‘My lady,’ Xenophon said, bowing his head.
Pallakis dipped to one knee in reply, showing the nape of her neck where she had bound her hair high.
‘General,’ she replied. ‘I wished to ask …’
She closed a fist and he raised his eyebrows, intrigued. The fact that she was beautiful was part of it, of course. He had known for a long time that beautiful women are more interesting to men in all ways. The truth was that beauty can always ask for help and be certain of an answer. In a brief moment of relief, he thought how pleasant it was that men judged one another by different standards. Violence, skill and tactics could all be learned, after all. Beauty was rare and harder.
‘I wished to ask … Some of the men see I have no protection. They are pressing me to visit them. More than one. I am not a whore, general. And I have no wish to be forced. If you are responsible for us, it is to you that I make my appeal.’
Xenophon glanced at Hephaestus, seeing infatuation. A quick answer suggested itself. He had more difficult problems.
‘Tell them the Athenian, Hephaestus, is your protector. I am sure he will twist arms and break heads to your satisfaction – and he will demand nothing in exchange.’
Xenophon said the last with a certain emphasis to Hephaestus, who blushed a deep pink. Pallakis knelt to him again. He thought there was disappointment in her expression, though he might have imagined it.
‘Thank you, general,’ she said as he passed by.
In darkness, they were ready to move. The village had been stripped of its stores, with dried meat and bread given out amongst the children and the wounded. It was not enough, not nearly enough. Most of them were starving, but the Spartans did not complain, so the rest remained silent, though their stomachs ached and murmured.
Before the light came, they set off in the direction of the river, relying on the stars to keep the right direction. The scout had confirmed it was no more than two or three hours of hard marching and the sun rose as they went.
Behind them, a warning shout went up from the outer square. Xenophon cursed and cantered his horse around the edge. He saw Chrisophus coming out to meet him. To his irritation, the man Philesius came as well. Xenophon rather admired him for the stand he had made the previous day. In that single speech, Philesius had almost certainly averted a rebellion and for the most noble of reasons. Xenophon bowed his head and greeted him by name, though all their gazes were on the force coming up behind their square.
Mithridates had ridden far and fast the night before, it seemed. Xenophon could not escape the sense that a vast Persian army shadowed him still, to be able to provide so many men. His only relief was that they kept underestimating the numbers they would need. He saw a thousand cavalry and four thousand archers, presumably all the Persian king had been able to gather in a single night. No doubt they were weary too from a long march, whereas his Greeks had rested well.
More galling was the fact that the Persians had learned a tactic and decided to raise it an order of magnitude. They feared the Greeks still, but they were willing to trail behind like a group of street urchins, throwing stones and spears. It reminded Xenophon of the gangs that had tormented him in Athens and he showed his teeth, wanting to see them destroyed.
Still, he had no cavalry. His six scouts could not run down an enemy of that sort. It was like bitter acid in him, but the Persians were not wrong. His square was vulnerable to just that sort of attack.
‘We’ll have to endure this,’ Philesius said, staring into the distance.
Without a screen of cavalry, they faced being whittled away, man by man. Alone, the hoplites could have stayed ahead of any pursuing force on foot. Yet the camp followers had slowed, if anything. They were simply not used to marching at that pace. When the heat built, they staggered, or crashed down in a faint, crying for water. It halved the speed of the Greek square.
‘Menon wished to abandon the camp followers,’ Xenophon said, watching Philesius closely. The man was about his own age, but seemed no green hand, no boy pretending to be a man. He too had endured the battle of Cunaxa and was as much a veteran as Xenophon, or more.
‘Then he was mistaken,’ Philesius said softly. ‘I would not leave an enemy to be set upon by these jackals, never mind those who look to us. I will disobey that order, general, if you give it.’
Xenophon grunted as if displeased. He needed no friends, he reminded himself. He needed men who would follow without question. He went on as if Philesius had not spoken.
