There was a long silence in the room as the Stymphalian fell silent. Clearchus had raised his eyebrows to the point where they threatened to disappear into his hairline.
‘You old fox, Netus,’ Proxenus said. ‘That is exactly how to play it. Your commanders will understand a personal matter, Highness. A matter of family honour and recompense. It could work.’
‘Some will still resist, Highness, I am sure,’ Netus went on. ‘But we can face that when and if it comes. Perhaps we can cut out a few of the worst whiners and complainers before we meet in the field.’ The wiry Greek grinned at the thought and chuckled when Clearchus thumped him on the back.
‘Very well,’ Cyrus said. ‘It is my intention not to wait for the few who have not yet arrived. We’ve lost weeks already gathering the army here. Tissaphernes will still be on the road ahead of us, but we must leave soon, if we are to have any chance at all.’ He looked around, seeing the generals exchange glances. ‘What else?’
‘There is the matter of paying the men, Highness,’ Clearchus said. ‘The thirty thousand darics we took in Byzantium is down to nothing. It went on stores and carts, enough to feed the army for a month on the road, six weeks on two-thirds rations. It will … not be enough.’
To their surprise, Cyrus waved a hand, showing them the sort of breezy confidence they had not seen for the best part of a year.
‘I have given that matter some thought of my own, gentlemen – and I’ve sent messages to one or two of my oldest and richest allies. By the time we are marching on wheat dust and spring water, I think I will have whatever we need. I cannot say there will not be hardship, but what campaign could ever promise such a thing? There are few certainties but one. My promise is that if you make me king over the body of my brother, you will never want again. Is that enough for you? I swear it on my honour and I will take the hand of each of you in my oath, if you are willing.’
One by one, the Greeks came forward and took his hand, gripping hard enough for the knuckles to show white as they tested his resolve. There was no doubt in the prince’s eyes. Clearchus was not certain if that was a good or a bad thing, given what they faced.
Summer was well advanced by the time the great column formed to march at Sardis. The Greek contingent might have been lost in the host of Persian infantry if Clearchus hadn’t insisted on his Spartans being the vanguard. The general said it was because they would surely go faster if his men set the pace, although the other Greeks complained he was setting himself above them all once again.
The Persian contingent came to just over a hundred thousand infantry when the last of them had come in. They were short of both archers and slingers, having only a few thousand of the former. There were also very few cavalry, though Cyrus had seen that the Athenian, Xenophon, was tending the animals they had, keeping them in good order. The young Greek had found himself a role as master of horse and seemed content when Cyrus cantered past him. In all, it was not quite the army Cyrus had intended to take against his brother and the vast resources of the Persian empire. He could not escape the sense that the entire enterprise had been rushed. Assembling a host with the slightest chance of overcoming the Persian king had been a near impossibility from the beginning. The men had not been trained as well as he’d wanted, though Clearchus promised to continue the work as they marched – and their fitness would certainly improve day by day. One hundred and twelve thousand soldiers would march south-east into the deserts – far away from the Royal Road and watching eyes. Cyrus found he was desperately, painfully proud of them all.
The first scouts and peltast skirmishers set out a day ahead of the main force, with groups of a dozen trotting away every six hours after that. It would become a game for the main column to try and run down the lightly armed men. The officers knew it raised spirits on the long trudges through featureless lands and did not forbid it. The prospect of catching sight of a group of scouts kept them all more alert and was the source of a brisk trade in betting tokens amongst the regiments and of course the scouts themselves.
Cyrus had not given them a destination as he made a final inspection, but he had passed the word that they would not dawdle. Though they would cut a trail through wilder lands than Tissaphernes travelled, their destination was wherever he could force Artaxerxes to take the field. The thought of such distances was daunting, not least because they had to carry with them all they would need.
Cyrus found himself clenching his jaw in irritation at the sheer number of camp followers. He had made Sardis his base for almost eight months, paying his mercenaries in gold, while the Persians took pay in silver from the regimental quartermasters. For all that time, the city of Sardis had been host to tens of thousands of soldiers with money to spend. Trade had flourished, from smiths and theatres and leatherworkers, to high-quality weapon-makers, armourers and, of course, both male and female bed partners, who had appeared in large numbers, making a living from lonely men waiting to go to war. Some of those hangers-on had grown close to individuals of Greece or Persia. Others preferred more temporary arrangements or took what they could get. The result was another twelve thousand or so who would play no part in any battles they faced, but still had to be fed and clothed and guarded on the trail.
The prince gripped the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb and cursed the name of Tissaphernes in a muttered whisper. He had not expected to have to move at all that summer, when the heat could kill active men. Worse, taking away his ability to pay had been a serious blow, for all he thought it had been done out of petty vindictiveness rather than because the man doubted his loyalty. In all his life, Cyrus had never had to think about the difficulties of mounting a campaign without the limitless wealth of the royal treasury behind him. It was like looking for an ocean and finding it gone – as if the world had been tipped over. He had to learn to bargain with suppliers for the first time, bringing a sharpness borne in anger to the negotiations that surprised him as much as them. He’d found he enjoyed forcing the price down. It was an exercise in power he had never understood before, a form of conflict without bloodshed. The thought was a strange one, for a royal prince. Cyrus knew the army shuffling into column was more his than it would ever have been without that pressure of time and coin. He was proud of them, even the whores, even the men he thought would betray him at the last.
