clear cut. Now seemed like one of those 'sometimes'.

"Pheidippides is a..." Every word that Luke had in his vocabulary seemed at this moment inadequate to the task of solidarity which he wanted to show. "My friend Eukles, my good friend Eukles, Pheidippides is my good friend's enemy and so he is my enemy too. It's sometimes that simple.

The plain statement silenced Eukles. After a brief moment of emotion which Luke feared might slide into one of toe curling, cringing embarrassment he softly said, "thank you Lukelly. That is a kind thing you said. A very kind thing."

Luke knew what this meant without having to hear it articulated by Eukles. He felt manly to have stood by his buddy. He had never spoken to another human being like this before. It felt good. It felt right and he asked himself why it was something that the world frowned upon. He wrinkled his brow as he tried to make sense of his world's suspicion of emotion, a suspicion which he, as a card carrying member of his emotionless world shared fully. And here he was, touched by the lonely isolation of his friend who craved the warmth that comes from the simple empathy of another human. Why can't we be warmer?

Eukles rested his frame on a table of rock that made an impromptu bench and started to unlace the sandal on his right foot where a stone had lodged itself and was stubbornly resisting the shaking that Eukles was doing to get rid of it. "Part of life's brawl," said Luke. "Now it's a stone in your shoe tomorrow it's an army of Persians. There's always something." Eukles smiled.

"It was uncanny when you said those words to Crito "continued Luke, "that life is a brawl. It's a favourite expression of my dad especially when I'm feeling sorry for myself. He'll say that the nettles sting more when you run away from them son."

"You like your father?"

"I assumed everyone did. I assumed all fathers were great big pains in the ass but when it comes to it they're there for you. You and Phaedo got a raw deal."

"Tell me about your father Lukelly."

"Well he cares a lot, too much I suppose. He is a fighter."

"A good man with a spear?"

"No Eukles we have more sophisticated weaponry than that. Besides I told you we don't do the war thing anymore. No he fights against those who don't have integrity, the lazy and the corrupt who screw the system. People like Demu who never worked a day in his life" Eukles smiled "or the corrupt Miltiades, or that servant with the scar who waited to see which way the wind blew before he chose sides. You were right to show him the door."

"Thanks Lukelly. Phaedo thinks I've made an enemy for life."

"That's what happens to those who have principles, they alienate those who haven't. That's why my dad thinks life is a brawl. Probably why you do too."

"And what does Lukelly think?"

"I think sometimes my dad would be better off if he cared less."

Eukles felt the same shock at this disrespectful judgement that Luke had felt when Eukles had given an honest assessment of his own father.

"I like your dad Lukelly. I think he is a good man. You're lucky to have a father who cares so much." Luke knew that some day he would appreciate his father but had often thought that it was in the nature of things for sons to find their dads irritating, creatures sent on earth to embarrass and mortify their offspring, which his dad did extremely well and regularly. Eukles shook out the stone from his sandal and refastened the laces. "This great brawl of the stone in the shoe is now done. Bring on the Persians."

The track they were following started to taper off down towards a gentle slope which was peppered with rocks that disputed with the grass and the wild flowers for the sun's heat and the cool drenchings that came with the might's mist. Their job as point guards spying out an enemy who failed to show was at an end. Eukles had shown his mettle to the men below and he now began to trot down the hill with the unused horn slapping against his thigh. The drop suddenly became sheer so he picked his way carefully over the tufts of a half grazed slope where the fresh droppings of goats attracted the last of the evening's flies. The column of soldiers was about a mile off when Eukles reached the top of a large rock that acted as the point where the hill morphed into the wider plain which was the valley floor. Beyond this open expanse of fields and parcels of orchards was a much smaller valley that swept down to the whispering waves of Marathon Bay.

Eukles pulled open the satchel of rations that Arimnestos had given him and which he had forgotten about thanks to the more than filling conversations with his friend from the future.

"Well Lukelly is there anything here that you don't care for?" Eukles laid out the food - bread, dried fruit and what Luke thought might be carrots only not so orange. It wasn't exactly a banquet but Luke was relieved to see no olives, sweaty cheese or lentils. "It's your stomach mate, fill it as you wish."

Eukles broke the bread, said a prayer of thanks, tossed a morsel over the rockface by way of an offering to the Gods and began to devour the rest. He spoke while he ate telling Luke how he had enjoyed their exchanges and how they must make time at the Athenian camp to continue them. But now with the sound of the soldiers' footfall becoming louder it signalled that their chats would be at an end. Otherwise Eukles might finish up being condemned by the priests and elders for being in touch with the underworld. Luke knew a similar fate would befall him in his own world where the white coats would cart him off to a nut house and a private padded cell. Sometimes the vocabulary changed but everything else stays the same. Every time has its circles of tyrants.

The soldiers filed past Eukles who sat cheekily on his rocky perch chewing bread with open mouth and flicking raisins in the air to catch on his tongue. He nodded to Philemon who returned the gesture inviting Eukles to jump down. Eukles tossed him the empty satchel and redundant horn which Philemon caught in his big mitt like a baseball player.

"You're a brave lad for going point. If the Persians were flooding the place you'd be the first to get it."

"If the Persians were here brave Philemon, it would mean that it's all over anyway."

Philemon pursed his lips and shook his head. "Shh we don't think like that and we don't speak like that." And he put a finger to his lips to underline the point. "The men are getting nervous. We don't need to stoke the fires of their fears do we?"

They walked together into the open plain that was the start of the wide valley that showed the way to their destination. At first there was an uncomfortable silence. Philemon was not like Crito. He was not a man of learning and had no understanding or care of what Eukles was now beginning to call 'higher thoughts'. The expanse of the plain with its uninterrupted views for miles around gave the men a feeling of ease that the enemy were not nearby. There was no escarpment harbouring a regiment of 'Immortals', no threat of a sudden attack from cavalry hiding in the cover of a dense copse. It was obvious that there wasn't a Persian from here to their camp at the sea.

"This is what the Persians would love. A vast open flatland like this where they could bring their numbers to bear and let loose their horsemen. Me and all the boys who know things," he dropped his voice a few decibels and threw his head back towards a knot of grizzled campaigners," we weren't looking forward to these two plains. So there's a big sense of relief that they're empty."

Eukles agreed but felt a bit of a phony for doing so. He hadn't viewed the terrain with any reluctance. He got the rationale behind Philemon's point but he knew that his understanding did not compare with the experience of the warrior band indicated by Philemon. They had tasted battle on wide open spaces like these, had cursed and blessed the different theatres of war offered by God and man. Eukles up till now had been in his element. With Marathon in sight he was beginning to feel out of his depth.

"If Caillimachus can lure the Persians to fight in a tight area, we'll have a chance. The valley at Marathon isn't that tight but it's better than a bitch like this where our small numbers would be gobbled up by their mobs." He spat a big dirty gob on the 'bitch' ground.

"But Datis will know that. He'll surely try to force the issue on ground favourable to his forces won't he?"

"Of course he will, but he's a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of thirst to quench, and he's an angry bollox of a king who wants victory yesterday. Caillimachus won't be outwitted by Datis. He'll find a way." Philemon had the certainty of a scientist.

The cranky sergeant came jogging up to Philemon, crankier because of the jog. He spoke respectfully to Philemon in whispers but the topic of their exchange was clearly eukles. "Aren't you the popular one? It seems the boss wants to see you again. You'd better follow this cranky bitch." The sergeant seemed none too pleased with this lapse in discipline but Philemon just slapped him on the shoulder with his meaty paw.

As Eukles trotted alongside the disgruntled sergeant who was muttering oaths about 'fucking officers' under his breath, Luke took in the altered state of the men. The column had lost its linear shape and spilled out into the plain feasting on the scattered fruit trees which weren't expecting such an onslaught. An army's appetite was such a destructive thing thought Luke as he saw the trees stripped in minutes of their ripening berries. Eukles soon found himself within earshot of Arimnestos who was shaking his head at the descent into anarchy of his troops now that the immediate threat of a Persian attack had been removed.

"Get the fucking men back into fucking line," he barked at a terrified junior officer who was learning the trade of war as an apprentice in Luke's world learns to lay blocks. Both were bullied by the master who cared little for their sensibilities. "You" he snapped to the panting sergeant, "is this a picnic. Tell Philemon to throw a few shapes into that." He pointed at the raggle taggle thread of fathers and sons who had briefly forgotten to be soldiers. The sergeant turned on his heels obeying with the unquestioning robotic obedience that is at the heart of those who take orders for their bread. What is needed in the smoke and confusion of battle mused Luke. Eukles was now alone and a little nervous as he faced the red faced, brow furrowed general.

"Ah Eukles, trying to put some shape on the boys. Don't want you Athenians thinking we're a band of uncouth brigands." Arimnestos was smiling and the mood change was welcome causing Eukles to be a little more at ease. Lover, warrior, Eukles didn't know which. Arimnestos was capable of sliding effortlessly from one persona to the other.

"Well done on point duty. Good man. I've one more mission and I really can't trust anyone else with it. But I know you're up for it. Caillimachus wouldn't trust a slacker or a coward." Eukles reddened slightly at the notion that he was so trusted by Caillimachus. But he showed no impulsive response to the flattery and remained silent, his eyes inviting the commander to speak.

"Oh you are a deep lad for one of so few years. What happened that made you distrust the world so much" and he exhaled a breath of hopelessness and pity. If you have an hour I'll tell you, said Luke to himself.

"Look my young friend; we're going to camp here at the edge of the valley tonight. It'll mean living off the land here for I imagine you starving Athenians have cleaned up whatever there might be at Marathon and we can start fresh for Marathon before dawn."

"But why?" said Luke suspiciously. "We are two maybe three hours from the bay."

"There'll be no battle tonight. Datis won't risk a night attack and Caillimachus is playing a waiting game. If we tramp up that valley unannounced the Athenians might think it a Persian encirclement and scatter. Armies are curious things. At one moment all straight lines and order and then. They can be broken like an earthen jar and once broken they cannot be fixed." He threw his eyes in the direction of his own force which Philemon was busy kicking back to some semblance. "I want you to run on ahead and tell Caillimachus that we will arrive exactly one hour after dawn. Only tell him. He will know how to use this intelligence of our miraculous advent to boost his men's morale. He's good at using this stuff and people believe him cause he doesn't lie but he can be a miser with the truth when it is needed to be rationed. A prediction that comes true can have a powerful effect on a soldier's belief. Men fight because they believe. When a man stops believing he runs away."

"The jar cracks."

"Exactly kid. Caillimachus chose a smart one."

This scheming was dishonest but it was also crafty. To engineer morale in such a way would be dishonest but it would be most effective nevertheless. It would be another piece in the complex mosaic that Caillimachus was building part of the overall strategy, one of the many tactics that had to be juggled. Eukles had already grasped that battles were a cocktail of ingredients. He had gathered this from the words of Phaedo as he sang the praises of his chief. Time, weather, terrain, clarity of orders, decisiveness of the officer, weapony, transport, rations, quality of the men, awareness of the enemy and belief in the cause. All these things and perhaps many others he had presently overlooked, were constantly demanding the attention of Caillimachus. Eukles understood that he had a part to play in the outcome and nodded to himself as he processed the information. Arimnestos took this to be an affirmative response. "So that's a yes my man. Caillimachus chooses his men well. But this must be a secret. If the men find out they'll feel they've been conned and that will lead to distrust. Do you fully grasp that point?" He narrowed his eyes to emphasise its importance.

Eukles grasped the point. It seemed murky to demand trust by being untrustworthy. A lie that would make men believe that you had truth on your side. Life was a brawl and now he was brawling with his conscience. A time to compromise. He remembered Phaedo's advice that fighting was for the savage dog that growls within men. An arena without rules where the winner stabbed the loser between the unprotected blades of his shoulders. Eukles nodded again but this time it had a weariness about it. Arimnestos was a man of the world who could persuade by lies and half truths the married beauties of Asia to surrender their beds to him. He knew from the look he saw in Eukles' face that he was new to bathing in the unclean waters no longer sterilised by the germ killing certainties of right and wrong. "It's how we do business lad. It means you're a man," he said in a soft sympathetic voice. "Here."

He pushed a flask of weak wine into Eukles' hands which accepted the gift without dissent like an obedient soldier. "If you start now you'll only have to cover the last few miles in darkness. Take this brute" and he pulled a wooden club from a nearby cart. It was about three feet long with a head like the bulb of an unopened flower, only instead of fragrant petals it was snarling with dark, twisted nails. "That valley can be a bitch for wolves. If a pack comes for you, smash the biggest bastard right here." He tapped his nose with his long manicured forefinger that was so unwarriorlike. "The rest will think the better of it and go in search of some lost sheep."

The image was mildly terrifying for Eukles. Last night had been his first night run and he had given little thought to the terrors of the road. Thanks to Arimnestos the drooling wolves were now all too real.

"And steer clear of the long grasses kid lest you disturb a nest of sleeping vipers. Hard to fight wolves with one of those sinking his teeth into your arse." And with that he laughed and rubbed his rump as if recalling an incident where he himself had problems concentrating thanks to an asp hanging onto his rear end. All the same it was not what Eukles needed to hear as the first owls were beginning to hoot their haunting music while the wood pigeons cooed their songs of love, and Arimnestos found himself laughing alone.

"Quite," said the older man gradually realising his insensitivity. "Anyway you'll be fine. Sister moon will light your path and kiss the earth beneath your feet. On your way kid." And he slapped Eukles on the right shoulder. "On your way, and don't make a balls of it. No pressure, but if you do fuck up we'll lose the battle and the virgins of Attica will be fodder for horny Persians for whom they'll have to open their legs and they'll curse the name of Eukles forever." He gave a cheeky wink before returning to the junior officer who was nervously waiting further orders.

Eukles drained the flask and spat out the last mouthful with its sandy sediment. He handed it to the slave who guarded a cart of rations from which Eukles assumed the flask had come in the first place. Then he turned club in hand and began to run towards Marathon. He was ignored by the stream of faces rolling out their gear under the shade of the trees which they had emptied of food. Fires were being lit and a designated latrine was flowing with the urine of a thousand bladders. He caught sight of Crito in the distance, a bunch of olives in his hand and a genuine smile on his olive skinned face. He tossed the fruit to Eukles as he passed and the two grinned conspiratorially. Eukles wondered what Crito would make of his dishonest mission. He resolved to talk the matter over at great length with Crito as his guest in his own dining room, which would have its own parcels of words from those who saw into the life of things scrawled on the wall.

Ten miles away at Marathon, Nepho finished gluing feathers to his last arrow. He plucked a freshly strung bow which vibrated with a perfect pitch, a musical frequency that was sweet to his archer's ear. He then retired to the camp fire on the stony beach where men from his country were singing a song about the sorrow of lovers torn apart by Darius' war.

Luke was still mulling over the list of ingredients in a battle plan as mentally listed moments earlier by Eukles. Both of them were reminded of Phaedo's speech the day before. It seemed so long ago since they had sat under Miltiades' orange tree while the city collapsed into panic around them as the unperturbed Phaedo casually predicted it would. Both remembered Phaedo precisely carving the orange into three equal parts and how he had democratically shared it. Although present for this sacrament of brotherhood, Luke was aware that he was not part of that special trinity. He envied Eukles what he had found and yet he was happy for him that he had found it. And now Eukles would brave the loneliness of the dark valley with its hungry wolves and venomous snakes snoozing underfoot, to stand shoulder to shoulder with his friends and face an enemy greater than all the wolves and vipers of Greece. Luke partly wondered why he didn't even think about deserting. No one would notice. He could invent any bullshit story. There were no witnesses. But such a course of apostasy was as alien to Eukles as foul language was to Luke's Granny. And strangely Luke envied Eukles his decency and honour and wondered with a heavy sadness if his world with its surfeit of selfish cynicism had robbed him of both of those manly virtues.

The valley plain opened out before them flat and fertile, rich with grasses and trees that dotted its floor like nomads. A track of stone and moss worn thin by travellers and shepherds and by their herds cut its way, twisting around a stand of ancient oaks or a stubborn lump of rock orphaned from its parent which sulked high on the hillside for her lost child. In the centre a marsh was begining to steam in the sultry evening heat. This was the fringe of Attica the Athenian province whose farms fed the citizens. It was kinder and more civilised than the rougher, sparser uplands of Boetia which the Plateans called home but it was still a place that blistered the palms and bent the backs of those who farmed and tried each year to tame its reluctant soil.

Luke noticed that Eukles was pushing himself, his stride harder than the previous night. He was, it appeared trying to complete as much of the trek before the onset of darkness and its terrors. The club in his hand was a nuisance which he thought to throw away but which he nevertheless continued to grip tightly. The bald grey stone of the hill sides was turning bronze as it felt the last drenching warmth of the dying sun. Luke remembered the spectacular ball of gold last night and how quickly it had set as they tripped over the stoney descent to Platea. There seemed to be little or no twilight in this country. Above them the swallows darted and swooped gulping the last flies which lazed with a death wish in the evening air. Soon they too would disappear with the sun's chariot leaving the sky to the bats. Eukles shivered.

"You're not alone my friend," said Luke reading his thoughts and feeling the need to throw out a helpful comment. He understood his host's fear, and feeling impervious to the terrors himself knew that conversation would act as a distraction and prevent his friend being consumed by panic.

"I don't see anyone else around. Except perhaps the vipers and wolves Arimnestos warned about. What are you going to do to them Lukelly?" The tone was edgy and sarcastic. He closed his fingers tighter on the club.

They neared the gnarled foothill of the valley and the sun suddenly died in the west as the rock's great shadow strangled its last light giving rays. The moon was a poor compensation, lending the scene a ghostliness which fired Eukles' imagination with terrifying images of the bogeymen of Greek myths. Gorgons, dragons, harpies, maenads and hybrids rustled in the undergrowth of Eukles' mind, and birds with the faces of hook nosed witches haunted the sky where angry clouds rolled threateningly across the moon's pale face. Eukles' heart raced and Luke recognised the madness that comes with fear.

"Tell me one of your prayers Lukelly" said Eukles pleadingly as the thick grasses began to wash his sandalled feet. "Ask your Gods to guide me."

Luke had never been one for religion. He politely did the religion thing for his parents' sake seeing it as a necessary chore, akin to visiting boring aunts and uncles and sitting there in silence as they bored you the way the priest did. The fairy stories of Christmas and Easter were just that, kids' tales that you grew out of. His father's prayers at meal times with their humble and generous gratitude for the food and the hands that made the food occasionally touched him but the sensation was all too brief. God and all the God stuff was so last century, as meaningless as the subject he had to study at school which was as meaningless as most of the other subjects. He couldn't remember the last time he prayed.

"Please Lukelly a prayer" demanded Eukles, "to banish all these demons."

Luke didn't think it was appropriate to inform this kid with his highly charged supernatural beliefs that were so central to his world view, that Zeus and Poseidon and the rest of the club were just creations of the ignorant and that in time they and their bogeymen would be vanquished by reason and electricity. But his friend was desperate and had asked for a prayer as a thirsty man begs for water.  
"My world has only one God."

He immediately felt like a phoney peddling fake designer goods to gullible tourists but he also felt Eukles' confusion. This was good as it acted as the distraction that Luke sought, the slap in the face that the delirious man needs.

"Only one God! And what is his name?"

"Well he's called God" said Luke a little embarrassed that his world's God didn't have a grander name. He could feel Eukles' disappointment and suddenly found himself blurting out that he had a son called Jesus who was crucified.

"What kind of God is that ?" said Eukles getting distressed, clearly feeling that if he couldn't protect his own son what chance had we got with the wolves and snakes closing in.

"The priests say that he died for us so that we could be saved. Like a warrior giving his life to save the army." Luke reddened as he tried to explain something he had long since ceased to believe in.

"Yes that's good, very good. I like your God Lukelly," replied Eukles after some consideration. Thankfully the conversation had also brought him from the brink of panic. "Tell me how you pray to him."  
Luke was tempted to tell Eukles the truth but he was aware that a world without Gods was more alien than a world in which men could fly or women be considered equal. Briefly he thought that the two were linked.

"We have a prayer called the Lord's Prayer. Everyone knows it."

"Go on then."

They plunged into the night, Eukles' feet lightly touching the silver grasses as the cotton wool 'will o' the wisp' settled like a floating carpet on the valley's marsh.

"Our father" said Luke tentatively, pausing as a man pauses who steps into a pool of dark water whose depths he does not know.

"Beautiful. Your God is a father, a good loving father as we Lukelly will be good loving fathers to our sons some day."  
"Who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name."

"Yes" interrupted Eukles, "we must honour the Gods. Luke wanted to shout out that this was a complete fraud and that no one had honoured the Greek Gods for centuries, and that only frightened old ladies honoured the Gods now. But he fed Eukles the food he needed as a man wastes his water on a dying man.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

"I don't get that bit Lukelly. What is his kingdom like?"

"It's supposed to be one of love and peace and forgiveness. He'd love your Persians and Miltiades."

"We'll come back to that bit. I can't see it working. Go on."

Luke didn't get it either and was happy to move on. It was like one of those unexamined poems that one learns because one has to. The poem and the secrets it hides is never considered.

"Give us this day our daily bread."

"A good God," exclaimed Eukles "a generous God who feeds his people. So there is bread for everyone in your time Lukelly?" Luke read the image in Eukles head of a bread dispensing bearded ancient. He was stumped and staggered, stuttering towards an explanation.

"Well He's a very remote God," he replied thinking something less godly and he doesn't exactly deliver bread like a baker. But no one lacks food in my country but there is famine elsewhere. Terrible hunger."

"Where they have another God, I suspect who is not so generous and powerful as yours," said Eukles, simplistically believing that Luke would be gratified with this elevation of his God over those of his neighbours.

"Forgive us our trespasses," continued Luke increasingly uncomfortable, like a salesman selling a defunct product from last year's range to an affable but gullible mug.

"What are trespasses?"

"You know when we do bad things."

"Like what?"

"Robbing, lying, bad mouthing others, cheating in a race. If you're really bad, murder and the other stuff." Luke for some reason saw Phaedo and co. as being a bunch of serious trespassers.

Eukles listened to the impromptu list of sins wondering how his gods of thievery and lying would feel. "So if you do these bad things what happens?"

Luke was at breaking point. "You don't make it into heaven. You go to a place of punishment called Hell which is full of screaming demons set to torment those who have lived evil lives."

"I like this God. He's a good, strong sense of justice."

Once again Luke could read Eukles' thoughts and saw his dream of Persians tormented in a dark boiling ocean of misery. In along with them were a few choice deserving Greeks, personally selected -Phedippides, uncle and a some anonymous faces. Teetering on the brink awaiting judgement was Miltiades.

"Look," said Luke emphatically, "you should know mate that there are, is, oh whatever, no gods. We are alone Eukles. In this cold, frozen, lifeless universe we are alone and we make our own tomorrows. Nobody up in the cloudy mountains throws us a bone or digs a hole for us to fall into. We're masters of our own fate. The gods are just a convenient excuse to explain our own cowardice and our own shortcomings and the bad luck that we get every day."

Eukles stopped abruptly as Luke was speaking and put his hands over his ears to prevent them withering from such sacrilege and blasphemy. In doing so he dropped the club which landed on his right foot causing him to scream out an expletive that sent an owl scurrying into the night sky. The peace of the night was broken for the owl, fortunately the skin of Eukles foot wasn't.

"Lukelly" began Eukles in a slow firm tone. "I order you to leave now lest the gods visit their wrath on me."

Luke was about to mock him for using the word 'wrath', and demonstrate that his gods were illusions by inviting them to bring it on, but a deep residue of Christian pity touched him. He realised how deeply offensive his outburst had been, like playing Elvis in a mosque at Friday prayers. It was wrong to steal faith and belief from another just because he had none of his own. Without his gods Eukles' life was purposeless and futile. They were the rudder that steered the ship through the turbulent waters of this incomprehensible world. And perhaps Luke concluded with a discomforting shudder, a rudder is what he was lacking in his own rudderless life.

"I'm sorry" said Luke at length breaking the silence which Eukles' foul word had provoked amongst the tiny creatures all around. They knew to give a wide berth to an angry human. "You know I can't leave." Luke's voice was soft and apologetic." Besides the gods put me here for a reason." Luke felt impressed at the spontaneous and convincing logic of his last sentence. "The gods have put me here my friend and until the gods release me you're stuck with me."

Eukles juggled the argument and its implications in his mind, then saying nothing, picked up the club and like a sulking, resentful puppy began jogging again. Luke was conscious of his friend's need to thaw and so opted for silence himself.

The dew soaked grasses slithered like serpents on his exposed feet and every step frightened Eukles as each parcel of ground brought its own dark mystery that awaited each footfall. He gave a wide sweep to any burst of vegetation or rock crops where wolves might be lying in ambush. The moon's silver light was a guide but it turned everything an ash grey, the colour of a corpse's flesh before the maggots burst forth and get to work. In his mind all was a landscape of hidden ghosts and phantoms.

The valley itself was about seven miles long and was for the most part meadow and marsh. But a little over half way an untamed parabola of pine trees spilled down from the rocky hillside and marched like an army of disordered stragglers across the valley floor. This wood was a belly, pregnant and ready to burst with fear.

Eukles had seen the stand of pines from the moment he had left the security of the plain with its protective rearguard of Plateans. He missed and craved the security that comes with being among ones own species. For the first few miles the real or imagined terrors of the mercury grasses had relegated the forest down the pecking order of fear, but now it reared up in front of him like a great dust storm of horror. He stopped as the grasses suddenly surrendered to a carpet of tinder dry cones and needles. Beyond in the mass of twisted wooden limbs could be heard the creaking branches as the trees cooled in the evening and seemed to warn of a boy's approach. A wind blew up and the creaking turned to a giggle as the word spread that the boy was alone. Luke felt the grip on the club tighten as his eyes took in the labyrinth of wood and shadow.

The poor fertility of the soil meant that the trees were relatively widely spaced with sizeable irregular gaps. In itself the forest presented no great physical obstacle to the nimble footed Eukles. In fact the grassless ground would be a relief. But Eukles mind trembled with fantastic notions of hybrid creatures whose names were invoked to silence and discipline him as a child. Supernatural stories told by chancers whose realities came to life when the sun died and her motherly light no longer danced and kissed the earth. Then the irrational darkness would poison men's minds like a sweating dream. The forest was a zoo for all the unleashed demons of Greek religion and myth. Maenads and gorgons and harpies hissed and rattled behind trunks or squatted in the bowls and canopies of the great oaks that towered higher than the pines. Treacherous satyrs and moody, embittered, man hating nymphs flitted from copse to shadow. It was a mad theatre of bogeymen.

Luke realised that this was how the night was for the ignorant before science and electric light evaporated these self-made nightmares just as the sun dispersed the mysteries blanketed in the morning mist. He pictured medieval peasants, their skin pock marked with the scars of curable diseases, their minds crippled by threats of devils and Satan with his cloven hoof and pointed tail, his bat wings and his blood red face its eyes ablaze with the fires of hell, and his long, licking serpent tongue thirsting for the souls of those foolish enough to embrace the night.