‘Bring the slingers to the rear. The Spartans will protect them with shields. They might gain us a little time.’
The thought of asking village-quality slingers to walk backwards and whirl their stones around their heads was on the verge of hopeless, but he needed to try anything that might keep the Persians from pressing too closely. They would have to slow down for the ford crossing, he was certain. At that point, the enemy could pick them off at will. He clenched his jaw, thinking a way through. Socrates had taught him to look for the heart of a question – to peel back all the vanities and all the lies men told themselves. In the end, when the truth lay naked, a man could act on what he had learned. Lives would still be lost, of course, perhaps his own. Yet they had chosen him to lead because they believed he could. Because he believed he could.
‘Gentlemen,’ Xenophon said suddenly. ‘Here are my orders.’
25
With the river in sight, the Persian archers came close enough to pick their shots. Shields and chestplates saved many of the Greeks they tormented, like flies biting at a horse. Yet shafts still struck home in the ranks. Wounded men were drawn forward, over the heads of those who still marched, then placed on stretchers to be carried. Few of them cried out in pain, and those who winced at the wounds only put their heads down and marched on.
The ford was barely twenty paces across, a bed of ancient shingle that was churned to brown mud in moments as the first ranks plunged in. Behind them, the Persians grew bold. The enemy archers surged forward and Xenophon felt the air hiss with shafts. He saw Philesius give the order and the slingers responded at last, with everything they had. Unlike the Persians, those men needed only smooth stones. They lay by the thousand along the river and the Greeks set the slings whirring at astonishing speed, each man holding a blur until he released and immediately reached for another.
The archers scattered in panic. Not more than a dozen of them were hit by the first strike, but they had known slingers before and they ducked and threw themselves down. It was true stones continued to rattle across them even then, but in the panic, the Persians assumed a greater force than actually faced them. Their officers bellowed at them to get up and shoot, but they were reluctant. One by one, the archers rose and saw how few stones there were, how few of their fellows actually had been wounded. They took on grim expressions then and reached for their bows once more.
In those precious beats of time, the Greeks had roared across the river. As the last of them reached the other side, the weary slingers moved back into the ranks. The rearmost hoplites gave up holding shields aloft and turned away, breaking into a jog. Hundreds looked back in fear as the Persian cavalrymen saw their enemy running away. Those men called in high-pitched voices to one another, pointing with their swords and jabbing spears in the air. The archers may have failed, but the horsemen saw a fleeing enemy, the backs of men. The ford was unguarded. There would never be a better time.
In an instant, they were digging in their heels and galloping across, scattering spray. Ahead of them, the retreating ranks suddenly stopped and turned. The Persian horsemen whooped and hollered, but they found themselves facing a steady line of red-cloaked warriors, with no sign of the panic they had sensed before. They bore down on Spartans as those men raised shields and lowered their helmets, presenting the unbroken bronze of the elite soldiers of Greece. The cavalrymen began to pull up, though the ones behind urged them on with wild cries.
Three ranks of Spartans charged the enemy horsemen, adv
ancing at a lope, with shields ready and spears at waist height. The ford was the perfect pinch point and Xenophon had judged it well. His best men enveloped the Persian cavalry as they clambered out of the river, denying them the space to move. Even their archers could not support them from the other side, not with their own people fighting in the crush. Arrows still buzzed and struck, but fully half the Persian cavalry had to pull back, leaving horses in the bloody water and hundreds of their compatriots to be hacked down.
It was not long before the Greeks withdrew for real at a good pace. They had lost men but made a mess of their pursuers. Persians littered the ground behind them. Many of them had been butchered with deliberate savagery, to frighten those behind.
In exchange for that risk, they had won horses. Xenophon was delighted as he inspected every new mount and assigned them to volunteers, anyone who claimed to be able to ride. He appointed Hephaestus as their officer and took back a horse from an Athenian who objected, making the man apologise.