They had come at his call, whether their reasons were noble or not. The assembly of his people and the Greeks had made its own ocean on the bare ground, a column that would stretch for so many miles that those at the front would be an entire day ahead of the rear. The very idea made his thoughts spin and a dull pain threaten to begin behind his eyes.
When they were ready, hundreds of pentekoster officers roared their fifties to silence all along the vast squares, waiting to fall in behind one another. Cyrus rode with Clearchus to the head of the column, where two white bulls had been tied to iron posts hammered into the earth. The Spartan had agreed to wait behind for the last groups of hoplites who were coming over from Crete. Clearchus had refused the offer of a horse, saying the last time had been enough. Even so, he had sworn a solemn oath to bring those men to Cyrus’ side.
Cyrus breathed deeply, smelling lemon and mint on the air, along with the drifting scent of charcoal. His soothsayers were ready to observe and interpret the spatter of blood and all his officers knew there would be a thick slice of beef sent to their fires that night, so that they looked on the straining animals with anticipation. Cyrus raised his hand and the silence was complete for a moment, with just the breeze making cloth flap like wings.
As he dropped his hands, the soothsayers sawed at the muscular throats of the bulls, spilling a vast slick of blood. They would all march through the pools that followed, leaving red prints for a mile or more. It did not matter. Blood was why they were there. No one assembled such a host for peace.
Horns sounded, blaring across the morning. Banners rose all along the column and the waiting squares, fluttering wildly in the wind. Regimental drumm
ers who walked with their instrument strapped across a shoulder began a rhythmic beat to set the marching pace.
Cyrus sent a prayer into the blue sky, asking for good fortune and a crown of gold to fall to his hand. The river Meander was three days away through the green lands of Lydia, the city of Colossae a day’s march further on. He would wait there for Clearchus to bring in the stragglers.
The Persian prince watched from the side of the road as the Spartans set off in silence, arms swinging. Those first days would reveal weaknesses, he had no doubt: the mistakes in their planning, the myriad of things that had been forgotten, left behind. Yet it would show them what they faced as well – and those who reached the resting place at Colossae in good order would have learned they were equal to the task. Cyrus knew he would take a rabble from a dozen sources and hone it to a single blade, step by step. So he smiled as he turned his horse on a tight rein and dug in his heels. Only the Spartan general and a dozen guards remained behind. Cyrus saw Clearchus shade his eyes and thought he could feel the man’s gaze. He dipped his head to acknowledge it and saw Clearchus do the same. The way was open ahead, wherever it would lead them.
13
The great column reached the river Meander at a good pace. It had been a little chaotic at first, with men who were not used to staying in ranks for six or seven hours tripping themselves up and fouling the lines behind. Yet so early in the long march, the men had not suffered unduly. There were new blisters to wrap each night, though most of those who suffered accepted the advice of the Spartans, that it was better to let the skin harden in the open air rather than risk damp and rotting flesh.
They crossed the river on a makeshift pontoon of seven fishing boats lashed together, causing much laughter amongst the men. Very few of the Persians could swim and they gripped each hull with white fingers, prising themselves free to clamber onto the next one. The Spartans were at home in the water and some of them splashed or fished while they waited, keeping cool in the sun.
By the time they had marched another long day, the men were beginning to show some sign of hardening. It was true there had been half a dozen sprains and injuries – it was impossible to move men and weapons across country without wrenched knees or dropped swords causing astonishing wounds. Yet they had shared experiences together. Cyrus hoped to build his army around that common history, so that when his Persian regiments saw the enemy, they would choose the prince and commander of the armed forces over an unknown, scholar king. A man they knew, who had faced trials and ridden at their side for months, over a mere stranger.
It could not have been a gentler start. Cyrus rested the men for seven days at Colossae, while he hunted in the royal parks. He saw no sign of Clearchus, though Menon the Thessalian reached him with another four hundred and news that Clearchus would catch up by Celaenae and not to wait. Cyrus took a dozen racehorses from the imperial stables for his own use, handing them to Xenophon. It was still too few, though the prince could not conjure trained cavalry out of thin air and had not the funds to consider buying more. Aside from his own mounted guard of six hundred, he knew the benefit of fast messengers. He would have mounted all the scouts ranging ahead of them if he’d had the horses to do it. Without them, he could not help seeing the huge army as a slow and plodding thing, vulnerable to a sudden strike or an ambush.
By the time they left Colossae, blisters had healed and strained muscles had grown stronger. They set off once more with a spring to their step, horn blasts making the horses whinny as they galloped along the edges. His guards made a fine display, the riders separated from the animal by the skin of a leopard or a gazelle.
Cyrus found he enjoyed the hours riding alongside the men each day. When they came across a road or a track, they followed it. Yet most days were spent moving over fields and valleys towards distant landmarks, keeping them in view no matter what lay in their path.
