CHAPTER 36: Reviewing the Troops
Melaina would have stayed on Samos but for the fleet's tenuous state of mind. She boarded over Kallias' objections, but with Xanthippus speaking her part. Then Kallias motioned Keladeine aboard also should Melaina again experience problems with her pregnancy.
They launched the ships, stored the white sails in the hold, let the rudder down astern, and fastened it securely. Now that they were finally going into battle, everyone voiced a complaint. Shouts of shortages went up, some grumbling about broken oars, others of missing ropes or anchors. Hoplites scurried to ready armor, gather axes and spears. Archers strung bows and sharpened arrow tips.
"This is not sound reasoning, taking a pregnant woman into battle!" cried Kallias.
"You made the decision when we left Delos," answered Xanthippus.
"Yes, but her water hadn't broken then." Kallias watched Keladeine and Lykos, ever fearful the wolf would nip him. He scowled in disgust at the Scythian.
Melaina didn't mention her own misgivings. She'd had light, periodic pains since landing on Samos, although she'd not even told Keladeine. Still, she chided Kallias. "How is it men by the thousands give their lives for Hellas, yet you bemoan a single woman who's caused you so much trouble?"
Kallias was slow to speak. "Perhaps, my feelings. You're certainly no longer the girl the camel frightened." As he spoke, dawn kindled on the eastern horizon, a blaze of yellow. "Death in battle may come to us all," he added. "If the time comes, you and I, we both will be at death's door together."
Melaina felt the cool breeze and shivered, then looked into the face of the wind as the ship drifted from the slip. Feeling herself cower inside, she pulled Keladeine close and wondered what dreadful fate they sailed toward, if the outcome would come swiftly or drag for days. She felt as if she stood before some dreadful abyss. The baby shifted, strained against her abdominal wall as if readying for some stroke of doom.
She and Keladeine stood at the rail of the poop, next to Deiphonus. Grave and beautiful they were, white-clad, golden-haired sisters. When would she ever return to Eleusis? She couldn't imagine it now in ashes and her grandfather no longer stalking its halls. Ever she missed her mother and prayed to the gods for her safety with the troops at Plataea. Melaina rubbed her tired eyes. She'd only caught a little sleep in the last two days, and even it had been disturbed by turbulent dreams.
The ship resounded with shouted orders, churning oars, and the rhythmic toot of the aulete. Hoplites shuffled about on deck, rattling swords, shields, and greaves. Oarsmen put up side-screen leathers, shallow tents extending along both sides of the ship to protect themselves from the rain of Persian arrows. Yesterday, they'd come into Samos in line-abreast formation, but now, coming to Asia's coastline, they assumed line-ahead, two long strings of ships extending into the channel behind.
Midday, the late-summer sun bore down as they skirted the southern coast of the peninsula jutting out toward Samos, brooding, forested, shadow-laden. Long they strained their eyes over the choppy sea, looking for mustered enemy ships in the bay, but none came to meet them. When they drew alongside the coast, a cry went up from the bow officer. "There!" he shouted, "fresh-cut timber." The Persians, knowing their vessels were unequal in battle, had beached them, thrown up a wooden palisade, and dug a ditch. They laid in wait.
Melaina saw a mountain looming inland and called to Hegesistratus. "What peak is that?" she shouted above the threshing oars.
"Mykale, mother of ferocious beasts, by all accounts."
Melaina remembered Chera's words. She'd said that a sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter lay nearby on the coast of Asia.
"Kallias," Melaina said, pulling at his arm. "Legend tells of a sanctuary of Demeter in Asia founded by Philistus when he accompanied Neileus, son of Kodrus, who came here to found Miletus. Could that be it? This would fulfill the oracle's final requirement."
Kallias called out, "Leotychides, Melaina has spotted the temple of Demeter mentioned by Chera. Delphi said the war would be won only if fought before a temple of Eleusinian Demeter and on Athenian soil. Athenians founded that temple."
Melaina added, "Zeus wouldn't have brought us here if the temple wasn't nearby."