"There's nothing there mate. Only trees in the moonlight and a wind that blows because winds blow. Nothing else," said Luke in his most reassuring voice. "The things you're haunted by aren't there. Your gods will allow you pass. They're on the side of the Greeks remember. Trust them and trust your feet and trust your club."

"I'm afraid Lukelly."

"I know you are. I can feel your fear. But I'm not. Trust me on this. We have no more than thirty minutes running to the Athenian camp- the time it takes to eat with Crito. In that time we'll be drinking a cup of wine with Phaedo and Daemon and Caillimachus. Think on that."

Again Eukles gripped the club but it slipped in his sweating palms and his feet were as immovable as the rooted trees. Luke remembered a bungee jump he had done and the terror as he stood on the precipice. That step into the abyss was so difficult despite everything his logical mind told him. He had needed a push to overcome his irrational fears. Luke now needed to push Eukles.

Luke's grandfather had known greater demons than the imaginary ones that lurked in the deathly still forest. He had fought against life's bad deal; unimaginable poverty, an alcoholic father and a brutal unloving mother. Obstacles were set against him making his mark in this life, and despite having no education he had made it to a level of comfort for all his family. He had had to bite his lip in the company of the condescending, patronising legions of those who had been born to a life of privilege with a sense of entitlement and without any notion of want. Life was a brawl, everyday had its scraps and scrapes, its bloody noses and its kicks in the bollox. For his grandfather there was never the luxury of self pity, no dig out from the golden circle of entitled barons who ran the world for their own selfish self perpetuation. Grandfather had never complained. And he had passed his stoic manly philosophy on to Luke's father. It was a no nonsense step up to the plate and suck it up edition of life's book in which you kick, bite, box, spit and snarl your way through the jungles. And you never show fear and you never show weakness. Never.

"My grandfather used to recite a poem" said Luke softly. "My father passed it on to me. It's about being a man in a world that is always trying to beat you down and make you compromise and give up. We are men Eukles. Walk with me through this wood as daemon and Phaedo would walk, and we will grow in these moments and be men together with a will like Caillimachus', stronger than the iron in any spear. And our courage will scatter all our fears and the phantoms in our heads will turn to smoke."

"Tell me this poem Lukelly." It was the request of a scared boy who wanted to be a brave man.

"Walk first into the wood." Luke could feel the strong reluctance that comes with fear and ignorance. But Eukles walked.

"If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for doubting too."

Luke had often mumbled these words to himself sniffing at their meaning as minor insignificant crises unfolded in his life. But now he gave Kipling's lines the voice and cadence they deserved slowly finding in his speech their wisdom as he had heard it when his grandfather had spoken these lines years before. They had built an empire grand dad had said, forced men to push themselves to their limits and find something beyond the boundaries and frontiers that fear had told them mockingly they could never cross.

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve their turn long after they have gone."

He recognised now what his own father had strived for in that unattainable measure of love and firmness. The words and their poetic music soothed Eukles' fears and the confident rhythms of Luke's voice married to the natural rise and fall of the lines fired his paralysed limbs. He began to jog slipping past the slalom posts of trees and saplings. Luke heard himself speak and thought about his grandfather from whom he had known only kindness. 'Yes' he thought as Eukles' body began to shed its paralysis of fear and surge across all the obstacles real and imagined. 'Life is a brawl, battle after battle until finally we lie down for the good death knowing that we have fought the good fight.' And as he spoke each line generous tears welled up in his and Eukles' eyes.

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run

Yours is the world and everything that's in it and which is more

You'll be a man my son."

"We are men Lukelly." Eukles roared the words into the night and, exhilarated with his new found knowledge, he flung the club into the hot darkness as a newly freed slave would fling his broken chains to oblivion. The club sailed into the black void between the trees whistling briefly until it embedded itself with a deadening thud in some unsuspecting, sleeping oak. It had encumbered him and now liberated from its clumsiness he sprung forward like a sprinter from his blocks gliding and turning easily through the zigzags that took him round the trees that no longer harboured ghouls and goblins. He felt the burst of adrenalin, his own unstoppable power and the strength in his muscular legs, his heart roaring in the cage of his chest, his eyes processing all the necessary information to keep him clear of the ambush of thicket and branch. Billions of electrical messages fizzed up and down his spinal chord ordering the necessary minor adjustments that allowed the movement of muscle, ligament, tendon and joint. Luke was overwhelmed by the thrill and release of it all. Like a roller coaster ride in which every nut and bolt and washer must be perfect.

Eukles' feet glided easily over the dry needles and had there been any monsters from the world of the gods it is doubtful they would have caught him. He revelled in the challenges of the forest, of the occasional outstretched branch which vainly tried to rip at his face or scratch the white of his eye. He relished the battle between his athletic wits and speed of reaction and the snagging roots of the pines which vainly sought to trip him up. This was running, pure distilled athleticism, focus and balance and discipline and all that was not needed was obliterated. This was human perfection.

After what felt like seconds but what was really minutes, exhaustion started to force Eukles to slow to a more rhythmic pace. The trees and thickets ceased to be blurs of silver and black and the world began to encroach on the runner who was no longer wrapped up in his singular pursuit. But the demons had gone and would not reappear. Eukles made his way purposefully through what was left of the wood keeping the moon to his right shoulder in order not to lose his way and end up running circles in the maze of trees.

"Thank you Lukelly" he whispered gradually recovering his breath until he finally reached the level of comfortable speech. "Thank you."

"Likewise," answered Luke knowing that the crisis was over. "That was some piece of running mate. I'd bet you'd beat all comers at the Olympics with that performance."

Eukles was mildly confused at Luke's notion of the Olympics and so the latter explained as best he could the various events, the starting gun, the split second timing and the records, while Eukles gulped then drank then sipped the oxygen of life as his system started to stabilise itself.

"And these times.Tell me about them."

"Let me give you an example. My father was fast in his day but time brings its rust to the old joints." Both had a fleeting image of the old timer Crastinus struggling to keep up and finally yielding to the inevitable.

"When he was twenty he could run 100metres- big steps- in twelve seconds."

"How long is one of these seconds?" asked Eukles intrigued.

"If I say one thousand two thousand and so on each of these is a second" replied Luke by way of an imperfect explanation. "Now, I'll never get to run against my dad aged twenty but I can try to beat his time over the same distance."

It took Eukles a few of these strange seconds to grasp Luke's idea but eventually the drachma dropped. "And have you beaten your father's time?"

"Not yet. But I will and he knows it" said Luke with a hint of pride and a smile as he recalled the banter that passed between him and his dad on the subject. "Part of me thinks the old man wants me to win and another part thinks he'd be deflated if I wiped the floor with his time."

Eukles got the point despite the language. "I would like to race you and your 'old man' as you so irreverently call your father."

"That would be cool." The idea of a race between men separated by two thousand years seemed exactly that. 'Cool'.

"We will do it then," said Eukles assertively, "after we have won our famous victory at Marathon."

The word had a stilling effect as both remembered that a few miles ahead were camps with tens of thousands of men sharpening their weapons of death. With these thoughts and their accompanying ghosts swirling in their heads Eukles felt a pinch of something in his nose and flared his nostrils and sniffed the air as if to sharpen his sensory data collection.

"The sea, Lukelly, the sea." he gulped in the mix of salt and dead weed that hangs around the shorelines of the world and that carried itself inland on the unpolluted air. The forest had begun to thin as clumps of meadow grass fought with salient trees for the land which was now neither woodland nor field. Soon they were in the open once more with the moon where it should be and the smell of the bay on their skin. The land was flat and kind to the runner's feet interrupted only by an occasional oak whose size had prevented its destruction by fuel hungry shepherds with pathetically small axes. They would wait until the storms had done the heavy work for them and toppled the monsters to something more cuttable.

Eukles stopped by one of these solitary life giving oaks whose limbs sheltered shepherd and sheep alike from the burning summer sun. But both sheep and shepherd had scattered when the Persian ships had beached themselves.

His mouth was dry and Luke recognised the beginnings of exhaustion and dehydration.The rough uneven bark pressed against his skin and left its fingerprint on Eukles exposed back. He wiped sweat from his forehead and eyes and tried to steady himself with deep rhythmic breaths. The valley had about a mile and a half left before it surrendered without complaint to the sand and shingle and waves of the great sea. The sea in turn seemed asleep, a blanket of moonlight unfurled on its waters. To the left was one set of fires, great yellow beacons whose red core glowed menacingly even at this distance. To the right about a mile from these were much smaller fires like candles on a wooded slope that hugged the foot of a towering dark hill behind. Between these two great gatherings of men was an empty no man's land of blackness.

"Maratonos Lukelly. The small fires are our camp in the wood sacred to Heracles who will guide us to victory."

Luke thought the Persian side looked like the foundries of Hell but given what had just passed he wasn't going to share that thought with Eukles. The flames leaped skyward dancing to their deaths in the darkness in time to the beat of the Persian drums which were pounding cockily into the Greek night. Everything was an invasion now thought Luke, even the music.

"We should be careful from here on in mate," said Luke beginning to feel scared for the first time since he had seen the twin's naked body dangling in front of his eyes in the gymnasium. This feels like cowboy country and even your own people might be a bit trigger happy."

"Trigger happy?" answered Eukles.

"Likely to kill you by accident," explained Luke remarking privately with a measure of pride and surprise at how mature and wise he was becoming. These days had been a crucible of growth. "Besides we can't be sure if it is the Greek camp."

"I reckon ten minutes to the Greek camp." Eukles would have none of Luke's disbelief and emphasised the final words but Luke knew that he too was uncertain. "We'll jog carefully to that lump of rock and pick our way slowly until we reach the sentries. What do you think?"

"Sounds good if what you say is true but you'll have to do the jogging and picking."

Together they picked and jogged their way and the fragrance of the ocean soon became masked by the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat from a hundred small fires which hung in the still air. Luke thought, irreverently, that Heracles wasn't going to take too kindly to the destruction of his sacred forest and let out a mild chuckle. "Shh" commanded Eukles. They were close now. Eukles tip toed his way over the ground with its dry twigs waiting to crack and shatter the stillness. He was like a thief on a tiled roof focusing each toe with precision. The smell of the camp now mingled with the sounds of men talking, incoherent babble punctured by an exploding spark from a cranky log complaining about its death on the fire. As they got closer Eukles tuned his ears like radar. Again it was all mumble until another spark exploded and one man clearly scorched by the spark burst out in agony. Eukles was relieved to hear his own language spoken, a rude word bellowed into the sky but an Athenian rude word. The Athenians had made it. He hadn't missed the battle.

The hand that slipped silently over his mouth also clasped his nose cutting off his air supply and throwing him into a panic. His eyes began to water as he choked and grappled with the strong arm that gripped him tightly and was sending him to Hades. Luke too panicked, feeling the lights go out, a feeling exactly like the one he had experienced when he had been transported across time's dimensions from that comfortable seat in the Adventure Shop. Through bleary, water filled eyes he saw before him a dagger about six inches away, the hilt a piece of soiled wood connected by lines of twine topped by a blade of rough black iron gleaming silver at the edge. Was this how it was going to end? Stars fizzed about his head. He heard through the chaos an order to be silent and then as he was about to pass out he was twisted backwards.

The hand that had threatened to kill him gently released its grip and he gulped the air spluttering like an old man who smoked forty a day. His attacker was still lisping the same words "Sh, sh, sh."

Eukles opened his eyes and there standing above him was the tongueless Spartan Daemon. He had just enough time to register the face before he fainted. In the darkness where he now found himself Luke could feel the strong hand of Daemon pushing back Eukles' hair from his forehead and cupping his head so that he could lift him up. He heard a cork popped and then cool liquid started to trickle onto his lips and into his throat. Eukles coughed at the invasion and the coughing sent a shudder through his exhausted body that caused him to contort like a man who's just been hit with a million volts. "Sh, sh, sh, " came the soft words of the mute Daemon. Eukles opened his eyes and saw the kindly face of his Spartan brother. Both men smiled.

Daemon gestured his apology. Despite his loss of speech so many years ago Daemon had failed to become a good actor. But Eukles understood his hamfisted efforts at sign language. "You thought I was a Persian spy?"

Daemon nodded eagerly and offered more wine which was accepted. He then held out his hand, without the knife this time, and pulled up his young friend in one easy tug. Luke remembered how Eukles had bristled when he was lifted along with the furniture that first night in the house of Cailimachus. So much can change so quickly. There is a generosity in receiving as there is in giving.

Eukles was still shaking, his body spent and riddled with the chemicals that burst upon us when we are on the brink. Feeling his host's queasiness and given the presence of Daemon Luke realised that all communication at least all two way communication was suspended. Without any distraction and secure in the presence of Daemon, a new idea started to take hold of Luke and it was frightening.That feeling of almost being transported back across time that had come as they had wrestled with asphixiation at the hands of Daemon made him think. Is that, Luke wondered how it will happen? Will he return to his own time and world, to his heart broken parents and his less distressed brothers when Eukles dies? They were after all in a war zone where insurance companies wouldn't be selling premiums at cut rates. Would that be the shock or jolt that would send him into that tailspin and sling shot him back across the centuries to Dingle? Must his friend die in order that he return?

Luke fumbled for a more attractive alternative even some fiction that he could buy into. He had arrived with a thud into the middle of a fight, a numbing stinger blow which caused temporary paralysis to his shoulder. But no one had died, at least not upon his arrival. Yes the man who had delivered the blow to his shoulder was now feeding the maggots in some Athenian sewer. He shuddered at the image, then pulled himself back from this unnecessary distraction. Perhaps another bang, another non fatal scrap, or a fall or a blow to the head would be enough. Tweety birds and stars but not the ferryman and the Styx. The idea was momentarily uplifting. But deep within him he had a feeling that this bay with its calm waters washed by a poetry moon was also a place marked for death.
Chapter 11

In spite of the darkness and the threat at every step of Persian cut throats, Eukles felt as safe as a baby beside Daemon. The silence suited the Spartan, it was his medium and he walked through the night aware of every possible point of ambush. If there were any Persians lurking for a cheap scalp they knew better than to bother these two. Terrified farmers across the valley offered more straightforward prey.

Soon they came to the outermost sentries who were perched like hawks behind a hastily thrown up wall of thorn, thicket and scrub. Bowls of flame were spaced at intervals and threw flickering light which showed the handiwork of the advance guard who had made the approaches to the Athenian camp unkind to cavalry. Brush and irregular logs had been dragged into the plain robbing the land of its clear uninterrupted sweep. No horse would be hoofing it over this. Cailimachus' hand already at work transforming the ground to neutralise the enemy's strengths.

Behind the stockade of thorns and branches was the Greek camp sprawling uphill into the forested hillside sacred to the muscular and fictional Heracles, the superhero of the ancients who could save their world. No different to Batman and Spiderman or Buddha thought Luke. The world is always looking for a saviour.

Heracles temple was a disappointment. It was a mix of rough barked oaks, spiky pines and fragrant eucalyptus with their peeling skins and tinder dry leaves. Where the branches of the bigger trees were generous, light was gobbled up by spots of wild flowers and aromatic splashes of wilder herbs all battling to live at the expense of the shrub that showed weakness. Life's eternal battle for light and the life giving power of the sun. Men fought men and plants fought plants. But by now these fragile blooms had nearly all been crushed by the feet of ten thousand men.

The Greeks had stationed themselves in collectives around camp fires colonising the hillside just as once the trees had done. Each fire was a parish and as they passed by one then another Luke thought it was a good camp full of ultimately decent men who dutifully took up the burden of the fight. They were all afraid but none were for running. Would I have run or the lads at school or their parents who were so unwarlike. Would his dad have run? Luke wondered.

Eukles considered the camp's strategic location. It gave a good field of vision and arrow shot to the wide valley floor and plain and anything that might try to cross it. In front it was protected from Persian assault by the hastily thrown up barricade and the forest itself negated the advantages of the Persian cavalry who would be ravaged by the barrier of trees. There was an obvious abundance of firewood for cooking and for morale fires, and a spring of sweet water tumbled from high up before it was swallowed mysteriously into the earth's bowels.

"The Gods laugh at us" bellowed a voice which Eukles quickly recognised as belonging to Phaedo whose bear like mitts grabbed him in a crushing embrace. He smelled of wine and sweat and Luke part blamed the exuberant manhandling hug on the former although he knew that the eve of battle must inevitably transform a man's emotions as powerfully as any alcohol. Eukles beamed at the warmth offered. He belonged here.

"Why are the Gods laughing?" he asked.

"To send a snot nosed posh boy like you to a place like this and to guard you safely on the road. I was thinking I'd have to rescue you from some Persian galley on its way to the flooded slave markets of Lydia. I hear that girls like you would fetch a great price from those Lydian faggots. They'd pay handsomely for a cutie like you." Luke with his twenty first century sensibilities was shocked by the tasteless comment but everyone else laughed and so did the cutie Eukles. Phaedo finished the affair off by slapping Eukles on the back almost snapping his spine under the shoulder. Drink and fear, judged Luke feeling his friend's pain at the boisterous treatment.

Pretending not to be winded badly Eukles allowed himself to be led to the fire where a bird resembling a chicken was being spitted to the point of cinders. A carbonised wing was plucked from the carcass and offered with a cup of wine and a rough crust of bread. Phaedo then sat on an upturned log and Daemon having helped himself to the other wing and the dregs of the wine flask sat beside him.

"So my friend you have a tale to tell. Where are the Plateans? They'd better be with you. Rumour has it that the Spartans won't be coming for days thanks to one of their usual religious rituals. "Daemon lowered his face in shame. Is Arimnestos on his way? You know I saved that woman's life once."

"Let me see," said Eukles still feeling the effects of Phaedo's slap. He took a swig of the liquor and wiped his beardless chin as he had seen bearded ones wipe. "Did you prevent him from marrying a Carian queen whose husband would have killed you?"

Daemon burst into a guffaw while Phaedo looked quizzically at his young colleague. "No it was a Syrian fish wife. He was drunk and she smelled of fish and being drunk - very drunk-he was about to marry her in the presence of a Syrian high priest who he was cursing at the time. Superstitious boys those Syrians. They don't take kindly to blasphemy. He married the fish wife and I sorted out the priest's bodyguard. I saved his life not his soul. That's well past redemption. What's he been telling you?"

Eukles was about to answer something about stories and lies but he just shook his head and laughed and finished off his cup.

"Well I'll see to him. So the kitten has grown up these two days. Become a clever cat have we, with sharp claws and a sharp cunning wit? Perhaps when he gets to shove his spear into a sack of Persian guts and gets a taste of Persian blood we'll hear the cat roar like a lion, hey?"

Luke recoiled from the casual mention of another man's guts and blood and he felt Eukles' humour briefly turn as for some reason he remembered the lion skin on Cailimachus' wall. Then suddenly, irrationally, he began to glow in the warm bath of the glory that could be won here. Stories to tell his sons not yet born and their sons. It was a glow that was reflected in the irrepressible ear to ear smile which provoked a wink from Daemon who no doubt had enough stories to tell a hundred sons. Sadly Luke thought, it seemed he would never have sons to tell these stories to with his imperfect signs and grunts.

The high emotion lingered but an embarrassing silence crept into the open hearth where the three men sat. Eukles knowing the void needed filling took it upon himself, feeling his own maturity beginning to leaf like a sapling in spring.

He moved closer to the two men who bent their ears in response and the moment took on the air of a conspiracy. "I have a message from Arimnestos for Cailimachus' ears only. Is the general here?" His voice was low, his words precise.

Phaedo nodded, the whisper and its content sobered his vitality. "Come on kid. Follow me." This was work and Phaedo's clownish carry on quickly vanished. He was now a soldier. He rose and Eukles rose too. They strode up the hill towards the place where Cailimachus had struck his solitary camp. With each stride they passed the fires of grizzled men as hard faced and hard bodied as Phaedo. There was a coldness about this part of the camp despite the sultry evening heat. In one sector the men looked stonily as Phaedo passed and Eukles was aware of the absence of the usual flippant exchanges and manly banter. These Athenians were clearly no friends of Phaedo. One burly thuggish looking man detached himself from half dozen others who were slumped by a tree and made an unsavoury remark about Eukles' relationship with Phaedo. Phaedo stopped.

The thug carved a sliver of almost blood raw meat from a chunk in his left hand. The knife in his right fist was long and pointed and waved like a theatrical prop for effect. Eukles froze. These were hard men with some grudge against Phaedo. Whatever it was Luke felt the unstoppable force was about to say hello to the immovable object. The faces of the two men stared at each other, the fire beside them twisting and contorting their skin with its yellow and black shadows. Without taking his eyes off the thug Phaedo addressed the man who was leaning casually against the tree and who Luke took to be the leader of the group.

"Your man should watch his tongue."

The leader just shrugged his shoulders. "Hegestratus is master of his own words Phaedo. I give him no direction." Hegestratus, the thug, just grinned and then belched. Luke hoped that there would be no blood. But he knew there would have to be.There was a stillness and in the silence Eukles could hear his own heart sprinting.

"Your own words?" asked Phaedo.

"I'm not a fucking mute like that fuckin' dummy Daemon." Hegestratus hardly had time to smirk at his own joke before Phaedo had picked a burning log from the fire swishing it with a fantail of sparks and smashed it into his face. Red and black splinters burst like a firework fountain as Hegestratus covered his blinded eyes. Neither Luke nor Eukles saw how the knife changed hands but as Phaedo pummelled the face of Hegestratus with the sparking ember, he plunged the blade into Hegestratus' throat. A jet of blood squirted onto the flames, hissing as if it were water and the hissing married itself to the thug's choking, gurgling noises which punctured the night. Hegestratus made to pull the knife from his neck as he fell to his knees but Phaedo bashed him on the side of the head with the log and as he fell, rammed the knife in deeper with the sole of his foot. Hegestratus looked in disbelief that his thirty years of life should be ended so swiftly, before falling face first into the fire which hissed once more with the gift. There was a ghost of flame as his hair caught fire and the air was suddenly toxic with the stink of scorched hair and flesh.

Still holding the charred log which had served its purpose well, Phaedo spat into the fire. "Fair fucking mute now aren't you, you useless sack of shit." He stared at the leader who was no longer looking so calm and Phaedo nodded coldly as if to say the present chapter of their feud was over. Eukles felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Daemon's. He and some of the others had got wind of Phaedo's difficulties. The leader seeing the new arrivals nodded back but his lip curled in the surly manner of a child who had been scolded unfairly and whose party had been spoiled. Luke was paralysed and if he could he would have thrown up. Eukles his heart knocking at his ribs had no such problems and discharged a stream of vomit of freshly digested chicken, wine and bread over the corpse's feet.

Daemon's hand gripped Eukles' scruff and lifted him from the scene while trying to preserve what dignity was left. A dribble of sickly drool hung from his lower lip and attached itself to his chin, but he was too shaken to care or notice. Dazed, his feet moved in the direction that Daemon guided him. Branches slapped his face but he made no movement to avoid their assaults. After they had passed two more firesides of staring eyes, Phaedo suddenly grabbed Eukles' shoulders and pinned him to a tree. "Wise up kid. Get a grip." He spoke in a whisper, spat out through gritted teeth. He looked around and saw that Daemon was behind and blocking anyone who might intrude on their exchange. Eukles could feel the strong fingers pressing against his boney arms. He raised his head and met Phaedo's eyes. "I need a bit of time Phaedo."

The grip relaxed. "Come on kid."He ripped some moss off the tree and wiped the snot of vomit from Eukles' face. Daemon offered his hand but Eukles declined it and walked on his own without assistance. He could hear the commotion like a fog of whispers as the news of the killing drifted from fire to fire and no doubt the imperfect retellings brought with them the exaggerations and fictions which men always attach to embellish a tale, even tales like this one that needed no embellishment.

They reached the outermost part of the Greek encampment where Cailimachus had taken himself off so as not to be disturbed by the minor dramas at work around each camp fire. There was a thicket that gave a sort of privacy and a red cloak acted as an awning by day and a matress by night. A sergeant told Phaedo that his chief was away with Miltiades and others at the hilltop taking stock of the Persian troop positions. Phaedo didn't look disappointed about his commander's absence. He unwrapped some provisions from a cloth and dished them to Eukles. "Fill your empty stomach kid. Don't worry; everyone throws up the first time. Everyone." Luke of course hadn't but he had wanted to. When the knife sliced its way into Hegestratus' gullet and the blood flowed as if from a garden hose steaming on the burning logs he had screamed out that he wanted out. He had wanted the whole thing to end. He had wanted, and not for the first time, to be back in his bed with his book and his parents in the next room and the police in their squad cars and the bad guys snoozing in their cells and laws and behaviour that didn't see murder as the answer. He had wanted flush toilets and TV and mindless mind numbing classes taught by yawning teachers to yawning students and supermarkets that sold oranges from half way round the world and where petrol was as cheap as bottled water. He had wanted the mediocrity of the twenty first century to crush his spirit and leave him blissfully unaware. He wanted his stupid, irrational world back.

But time weathers all storms and he gradually came to see what had happened was a consequence of where they were at in history. There was still a lot of evolution to evolve.

While Luke was still in recovery Eukles took the food and ate without appetite. "You didn't Phaedo. You didn't throw up the first time did you?"

Phaedo rumbled his head half way between a nod and a shake before delaying his response. "No kid I didn't."

Eukles looked at him with grateful eyes. "Thank you for the truth."

"What you just saw kid was a type of truth. I've seen people shelter their children from things they don't want them to see, but its lies kid. This is the world at least one version of it. Our version of it where those who want an answer get one. There's no escaping it, well not in this place anyway. There'll be a lot more blood spilt in the next few days. Hegestratus left me no option except the one I took." He finished. It seemed strange not to celebrate his recent fight. Here he was struggling to justify it.

"I know Phaedo." Eukles words were slow but suggested some sort of accommodation. "Who was their leader and why didn't he stop it. He could have stopped it couldn't he?"

Phaedo smiled with relief that the conversation was shifting. "He could have kid. But he was hoping for a different outcome." He gave a smile which had a slight swagger. "The guy's name is Themistocles, one of life's weeds. He's a tribal leader in a hurry for glory. Stay clear of him. He could use you to hurt me or Cailimachus."

"This Themistocles wants to kill you. Why?"

"I'm sure he's not the only one kid." There was a short pause as Phaedo tried to grasp why Themistocles had it in for him- a question he'd never really thought about. He gave up with a shrug."Some men don't like other men. There's no reason, no falling out, no insult to be avenged, no woman scorned or brother killed. I've never liked him and he's always detested me. Daemon here can see his point." Daemon smiled and Eukles did too. "It's a bit like the way two bulls can't live in the same field. We're two cocks in the same coop kid. Just you stay clear of him do you hear?"

Eukles promised and they touched fists to seal the deal, but it seemed strange that the fearless all conquering Phaedo should say such a thing. There were no supermen Luke thought. It was an apt thought in this Herculean grove.

Daemon rose on hearing a disturbance in the scrub beyond the thicket. Caillimachus entered and everyone relaxed. There was a feeling that Luke's first violent death was about to be relegated down the ladder of importance. The chief looked careworn but a smile -quickly suppressed -broke out briefly on his face. "A sacrifice will be made to Heracles whose hill this is and to Hermes who has seen you safely arrived. The Plateans?" A frown now replaced the strangled smile as he noted the absent Arimnestos.

