The Ten Thousand

by Michael Curtis Ford

  He paused to let this sink in, and to let us draw our conclusions. This we did, with heavy hearts, for without his explicitly saying so, it had become clear to us all since we had first entered the mountains that every extraneous ounce, every cooking pot, every crumb, every person that could not be counted upon to somehow further our progress, would eventually have to be eliminated. Even Proxenus' Boeotian engines, which Xenophon had faithfully dragged this entire distance over Chirisophus' strident protests, were ordered left behind, as being inappropriate for defending the army against the kind of warfare we were facing. The only exception to non-useful burdens was the wounded or sick soldiers, whom we would rather die defending than abandon. Many of the men had accumulated large quantities of plunder from the towns and cities through which we had passed since Cilicia, and since they had not had the opportunity to convert it to specie, it was still in its bulk form: cups and plates, decorative armor, slaves, rolls of silk and other precious fabrics; all would have to be discarded. And many, too, had developed intimate friendships among the camp followers, boys, women, and men. These were ordered left behind.

  Heralds were sent through the camp to cry the orders, and the men and camp followers listened in stunned silence. One of the officers mentioned to Xenophon that he was afraid it might give rise to a mutiny or to desertions, but Chirisophus, overhearing, scoffed at this. "What option do they have?" he burst out angrily. "If those dickheads prefer to stay with their trollops and pretty boys, they'll see how far they'll get through those mountains alone. Let 'em desert. If they're so keen on fucking, they'll certainly be fucked when we leave them to the Kurds."

  Orders were given to march after breakfast, and camp was breaking already, amidst the wails and protests of those being forced to be left behind. Even the Persians we had captured from Tissaphernes weeks before begged to be driven along with the army among the goats rather than released to the Kurds' devices. Women clutched desperately at the soldiers, some their husbands and others complete strangers, offering all their possessions, their very bodies, for a chance to continue trailing the army. Merchants and smiths pleaded frantically with Xenophon and stony-faced Spartans, arguing the army's need for their skills, their own willingness to take up arms or to care for the dead if allowed to accompany the troops. Livestock, sensing the rising panic and chaos among their tenders, ran untethered and unfed through the milling crowds, rooting through the forlorn piles of personal possessions being heaped for burning. I raced through the quarters of the camp followers peering into wagons, looking behind stacks of weapons and provisions, searching for Asteria. I was certain she must already be in hiding, perhaps pretending to be a sick or wounded soldier and wrapped in a blanket on one of the hospital carts. I tore through the carts bearing the injured soldiers, examining each suspicious lump under the blankets and finding no sign of her. I had no idea what I would do once I found her-and the situation was becoming more critical, as another set of heralds were already marching through the camp, announcing that an inspection would be held as the army passed a narrow spot in the road two miles down, to ensure that no unwarranted baggage was being smuggled through.

  Asteria was nowhere to be found, either among her friends or in any hiding place I could think of, and my duties could not allow me to continue searching any longer. Returning through the Rhodians' camp, I spotted Nicolaus, his foot now healing cleanly, and quickly pulled him off to the side.

  "Nicolaus, you heard Xenophon's orders," I whispered huskily, out of breath. "All useless plunder and camp followers are to be left behind."

  He shrugged his shoulders and stared at me in puzzlement. It occurred to me that the Rhodian boys were perhaps the only soldiers in the entire army completely unaffected by Xenophon's measure, being too young to have wives among the camp followers, and too new in their battle positions to have earned any plunder. I grasped him by the upper arm to prevent him from leaving.

  "Have you seen Asteria?" I asked.

  A shadow of concern flickered across his face as he shook his head no.

  The fear I had felt when Asteria first suggested defecting to the Persians weeks before rose up again in my throat.

  "Have you seen any of Tissaphernes' scouts still tailing us?" I pressed.

  Puzzled now, Nicolaus considered the question carefully. "Occasionally, yes, but only from a great distance. They are few in number, and prefer to remain out of sight, for fear of our slings."

  "Nicolaus: In the name of all that Xenophon has done for you, in the name of everything you believe in-if you see Asteria, find me."

