CHAPTER 37: The Battle of Mykale
Xanthippus and Kallias stood surveying the enemy host before them. "Leotychides was right," said Xanthippus. "These Persians disdain us and emerge from their stronghold thinking of us as easy pickings. By Zeus, I hope they're wrong!"
As the opposing armies advanced, silence fell.
Quite without warning, another army appeared from the right. The Greeks, realizing it wasn't the Spartans' sneak attack, thought perhaps Xerxes' forces had arrived from Sardis. The Greeks fell into disarray, some shouting, "To the ships!" others, "Hold your lines!"
Both sides halted.
The Greeks then realized these were the rebelling, liberty-infected Ionians, who then fell in behind the defilers of the dead, since they were short on weapons. Xanthippus re-assumed his position leading the phalanx, and Melaina strode back to the temple. Another shout went up, a great eagerness for battle apparent as the Persians bore down screaming. A dense dust cloud rose, and the ground rumbled and groaned. A hail of arrows descended first, sharp points pelting shields like a mighty hailstorm. Voices carrying the paean broke out.
The phalanx charged, fifes splitting the air, front crashing against front, shield clanging against shield. Bucklers ground together, a toiling clamor. It was as if Terror, Rout, and Hate, Ares insatiable sisters-in-arms, walked the earth sowing ferocity, redoubling groans and cries of agony. Dust clouds soared heavenward. Throngs of Persians and Greeks lay strewn beside each other, and the earth streamed with mighty crimson torrents.
Keladeine and the Scythian stood their ground, protecting Melaina before the temple: Keladeine as tall as an Amazon, beautiful as queen Penthesilea who'd also roamed these shores and, as told of old, was killed in battle by Achilles. As the Persians grew ever closer, Keladeine and the Scythian stepped forward and turned loose the dogs. Lykos was a rage of howls and growls, ripping the face from one warrior, disemboweling another. Warriors fled before him without bothering to hurl a spear. The black Scythian canine worked along side Lycos, the two ferocious as lions.
Kallias' company was particularly hard put to it, shoved back against the very doorstep of Demeter's sanctuary. Kallias himself was disarmed, his shield shattered. He snatched a glittering buckler from a dead man and clashed amidst the assembled host, dealing death and courting it, all the time shouting, "Smite! Slay Persia's sons!" A thunder of war cries rang, roared. Men dropped, battered amid murderous streams of gore. Kimon gripped a fearful mace, swung it around like a sickle, lopping necks and heads, helmets clanging.
So the battle raged before Melaina, great numbers falling in both armies, neither winning an advantage, when, with a great crash, enemy forces closest the temple broke through Kallias' regiment, threatening the sanctuary. Melaina faltered, cold fear flooding through her, dissolving all her courage. She stood her ground although she knew not how, as before the gate, a Persian warrior stepped to the front, standing head and shoulders above the rest. He was the ugliest man she had ever seen.
"Tigranes!" she heard a Greek scream. As the shout went up, all Greeks before the great warrior gave way, no one willing to engage him.
"Melaina!" she heard Keladeine call, "back into the temple! Save yourself!"
Tigranes issued a great laugh and leapt into the fray where Keladeine and the Scythian loosed their arrows. He let the darting shafts thump on his shield, then scattered the Greek warriors. Melaina lost sight of Keladeine as the lot of them were consumed in a flood of Persians. She herself started to run into the fray but remembered the child inside her, then again heard Tigranes shout nearby.
"Women! The Hellenes have brought their women to fight their battles. Hellene men are little more than children."
No sooner had Tigranes spoken the insult than Kallias accosted him, relying on the very skill he'd demonstrated in winning the Olympic pankratium.
"No! Kallias. No!" shouted Melaina. Surely he was no match for this giant.
But Kallias baffled the rush of his foe, noting the play of sword to judge strength and weakness, and exchanged brutal blow for brutal blow. As shipwrights smite timbers, thuds resounding, so helmets crashed, teeth clattered. Kallias and Tigranes stood apart, labored and gasped, then rushed together as bulls furious over a grazing heifer. Melaina watched the two battle and judged it not awkward but ordered, fierce Ares' blameless dance. But Tigranes quickly overcame Kallias, felled him with a stunning blow, then stood over him to wield death.
Melaina stopped herself from rushing to her dear Kallias. She had a better thought. "Here! Here!" she shouted. "Death beckons. Hear me!"
Tigranes, startled at hearing a woman's voice amid the battle cries, stepped over his fallen pray in favor of the sweet morsel before him. Tall and threatening this dark lord stood, a great shadow of despair falling over Melaina, his sword raised in eagerness.
Melaina stood her ground though by pale dread possessed. She'd have fled except for a curious thought: this man had killed her father at Marathon. A false wizardry worked her mind surely, but one she would not dismiss. A vision flashed of the severed limb, and she remembered Orestes wrath in avenging his own father's murder. Her heart flamed. Woman of Eleusis, courageous Kynegeiros' daughter, though swelled with child, she'd not cower before the might of Persia. Golden locks lofting about her shoulders, chiton wafting, she raised her grandfather's staff to ward off the blow and slumped to one knee to steady herself.
