Suddenly, however, at a signal from Cyrus, all the slaves simultaneously snuffed out the lamps along the walls, to the consternation of the always tense Clearchus and his captains. The callipygian beauties then danced wildly with flaming torches, threatening constantly to set the tent or the Spartans' long hair afire, but never failing to complete their intricate steps in perfect precision. The cheering for their performance was deafening. On their way out, they stepped delicately among the diners, seeking spare coins, pausing here and there to good-naturedly slap a wayward hand that had accidentally worked its way too high up a slender, brown thigh.
To the surprise of all, Clearchus then stood up with a serious expression, pounding the table with the flat of his hand for attention until all were silent. He expressed his thanks to Cyrus in a gravelly voice, and swaying slightly on his feet, moved seamlessly into what we soon perceived with dismay was a military harangue.
"Fellow officers: These girls have proven that they have no less natural ability than men, but lack only judgment and physical strength. No one who witnesses these amazing feats of swordplay and fire can deny that courage is a trait that can be taught, when these fragile girls throw themselves so daringly onto the sharp blades. Just so, we Spartans must also teach our troops, by rote if necessary, to heed the call to arms and to exhibit such courage that…"
Cyrus, exasperated at this unexpected and unwarranted interruption of his celebration, tossed a hunk of hard bread at Clearchus, striking him in the throat and stopping him in mid-harangue. The Spartan looked up, shocked at this violation of protocol and military solemnity, and peered fiercely through the darkness and haze of the tent in an attempt to see the source of the offense. Cyrus' cheerful voice rang out through the silence.
"Sit down, Clearchus, and shut up. Tonight I don't give a damn whether you are a Spartan general or my old grandmother. There is a time to show courage, and a time to be merry. No one questions your superiority in matters of war. But if you persist in demonstrating your inferiority in matters of sociability, I will not hesitate to throw you bodily out of the tent!" With this he clapped twice and two enormous Ethiopians stepped to his side, all but invisible in the dim light of the tent but for the whites of their eyes and gleaming teeth, who stared avidly at the astonished Clearchus. The men roared at this unprecedented slap to the fierce general, and he sat back down on his couch with a sheepish expression. The Spartan captains, unused to the quantities of wine they had been drinking, spontaneously broke out in a Spartan victory song, clumsily attempting to make up for Clearchus' awkward digression, and the musicians gamely accompanied them as the other officers joined in.
As the dancers and flute girls drifted back toward the rear entrance, Cyrus began looking expectantly toward the front, barely able to maintain his concentration. The officers' table conversation had resumed, and the tent was again filled with raucous laughter, the boasts and taunts of happy men. Finally, the prince was rewarded as the tent flap was pulled aside and Asteria stepped into the room, looking for all the world like Artemis or golden Aphrodite, her small lyre under one arm, her eyes cast demurely down to her feet, a shy smile on her face. She wore a diaphanous gown that allowed fleeting glimpses of her girlish profile as she passed in front of the lamps. Her waist-length black hair had been elaborately braided and coiled about her head, with an assortment of colorful feathers threaded through the locks, forming a lovely contrast to her bare, unadorned neck and arms. She was barefoot and wore only the lightest of rouge on her cheeks, for her naturally olive complexion already lent her a radiant glow in the lamplight. She was heart-breakingly young and beautiful, though the gentle swell and quiver of her breasts visible through the thin fabric of her backlit gown betrayed the fact that she was a grown woman, and one who was fully aware of the enervating effect she was having on the room.
A eunuch silently drew a low chair onto the carpet in the middle of the tent, gleaming in the torchlight with its inlaid whorls of silver and ivory. The master craftsman who had made it for Cyrus' ancestors centuries ago had added a low footrest under the seat, mortised into the very frame, a perfect design for a musician to rest a foot while plucking the lyre. Over it all was draped a heavy fleece for comfort. Asteria gently sat down on the magnificent chair, and the room went silent.