"They'll have summoned reinforcements from Sardis," said Leotychides. "If they hold up inside the palisade, we'll never win a siege. But I'll not tolerate another accusation of cowardice from Kimon. This is my last chance to avenge Leonidas' defeat at Thermopylae. We've been hoping for a land battle." He waved Xanthippus' ship in close and shouted across the short span of water. "We'll siege the palisade! You'll soon witness Spartan courage."
"But we've prepared for a sea battle!" Xanthippus shouted back. "Haven't the troops for a siege. Not only that, if the Phoenicians return, our ships will be sitting ducks. We'll have no way home."
Leotychides waved him off, and though Xanthippus' face was barely visible, Melaina saw clouds of concern gathered there. Leotychides ordered the standard bearer to signal the other ships ashore. The man came forward holding the flag upright, dipped right, then left, raised, lowered it, oriented the head one direction, then another. When the fleet had been so informed, Leotychides ordered his ship close to shore before the Persian palisade. A lead line sounded the depths to ensure they wouldn't run aground. "Kallias!" he called. "You have the loudest voice onboard. Call to the Ionian Hellenes aligned with Persia to revolt when we attack. No Persian will understand you."
From shore, Melaina heard echoes of shouting workmen still hard at building the palisade, saw huge timbers dragged into place by oxen, and clouds of dust billowing skyward. Alongshore, the Persian infantry mustered in full battle gear.
Kallias stepped to the rail. Just as he looked ready to shout, Melaina said, "Give them a watchword, 'Hera'."
Kallias shouted across the water, "Men of Ionia! When going into battle, remember first your love of freedom, and next, a password for you to approach us, 'Hera,' whose beloved temple lays in ashes on Samos. Those in league with us will never regret it."
With that, they sailed east along the coast to where the rest of the fleet was offloading. Leotychides ordered the ship through the riptide, prow-first onto the sandy beach, and had the gangway lowered.
Kallias shouted to Leotychides. "That sanctuary," he said, pointing up the coastline. "The battle must be fought there."
Melaina exited with the men but stopped Keladeine at the boat's railing. "You're forbidden to come ashore," Melaina said.
"Leave me aboard? How ridiculous! With you suffering as you are," said Keladeine, "I'd be a comfort."
"Apollo has ordered you to Ephesus, not to be my handmaid. Stay here until it is safe."
Kallias had his own opinion. "That damn dog has come this far, he's going to fight for his food." He gave the order for Keladeine to offload with the rest. "Let's see if she can use that bow." He added, "And the Scythian. I hear the girlish bastards can fight in spite of their appearance."
But the Scythian wasn't all that agreeable. "I'll come with you if you show a little respect. I've found Hellenes less than accepting."
Kallias waved him off.
Melaina shook her head at Keladeine although she knew that further argument was useless. "I see no reason to risk you. One of your mother's daughters has already given her life defending me."
The host set foot at a strip of beach lined with groves of dusky poplars and drooping willows. Fowl sprang up, a tumult of flapping wings over the meadows and marshes: geese, cranes, swans. To Melaina, it was as if all things fair had left Mykale, making way for the loathsome task before them. The air vibrated with armor's dull clank and came alive with the rush of warriors.
After the ships had been offloaded, but for the few oarsmen staying aboard, they pushed back from the beach and rode at anchor offshore. Each ship then let go a tethered iron mass off the bow and another at the stern to hold against broadsiding waves.
The divisions, commanded by Xanthippus and Kimon, then deployed on high ground, and as his troops did so, Xan
thippus came to Melaina.
"My life is in danger from one our own," he said. "I fear Kimon will seize the opportunity to take it during battle."
Melaina had seen this feud simmer all the past year. Xanthippus was right. It should end now.
"Kallias!" she called. "Bring Kimon before me, if he will."
Kallias called Kimon from donning battle armour, and the three of them stood before her. She turned to Kallias. "These two are at speartips with each other, over the imprisonment and death of Kimon's father. Broker a peace that will see them through this battle without one of them seizing the chaos of battle to perform some deadly mischief on the other."
Kallias turned on both men. "I've seen this hatred simmer myself. Though both of you be generals, and me but a field commander, by all that's holy, if one of you dies, regardless the circumstance, I'll see that the other is charged with his murder." He grabbed both of them by the front of their armour. "Do you hear me? This is about saving Hellas, and not about person vendettas."
