It was then that I glimpsed what I took for a group of our men on horseback along the banks of the Euphrates, and I thought I saw Xeno’s ochre-coloured cloak in the middle of the galloping band. I took off at a run down the hillside. A foolhardy action indeed. Some of the Persian horsemen who had penetrated the ranks of Ariaeus’s Asian troops spotted me and headed straight in my direction.
I turned around immediately and began running crazily back up the hill to reach shelter behind the circle of wagons. Impossible. They were already upon me. I threw myself to the ground and covered my head with my hands.
Time stood still. I breathed in dust and was enveloped in a cloud of terror.
Nothing happened at first and then, suddenly, a body fell on top of me, crushing me, and a trickle of blood seeped onto my clothing. I screamed and tried to get free. Someone had run through one of my pursuers with a javelin.
And he was galloping towards them now and towards me. His face was covered by his helmet but I recognized his arms, his horse, his white cloak, spattered with blood.
Menon!
I remember it as if it were now. My eyes were so concentrated on him that each and every move he made was burned into my mind, moment by moment, and it looked to me as if he was advancing suspended above the earth in a space that didn’t belong to me or to the rest of the world. I felt it again in the physical violence with which he burst into the pack that had taken off after me. He hurled a javelin and a second horseman tumbled to the ground. He brandished his sword, rearing up his horse. The steed’s hoofs cleaved my attackers apart and Menon struck them down one by one with precision and deadly power. Then he took off his helmet, held out his arm, lifted me onto his horse and galloped off towards a spot which was far away from the battlefield and the circle of wagons, to a thick grove of tamarisks. There he lowered me to the ground. He smiled at me for an instant, with his white teeth, his wolf’s teeth. He gave me a teasing, cryptic look, then rode back to the aid of his men, who were surrounded. He fought like a raging lion, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Where were all the others? The daylight had become red as blood. Why was no one arriving? Why? What had happened?
One man alone, on horseback, galloped out of nowhere, brandishing a spear in one hand and a sword in the other, guiding his horse by the power of his legs alone. Powerful, massive, overwhelming. Sophos!
He hurled his spear and ran through the enemy commander from front to back and then broke into the fray sword in hand like a fury, striking left and right with awesome power. Menon and his men took a deep breath and were able to counter-attack with renewed vigour. They wiped out the remaining adversaries and then raced off across the plain headed south, perhaps to meet up with Clearchus’s troops.
Only Sophos remained.
He cleaned his sword, sheathed it and sat still as a stone just staring into nowhere. He had no intention of fighting on, as if the whole ordeal had not touched him. But he was interested in the progress of the battle, which was drawing to an end.
The uproar continued for a while, but as the sun set everything quietened down until all noise seemed to cease.
Then Sophos reached my hiding spot and signalled for me to follow him to the top of the hill. I did. The scene that I saw left me speechless with horror. Before me was a vast expanse all strewn with the corpses of men and horses. Many animals were wounded or lamed, and they dragged on laboriously, snorting their pain from bleeding nostrils. In the distance I could see the dust raised by the winning army as they withdrew.
Human beings unrecognizable as such staggered through the slaughtered remains. Suddenly Sophos’s gaze and my own stopped on a figure in the exact centre of our field of vision. It was a human figure, straight and still, with an unreal stillness. Sophos’s seemingly impassive expression twisted into a grimace as he headed off immediately in that direction, leading his horse by the reins. I followed him over soil slippery with blood as we made our way through the fetid, sickening atmosphere.
It was Cyrus.
His naked body had been stuck onto a sharp pole that came out of his back. His head, almost completely detached from his body, was hanging onto his chest. I was sure that at any moment I would find Xeno’s body too, buried among the heaps of corpses littering the ground. I started screaming then, completely out of control, screaming out all my desperation. I had never seen and could never have imagined such horror.
Sophos turned to me and snarled, ‘Shut up, stop that!’
It wasn’t to humiliate me; he was trying to hear another sound, which was becoming clearer, and closer. It was coming from the Euphrates. Troops, advancing and . . . singing!