A cry of utter hatred split the air, a shriek of murder and madness, as down came Tigranes' grim blade. Her staff rang as if made of some sacred metal, notched but held even as her arms gave way. The sharp bronze ripped her garment, split her shoulder flesh and toppled her backwards into the dirt.
The fell lord bellowed, believing his blow had been fatal, hideous laugh ringing. But Melaina rose from her own wreckage, blood-stained, wounded, she stood again. The great shoulders gathered a second time to send her to the world of shades as she faced her enemy, on both feet this time, even more determined, and directed her own blow with the staff, a quick crack between dark eyes.
She knew not whether the snap was the staff's stiff wood finally giving way or if it was a skull splitting, but the man's eyes crossed, he stumbled, then toppled from his feet. As his dark shape crumbled to the earth, Melaina saw Keladeine looming over the fallen warrior and realized that she'd crushed the cranium from behind as had Melaina from the front. But Keladeine was swept up in the flow of battle, and the two were again separated.
Kallias then rose to his feet, blinking and bewildered. He looked around realizing that the two women had done his work for him. But he immediately responded to a call for help from Kimon.
Melaina swiftly stepped forward, grief over Keladeine's uncertain fate racking her insides, and seized the Persian sword. Anger over her father's severed limb grew inside, and she hewed the dark head of Tigranes from its shoulders. She lifted the heavy container-of-wits by the hair, shoved it down on the Hierophant's staff, and then resumed her position at the gate of Demeter's temple. She stood tall, blond hair shimmering, staff in one hand, sword in the other, blood trailing from shoulder to glowing skirt hem. Brains bled down the Hierophant's ancient scepter, a deadly admonition to all Persia. No one would pass Demeter's gate.
Leotychides' Spartans finally emerged from the forest and came screaming into battle. All Greeks found their courage as the flower of Persia broke for the palisade in terror. The troops of Leotychides and Xanthippus converged and pursued the barbarians into the moat surrounding the rampart, so close on Persian heels as to enter with them, leaving no chance for the barbarians to swing closed the gate and throw home the locking bolts. A great river of Greeks flooded over and through.
Since the battle no longer raged before her, Melaina searched for Keladeine among the nearby bodies to no avail. She reentered the temple. The old woman's voice had fallen silent. Melaina found her collapsed in a corner, just a heap of dust and bones, suffering an arrow through the chest although no blood flowed. Melaina thought the crone dead, but heard a faint squea
k, mouse words.
"Burn not my body," she said. "Apollo's swift arrow has loosed me from interminable life and this oracular madness. Let me lie shamefully unburied. My black blood will seep through the earth and feed the green grass for herds of grazing beasts. It will infiltrate livers to foster prophets' foresight. Birds rending my flesh in ribbons shall gorge and prophesy mankind's woes." Her dull eyes raked across Melaina. "Daughter of Darkness, come for me at last." Then life left her, not as warmth ebbing, but as a cold puff of dust.
Melaina scooped the thin frame into her arms. It hardly felt the weight of a child, as she carried the body behind the temple and into the nearby woods. She heard wolves howling, yet laid it on the ground among the leaves of myrtle trees and hurried back to the temple.
She dismantled the head of Tigranes from her grandfather's staff, reuniting it with its shoulders. Anguish wrung her heart as she discarded the sword. She followed after the storm of murder, stepped through the carnage. The groans of the wounded matched her own throbbing shoulder, and she wished for the comfort of Kallias' arms. But she realized the truth about him.
Ever more was her grief. Melaina worried the spindle of shame over what she had done: helped Kallias and Keladeine kill a man, shouldered the wicked task of defiling the body. She heard the cries of the dying, the maimed, and remembered Sophocles' lament. He'd said it was because he'd slaughtered on the isle of Psyttaleia during the battle of Salamis. "Yea, I now know your burden," she said.
Searching for Keladeine, she followed after the warriors into the trench and up the other side through the stockade wall made of stones and tree trunks and crowned with spikes. Melaina stood inside peering down upon a city of beached ships, a great mustering of wood fishes: beaked bows with wide painted eyes gasping for breath, masts like gigantic fins, slack sails flapping, useless oars laying in sand.
As Zeus' great eagle had accosted Prometheus, so the Greeks swooped down upon the Persians, air ringing with screams as the warriors fed on gore. Melaina clutched tight Palaemon's golden broach. The stockade enclosed a thousand shapes of death. Greeks ever delivered to the helpless wounds, gashes, lacerations. Tears wet Melaina's cheeks as she thought what a dreary lot had seized her. "I've led them all to this," she said aloud. "Daughter of Darkness indeed, I've become the dreaded Daughter of Death." Melaina felt as though on this journey that started at Eleusis, she'd been on one long descent into the Underworld and had finally become dread Persephone herself, Mistress of the Dead.
