The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  It was over. Beyond the pass the valley opened up and the men all stopped, leaning on their spears, to take a deep breath and realize they were still alive. I saw the white crest and forgot all about my pregnant friend. I yelled as loudly as I could, ‘Xeno! Xenooooo!’ and I raced towards him and threw my arms around him. I knew it would embarrass him, there in front of all the others, but I didn’t care in the least. I needed to feel his heart beating, see the sparkle in his eyes and the beads of sweat in his hair under the salleted helmet.

  He held me close for a few moments, as if we were all alone, in front of the well at Beth Qadà. Then Sophos sought him out and he responded. But as soon as he could, he looked for the lad who had saved his life. His name was Eurylochus of Lusia, and he was very young indeed; he couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen. He had the feckless, open gaze of an adolescent but the shoulders and arms of a wrestler.

  ‘I owe you my life,’ Xeno told him.

  Eurylochus smiled broadly. ‘Don’t mention it. Those sorry goats sure took a trouncing and we saved our skins, at least for the moment. That’s all that matters.’

  We encountered another group of villages, all abandoned as well, and the men were able to rest and to shelter from the damp and chill of the night. There were provisions there for the taking and even some wine. One of Xanthi’s men found it hidden inside some cisterns which had been cut into the rock and internally coated with plaster. There was enough to make half of the army drunk, and Sophos immediately ordered it to be placed under surveillance. He couldn’t rule out that the natives had left it there deliberately: such strong wine, and so much of it, could be as effective as any weapon in this situation. No one was fooled by the apparent tranquillity of the evening. By now they knew what to expect from the Carduchi.

  When the men were preparing to rest, Xeno’s adjutant arrived with the interpreter, bearing news that left us all speechless.

  ‘They’ve accepted, Commander,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ asked Xeno.

  ‘A truce to gather the fallen.’

  Xeno stared at him incredulously. ‘On what conditions?’

  ‘We gather our dead, they gather theirs.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘They also want . . .’ he looked around until he spotted the guide who had led Agasias and his men to the pass, ‘. . . him.’

  ‘The guide? That’s fine with me.’

  BUT IT WASN’T fine with him. When he realized that he was being turned over to his fellow tribesmen, the man was desperate. He wept and implored, prostrating himself before each of the commanders, who he’d learned to recognize by the crests on their helmets and their richly decorated armour, and clutching at their hands. Pushed away by one he knelt before another, embracing his knees, begging with such impassioned pleas that he could have moved a heart of stone. They knew what atrocious punishment awaited him, and he knew even better. When he had caved in to their threats, he’d probably thought they’d keep him with us, finding it useful to have someone who was familiar with the landscape, and that he might well be let go when they no longer needed him. Maybe he’d worked out a plan of who he would turn to then, relatives or friends in some remote village where no one would ever learn of his betrayal.

  He could never have imagined that, alive, he would be traded for the dead.

  They dragged him away, but as they were taking him to his destiny, he turned to me. I don’t know why, towards a woman who counted for nothing. Perhaps he’d seen compassion in my expression. And I saw in his eyes the same panicked terror as I’d seen in my mule when, hit by a boulder, he knew instantly that half of his body was already dead.

  Our men climbed up the path on which they had fought just hours ago, carrying lighted torches to illuminate their way, followed by porters with makeshift stretchers. They returned late that night with the bodies of our fallen.

  There were at least thirty of them, mowed down in the full of their youth. They had survived the great battle at the Gates of Babylon only to meet with an obscure, insignificant death in a barbarous land. I looked at them one by one and could not quell my tears.

  The sight of a twenty-year-old boy pale with death, his filmy eyes locked in a blind stare, truly breaks your heart.

  Xeno officiated over the ceremony. An army battalion was drawn up to render last honours while the flutes played a tense, high-pitched music which sounded itself like a cry of pain. The bodies were burned on three large wooden pyres. The earthenware pots in which the ashes were collected were sprinkled with wine and the names of the fallen were shouted ten times as the men jabbed their spears towards the sky. As the light cast by the flames reddened their shields and breastplates, the swords of the fallen were plunged into the fire until they were red-hot and then ritually bent so that no one could ever use them again. The swords were buried with the urns.

  The men’s voices joined then in song, in a dark, melancholy dirge like those I heard during the warm nights in Syria under the starry desert sky. I almost thought I could hear Menon’s strong, singular voice rising above those of his comrades. But he was gone, like the young lads who’d just burned in the fire. To think that I’d seen them only that morning, clambering up those steep slopes, helping each other up with the shafts of their spears, calling back and forth by name to keep up their courage, to chase off the death that was sniffing at their trails like a starving wolf. The sad, powerful song of their friends accompanied them into the other world, that blind world where the air is dust and the bread is clay.

  THE NEXT DAY we set off again and we soon realized that any illusions we had of peace were mistaken. The enemy was even more aggressive, the path steeper and more difficult. The territory we were crossing was the roughest we’d seen, an endless chain of high mountains where no truce could hold. Negotiating our way out was unthinkable: the savages at our heels wanted us all dead, from the first to the last.