‘That was a triumph – no small victory,’ Xenophon called to them all. ‘We will never be so vulnerable again.’ He looked back to the bodies by the river and then ahead, to where hills lay in the distance. Persia stretched for half the world, but they would march out, he swore it.
With an enraged enemy still swarming on the other bank, Xenophon ordered the square onward. There was no opportunity to fill their waterskins, not with archers waiting, furious and humiliated at the way they had been fooled. Instead, the Greeks strode on dry-mouthed, across ground that showed a trace of green. They trudged all day and when the remaining Persian horsemen showed themselves at last on the rear trail, they had horses and javelins to keep them back.
By the time the sun was setting once again, they had lost the sense of excitement from the morning. Hunger and thirst were the greatest problems, though it seemed there would be shelter that night. The scouts had reported an abandoned city, at the edge of their range. They saw the walls growing before them for hours, until they marched right through an ancient breach in the wall, over a spill of broken stones.
The streets were dusty and there was no sign of life. It was a vast place to be so quiet, though long-tailed lizards skittered across every wall, leaping in fear at the presence of men where there had been silence for so long. All those who could hunt went out in bands around the city, trapping anything alive they could find. One such group encountered a leopard and saw a man badly mauled before they speared it. Others brought pigeons down and the rattle of stones sounded across the city as the slingers continued to practise, determined to be the threat they had only pretended before.
Xenophon found a great pyramid in a square in the city, some sixty paces high. He could see no entrance and had no explanation for its existence there. One of his captains handed him what seemed to be a glass lens, shaped like the rounded eye of a fish, just lying in the dust of the road. There were bones preserved inside some of the buildings and pieces of bronze armour lying there that had once protected a warrior. The city had known disaster at some point in the past, unimaginably far back.
The Greeks had captured prisoners at the river, keeping a dozen men alive to be interrogated. Xenophon ordered the first one killed as an example to the rest, then questioned them all evening, while his soldiers handed over food to the women of the camp. Fires were kindled with ancient wood, so dry it roared to life with just a spark of flint and iron. The smell of frying meat filled their mouths with saliva, and though there was no wine, they found clay jugs that had once contained it and a well of clear water. Mixing the two made a drink that was not completely unpleasant and had at least a memory of the grape.
One of the prisoners claimed the city was named Larisa, while another said it was Nimrud, which had once been a capital for the Medes. It all had to be translated by those who knew both languages and it was a slow business. Xenophon walked along the crest of the city walls while the prisoners babbled about the king’s forces below. He had promised them their lives in exchange for all they knew. The stakes were survival and he felt no pang of guilt over ordering life or death. He told them so, quietly and clearly. With one of their number already lying on the dusty stones, they believed him and sang like birds.
He heard a whistle and looked up to see Hephaestus and Pallakis, man and woman rising to the level of the wall’s crown by way of stone steps set into the side. Xenophon sighed to himself, though he smiled at them. Clearchus had never mentioned that leading people meant so little time alone, but that seemed to be the way of it. Xenophon knew Socrates enjoyed the company of others, the old man seeming to grow brighter and more alive in a crowd. For his part, Xenophon found simple conversation a strain. He preferred to have a serious purpose, to use his wits and his strength to solve each problem as it came. He wondered briefly if he should send the pair away. Once again, the beauty of a woman changed his mind. The city was a place of death and silence for the most part, eerie in all the centuries it had seen. Pallakis had a mass of black curls that she wore in a halo that day, so that she seemed almost a Medusa in the breeze.
‘I asked to see you, Xenophon,’ Pallakis said.
‘Really,’ Xenophon replied, glancing at Hephaestus. The young Athenian looked as infatuated as any puppy. Xenophon surprised himself with a twinge of envy as Pallakis touched the younger man’s arm. He thought he showed them nothing, but had a suspicion Pallakis was probably good at reading men.
Xenophon sighed.
‘My lady, I need …’ He caught himself before he caused offence, remembering the discipline he saw in the Spartans. He had to lead. If that meant the end of privacy, he would accept it. ‘My lady, what would you have of me?’