‘They’re ours,’ said Sophos.
‘Ours? How can that be?’
‘They chased the left wing all day and now they’re returning. Menon and his men were ahead of the rest. Your Xenophon will be with them . . . if he’s still alive.’
‘Why are they singing?’
A red cloud was approaching now from alongside the river.
‘They’re singing the paean. They think we’ve won.’
We waited next to Cyrus’s corpse until the officers riding at the front of the returning group saw us and raced in our direction. Clearchus, Socrates, Agias and Proxenus. Xeno soon arrived as well, his clothing and weapons so drenched in blood that I barely recognized him. It was all I could do not to run straight into his arms, I had to be content with the expression in his eyes that mirrored my own. Menon arrived as well, at the head of his Thessalian cavalrymen. I don’t know if he could read the gratitude in my eyes when I sought his out.
Clearchus’s face turned to stone. ‘How did this happen?’
‘And where is Ariaeus?’ asked Proxenus.
Sophos pointed at a dark spot about half a parasang north of us. ‘Down there, that’s where he is. With his men. The bastard will already be negotiating with Artaxerxes by now.’
Clearchus gestured at Cyrus’s body. ‘What about him?’
Sophos answered with another question. ‘What did he want from you when he rode over before the battle?’
‘He wanted me to leave the banks of the Euphrates and charge the centre of the enemy formation where the Great King was.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘It would have been suicide. The enemy line was already two-thirds longer than our own on the left; if we had left the Euphrates they would have encircled us on that side as well.’
‘And that would have been the end.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So what’s this, then?’ replied Sophos sarcastically, waving his hand over the field. ‘Cyrus knew that he was greatly outnumbered, but he had a weapon that he believed in, blindly: your soldiers. Had you obeyed his order you would have broken through at the centre and overrun the King in person.’
Clearchus snapped back resentfully, ‘In such extreme situations I only take orders from Sparta.’
Sophos looked straight into his eyes.
‘I am Sparta,’ he said. And walked off.
Meanwhile the song of Clearchus’s soldiers was fading away as, little by little, they approached and were forced to take stock of the bitter truth. They thought they had won.
They had lost.
9
THE SUN WAS SETTING when two horsemen arrived at a fast gallop. It was the first time I’d ever seen them, but I would come to know them well, and once I’d also learned the language I would be able to pronounce their names. They were Agasias of Stymphalus and Lycius of Syracuse.
They jumped to the ground, breathing hard, and turned to Clearchus.
‘Commander,’ exclaimed Agasias. ‘I thank the gods you made it back here. Artaxerxes’s army is thirty stadia from here. We had no idea of what had happened to you. Our unit stayed with Ariaeus all through the battle We managed to hold firm and we didn’t lose the supplies. Some of the Asians fled from their camp and took refuge behind our lines.’
‘That’s right,’ confirmed Lycius. ‘There were two women fro
m Cyrus’s harem as well. One is that beautiful girl from Phocaea. You should have seen her: as the Persians were closing in she ran out of Cyrus’s tent stark naked and tried to cross over to us. She was being chased by a swarm of barbarians. So there we were, yelling and telling her to run faster. You would have thought we were at the stadium! As soon as she was close enough we opened our ranks to let her through then closed them again. The barbarians had to bugger off without their prize.’
Clearchus frowned. ‘Never mind about the girl,’ he said. ‘What’s Ariaeus up to?’
‘He’s retreated,’ replied Lycius ‘He abandoned the camp and is hiding out in the desert. I know where he is. If you want, I’ll take you there tomorrow.’
‘Are any of our men with him?’
‘A battalion. They stayed behind to keep an eye on things.’
‘They did well. What about the King?’
‘He’s gone. He’s left behind one of his generals. Tissaphernes, I think. What shall we do, Commander?’