"Be at ease," said Eukles, "they are camped at the end of the valley and will move before first light. They should be here just after the first hour. Arimnestos sent me ahead with this information. He said that you could use it to boost morale."

Caillimachus listened and Luke could see his features adjust as he digested and processed the possibilities provided by this new morsel of intelligence. He took a length of green wood and began poking the crackling fire. His eyes fixed themselves on the reddened embers which glowed as the night breeze swam through the flames and blew harmless sparks into the thicket. Out of the flames came dreams and nightmares, the various outcomes of the coming battle, glory and death, and all too often the meaninglessness and pointlessness of it all.

"And you carried this message through the night alone?"

Eukles quickly understood that this was a criticism of Arimnestos who had been asked to guard Eukles as if he were his son. He remembered the last paragraph which he had cheated Arimnestos of. He looked Cailimachus in the eye.  
"Arimnestos cannot read. I read the message to him. I did not read the full message."

Cailimachus twitched his eye and began to redden at the idea that his softness had been exposed when he had revealed that this youth was like a son to him. He had no child, no son to bear his name and tell his deeds long after he had gone. No one to remind the Gods and the living that Cailimachus had strived to live the good life. And many times like this, staring into a dying fire he would allow his mind to ponder his own lonliness.And then it would strike him that he perhaps had a son, only none that he knew of, some fertile Syrian womb accepting of his passing gift. When he gazed into the flames last night thinking of strategems and tactics to outfox Datis and his armies, he began to remember brief encounters with women when he had stomped through Persia as a martial enforcer in the pay of Darius. Did any of those women bear him a child? And was that child now a man sharpening his spear point or grinding his war axe against a stone in the army pounding its drums by the sleepy waves. It was a strange haunting thought that somehow a son without knowing might kill his father. Yet he thought it was a good enough thought that if he was to be killed by a son who he had abandoned then there was a justice in that. Better him than another. Nemesis would be satisfied. For Cailimachus assessed that he had been nothing but a rootless wanderer who had too often plundered recklessly from those who deserved better from their Gods and from the men pretending to be soldiers. He had always scoffed at how the Gods had failed their peoples, but he always followed this by knowing that he too had failed them as a man.

Cailimachus now knew that he had two duties, one to be a father to the fatherless Eukles and secondly to live and if needs be die as a soldier defending the women, children and life of his city.

And these duties now gave purpose to his life which long ago in the wastes of Persia had lost its meaning, like a road long swallowed by the desert sands that re-emerges after a great cathartic storm.

Cailimachus gestured everyone to draw closer and spoke in a low whisper so that others might not hear. "We can use this news for our benefit. The anticipation will hearten our men and the Plateans' timely arrival will double it. If the priests can make a divination before dawn we will have all the appearances of divine intervention. Perhaps the priests can be persuaded Phaedo?"

All Phaedo's disdain for the clerical class as a shower of greedy, self-important impostors was obvious as he heaved his chest and sighed and rolled his eyes, then grimaced, shook his head and spat a big sizzling gob of spit onto the fire.

"A heavy bag of drachmas will get us what we want."

Aware of Eukles' susceptibilities, Calilimachus inclined his head towards the boy and glared at Phaedo.

"Emm" stuttered Phaedo" a couple of coins should be the appropriate fee for the sacred sacrifices."

Eukles knew that he was lying but was content to participate in the charade. He had had one too many bouts of ungodliness this evening. Those fellows lolling on their soft couches in Olympus were not renowned for their patience with the blasphemous.

"Can you tell me how things stand?" he asked, deftly shifting the subject away from avaricious priests who sold prophecies to the gullible for gold. Luke thought of mugs crossing the palms of fortune tellers and wondered if the world would ever see snake oil salesmen and the army of quacks for what they were.

Cailimachus was happy to answer the question on how things stood. It provided opportunities to vocalise his plans and to moderate and alter his outlook which was as changeable as the river Crito spoke of.

"We're here." Again like Arimnestos he drew in the dirt only he made use of rocks and other material to flesh out the picture. He already had a model of the positions etched into the ground and pointed at them with a branch which he had peeled of its leaves and bark to serve such a purpose.

He tapped a large black rock with his foot. "This is our camp, Mount Agriliki sacred to Heracles whose favour we will need and which we have sought by sacrifices." Phaedo moaned silently at the waste. Cailimachus threw him a glare. Eukles ignored both of them seeing the rock to be what it stood for; a forested hillside with nine thousand hoplites, the cream of Athenian manhood seated about a hundred fires.

"To the right is the Vrexia marsh which hugs the coast and which is the shortest way to Athens." A large flat grey stone represented the sea and the impenetrable marsh was a scatter of leaves in Cailimachus' homespun map. "Datis won't risk the marsh for fear of being ambushed and cut off from his supply line which comes by sea.

On the left is the Varna valley this wide open plain leading down to the bay." He poked a rolling log to show where the Persians had disembarked and camped. The Persian log dwarfed the Athenian stone.

"They have chosen well and are obviously following the advice of the traitor HIppias whose local knowledge is being used and who hopes to rule as Darius' puppet in Athens after the cataclysm." Phaedo cursed loudly at the name and called on the Gods he didn't believe in to visit plagues on the house of Hippias. "The vastness of the Persian host meant that it has taken them all this time to unload men and horses and stores. We reckon from the number of ships that Datis has no fewer than thirty thousand and perhaps as many as sixty thousand men. They come from all over the Persian Empire. Bactrians, Carians, Lydians, Parthians, Ethiopians, Ionians- more than forty nations. The world has come here to destroy us and pick the skeleton of Greece clean. Deserters have brought us news that they have ten thousand archers, over a thousand cavalry, spearmen, axemen, and of course ten thousand 'Immortals'.

"Immortals?"

"Darius' personal guard. When one dies he is immediately replaced so that the regiment always numbers 10,000."

"They needed a few replacements after Eretreia" grunted Phaedo" and we'll wipe them out completely in this place."

"Will we?" asked Eukeles dubiously.

"No problem kid," blustered Phaedo.

"We will have to," came Cailimachus' more considered and less than convincing reply.

"How can win against such odds?"

Cailimachus smiled and fed the fire with some twigs that had fallen from the trees overhead. "The Persians seem to have all the advantages. They have numbers and variety. They can fight the type of battle they want. They can keep us at a distance with their archers and would happily go toe to toe with us with their Immortals. They are like ten thousand Phaedos only smarter and better looking." They all smiled despite the gloomy diagnosis." And if we get caught in the open their cavalry will sweep us up like a broom."

"And the good news?"

"Not much. Perhaps it is that Datis has not yet offered battle and this might be our chink of light. "

Callimachus fell silent, rose and began to roll the log which was the Persian army with his foot.

"Why?" asked Eukles.

"Datis is a Mede, a bit of an outsider unsure of his place in the Persian world. He has replaced a competent fellow called Mardonious who didn't lose but who also didn't win. In other words, Datis has to win. We on the other hand only have to not lose. That's the key. He has to force the issue. Darius won't be happy with anything less than complete annihilation. And Datis' second in command Atraphernes wants his general's job and being a Lydian he can't stand Medes and he can't stand Datis. We may exploit these differences. A big snake isn't much of a threat if he hasn't got a head. Too many kings, my young brother, can ruin an army."

"So we will defeat the commanders rather than the armies."

Cailimachus looked with a measure of pride at Eukles.

"You grasp things well and quickly my young friend." Eukles blushed at the praise and Phaedo pushed him playfully. "Impressive, kid."

"We will wait for the commanders to make some sort of mistake, something simple that gives us a window. And when that happens we will use our advantages of speed, desperation and togetherness, and swoop and destroy them. "At that Cailimachus flipped the rotting log onto the fire which reluctantly accepted it with a hiss. There was a pause as the flames which had been sleeping balked at the hard work needed to digest the new arrival, but then tasting the bark with its thousand frantic insects the fire went to work with gusto. Eukles watched the woodlice scramble helplessly for their lives and Luke understood that the Persian army once turned would be no different consumed by fire and fear and chaos.

Silently they all watched the Persian army burn, licked by the fire which after an initial reluctance did what fire was born to do, its sparks disappearing like souls into the night.

"Enough of this. Tell me about your run into the mountains and if nothing happened that is the stuff of fable then invent and embellish as Phaedo always does."

"Only when I talk about you boss," added Phaedo unmarked by the verbal barb. There ensued a quiet hour with stories of battles and conquests, sometimes comical, sometimes serious, close shaves, victories, defeats, retreats, routs and inconclusive stand offs. It was, Luke supposed, typical barrack room talk in which the veteran finds the greedy ear in youths like Eukles who have yet to taste, tire and sicken of war and blood. The talk was glamorous and masculine. There was no mention of those airbrushed from history of widows and orphans and cripples and the blind, and the slaves and scorched earth and the distended bellies of naked starving infants sobbing at the teats of their dead mothers in the dusty aftermaths of glory.

Absent friends were remembered with cups of wine and moments of dignified silence. Eukles gulped this sacred elixir of macho memory with the reverence of one who believed without questioning, imbibing at the selfish altars of testosterone. Luke, ever the agnostic, was more circumspect. War was, he was beginning to think, a dull affair of marching and hiding and waiting anxiously, half starved, cold and wet, and craving the simple comforts of the hearth which you'd always failed to relish. It was spent yearning for a roof, a bed and the warm flesh of the woman you had always taken for granted and who suddenly became a goddess because she was no longer there to nag. And when the dullness comes to an end and the madness of the slaughter comes as whispered in the recent killing of Hegestratus whose body was now as cold as a stone, surely then the soldier craves the dullness and cold and the endless waiting to the precarious fortunes of combat's dice.

Phaedo interrupted Luke's thoughts with another martial anecdote that had as many legs as a centipede from which he eventually began to tune out like a sports fan overfed with sport. He heard the background fuzz of men talking and the singing of a plaintive song which created the perfect mood music for the night time and the soldiers' fragile, frightened hearts. In the distance his ear picked up the rhythmic beat of a drum and told him the Persians were celebrating, prematurely, their victory to come. The whacking of the drum skin carried the conviction of an all conquering army which had laid waste the stepping stones of islands that lay in an arc to the north and which had then shattered all resistance on the mainland at Eretriea. They had burnt, raped, murdered and enslaved and everywhere the small Greek towns were sending ambassadors and hostages to try placate the haughty Datis. They had cobbled together all their wealth- gold and daughters in the hope that their gifts might massage the Persian to mercy.

Luke found the bouncing drum beats that danced across the darkness of no man's land nauseating. It reminded him of the other teams who chanted and mocked when his school was all too often beaten at rugby. He would snarl helplessly at the injustice knowing inside that it was the lot of the loser to be taunted. But these drums shouted a clear message that the taunting would be followed by something much worse than the gloating of a pompous victor. These drum songs would be remembered by all who had crossed the middle sea as the tunes that signalled the doom of Athens. Just as a song would transport a person in his own time back to a moment, a memory they had thought dissolved, Luke imagined the Persian drums to define in their hard masculine rhythm the battlefield of Marathon.

And so the arrogant beat was strange, knowing as he knew that the Persians themselves were about to get a good pasting and a famous one at that, unless of course there were two Marathons. But he dismissed that idea. Surely not.

In his wanderings, as Eukles' eyes began to droop, he wondered at the fact that camped no further than a kilometer or so from where his host was, were so many thousands of men sworn to kill those he now sat with. Men who had never met one another and who ultimately would not benefit from the other's demise. If the Athenians won they would save themselves from destruction and restore a flaky status quo no better than what existed now. If the Persians won the wasteland of Attica would bring little to offset the expense of shipping tens of thousands of men, animals and weapons over such great distances. It seemed all so daft. As daft as wars in his own century which were only more mechanised and modernised vanity affairs between great egos like Miltiades and Darius. As futile and egotistical as an expensive handbag only far more costly.

Caillimachus rolled his cloak out on the tinder dry ground sheltered from the night dew by the ceiling of branches above through which the stars were now peeping. Eukles exhausted by the day's physical exertions, lulled by the warm wine and made dreamy by the talk of the battle scarred, lay himself down and with uncanny speed fell fast asleep.

Once again Luke found himself in the dark with the dreams of Eukles for company along with his own efforts and thoughts to rationalise this most irrational of situations. But added to these was the audible whispered conversations of Caillimachus and Phaedo. And so ignoring the indecipherable dream that Eukles was having about a child, not himself, chasing a gaggle of cranky black geese, he allowed his ears to filter the exchanges between the general and his loyal warrior.

"You're never easy before a fight chief, you take on too much," he heard Phaedo say with uncharacteristic softness. There was a pause and Luke imagined the two men close together, almost beard to beard in the firelight.

"This one's different," answered Caillimachus tersely.

"All battles are different chief but they're all the same too. We'll win this one as we've always won. And if we don't win we won't lose." Phaedo's tone was careless but masked a deeper sense of private trepidation like a loudmouth boxer before a fight trying to convince himself of fictions which the better part of him knows are ungrounded. Phaedo was scared but for some reason for which he had no evidence Luke felt that it was not a fear of death but a fear of failure.

"This is bigger than all the little dust ups and standoffs Phaedo," Caillimachus explained in a voice as clean and cold as the dew settling in the branches over their heads. "Thousands will die, perhaps tens of thousands. When did you ever see a battle like that?"

The question cut Phaedo with its logic. He threw up a barricade of silence.

"Besides my friend the stakes are higher than lives. If we lose it will be the end of Athens and Greece and the Greek way. We'll be no different than the foot licking lackeys across the sea. They'll sow famine and they'll enslave a generation. Persians will lord it and our grandchildren will curse us for our failure. Who we are and whatever it is we stand for will be like the cinders in this fire." Luke heard him stoke the dying logs and felt the breath of heat on Eukles' lower back from the sudden gush of flame that woke like a disturbed child before settling back to sleep.

"We might win boss." Luke noted how Phaedo's 'will' had quickly become a 'might'. There was a long pause. Someone shifted and Luke was conscious of skin close to his. Caillimachus checking to be sure that Eukles was sleeping. He resumed his seat.

"Why did we run from Eretreia my friend?" The voice was frosty and reminded Luke of a boot on gravel.

"Because we had to save ourselves. It wasn't winnable. We ran so as to fight when we could win." Phaedo jumped head first into Caillimachus' unintentional trap.

"And wouldn't it be wise to run again?"

"You think we cannot win here?"

"We can't Phaedo. We cannot stir from the sanctuary of this wood and be slaughtered in the open by the Persian horse. Datis knows he has us trapped. If we try to rush him, his archers will cut us down before we get within spear point. He's probably realised all he has to do is sail a few thousand men to Athens and take the city while he keeps us cooped up here."

"So we have to draw him out. Make him fight. How do we do that Chief?"

"Not easy but the lad has given me the seed of a chance with his news. If we make a big show tomorrow about the Platean arrival, celebrate as if the whole of Greece is marching to Marathon then Datis might be rattled and think that he has to strike before our numbers get bigger. If we can make him believe that the Spartans are within a day's march then he'll move, he has to. Destroy us when we are separated."

The silence that followed meant that Phaedo was chewing over the possibilities. "And once we bring him to close quarters we smash him," he said putting into words what he was imagining in his head.

"Bringing them to the fight is one thing, smashing him as you put it is quite another. They outnumber us maybe five possibly eight to one. And the plain is too wide for our phalanx at eight men deep. Our line won't stretch across the mouth of the valley and his cavalry will outflank us and attack us from behind. If we thin our ranks to seal the mouth his immortals will make short work of us. The phalanx will collapse somewhere and it will be game over. And all the time we will have to deal with his archers and slingers who we can't get near."

"I'll get the priests to predict the Plateans' arrival. I'll get the other colonels to shout loudly in triumph when they come into view. I'll get Datis out onto the plain you'll work out how to crush him. You'll dream how."

It was an attempt at closure which was clearly accepted by Caillimachus for within minutes both men were snoring and Luke left to the silence and their snoring returned to Eukles who was now dreaming about a terra cotta amphora of red wine that repeatedly and continuously kept smashing on a mosaic floor.

Before the sun's light could coax Eukles' eyes open Luke heard the others rise with about an hour of darkness left. Focusing all his energy on what he could hear Luke noted the creaking joints of Caillimachus who was strangely perhaps as old as his own father. There were some whisperings about the priest's and their phoney sacrifice, the Plateans arrival and the need to maximise the moment. They then moved off to plot the destruction of the Persian army.

It was not the dawn's light that woke Eukles. Like any teenager, he would have slept till late afternoon if let. But he wasn't let as a great roar of ten thousand men bellowing in chorus shook whatever birds had sought sanctuary in the far up tree tops. Eukles straightened with a start. It was the Greek turn to taunt to tell the mob on the shore line that as each hour passed the Greek host became stronger. Then a chant as aggressive and pointed as any heard at a soccer match struck up informing Datis that the Spartans were on their way. A simple formula of words designed to provoke the Persians. Would it work?

The first desertions came within the hour and they brought with them the news that Caillimachus wanted to hear.
Chapter 12

The Fog Of Battle

Chief among the deserters from Datis' camp was a forty year old grizzled warrior. He was a colonel of some local fame and had the scars and the demeanor to suggest that he was a man of some importance. Word came quickly to all the tribal leaders including Cailimachus to assemble in Miltiades' camp to discuss the new intelligence that this man had brought.

"Come my young brother. Be quiet and observe and maybe learn how fights are won before a sword is drawn." Eukles was energised by Caillimachus trust and the chance to get a ring side seat at the unfolding drama. They walked to the hastily convened council of war held in Miltiades' tent, a roof of rough canvas tied to a triangle of trees and stout logs providing enough seating for the leaders of each of the ten Athenian tribes. A cohort of private guards and the prevailing iron discipline kept the curious onlookers at a safe distance. Phaedo was on Eukles' left and both stood directly behind Caillimachus who was seated in an inner circle with the nine other tribal generals. On his right was another burly beef cake the hired cut throat of one of the other leaders. Last to arrive was Themistocles striding haughtily to his place eyeing Eukles with a sneer before fixing Phaedo with an aggressive grin which was returned in kind. The commerce of scorn. Eukles smelt the mutual contempt, felt afraid and shifted subconsciously towards Phaedo who snarled beneath his breath to "show no fear kid, show no fear". He clenched his fists and tried to fit Phaedo's definition of a man.   
Miltiades called for order and got it. Seeing him close up Luke was struck by his age. A bit of a healthy pensioner. Miltiades was lean and his head was shaved and his greying beard was thin on his chin. He was sprightly with darting eyes that seemed to drink in every little movement on their radar. Luke had expected someone stronger, bigger and younger. Miltiades must be sixty. But his sinewy, wirey body with its gnarled knuckles and toes bore the lumps and scars of age and battle, a life spent fighting, no time or inclination for peace. A half moon scar was carved into the right side of his skull while a second, shaped like a tear drop nestled under his left eye giving an impression of permanent distress. He seemed a man given to war unafraid of all quarrels, a man who saw all life through the bloody lens of conflict.

There was an exchange of deferential nods between him and Caillimachus, an exchange that was a marriage of respect and suspicion. Miltiades then turned his eyes towards all present and began to speak in a strong, deep confident voice.

"Our Ionian brother" he nodded towards the deserter, "has brought some intelligence from inside the Persian camp. This morning after the arrival of the Plateans, for which we give thanks." He bowed to Arimnestos who politely did the same amid rumbles of compliments for these allies who had stood by Athens in her time of destiny when too many others had abandoned ship. "It appears that the prospect of our forces increasing has jolted Datis and he has embarked his entire cavalry troop and five thousand auxiliaries. He intends to sail with them with a view to out flanking us or even taking Athens while we are bottled up here."

There was a ripple of mumbled conversation as the news was digested and men's minds turned to wives and children protected now by only the flimsy gates of Athens from the advancing Persians. Eukles saw Caillimachus pass his hand over his face and then scratch his chin as he tried to grasp what advantage this terrible news could bring to their present predicament. He also knew that his chief, who had fixed his eyes on the Ionian, was trying to discern whether he was a clever ruse sent by Datis to trick the Athenians. Miltiades raised his hand for calm and silence and then bid the deserter to speak.

"I was a staff officer with Atraphernes the Carian who is now in command. His orders are to attack only if attacked or if the Greeks break camp for Athens. But I know that he thirsts for glory and is determined to rob Datis of victory by winning it himself. Soon after Datis had embarked, Atraphernes gave orders for the army to muster. A division of Lydian Spearmen will be sent to draw us out. He cares nothing for them. If we tackle the spearmen he will let his archers loose on us without any concern that the arrows will kill the Lydians. Once he has drawn you into battle the Immortals will then be thrown in to finish you off." The Ionian gave no indication that he had finished and an uncomfortable silence took hold of the council for some uncomfortable seconds. The Ionian stood unmoved.

"You mean 'us'? To finish 'us' off." The voice was that of Caillimachus. "Aren't you one of 'us'? Are you not a Greek, or have you been given a purse of gold by Datis to force us from our strong defense before the Spartans arrive?"

Miltiades acknowledged the wisdom of his colleague's accusation and gave a look to the Ionian that bid him respond.

"You fucking Athenians. So fucking high and mighty" There was a collective sound of drawn metal but Cailimachus stopped everyone with a simple "Hold!" The Ionian shook his head in cool disdain at the sweaty bearded murderers who circled him. "It is precisely because he believes the Spartans are coming that he has split his forces. He estimates that they will reach the field within two days and that once joined together with the Athenians he will not risk a battle. If he burns and sacks Athens and carries its women back across the sea it will be enough of a victory that he can sell to his king to temper Darius' thirst for vengeance. For this year at least."

Once again Miltiades' face acknowledged the logic and he looked satisfactorily at Caillimachus as if to say that the response was reasonable. But it was clear that he was unhappy to commit to a battle based on the words so sweetly delivered by a Persian traitor. Cailimachus rose from his seat and faced the Ionian. Phaedo took a step closer and Eukles noticed the silent unsheathing of a knife. Luke began to tremble fearing another blade in another throat. More hot blood spilt coldly.

The Ionian as if reading the situation and aware of the breath of death, narrowed his eyes and met Cailimachus' gaze with a searing stare of contempt, eyeballing him with a noble fearlessness.

"I am a Greek. I speak our language" the pronoun was noted by all. "I will fight and if it is the will of the fates I will die for our ways. I am, it is true, a deserter from the Persians but I have only been waiting for the most propitious moment which would serve our cause. Now is that moment. And unlike many of you that I see here in this exhalted assembly" the sarcasm ripped through the snarling crowd which rumbled with a collective growl. "Unlike you I have never deserted Greeks." he spat the verb into the pine needles beneath him and Phaedo drew his knife to cut the insulting tongue short and out. But Cailimachus put his body between them.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning" continued the Ionian unfazed by the terrible odds facing him. "I have never abandoned the mothers and children who have looked to me for protection." Luke was silently begging this courageous man to stop, to show the discretion which he now at last understood to be the necessary compliment to valour. Without thinking Eukles told Luke to shut up and Caillimachus clicked the fingers of his right hand sharply to demand quiet while simultaneously throwing out his left arm to stop at least momentarily the murderous Phaedo.

"Meaning" the Ionian began again, with unnatural calm, his body erect, his chest savouring life's last breaths, his strong blue eyes staring solidly at Cailimachus with denunciation. Luke was struck by the calmness of this dead man walking." When the Persians came to avenge the burning of Sardis, a few but not many sadly for the honour of Greece, but a few all the same stayed. None that I recognise here." Another shuffle and rumble. "And we fought, those of us who stayed, despite the fact that all was lost. And our courage saw us spared and Darius gave us commissions. But as I say I am a Greek and I will die as a Greek in Greece and if it is at the hand of my countrymen then so be it. I have cheated death enough." And with those words spoken in a steady voice, he abruptly stopped and nonchalantly twisted his upper lip into a public sneer of contempt for all around him.

Miltiades looked back to Cailimachus for guidance, Phaedo waited for the signal to slit the man's exposed throat. But Luke detected a new reluctance. The man's courage had bought him life when Darius could have killed him. Surely the Greeks were better than that old Persian thug.

"You're a brave man and your people deserved more from us at Sardis than they got. Your courage gives honesty to your words. Will you stand with us today and hold a spear in the first rank?"

There was a collective sigh of relief as men felt that for once justice had been seen to be done. Miltiades was smiling. "Today Cailimachus. We will take the field today?"

The next moments were frantic as heaving bodies' toing and froing in search of answers obscured Eukles' line of vision while chaotic manic shouting drowned his ears in a meaningless anarchy of sound. Miltiades chose the right second to restore order. "Let the generals' vote" he pronounced with steely resolution.

The tribal leaders stood up to vote. Five argued for things to remain the same until the Spartan arrival which would boost their chances. If the city fell then so be it the army had to be preserved no matter what. They had to wait for the Spartans. Any other course of action would be rash and reckless. Five others, obviously creatures of Miltiades going by their body language, urged immediate action on foot of the latest intelligence. All eyes now turned to Cailimachus who as Polearch or supreme commander for the day had the casting vote.

"Datis has a plan. We do not. Pheidippides is not yet returned. The Spartans may not come. We have lost the initiative. If we sit here then Athens will surely fall and we will be undeserving of the name soldier. Our duty is not to stay alive and save our mortal skins. Our duty is to defend our women and children, our hearths, temples and our way- the Greek way."  
Miltiades knew that an endorsement from Cailimachus would copperfasten the end of this depressing stalemate. But he needed something explicit. "Say what we must do. Tell us Cailimachus."

Eukles' pulse raced a little as he awaited his father's order. Cailimachus looked at him and paused before he spoke. Luke sensed in that look that the roll of war's dice was no longer about Cailimachus' own fate but the fate of one more dearly to him than his own being. His eyes lingered and once again Miltiades pressed with a hungry voice. And in the silence and the settling dust Cailimachus kept his eyes on Eukles but answered as Miltiades had hoped he would. "We are men and we must do as men must. And what we have greatly thought we now will nobly dare to do. Our only way is to take the Persian now while he is at his weakest."

Cailimachus knew that further words were useless and would be lost in the uproar that followed his declaration. Phaedo gripped the knife recently drawn to cut the Ionian's throat and raised it in a white knuckled prayer to the heavens. His eyes rolled in their sockets as if overwhelmed by some infectious drug that passed unobstructed on the vapours of hot breath that heaved around them. Luke shivered as each man was kidnapped by the demons of war who seemed to transform the faces and bodies of everyone present. The air was thick with what had to be stifling fumes of adrenalin and testosterone as sweat oozed from their pores and spit from their mouths. There was a collective snarling and men crashed foreheads against each other and growled sounds that resembled no human language. Eukles found himself shunted along, crushed by a dozen embraces from rough men who had hitched their seat on this crazy express journey to killing and maiming and destruction and death.