From the first, single pluck of the lyre's string she held the men captive and breathless, entranced by her beauty and by the sweet, crystalline purity of her voice. She fingered the instrument's strings almost randomly at first, as if searching for a motif or attempting to identify mood and pattern, then suddenly seemed to be completely absorbed by the music she was playing. Her fingers tumbled over the strings like a vessel floating down a current, pausing here and there to explore eddies and avoid shoals, picking up speed along the straight rapids and then vacillating over the still waters of a heavenly lake shimmering in the moonlight. The girl sang in flawless Greek, a love ode set to a melody undoubtedly of her own device, for it had elements of Persian intervals quite unlike what one might have heard sung in Athens, which were in striking counterpoint to the song's utterly Grecian mood and lyrics. Her face assumed an expression of such utter concentration as to be almost unbearable, like one of those ambiguous masks used in the theater, on which pleasure and anguish meet and coexist, seeming to break over each other alternately like waves against the outgoing tide. I was astonished to find, or perhaps I merely imagined, that as Asteria's gaze swept calmly about the room from man to man while she sang, it seemed to linger on me, so that I felt as if she were addressing me alone. No doubt every man felt the same, for she was trained in the ways of pleasing an audience, and what better measure of success than for each man to feel as if he had been the recipient of a private performance? Still, I was certain her gaze had stayed on mine longer than her childhood music instructors might have dictated.
There is an ancient Greek word, a strange and lovely word rarely used anymore in its earliest sense, which describes the gradual return of a vibrating lyre string to its point of rest and equilibrium after the instrument has ceased to sound. In modern times, a more sinister meaning has overtaken the original. As Asteria's last, sweet note died slowly into silence, calling this ancient word to mind, every man, slave and general alike, held his breath. Then looking up at us, she smiled shyly, stood quickly with a deferential nod to Cyrus, and skipped out the rear of the tent to join her companions. The men's conversation again began filling the room, though more subdued this time, as the raucous mood had been broken and reverie had taken its place. Once touched by the gods, it is difficult for a mortal to return so soon to the toils of the earth. The banquet broke up shortly afterwards, as each man excused himself, thanking the prince and pledging his own assistance in the forthcoming venture. Xenophon and I walked slowly back to our camp, each in our own silent thoughts, each undoubtedly thinking the same thing.
The word, my Muses prod; what is the ancient word I mentioned, with the two-faced meaning? A word connoting aspects of both art and brutality, life and death, beauty and terror, a strange word in its ability to encompass such things simultaneously, a word tragic in the loss of its benign significance in favor of one more searing. Such a word, so fitting in many ways to my own little tale, this word I gingerly lift and expose from its grave one last time, in the hope that its earlier meaning, that of a peaceful resolution of a gently sounding chord, might thereby not be forgotten without at least a wake.
The word is katastrophe.
CHAPTER FOUR
ONE AFTER ANOTHER the muttering, swaying seers stood up from their crouching position, their arms bathed in blood to the elbows as they finished examining the entrails of the sacrificed goats and conferred with each other on their meaning. The prince had gathered the entire army at the makeshift drill grounds on the riverbank to watch the omens being taken for crossing the enormous river and proceeding on to Babylon. The men craned their necks, peering at the mysterious doings, their hearts heavy at the thought of either outcome. The seers finally nodd
ed at Cyrus to approach, and with somber expressions they explained to him in low tones the results of their omens. A hundred thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on his face as it slowly broke out in a grin, and he raised his arms in triumph.
"The gods are with us!" he cried. "The omens are good, we cross today!"
Scattered cheers broke out among the troops, and those on the outer edges began to disperse, some separating into the crews that had already been organized and for several days had been working to repair the bridge, while others returned to their individual units to begin breaking camp. All stopped their departures, however, when they noticed what Cyrus did next.
Gathering together his elite bodyguard of six hundred cavalry, he calmly and deliberately rode down to the bank of the river, and without pausing, urged his mount in, followed closely by his troops. On they splashed, as the broad river became gradually deeper, to the horses' knees, to their bellies, to their withers. The men stood silent, some muttering questioningly to themselves as they wondered how the prince would swim his horse safely across the fast-moving stream, and even if successful, how he would expect a body of a hundred thousand troops, most of whom could not swim, to follow him, laden with weapons, armor and the enormous baggage train.
