A Ledger Instead of a Spear
After the king left, nothing remained in the courtyard but a thoroughly uncomfortable silence.
I stood there holding a spear, Telekles was watching my every move, and Father silently looked back and forth between the two of us — apparently deciding which of us to kill first.
Telekles cracked first.
"Father."
"Keep your mouth shut."
"Yes, sir."
Fast.
When I quietly lowered my spear as well, Father's gaze snapped to track the movement.
"Arista."
"......Yes."
"The king saying nothing does not mean he gave his blessing."
Right on the mark. Honestly, I'd been thinking the same thing for a while now. Archidamus had looked at my spear and called it wretched; he'd told me not to speak of war so lightly. That was all — he had never said I could learn. Still, I decided to brazen it out.
"He didn't stop me either."
"He didn't permit it either."
Not once in my life had Father been so infuriatingly precise as he was today.
"Did you teach her?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Telekles betrayed me without a moment's hesitation.
"She said she'd do it alone if I didn't."
You traitor. I'd pay this humiliation back someday, without fail.
Father's gaze swung back to me.
"Is it true?"
"Better to learn than to get hurt practicing alone, isn't it?"
"Did you threaten your brother with that?"
"It wasn't a threat — I was briefing him on the risks."
Telekles gave a hollow laugh.
Father stared at me for a long moment.
"Father, if she gets hurt, I'm the one who has to answer for—"
"I told you to shut your mouth."
"Yes, sir."
Fast again. Traitor. Then I caught Father's sigh, and my eyes drifted back to him.
"It ends today."
My face hardened at his words.
"Why?"
"You have heard enough reasons already."
"Even so, whether I can actually do it or not — you only find out by trying."
"Arista."
When the low voice came back, I finally shut my mouth.
"Telekles. Teach her nothing more."
"Understood."
That answer was far too fast.
While I was glaring holes into Telekles, Father looked one last time at the spear in my hand, then went inside.
I waited until he had completely disappeared from view.
And then.
— Thwack!
I smacked the back of Telekles's head.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"You ratted me out the second he asked."
"It was the truth!"
"Still. Where's your loyalty?"
"I nearly died right along with you. What loyalty?"
Honestly. Spartans were short on camaraderie — short by a mile.
Rubbing the back of his head, Telekles snatched the spear away.
"That's enough. It's really over now."
"Yeah."
I watched him take it without a word.
"...Why are you taking this so quietly?"
"Father said to stop, didn't he?"
When Telekles looked at me with naked suspicion, I just smiled.
"Just for today."
"Hey—"
I pretended not to hear and went inside.
For the next several days, I truly couldn't touch a spear.
Telekles didn't have the gall to defy Father's word, and my hands were too busy holding other things.
"Count them again."
"It's seventeen, I'm sure of it."
"And what does the ledger say?"
I looked down at the clay tablet.
"Nineteen."
Mother pointed at the grain sacks.
"Then where did the two sacks go?"
"How would I know?"
Mother looked at me as she spoke.
"Finding out is your job. Did you think I dragged you along to watch me count?"
However much I wanted to talk back to my mother, I had nothing to say. In the end I started counting the sacks one by one again — and no matter how I looked at it, there were seventeen.
"Someone took them, didn't they? And now I'm supposed to find out who?"
"So you do understand now."
Goddamn it. Harder than the spear.
From that day on, Mother hauled me all over the estate.
How much stored grain remained. Which fields were faring well this year. How many jars of oil we had. The old Arista must have known some of it too, because even in unfamiliar places the memories kept trickling back — though it still felt like the first time I had ever really looked.
And the most astonishing thing was Mother. She remembered all of it.
"You have all of that memorized?"
Mother looked at me as if I were the strange one.
"It is something you will need to remember as well."
"Why me?"
"Did you think you would stay a child forever?"
In my past life I would still have been in school at this age. Not here.
I muttered, turning the clay tablet over in my hands.
"Father is home, you know. I thought this sort of thing was his job."
"And where are your father and Telekles right now?"
"At training."
"Then who is here?"
My tongue failed me. Watching me flounder, Mother turned her attention back to the grain.
"When war comes, the men are gone from home even longer."
"Then... this house?"
"You have me, don't you?"
Ah. Now I understood, a little.
The women who didn't march to war weren't idle. When the men went out carrying spears, those who stayed behind had to keep the household turning — the home they would come back to. And Mother took that as simply the way of things.
I looked at the clay tablet again.
I could see that it mattered. I knew from my army days, too — without food and supplies, you can't do a single thing.
And yet.
This is boring.
Far more than the spear ever was.
At the time, that was honestly as far as the thought went.
Then spring arrived — and a single piece of news turned all of Sparta upside down.
They said Thebans had slipped into Plataea in the dead of night. Fighting had broken out inside the walls, and word came that the men taken captive had been put to death.
Exactly what had happened, no two tellers agreed. Some said Athens had started the war. Some said Thebes had broken its oath first. Some said Sparta would not sit quietly now.
But one thing could be known for certain.
Every face had changed.
Before, people had chattered about war the way men talk over their drinks. Not anymore.
Within days, envoys were passing back and forth, and the training grounds grew more crowded. On the road home, I saw men tending spears and shields everywhere I looked.
And then, a few weeks on.
At some point, war stopped being rumor and became preparation — and Father came home strangely early.