And in the midst of this madness Luke realised that his host had succumbed to a frenzied excitement which he himself had never even come close to feeling. Like a godlike bystander, scribbling clouds in an Olympus sky, Luke witnessed the collapse of restraint, the release of any inhibition. This was a world without law or regulation. War had freed Eukles from who he was and what he was. With spear and shield and the licence of battle he could reinvent himself. There was as yet no fear or trepidation just the lust to unleash his physical power and destroy another. There was no shred of conscience, no niggling remorse arguing in his ear, no cart load of guilt to distract him from his purpose. There was no sense of the impending traumas and the lifetime of nightmares that come to those who have seen men behave as the planet's cruellest beasts. Luke felt alone in this horror show of man's rage, the only clear thinking being in the stew of sweat and noise that shook the Herculean wood. He pitied the planet and all living things that were at the mercy of man.

The adjutants, Phaedo included were despatched to muster the foot soldiers into their tribes. Miltiades, Cailimachus and the other commanders stayed behind in the now cleared encampment to listen to Cailimachus' plan of attack. Eukles was about to take his leave when a firm hand from his chief motioned him to a place behind."Look and learn," said Cailimachus with a face that was a mix of love and trust. Miltiades then began to speak.

"There will be death. But we have to get close enough to negate their archers and slingers. I therefore propose that instead of marching in formation as the Persians expect, we will run to the front line and reform the phalanx when we get there. This tactic will confuse them. The Persian cannot adjust. He cannot think for himself."

There was a chorus of mumbled objections and head shaking. "Impossible. Four maybe five hundred paces in full battle dress in the midday sun. It will shatter us and we will be too exhausted to regroup properly. And we will not have the energy to fight a prolonged engagement." More mumbles this time in agreement and followed by nodding of heads. Miltiades looked to Cailimachus who was waiting his chance to speak.

"It is dangerous I concede, but so is marching directly towards them in our phalanx presenting our bodies to volley after volley of missiles. If we run it will throw Atraphernes and he will become nervous. He is not a reactive general. He has an idea of how the battle will be fought. He does not like novelty. He will panic and put a barrier between us and his archers. He will deploy his spearmen sloppily before he anticipated and his archers will then lose their target. It is a risk but I think it is worth the risk. In battle there is always risk." He ended and now there was no rumble, just silence as the others tried to digest the risky wisdom of the revered high priest of battle. Luke was beginning to see that the other generals made no decisions but either just acquiesced in those of Miltiades or Cailimachus or remained sullen.

"But," Cailimachus resumed, his face an image of retrained struggle, "the Persians may be without their cavalry as our Ionian friend has told us. On the other hand they outnumber us and they can still outflank us if we reform the phalanx with a standard eight man deep deployment. Our line will not stretch across the plain. They will go round us and attack us from the rear. Atraphernes no doubt has done his sums."

The sullen generals who had voted against action were now clearly relieved, thinking that this insuperable problem would stifle all talk of battle until the Spartan arrival corrected the odds. One of these began to speak. He was a surprisingly gentle looking senior citizen, bald apart from white tufts on either side of his head, watery sky blue eyes and a paunch that reminded Luke of his father's sagging middle aged gut. 'Dad' he thought.

"All of you know me. I have had the honour of fighting with you and I hope it was an honour for you too. I have never shirked the front rank and my skin is a map of Athens' battles and my spear has despatched many of her enemies to Hades. My wife and my youngest are in the city. My two older boys are here. Listen to me when I say that there is a difference between courage and madness."

It was clear from the respectful silence that this man was held in high esteem. His call for discretion could not be considered cowardice.

"Cailimachus," he said turning to address the general directly. "You cannot undo what has been done. Is this about Eretreia? If so you cannot make a judgement based on emotion and some need to expiate your guilt. Logic says we should wait for the Spartans. Send a runner to Athens.Tell them to abandon the city and take to the hills of Attica. The Persians will not dare pursue us into the mountain fastness. Let them burn the city, it can be rebuilt. This army, brave Cailimachus cannot."

Cailimachus listened and nodded and others shook the old man's hand, but Luke could see that Miltiades was far from pleased at this new turn of events. He stood up from his log throne and walked to the centre almost standing in the ashes of last night's fire. Although small and sinewy like a scrum half he had a flashing energy that energised others, his eyes glinting with purpose as if they had never known nor needed sleep. His stance was erect with legs firmly apart and chest out, full of conviction and the zealot's belief.

'A fanatic' thought Luke coming face to face for the first time with the reality of the word and all the misery and doom it visits on others.

"Burn Athens. Live in the hills. Let the Persians trample our fields. Leave behind those too old or too young to keep up. Shall we kill them out of mercy or leave that task as sport to the Persians? And when we are in the hills what will shelter us from the rains? What will we say to our women when the frosts eat their skin? Or when their bellies cry for food and there is none? And next year when we are famished and weaker and fewer, and the Persians return and laugh at us. What then? And what will we tell our wives when we are marched in chains across the great sea to enrich and entertain the mighty Darius." There was silence. Men knew the truth behind the stark words. "Datis has split his army. He will not reach Athens until tomorrow. We can smash Atraphernes here and return to Athens to deal with Datis. The Persian wall is breeched my friends. We must attack before they seal it up again. This is not just a golden chance. This is our only chance. Remeber what was said to our forefathers, 'without a sigh the brave man draws his sword and asks no omen but his country's cause'."

Luke felt like clapping. He was even convinced himself and had to concede that Miltiades' magnetism and charisma had carried the day. Even the paunchy old timer who looked like a withered version of his dad was won over. He stood up and was the first to embrace the general whose eloquence had converted the unbelievers. 'Madness'.

Sensing the triumphant turn around Miltiades quickly switched his attention. "Cailimachus, help us win," he urged, the request bringing the clinical simplicity that the moment required. At this point the adjutants returned and with them Luke could see the senior officers mustered into their tribal units beyond the fringe of the commader's camp.

Cailimachus demanded a report from Phaedo which was patchy at best. A concentration of archers, five hundred, maybe three thousand. A lot of movement, dust clouds. A screen of spearmen massing behind them perhaps several thousand with the Immortals concentrating on the flanks although he could not be sure if it were the full compliment. No cavalry to be seen. The fog of war was descending.

Cailimachus listened, sketching the intelligence in the dirt carving lines with his spear point for each concentration. He straightened and took up his position with his feet by the large rock which represented the Greek camp.

"The sea has brought the enemy to this place but today that sea is our friend. We will drive the Persians into it. It will be their graveyard. They will run into it to escape and drown if we create enough carnage. Our job is to forment panic, to sow maximum confusion so that their army loses touch with its command. Even the greatest snake is useless without its head. Their numbers are their strength. If we can do as I say their numbers will become their downfall.

"I will take the right wing and the Plateans will hold the left." Arimnestos nodded to show that he understood the nuance that they were both to take the brunt of the first Immortal attack and also to prevent any attempt at encirclement. "We will stretch our line by weakening our centre. The two tribes in the centre- the Leontes and the Antiochus- will reform the phalanx with ranks four deep instead of eight. This will thin things in the middle but allow us to cover the flanks."  
"And see us massacred when the first charge breaks our line. This is a recipe for our annihilation." Luke saw the mean figure of Themistocles who had spoken these words. But he noticed the slight touch of Miltiades spear tip on Themistocles' thigh followed by the reluctant awareness that his chief demanded unconditional obedience and for the moment, silence. 'Miltiades' man ' thought Luke. A right nest of vipers.

"You will be driven back" answered Cailimachus firmly, "but you cannot break.You must not break. As the Persians push you backwards they will without realising it walk themselves into a three sided killing ground where we will annihilate them."

Cailimachus had drawn an imperfect looking square with three sides joined and one much thicker detached which represented the ocean. The three sides were the encircling Athenians and their Platean friends. Plodding hopelessly into the gaping mouth were the hapless Persians. In the void between the lines Luke imagined the doomed soldiers, smothered by muscle and metal, unable to breathe as the human noose tightened around them, hacked and crushed to death in Cailimachus' beautifully constructed killing grounds.

Luke had heard millions of words in his shortish life but could not recall ever having lingered on their meaning. Now he understood with unnerving clarity the reality behind the sounds that made up Cailimachus' chosen verb 'annihilate'. That is what would happen to all who lolloped into the trap. He had not yet seen a Persian but his head swirled with images of what he imagined them to be: only instead of vital men he saw a herd of mangled corpses their eyes rolled to white.

"See the battle in your minds Brothers," continued Cailimachus towards a conclusion," and you will all make it happen. Do not shirk, do not shrink. Once the archers see and hear the slaughter of the invincibles they will hot foot it like lost men for the ships. We will be exhausted, we will want to rest and our bodies will crave relief from the fatigues of battle."

"Kipling's unforgiving minute" thought Luke.

"But it is at this point that we must find deep within us the strength to pursue them and then there will be an easy slaughter." Luke flinched at the phrase wondering how the final words could sit as comfortable bed fellows. 'Easy slaughter' meant massacre. But there was a ripple of grunts as men fumbled for other phrases to describe their own desires. 'Cut their hearts out', 'slice them from the cock to the gullet', 'listen to them drown in the bay'.

"Smash them men, smash them for good on this holy plain. And send a message written on bone with blood to the mothers of Persia that Greece will always be a graveyard for their sons."

There was a volcano of noise. "Well that's that" sighed Luke. "No going back now." But Eukles was shaking with excitement like a jet just before take off rumbling with the irrepressible urge to do what it was built for. He began roaring like the others till he started to cough and choke. He punched the air and his chest his fists clenched tightly unaware that his nails were clawing his palms. Madness had set in. Reason was lost in the fog. Luke wondered if the sober Crito was letting go like a drug fuelled hippie as the sounds of freedom washed over him. In fact Crito heard the roar without response. He had been watching the birds circle in the sky above. They knew there would be slaughter. They had a very scientific approach when it came to food. He wondered whether he would be providing them with a grisly snack in the coming days. A thousand paces away Nepho took his place in the front line of Persian archers. Crito had less than an hour of life left.
Chapter 13

The Unforgiving Minute

Eukles made his way towards the slaves' camp where his house slave from Athens was waiting with his armour and weapons which Eukles pulled on with the fidgety and awkward assistance of his flustered servant. He snatched up his shield and spear and without even a nod to the slave went off to take his place among the thousand men of his tribe with whom he would fight this day.

The Greeks had rolled out their numbers across the plain with remarkable ease and were ready to march to within range of the archers. First to assemble was the right wing under Cailimachus who looked across the barren space to where the Plateans were beginning to make up the left flank. As a junior Eukles took his place at the back of the regiment which had a width of one hundred and ten men at a depth of eight ranks. There was heavy breathing and spitting and snarling- men were shouldering each other violently, forehead to forehead casing each others' heads in their hands and muttering nonsense spoken through drool and saliva soaked lips. Some were stabbing the air with their spears or blocking ghosts with their shields. Others were urinating or vomitting or looking to the skies and their imaginary Gods. Promises were exchanged through watery eyes to die together or to be a father to the others' son should he not survive. A knot of men slit their forearms with a small blade which was passed around like a chalice at mass, the symbol of their sacramental vow. Several, the calmer ones did those exercises which they had done back in the peaceful Athenian gymnasium where for Luke it had all started as in a way it had for them. 'The warm up' he thought, stretching the hamstrings before the match.

Oaths were mixed with fiercesome curses hurled physically across the wasteland at the Persians for whom Luke was feeling a strange pity. These men were once men, but now they were savages bursting with a terrifying blood lust that no law nor reason could temper. The red mist had descended; they would feel no pain until the battle was over. They would not feel the thrusts and cuts on their own skin and they would not see the horror on the faces of their victims. They would fight with broken limbs and pierced felsh oblivious of the neural screams that said 'give in'. Heaps of muscular hairy meat, they ceased to resemble men. They snorted like unbridled, untameable stallions and raked the dusty earth with their mindless pacing, their eyes twitching, their teeth grinding, fists clenching. Then through the mist of thrown up dirt came the clear confident, precise roar of Phaedo. "Athenians form ranks!"

Within seconds the anarchic dribbles of men had scrambled to their place in the phalanx, slipping smoothly into extended lines with shields to the left and spear planted to attention in the ground.Their helmets took on the uniform pattern of metal orbs which stung the eyes as they reflected the overhead sun. Phaedo passed among them, his smiling presence instilling belief in those few whose anxieties were clear from the poorly formed line in which they shivered. He straightened armour, tightened and readjusted helmets. One virgin warrior who was shaking in the eight rank suddenly started to rant incoherently. Phaedo cupped his face between his big killer hands and went beard to beard. 'Steady son' he kissed, 'steady. This is your day kid." Eukles was flushed with pride that Athens had one so great in her ranks. Luke however knew that Phaedo was lying.

But it was as if the coolness within Phaedo passed freely with contact into the being and soul of the panicking soldier. He might never see another sunrise but he genuinely believed that today was his day and he would fight as a believer.

Eukles, who had positioned himself to the edge of the eight rank looked on in admiration. Phaedo caught his eye and gave him a cheeky wink. He then marched forward to take his place to the right of Cailimachus.

Fortunately Eukles' position was on a natural rise of ground where the plain sneaked toward the wooded hillside. He could see over the helmetted ridges to where Cailimachus stood in isolation at the head of the regiment. The chief now held aloft his spear as if to demand silence and focus, but the men were already both and with just the beating rhythm of the insects and the the rumble of persian roars in the distance he began to speak. His voice was solid, strong and deep. It had a manly muscle to it. He did not need to shout.

"This spear has lived through many scrapes. Its shaft has broken many times as have its owners' bones, but its iron is the same as that forged in my grandfather's time. It was carried by him and by my father. Today I will draw a line with its point in the holy soil of Marathon." He inverted the spear and began to scratch a straight furrow in front of the troops. He then carefully stood so that both he and the phalanx were on one side of this line with the plain and the Persians stretching off on the other. "I vow in front of you that when I cross this line I will never recross it until I have driven the enemy into the great sea."

And with that he touched as if with a priestly prayer the sharpened spearpoint, closed his eyes, then turned and crossed the line with a deliberate, conscious step.

"Brothers will you follow me?"

It was the most rhetorical question Luke had ever heard. A shout rose up and Luke knew that the Persians were doomed. He imagined that Atraphernes the new commander now that Datis had taken to the waves, on hearing the roar must have felt his heart sink, for it sounded the death knell for his army and for him. It carried to the trembling Persian the conviction of those who believed in the righteousness of their cause and their fight, a conviction that would they fight and die and never yield. There would be no quarter, no surrender, no line of slaves, no prisoners with famous names to ornament a triumph. If there were to be victory the cost would be unspeakable.

Phaedo gave orders to march in formation. As each rank came to the furrowed line in the earth they stepped over it in unison as if it were a shrine to be preserved.By the time the eight rank had reached this hallowed trough, Eukles was struck by its pristine condition despite the marks of hundreds of footprints either side of it. As they crossed, Luke felt his friend's prayer for courage and strength and manliness in this time of test. A plea to the Gods to not disgrace himself and some garbled nonsense about glory and destiny. The prayer was said with eyes closed and a firm long stride which took him over his General's covenant in the earth and onto the battle plain of Marathon.

Cailimachus marched his soldiers about a hudred paces towards the enemy until he came to a pasture of a hundred arrows which the Persians had fired to test their range. This is where the killing began. The sergeants in each rank reminded the men that they would run for two or three hundred yards and then regroup. They began to fill their lungs as if preparing to hold their breath under water. Cailimachus looked one last time across the plain to ensure that all was in order. A few Persian archers with itchy bow fingers discharged their shafts prematurely and eveyone watched them float through the clear tourist brochure sky. They swam for seconds in an arc like eels swivelling and whistling as they sought a victim. Cailimachus focused on one in particular, ran to his left and raised his shield so that the arrow bounced off it. Several others sunk into the ground around them with a series of thumps. Phaedo quickly picked up the one that Cailimachus had parried and snapped it like a twig. A great roar of satisfaction filled the air and as if to silence it at birth the archers unleashed another volley this time from the entire cohort. Thousand of arrows darkened the sky shielding the sun and throwing a shadow over the waiting Greeks. The men listened to the deathly music overhead. Calimachus stepped back into the safe zone and waited for the missiles to land, peppering the ground with a thousand thuds. The land was suddenly transformed into a landscape of feather tipped stiff grasses.

Within a second of the last thud Cailimachus ordered the charge and began to run himself at a steady pace. He carved a path through the arrows which splintered and shattered as he crushed them underfoot. The arrows had fallen on a rectangle about thirty metres deep and he knew that the next volley would come to rest in this same area where their brothers had, as the archers would have the where withal to readjust their aim. Cailimachus upped his pace so that he and his men would quickly pass into the safer zone beyond. He could hear the frantic orders of the Persian officers carried across the no man's land and his head began racing with the various ponderables and permutations of the unfolding battle. He then heard the orchestral stretch of the archers' bows, the chorus of strings loosed from finger grips and the whoosh as the shafts as they cut through the still air.

Cailimachus knew that having lost their formation there was no use in sheltering under their shields which only provide a patchwork ceiling of security. He had to push on and trust that in the remaining seconds the rearguard with Eukles among them would pass beyond the arrows' reach. He had already picked out a lonely skull of rock which he adjudged to be the best place to reform the phalanx and which now seemed to be measured not in metres to run or seconds, but in the number of corpses needed to get there. As he ran he thought how right MIltiades was, ' there will be death'. But Miltiades would sleep without the nightmares of another man's pain. Some men were that way. The blood and misery of others washed and paved their paths to power.

The arrows fell behind him. He did not turn to see their toll and in the melee his ears did not hear the agony they delivered. His thoughts were now whether the archers would be able to anticipate correctly a new killing zone. Had the Greek charge which they surely wouldn't have expected disorientated their commanders? Had he sown the confusion to allow his men the window to get to that rocky skull where they could reform and prepare for combat on their terms? Were the Persians feeling the increasing proximity of Greek steel? A further flight was now discharged and Cailimachus knew at once that they would sail right over their heads, perhaps despatching some of those already wounded who had been unlucky. But critically this barrage of arrows would leave his army untouched. He felt the phalanx behind him, the earth shuddering with their measured movement. Beyond he could see the Bythnian spearmen in their white tunics herded like sheep to act as a screen before the archers just as he had predicted. Even at this distance and running he could smell their reluctance. They were the unloved, unsung fodder that litter every battlefield. Sheep to our spears he thought. Good for our men to open their account with. Easy pickings that would grow our confidence and desire. He smiled. He had reached the rock.

He raised his spear and gave the order echoed by the battalion captains to reform double quick the phalanx. There was confusion as men, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat and oozing adrenalin tried to focus on the clinical needs of a battle. Phaedo straightened the front rank and almost mechanically those behind took their positions accordingly. Cailimachus slipped himself into the line seamlessly which opened as a unit for him and accepted him into the machine. They were just in time to lock their shields and crouch as the next shower of missiles began their dark descent.

Far to the left in the second rank of the Plateans Crito crouched and in the tedious silence observed the death throes of a beetle that had been caught in the savage crossfire of the Gods above him. He heard overhead the different notes as the arrows changed direction and wondered why and how these sounds were made. Among them making its own individual harmony was Nepho's perfect fellow made the night before and saved for this moment. The gap between Crito's shield and his comrade was no more than an arrow's breath. But it sought and found its way to the kindly philosopher's neck. Nepho was already tensing the string of his bow for another dart. He would never know what he had done. Within the hour he himself would be trampled in the anarchic stampede and panic. Trying to regain his feet after slipping on the blood and spilt organs of his brothers he would not see the face of the Platean baker who would thrust his spear into Nepho's unprotected back twisting it deep into his liver before withdrawing it using his foot to push away the lifeless corpse.

As Crito surrendered his soul uncertainly into the dark abyss, Eukles was sheltering under a roof of bronze shields. Milimetres above his shield hand arrows danced and pinged like hail. Strangely he found himself thinking of Crito and Philemon and the calmer Arimnestos a thousand yards to his left. He also imagined Phaedo's steel frame ten yards in front of him and Cailimachus, cool and alert depite the mayhem. These thoughts helped to distract him from the reality. Luke on the other hand felt nothing but fear, his own and that of the others in the claustrophobic, sweaty darkness of this prison of shields. The men around him were the army's 'noobs'or retirees, dumped into the lowest rank. They were struggling to suppress the fear which threatened to drive them mad and break away from the suffocation of the phalanx. Fear wasn't just something visual that you saw in a man's shaking hand or agitated eyes. It had a smell in the bodily discharges which flowed without awareness from the frightened. It had a sound in the whispered prayers and the deranged screams for mothers and forgiveness. It was the dry taste in Eukles' mouth and the feel of his shield grip slipping through his sweating palms.

"Ready to bind" came the concise instruction from the front. It reminded Luke of the referee's brief calls before a scrum in rugby. He understood through Eukles that the first rank must be about to engage the enemy. The job of all the other ranks was to create the forward pressure of a scrum to help press the front rank into, through and over the enemy.

He heard the clash of weaponry, of iron on iron and of shield on shield. The screams of grown men rang among the sounds of fighting as metal met metal or slashed and sliced its way through tissue and bone. He felt the initial impact broken though it was by the seven ranks in front and the ripple and buckle as the formation sought to correct itself after the primary charge. Then it recovered and started to grind its way, first by inches then slowly by feet and yards. It edged remorselessly forward crushing everything in its path. Eukles could not see what was happening as he pressed his weight against the man in front but he knew second hand what was at work. He had heard enough front rankers graphically describe the relentless killing power of a phalanx in full march. By now the first rank had shattered the Bythnian spearmen and who were trying to flee but in the confusion were running into their own comrades. It was as Cailimachus had foreseen 'easy slaughter'. The Second and third rank were trampling on the fallen enemy gutting with their spears and choking with their feet any Persian who showed sign of life. For the ranks behind there was no killing left. Slowly the rocky uneven ground dried and parched by the unforgiving sun became a meadow of wet humanity over which the phalanx now moved shifting upwards as if some subterranean movement of the earth was folding the land beneath it.

The phalanx lunged left then right each time taking a step forward, each time despatching another hundred miserable Bythnians. The first exhaustion of killing kicked in and Cailimachus called for the second rank to slot forward so that the first spears could gather breath. Luke saw the bodies ahead of him slip seamlessly over each other like atoms sliding across an interface, the ranks breaking then linking up again. Then the butchery started afresh as the second column went to work to feed their partially bloodied spears which hungered for men. Cailimachus drew breath happy that the first contact was a confidence boosting massacre.

Soon the last rank was treading dead flesh instead of earth. Eukles and Luke squirmed at the inhuman feel on their exposed sandalled feet on human skin made slippery by the muck of slaughter. Eukles began to retch and tried to control things but the blank staring eyes of a dead mangled Persian and the stench of fresh death was too much. He emptied his stomach.

But there was no time to make sense of anything. A cry of ' shields' went up and once again a curtain of wood and metal acted as a thin film separating arrow point and the soft, vulnerable trembling flesh beneath. Missiles rained down on the entire field killing without discrimination Persian and Greek alike. Cailimachus read into this desperate manouvre, that Atraphernes was rattled and had lost his nerve. He was entering the territory of the gambler happy to kill his own men if he could destroy the Athenian solidarity. More immediately it was all too much for the spearmen sandwiched now between their own arrows and the Greek phalanx. They did what any man would do. They turned and dropped their weapons scrambling as quickly as the obstacles allowed towards the only place of refuge left; the ships which bobbed playfully at anchor in the gentle waters of the bay.

Cailimachus told the men to hold. Hot pursuit would only break up the phalanx and he knew that the battle had not yet reached its point of no return. Through the haze of dust thrown up by the retreat, he could see the disciplined ranks of the' Immortals' brushing aside with disdain the terrified Bithynians.

"Now we earn our soldier's title."

The ground had been slippery with the tripes of the butchered, but as the phalanx moved easily forward the field became pock-marked with the dead rather than covered with them. Luke drew breath. He was grateful for the rediscovered feel of dirt on his feet as opposed to the softer floor of flesh embroidered with twisted limbs and lifeless accusing eyes. But he was uncomfortably aware that his calves and shins were splattered with the guts and blood of other men to which the dirt now clung like strands of icing on a cake.

Being in eight rank meant that their job was solely to anchor the others.There was no killing, their ash spears seemed redundant and their bronze shields used only as a roof against the cowardly Persian artillery. By the time the other seven ranks had done their work, the unfortunate enemy had been trampled, smothered and stabbed to death. The limbs of a few trembled with the last electrical impulses of life as the brains briefly fought against the hopeless inevitability of where they found themselves. Blood squirted from a dead artery emptying its last onto the greaves or sandals of the encroaching phalanx. Eukles faced front, avoiding the downward look as a climber does on a rocky ledge, but he needed to pick his way over the unpredictable surface so that he could act as a scaffold to the man in front. And so he found his eyes searching amid the landscape of motionless, warm human meat. Luke saw the personal jewellery on wrist and neck and the shirts with their rich embroidery now streaked with drying blood. Each had been lovingly made, laden with memory and meaning, the ancient world's photograph of the loved one who would not know. This evening they would be the spoils of war.

Above them in the bluest of skies Luke saw the blackest of birds circling with a horrifying patience. The vultures knew that these two legged masters of the planet provided the greatest larder of carcasses in their frequent orgies of death. The rats too, who had been recently hounded into their holes by the intrusion of fifty thousand humans, began to smell the mouth watering fragrance of fresh blood which was carried up the hillsides of the Varana valley where it mingled with the decaying gases of the Vrexia marsh. Packs of mangy, skeletal wild dogs twitched and yelped with the excitement of a great feed which the night would bring. The spoils of war.

The Immortals began their march. With a terrifying rhythm, they trundled inexorably towards the Athenian line which turned their great round shields to present a bronze wall of defiance. Locked together once more the Greeks rumbled over the rocky ground as one giant metal monster with well oiled and synchronised human cogs. Luke felt the zig-zag shift as the rocks and stones were rolled carelessly by the marching feet. These stones had lain untouched for thousands of years. Now they were kicked aside by the feet of a human army. Strangely amidst all this slaughter Luke wondered as he watched the fist sized stones scatter underfoot at how nothing is the same once his species steamrolls its way into town.

The tramp of both armies seemed to merge to one beat and mother earth trembled at their rough touch. Lying in close to the man in front Eukles could feel the heart beat, thumping against his ribs with its language of dread and fear. The lines were close now and he sensed that they would clash togethersending their shuddering tremor through the ranks and he wondered what use he was in such an epic collision. He shut his eyes tight, clenched his teeth, scrunched his face and gripped his shiled and sword and waited for the looming crash.

Metal smashed into metal, muscle to muscle, breath to breath, beard against beard. The seismic rupture passed into Eukles like a huge punch, shattering the line and bouncing Eukles onto the ground. He felt a hand on his neck, that of an old sergeant, who was busy flinging those who had been dislodged back into the phalanx. "Get the fuck back in there you big fuckin' nancy."

The big bear paw ensured that Eukles got the fuck back in there. He banged his shield against the man in front who didn't notice the impact but would never again sleep well thanks to the cracked vertebrae he had just been given. The Greeks had buckled and been thrown into reverse. There followed a choral moan as men sought the strength that lies in the hidden undiscovered caves of their being. It was a twenty thousand man scrum in which each man crouched pushed and panted to gain half a yard of stoney ground. But the real warriors knew that if that first half yard was lost then all was lost. The line steadied and straightened and then the men at the front began to hack and slash. Dimly through the cacophony of grunt and groan and the curtain of sweat and stink, Luke could hear the sound of death delivered less than ten metres ahead.