Kimon, large that he was, shoved Kallias back, looked at Melaina and then glanced away. "I admit that I have harbored hatred of Xanthippus over my father's fate. But never would I, nor will I, strike at Xanthippus during battle. If there is a problem, I'm the one in danger of the coward's act."
Xanthippus wouldn't look at Kimon, or Kallias, but spoke to Melaina directly. "I'm not a man prone to violence, nor have I ever served more than divine Justice. I'll take Kimon at his word. Let this be the end of it."
All three of them dispersed to their commands without a further word. Melaina wondered at this man who'd married her, his fearless way with men more powerful than he. Proud she was to be Kallias' wife.
Kallias had but a regiment, and deployed it close by the sanctuary of Demeter. The soldiers stood in ranks at his right while sea waves raged to his left. Leotychides walked before them as commanding general. The troops complained of fighting on land. "Just when we get ourselves in the mood to fight at sea, you beach us on this desolate, beast-infested coast."
Melaina stood beside Keladeine watching a bewildered band of warriors. "They never thought they'd see battle when they came to Delos," Kallias said. "They're new recruits, a lurid rabble that enlisted at the last minute."
One with eyes the size of saucers said, "We're oarsmen, poor freemen come only to power the triremes."
"Surely you're not unlearned in evils?" Keladeine asked.
"I'll place them in the rear," said Leotychides, "to kill the wounded and despoil the dead."
Melaina shuddered, the horrors of war. She tried to walk away, but Xanthippus pulled her aside, again, his face molded to another great agony. "Back on Delos," he said, "you saw the future, all our fates. Will my men survive this land battle?"
"Not all can possibly escape such a bloodletting," she said. She walked from him again and stooped to lift an aged timber partially buried in sand.
But Xanthippus followed her, came closer. She realized his concern was personal. "I've a ten-year-old son," he said quietly. "When my wife Agarista was pregnant, she dreamed of being mounted by a lion. Within the week, she delivered. One day he'll be a great man if I can but live to raise him. He would be such a gift to Hellas. Would you speak to the Great Mother?"
Melaina looked in his eyes, saw fear lodged there and thought it was for his own hide, not that of his son. "Don't worry, Lord Xanthippus. Your son will have his father."
As he ambled off, she marveled at how easily she'd spoken this prophecy, her certainty he would live. Had she simply spoken out of frustration? She looked at the staff she'd retrieved from the sand. It was a crooked wand with a curved top and resembled a battle trumpet. It was an augur's staff. It looked familiar. Her heart leapt! Was this a miracle? Perhaps her grandfather, the Hierophant, wasn't dead after all. But just as she raised it clenched tight in her fist, she had another partial seizure as she'd had on Delos, and felt she'd taken hold of a lightning bolt. Saw the flash, felt the sizzle.
She saw an apparition, a hallucination of phantoms and wraiths. She couldn't speak but heard Keladeine shout and felt Kallias shake her. Quickly as it came, it left, but her eyes glazed over and her tongue felt thick. Her legs almost gave way. The generals gathered about her and the warriors pulled close, battle gear squeaking and rattling. Melaina tried to make sense of her vision. Her own words seemed to come from outside herself.
"I've witnessed...I've witnessed the battle on the mainland," she said, "just seen the Hellenes rout the Persian forces at Plataea. Mardonius…he's dead. A Hellene now rides his white stallion."
A great commotion arose among the troops, but some doubted she spoke the truth. They milled about voicing contrary words. "What's this?" asked Leotychides. "How can she know events on the other side of the Aegean?"
"It's the sacred sickness," said Kallias. "She's had a vision."
Xanthippus' worried eyes cleared. "We've taken back Attica!" he shouted.
A great bellow came from the troops. So eager were they for encouragement that disbelief was not possible. Fact it seemed, the words sweet as dinner-table dainties.
Melaina shouted into the crowd. "It seemed as though I saw through my own mother's eyes as she stood firm before the temple of Demeter in Plataea. They've overcome the enemy and now hold siege to Thebes."
Still Leotychides wanted more. "Give another word to help us with this prophecy, Lady Melaina, any further assurance to lighten our hearts."