Telekles was with him.
"Is it war?"
Father looked at me.
This time, he did not scold me for asking.
"It is."
My heart pounded.
So it had truly begun. The war.
The Peloponnesian War. In my past life I had only ever seen the name in books — all I knew was that Sparta and Athens had fought each other for decades.
And now I was inside it!
Somehow, laughter kept threatening to spill out of me. I couldn't tell whether it was nerves, excitement, or fear.
Telekles looked at me and set down his shield.
"What are you smiling at?"
"I'm not smiling."
"The corner of your mouth just lifted."
I hurriedly stiffened my face.
"I'm not smiling."
"Your mouth—"
"Telekles."
One word from Father cut the teasing dead.
"Make yourselves ready."
Telekles's expression hardened in turn.
"When do we leave?"
"When the order comes."
I looked back and forth between the two of them, and my mouth moved before my mind could catch up.
"Am I going too?"
Silence.
A remarkably thorough silence.
In the end, it was Father's question that broke it.
"To where?"
"The war."
"No."
I had expected it. It still pissed me off.
"Why? I can handle a spear well enough now."
"And does that make you fit to march?"
"At least I'm not someone who knows nothing."
"And your place in the line?"
The same questions as before, one after another.
"Whose orders would you stand under? Who would you move with?"
I couldn't answer. Father came one step closer.
"War is not a place you follow along to because you think you might fight well."
For someone who had lived in a modern army, it was a strangely painful line to hear.
It was something I knew perfectly well. And still, I asked again.
"Even if I fight better than Telekles?"
"Why's your measuring stick me?"
Telekles scowled beside me. I ignored him.
Father studied me for a moment, then said flatly.
"Still no."
"Because I'm a woman?"
"That is one reason."
I clenched my teeth. But Father did not stop there.
"But even if you were a man, I would not take you now."
"Why not?"
"You have held a spear for a few days. Telekles gave twelve years of preparation to that first march."
I glanced at Telekles beside me, then lowered my head. Infuriating — but not wrong.
"And do not misunderstand."
"Misunderstand what?"
"I do not go because I want to."
My mouth closed at that. My heart had raced at the mere word war only moments before, and suddenly I was ashamed of it.
Father said nothing more and went inside.
Telekles moved to follow, then stopped beside me.
"Mad?"
"Can't you tell by looking?"
"I can. That's why I asked."
Insufferable bastard.
After a stretch of silence, Telekles spoke again.
"It's not a good place."
"What isn't?"
"War."
I turned my head away.
What does a nineteen-year-old know about war?
The words climbed all the way to my throat — and stopped dead there.
Because come to think of it, I didn't know either.
In my past life I had never seen a real war, and nothing had changed here. All I had ever done was stab straw dummies with a spear.
"...I know."
In the end, that was all I said.
It was a lie.
And when early summer came, the order to march finally came down.
The house had felt heavy since before dawn. Father was quieter than usual, and Mother moved as she always did — only her hands were a little quicker.
Only Telekles was fidgeting to a strange degree. He checked his shield again and again, wiped the spearhead, fiddled with the straps. A little later, he was going over it all from the beginning once more.
I leaned against the wall and watched him, until at last I spoke.
"You checked all of that yesterday too."
Telekles's hands stopped.
"I did."
"Then why do it again?"
"Because if I don't, I can't settle."
Those words were strangely familiar.
I used to do the same — checking my gear the night before training, then checking it again before we moved out. Knowing there was nothing wrong wasn't enough; you had to see it with your own eyes before your mind would settle.
I stepped close and pointed at his shield strap.
"Here. It's worked loose a little."
Telekles inspected it, then retied it tight.
"...Thanks."
At the first normal thing I'd ever heard from him, my eyes narrowed to slits.
"What's gotten into you? It's creepy."
"Want me to take it back?"
"Forget it."
Only then did a small laugh slip out of me.
Before long, the two of them stepped out of the house. Outside, men were moving in the same direction.
Father and Telekles, who had been inside the house mere moments ago, slipped into that stream, and I crossed my arms and called out.
"Don't die."
"Who's that aimed at?"
"The guy going to war for the first time."
Telekles snorted.
"I trained longer than it took to teach you a spear."
"Men still die."
"Don't jinx a man on the day he marches out."
"Then come back alive."
He stared at me for a beat, then broke into a grin.
"You just stay out of trouble yourself."
"What trouble would I get into?"
Telekles didn't answer that.
Father and Mother both just looked at me in silence.
"Why is everyone staring like that?"
No one answered.
Before long, the two of them receded down the road with the other men.
I watched their backs until they disappeared from sight.
In my past life, I had set out on departures more times than I could count. Being the one left behind was a first, and the feeling was impossibly strange.
I belonged over there too. And I couldn't go.
A few lessons with a spear didn't make me someone with the right to stand in their line.
"Arista."
When Mother called from behind, I turned around.
"Yes?"
"How long do you mean to stand there?"
"...Why?"
Mother held out a small clay tablet to me.
"There is much to do."
"There's a war on?"
I took it.
"Exactly."
Mother was already walking back inside.
"Which is why there is more."
I stood there for a long while, staring at the tablet.
War had unmistakably begun. Father and Telekles had taken up spears.
And I.
Took up a tablet.
"......Fuck."