Off in a corner of the palisade, the surviving Persians had locked themselves away in the only building, planning to await Xerxes' glorious entry. Xanthippus, however, set his own mind to fire. As a beekeeper smokes a droning swarm from its hive, so Xanthippus set fire to the timbers. The Persians remained steadfast until fear of becoming roast meat caused them to erupt from their prison. They scattered among the ships, this way and that, emitting wails and shrieks as they realized all was lost. Xerxes was not coming.
Word circulated that two Persian divisions, those under the fleet commanders, had escaped into the deep forest. Greek warriors gave chase, but as dusk drew on, pursuit over the hills and gullies slackened. The warriors returned after hearing a lion roar and sighting a bear. Leotychides called off the hunt.
Melaina walked about in a daze, then ran onto the Scythian. Hope at last! "Keladeine," she shouted, "where is Keladeine?"
The Scythian said they'd been separated during the fighting, that he knew nothing of her fate. Melaina watched him hold a dying Persian's head in his lap and thought it touching, until the Scythian quickly slit around the neck, waited until the man bled to death, then slit around the ears. He skillfully slipped the skin and hair off the skull. She remembered his handkerchiefs.
Melaina was a blinking owl in failing light, wreck and disaster all around. She remembered her grandfather and knew he must still be alive. She turned bodies, questioned Ionians concerning an old sacred official of the Mysteries, a Hierophant.
She found Lykos whining over the body of the Scythian's black dog, who'd been hacked to pieces. Lykos took up with Melaina, walking at her side, as she sunk into deeper depression over Keladeine's fate.
Then Melaina saw a familiar face: a tall, broad-shouldered man, gentlemanly, yet grave. He was administering to the injured and dying. Alongside him, a young woman dressed wounds. They were the physician, Podaleirius, and Hygieiadora, his assistant, who'd examined Melaina at Eleusis. He'd taken possession of a portion of cleared ground. Also his serpent-entwined staff stood nearby staked into the soft sand. Hygieiadora recognized Melaina, nodding to her as she closed a patient's arm wound.
"Have you seen my grandfather," Melaina asked, "the Hierophant?"
The physician said, "Your grandfather was just here but is gone now."
Hygieiadora finished with the man and fell to cleaning and dressing Melaina's shoulder wound, applying a healing salve and wrapped her shoulder in fine white linen. She said, "Your grandfather was taken prisoner at Eleusis and kept alive although he was thoroughly disagreeable to his captors. Just moments ago, he was taken by force from the palisade when the two fleet commanders escaped."
Melaina talked to those who now returned from chasing the escaping Persians into the forest, but they knew nothing of the Hierophant. She realized that her grandfather's freedom would have to be won another day. "He's beyond liberation," she said, resignation filling her. "So be it." She took a deep breath. "Zeus has need of him in Persia."
Melaina watched as the Greek fleet beached at the palisade, and a great joy seizing her as she recognized Keladeine standing beachside. The young priestess of Artemis screamed when she saw Lykos, and ran to the canine, ignoring Melaina as though she weren't even there. Keladeine warbled over the animal until Melaina wondered if her friend cared about her at all. She shouted to Keladeine, but a great weariness had overtaken her. She sat on a stone beside the physician and Hygieiadora. "I've been very wretched," said Melaina, "not knowing if I'd see you alive again, Keladeine."
"So was I over you," Keladeine said. "And now I find you injured, blood drenched. You should have stayed in the temple as I told you."
Hygieiadora turned her attention to Melaina's pregnancy. "You've taken great risk with the child," she said. "From the seventh month forward, you should have given up violent movements and concentrated on perfecting the embryo. By breaking the chorion and losing the birthing fluids, you've ensured a dry delivery and endangered yourself and the fetus. Besides, of what use is a woman in battle?"
Melaina heard a scream from behind, then heard her name called. She turned to see a tall girl standing beside a sour-faced woman. Stately Anaktoria it was, Melaina's girlfriend from Eleusis, and her mother. Though captured, they'd both survived, along with a small group of women from all over Attica. They stood amongst the carnage, blinking and confused at having been liberated.
As the women raved at each others' remarkable survival, the warriors removed Persian treasure from the beached ships: golden bowls, goblets, silks, jewels, money chests. On the beach, they set up a great pile of common-stock plunder. From the dead they stripped anklets, chains and gold-hilt scimitars, embroidered apparel. All this fell activity shrouded by encroaching darkness. Warriors heaped the dead upon the beached ships, and Leotychides set afire the palisade. Melaina recognized the sharp aroma of Syrian cedar. The conflagration played along the wooden wall, blaze upon blaze leapt, flashing into the heavens. A great lion roared, silencing all but the raging funeral pyre. Warriors, oarsmen, and the two priestesses remained on the beach feasting throughout the night and tending hurts of the wounded. All the while, Deiphonus sacrificed to the immortals.
When the sun rose over dewy hills, waking roosters and shepherds, the fleet loaded the spoils onboard, loosed hawsers, and set sail back to Samos.
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 83