‘Merely your company, general,’ she said. ‘The people are afraid – and fearful men and women make poor companions. I wished to talk about our chances.’
Xenophon chuckled and shook his head.
‘I would be a poor general if I said they were low, would I not? Yet I can’t tell the future, not even as well as the humblest oracle.’
His smile faded as he saw the strain in her. He spoke more seriously.
‘I will not fail for want of effort. I swear to you, I will be responsible for every man, woman and child who came to this place. They are my people, Pallakis. Clearchus would not abandon them in a foreign field, to be slaughtered or made slaves. Neither will I, while I have breath in me.’ He waited until she nodded, accepting his oath. ‘I will ask all they can give. I ask the same of myself. Beyond that …’ Xenophon looked into the distance and stiffened, so that both Hephaestus and Pallakis turned to where he shaded his eyes.
A force of Persian infantry could be seen far away. It seemed King Artaxerxes had given up expecting their surrender, or relying on a small force of archers to bring them down. A huge number of regiments marched towards the abandoned city as a stain on the land, a summer storm.
‘How many men?’ Pallakis said, with awe in her voice.
‘Who can say? Eighty, ninety thousand? Even then, it is not all. Which is strange.’
‘Perhaps the king has returned to his palaces,’ Hephaestus said. ‘He won the battle, after all. He’ll go home to parades and feasts.’
Xenophon was surprised to find he agreed with the sentiment.
‘I hope so. If he has, it is to our benefit.’ A thought struck him and he winced. ‘Unless he leads another army as large on the other side of the city. Would you run and see, Hephaestus, please?’
The man who had once jeered at him in an Athenian market raced back to the steps and vanished without another word. Xenophon smiled slightly in satisfaction. Nothing moulded a man more than war, for good or ill.
In that instant, he realised he was alone with the prince’s mistress for the first time. She seemed to know his thoughts had turned to the personal, even while he was watching the enemy trudge towards the city.
‘Are you married, general?’ she asked.
Xenophon coughed and went red. ‘Ah, no, sorry. No, I am not married. I de
voted my life to politics, in support of Sparta. It was not … a popular decision in Athens. Somehow, all opportunities passed me by during that time.’ He squinted again at the enemy, reassuring himself they would not arrive at the city before darkness. ‘I have tried … to find the best way to live, the best way to spend these few years we are given by the gods. To that end, I dedicated myself to great teachers and to crafts like horsemanship and managing an estate. I have been a student of Socrates, for four years now.’
‘I do not know the name,’ she said, deflating him. ‘But this study of how best to live – you did not see a wife as part of that?’
She seemed genuinely surprised. He blushed further and cleared his throat into his closed hand.
‘No, I did not. I will give some thought to it, my lady.’ He shook off the strange mood and spoke with more certainty. ‘For now, we must prepare either to move on or to defend a dead city.’
He took her hand and she let him guide her to the top of the steps. Pallakis was smiling when he looked at her, intrigued by a man far more interesting than she had expected. She had decided to encourage his obvious interest in her, as one who could keep her safe and protect her status. She had not expected to feel a flutter as he took her hand. It was odd. She admired men like Cyrus or Clearchus. They seemed to suffer no doubt in their own strength. Yet it was men who struggled that made her fall in love. Pallakis knew herself very well and as she stepped down to the city square, she urged caution to her inner voice. She wished to be needed, was the truth of it. She sensed Xenophon was desperately lonely and needed her very much indeed. The idea was intoxicating.
Xenophon slept on the wall. His stomach had shrunk and his head throbbed, but he was determined not to complain while so many others were going hungry. The last of the hunters’ haul was shared out that evening. He could smell meat roasting on fires made from ancient furniture, dry as the desert winds that howled around the city. From where he rested, he could see Persian campfires like sparks spread across the blackness.
The Falcon of Sparta Page 30