Luke understood that this was the endgame. Here was where the battle was won and lost. Here was where the winner would build and dedicate the trophy of victory. Neither side gave way.The suffocating heave continued and the old sergeant kicked and boxed those who thought they might surrender to the natural exhaustion that teased them to yield. Eukles dug his heels into the rocky ground and pushed and heaved but he felt his strength draining from him and from those beside him as they wilted collectively in the scorching heat. Then slowly imperceptibly the flank seemed to turn inwards like the minute hand of a clock only anti clockwise. Then the distress of those in the frontline began to filter through the ranks in shouts and half finished orders. The centre which had been weakened to four lines deep instead of eight was creaking and started to give way. If it broke the Athenians were lost.

As Eukles was processing this latest incomplete information, a cohort of Persians had manged to circle around the back and suddenly hurled itself at the Greek rear. Eukles and the last rank turned and locked shields and thrust and stabbed blindly at their attackers. The fighting was imprecise and frantic and Luke saw his host cut out at shadows and twice felt the crack of a sword on his shield. The old sergeant lashed out with greater effect and two Persians fell at his feet which forced the others to take a backward step and allow the virgin warriors in his care to steady themselves. The old timer then called out the orders which were the clear tonic that all needed, orders that they had heard so often in training and to which they now responded instinctively. They marched in formation to engage the Persians whose officers had been the ones felled by the sergeant's cool precision and who were now in a state of rudderless panic. The Athenian line moved in time gathering strength and belief from its mechanical approach and from the huddling of the Persians. A second Grand-dad emerged to lead the far end of the advance and together the two grey bearded veterans broke out and slashed at the Persians who refused to flinch. Eukles was carried into the fray by the men on either side hardly aware what was happening still awaiting more orders. But it was now the moment for him to make up his own battle script.

Thankfully his shield seemed to know the next lines and blocked the sword which clattered into it. The Persian bashed at the covering shield again and then a third time and Eukles was driven to his knees shoving upwards with his spear in hope as a boxer on the ropes throws punches that have none of the science of his sport. The sword smashed once again into his shield and Luke thought the metal must have ripped, but the action had left the Persian exposed to the spear thrust of Eukles. Both he and Luke felt the impact of the pointed iron as it pierced and then ripped the skin of his enemy. Eukles shoved harder and warm blood splashed onto his hand drenching it. His training had taught him to twist and withdraw and as he did so he heard the sickly sound of the man's vital organs squelching under the open wound.

The Persian fell dead on top of the shield he had just been battering with all his animal power. His head with a fountain of blood spilling from the mouth rested itself on the edge and stared accusingly at his killer. Somewhere deep within him Eukles discovered a strength which would have benched two hundred kilos and he pushed the corpse upwards and off. He wiped away the sweat from his eyes only to smear his face with the blood which temporarily blinded him. But it did not matter. His comrades had fallen like savage dogs on the last remaining enemy soldiers. He saw, only a few yards from where he stood, the final Persian despatched knocked semi conscious with a shield which cracked his front teeth, and then finished off with a spear thrust through the soft unprotected skin beneath the ribs.

The old timer had won his little battle and had done so without loss. The soldiers kicked the still warm corpses and ululated to the skies in thanks for their new found role as killer. But the old sergeant knew that skirmishes were won but battles could still be lost. He looked across the line with trepidation as he saw Themistocles trying to rally the centre which was buckling and threatening to dissolve into a headlong retreat. Eukles too saw this critical point in the battle. They had to turn the crushing weight of the Persians which was bearing down on the centre. Luke also recognised the gravity of the moment and the word itself suggested an idea.

"What goes up comes down Eukles" he said.

"What?" came back Eukles' irritating reply spoken through panted breath as he recovered from the strain of his first killing. The image of death lingered, burnt into his brain, as a ghost image lingers on a screen.

"The stones. Gravity. What goes up? Fling the stones into the air so that they land on the Persians."

Eukles hadn't a clue about Newton's law but he grasped the possibilities provided by the floor of fist sized rocks. The Athenians had no missile troops but the eight ranks of recently deflowered warrior virgins and grey haired- has- beens could surely best serve the cause by flinging the ready to hand killers into the densely packed cloud of Immortals.

He planted his spear in the earth and dropped his shield beside it. The clanging noise drew the attention of the sergeant who bellowed at him to shoulder his weapons. But Eukles ignored the order and picked up a rock and hurled it over the heads of the phalanx and into the Persian ranks.

The old timer repeated the order with a fearsome bark. But by now Eukles had taken aim with his third lethal effort which couldn't miss. The right flank had turned the Persians who were squeezed inwards. But the Greek centre was struggling. Something was needed to relieve them before the inevitable damburst which would unleash the Immortals into the Athenian rear. The sergeant saw the possibilities. He dropped his weapons and began to fire stones on the hapless Persians simultaneously barking the order to the entire rank to do the same.  
Within seconds volleys of rough stones were hurtling through the sky falling on the Persians knocking helmets into a confused crush and leaving them dazed and exposed. Gradually the sergeant imposed a military precision and the men fired in unison. The effect was withering on the middle ranks of the Immortals who cowered and creaked under the deathly rain.

"Aim higher" snapped Luke feeling like the real director of operations. "Increase the g force. The impact will be greater."

Eukles screamed out the advice which he intently put into effect. Luke now tried to do the maths. About fifty men were emptying the plain of these stones. He reckoned a rate of 15 per minute. Luke's computation without a calculator wasn't flattering to his mental maths. "15 times fifty equals," he stalled, "equals..."

Eukles unleashed another with a venomous throw which flew towards its unsuspecting target. "Equals seven hundred and something" said Luke giving up. "Jesus" he cried "that is some killing power."

The men now had to search harder for missiles and the numbers lobbed started to slacken. But Luke began to imagine what he had caused to be done and grimaced. However he comforted himself with the idea of the oppressed all across the world who had learned to throw stones at the mighty who swaggered as the Persians had swaggered these last weeks. Stone age fighting, the last resort. Eukles relished the freedom of this form of fighting. It was away from the dense sweaty pack where his sinewy frame was a poor addition. Here he was unencumbered and he threw rocks with gusto. Luke quickly realised that this was a theatre without the shriek and stink of human hurt. There was no face of battle staring back with those blank accusing eyes. Eukles hurled his missiles without any knowledge of the cracked skulls and the agony and terror they brought. It was a very modern face of battle. Hacking a man to pieces as his blood dries on your own skin is the food of nightmares. Luke imagined pilots in his own time safe in the clouds dispatching with a trigger their cargos of destruction never seeing the end product, just as Nepho had not seen the resting place of his finely crafted arrow. But Nepho now had moments to live. The Persians were about to break.

Phaedo was busy killing soldiers the old fashioned way. He saw the rocks fall like hail from the Gods. He had seen enough battles to know what would happen. The 'Immortals' were hard, but they were not so hard and not so stupid that they would stand and needlessly sell their lives so cheaply in this cul de sac of death. Fear grips all men and then it spreads like a toxic plague in a fly infested drought. Confusion reigns until finally fear declares itself with an ear piercing bellow and then at that moment all is lost. A disciplined army disintegrates within minutes as a store of wheat slips from a torn sack. Even the greatest of commanders knows that the situation is beyond retrieving.

With these thoughts of victory in his head Phaedo parried the sword thrust of an Immortal officer who in turn dodged the swoop of Phaedo's spear. But then the Persian centre suddenly shattered. Men began to turn and run and in their efforts to run faster they unburdened themselves of any baggage, jettisoning their sickle swords and shields in the head long flight. The Athenian centre which had been squeezed to its own breaking point now belched forth its power relieved as it was of the Persian pressure. This increased the panic. Phaedo's opponent briefly lost his focus which was just enough time for Phaedo to stab his spear into the man's face where it ripped through the flesh of the cheek and embedded itself in the palate of the brave Immortal for whom death was at least quick and if one could say it, honourable.

In the centre Themistocles was barking and kicking at his men who smelled blood and booty. Obnoxious he may be but he understood clearly the need to keep the phalanx together in order to clinically finish off the enemy. Cailimachus saw that the battle had been won. The Athenian flanks now closed in mercilessly on the trapped Persians who found themselves in his beautifully constructed killing zone. Now the second bout of 'easy slaughter' could begin.

The old sergeant knew that once again it was time for spear and shield. He also knew that as his rank was the freshest it was their duty to pursue the stragglers who were making for the sanctuary of the ships. Every Persian killed now in the chaos was one less to kill in their next outing. And every body had its own booty of weapons and clothing and trinkets. He assembled his company of stone throwers and put them back into battle shape. As he did so he could see the carnage to his left as the Athenians began to suffocate the panic stricken Immortals caught between the two flanking hammers and pummelled on the anvil centre. 'Easy slaughter' remembered Luke with a shudder hoping that Eukles would take his eyes away from the butchery.

"The field is ours lads," said the old timer seeing that his troops had the new energy that comes to those who believe. "We must smash them completely. They are running. We must kill them before they can escape. Remember what Cailimachus said ' let every Persian mother rue the day she let her son come to Greece'." There was a great roar. "Form a battle group ranks of eight by eight. Stay bound."

The perfect square unit marched as one creature like a bronze and bloodied tortoise, skirting the Athenian flank until it came into full view of the scattered remains of the once mighty Persian force who were bumbling ant like over the shingle of the beach and splashing their way through the surf ripping others off the ladders into the ships whose sailors were cutting the cables for escape.

Several other Athenian ranks had broken onto the shoreline already despatching pockets of unarmed Persians who pleaded on their knees with tear filled eyes and hands clasped as if in prayer. Fear was working its last indignity transforming the arrogant into beggars. The pleas were futile. The Greeks were beyond pity or reason or any of the emotions that make men noble.They slashed and battered and clubbed hundreds to death and with each act of savagery their blood lust grew and their sense of godlike invincibility took over. They became reckless and broke rank but their recklessness instead of making them soft targets for the Persians only made them more fearful. They staggered away, falling helplessly, crawling, screaming, desperately clinging to the last threads of hope and life. The Mediterranean washed over Eukles' feet. He looked down and Luke saw that the gently breaking wave was red.
Chapter 14

Triumph And Disaster

Eukles was carried along in this orgy of slashing and bashing with spear, boot, fist, and shield. He snarled and snotted and drooled as he stabbed and hacked with his javelin before its shaft snapped under the weight of a falling man into whose stomach he had shoved it. He left the remains in the tripes of a pleading archer whose bow and linen shirt were of no use in these close quarters. His broken spear was not yet the hallowed weapon of Cailimachus but Eukles was determined to retrieve it after the battle for it had been made holy by its first taste of Persian blood and would be passed from son to son as the sacred spear first used at Marathon. He snatched up a sword that had been discarded on the shingle and began to look for another pleading victim.

Luke was shocked at first by the red mist that consumed his friend, but as the awful brutality raged he saddened as the unrecognisable Eukles released his inner animal emptied of the finer motives that men can sometimes engage. The fury had buried Crito's sweet reason. Reason with its sweetness now sullied would eventually re-emerge when exhaustion had returned the sword to its sheath and then that self same reason which had freed men fromthe nightmares of the dark would haunt him with remorse. But for the moment there was no reason and no restraint.

When they had mopped up those Persians whose panic had separated them in the general flight to the ships, this advance guard now regrouped into its phalanx formation with Eukles in the front rank breathing heavily and panting like a rabid dog who has tasted madness for the first time and wasn't sure of this new flavour. Luke had counted five 'kills', he couldn't think of a more appropriate word. He remembered each one. None of the enemy had offered resistance. Two were unarmed and one had been speared in the back. It had all seemed shameful, dirty. Surely there were laws and rules and surely they had been transgressed. But all around him was carnage and chaos with every man making up his own spontaneous script of battle which no doubt would be fictionalised, filtered and sanitised in the years to come. It was a field of bloody iron and lifeless, human meat and fear. Fear was everywhere. Everyone was afraid.

A Persian rearguard had been cobbled together on the beach to act as a screen for some semblance of an orderly evacuation. Luke surmised by the demeanour of these approaching soldiers that they were not fodder cowed by the orders and threats of fat cowardly generals. They marched with a frightening determination, brave men shamed by the unmanly flight of their comrades who would stand and if necessary die to expiate that shame. Just as the Athenians who had run from Eretreia but who now were throwing battle's dice in order to assuage their deep felt harrowing guilt which had robbed them of their manly pride. A herd of fools, thought Luke. These Persians knew that all was lost but they had come to this beach to die a warrior's death.

The old timer saw them for what they were and steeled the boys in his command to hold their ground against this most formidable foe until the relief came from the main Athenian force which was busy finishing its easy slaughter. The main battle was fizzling out in complete massacre. Phaedo, Daemon and Cailimachus realised that they were needed alongside the small square phalanx which was holding the beach against an encroaching and menacing Persian Brigade. Phaedo shouted to the hundred or so men of the first rank for whom plain butchery was beneath their soldiery pride and told them to follow to the beach.

Meanwhile the Persians had fallen on that tiny phalanx with the endgame desperate energy bred of injured pride, humiliatiuon and fallen friends. Eukles and his brothers in arms locked shields and presented four walls of shivering bronze against which the Persian storm crashed, shattering it at several points. The anonymous man to Eukles' right fell dead instantly as the first Persian warriors thrust deep into the Phalanx. The Greeks hacked at anything that moved sometimes ripping Greek flesh and Persian alike. Swords and spears swished death from above and below as men cowered behind ineffective shields and listened relieved as a metal point whizzed by the head. A brief moment of thanks to the Gods before a spear rammed its way thorugh the spine and into the soft organs behind.

Everywhere was noise and sweat and blood. Men slipped on the guts of other men and were skewered before the killer made vulnerable by his thrust was himself killed. The weight of the Persian assault began to tell. Eukles had been shunted aside when the Phalanx buckled first and the maddened Persians in their efforts to penetrate to the middle had ignored him. He had struck out with his sword which had become embedded in a man's shoulder and now found himself with only his shield. He hardly saw the great axe whose shaft hit him on the head throwing him to the ground and knocking his helmet into the sea. This is it thought Luke as the owner of the axe raised it above his head eclipsing the sun to readying it to bring it crashing into Eukles' skull. Luke remembered the Antique Adventures shop where it had all begun in what now seemed a life time ago. He remembered feeling groggy like this after the slap from the bollock naked twin had introduced him to this crazy world full of crazy people. He saw in a nano second, Eukles' face in the basin and Phaedo and Daemon and Cailimachus and Crito and the others. And then he saw the axe. "Good bye Eukles" he whispered.

Dazed and semi conscious Eukles heard the whispered words but today was not a day for dying. He was determined to tell about this day to his sons and stand a tiptoe higher on its anniversary. His hand gripped the sandy beach and he remembered that Phaedo had told him there was always a weapon to hand. He grasped the dry golden sand under him and hurled a fist of it into the eyes of his attacker. Instantly the Persian dropped the axe to protect his tormented eyes and save his threatened sight. With his other hand Eukles grabbed a stone rounded by the soft Mediterranean tide. In a few thousand years lovers would toss such a stone into the ocean making a silly honeymoon wish to love each other always. But today Eukles' had a different purpose for it. He shoved it into the Persian's face between the bronze curtains of his helmet. It smashed against the fingers of the warrior who was still protecting his eyes. In pain he lashed out and Eukles ducked to avoid the crunching fist, then returned again to pummelling the man's face, cracking his teeth and nose. The wretch fell to his knees and his helmet fell too leaving his head exposed. Eukles then grasped a greater rock this time the size of a bread loaf, and brought it crashing down splitting the skull open. Eukles quickly raised the dripping rock above his head to repeat the action but it was not necessary. The Persian collapsed in a heap at his feet the pus of his brain leaking like grey oil onto the pebbles.

He hurled the rock at the exposed spine of another who was about to finish off the old timer. The rock did its job and the old sergeant who had fought for more years than Eukles had lived took advantage of the distraction to spear his opponent. But once again the feckless Gods were bored on their mountain top and wanted their sport. Eukles only got to see the look of gratitude from the sergeant before he too was cut down this time from behind.

It seemed that the Persians would have their little bit of glory but as they were about to indulge in the slaughter that comes to those who get the upper hand, the fresher forces of Phaedo and Cailimachus bounded in. The enemy could have run but they had as Luke had guessed come to die on this beach and they hadn't come to sell their lives cheaply. Caillimachus smashed into the Persian mass carving a path lined with fallen bodies. The elite of the Athenians followed his lead and now all was murder. Eukles picked up a sword unsure of its origin. He didn't know if it were Greek or Persian. He didn't know who or which race owned the warm blood which slipped along its edge like red honey. But he did not use the sword. He watched, stupified and exhausted as Phaedo danced nimbly delivering pain and death with surgical precision to all in his way. He sliced open seven or eigth men, two hundred years of living destroyed in seconds. Luke thought of all that life, years of growing and learning, skills and knowledge honed over decades, memories and emotions and dreams, and now so many thousands of accumulated years brought to an abrupt halt. And he added to these all the years that would not now be lived. Futile.

But thought did not stop the bloodshed. Daemon killed with equal ease to Phaedo, effeciently sending men on their way to Hades. Standing smeared in the blood of others now dead, Eukles thought suddenly of the throng of shades packing the banks of the Styx.

Phaedo and Daemon continued to add to the world of ghosts but it was Cailimachus who stood out most. He didn't just fight and kill, he also ordered and organised. His eyes were on his attackers but they also strayed to the bigger picture to process the information which would speed victory and make it more complete. And perhaps it was that which caused him to miss the Carian whose battle axe Eukles saw helplessly swinging through the thick dusty air. Perhaps exhaustion had blurred his reflexes. Perhaps it was because the fates had spun the thread of his life or perhaps a careless fate had casually snapped the thread distracted by some unimportant event.

Whatever the case the axe fell with powerful force and severed at the shoulder in one clean blow the right arm of Cailimachus. Luke let out an unheard scream but the agonised roar of Eukles briefly buffeted the circling vultures and stilled the hands of Daemon and Phaedo. He flung his sword at the Carian who was about to dissect Cailimachus. The flattened side of the sword struck the axe wielder on the back of the head causing him to pause for a fatal second. The next thing he felt was Phaedo's spear slicing his left kidney. Both axe and axeman slumped to the ground. Daemon used his great body as a shield and a magnet for further attacks, and then together he and Phaedo chased away the last dregs of the Persian assault. The Athenians pursued them into the sea cutting them down as they tried to swim for the ships which were now under sail and slapping their hulls against the waiting waves.

Blood poured from Cailimachus' exposed shoulder. Luke saw the severed arm with its hand still grasping the spear, a gruesome souvenir of war. The old general's breathing was heavy and laboured and with each breath blood oozed from the sinuous wound. His body began to tremble as life began to depart. Eukles removed the helmet from his head which he then cushioned in his lap. Their eyes met. Cailimachus tried to move his lips but no words came. Eukles bent his ear closer so that he could almost feel the moisture on the hairs of Cailimachus' beard. The dying warrior then spoke as he had fought, though the words were only a whisper. "We are men. We live as men and that is how we die".

And that was it. Cailimachus gave up whatever life was left in him. If he had a soul it had no longer a home. Luke felt the sweat and heat from the corpse and the wound which still bled with the warm viscous blood which was now useless. Around him the last pulse of the battle still raged, its pointless death rattle coughed upon the sand and shingle and in the surf of this ugly beach. But despite the rage of war, Luke felt a funereal silence descend on this parcel of the shoreline. For a moment under the bronze sky of Daemon's shield, all life and living seemed to bow its head and cry at the futility of man and men. Luke wanted the battle to stop. He wanted the Persians to pack up their swords and sail home and grow wheat and milk cows and tell their sons bed time stories. He wanted everyone to leave this place and seal it off from any further human contact as if it were the site of some horrific nuclear accident. Leave it to nature. Let the olive trees fight with the rocks for this useless acreage of dirt.

Eukles blinked back his tears and turned his head to face Phaedo. Daemon stood over both, his leather armour splashed with the dried and drying insides of dozens of dead men. He stabbed his spear into the ground and extended his hand to Eukles who paused before taking it. Daemon pulled him to his feet and held him at arms, length, his calm, dark Spartan eyes fixed on him. Eukles looked and understood, then fashioned the words with his lips.

"We are men".

Daemon read the words which were not audible and gave a faint nod whose intimacy reassured Eukles that this was the way of the soldier. This was the life that he and Cailimachus had chosen. This was the death that had always strolled beside him and that could have happened on a desert dune in Syria or in a drenched ditch in Lydia. It was a warrior's death. Not one spent lingering and wheezing, coughing up the body's muck on a soiled bed, a half delirious burden on all. 'A good life' said Daemon's eyes 'and a good death'. Eukles nodded back to show he understood and Daemon allowed himself a smile.

There were no shouts to signal victory. There was no elation or jubilation. Everyone was too exhausted to celebrate. They slumped down loosening off their choking armour, gulping down reviving draughts of air, wine and water. Some started to laugh and others to cry while others managed to do both. Nearly everyone had a wound to be dressed. Thighs, forearms, slashed faces were being attended, bathed in ointments prepared in advance and pastes applied. Red hot blades were sealing more demanding cuts. Men dizzy with delayed concussion stumbled to the sanctuary of a rock where they could rest and steady their limbs. Everyone's hair was matted to their head with sweat which had moulded it to the shape of their helmets.

Although the great din of conflict had subsided and disappeared, absorbed as an echo into the surrounding hills, it was replaced by the moans of a thousand half dead men whose maddening cries could be heard from the landscape of Persian corpses. Having to wade through these groaning mounds of flesh to kill these men seemed too much work for those now tired of killing. Occasionally a Greek voice could be heard and slaves were sent stepping carelessly amongst the heaps to recover him.

Corpses lay in pockets or individually along the beach front and others bobbed like refuse sacks in the ocean.The Athenians had failed to capture more than half a dozen ships. The fleet was sailing away southwards unhindered leaving their fodder behind. The Battle of Marathon had been won and lost.

Miltiades called a Council of War of the tribal generals. Each gave an account of losses. One hundred and ninety two men of Athens and eleven Plateans had paid the ultimate price though many more would die of their wounds in the coming days and years. Estimates of six thousand Persians had fallen and they had left behind much of their stores. The forges of Athens would be gorged with Persian metal for years to come. Luke noticed the mixed emotions shown when Miltiades saw that Cailimachus was not present. He was clearly moved by the death of such a great man, but Luke also sensed that Miltiades saw advantage for himself in this removal of a possible rival.

"We do not have time" he began clearly, this impatient man whose impatience had brought the Persians to Greece in the first place."We do not have time to rest our limbs and dress our wounds.The Persians have sailed south to Athens. It is possible that Datis with the cavalry will be there by morning. We must march within the hour to relieve the city before the enemy force the defenders to surrender." There was a silent resignation as each man recognised the wisdom of Miltiades' words and remembered now why their hands were smothered in the blood of others.

"The tribes of Leontis and Antiochus who fought hard in the centre will stay to administer the battlefield and protect its booty." Themistocles and Aristides seemed relieved but Aristides at least looked mildly guilty at the favouritism shown. Aristides was then nominated as the senior commander. Perhaps Luke thought, Miltiades is cynically driving a wedge between erstwhile allies. He noted the fiery Themistocles bristle at the announcement. Cailimachus would not have engendered such bad blood by making a call that did not have to be made. But Luke was beginning to realise that it was probably in Miltiades' interest to have the commanders hating each other for him to preserve his place atop the greasy pole of Athenian political life.

Already Eukles was missing the integrity and worldly intelligence of the dead warrior. His thoughts turned to the corpse which had been laid out alongside those of the other Greeks who had fallen. There seemed to be no counterweight to Miltiades' ambition, no man of honour whose presence and influence could exert a check on events. More than the body of Cailimachus had died on the field. The battle sighed Eukles to himself had been won but all seemed perished.

Orders were given for the men to be fed, watered and battle ready within the hour for the forced march back to Athens.The generals were dismissed to carry out the order by Miltiades who did so with an imperial assurance that touched on arrogance. He then beckoned Phaedo who approached with a less than deferential air which Miltiades ignored with a shrug. They spoke together at a distance that made the conversation a private one which Eukles and Daemon sought to interpret by observing the body language. Both knew that some sort of deal was being brokered as to who would take over the tribe now that Cailimachus was dead. Phaedo looked uncomfortable, a soldier in a place where soldiers don't belong. His attitude was negative without being animated. Eukles imagined he was torn between distaste for the work and the sense of duty he felt to fill the void in the chain of command. Miltiades on the other hand gave the impression of a happy angler teasing his catch to the bank. He spoke smoothly, counting points on his fingers trying to disarm Phaedo with his charm and bribes. Phaedo returned after a few minutes with his head turned towards the earth his half visible face an image of turbulence and suppressed frustration.

"He wants a replacement for Cailimachus. He wants me. I told him I was a soldier, not a general." Luke could see that Phaedo was struggling with the limitations in his thinking that he was becoming aware of. "I should have said nothing. Our business is not his but he'll end up making us his tools." Phaedo raised his head in defeat and faced Eukles."I'm out of my depth kid and he knows I am. He's going to trap us into doing his work. Out of my depth kid." He began shaking his head in distress. "All I could do was play for time. I told him no decision would be made until the Persians were destroyed." Daemon nodded in sympathy but it was unpleasantly obvious from the strained faces of both warriors that they were crippled with anxiety. They had strayed from the safe cockpit of battle to the darkened snakepit of politics. They reminded Luke of the duffers in his higher math's class at the start of term- they hadn't a clue and their faces showed it and they weren't kidding anyone. Miltiades gently broke in on this exchange to say that he needed to speak with the youth called Eukles.

"That would be me" said Eukles with an assertiveness that was noticed by all. It had a defiance which made Miltiades smile and he gave an easy head movement by way of acknowledgement.

"Walk with me," he commanded and began to turn away but he was obliged to stop.

"If you have something to say to me then you may say it in front of these men. I will only tell them anyway," said Eukles with mature firmness.

Again Miltiades smiled his dismissive smile. "You can tell them what you wish. I however made a vow to Cailimachus before we left Athens. That vow involved something of a private nature. Walk with me "and then with a further smile which Luke almost mistook for humility he added a softly spoken "please".

Eukles looked to Phaedo and Daemon and both signalled him to go. His demeanour showed reluctance but he acknowledged their encouragement and turned, carefully staying alongside Miltiades so as not to give the impression of following. Luke was impressed by this quick learning politician.

Miltiades compensated by engaging several officials as they walked towards the camp. Luke felt that many of these stops were unnecessary and merely used to leave Eukles isolated. As a consequence Eukles made his own small talk with anyone he recognised. A pissing contest thought Luke. The undiluted warmth of the greeting from Arimnesto and Philemon annoyed Miltiades which in turn brought a smug pleasure to Eukles. But the smiles evaporated as Philemon gave the cost of victory. "We lost eleven men kid. Crito was among them."