  Their relentless attacks began again, hill after hill, peak after peak. Xeno was in the vanguard this time, on his horse, and Sophos brought up the rear. Big grey clouds scudded across the sky, as long and thin as the iron shafts of their spears, fleeing south against the direction of our march. Xeno would have interpreted that as a bad omen.

  But he moved forward with incredible vigour and speed: each time we neared a height from which enemies might strike us or bar our way, he charged forward to occupy it, followed by his men. If the hill was already in enemy hands, he attacked with untiring ardour. But the Carduchi were quite astute; they would often leave a position before it was attacked and go off to hide or to occupy another position. It was easy for them to melt away: they were wearing hides and carried only a bow, while our men were clad in iron and bronze and carried a huge shield; every step cost them twice as much effort.

  The Carduchi wanted to wear them down, to strip them of all energy and then, perhaps, to inflict the killing blow when they became too exhausted to take another step. But they didn’t know the red cloaks. I watched Eurylochus of Lusia, the lad who had saved Xeno with his shield, fighting like a young animal. He would pick up the fallen Carduchi arrows and hurl them back where they’d come from like javelins, often finding his mark. And there were Agasias’s dark arms, shining with sweat, striking out with tireless fury, mowing down men like blades of wheat, forging his way through blood and screams. Timas and Cleanor urged their battalions upwards, first one, then the other, so one group could catch their breath while the others fought on. Their bearing up under this immense strain, the wounds they took and the blood they shed, afforded us the protection we needed to go on. The long train of baggage animals, servants, and women advanced slowly, one step after another, towards a resting point that we could only imagine.

  The day came to an end. The sun settled behind the foliage of the forests, the last screams died into death rattles or breathless panting, a falcon soared high up above, and then, suddenly, just before dusk, a wide valley opened up before us.

  Our eyes rested on a vis
ion of peace.

  The vast plain was encircled by hills. The land rolled gently up and down and a slight rise sealed the opposite end. The valley was crossed from side to side by a crystal torrent. In the crook of this stream rose a steep hill which glowed red in the sunset and was topped by a village. Stone houses – the first we’d seen in a long while. Thatched roofs, small windows and low doors. A path cut into the rocky hillside descended towards the stream and a girl dressed in red and green, her black hair bound with bright copper rings, made her way down balancing a cushion with a jar on her head. Such silence greeted the sight that I thought I could hear the jingling of the rings she wore at her ankles.

  We made our way up to the village and were finally able to sleep in a sheltered place, in one of the many houses. Others settled into the granaries or under the canopies that protected the animals.

  Sophos posted sentries all around the village, and a second line at the foot of the hill that encircled the clearing.

  Everyone hoped it was over.

  No one believed it.

  The girl we’d seen descending towards the river didn’t come back. I found myself thinking of her graceful, proud bearing and wondering whether we’d seen a vision, a divinity of the mountains or the river, abandoning the lonely, deserted village to disappear into the forest or into the pure waters that flowed between rocks and sand.

  The soldiers lit fires. It was clear that we were being watched, so we might as well enjoy some hot food, finally. Xeno invited Eurylochus and Nicarchus the Arcadians, together with Sophos and Cleanor, to our table. I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be their final supper. Would they promise to meet again in the Underworld, like that king of the red cloaks who, eighty years earlier, had dared to challenge the biggest Persian army of all time? Xeno had told me the story of that king named Leonidas, a man who had become a legend. A king who refused to wear a crown or a mitre or embroidered garments. He wore only a tunic of coarse wool and a red cloak, like the three hundred young men who died with him that day because they wouldn’t surrender and give up their freedom, at a place called the Fiery Gates. When the Great King demanded that they give up their arms, Leonidas replied, in a rough soldier’s dialect: ‘Molòn labé.’ Come and get them! A moving story, words I’d never forget.

  I can remember what Sophos said then. ‘Let us eat and drink . . . tomorrow . . .’ A sudden wind came up just then, carrying away his last words. But Xeno completed them, because they were the same words spoken by the king who had chosen to fall with his men at the Fiery Gates, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall dine in Hades.’

  When they had all gone back to their quarters, I brought Xeno a bowl of warm wine.

  ‘What will happen tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Will they attack us again?’

  ‘As long as there’s a single one of them left and as long as he’s breathing.’

  ‘But why? Why can’t they just let us go? Can’t they understand it would be best for them?’

  ‘Do you mean that letting us pass would cost them infinitely less than trying to prevent us?’

  ‘Exactly. They’ve lost many men, without counting the wounded, and they’ll lose many more. What are they thinking? It’s worth your while to fight if you want to stop an enemy from entering your territory, but we’re already here and we want to leave and go somewhere else. They must know that a weapon that stays in your body will kill you, while a weapon that pierces cleanly from side to side will spare you if no vital organs are harmed. No one wants to die without a reason. How can you explain it?’

  Xeno took a sip of wine and replied, ‘Remember what the interpreter told us? An army of the Great King invaded this land once and disappeared into nowhere. They’ve done this before and they’re doing it again, with us. They simply want the world to know that any army that enters their territory will be annihilated. So no more armies will invade their territory.’

