The Fire of Ares by Michael Ford Page B

treated badly.’
    â€˜It is one of the regulations, Master. You do not have to beat your slave, although some boys take pleasure in doing so. Is there no one here – a friend perhaps?’
    Of course
, thought Lysander.
There is someone!
    â€˜I’ll bring Timeon,’ he said to Strabo.
    â€˜Very good,’ said Strabo. ‘I will return in the morning. For now, enjoy your time with your mother.’
    Strabo stood and was gone.

    That evening, Lysander and his mother sat outside their hut, enjoying the last of the sun’s rays. They had spoken little since Strabo left the house, and Athenasia had slept through the afternoon. Other Helots passing home from the fields gave them odd looks, but no one asked why they hadn’t been in the field that day.
    â€˜Mother,’ said Lysander, ‘what is so special about the Fire of Ares?’
    Athenasia kept looking at the sky, where the sun smeared the horizon. She pressed her lips tightly together.
    â€˜I never wanted to tell you, because the knowledge would place you in even greater danger. It belongs to a life I never thought you would share. It was your father’s. And Sarpedon’s before him. And his father before him. All the way back to the Trojan War, six hundred years ago. Do you know the story about King Menelaos?’
    Lysander shook his head.
    â€˜Well, many hundreds of years ago, Sparta had only one king, rather than two. His name was Menelaos. His wife, Helen, was the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, but she was kidnapped by men from over the Aegean Sea, men from the city of Troy. As well as Helen, the Trojans also took all of her riches and jewels. All but this one piece. Menelaos found it on the beach from which the Trojan thieves had departed: that is how he knew they’d taken his wife. Menelaos called itthe Fire of Ares, and swore on the charm that he would get Helen back. The markings on the back are in the old language. It says,
The Fire of Ares shall inflame the righteous.
    â€˜With his brother Agamemnon, Menelaos assembled a huge fleet and sailed to Troy. They were victorious, but only after ten years of fighting. In all those ten years, the Fire of Ares kept Menelaos safe, but after the conflict Helen gave the pendant to their daughter, Hermione. It has been passed down since then.’
    â€˜Can the Fire of Ares really have survived all that time?’ asked Lysander.
    â€˜Don’t underestimate the power of the jewel,’ his mother replied, with deadly seriousness. ‘The same power that drove King Menelaos to batter down the walls of his enemy will belong to the wearer of the Fire of Ares. It represents the family – the ancestry – to which you owe your very existence. The red of the stone is your bloodline, and your tie to the past.’
    Lysander
had
to recover that jewel, whatever it took. His mother reached over to him.
    â€˜I am sure you will make me very proud,’ she said. She squeezed him close as the sun set.

CHAPTER 11
    Lysander stood outside the barracks with Timeon and Strabo.
    â€˜And we are going in
there
?’ said his friend, gazing at the building in front of them. ‘They could have made it more pleasing to the eye, couldn’t they?’
    Lysander had to admit his friend was right. The barracks was a huge, one-storey square building built of wood. He could only see two sides, but it looked as though there was a single door in each, and a row of windows along the top, well above head height.
    â€˜Wait here,’ Strabo said, then disappeared inside.
    Looking at the barracks, Lysander wondered if he had made the right decision. This one building would be his home until the age of eighteen. Nearly six years! He would eat, sleep, learn and train here with other boys of his own age.
Can I really live here?
he asked himself.
    â€˜The other Helots didn’t trust their ears. You! A Spartan warrior,’ said Timeon. ‘Agestes’s face was