The news pierced Eukles' heart. He had been looking forward to seeking the ear of this wise and kind man. But he also knew that this was not the time or place to show any unmanly weakness. He pursed his lips a movement which Philemon mirrored in sympathy.

"We will talk and drink later my friend Philemon and drain a flask for Crito."

"Yes kid yes."

Eukles was conscious that there was a slight sneer on Miltiades' face when Philemonhad called him 'kid'. He toyed with the idea of correcting Philemon but concluded that he would only be doing so because of the presence of Miltiades. He was after all a kid to the older Philemon. He was who he was and had no call to falsify himself in order to impress Miltiades.

They made their way from the killing zone where the odour of death and rot mixed with the buzz of a million flies which had greedily descended on this newly found and very generous banquet. They walked quietly, suspiciously playing a silent game of pretence. When they came to the furrowed line that had been drawn in the earth by Cailimachus' spear only hours before, Miltiades walked right through it without any sense of the reverence that all the other feet had shown. Eukles paused in disgust.

"It's only a line kid. It'll be gone by nightfall."

"My name is Eukles. I'd be gratefulif you'd call me that way. Cailimachus who carved this line would have it that way."

"Cailimachus is dead," came the abrupt reply. But then Miltiades readjusted his mood. He remade the line with his foot. "My apologies Eukles. Come we have much to discuss."

Eukles remembered the sacred vow he had taken before crossing that line in the earth. The Persians had been driven into the sea. But now there seemed to be another enemy to be confronted, another vow to be taken, another line to be drawn and crossed. With his mind burdened and his spirit heavy Eukles stepped over.

Miltiades led the way to the wood which had served as the Athenian camp and picked a path past the oaks and pines until he reached the place where earlier that morning, before so much blood and death, Cailimachus had mapped out the battle plan. Eukles found himself remembering word for word the wisdom of his dead friend and father. Luke found himself wondering if Miltiades had deliberately chosen the place to unhinge the young and inexperienced kid before him.

Miltiades dismissed his adjutant with orders to move along a pocket of battle weary warriors who were scavenging the remains of this morning's interrupted breakfasts. Luke saw in their scurry to sate their hunger, a savage metaphor of how life starts again for the survivors. We must eat and return as best we can to the way things were. Tonight they would sleep with their wives and in the morning they would bake bread and gut fish and throw clay upon the wheel to make pots. And having thanked the gods for their delivery they would quickly resume the self pity for their sad little lives.

"No disturbances until I call you."

The order was clear and as much for Eukles' benefit as for the adjutant who crisply saluted his chief. Miltiades gave orders without apology or explanation and with full expectation that they would be executed.That was the way it should be. Not like in Luke's world where everything had to be explained and justified and watered down. He lived in a disobedient world.

Eukles was invited to sit after Miltiades himself had done so, taking the very same fallen log he had sat on that morning and offering that which Cailimachus had occupied to his young guest. Once again a trick to disconcert. A game of chess.

Eukles looked at the empty bench and felt hopelessly inadequate and unworthy.The place hadn't changed except that now instead of the great throng of half -mad men, there were only two quiet and sober ones. Instead of a battle to be fought there was the carcass of victory to be picked over. The place seemed to be in mourning for the vital energy and spirit of Cailimachus. It had an emptiness now, robbed as it was of that defining, noble presence. It was just a clearing ravaged and trampled and sullied by men and the children of men. The world in Eukles' confused and increasingly foggy mind seemed bereft of honour and integrity and all the manly things that Cailimachus had brought into the filthy confluence of human affairs.

Quietly and without fuss Eukles declined the offer and chose another log. He sat down and slumped forward. But then gathering himself he straightened his back and faced Miltiades. The general gave a knowing swing of his head toward the empty log, "yes he is irreplaceable. But we who are left alive must move on.The skies do not fall because one man has died." Luke thought of the men moved on by the adjutant who had been breakfasting on the cold porridge from this morning.

Eukles maintained a stoic silence which mildly irked Miltiades. He liked men to show themselves, to talk and in talking to reveal themselves. It allowed his quick intelligence to grasp the initiative and manouvre events to the point where he wanted them. The silent deep ones like Cailimachus always irked. And now this demanding whippersnapper.

"I've brought you here in order,"

"General Miltiades," interrupted Eukles and Luke drew in a breath that told him that this could go anywhere, "with all respect to your exalted position. You did not bring me here. I came here by myself."

Miltiades was momentarily thunderstruck and his face tightened with shock and disbelief that one so young could talk to him in such an insolent way. There was a tense silence as both men eyed each other. But then Miltiades suddenly let out a great guffaw and stood up.

Eukles shifted on the log. Miltiades might be old but he was a consumate killer. Where he thought to himelf was the adjutant. Perhaps lurking behind with a sharpened blade. One more death on this feast of death would not tumble the skies. He was conscious of his defenselessness.

"Relax kid," and he picked up a flask of wine dangling from a branch. He swigged from it with a soldier's swagger before tossing it to Eukles."Have the first of many cups with the devil. You'll sup with worse than me if you're going to advance in this life. Your buddy Cailimachus knew as much. The Gods on their cold mountains know that he broke bread with me. This is how things are done."

Eukles took the flask, uncorked it and squeezed a line of wine into his open mouth. Then recorking it he resumed his silence.

"The grizzled old bugger was right about you" continued Miltiades with a grunt. "Anyway I brought you here." He stopped himself and smiled and Luke saw the charm that made others loathe and like him." Forgive me. It is very kind of you to accede to my request to come here, despite my exalted position". Another disarming smile. "And there are two reasons. The first will be in the spirit of your dead friend, the second is more" he paused to find the correct version in words. "The second is more worldly, shall we say. For we are men of this world, be sure of that."

Coming from those lips the phrase had a sickening incongruity to it. But Eukles showed no emotion. "And these two things?" he asked, his question deliberately short. Luke was impressed with his friend's icy composure. He understood the tactics but wondered if he could have managed the same level of discipline and restraint himself. Miltiades just gave a snort.

"I have a debt of honour that is as yet unpaid. I know you and yours will mock and laugh, that one like me with all I've done across the sea and here in Athens could use one of your precious words like 'honour'. But I grasp honour as much as the next man. Sadly young man where I sail on stormy waters, it's often in a boat with holes drilled by others who would have you drown." He snorted once again and then laughed at his simile. "The world is a flexible place kid, always in motion. Things change kid including definitions of honour. We bend to avoid the storm and then spring back like the willow to see that the great oak in whose shadows we shivered has crashed and fallen." He patted the log on which he sat for effect. It had once been a limb from a great and noble oak, now it was food for maggots and grubs, and a seat for Miltiades boney backside.

"Cailimachus knew that Marathon would be his tomb. I'll see that he gets the funeral he desrves. He was strange like that. He knew things in a way that others didn't. He saw the battle before a sword was drawn. Perhaps he even saw the axeman who killed him."

Eukles saw too that final moment. The noise, the axe, the arm, the blood. And then his last whispered words.

"He made me vow to protect you kid and he gave me victory in return. I'll uphold my side of the bargain as best I can."

Eukles was puzzled "Protect me from what?" Again Miltiades snorted, this time a dirty cynical snort which made Eukles feel small and inferior as if it carried with it all the destructive worldliness of its owner, a knowledgeable superiority that knew men and their ways. Luke saw the lionskin on the wall of Callimachus house in his mind's eye, a sober reminder of the fearful paths we walk every day.

"Kid," he began. Eukles knew that the condescending term was intended to ruffle him. He had decided to ignore it. Miltiades would, he guessed, eventually tire of it if it had no effect. "Kid when we send the remnants of the Persians packing tomorrow and mop up their garrisons before the Autumn, there'll be no one left to fight. No one except..." He stopped allowing his guest to become part of the thought.To be a conspirator.

"No one except ourselves."

Miltiades raised his eyebrows as if to say that nothing else needed to be said.

"We will spend the entire winter kid, with big bollocked men whose bollokcs have grown heftier with this great victory and who have nothing to do except drink and haunt women and respond to insults real or imagined. Do you know what big bollocked men are capable of?" Luke and Eukles both saw the naked twin dangling angrily in front of them. Not a sweet sight. Not something you want to see multiplied by a thousand.

"Cailimachus was the best man I've ever seen for keeping the lid on a bubbling pot. He'll be missed.They obeyed him because of who he was. But I'm the man now. Marathon is my battle and it will make them obey me. Cailimachus knew this would happen. That's why he made the deal."

"Cailimachus won the battle," wheezed Eukles impetuously like a spoilt child bristling at an injustice.

Miltiades smiled at the loss of composure. "Yes kid you can argue that he did. But he'snot here to use it is he? I am. So let's get things straight. Marathon is mine."

Eukles understood that this was as much an order as that given earlier to the Adjutant. Miltiades expected, demanded obedience on this one. His stare after he had finished had a grey steeliness about it. Eukles remebered the bending willow. Miltiades would try to protect him but never if it weakened him.

"You said there were two things." Again Luke noted the abrupt question. He had shifted away from the ownership of the battle without conceding anything. In itself that seemed petty given the recent sacrifices of so many. But the politician inside him was growing up fast, and he realised that whoever had their name attached to Marathon was probably the most important thing at the moment.

"Ah number two," said Miltiades with that annoying feeling of complete certainty. "Well I can see that Cailimachus was right about you. He knew men. He knew that those like Phaedo could do a certain task but would be hopeless for others. He had the measure of me. Saw me as a fallen man. Had a grudging admiration though. Saw some talent in me some form of redemption. I admired him without the grudge. He was one of the best. I too know men kid," and he fixed Eukles with a knowing look.

"The last thing Athens needs is chaos and division. Phaedo is no Cailimachus. He's..." Miltiades paused aware that a flippant adjective would alienate Eukles."Phaedo is too straight.Too much of a soldier. Too liable to be drawn by crafty men." Eukles listened. It wasn't pleasant but Miltiades did indeed know men and there was an inevitability that over the winter Phaedo would be provoked and then savaged by the likes of Themistocles.

"What has this got to do with me?" inquired Eukles at length.

"Come on kid. Don't be so modest. Cailimachus knew that Phaedo would be no replacement. He was grooming you. The son he never had? You can talk to Phaedo, guide him. After all Daemon isn't going to be much help is he?" He chuckled at his tasteless joke for which a lesser man had died face first in a fire last night.

"Look kid you are young, very young. But I am impressed. I need to control Athens in the coming months until we can go all out in the spring against the Persians and carry the war across the sea. I need men like you and Aristides to control the hotter heads like Themistocles and Phaedo. If I can't control him. Well let's hope I won't have to deal with that." The threat was hardly veiled. "Phaedo's answer is always the knife. You and I know that it's not always the answer. Don't we?"

"You mean that now you've got your battle and with it the gratitude of the whole of Greece, you need the knives to stay in their sheaths."

"The fact that you say that and, I should add that you say it so well shows that I'm speaking to the right man. Cailimachus chose well."

Eukles suddenly stood up. "I need to consider the issue." And with that he started to walk away.

"Kid" said Miltiades as Eukles bent a branch out of his way. "Consider the issue, but don't consider for too long. And be aware that I'm not the sort who asks twice." He had finished and flashed a smile that reminded Luke of a coffin and then summoned the adjutant who appeared as if magically from the cover of a nearby hedge.
Chapter 15

The hillside was monastic in its silence. The birds had not stayed in their tree tops as the slaughter unfolded on the plain below, and despite the promise of grubs and flies that came with so much rotting flesh there was no chorus of joy and celebration. Amid this peace and calm, the breeze in the leaves was the only sound apart from the filtered whine of men with their various post battle moans, sighs and screams. Godlike, Eukles looked down fromthe vantage point picking out by their armour or gait those he knew. Themistocles was busy corralling squares of captives who would work his mines and orchards till the next crop of slaves presented themselves from the next battle. He whipped and boxed and kicked and mocked the newly degraded Persians who only last night had banged and danced to the arrogant sound of their victory drums. Fortunes change thought Luke as the proud now cowered and begged. Would Themistocles have begged had the roles been reversed? Would Phaedo? These men were hard but they had only one life and men would cling to it at great cost. Dignity and pride could easily be traded.

"I need your help Lukelly. There is a weight on my shoulders and I fear it is too heavy for me to bear."

Luke heard the plea and with it the deep felt pain that gave it birth. He wanted to help but he was all too conscious of his own uselessness in this unequal struggle. Yet he knew that he had to do something, to engage in a way that he would never have done in his own world where he could and always did walk casually away from the issues of life leaving the mess to another.

"I feel your pain my friend, though I'm not sure if I can be of much use." Luke quickly realised that his response was a twenty first century copout, a selfish option from a selfish person froma selfish century. "Sorry Eukles that wasn't helpful." The apology was genuine and Eukles felt its truth.  
"Don't apologise Lukelly I think we are both wrestling with the burdens of responsibility. It would be easier to run away wouldn't it? I'm a good runner after all; it's what I'm good at." Luke tried not to agree and strangely found himself remembering his own father's tired face in the January traffic when he carried the worries of his little life with its own burdens on his ageing shoulders and his face was wrinkled and furrowed like a white flag.

"Let's carry this weight together."

Luke paused and wondered how problems were solved in the adult world. How did politicians make decisions about budgets and taxes and laws that would divide those who put them into office? How was a limited cake divided up among so many demanding mouths? He wondered how bosses made the hard calls to sack or promote and give good news to one man and disappointment and resentment to others.

"Let's start by determining what we want and then we can see how we can get it. And if we can't get all we want let's see what we are willing to compromise."

The last word stung Eukles. He saw in it an ignoble deal, a descent into the snakepit where the likes of Miltiades lorded it in the caverns and shadows. The masters of soul-less compromise. It seemed to bring with it a filthiness that would never be washed away, like leaving behind a patchwork of healthy green fields and crossing a wormeaten bridge into a country of swamps and sewers, never to return.

Luke read his reluctance. "We have to grow up some time Eukles and learn to swim and survive in these waters. As I see it you have dined with the devil by having the meeting. You are still the good guy I have known. You haven't been infected by closeness to Miltiades. But I have to say that it seemed to me that he spoke some hard truths no matter what his motives. This isn't an ideal world. It never was; we were just too stupid or to innocent to see the reality. Miltiades can, and I think he will, preserve the peace. It's in his selfish interest to keep Athenians together. And I think he will try to protect you from the things you must fear like uncle who let's face it isn't going to go away. If uncle sniffs any weakness he'll do you. In fact when he hears of Cailimachus' death he'll probably start hatching plans for payback."

Luke paused then heaved a heavy breath as if the entire process of ravelling and unravelling the threads of the issue had exhausted him. Eukeles was listening and while he didn't like what he heard he recognised it as good advice.

"But his protection only comes with you agreeing to control Phaedo.That could put a strain on your friendship. I don't want to say this Eukeles but Miltiades is right about Phaedo. He's one of the good guys but he's no leader and if he's not controlled he'll get us all burnt."

Luke stopped again but still there was no answer from Eukeles. All the time he had been fidgeting with a lump of parched moss he had peeled from a lichen covered boulder against which he had been carelessly leaning. He rolled the moss between his fingernails which were already caked with the blood of the slaughtered.

"What is it you want Eukeles?" asked Luke ignoring the realities lying under his friend's fingernails.

Eukles hesitated as he had hesitated at the edge of the haunted wood the night before.

"Come on Eukles remember the poem with all the stuff about dreams and thoughts and waiting and being lied about and others in this world trying to undo your good work. Isn't life a brawl?" continued Luke enthusiastically, "And aren't we a couple of hardy boys looking to pick a fight? If Miltiades wants a pissing contest he's come to the right men's room. But we can't waltz through life dreaming and thinking. "

Eukles struggled to grasp the exact sense of Luke's rant but he was energised by its combative positivity. Life was a fight unless you wanted to hide under the blankets and suck your thumb and be a mute granddad with no story to tell the grand kids. Time to stand up and scrap, to box and kick and bite and scratch and snarl and never yield.

"I want what Cailimachus wanted and what Phaedo dreams. To stand up for those who are sucked dry by leeches like Miltiades and uncle. I want fairness and an end to palaces overshadowing hovels, where the fat man doesn't vomit up his lunch in front of a skeleton. To provide a grand place where men can find the solid, undisturbed ground to make this world a better place. Where the ideas of Crito can at least be heard. I want a lot Lukelly."

"It's good to know what you want" said Luke, shifting up a gear, making up the script and enjoying the recklessness afforded by the moment." I think Cailimachus had similar ideas but knew that there were those who stood to lose in his utopia and who would oppose him at every turn. The man in the palace won't want to share with the pauper in the hovel; the fat man doesn't want to share his lunch. 'World burners' as Phaedo would call them. The weeds among the flowers." Luke remembered his own garden at home where, during their two week holidays without the generous attention of his mother, the weeds quickly strangled the fragile blossoms.

He was starting to feel a little awkward at his sudden idealism and highmindedness which in another auditorium would have made him cringe, curl his toes and shut up. But this was a sympathetic forum in which it was good to dream but always be aware not to make dreams your master. The aim was action not thought, the next step after Crito.

There was a long silence. Eukeles let the dust which seconds ago had been moss slip from his hand, watching it fall without haste toward the floor of decaying pine needles and splinters of rock. He then looked at what remained in his palm, miniscule spores uncrushed by his godlike power clinging precariously to life.

"We are but dust and shadows Lukelly, fragile as life. This is the cup of mortal men. But you are right about dinners with demons to further the cause of what is good. Time to grow up and be a man. We will break bread with them and enjoy the fare offered at their banquets and use them as they try to use us." Then wearily like an old man who had long since tired of the fight, he concluded, "All life's a brawl."

And Luke knew that his friend felt soiled by this new departure and saddened by what seemed a virginal loss of purity which would never be known again.

Eukles pushed his weight off the boulder which had been kinder to the moss than he had been, held his palm close to his mouth as if blowing a kiss and gently blew the remains into the sunlight watching them parachute to earth.

"We'll never get to the end of the rainbow Eukles. We just scrape each day as best we can. But we can only achieve things on the inside. Miltiades has offered you an 'in'. I know he just wants you to be his puppy but if you stay outside the circles of power you cannot do anything except think and dream. Dreamers, I suspect become twisted and warped as the clouds they chase are never caught. You must serve Miltiades in order to further your dreams. That's how I see it. As things stand, with his name on the battle and Cailimachus dead, he is just too powerful. But fortunes change. Remember those poor bloody Persians. Last night they were banging their victory drums." In the plain below Eukles picked out the 'poor bloody Persians' with their backs bent like beggars herded by Themistocles and his roughnecks. Fodder for the mines. They' be ash grey skeletons by Christmas or whatever feast the Greeks had to mark the year's end.Their chapter had been written.

Luke had the wherewithal to know when he had said enough and when anything else was just repetitive dross. There was a moment of silence during which he felt Eukles sliding back towards depression and resignation.

"I'm only a runner Lukelly. Nothing more than a messenger boy. I deliver news of what'sbeen done. I do not make tomorrow."

Again there was silence, but Luke was rolling his friend's words around in his head. Once during an interminable day at school the one stimulating moment of learning came when his otherwise tedious English teacher had asked the class to identify the most important man on the planet. There was a weary choral response of 'the American President'. A few tried to show off by nominating obscure whacked out dictators with their fingers itchy on some red botton. The shy kid with the dodgy hair was laughed to red faced embarrassment when he suggested the 'Pope'. But they were mildly intrigued when the teacher dismissed each as not having anywhere near the power of the man he had in mind.

"Who makes the presidents lads?" he asked, with a sense of his newly won temporary kudos.

Finally he revealed to a disappointed audience that the guy who controlled and delivered the news was the guy who controlled, delivered and shaped tomorrow. The media Moghul was the man who made and unmade presidents and economies. Now light years from that class with its disappointing epiphany Luke realised his teacher was right. Luke thought and the thought made Luke smile a broad irrepressible grin.

"Forgive me if I say at this point 'Eureka!'." Luke didn't know that Archimedes had not yet been born, and so he had not yet run naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting 'Eureka' for every schoolboy's favourite science story.

"But this is a eureka moment my friend. As things stand you are, or at least can be, the most powerful person in Greece." Taking a leaf out of his teacher's book Luke paused to tease his captive audience.

"You're mocking me Lukelly and I don't like it. And given the circumstances I don't think it's appropriate."

"But you are kid" said Luke enjoying himself pronouncing the last word as Miltiades did. "This is what you have to do. Tell Miltiades you see his points about internal strife over the winter and that you want to work with him. Flatter him a bit the way you'd flatter a girl you fancy." Luke suddenly realised that Eukles had yet to do the 'your hair is beautiful' stuff and didn't see any point in sidetracking at this particular stage into the wilderness of how to try, and fail, and fail better to chat up disinterested girls.

"Never mind. Just let him know that you agree with him and are aware, however reluctantly, that Cailimachus would do the same. Then tell him that you hope you won't disappoint his high expectations of you. Tell him you are merely a humble runner. Then say that you would be able to do the important service of bringing the news of the victory to Athens in case the Persian advance guard gets there before the main army. My guess is that he'll be delighted to give you the messenger's job as it would strike him as being a bit demeaning and emphasise your status as his servant."

The penny still hadn't dropped for Eukeles. "And how is all this arse licking of the royal Miltidian rump going to make me the most powerful man in Greece?" he asked bewilderingly.

"Because you carry the news to Athens and it's your version that people hear first and it's your version for which the priests will give thanks publicly, you tell the story that is repeated by a thousand mouths in the market place and in the temples. You can put whichever name you want on this battle. You make the record of history. Now that my friend," at this point Luke could not conceal his smugness, "that is power."

Luke could feel the transformation. He could feel the processes at work as Eukeles' brain cranked into action on the possibilities, scratching away at a chalkface of permutations, erasing some and adding others, mumbling gently to himself some of the ideas that were suddenly spawning in these new exciting fertile soils.

"You're right Lukelly. Eureka indeed! You might be a nuisance and I've had to carry you and listen to your donkey shit and put up with your moaning and stupidity, but the burden and sacrifice and stink of you in my head might actually have been worth it. But I've no care for sucking up to Miltiades. Given your clear ability at sucking up to people maybe I should let you do that bit of the talking. It would allow me feel that I wasn't responsible for what I said." The was a harmonious chuckle.

"I'd be happy to oblige. In fact I'd enjoy leading old Miltiades along. It would be a bit like lying to a teacher or a father. My experience of those in authority is that they are a gullible crowd." Luke was good at lying to his father and his teachers. He was bewildered at timeshow foolish they could be.

"I'm not sure I want to hear any more of your blasphemy Lukelly. We Greeks don't lie to our dads. Just say the words in my head and I'll repeat them. The key is to get him to entrust me with the message."

MIltiades predictably kept them waiting. As they did so Luke advised his host to look a little less self assured and proud. At length the big adjutant who earlier had hidden behind them in the bushes ushered them into the royal presence.

"Look a bit sheepish, as if you've been caught red handed peeping through a key hole." Eukeles didn't know keyholes as well as Luke did, in fact he didn't get the image at all but he nevertheless assumed the sheepish look. Miltiades was pleased. Luke began to speak and Eukeles allowed the words to flow.

"I have had time to chew over what you said. Cailimachus always thought of me as foolishly impulsive and advised that I get to see things less childishly. See the bigger picture as it were. What you say about the months ahead being times when the big bollocked men will grow bored and restless is right. Phaedo is one of those men. He's as big bollocked as they come. I will do my bit to curb his enthusiasm."

"Nice phrase kid. You've a way with words" nodded Miltiades.

"Words are a poor substitute for deeds. I have much to learn and was fortunate to be apprenticed to a master like Cailimachus. He always spoke about you as a man who was favoured by the Gods and who had singular gifts that could serve Athens in its times of need. I would be grateful to continue my learning, but I feel you expect too much of me."

Miltiades couldn't hide the flush on his face at the flattery and the more humble approach. Luke was a little surprised at his own eloquence. When did I ever use the word 'singular'he asked himself?

"All I expect is for you to keep the lid on Phaedo and his boys. I will keep Themistocles on a leash. Come Spring we can let both of them off on the Persians. With their pent up energies you'd feel sorry for old Darius, hey?" Once again that easy disarming, condescending charm. He stopped and took a step into Eukeles' space. "You made the right choice kid. The only choice mind you," he added with a cocky chuckle. "There are solutions to every problem if you get my drift. Cailimachus may have got you wrong."

Eukles bristled but Luke quickly intervened and forced words into his mouth.

"Cailimachus may have been wrong about some things but he knew your worth as a leader of men and he knew my worth as a runner. That is what I am and that is how he used me. It is what I am good at. I'm a humble runner. And it's not for me to tell you your business but Cailimachus also said that one of your great strengths was your ability to listen to all men. You need some one like me to run along to Athens. If the Persians get there first, the city might think that the battle had been lost and the people might open the gates if favourable terms are offered. I have run these hills for my father carrying documents and instructions for his business. He knew that Marathon was a good place for some shady transactions that you wanted to go unnoticed. I know the track well. I could be at Athens by nightfall with any message you might wish me to carry."

Miltiades listened and nodded. "Good. Yes good, very good. Pheidippides arrived from Sparta this morning but we had to keep it quiet as he carried news that the Spartans weren't coming. One of their stupid religious festivals. They'll be here in three days. In three days we could have been feeding the crows kid.

"Pheidippides is hardly able to walk. Yes you'll do. Sergeant! Bring me a scroll!" A frightened sergeant arrived carrying a satchel of writing materials. "I will write you a note for the elders. See that they get it and see that they read it loud to the people. This man," his eyes swooped on the sergeant," will give it to you once I have dictated it. First run along to Phaedo and tell him to behave and then get your arse to Athens and let them hear about my great victory. "Inside, Luke smiled and Eukles grinned too.

"Glad to see this makes you happy kid. The thought of marching my old bones back to Athens is making me half wish we'd lost. On your way kid." And he patted Eukles cheek in the manner that says 'I own you'.

"I'm going to fuckin' finish you old man," thought Luke, and he flushed inside at his easy deception, a little embarrassed at his newly acquired taste for conflict.

They jogged easily back towards Phaedo. Eukeles mumbled to Luke about the note that Miltiades was writing. "We'll tell him that we were attacked by some bandits and that the note was lost and that we had to tell the elders the story off the cuff. He won't like it and he'll probably smell it for what it is but by that stage the tables will have been turned."

"Devious Lukelly. Very devious. I suspect you're enjoying this."

"You don't fight a serpent with kisses and cuddles and lectures about right and wrong. You distract it and get it to turn around and smack it when it isn't looking. That's what Phaedo would do. No?"

They had jogged into the heart of the battlefield and Eukeles picked out the figures of Daemon and Phaedo about two hundred paces away where the heaps of dead thickened to a mound. Hungry vultures were flapping among the corpses pulling at the looser meat where the flesh had earlier been slashed away fromthe bone by a spear. As the birds were feeding on Persians nobody seemed bothered. In the hills the wild dogs drooled and bided their time until night's shield allowed them to feast. "Sprawled across the field craved far more by the vultures than by their wives" whispered Eukles and Luke recognised the words a as those of Homer. 'Poetry', he thought and realised for the first time in his educated existence that poetry could have a place and a moment.