‘It’s nearly dark; we won’t go anywhere now. We’ll spend the night here. Go and join your men at Ariaeus’s camp while you can still see. Set up a double ring of sentries and keep your eyes open. If you have cavalry, send them out to patrol the territory. Tomorrow we’ll regroup and decide what to do. Be careful of Ariaeus. I don’t trust that barbarian.’
‘We’re off, then,’ said Agasias. ‘Good luck, Commander.’
They returned to their horses and rode off swiftly in the near-darkness. We set up camp for the night.
In reality, we had no tents, or cots or blankets. We had no water or food. The men curled up where they were, totally done in. The uninjured helped the wounded, improvising bandages. They had fought for hours, marched for many stadia, and in the moment that they desperately needed food and rest they had nothing but the bare ground and the cloaks on their shoulders.
We had wheat and salted olives on our wagon, but it was so dark that I couldn’t find the key for the food chest. All I could find was the water skin. I remembered having seen plants that I was familiar with nearby: some of them hid tubers underground, others had a salty taste. I managed to dig up some of the edible roots and pick some of the leaves and I brought them to Xeno. It was not much of a dinner but it helped to still our pangs of hunger. Then I stretched out next to him under the same cloak. Despite the dangerous and completely precarious situation, I was deliriously happy to have him next to me. He was warm and alive, while the whole day I’d been terrified that I’d find a stiff, cold body at nightfall. It was a miracle, a gift from the gods, and I thanked them in my heart as I kissed him, held him tightly, stroked his dust-covered hair.
‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ he whispered in my ear.
‘I had nearly lost hope myself. So much killing, so much horror . . .’
‘It’s war, Abira,’ he said. ‘That’s the way war is. It always has been like this and always will be. Sleep now . . . sleep.’
Even today, when I think back on that night I can’t believe it. Ten thousand men lying on the ground all around us. Hungry, exhausted, wounded. A huge, menacing enemy army looming somewhere in the desert. Our comrades back at the camp wouldn’t be closing an eye that night for fear of what they might expect from Ariaeus. And yet that was the most beautiful night of my life. I didn’t think of what might happen the next day – actually the realization that there might not be a next day made me experience those few hours with an intensity of emotion that I’d never felt before. Perhaps I’ll never feel that way again in my whole life.
That night I understood what it truly means to love someone with your whole self, for two people to become a single being. Adding your warmth to his, feeling your own heart beating in unison with the heart of the man holding you in his arms. All I wanted was for that moment to stretch into infinity. And that’s what happened. By some unexplainable miracle, time spun out beyond imagining so that every instant lasted years and years.
I thought of my friends sleeping in their warm, clean beds in houses that smelled of fresh plaster, and I did not envy them, and I don’t envy them now that they have sons and daughters, perhaps, and a husband who takes care of them, while I have no one. I don’t envy them because I made love with the ground as my bed and the sky as my ceiling, and every kiss, every breath, every heartbeat made me fly higher and higher, over the desert, over the waters of the Great River, over the horror of that day of blood.
The light of the breaking day awoke us and the men seemed reluctant to get up, sore all over and perhaps more tired than when they’d lain down. But their willpower and sense of discipline prevailed and soon they were donning their armour and taking their places in the ranks. Xeno took up weapons as well, and from that day on he always acted like a soldier, because that was what was needed.
Just then two horsemen arrived. One was a Greek who had been governor of a Persian province when Cyrus controlled Anatolia. The second was a strange character called Glous, whose shoulder-length hair was gathered at the nape of his neck with a golden pin. Ariaeus had sent them looking for us.
‘I never thought we’d find you,’ said Glous. ‘What happened to you yesterday?’
‘We were off chasing the Persians we’d routed, until nightfall.’
‘Cyrus is dead,’ the other broke in.
Proxenus was about to speak up, but Clearchus stopped him with a low gesture of his hand, and shot a look at all the others as well. He gave the messengers a deep nod.
‘The army of the Great King is camped very close by,’ continued Cyrus’s cohort. ‘You are in serious danger.’