  Nicolaus stood rooted to his spot, astonished at my intensity. I realized the grip I had on his thin arm must have been hurting him terribly, yet he said nothing as he looked at me.

  I persisted. "Will you swear it?"

  "Yes."

  "By all you hold sacred?"

  Nicolaus hesitated, and I realized what I had asked of this orphaned boy, exiled from his country, lamed by a wild animal, without an obol to his name. He smiled bitterly.

  "Theo, go back to your duties. I'll let you know if I see her."

  I trotted back to Xenophon's camp to find him saddling up his own horse in irritation. He threw me a tight-lipped glance and I could tell by his expression that he was aware of my loss-but he methodically continued his cinching and preparations, and when finished, climbed up on his mount and trotted off wordlessly to confer again with Chirisophus. His silence to me spoke volumes. I knew he had been voted general by popular acclaim, rather than appointed. He was utterly trusted by the men; he could speak to them and carry a sword like them. I also knew that he bore the burden of his duty to them like a permanent weight, like a battle scar or a trophy shield which to him represented a sense of honor more precious than life or love or his very happiness. An inviolable confidence would be shattered if he were to ever betray the men by breaking one of the rules he himself had laid down, or if he willingly allowed another to do so. I was his friend, his lifelong servant, his brother; my entire life I had forsaken my personal desires in order to serve and follow him, and he knew this, and I believe was grateful for it-but he would not, could not, make an exception for me. His duty was clear, and I would have rather driven my own sword into my belly than ask him to violate it. Yet even that might have been preferable to his silence.

  The army passed through the inspection that Chirisophus and Xenophon had set up at the road narrows, and hundreds of pounds of surplus supplies, lame livestock, unneeded wagons and heavy baggage, and dozens more camp followers, slaves and captives were caught attempting to be smuggled past and were left behind, forbidden on pain of death from following the army. Soldiers involved in the smuggling were flogged, and the troops passing by averted their eyes from the scene, either in shame at their comrades' disobedience of orders, or so as not to attract attention to their own violations, large and small. The occasional good-looking boy or woman might get through, I was sure, in exchange for favors, and all I could do was pray that Asteria, in her cleverness, would herself find a way to do so unscathed and to somehow remain with the army; but I had no such hope.

  The entire day and half the night we marched, twenty-five miles, as the enemy continued to slow our progress, skirmishing with us, rolling logs and boulders into our path to obstruct the wagons, throwing rocks from the steep cliffs overhead, pelting us with stones and arrows from behind trees. The men collapsed in exhaustion when Xenophon finally called a halt, most without even bothering to start fires or cook supper. The emotional pain of the morning, and the physical exhaustion of the day's events had done us in. He had still not said a word to me, but watched me carefully from under his brows. I, in turn, could not find it in my heart to say anything to him, in his unrelenting movement and action and confounded busyness. There was neither the time nor the occasion for any words that might lift the weight pressing on my soul.

  The next day dawned stormy, with heavy winds and sleet; the men were exhausted, yet we could not remain where we were, without
the shelter of a village and with no provisions at hand, so the officers made the decision to press on, hoping to find respite within a day's march. Chirisophus, as usual, led the van, with Xenophon guarding the rear, and enemy skirmishers attacked vigorously and from close range, not only with their usual slings, stones and rolled boulders, but with bows the likes of which we had never seen before, which threw even the Spartan men-at-arms into consternation. Composite bows they were, with the main shaft made of fine, stiff ash, while on the "belly" of the bow, by which I mean the inner surface facing the archer as he shoots, a thin layer of horn had been glued for further stiffening and resistance. More important, however, was the thick layer of sinew taken from the neck tendon of an ox or stag, which was glued to the outside of the bow, and which, when stretched as the bow was drawn, provided for considerably greater springiness and a much more powerful snap as the sinew returned to its original shape, than did a bow made of wood only.

  The bows were not only powerful, but enormous: as tall as a man, and when fired, they required that the bowman brace his foot against the lower end while drawing the string almost the length of his arm stretched out behind him. The arrows were as long as the peltasts' javelins, and in fact the Cretans, who were the finest javelin men in the Hellenic army, made a point of saving every such arrow they found and using them for just that purpose, after adding a small finger loop to each one for better throwing. We lost two very good men before we even realized the power of these formidable weapons: Leonymus, a Spartan, was shot by such an arrow, which penetrated right through his solid oak and bronze shield, his corselet and his ribs; and the Arcadian Basias, who to the amazement and dismay of all was shot square through the skull, the arrow emerging to half its length on the other side of his head, despite the fact that he was wearing a heavy bronze war helmet.