The horses continued wading forward, and had now reached the middle of the brown river, the water swirling about their flanks. Even at this distance we could see the desert-trained Persian ponies hesitating, their eyes rolling in terror, but the disciplined cavalry soldiers, sitting bolt upright and looking straight ahead at the opposite side, kept a firm grip on their reins. Suddenly, with all eyes upon Cyrus, we saw that his horse's belly had emerged from the current-then its tail and its hocks. With a final flourish the prince urged his mount into a canter and the entire six hundred pranced through the shallows on the other side, frothing the water in a cloud of spray and raising a distant cheer that we could clearly hear over the din of a half mile of water flowing in front of us.
We reciprocated with an ear-splitting roar-every man raising his fists, his spear, his helmet, in jubilation at the most remarkable omen we had yet seen from the gods: the mighty Euphrates, considered by the locals as being impassable without boats, had given a sign that Abrocomas' vicious burning of the bridge had been a wasted effort. Even the river itself had made way for the prince's army.
As we marched, we kept the Euphrates on our right, though at times because of the roughness of the terrain we were forced to divert ourselves away from its course for miles, even days. For a month after the crossing we picked our way silently across that accursed terrain, where the Persian sun god Ahura-mazda tormented the land with a blinding light and oppressive heat by day. By night, he was replaced by some evil lunar deity who took advantage of his colleague's temporary absence from the skies to send darkness as gelid as a Scythian winter to torment the troops in their sleep. The wood of the wagons grew so dry and shrunken that pegs and joints fell out of their own accord, and the spokes rattled and spun dully in their hubs, unless tied with green hides or secured with pebbles wedged into the gaps. The land was as flat and hot as an armorer's anvil, the heat rising in waves on the horizon, forbidding even trees from growing, for nothing could survive save twisted, stunted little shrubs not sufficient even for small cooking fires for the army, and pitiful, ground-hugging little herbs.
For thrice a hundred miles even this sparse forage failed us completely, and dozens of baggage animals starved to death. The ground was bare, and the men ran out of grain. The market that Cyrus' camp followers maintained charged exorbitant prices-certain of them had a knack for business, and were wiser in the ways of provisioning than our own quartermasters. Even a rancid donkey's head could scarcely be bought for sixty drachmae. We were beggared long before we emerged from the desert, and most had resorted to gnawing the thin, stringy meat of the mules and pack oxen that died of starvation or thirst along the way. Only the camels in Cyrus' train appeared content, if camels can ever be said to be so, evil-tempered creatures that they are.
Xenophon was philosophical about the situation, and once I even caught him smiling as he listened to a Spartan captain, Chirisophus, complain bitterly about the price he had just been forced to pay for wheat.
"What are you laughing about?" the officer asked, astonished.
"I was thinking about a friend of mine in Athens, Charmides," Xenophon replied.
"I remember him," interjected Menon, who was passing by and had stopped to listen, "from Socrates' chats in the agora. The man actually used to boast of his poverty-said he was so proud that he was no longer a slave to his wealth."
"He was a fool," Chirisophus said. "How could anyone imagine it better to live like a pauper than a rich man?"
Xenophon laughed. "It was just for the sake of argument, really." The notion of argument for argument's sake was way beyond the ken of the impatient Spartan. "Socrates praised the notion of poverty. 'A most worthy asset,' he would say. 'It causes no jealousy or rivalry, requires no protection to keep it safe, and it only improves from neglect.'"
Chirisophus simply stared at us uncomprehendingly. "Who in the hell is Socrates anyway?" he asked, and stalked away, shaking his head at our ignorance.