He felt his fitness increase, though he worried when even their vast column was dwarfed by the mountains they approached, or swallowed up in a pine forest. He sent men back down the road then to look for Clearchus, but there was still no sign of him. Away from Sardis, the prince realised how much he had come to trust and depend upon the Spartan. Without that solid presence, that certainty, it all seemed suddenly hollow, as if he only played at wearing a crown.
Of all the men there, Cyrus knew his brother’s armies of the east better than anyone – even better than Artaxerxes. If his brother considered Cyrus a true threat and summoned every regiment under his command, he could put more than half a million men into the field. It was a number to make Cyrus start from sleep in the middle of the night. Worse still was that his brother would have the wealth of twenty-eight subject nations and the royal treasury to back him. The Great King would not suffer shortages of food or firewood and be unable to replace them. Artaxerxes would drink wine instead of water each night, as he marched with soldiers the equal of all the stars in the sky.
The citadel of Celaenae lay just three days’ march from Colossae, on the river Marsyas. Cyrus waited there for Clearchus to bring the last of them, regretting that he had ever agreed to leave the general behind. As each evening ended, the prince could see the puzzled glances amongst the others, particularly the Persians. They saw no special need to wait for a single Spartan, no matter his rank. Yet the prince did nothing and the days dragged on, despite all the urgency before. The sense of excitement at the beginning faded slowly as the men settled into life in camp, seeking their entertainment in the local town. Cyrus did not hear of the ones who had to be hanged, nor the massed brawl between the Stymphalian contingent and a regiment of Imperials. Such things were kept from him while he waited.
On the fourteenth day, Clearchus arrived, calm as a spring breeze. He brought eight hundred hoplites of various cities, two hundred peltasts with their javelins and forty Cretan archers. Cyrus forgave him his lateness at the sight, though Clearchus apologised even so and went down on one knee to him in front of the newcomers.
‘That is the last of them, Highness – and they were lucky to survive when their ship foundered on the way over from Crete. They have a thousand tales to tell and I don’t doubt you’ll hear them all as we move on. From here, we are on our own. No one lies behind us.’ The Spartan looked into the distance like a hunting dog scenting prey, his nostrils flaring.
‘I thought you were not coming, for a time,’ Cyrus said.
Clearchus looked at him, his eyes steady.
‘I gave you my word, Highness. They’ll have to kill me to drag me from your side.’ As the prince smiled, Clearchus went on: ‘Of course, that could very well happen.’
There was a renewed sense almost of holiday amongst the men as the regiments set off. For a time, they passed through a satrapy where the roads had been well laid. The men enjoyed marching on flat stones and if battle lay in their future, it was so far ahead that it became a problem they could ignore.
Their commanders did not share the general good mood. Clearchus found himself snapping at light-hearted comments. He took his trade seriously and he at least felt the tension of the trials ahead slowly growing. Cyrus too withdrew to his own company, spending whole days in silence as they marched or rode down the veins of the empire. He could not help thinking of Tissaphernes on the Royal Road, wondering if they had overtaken the old man, or if he still rode ahead. Those same stones had carried the first King Darius to invade Greece. That great road had taken his son Xerxes to the west, never knowing that he would see his army slaughtered and his fleet scattered to the four winds. Yet Cyrus had been forced to take a route to the south of it, far away from royal messengers who would race home at the first sight of his men.
Such thoughts seemed to bear Cyrus down as he spent long hours sweating under the sun. He lost the sense of his men as a lean fighting force when he realised it took half a day just to feed them a single meal. They were a city on the move, and at the noon halt, what seemed an entire town would trundle up on carts. Cooking pots clattered and firewood wa
s gathered. The mood of a summer festival would take hold, even to the point of setting tents where men queued to spend their money on fumblings within. It all took an age and Cyrus could only fret and watch the sun, shading his eyes against its glare.
Like locusts, they descended on taverns whenever they encountered them, no matter how small or run-down. On the Royal Road, Cyrus knew such establishments were built to the same design, decreed by imperial order. All the pleasures of civilisation waited for weary travellers like beads on a chain, all the way to Susa.
Denied those luxuries, Cyrus’ army stripped villages bare of everything they could not hide from hungry soldiers. The army would have starved without those extra rations, but Cyrus was only too aware of his last daric coins disappearing, seeming to vanish even as he counted them. When he could hold the last of his funds in one hand, he took the column sixty miles across country to the city of Tyriaeon, in the small kingdom of Cilicia. He rested there in an estate he had known well as a child.
After two days, as Cyrus had expected, it was Clearchus the others elected to speak to him. None of the Greek or Persian regiments had been paid and he had nothing left to fill the coffers. The prince sat at a table on a terrace in the evening sun, enjoying dates and soft cheese from the region.
‘Ah, general, I thought they would send you. Please sit and eat. These are the finest you will ever taste.’
Clearchus looked exactly as he had on their first meeting, as if time could have no hold on him. In turn he saw a young man made weary by too much responsibility.
‘Thank you, Highness,’ he said. He took a sweet date and chewed it, spitting the sharp stone into his palm. ‘Very good.’
The Falcon of Sparta Page 15