. . . .BELOW Kyllenë in Elaea we steered straight south for Cape Katakolon, resting the oars upon the rising of the midday zephyr. Onward from there under sails alone, with all the delight of the dolphins coursing beside us, we soon found ourselves off the Alpheios Debouch. There, many more ships awaited us from out of the Great Gulf Alliance to say farewell and wish good fortune to our mission. The afternoon breeze abating, with much distance already behind us, we settled into Letrini Cove, within the cape’s headland, where our well-wishers made a feast for the occasion.
I disembarked there for my own inland journey. I took the newly widened road wending inland to Olympia Sanctuary, arriving late at a hostelry there. It took me the next two days to achieve Mount Pholöe, where my father had assembled all the high chiefs of the Pellenian and Erymanthian Highlanders. Father had spent every day since the abduction of Helen in polling the far tribes for seasoned volunteers for her rescue. He never once considered that a mandatory conscription would be necessary. The eagerness for the restoration of the Wanassa was already beyond his most optimistic expectations.
Remember, however: My own people were poor even unto destitution as my prime years began. Our tribes were most certainly the poorest of all the Southland Highlanders. Volunteering to arms was the best alternative to that condition. The clans of the Aigialaian Brotherhood, therefore, were different from those who fight for fit cause, who will seize upon its worth, and make war accordingly.1
Under Father, whom all my race held in esteem for his promises by good judgement, going to war was a much better occupation than mountaineer guiding or hunting.
Because of the largess of the League’s south mainland plantations, the Cephallenes had offered some hospice and charity to Highlander women and very young children. Fewer women had died in childbirth, and fewer children succumbed to the afflictions of infancy and the stripling years that followed. Nonetheless, whatever Father and I gained back for the welfare of the clans, tribes and phratries must always be spread too thin over all those saved of a generation’s new increase. We had not failed to consider that whoever we saved must then be fed and ultimately allowed an occupation to sustain themselves well. No wonder all those young boys and men thronged Mount Pholöe! Rallying to warfare was their greatest hope of sustenance.
No wonder either that so many were oldest sons or youngest brothers who’d become too strong and hungry to feed adequately. Their mothers and sisters were glad to have them off and overseas. They even feared they might return too soon.
Of those volunteers there were already many tough and sturdy lads who’d barely achieved their ‘tween years. Lads of fit age proved far too numerous for Alkimos and Mentor, father and son, to accouter or train. Alkimos had every right to be proud of what Helen’s spirit meant to her subjects. He could easily imagine that volunteers were amassing in the same proportions throughout all the north mainland phratries of theGenos.
Over the subsequent six days, Alkimos presented Mentor with the fittest chieftain candidates to serve at elementary drill. They’d season to arms all new men brought to a first campaign’s assault complements. Menelaos, their supreme wanax, had already drawn off and prepared fully initiated Highlanders — mostly tribesmen of the Arkadians