As Melaina's mind cleared, she felt a flash of rage. Keladeine tried to restrain her, but Melaina broke free. "How many times do I have to tell you antelope hearts not to worry? Aaugggg. . .!" she shouted, then tried to control her anger, knowing it was a remnant of the seizure. She ordered Deiphonus, who stood nearby, to sacrifice a goat while she thought of a way to add to the omens. She turned back to Leotychides.
Keladeine warned her, "Take care, Melaina. Watch your words, lower your voice."
"I'm all right," she said. "I have control of my temper now." She turned to the generals. "This staff I just found here on the beach belongs to my grandfather, Hierophant of the Mysteries," she said. "The aged timber has been passed down from Eumolpus himself, the first to be initiated into Demeter's Mysteries. Ever since, initiates have taken turns holding it when observing the epiphany. Many times I've held it in my own hand. Only my grandfather could have left it here. The staff would not have left his hand but for a reason: Zeus willed it. Even now, Persians must hold him hostage in the palisade. It was left here as a sign."
A man came running from the forest toward them shouting, "Hera! Hera! Hera!" Leotychides ordered the man apprehended and brought before him. He was an Ionian escapee. After the Ionian caught his breath, he gushed news about the enemy forces. "Persian leaders place no confidence in the Ionians," he said. "They've confiscated all our arms. At their first opportunity, all Ionians will change sides. The generals are desperate to inspire courage in their soldiers. They say that Xerxes is coming with a mighty army of reinforcements. A great lie! Xerxes languishes in disgrace at Sardis. Their one hope is in numbers. Ever the generals scan your ranks to calculate their advantage."
Meanwhile, Deiphonus had completed his sacrifice. He shouted that Zeus had sent favorable omens. At this, Leotychides called a quick conference and proposed they further tempt the Persians by causing their own Hellene forces to seem smaller. After several moments of heated arguing, Leotychides decided to split the forces. He and his Spartans would proceed up a torrent into the thickly wooded hills to attack the Persian flank.
Xanthippus was beside himself. "Leotychides decides to beach the ships and attack the palisade, and now escapes to the safety of cover while we're left in the open to suffer Persian arrows and lances."
But the decision held, and as the Spartans disappeared up the ravine, Xanthippus climbed a sand hill and spoke to the warriors while standing on grass tufts.
"Don battle armor!" he shouted. "We fight for all the Hellene islands and for Ionia. The young priestess, Kynegeiros'
daughter, has dashed all our doubts. Zeus himself stands beside us; fierce Athena urges us on."
Melaina raised her fist in the air and shouted, "Avenge my father, Lord Kynegeiros!"
Kallias then led Melaina and Keladeine, the Scythian trailing behind, from the beach to the small sacred village at the edge of the forest and to the temple of Demeter. The men stayed outside, and the women entered. Inside, Melaina and Keladeine found it vacated except for the occupation of a great stench. Melaina spotted what she thought was a wooden statue sitting on a throne, then realized that it was an old woman. The white-haired crone rose to greet them, a lifeless dream bowed over her walking stick. She crept forward on bony feet, fingering the wall as she went, her weak limbs trembling. Her voice was the creak of a rusty hinge, husky breath of death. "Long I've waited for the coming of the Maid. If you truly be she, I'll end this grievous old age, having spoken unbelieved prophecies for ten centuries. Now the god can unloose my spirit."
"What is that smell," asked Keladeine holding her nose.
"Is the priestess of the temple here?" asked Melaina, checking her own breath.
"Listen!" said the crone. "All able bodies have fled inland to escape my ill-smelling and noisome affliction. Ever I reek and rave. My life is my wound. I utter prophecies like matter from an oozing sore. Long I've been at this temple seeking Kore's mercy." The crone's eyes were like wells of deep memory.
"Who are you?" asked Melaina.
"Many the names I've had. At Thebes, I was first called Manto by my blind father. As Daphni, I delivered Delphi's oracular responses. As an unnamed poet, I invented Homer's best verses, and as Sibylla they still scroll my prophecies."
Melaina had no time to listen further. She spoke to Keladeine. "She can't possibly be Teiresias' daughter. She'd be eight hundred years old." She turned to Kallias. "I'll be safe here. Ensure Xanthippus realizes that the battle must be fought nearby. Don't let him siege the palisade, but urge him to await the Persian attack."