Eukles and Luke continued their easy jog along the hem of the killing zone which was pockmarked with dead men now stripped naked. The spoils of war. It was a sickeing sight but the veterans who had seen such sights before knew that it was also a godsend of rich pickings.In front of them now about the distance of a penalty spot was Phaedo and a pocket of his henchmen. They were busy carving out whatever booty their portion of the battlefield would yield. A handful of slaves and grateful captives -Greeks who'd been given a vague promise of service with Athens to amend for their treason- were stripping the warm corpses of anything of worth. Linen shirts, their bleached whiteness gored with blood were stacked in bundles for the women of Attica to wash over the coming weeks. Beside these trophies was a warehouse of sickle swords, spears, great battle axes like sharpened sledge hammers, bronze and wicker shields, surcoats of shimmering armour that jingled like treasure coins momentarily as they were thrown onto carts, bows and a harvest of sheafed arrows abandoned by the panic stricken archers. Blackened dead mens feet were relieved of their sandals and bloodied heads the hair matted with sweat were shorn of their helmets. Beyond them stretching for a mile were the buttocks and bellies of the now naked and slaughtered Persians.

Jewellery was pocketed if the commander turned his back. Ringed fingers were severed then jewellery taken and the bone tossed high in the air for fun to the waiting birds. Occasional heads hacked to relieve them of their gold and silver collars. Baskets and carts of stores that had been unloaded to feed and lubricate the army of Darius as it made its way across the parched roads that Eukeles knew so well, were now stacked like mute witnesses to the changed fortunes of both forces. Athens would not starve this winter. The bakers' ovens would work over time with the sacks of flour that had been ground on stones across the great sea from wheat nourished by a Persian sun. Darius' flour and Darius' spoil would now enrich the Greeks for whose destruction it had recently been gathered. The Persian had robbed from others and now the fruits of his theft filtered down. But somewhere across the great sea, the voiceless downtrodden of some village would face the low rayed sun of the dead months and would starve while the Athenians danced in gratitude to their Goddess of victory. The winner gloats.

Phaedo slung a bale of shirts into the air. It was tied with a leather strap that had been recently the sword belt of an 'Immortal' officer. The bale was sticky with drying blood and fell with a deadening thud onto a creaking cart whose timbers groaned at the burden.

"We have half of Persia's empire here kid. I have never in my miserable life seen such plenty." He carelessly slapped his big palm off the soaking bundle. The slushing sound made Luke wince but Phaedo just used an unsoiled sleeve to carelessly wipe away the residue of another man's life.

"I've just come from Miltiades."

The simple phrase sobered Phaedo's humour. He was, thought Luke, like a summer's day in Ireland when the sun stung the skin and then sulked behind a cloud only to re-emerge without warning with its warmth and goodness.

He gave a sharp whistle to Daemon and dismissed the rest to plunder what was left of the Persian camp before the other tribes did so.

"The kid's had his first cup with the devil," he quipped half in earnest to Daemon who then looked with vulnerable eyes towards Eukeles. "Well kid, are you still one of us?"

"Always Phaedo. I'm hurt that you even jest about the matter."He paused and saw the relief in both men's eyes. Miltiades was a man with a reputation who could turn the noblest of the noblest to his way. Eukles understood their concerns and decided to meet them head on.

"Miltiades is a smooth talking snake, slippery and clever and we need to be slipperier and cleverer. The tongue can be a twisty thing and the one in Mitiades' mouth is the twistiest." Eukeles cringed at his impoverished vocabulary. It seemed to mock any idea that he could compete with the charming, vocabulary -rich serpent he had just described. Phaedo and Daemon too looked unsure but then Eukeles let out a laugh and flashed his youthful smile. "Don't worry lads when the time comes I'll get the words right. In factI had better get them right for the next skirmishes are going to be with words rather than spears. Language will be our missile over the winter." The warriors smiled together, a little more confident now but still it was the half smile of the skeptic. Their faces also bore the quizzicallook of those who need tobe told their role. They were after all spearmen with blood red hands to prove it. They were not words smiths. Their silence however encouraged Eukeles.

Luke felt Eukeles new found hope but he couldn't help noticing how inadequate Phaedo and Daemon appeared as they looked for guidance. He was reminded of the rugby beefcakes in his school who found themselves all at sea during a science exam. This was not their theatre. He imagined their deaths. Phaedo would not grow old. Themistocles and maybe a dozen like him had Phaedo in their crosshairs. Only one needed to be lucky. It would be far too easy thought Luke. All that was needed was a cold night, warm wine and a dark haired seductress who knew men and would oblige with her knowledge for a price. And Phaedo the great unconquered hero and warrior would have his throat cut or maybe worse as he lay drunk and naked in the bed of the dark eyed beauty. Luke grimaced as he foresaw the smiling Themistocles taking his time delivering the final ignominious blowto the helpless Phaedo. Daemon was too removed from the world to fall as easily as Phaedo. Perhaps he would take to the hills when all was lost, wandering Attica like a hermit living off the land. And then one cold savage night, weakened by old age, defeat and hunger, he would be cornered by some boney wolves who would rip him asunder and turn him to wolf dung and grind his bones as Luke had often seen his own dog do to the remains of the Sunday lamb.

"I miss Cailimachus as you both do, as a son misses his father. When he rescued you from the meaningless life of muscle for hire," he looked at Phaedo before turning to Daemon, "or gave you an arena for your Spartan ways, he did not mean you to become dependent on him. Cailimachus would hate it if we were lost puppies unable to find our way in this world. We are men, independent and strong and burdened with the duties of all good men. Our duty now is to keep the spirit and dreams of Cailimachus alive."

Phaedo nodded with his uncomplicated nod that silently spoke how in his simple philosophy all roads which we take are fundamentally simple, straightforward choices. There's always the right way or the devil's way. Cailimachus had shown him the right way even if sometimes it meant walking with a demon or two. Daemon's eyes began to glaze and Luke realised that deep within this man condemned to silence, was the frustration that often had its only outlet in repressed tears. "So what's the plan kid? Or, I suppose what does snake eyes want?"

Eukleles smiled again and wanted to tell both how they were brothers in arms and bound by an indissoluble bond. But the words that were needed were more fractious.

"Snake eyes wants me to control you."

Phaedo bristled. His palms hardened into fists.

"Given your instant reaction, you have to see his point." Eukeles gave a gentle raise of his right eyebrow to emphasise that he was being rhetorical and Daemon waved his head in agreement.

"Go on" said Phaedo relaxing a little, but only a little.

"Cailimachus didn't trust Miltiades but he often saw wisdom in his ideas. He was flawed but he was often right. Miltiades thinks that there'll be a civil war in Athens now that we have temporarily banished the Persians. The Persians cannot afford to let this defeat go unpunished so they will return with energy after the snows. If we end up entertaining ourselves with killing each other over the winter their job will be a lot easier. So he wants me to keep you from murdering the likes of Themistocles so he can have both of you champing at the bit come the Spring. It makes sense."

Phaedo grunted unable to disagree, but unhappy with the logic. "And what did you tell him?"

Eukeles felt awkward and reddened a little. Luke felt his discomfort. 'Tell him that in this new battlefield it's best to keep your friends close and your enemies' closer.'

"That's silly," blurted Eukeles. Phaedo and Daemon looked at him with puzzled faces.

'No it's not. Say it,' urged Luke.

"In this new battlefield we will keep our friends close and our enemies closer."

Once again Phaedo screwed his head to one side to show his inability to comprehend. He was about to explode when Daemon tapped him on the shoulder and tossed him a coin. Phaedo looked at it and then at Daemon and then showed his agreement with whatever the Spartan had said with his coin.

Phaedo tossed it to Eukeles. It was a large, heavy, silver coin with poorly cut edges. On one face was the silhouette of a typical arrogant big nosed despot. On the reverse was a ship carving its way through a painter's sea. Eukeles returned the coin to Daemon.

"It's a reminder," Phaedo explained in a strangely humble voice. "A token from the past which he keeps. He's reminding me of a siege which Cailimachus prosecuted in our favour without shedding blood. He had an enemy open the gates in return for immunity. I wasn't happy. Let's just say the fucker who got immunity should have got something else. But Cailimachus convinced me that things would eventually turn out badly for him." Phaedo heaved his big chest as if remembering a lost opportunity and then his face took on the look of resignation that belongs to those who reluctantly acknowledge their error. "Of course Cailimachus was right. We took the town. Nobody died and before the year was out the fucker was face down in a ditch with a throatful of his own blood." Phaedo had the honest expression of a man who had found justice albeit delayed. "So you might be right kid about keeping our enemies close. The closer they are the easier it is to cut their throats when the time comes. I bow to your wisdom." And with that he bowed his great muscular bulk with a flourish. Eukeles returned the theatric.

"We might already have some fruit from our clever game. Miltiades wants to take credit for the battle." Once again Phaedo was near to exploding with rage but Eukeles steadied him with a commanding outstretched palm. "I've got him to let me take a message to Athens to announce the victory which means I'll be the first to the city. This in a way makes me the most powerful man in Greece. "  
"You thief! That's my line." shouted Luke. Eukeles ignored him except for the faintest of smiles.

"His sergeant will be here soon with a note which no doubt will paint a pretty picture of Miltiades' courage and how the gods favour his star. That note will never be delivered. Instead I will tell the elders and people how it was won by Cailimachus and how the gods clearly want all Athens to follow the path laid out by him. Without his name on the battle Miltiades will be weakened. By the time the army arrives the story I will tell will be etched on everyone's lipsand offered in thanksgiving to the Gods. No fiction from Miltiades will ever remove it."

Phaedo listened and his eyes sparkled slowly as the strategem was gradually revealed. He ruffled Eukeles' curls with his big shovel of a hand. "Smart kid. The old man was right about you."

The person who Eukeles once was, the person he had been that morning woken by the shouts of the Athenian army welcoming their Platean brothers, would have blushed and tried unsuccessfully to repress a grin at this extravagant compliment. But Eukeles was no longer that kid and never would be again. And although this did not register with him as he spoke, Luke was struck by the fact that his friend had become in some way what they both might define as a man. Fatuous praise was not his currency anymore. He now worked with the colder realities that weighed heavily on those who knew that decisions had to be made and that their decisions had far reaching consequences, and who perpetually wondered if what they had decided was in fact right.

"I need something to take with me." He stopped and his temporary silence made his brothers aware that the request was a significant one. "I want the spear of Cailimachus. I want the smith to carve his name on it. I want the elders to place it in the Temple as an offering of thanks to the Gods for all to know that Marathon was won because of the virtue of men like him. Men like us. It will be a lasting sacrament that will forever denounce the ways of those who do not share our code. It will be the spear of Cailimachus the victor of Marathon on which men will swear."

As the words flowed like a baptismal spring of purifying water, Luke felt the tears in Eukeles' eyes as he remembered the kindness of Cailimachus. He saw the great palm shield him from the fist of the twin and he heard his soft spoken weary voice tell of a lion that should have run rather than end up as a vanity on the wall of an old man. And at the end of a hundred memories that rushed along blurred like motorway traffic he heard those last words whispered like a fragile breeze to him and to him alone. "We are men."

Phaedo took a step closer and cupped Eukles' face in his unwashed hands."He had no son kid, none that he knew of anyway. Had he lived he would have raised you as his own. What he had would have been yours."

A small satchel lay at the base of the cart clearly reserved for goods of greater significance than the shirts of dead men. Phaedo lifted it up and reverently took from it a crimson woolen scarf that had that morning adorned the neck of the commander of the 'Immortals'. He turned the folds of the material outwards in his hands and Luke saw that the forearms were slashed and gashed and sweating. He worked the contents free with care as if what was inside was as delicate and fine and priceless as old porcelain. And there on its red bed was an iron spear head with about six inches of the ash shaft remaining. Eukeles remembered it as ithad been used to plough Cailimachus' death vow into the useless dirt of Marathon that morning. The ash shaft had snapped like generations of others before it but the iron would last. It would still be there when Luke took his first lungfulof damp Irish air.

Phaedo offered it to Eukeles. Daemon then understanding the reality of the situation rustled in the cart and found a leather harness with a scabbard for a short blade. He mimed its use as a type of ruck sack that would fit snugly on the runner allowing Eukeles to carry the spear unhindered with the scabbard between his shoulder blades.

Eukeles turned his back to allow it to be fitted. As Daemon lashed the leather straps between his shoulder blades Eukeles began to cry strong, generous private tears unseen by his friends. Phaedo was right he thought. Cailimachus was my father. He had never known what it was like to have a father until these last few days when Cailimachus had come into his lonely world and protected him and counselled him. He had listened, cared, sympathised and empathised. And he had rebuked and advised and judged but never too much. He had been open and honest and tenderly human. He had loved. He had, Luke understood, been everything a father should be.

Eukeles blinked back the tears and wiped them clear while he adjusted the straps. As he turned Phaedo held out the small silver tube which Luke had picked out without reason in the adventure shop and in which Eukles had carried his father's words to Arimnestos the Platean.

"Take it Eukles and carry it with you always. It bears with it the protection of Cailimachus. It was a gift from a great king to a great man. It will remind you that the man is always better than the title."

Eukles took it and took the hand of Phaedo in as strong an embrace as his frame could muster. Phaedo held him tight; smothering him in the emotion of the moment, then suddenly broke off.

"Here take these, you can't eat silver trinkets," and he settled a small bag of rations around his shoulder. Then Daemon made his unique salute with the muted words. As Eukeles was about to return it Miltiades burly sergeant burst in with a sharp 'you my master's errand boy?' Phaedo was on the brink of stretching him with a right hander but Eukeles stayed his fist.

"Careful with your tone sergeant or you'll find the next words the last you'll speak today. My name is Eukleles and I will carry news of our victory to Athens." The emphasis on 'our victory' was unmistakable.

"It will be my honour to do so. Give me your master's note and get going." The sergeant looked at Daemon and Phaedo understood the odds and did what he was told to do.

Eukeles threw the two a cheeky wink which only a cocksure youth would throw.

"If the Gods don't keep you safe kid, then use the spear. It has a blade that will shave that face of yours when you grow a beard after your balls have dropped," said Phaedo and he pulled an imaginary spear across his throat in a shaving motion.

"We'll all be safe. We'll dine on Persian wine in my house this time tomorrow. Be sure that Arimnestos and his Plateans are there, and we will decide how we will best honour him." Eukeles tapped the spear to indicate who he was speaking about. "See you two old men in Athens."

And with that he turned on his heels and let his legs carry him into history.

Luke instantly recognised the easy skip that consumed so little energy but which propelled Eukeles smoothly over the less than smooth ground. It made Luke remember a time when his father was building a garden wall and mixing mortar using muscles he hadn't used since he had been a builder's labourer as a student in London. As he straightened rubbing both hands on the base of his spine, he told Luke how the muscle memory stays, how it had slept for years only to be awakened by the touch of a shovel on sand. Now Luke was feeling that distinctive road gobbling stride awaking all the muscles in his host's frame. Eukles was once again where he belonged doing what he did best.

It took some minutes to shake off the fatigue which tumbled through his body. At first his legs rebelled against the commands from his brain as a saddle sore cyclist's rump refuses to sit on the saddle. But pride kicked in and pushed him on as a thousand soldiers' eyes looked up enviously from battle weary, haggard faces. They stopped their chores for a moment to follow his easy stride, peering out from first aid stations, or from the steaming pots of porridge, or from the line of Greek corpses being prepared for burial at the battle's centre. And among these dead heroes he glimpsed the body of Cailimachus defined now by its severed arm. It was his last sight of Marathon.

Luke knew that there would be more tears. Eukeles kept his composure until he had passed beyond the last scars of the Athenian camp with its extrusions of fallen trees to harass the Persian cavalry and on to where the valley was relatively untouched by this great human eruption. He then pulled up suddenly on the blind side of an ancient olive tree and burst out sobbing, restraining as best he could the sound of his cries lest they be carried back on the gentle breeze to the keen ears of the battle field.

"I'm with you mate" consoled Luke in the respectful voice he had used at the one or two funerals he had attended in his short life and which had called for its soft, sympathetic tones. "I'm with you."

Eukeles seemed to be freed by the simple, authentic sympathy of his friend and he cried out more, and as his tear ducts emptied their human juices, Luke saw how each tear was born of a memory of the great man. Image after image raced through his head and with each image a new tear dropped for the memory quickly born and quickly deceased, until finally he saw him as he was that morning at the head of the army. The spear which now sat on Eukeles' back was upturned and he drew with care his line of faith in the earth. The tears began to subside. "Sometimes the believer must die for his beliefs" muttered Eukeles to the empty valley through his sobs. His tear ducts had now been drained. He dragged his forearm across his face and wiped away his mourning. Feeling that the time for intervention was ripe, Luke intervened.

"Give us both a drink mate. We've a long trek ahead of us."

Eukeles chuckled the way people do when they have exhausted what lies at the farther end of the emotional spectrum. He uncorked the flask which Phaedo had given him with the bread and which was slung tight across his chest. He then sprayed the liquid recklessly into his open mouth causing him to splutter and cough. As his system convulsed he tried to slap himself on the back but couldn't.

"Slap my back Lukelly. Slap my back," he urged playfully.

"I wish I could mate.I wish I could," replied Luke with mild regret but a hint of a chuckle at his friend's self imposed distress.

There was a pause as both yearned to be freed from the restrictions of their strange confinement, to sit and talk and look at each other.

"You are a good friend Lukelly. We are two friends, two bodies and one soul inspired."

"Quoting that Homer of yours I see. Poetry won't get us to Athens."

Eukles smiled. "It got me through the wood last evening.Perhaps the poetry you speak Lukelly willget us there quicker. I'll do the running and you'll be in charge of entertainment. Keep me occupied. It's nowhere near as tough as the run to Platea but I could do with some of your funny stories from that quirky world of yours."

And with that he took off again and Luke noted in the easy stride the absence of all fatigue.

"You're a runner Eukles. Even when you're running Athens you'll still be a humble runner."

Eukeles mapped out the route in his mind. Aware that they were now alone, he described the points of the road as he remembered them. "My father liked the bay. It was a good place for doing business that you wanted kept secret. I suppose that's why he sent me with the errands because in a strange way he trusted me. It's an easy run as I say not like the one to Platea. The first ten miles are fairly flat and we'll have the sun on our right shoulder as it dies. By the time we reach the hills it will be dark but the pass is wide and there are several springs that tumble from the heights where we can slake our thirst. The hills rise and fall for about another ten miles then its downhill all the way to the city. I reckon we'll be there when the night is quarter over." Luke translated this as just after midnight. Eukles looked over his shoulder where the Athenian army was receding with every step and picked out a hopeless cloud that was dying of thirst over the Mediterranean. "The wind is blowing the cloud south. It's a Persian wind but it's not in too much of a hurry. Datis will not make Athens before us. In fact I might just get a rest in my own bed before he arrives, and be able to finish what we started at Marathon."

Luke winced at the memory of the slaughter. Behind him were all those corpses and newly enslaved prisoners. He knew that in time tourists would come to an air conditioned visitor centre and be told a sanitised version of what happened. They would drink latte coffee and iced tea and overpriced stupidly named cakes, and a guide would pretend to impart how each step of the conflict unfolded. There would be kids like himself and his brothers, sneaking away with their mobile phones to play whatever app was cool in order to escape the tedium inflicted by the parents. Another interminable day at the museum overlooking what was in essence just another barren field with some old uninteresting monument in it that wasn't even there when the battle took place. After what he had seen Luke felt that the place was not one to celebrate. But he understood that the corollary was unimaginable. What he wondered would have happened if the Athenians had lost. Would Miltiades have brokered a deal to save himself? Would Phaedo have died some obscene death and what of the silent Spartan? Would Eukeles have ended up standing on a platform at an auction in some oddly named place,paraded and examined like a bullock before being shipped off to some orchard or mine across the great sea? And what about the bigger picture? Hadn't dad once told him something about the defeat of eastern despotism and tyranny, and the victory of democracy? Aren't we all Greeks?

"Now Lukelly" interrupted Eukles unaware of his guest's thoughts," Your chat will shorten the road if you know what I mean." Luke knew what he meant and was happy to have a purposeful role.

"Let's talk about the future. Not my world but the near future like when you get to Athens. You are going to cement the reputation of Cailimachus in the minds of the people and so make the victory at Marathon all about what he stood for. I think this might be the beginning of a stormy political career. Do you have the stomach for the fight? All political careers end in failure kid. In my world we have an expression 'if you lie down with dogs you'll end up with fleas'."

"Politics is as good a fight as any Lukelly. Isn't life a brawl? I brawl alongside all those who followed Cailimachus for what is right and good. Miltiades will bend to our way. He knows when to be flexible and we will offer him a few carrots to entice him. As for the fleas that might jump from the other dogs, I too will get a handle on flattery as you do. I've been thinking about how many men of worth we actually have on our side if you add in the Plateans. We're a force. We may just be able to preserve our purity Lukelly."

Luke listened and felt the genuine belief in the mission but also the awareness of how fraught the future was and the need to tread gently and to compromise. He wondered cynically to himself, how many careers in politics start out with such idealism and then see it squandered and chipped away until finally it is a skeleton of the plump ideal that started the journey. But he decided for the time that was in it that he needed to be a little less truthful to his enthusiastic host.

"You will be a politican my friend, or should I actually say you are already. And I think you will serve your people well."

The lie warmed Eukles who swallowed it and Luke was fearful for his friend's future given the ease with which he had allowed himself to be flattered and deceived. Perhaps I would make a better politician Luke mused.

"And what about you Lukelly will you use your gifts to help your brothers? Will you serve your country?"

Luke nearly laughed at such a ridiculous question. It was like being asked if he intended to join the priesthood. Like his entire generation he had no intention of serving anyone or anything except himself. In the extremely remote event of a war he would have no hesitation in failing the medical exam on whatever trumped up excuse he could muster and get himself a nice little well paid desk job. If he ever found himself in politics it would only be for the Mercs and perks and the goldplated pension.

"Can't see myself in that game," he trivialised. Eukeles was disappointed and Luke felt a little embarrassed at his own lack of nobility. He needed to apologise or justify.The latter seemed easiest.

"My world is a bigger place than this and politics is something most people don't get involved in."

"You mean" interjected Eukeles a bit puzzled," you are a type of slave who lets others decide for you? Like the Persians who surrender all freedom to their king?"

Strangely Luke understood what Eukeles meant and saw things in a way that he had never considered them before. It was, he conceded, true. He and all of the people he knew had abdicated their right to determine how their world flowed. 'We are not much better than slaves' thought Luke to himself.

"I could go into politics if I wanted to but it's not what I want. I'll do something else with my life." Before Luke had completed the sentence he was aware of the next simple question which like most simple questions did not have a simple answer.

"What's that Lukelly? What will you do with your beautiful life when you return to your funny world?"

Wrapped up in such epic terms Luke felt the question to be a very humbling one. Like every healthy, intelligent teenager he was blessed and cursed with a horizon of options and possibilities as to how to spend the rest of his 'beautiful life' as Eukles put it. He was moderately good at school and had a clear talent with computers. His careers' teacher, who ironically wouldn't get any other job except as a careers teacher, had advised software engineer and Luke found himself drifting with the current directed by another. More slavery.

"I'll be a student until I'm twenty three."

"Don't be ridiculous," replied Eukles incredulously.

"Remember my quirky world is a quirky place. There will be lots of people who will be students for their entire life. I'll throw in the towel when I'm still young and become a wage slave. I won't be like the zombies at the mine because I'll be well paid but there will be days when I will wonder what I'm doing with my life and what's the point." He broke off despondently.

Eukles felt the self pity and rushed to fill the breech. "And what type of work will you do Lukelly?"

Luke groaned at the impossibility of the task of describing to his fellow human being the work of a twenty first century I.T. programmer. But he thought it might at least provide some entertainment that might shorten the tedium of the run, so he decided to give it a go.

"My world is dominated by machines that are designed to make life easier for men. Like the way the wheel makes it easier to transport a heavy load." Luke was happy with his progress and Eukles signalled him to go on. "Well the most important machine is called a computer and it acts like a brain the part of you between your ears that thinks and decides, and I will be the guy who commands the computer to do the tasks that others want it to do." Luke now realised that Eukles had no idea how the brain worked how it sent electrical messages along the central nervous system and all the other useless stuff you learn in biology class. "Basically my machine can save people a lot of time and effort."

"Give me an example, Lukelly" replied Eukles with Athenian curiosity.

"This run of yours will take you over two hours-about a tenth of a day. Correct? Well I could just send the same message from Marathon to Athens in the time it takes you to blink. I know, that's crazy isn't it? But all this effort and risk wouldn't be necessary anyway because I could have despatched a missile like a big arrow full of fire and destroyed the entire Persian army while it was on the beach and Datis and his Immortals wouldn't even know it was coming. I could do it in seconds while they were banging away at their drums last night and Cailimachus was scratching his battle map in the dirt."

"And this one arrow would kill everyone on the beach?"

"Kill the lot, make cinders of their ships and turn the beach to glass," Luke boasted feeling an arrogant superiority associated with those who know so much more than the other guy.

"Who would make such a thing?"

Luke winced at the question. Not just because it was of a moral nature that beggared the morality of those who spoke the way he just had, but also because he was ashamed that he himself had never really given much thought to the destructiveness of modern tech that was at the heart of the question. It was technology that destroyed others in far off places he wouldnever visit and who spoke different languages, a culture he would never meet.

"People like Darius and Miltiades I suppose. The technolgy- the machines- change but the people stay the same. But don't fret I won't be working for the army. I'll be making games for kids to play. Perhaps I'll make a game about Marathon and put you and Daemon and Phaedo in it."

Eukles was lost and Luke hadn't a clue how to bridge the gulf. They were very different and yet...

"So you will make games for children about Marathon and this will put food on your table?"

Luke laughed. "It could put a lot of food on my table if I get it right. Alot of food my friend and a very big table. "He was tempted to sketch the life of one who had made it; the villa, the car, the pool, the trophy wife, the golf club and the rest of the shallow nonsense.

"I do not understand Lukelly."

"Neither do I mate. Neither do I."

And he wondered at the strange disconnect from reality and life that passed for success in the twenty first century. "Chances are I'll be fairly rich. I'll be able to afford lots of machines that will make my life easier and which will hypnotise me with their shallow charms, and" Luke smirked" I'll be able to afford more machines to keep me alive when I'm old and cranky and barely able to pee." Luke shook his head and remembered his grand father's undignified end. A despairing shake.

"I'll probably visit Athens. It's still around but you guys ain't doing too well. And I'll stay in a fancy house called a five star hotel where I'll eat food that is the same as the food I had in my own country. And there will be no cockroaches at the flour sacks or mice niblling the leftovers as I sleep. There'll be no rats jogging across the cobbles for Phaedo to clobber, or kids in the villages playing with snakes. Or" he stopped and with perfect timing a solitary wolf howled at the moon which was yawning itself to life over Asia as the sun sank to its bed in Italy. "Or hear that fellow's call of the wild or see the eagles surf freely on the skies' invisible waves.We have lost a lot my friend." The face of the old curator in the Adventure Shop came to mind.

