Antinous again gave the signal to start the match. Aedon circled warily around Boy before again dropping swiftly to one knee and diving beneath his swinging arms for a one-legged take-down, hoping to trip Boy onto his back. Before he had even touched the other's leg, however, Boy brought his knee up sharply into Aedon's face, nailing him squarely on the jaw with a sharp crack and dropping him heavily like a sack of barley thrown by a stevedore. He lay motionless and I glanced over at Gryllus, who did not rise, but whose eyes narrowed as he watched his son closely. Antinous sauntered over and roughly jerked Aedon to his feet.
"You'll live," he said harshly, after briefly examining Aedon's eyes and swelling lip where he had bit himself. It was the most tenderness I had ever seen Antinous express.
Again and again Aedon dove for take-downs, and Gryllus watched as his son's face was driven into the dirt, or he was thrown onto his back, or suffered Boy's knee driven sharply into his kidney. Each time he lay senseless for a moment before again staggering gamely to his feet, his face bloodied and his eyes swollen almost shut. After shaking his head to clear his gaze, he would stare pointedly at his father, as if trying to memorize every detail of his face, before returning to his corner of the ring and glaring fiercely at Boy. Antinous began to worry that this was not the display of skills he had been hoping to show Gryllus, but rather a show of dumb, brute determination more indicative of pure stubbornness and stupidity than of any better quality.
"Lesson's over," Antinous grunted several times, hoping to see Aedon's usual slump of relief. Each time, however, the boy shook his head silently and resolutely returned to his corner for yet another round. Antinous stared at him in exasperation. "Keep your head up then," he would say, or, "You've got to get your hooks in before he throws you. I'll bust your nose myself if you don't start using your fucking brains out there."
Gryllus shifted restlessly on his seat as his son's face swelled beyond recognition. Boy grinned stupidly after each of Aedon's ill-fated forays against him. Antinous, however, had had enough. It would not do to have a student killed in front of his own father. I saw the trainer catch Boy's eye and nod to him slowly, in a signal with which both were familiar. Aedon wavered unsteadily on his feet, but still moved gamely into the center of the ring and made a fierce lunge. Boy stepped aside deftly and kicked out sideways, and Aedon, his feet tripped out from beneath him and his hands grasping only air, crumpled into the dirt with a grunt and a dazed, confused expression in his eye.
Boy quickly made his move. Pressing his sweaty chest against Aedon's back in the ladder-grip, his legs wrapped around his opponent's stomach and his bicep around his neck, with his free hand he pressed Aedon's head forward, cutting off the air supply. Aedon's eyes bulged even through their swelling, and his tongue emerged from his split lips as his legs twitched helplessly. He flailed his arms wildly above and behind him, seeking to hook anything-hair, nostrils-in a desperate bid to remove Boy's arm from his throat. In his struggle, he somehow managed to seize Boy's ear-lobe with his fingernails, ripping it from its tenuous attachment to the side of his head. Howling in pain, Boy dropped him and backed away, his mouth working soundlessly in bewilderment, then his eyes narrowing in fury.
Aedon scrambled to his feet as well, suddenly energized by this unexpected success, and carefully circled Boy as the other eyed him ruefully and rubbed his bloodied ear. The two opponents locked eyes, Aedon's muscles quivering in fatigue and tension. Gryllus, I saw, had straightened up and was now watching the match intently, as the two boys froze momentarily, testing each other's reflexes, each daring the other to strike.
This time it was Boy who launched first, and in a swift, catlike maneuver he dropped to one knee, seized Aedon about the legs before he could sprawl out of reach, and lifted him high into the air. Aedon, however, having identified his opponent's weakness, began repeatedly clubbing his injured ear with his fist. The mauling staggered Boy, who dropped Aedon in a rage, his ear turning a lusty purple and swelling into a shapeless mass before our eyes. Before Aedon could rise to his feet, Boy took two quick steps forward and landed him a terrific kick in the ribs, sending him sprawling onto his belly at the edge of the ring, gasping for breath. Boy eyed him warily to be sure he wasn't feigning exhaustion, then straddled Aedon's back, a crazed expression flitting across his face, masking the pain that had been evident since the ripping of his ear a moment before.
Seizing Aedon once more with his arm across the neck, Boy dug the knuckles of his free hand into the side of his throat, against the carotid artery on the side of the trachea, in the choke that stops the flow of blood to the brain and can kill a man in seconds. Aedon's eyes glazed immediately as the sleep of death began creeping over him, and when he went limp, Boy released the pressure of his knuckles; but when Aedon regained his senses, Boy applied the pressure a second time. Gryllus leaped up in alarm and bounded over to his son, arriving just ahead of Antinous. Grasping Boy by the hair he pulled him roughly to his feet, allowing Aedon to drop to his belly in the sand, his eyes open but bereft of understanding. I carried him to his room, where I revived him with cut wine and a massage to the chest to increase the flow of blood to his head. Gryllus accompanied Antinous and his loutish brother to the door and summarily dismissed them, telling them in no uncertain terms that to return to his household would be their death.
That night, in an awkward gesture of reconciliation, Gryllus came into Aedon's room bearing a bundle wrapped in a greasy piece of fabric. "You'll never be a pancratist," he admitted grudgingly, "so you may as well at least arm yourself well." He unwrapped the parcel to display a gleaming Spartan short sword, a xiphos, only slightly longer than a dagger but constructed of a tremendous heaviness, lending it a strength fit for years of battle. The weapon was not beautifully crafted-it was, in fact, rather crude in its finish-but it was well balanced and had a pleasing heft. The otherwise smooth, plain grip bore a primitively carved Greek letter K. Aedon stared sullenly at the blade, his face reflecting the confusion he felt at this unexpected gift from his father. Gryllus remained silent for a moment as his son turned it over in his hands.
"It was given to me years ago, when I was a young officer accompanying an Athenian delegation to Sparta. All the Athenians and Spartans exchanged weapons as a gesture of good faith, and my counterpart gave me this piece."
Gryllus paused for a moment as his mind went back to the days before Aedon was born.
"I ran into that son of a whore many times over the years," he mused, "both on the battlefield and off. I learned the hard way that I couldn't trust him any farther than I could throw him in the pancration ring. That man's betrayals and broken agreements put ten years' worth of gray hairs on my head. Perhaps someday you'll be able to return the favor to a Spartan, by planting this sword in his gut. It's yours now; may you use it to good profit. I can't bear the sight of it."
After Gryllus left, Aedon and I lay in our cots, sleepless. "Thank the gods your father stopped the match when he did," I commented. "Boy might have killed you."
Aedon stiffened and raised himself up on his elbow, ignoring the pain that screwed his face into a wince. "Thank the gods, my ass!" he spat. "It was Father who insisted I learn pancration in the first place! Do you think he was ignorant of Antinous' grinding on me day after day? I'm sick of you always apologizing for my father, Theo, justifying his actions. You are a slave! What loyalty do you bear him?"