The old woman's scratchy voice questioned her. "You be truly the Maid, my cure? If so, you're as the rust from the sword that heals its own wounds."
Melaina and Keladeine were not listening to the old woman, but instead stepped outside to watch as the phalanx formed down the beach from the temple. Kallias mustered his regiment alongside the others. The old lady's coarse voice in the background kept up a steady stream, but Melaina ignored it. The late-summer sun cast long shadows as the hoplites rigged themselves in body armor: bronze helmets, bell corselets, greaves.
Kallias complained as he dressed, "Breastplates are always a bad fit and never distribute weight over the collarbone." He shuffled shields until, finally, he found one suitable for his arm length. "Many the time I've had a shield fly off." He searched through a pile of weapons for an iron thrusting spear, hefted one for weight and balance, and stuck a smaller blade into his belt. "When will they ever provide protection for the throat and groin?"
Melaina heard other warriors' worried grumbling of not having enough armor to go around. The men fought over breastplates and shields. Seemed no one possessed a complete panoply. One would have a new corselet but a primitive helmet, another no greaves. Even when all the hoplites were dressed for battle, no mustering order came, and the men were greatly displeased as they basked under the Aegean sun. "We'll suffocate!" they shouted, writhing inside their ventless armor.
Keladeine's Scythian took no armor. To Melaina, he looked something of a eunuch and seemed sluggish but stout, fat and hairless, with a sunburned complexion. He used bronze-tipped arrows, wore gold headgear, gold belt and girdle. Attached to his quiver, he wore three light-colored leathers, each with a large patch of hair.
Melaina had to know about the hides. "What are those?"
"Enemy skins," he said. Melaina was sorry she'd asked, but couldn't resist yet another question. "To what use?"
"Handkerchiefs."
She wondered if bring the Scythian had been all that necessary. His black dog looked fearsome enough, but Melaina didn't like him any more than she did his master.
The Scythian saw her looking at his dog. "My canine is famous as a hunter and distinguished for keen scent. No wild goat, fawn, or hare can escape him."
But Melaina thought the dog looked untrustworthy. It wouldn't meet her eye. "This dog is impure," she said.
Finally, Xanthippus raised the criers, and the call to battle went out. Auletes shrieked. She heard the whetstones screech as they grated against iron in the last-moment sharpening of swords. Men came crowding, and easily as herdsmen divide sheep mingled in pasture, so the officers formed combat companies. They advanced alongshore, making lines of hoplites ten deep, shields locked, long spears thrust forward. Then came the light-armed peltasts, javelin men, and stone throwers. Last came the defilers of the dead.
Melaina walked down from the temple and stood before Kimon's men. He was a great presence in armor, shield rattling against his spear tip. "At last! We get to bleed these Persian dogs," he shouted. "Think not of your own safety, men, but of the limbs you will sever from these pus buckets who burned your homes."
Xanthippus stood before all squadrons and shouted, "Steady your hearts! Remember, Mykale is ours! You're to but deal the death blow demanded by the gods." The general then approached Melaina and asked her to join him in reviewing the troops.
"But I don't know how. The warriors will never stand for it."
"Oh! You have no idea the violence a woman can stir in the hearts of men." He added, "Athena reviewed the soldiers with Agamemnon before Troy. Follow along with me."
"But she's a goddess," Melaina protested, following behind.
Oak-waisted and deep-chested as an ox, Xanthippus passed before his army, great strides bearing him along, and golden-haired, blue-eyed Melaina, heavy with child, kept pace, bearing the staff of the Hierophant. Immortal and august she seemed, golden tassels lofting in air. Down ranks that dazzling woman marched, stirring to the attack, and in each man she saw the heart grow stronger at her passing, war itself become fairer than return, lovelier than sailing home.
A shout rang out, and all turned toward the Palisade. Drawn up outside the timbered walls stood the Persian squadrons, flanked by officers, with the clamorous lines screaming slaughter, raging shoulder to shoulder. They wore little armor: leather corselets with bronze platelets, cloth head-coverings for sun protection, skin trousers and wicker shields.
The battle for Ionia was about to begin.
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 82