  At one point, when the rear was being particularly heavily besieged, Xenophon sent word up to Chirisophus at the front to call a halt and send back reinforcements. The army's vanguard was several miles ahead along the road, and it took some time for messages to flow back and forth; yet when the runner returned he reported that not only had Chirisophus refused to send reinforcements, he had picked up his pace, spurring his peltasts and Spartan rangers on to a trot.

  Xenophon was furious, though I tried to point out to him that Chirisophus was an experienced officer, and most likely had good reason to have advanced so rapidly. That afternoon, when we finally caught up with the vanguard below a summit where they had halted, he galloped straight up to Chirisophus, his face black with anger.

  "Why the hell didn't you halt?" Xenophon spat. I rarely heard him speak coarsely, though it was a technique at which he was gaining more skill over time, as Chirisophus seemed to understand no other language. "My men-at-arms were getting torn to shreds back there by the Kurds' longbows and we had no shelter-we had to march and fight at the same time! By the twelve gods, Chirisophus, are we two armies or one? I lost two good men, one of them a Spartan, and we couldn't even make the fucking Kurds hold fire long enough for us to collect the bodies-they used them for target practice and laughed at us from the distance!"

  Leaving the body of a fallen comrade on the field of battle is a grievous sin. Chirisophus, who was in as vile a mood as Xenophon and prepared to give as much as he had taken, suddenly became very sober. "Look at the mountains there, General," he said to Xenophon with a sweep of his hand, only a slight note of sarcasm tingeing his voice. "They're impassable. The Kurds have blocked up the routes tighter than a Scythian's asshole. There's only one way up, the steep trail you see ahead of you, and I was trying to occupy the pass before that mob up there seized it. The guides I've captured say there's no other way through."

  Xenophon gazed thoughtfully up the mountain where several hundred Kurds were visible, busily rolling boulders and logs to the edge of the path, preparing to defend the route. They were undisciplined, lacking in order and coordination, and even their hastily arranged boulder defenses were scattered and slipshod. Still-there were so many, and their position was very strong. There was no doubt that we could take them and force our way through the pass-but at what cost, and to what end? How many more identical passes with identical defenses would we have to force our way through? Every man lost here would make it that much more difficult to break through the next roadblock, and the next, until the Kurds finally wore us out or starved us by sheer, mule-headed persistence.

  The troops were becoming impatient, to either halt for the day or resume the march to a safer location. A blackness almost of night had descended, though it was only mid-afternoon, and the freezing rain had begun to fall in torrents, churning the road into a slurry of mud, chilling us to the bone. Xenophon turned to me.

  "Theo, bring up the two prisoners we captured today and tie them to stakes for interrogation."

  I did not like the expression in his eye or the tone in his voice, and I balked at fulfilling his request.

  "Xenophon, this isn't necessary. Chirisophus' guides have already given us the information you need…"

  He cut me off. "I believe I gave you an order," he said, his voice low and menacing, his eyes glaring at me, bloodshot from lack of sleep.

  I stared at him in surprise, then hastened to comply and bound the prisoners securely to two adjacent stakes. The first of the men, a small, wiry, wizened fellow with a hard look about his eyes, confirmed the earlier account, swearing that there was no route other than the one before us. His half smile showed that he relished our army's making the attempt to assault the pass, and this infuriated Xenophon. Infuriated-perhaps this is not the best choice of words. The effect on him was more of a transformation, even an aging, as a hard look came into his eyes which I had never before seen on him, a look that bespoke his father, perhaps, or one of the Spartan infantrymen surrounding him, but not Xenophon. Xenophon, taught by Socrates to revere the sanctity of human life, and who, unlike the Spartans, loved war for its intellectual challenge, for its pitting of opposing minds, for the development of strategy; Xenophon, who though never shirking his duty, though unexcelled in wielding a spear and a shield, would never willingly seek out bloodshed for the pleasure of it-this Xenophon was changing before my eyes, becoming someone I had not known before, yet whom I always had. Of course he was changing-the transformation had occurred long before now, the night of his dream, the night he was acclaimed general. Qualities that had lain dormant in him, inherited qualities of leadership and command, coursing quietly through his blood, had risen to the surface that night, qualities of which I had always seen glimmers, tiny, latent specks of genius glowing like flakes of gold in a pan among the mud and gravel. I watched in wonder as they emerged and developed, creating a purposeful man, one who was hard and even godlike, from a man-boy who until now had been wandering vaguely through life.