It was Cyrus' habit to consult with each of his senior officers individually when he anticipated a major encounter, knowing that they would feel freer to express their true opinions to him singly than they would in a group. When his scribe was incapacitated one day by illness, Proxenus asked me to accompany him to a meeting called by Cyrus. Entering the prince's tent, with which I was now familiar, I waited a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then began glancing around eagerly, but unobtrusively, for a glimpse of Asteria. I was promptly rewarded by a quick smile from the corner, where I spied her sitting quietly on a cushion, engaged in sewing a delicate bit of embroidery with her needle. She was almost invisible in the shadows, her olive complexion blending almost seamlessly with the smoke-darkened canvas of the tent walls. Only the whites of her large, limpid eyes occasionally betrayed her presence, as she intermittently focused them alertly on the conversation at the front of the tent before turning them back to her work.
"I understand, Proxenus," said Cyrus, after some preliminary banter, "that you had occasion to battle some Persian mercenaries on one of your Ionian campaigns. Was there anything you learned then that you think might be of use against the king?"
Proxenus thought for a moment, as I divided my attention between rapidly scribbling notes on my wax tablets and glancing at Asteria behind the prince. "With all due respect, sir," he said, "I didn't really fight the Persians, but rather interrogated one we had captured, who happened to be a former member of the king's personal bodyguard, one of his Immortals. He had been disgraced for some reason or another and was hiring himself out for service as an officer. We actually became friends, to a point."
Cyrus straightened in interest.
"As you know," Proxenus continued, "the king's Immortals are highly trained-possibly the best trained guards and horsemen in the world. That's both their strength and weakness, however. According to this fellow, the Immortals are so disciplined, they are inflexible. They are paralyzed without explicit commands from the king."
Proxenus let this sink in for a moment. Cyrus was familiar with the Immortals, of course, having himself been trained and raised with them, and having his own band of them as bodyguards, but this was an aspect he hadn't considered.
"The entire world is terrified of the Immortals," said Proxenus, "and King Artaxerxes has six thousand of them-utterly loyal to their master, ready to die for him at a moment's notice. The only way of dealing with them is to kill the head, the king himself. One bold strike to take out the king-even by a smaller force, perhaps one carrying out a suicide run-and the entire band of Immortals will be immobilized, and seeing that, the whole Persian army will turn tail."
Cyrus sat frozen, deep in contemplation. Asteria's needle was working more slowly, her eyes now fixed unblinkingly on the prince
, much to my irritation. Proxenus was not yet through, though.
"The same goes for the king's general, Tissaphernes," he said. Cyrus started, wrenched out of his reverie by mention of the hated name. "I understand that for all his bluster, he's basically a coward. He likes to take credit, to look good, but when faced with a determined force, even a smaller one, he cringes like a boy facing his father's belt."
There was a sudden movement from the corner behind Cyrus, and I saw Asteria ruefully sucking her finger where she had pricked it with the needle. Her concentration was broken, but before she returned back to her sewing I saw her shoot a glance not at me or at the prince, but unmistakably at Proxenus, who was standing to Cyrus' side. Even through the partial darkness of the tent, I could see that her eyes were full of venom.
The prince remained thinking in his seat for a long time without uttering a word. Asteria did not look up from her sewing again, however, and Cyrus finally dismissed us.
CHAPTER FIVE
OUR ANIMALS SUFFERED tremendously on the march, dying in droves, though the desert somehow provided sustenance for thousands of wild creatures. It would have been a hunter's paradise, though few of us had the energy to stalk the beasts. We were constantly watched, and even accompanied, by troops of fleet-footed wild asses, bustards and gazelles, as well as ostriches, which the men avoided after one of them was killed by a kick to the head. Our native guides even told stories of a mysterious village of pig-faced people in the desert, from which lost travelers never returned sane. Such peasant myths I ignored, but several times I gave chase to the asses, which would appear to be the easiest target of all the local beasts. They ran much faster than our horses, however, often so outstripping me that they would suddenly stop and stand still for a moment, as if laughing and daring me to approach closer. As soon as I did, however, they would streak off again, remaining just beyond bowshot. By hard trial and error, we found they could be killed if horsemen positioned themselves at intervals and hunted in relays, until the ass being targeted simply dropped from exhaustion. In the process, however, we would also exhaust five or six of our own horses and men, hardly an effective means of obtaining meat for the army.
The Ten Thousand Page 15