There was silence as they moved between two peaks along a valley floor that was kinder to the feet than the sparse stoney heights of Platea. In the half light of dusk Eukles picked out the point where the ground ceased to rise and told his friend that they would find a place a few miles beyond that to stop where they could refresh themselves. Aware of his friend's sadness Eukles was moved to intervene."It is sad Lukelly that your world has killed all its wolves. You won't get to hear them but at least you won't be eaten by them. With every loss there comes a gain."

Eukles made sure of his bearings as the conversation lulled and the ground levelled out. He targetted a low lying rock face that overhung the valley floor and which channelled water from a spring above it. He remembered it from previous runs as an ideal point to stop and slake his thirst and while away moments in happy solitude with only the sky, rocks and water for company.

The terrain was easy, a cropped carpet of burnt grass which the shepherds had exhausted. A few lonely, wild and unloved olive trees relieved the eye but otherwise it was a relatively flat barren plain with two shoulders of mountain on either side. He had often thought of the pathway as a spine between those lumps of mountain, uneven knuckles of vertebrae but never too challenging on his feet. The sun had for the fourth time in Luke's adventure, died and the light from the moon once more gave the appearance of frost to everything it touched despite the heat of the evening. The land except for the swoop of a bat or the hoot of an owl settled down to silence and sleep.

Eukles fixed his eyes on the darkening tongue of rock whose shadow was deep black against the sky beyond and then shifted his stare to the ground thanking the moon for its light that he might not turn an ankle on the stone littered earth. Luke was happy for his friend to be distracted and exercised by the route. It gave him time to process a singular piece of information that had been bothering him on and off like a loose tooth. Every time he tried to grapple with this thought something barged its way into his overworked head. He was trying to manage this thought once again with his detached, clinical logic, when the voice of Eukles smashed into his reasoning like a wrecking ball.

"Lukelly, why are you so quiet? Share these quiet thoughts with me."

The request was a mixture of childish playfulness and the sullen insistence of someone who had been left out of the party secret. It seemed so at odds with the teenager who had just killed at least five men with a lump of steel, who had seen his 'father' butchered before his eyes, and who had just negotiated with and plotted the undoing of Athens' slipperiest politician. Do we ever really become men? Luke found himself asking.

"Come on out with", Eukles insisted and persisted. Luke could lie face to face. It was something that he had always found remarkably easy and which he seemed to have fine tuned in recent days. He could pull the wool over the eyes of his chronically naive and accepting parents. He realised darkly that he was able to do so because he had a reputation as an upright and honest kid. This goody two shoes reputation served him well in school where running rings around the deluded no hopers who passed for teachers was a tiresome game. But now it wasn't face to face and he wasn't dealing with the adult world which because of its hypocrisy was always fair game. But ultimately it seemed to him that he was neutralised by the honesty and decency of Eukles. It would be like lying to your dying granny.

"I'd like to lie to you Eukles but I can't and I'm troubled by something."

Luke's tone immediately robbed Eukles of his light heartedness."Don't lie then Lukelly. It's not what men do. Spill it."

Luke hesitated as he rolled around his limited options. But between men there could be nothing so base as a mean lie. "Do you remember" he began uneasily, "do you remember I told you that Marathon was famous even in my time and that the Athenians gave the Persians a pasting and all that I have said has come true."

"Yes" interrupted Eukles heatedly "and you said that a runner carried news through the night to warn the city of the Persian fleet and to tell the people that the army was returning. Again you were right for I am that runner Lukelly. But do not be disturbed for I intend to use whatever fame might come to me for the advancement of the name and ways of Cailimachus. I've changed. I can understand that you might have a problem with the man I have become. But..."

"Stop Eukles stop!" demanded Luke. "It has nothing to do with whether you've changed. I told you I'm not good at ancient history, not good at anything really, so I can't be sure of the facts..."

"What facts Lukelly?"

"My name is luke," exploded Luke. "Kelly is my second name. Oh never mind." Luke was annoyed at his ineffectual words and the unfolding tragedy that he could foresee and not prevent. Being constantly called Lukelly had made him snap. He paused before delivering the hammer blow. "Sorry Eukles but the way I remember it and it's very foggy, but I'm pretty sure." Again he hesitated before staggering to restart. "I'm pretty sure the runner doesn't make it."

It was as if a great stone had fallen from the heavens colliding with a deadening thud on the earth before them leaving both stupefied and speechless. Eukles stopped running. He blinked repeatedly as if trying to grasp what had been revealed by cleaning away some invisible blockage from his eyes.

"What do you mean Luke?" said Eukles eventually, careful to use his friend's new name. Luke smiled softly to himself at the decency and thoughtfulness of the act despite the awfulness of the moment.

Now that the idea was out in the open, Luke grimaced as he felt with cold reason that he would lose his friend, a true friend, a best friend.

"He makes it to the city. The runner makes it to the walls. He makes a quick speech and then drops dead." Luke was conscious that his explanation was a poor one given the gravity of the occasion. "Sorry Eukles, but as I say I'm not an A student. I've been bashing away at my brains for the story since I first realised we were going to Marathon."

"Why Luke? Why does he die?"

"Because he's knackered. Because he's busted his nuts to get to Athens and he's plain exhausted."

Eukles ran his hand over his face and wiped a sliver of sweat from his forehead. Above him on the hill side a knot of goats leapt from a zig to a zag. But neither noticed them nor the wolf who struck up his ravenous song nor the snake waking with an indifferent yawn from his coiled sleep.

They had reached the spring pool in which the moon was relaxing with a scatter of stars. Eukles found a stone table and unslung the ration bag emptying out its contents.He took up the loaf and broke it, gave thanks to his gods and tore off a morsel in sacrifice which he laid respectfully in the pool. It floated there between the moon and stars in the still water as Eukles spoke to his gods in gratitude for what might be his last meal. He then cupped his hands and filled them with the cool liquid. As he did so the pool accepted his gift of the crust. He watched as the water folded itself over the bread and Luke in the stillness imagined the million bacteria that were more grateful than the illusory Gods for the meal they had just received. The water resumed its smoothness and Luke saw in the moonlight the face of his friend.

Eukles stared deeply for a moment and Luke listened to his thoughts. Despair. Face to face in the still waters of the pool they spoke.

"If you don't go Eukles, you won't drop dead. You'll live to have a wife and kids and see those locks of yours turn grey. You can invent some excuse the way we always do at school like the dog ate your homework or your grand dad died again. We could say you turned your ankle or were bitten by a snake. We could easily find a small mildly poisonous one. It would hurt but it'd be better than, you know..." Luke felt a sense of shame that prevented him from completing the sentence in clear terms.

Eukles listened to Luke's passionate roller coaster argument not always following the confused logic with its twenty first century twists but he got the point.

"You're less than an hour from death Eukles. Run those last few miles and you're done for."

Eukles stayed silent despite the invitation to speak offered by Luke's pause. Then he shook his head. "I can't Luke. I must do what a man would do. Otherwise what am I?"

A breeze blew its lips across the pool touching it with a sacramental kiss which sealed Eukles' decision. His Gods had spoken to him.

"We are only a short distance from the city Luke. We will round that hill and see its fires twinkling in the dark and perhaps even a few hardy shepherds' campfires on the plain. I do not feel the exhaustion you say killed the runner. Perhaps your version of the story has been changed with retelling. I have heard some whisper that Homer's tales have been corrupted as men try to make the story greater than what it was. We all lie Luke. I suspect the men who write the stories of the past in your future time might tell the occasional fib. No?"

"Like a historical Chinese whisper," nodded Luke but he wasn't convinced.

"A what?"

"Nothing. You're going to Athens and that's it. Perhaps as you say the story of the runner dying at the gates just got legs."

"I didn't say the story had legs," replied Eukles chuckling at the idea.

"You did mate. You just didn't realise it. It's an expression from my world."

"Your funny world."

Eukles dipped his hands into the crystal again and smashed the mirror of communication. He lifted the trickling liquid to his lips and drank. Luke tasted the sweet water, void of chlorine and all the other germ killing chemicals that made it safe and tasteless. The bread was then broken and once again it was his ears that picked up on the action the crackle of crusts torn apart. It was how his father's God ate before his own death. Simple fare with nothing to rob it of its beautiful simplicity.

Eukles munched and looked around at the unfenced, unowned garden about him. One day it would be fought over in court by well paid suited lawyers. Half a dozen orphaned olive trees were sprayed haphazzardly onto the hillside to the east, their seeds long ago carried by an ancient wind that laid them down far away from their parent. Eukles fidgetted in his pocket for the last fistful of olives that he had neglected in deference to Luke.

"Please," said Luke. "Eat. You need the energy and I need to get a taste for these little lads."

With that he prepared for the worst clenching his nose and clamping his taste buds as best he could against the expected onslaught of sour olives. But Eukles did not eat them.He jumped to his feet and began scrambling over the rocks until he came to a saucer of earth not much bigger than a paddling pool. The soil had gathered over decades sheltered by a cup of limestone. Eukles pulled the spear of Callimachus from its makeshift scabbard between his shoulders and began to dig with it in the earth. The ground was reluctant at first but nothing could resist the steel which had broken so many before and which was now used to create rather than to destroy. Three holes were dug to improve the odds, each about six inches into the soil. Then with a dignified ceremony Eukles knelt, deposited a single olive in all three and said a prayer to the earth goddess as he covered all three with a protective blanket. He then stood up and urinated on his freshly planted trees.

"I've heard it said that the olive never dies if left alone. No one will disturb our Olive here." He allowed his eyes to pan the rocky landscape. "Remember this place Lukelly. Do you see that rock like a woman's breast?" They both laughed. "Well that will still be there looking like a breast in two thousand years' time. Things will change but not that rock and not what we have shared these past days. And when you come to Athens and stay in your fancy house with its five stars, you will run out to this spot in the wilderness and find our tree and pull olives from it and sit at our table of stone and drink water from this spring and eat the olives and they will taste good and you will remember what we had. The special thing we had Lukelly. "

"That is as fine a thought," began Luke before breaking off. "Thank you Eukles. It will be done."

Eukles then took a bronze wristlet from his arm. Luke remembered seeing it when he had first struggled to make sense of what was happening on the sands of the gymnasium when the twin was smashing his shoulder and slapping his face and he was wondering at the strange jewellery on the arm that was his and wasn't his.

"Remember this sleeve in the rock. You will find this here.It is my gift to you Lukelly. You have given me the gift of friendship. You have been kind to me when I needed kindness and you have been honest when I needed honest words and you have listened to me when I needed another's ear. I am afraid that our time together is almost at an end. I sense it. You feel this too?"

Luke strangely did feel it but could find no rational basis for the thought, not that anything was rational any more. He recalled the white bead in the Adventure Shop and the kindly curator explaining that "a white bead means you take something back". He looked at the fissure in the rock a sliver of neglected stone and knew that one day he would climb up here away from the prying eyes below. He would find an ancient olive tree snoring in the evening heat like some grumpy grand dad not wishing to be disturbed. And then he would swish the lizzards from the lips of rock and find an ancient if valueless piece of jewellery. And as he removed the prize whose value he alone knew the weather beaten mouth of stone would whisper the name 'Eukles'.

"Remember me Lukelly. I will remember you. Now let's be off. We've a mission, a message to deliver."

The tone was resolute as if to say that the softness of the moment was over and was now a thing of memory. Eukles re-sheathed the spear head and skipped over the rocks and slipped easily onto the burnt grass. He was energised by the simple supper of bread and pure water and by what had passed. The future seemed once more full of hopedespite what had been predicted. Sadness at the impending loss of his life and at the uncertainty of what might happen in the next hour was tempered by the emotion that the right things had been said and done.

Gradually the grassy track began to show signs of heavier traffic as they neared the end of the shoulder of mountain. Underfoot became more solid and the grass gave way to stone where it had been worn away by the twoing and froing of Athenian feet. They had reached the road to Athens.

"Look Lukelly. The fires on the walls. We are close. I think your story might after all have got those legs you spoke of. If I had to run back to Marathon tonight I could. I am not exhausted."

Luke felt Eukles' strength and the increased speed and power of his footfall as the lights of Athens beckoned. He was reassured. There was no way that he was going to collapse. The gates were almost visible. Four, maybe five miles. Perhaps after all it was the fiction of history that his father always spoke about. The triumph of the beguiling legend over the humdrum uninteresting reality. Eukles would deliver his message and grow old. His life would stagger from disappointment to shattered dream. He would age and his legs would fail him as the legs of Crastinus had failed in the race with Pheidippides. He would drift into dreary days of inactivity and rusting memory. And then one day without warning his arthritic frame would topple over in the sunshine and he would die like an old cat. Luke wondered which was better - the legend or the reality.

The road as if it were able to speak, straightened, announcing the final run towards the city where the commerce of Athens had imposed a rigid directness on its course. The fields on either side were empty. The flocks and their wardens had decamped closer to the city because of the war. Athens was the sanctuary, a beleaguered, shivering port in the Persian tempest but a port in the storm all the same. A last hope. In the darkness it looked bigger and stronger than Eukles remembered it. He saw it and was proud of his motherland. It was a refuge for all who cared not for the slavery offered by Darius, for all who were willing to defy and die rather than kneel and serve. Here was Europe's cradle, the fragile nursery of free thought and the rights of the individual to sing his own song. Here, thought Luke, in this city not much bigger than a town was where his world was born. To save her on this night from the ships of Datis which were bearing down on her across the gentle Mediterranean was everyone's duty. A light that shines in the darkness. A light that the darkness could never extinguish. Luke blushed at the privilege.

The smell of woodsmoke and burning meat was the first sign of humanity they had encountered since leaving the army at Marathon. News of the Persian landing had scattered the population and they knew that when an army is on the march it was wise to stay away from the paths and roads. A small fire about half a mile ahead of them was the source of this welcome smell. Luke felt Eukles' pace drop slightly as he tried to filter the mix of information coming first to his nose and then the rattle of conversation which jigged along the still air capturing parcels of words in his ears as one catches fragments of a rap song. The fire itself was a timid affair by a shepherd's lean to about five yards from the roadside. In the low flames Eukles picked out a tall figure leaning against the tree which acted as a wooden pillar for the shanty construction. Not exactly the cradle of Europe thought Luke. Squatting beside the fire roasting chunks of flesh on sticks were two more men.

Eukles concluded that these shadows were shepherds who had trusted that the gods would preserve them and their flocks. Without their livelihood they were as good as dead anyway. Perhaps because of the dark and the gloomy fields Luke was less sure. But Eukles was taken by the idea of informing these men first of the great news.It had a subversive feel to it. It was what the new order that would soon be installed was all about. All men treated with respect right down to these lowly freemen in the fields.

"Get off the road. Turn into the fields Eukles. I don't like this."

Eukles disagreed. We're no more than a mile from Athens. We are in no danger when we are this close. I can almost make out the guards on the wall."

The man lying against the tree saw Eukles first and alerted the others. They stood up and together shifted towards the road in a deferential manner which made Eukles relax.

"A drink sire" said the one who was obviously the senior of the three. The voice had a distinctly familiar accent which temporarily disarmed Eukles. He tried vainly to put a face to it. He knew he had heard it many times before. He pulled up and the stranger with the not so strange voice reached down to hand a cup of wine. Eukles took the wooden cup and the action brought both men close together. They stared in disbelief into each other's eyes, startled by what they saw in the moonlight.

Luke instantly recognised the features of the servant whom Eukles had dismissed when he had taken back his house from his uncle. He recalled the grovelling manner, the hairless bullet head with the wide scar on the forehead above the ugly face and sneering lip, and he remembered Phaedo's casual remark about enemies for life.

"If it isn't his lordship lads. This is the snot nosed fucker who put me out on the street. Grab the bollox."

Argument was futile. Luke urged a sprint but the lackeys had the way out blocked and there was a scuffle as they tried to grapple with each other in the confined space. The first thug grabbed Eukles by the belt ripping the message case which disappeared into the night. It lodged in a bush and waited there until found when a motorway was carved into the land in the time of cars and planes. Instinctively Eukles whipped the spear head from his back and stabbed it into the first man's gut. A scream of agony sliced into the night time peace followed by the gurgling as the blade was withdrawn. Seeing his comrade on the ground with his tripes spilling like steaming snakes from the gaping wound the second man thought better of the contest and stepped back into the darkness. But Eukles got no chance to follow his advantage. The former servant had clutched an oak club that had been on the ground where it had rested and buried it into Eukles' lower back smashing his lower ribs which cracked beneath the soft cushion of skin. As the chemicals of pain raced through his system he swung his right arm violently and blindly in a half circle towards where the blow had come from. The spear slashed through the air until its razor edge found the obstacle of the servant's throat. And as it had done so many times before the spear sliced open flesh and tissue and all the materials of life. Blood squirted from the opening and sprayed the ground with the rhythmic beat of the dying man's heart. The parched earth was happy to drink. The servant bandaged his neck with his laced fingers, his hands scarfing round his throat trying to stop the inevitable. He fell to the ground, his knees crashing into the dust, gurgling his last before smashing face first against the skull of his now dead henchman. The third man realising that the game was up scrambled off to live another day.

Eukles stumbled back onto the road as the final gargle of death could be heard behind him. He steadied himself against an olive tree which had lazily encroached onto the boundary where field and path met. His breathing was heavy but it wasn't due to the sudden rush that comes from adrenalin and the body's reaction to a threat. Luke could feel the agony that seemed to come from an open wound bleeding deep within Eukles. His rib was broken and floating inside him and Luke surmised from his basic anatomy that it had punctured a vital organ. His liver or a kidney he guessed. There was no blood on the skin but Eukles was clearly in trouble and gasping for life.

"Help me Lukelly. Help me." Eukles gritted his teeth to stifle the pain and bent as runners bend in search of relief when a stitch sears through them in a race. Luke scanned the road there was no help until Athens. It was minutes away. "The city Eukles. We have to make it to the city."

Eukles dug into those reservoirs that real runners can find, the ones that force you to keep going when the well is empty. He searched for the indefinable thing that keeps a boxer on his feet when all is lost except the pride never to submit and yield. His legs began to limp their way towards Athens dragged along by the life force that was leaking from him with every step. It was at that moment that Luke realised that the story of the runner hadn't got legs after all. This was it. This was how it ended. Eukles he foresaw would arrive at the gates with no outward wound. Exhaustion would be assumed. He was minutes from death.

"The story is right Lukelly" said Eukles in a panic as he frothed with pain. "The runner dies. I'm going to die."

Luke could feel his great heart galloping like a frightened horse.

"Shh mate. Calm down. We can beat the story. We can beat history. You get us to the city and I'll take it from there."

The voice and the words soothed Eukles who pulled himself back from the abyss of shock and found a hidden energy which spurred him to this newly charted goal. Then conquering the ache inside him he straightened and began to jog again controlling his breath as best he could.

"You're lying Lukelly. Aren't you? You cannot lie to your friend."

Luke was silent. The walls and their fraudulent promise of hope were closer now.

"Tell me the poem Luke. The one your father taught you.The one about men."

Luke heard this last request from a dying man. Like a last cigarette to the prisoner shot at dawn it could not be denied.

"If you can keep your head when all around you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you."

"Good Luke. We have kept our heads these past few days and we shall keep them now in this final hour and do our duty. We have passed the first test. Go On."

Luke felt the struggle in the voice of his friend. He listened as each phrase was considered and each test passed. Each line took Eukles another few yards towards the completion of his duty and his life. The guards could be heard on the walls sounding an alarm as they recognised a runner approaching.

"If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you but none too much."

"No Luke. That's not good. Your poet is wrong. I have known fine men these last few days. Men who count more than any others. We have been blessed by the gods to know Caillimachus and Phaedo and mouthy Daemon." They both tried to laugh but it was too painful for Eukles. "I have had the privilege to have supped with Crito and Arimnestos and honest, simple Philemon. And I have known you Luke with the second name Kelly.  
Luke saw the faces of these men as their names were spoken. They swooped by like ghosts and as they flitted by Luke heard the drained power of Eukles' voice. A voice becoming a whisper readying itself for the Ferryman.

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run." Luke felt his own voice struggle and threaten to break as he neared the poem's end. "Yours is the world and everything that's in it."

"Yes Luke" one last flourish like a corpse that rises up to fight with the devil one last time. "We fight for what is right and good. We push ourselves to win the race no matter what the cost. Life's a brawl Luke. Life's a brawl." There was no more strength left. The words tapered off to half finished syllables.

Luke heard the city gates creaking open on the great rusting hinges and could smell the burning rushes of the crackling torches. He heard the frantic orders, the bustle of the guards and felt the helping hands carry the dying body over the threshold under the cool of the archway and onto the street where they gently laid him down. He was aware in a semi conscious way of the stare of the small crowd drawn to the commotion while the rest of the city slept.

A dribble of wine was sprinkled on his lips as all waited for news of events far away that would decide their fate. The wine kissed the back of his throat and caused him to splutter to consciousness. He understood what he had to do and gathered the last molecule of his strength. Luke felt his fists clench and the stabbing pain now giving way to a general numbness. Then sucking in one last gulp of air he roared the music of Victory. "Nike". Everyone began to rejoice and embrace their neighbour. Tears flowed and men fell to ground and promised sacrifices to the gods.

Blood began to pour from Eukles' lungs and clogged his windpipe. His mouth groped for air but there was no fight left. His eyelids closed then opened then closed again. It was all he could do now.

"And which is more you'll be a man." Luke finished the poem in the most reverent of whispers as he felt his friend's heart start to flat line. But he also detected the faintest of smiles on his face, imperceptible to the crowd which were beginning to moderate their celebrations. Life ebbed like the gently ebbing waves at Marathon. One last titanic effort was made to pull his fist to his heart. It was too much to ask of his broken body but Luke grasped the purpose. And the words that Eukles sought to marry to his gesture were also more than he could muster. But Luke heard the thought. "We are men Lukelly. Men."

Luke tried to respond but he was ripped away and thrown violently backwards into a maelstrom of dizzy colours, fizzing sparks and blinding light. He felt his whole being sucked into a storm of colour and sound, a turbulent hole with no boundaries, where he was held helpless at the centre by swirls of energy. Suddenly everything stopped and all was silent and bright as if someone had shut tight an airlock and switched on a million kilowatt bulb.

It took seconds for Luke to grasp where he was, sitting slouched on an ancient wooden chair in a white room with a small table before him on which sat a pair of white cotton gloves. He blinked and caught his breath. He looked around him trying to find the crowds and the guards and the moon in the sky over Athens. Then he realsied where he was. He realised that he was back in the shop. Back where it had begun. Back in his world. The curator was still in his suit without the jacket which Luke now remembered he had replaced with the long brown apron the colour of Granny's tea. It reached down to his knees and Luke was momentarily taken aback by the shiney, mirror polished black shoes. The curator bent down and picked up a small cigar shaped object of smooth white ivory capped at both ends with silver bungs which had fallen on the floor.

"I'll look after this" he said in a polite, apologetic whisper, the sort one might hear in a hospital or a library. His manner was that of a nurse talking to a patient who was emerging from an anaesthetic.

Luke sat there and lowered his head to examine his clothes, his face muscles twitching with each revelation. He shook his head and blinked several times. His hands had been resting on his knees and he turned them so the palms faced upwards.His eyes looked perplexed as he took in the movement, half amazed that they worked. He was back in control.

At length he turned to the curator who had quietly returned to his desk. Mambrino's helmet sat, glistening and repaired, beside the rind of an orange and an hour glass with and assortment of black and white and occasional red beads. Luke's white bead rested at the top of the bead hillat its base.

"Sad. So sad."

He stared at the curator who in turn allowed the silence to settle. Luke's eyes were lights of sadness, soft, defeated and without judgment. Both men looked at each other and Luke's face gently demanded an answer.

"Perhaps in time you'll come to see it differently. We are mortal men."

Luke was dazed by the remark. It seemed to reveal that the curator knew what had passed.

"You know? You Knew?"

The curator's silence gave consent as Luke moments earlier in another time and place had conceded by his own silence that his friend would die. He shook his head again. His chest heaved and the fill of air gave him some purpose. He made to stand up but the effort was demanding. His legs wobbled and he gripped the chair as a scaffold for his rickety frame. Steadying himself he took the necessary time to support his weakened body.  
"What now?"

There was a respectful silence and then the conversation began to stroll with the pace appropriate to its gravity. The curator understood that answers were needed, but he also knew that his words needed the suitable pauses and necessary silences to allow his listener's mind to absorb the things he had to say.

"You have climbed to the top of the mountain and your willingness to reach the top has granted you a taste of things that others will never know. Now I suppose,"he shrugged his face to signal a shift in tone and meaning," now I suppose you have to return to where you came from and make sense of this latest of life's adventures. We go on young man", he said with adult resignation. "Every day brings its own fight. We must face the fight. What would Caillimachus have said? And Phaedo and Daemon if he had a tongue? And of course what would Eukles say to you?"

Luke was startled to hear the roll call of names, men who minutes earlier were flesh and blood and emotion but who long ago had crumbled to dust. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What would they have said?"

The curator disarmed him with a softening smile. "I think you know what they would say. I think they say it to you as we speak.They would remind us that we are men. And they would tell us how life is a brawl and that it is our duty to take up whatever weapons we have and stand in the phalanx and confront the furies of this world with all like minded men. No?"

There was something absent from the old man's words but it wasn't truth. He had said no matter how imperfectly what Luke's comrades would have said. He returned a weary smile."Yes ", said Luke straightening his back and filling his chest with air as he had seen his heroes do. "Yes". He thought for a moment. It was a private thought, one of those thoughts that would never be shared because one would never find another in this world worthy of sharing it. This thought would only be spoken to the flames of a fire on nights of monastic loneliness. It had all the power and privacy of one of Eukles' prayers to his ridiculous gods. Luke saw Eukles placing his offering of bread in the still pool. The pool where he too would now go and say what would amount to a prayer of thanksgiving beside their olive tree far away from his house with five stars. He shifted his weight and turned to the curator repeating absently the solitary word "yes".

"But" he added with a wistfulness and a knowledgeable half smile, "they would all have said it better."

"Indeed." And the curator pursed his lips in sympathy. "I am merely the curator of this place. Goodbye young man. I have enjoyed our moment in this life."

"Goodbye sir and thank you." And then as he turned he remembered how the curator had said he might not enjoy the adventure but would in time be grateful for it. "I'm already grateful for what has passed" and he nodded his head as if the point deserved strong affirmation, "I have enjoyed every second."

Both men exchanged a civil smile that said more than any words or speech from Moliere or Shakespeare. Luke made his way to the exit. He opened the innocuous, frosted glass door and stepped out into the street with its traffic of people and cars and its twenty first century air.

Next door in the overpriced sports shop, an angry security guard was glowering in the entrance while an attractive sales assistant with a pair of ridiculously priced size eleven sports shoes was looking distressed at an ocean of footballs which were still spilling onto the floor, flooding the shop and toppling the sweating cardboard cutout of Wayne Rooney. Paddy the perpetrator of this cataclysm had slipped out redfaced and slightly panicked and sought refuge next door where his older brother Luke had said he would be.

Time, as the curator will tell you, is all quite relative.