  ‘What about Tissaphernes? He wanted to annihilate us too. For the same reason?’

  Xeno nodded. ‘The same. Whoever enters can’t be let out.’

  ‘But why didn’t the Persians do it when they had us surrounded, without food or water? Why did they have to kill our commanders?’

  Xeno shook his head.

  ‘And what about the interpreters? Where do they come from? Who sent them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I had insinuated the worm of doubt, as I had tried to do before our commanders went to meet with the Persians.

  ‘Take care, Xeno. Virtue can’t win against deceit.’

  ‘I hear you, but everyone is fighting with the same courage here; everyone is risking his life. Each one of my comrades, from the commander-in-chief to the last soldier, has my full trust. There’s another thing: no one has anything to gain from betrayal. The only way that we can hope to save ourselves is by each person doing his duty, playing his part in the whole of the army.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I replied, ‘but tell me this: is there someone who wants this army to disappear? Is there someone who will be badly damaged if the army returns?’

  Xeno caught my eye for a moment with an inscrutable look. As if there were an unspeakable thought there, like the look that the Queen Mother’s servant girl had given me. I didn’t insist. I didn’t say another thing. It was something that he’d even listened to me. I helped him to take off his armour and went to fetch some water from the torrent so he could wash before he abandoned himself to slumber. I waited until he was sleeping to go and look for the pregnant girl. She was so tired she’d stretched out on the bare earth.

  The wind was picking up, scattering pale white shapes across the sky. A horde of trembling ghosts, the dazed souls of those who were no longer with us.

  19

  ‘GET UP,’ I told her. ‘I’ll give you a sheepskin, and a blanket. You can use the mule’s pack to lay your head on.’

  She started to cry. ‘I can’t make it. I’m going to lose the baby. Here, in these mountains, on these rocks.’

  ‘No, you’ll save him: he’s a son of the Ten Thousand, the little bastard, he’ll make it. And you’ll save yourself to save him. Or her. It might be a girl.’

  ‘It better not. Being born a female is the worst of fates.’

  ‘Being born is hard on anyone. How many of these young lads, yesterday, today, have lost their lives, how many will lose it soon! You and I are alive. Tell me, have you ever loved anyone?’

  ‘Loved? No. But I do know what you’re talking about. I would dream of him. I dreamed of a man who looked at me with enchantment in his eyes and made me feel beautiful. I’d wait for him to visit me as soon as I closed my eyes.’

  ‘And now? Doesn’t he come to visit you in your dreams?’

  ‘He’s dead. Death is the most powerful of dreams. Abira, will they bury us when we die? If you can, cover us with dirt and stones, don’t leave us to the beasts of the forest.’

  ‘Stop that. When someone dies they don’t care about anything.’

  I took the sheepskin and blanket and helped her to settle down. I brought her the leftovers from our dinner that I’d hidden and a little wine to give her strength.

  She dozed off and I hoped her young lover would come to visit behind her closed eyelids.

  The moon rose from the mountains and lit up the valley. It glittered, reflected in a thousand sparks of silver, in the torrent that splashed and flowed over a bed of clean sand.

  All I wanted was sleep, to stretch out exhausted next to Xeno, but instead I watched the warriors assigned to sentry duty. They must have been tired as little children, falling asleep on their feet, and yet there they stood in their metal shells, wrapped in the cloaks that had become as black as the night.

  I would have liked to know what they were thinking.

  The others were already asleep, with the last echoes of combat still in their ears. What were they dreaming of? A mother’s step, perhaps, carrying a fragrant, freshly baked loa
f of bread.

  There were stray dogs that had been following the army for some time, getting thinner and thinner because there was never anything left over for them. They howled sadly at the moon.

  The wind blew from the coldest corners of the sky. It whipped lightly like a bird of prey rising from his nest among the snowy peaks, but the tent was tepid with Xeno’s warmth, his body was soft under the wool of his cloak and I fell asleep, snug and secure, dreaming of other countrysides, other sounds, other skies. The last thing I saw before dropping off was the hanger that held his armour: in the dark it looked like a fierce warrior awake and contemplating massacres among a sleeping multitude. The last sound I heard was the voice of a big river, a river of seething waters, rushing over barren boulders and through rocky gorges. The wind . . .

  The wind had changed.

  I AWOKE BECAUSE OF the bitter cold gnawing at my feet. I could see that they were outside the blanket and I sat up to cover them. Xeno was gone, and the hanger that bore his armour was empty.

  I strained to hear and was struck by a strange sound, a confused buzzing and a distant neighing and snorting of horses. Then the long, mournful call of horns.

  And dogs barking as they roamed starving through the camp.

  I jumped to my feet, dressed and hurried out of the tent. A group of officers were galloping back and forth along the low ridge that covered the horizon to the north. At a short distance from where I was standing, the generals – Xanthi, Cleanor, Agasias, Timas and Xeno – were gathered around Sophos, fully armed, hands gripping the hilts of their spears, shields on the ground. They were holding council.

  I saw the warriors pointing at something and turned to look: the peaks behind us were crawling with Carduchi. They were brandishing their pikes, and what I’d heard was their war horns blowing their implacable anger our way.