  But such qualities had a darker, more sinister side of which I was not aware, a ruthless side, a desperation that caught me off guard. I had seen it rise to the surface with increasing frequency-in his reaction to my questioning glance after losing Asteria the day before, in the fury on his face when he confronted Chirisophus about not halting to assist the rearguard. Now I saw his rage explode into a physical brutality that astounded me and left me more doubtful of his sanity, and of the fate of the army, than I had ever been before.

  He inquired of the prisoner again where there might be alternate roads that could take us around or behind the pass, and this time the prisoner merely jeered at him, jabbering rapid-fire words in his barbarian tongue and broken Persian, which our interpreter refused to even render into Greek for fear of offending Xenophon further.

  Trembling with rage, Xenophon placed his face directly into that of the prisoner, screaming at him to tell us the route, losing control of his emotions and his body. The troops nearby fell silent, embarrassed at their commander's loss of discretion, pretending to look the other way. The prisoner smiled coolly and tossed off a wisecrack to his compatriot tied to the stake nearby. Xenophon was rabid. Reaching out
and seizing a shield from the nearest soldier, he brutally slammed the rolled bronze edge of the disk hard into the side of the man's face, knocking his head back into the post behind him. The man's smirk was instantly replaced by a mass of blood, his nose flattened against one cheek, and he howled in rage and pain, spitting bits of tongue flesh and shattered teeth out of his mouth until he could scarcely breathe, while Xenophon stepped back a pace and coolly watched the gore sheeting the man's face and dripping into a pool of black mud on the ground. Chirisophus stood nearby, gazing impassively and expressionless as the prisoner vented his rage.

  After a moment, Xenophon shoved the interpreter away and then thrust his face back into the prisoner's, wordlessly, simply staring at him. I realized then that the man had become stone quiet, staring straight back into Xenophon's eyes, this time with all trace of contempt erased from his expression, his gaze filled only with malice and fear. The rain poured down on us, on those who were bloodied and those who were sound, making no distinction as to whom it might wash clean and whom it might bespatter with filth, and as I looked down at Xenophon's cloak, I saw that he had drawn his short xiphos sword, and that the tip was resting lightly against the man's belly just below his navel. I tried to call out but I was frozen, unable to move, the words sticking immutably to my tongue like a wad of flax to pine-pitch. I felt a thundering in my ears, the deafening chorus of Syracusan chanting I had so often dreaded, drowning out even the roaring of the torrential rain, and the outside world seemed to become silent and to move unutterably slowly.

  Xenophon-you asked the prisoner your question one more time, slowly and deliberately, so quietly that only he could hear your words, though your language was unknown to him. To me all was silence, overpowered by the hellish roaring in my ears. I saw the man stare at you in complete understanding, despite the interpreter's absence, for this struggle of wills was no longer slave to the use of mere speech as a medium but had reverted to something much more primitive, more reptilian in nature, something more base and primeval than I had ever thought you capable of. The medium of communication between you and the man was fear and pain and hate, and in that language you understood each other perfectly. For after considering his options and the fate awaiting him, the man gave you another half smile, as best as he could through his split and bleeding lips, and then closing his eyes he slowly, barely perceptibly, shook his head no, and your fiendish knife did the work for which it had been created, for which it had been manufactured years before by the hairy, burn-scarred hands of a helot blacksmith in a sweltering Spartan foundry. The man's face wrenched in pain and he writhed like a live fish on a skewer, and as I watched, his eyes clouded over and he slumped against his ropes, his vacant orbs still staring at your feet.