‘You say so?’ retorted Clearchus. ‘Listen, friend. We overwhelmed them and we ran them out like dogs. We sliced up quite a few of them and they’re being careful to stay clear of us now. If they show up here, no matter how many there are, they’ll get what’s coming to them. If you want to know what I’d do, I was thinking of attacking them, because it’s the last thing they’ll expect.’
Glous looked at him as though he were mad. ‘Oh right, there’s no doubt about that. But wouldn’t you say you’re slightly outnumbered?’
‘At the Fiery Gates eighty years ago we were one against one hundred. If we hadn’t been betrayed we would have nailed them to the pass and kicked their sorry arses all the way home.’
‘This is different,’ replied Glous. ‘Here it’s flat and open and they have their cavalry. They’ll wear you down. They can target you from a distance and pick you off one by one.’
Clearchus cut him off him with a tense gesture of his open hand. ‘Go back to Ariaeus. Tell him that if he wants to try to take the throne we’ll put ourselves at his service. Two of my men will come with you to lay out our plan . . .’
Sophos stepped forward without having been called. Clearchus scanned his men until he found Menon of Thessaly. Clots of blood smeared his hair and clothes, but there wasn’t a single mark on his skin.
‘. . . and him,’ he concluded his unfinished thought, nodding in Menon’s direction. Then his expression changed to a look of distress. ‘I just need to feed my boys, understand? I’m like a father to them. I punish them harshly if they do wrong, but I worry about them eating and drinking and having what they need. Understand? My boys need to eat . . .’
Glous shook his head in bewilderment and exchanged a glance with the others. They remounted and rode off together.
Clearchus turned to his men. ‘We’re going back,’ he ordered, and set off at a trot.
I couldn’t understand why he wanted us back in that field of slaughter, but it turned out to be our salvation, at least for a while. I’d soon realize why.
He had the men gather all of the arrows and javelins scattered over the ground or protruding from the corpses and then, using the wreckage of the chariots, heap up enough wood to start a fire. Others skinned and butchered the carcasses of twenty or so mules and horses and spit-roasted the chunks of meat on the embers.
‘Horsemeat builds blood,’ said Clearchus. ‘Eat,
you’ll need your strength.’ He went about cutting up the meat and handing it out to his soldiers, as a father does with his children. But there wasn’t enough for more than ten thousand men. He gave the last piece to an eighteen-year-old, without saving anything for himself.
They were just finishing when General Socrates rode up. ‘We have visitors,’ he announced.
‘Again?’ asked Clearchus, getting to his feet from where he had been sitting with his men.
‘They speak our language,’ replied Socrates, and let through a couple of men preceded by a flag of truce.
‘My name is Phalinus,’ said the first.
‘I’m Ctesias,’ said the second.
‘Ctesias?’ repeated Clearchus. ‘But aren’t you . . .’
The man who had claimed that name was about fifty years old, balding, and dressed in Persian garb. He nodded. ‘Yes . . . I’m the doctor of the Great King, Artaxerxes.’
‘Ah,’ replied Clearchus. ‘And may I ask how your illustrious patient is feeling?’
‘He’s well, but Cyrus nearly managed to kill him. He attacked his own brother like a bloodthirsty beast. His spear pierced the King’s breastplate and cut through his skin. Luckily it was only a flesh wound and I was able to stitch it up.’
‘Good job,’ said Clearchus. ‘I wouldn’t mind a doctor like you myself, but I’m afraid I can’t afford it. So tell me, what good fortune brings you here?’
‘That’s a question I should be asking you, actually,’ replied the royal physician with an ironic smile.
Clearchus stared at him for a moment in silence. ‘I imagine you know the answer to that quite well, Ctesias, but humour me, if you will: why has the Great King sent me his personal doctor? Does he think I . . . have a cold? Do you think a hot compress might do the trick? Or a nice infusion of hemlock?’
Ctesias pretended he hadn’t heard: ‘We’re Greek. He thought that was reason enough.’
‘Excellent, I agree, but allow me to remind you of a couple of things. We were engaged by Cyrus. Cyrus is dead. We have nothing against the Great King . . .’
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