Sunset of the Gods

by Steve White

  “Not before that?” inquired Mondrago with a frown. “If you could get there earlier, and secure the beach—”

  “No. That was something even Miltiades had to concede. We can’t be absolutely certain the Persians will land at Marathon, even though everything points to it. No, we have to wait until it’s confirmed. Then we’ll march, with every available man. Speaking of which,” Themistocles continued without a break, “about your own military obligation. . . .”

  “Yes, Strategos?” Jason had been waiting for this. One of the peculiarities of the Athenian system was that metoikoi, while denied practically all political rights, were liable for military service. “We naturally expect to serve the city that has so generously taken us in, as ekdromoi.” The term referred to light-armed infantry, not very numerous and with a marginal role. The hoplites who made up the phalanx were members of the three uppermost property-owning classes, who could afford a panoply of armor and weapons costing seventy-five to a hundred drachmas, which was what a skilled worker could expect to make in three months. Jason was fairly confident that his and Mondrago’s broad-spectrum expertise with low-tech weapons should enable them to function as hoplites, but that wasn’t what they were here for. As skirmishers, around the fringes of the battle, they should be able to observe with minimal risk. More importantly, now, they would be in a position to watch for Transhumanist intervention.

  “Ordinarily, that would be true,” Themistocles nodded. “And in fact it is true in your case, Alexander. Coming from Macedon, you ought to be familiar with that kind of fighting.” The remark held a note of unconscious condescension. The Thracians whom “Alexander” would naturally have fought were noted for hit-and-run skirmishing by light infantry called peltastes. It was looked down on by the southern Greeks, for whom real warfare meant the head-on clash of phalanxes composed of the Right Kind of People—which, Landry had speculated, was why the role of light troops at Marathon had always been ignored by historians. “But you, Jason, as a Macedonian nobleman . . . well, it would hardly be fitting for you not to take your place in the phalanx.”

  Jason groaned inwardly. He hadn’t thought of this. He should have, for it went to the heart of the paradox of Classical Athens. Politically, it had the most radically democratic constitution in human history, a record it continued to hold in the twenty-fourth century. Socially, it was class-conscious to a degree that might have seemed just a bit much in Victorian England.

  “Ah . . . Strategos, I have no armor, and no weapons other than my sword, and am in no position to supply myself with them.” There was, Jason knew, no such thing as “government issue.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Themistocles said expansively. “Remember, over the last twenty years, we Athenians have captured a lot of equipment in our victories over the Thebans and Chalcians. Most of it has been put on the market—a good thing, as it’s reduced the prices and enabled more of our men to afford it. But there’s a reserve of equipment, to be supplied at public expense to the sons of men who’ve met an honorable death in battle.” Jason knew of the custom. He had wondered how the distribution was organized. Themistocles proceeded to enlighten him. “As strategos of the Leontis tribe, I have control of a portion of that reserve, for our people.” He winked broadly. “I’ve always felt I have a certain latitude in exercising my discretion with regard to that portion.”

  No doubt, thought Jason drily. Aloud: “But, Strategos, I belong to no Athenian tribe.” This, he knew, was an important point. The phalanx was organized by tribes, for the Greeks understood something that had eluded various bureaucrats throughout history. Men do not face the pain, death, and simple horror of combat for nationalistic abstractions, and they assuredly do not do it because some politician has made a speech. They do it for the other men in their unit. Never—not even in a Roman legion or in a regiment of the old British army—had this been more true than in a phalanx, where every man depended on the others, for if one man’s cowardice broke the shield-line, all were dead. In the Roman legion or the British regiment, such solidarity was instilled by discipline, training, and unit traditions. In a phalanx it was inherent; the men to either side of you were men of your tribe, known to you from childhood and linked to you by kinship ties. To break ranks in their sight was unthinkable.

  “Don’t worry, Jason,” Themistocles assured him, growing serious. “You’ll stand with the Leontis tribe. I know it’s a little irregular.” (Not that you’ve ever let that stop you, Jason thought.) “But I’ll tell those men that you have reason to hate these Persians who made slaves of your people and a puppet of your king. They’ll know you can be relied on.”

  I hope they’re right, Jason thought bleakly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jason lifted the little white-ground ceramic vase called a lekythos. It held the ashes of Bryan Landry.

  Themistocles had arranged the cremation—an acceptable though non-compulsory rite. They had placed the traditional coins over the eyes—a tip for Charon, the ferryman who would convey the spirit across the River Styx into Hades. Due to their ambivalent status in Athens, and the general social disruption, they had been able to short-circuit the customary preliminaries of anointing the body with oils and wrapping it in waxed cloths. Nor, for the same reasons, were they under any pressure to have the lekythos interred in the Ceramicus beyond the wall. Jason intended to have it with him when their TRDs activated. Naturally Landry’s own TRD—indestructible by mere fire—now lay, invisibly small, in the ashes at the bottom of the cremation oven and would appear on the displacer stage.

  So would Chantal Frey’s TRD. Jason had left it with Themistocles for safekeeping, concealed in melted wax at the bottom of one of the small pyxides, or cosmetics-holding covered jars, that were among her possessions. Jason was grimly determined that it would arrive in the twenty-fourth century clutched in her living hand.

  The second expedition in a row when I’ve gotten somebody killed, he thought, knowing how unreasonable the self-reproach was but unable to dismiss it. It’s getting to be a habit.

  It wasn’t the only thing preying on Jason’s mind. Whether or not any of them got back alive, the Authority had to be made aware that a Transhumanist underground was operating an unlawful temporal displacer. His plan had been to hire a local bronzesmith to hammer a message—unreadable by anyone of this milieu—onto a thin sheet of bronze, which he would deposit in this expedition’s message drop, located on the slopes of Mount Pentelikon. But he’d had no opportunity. Besides, in Athens’s current miasma of fear and paranoia, what was obviously writing in an unknown language and alphabet would surely draw suspicion onto the head of a foreigner like himself.

  “It’s time,” he heard Mondrago say. He nodded. The great beacon-fire atop Mount Pentelikon had been sighted, confirming that the Persians were landing at Marathon.

  They stepped out into the early morning coolness that unfortunately wouldn’t last, and moved toward the Agora with all the other mustering men. Athens’ unique economy, with over half of its wheat supplies imported and stored in granaries, had made it possible to concentrate the army at a central location rather than having to call men in from farms all over Attica. This, in turn, made the strategy of a rapid response to the Persian landing possible. Slaves carried the armor and weapons; the miserably uncomfortable fifty-to-seventy-pound hoplite panoply was intended to be donned no sooner before battle than was absolutely necessary, especially in the August heat. Of course, ekdromoi like Mondrago marched in their own lighter equipage of small round shields, leather shirts, slings, and two javelins, with light helmets hanging from the waist for travel.

  As they descended the steps between the South Stoa and the fountain house and entered the Agora, Jason searched for the Leontis muster, hoping to spot Themistocles among the throngs. As he stood looking around, an older man approached him.

  “You’re Jason, the man from Macedon, aren’t you? Rejoice! I’m Callicles, of the Leontis tribe. The strategos Themistocles—he’s done a good
turn or two for my family—asked me to look you up and sort of give you any help you may need, since you’re new here.”

  Which, Jason thought, was damned nice of Themistocles. In the not-exactly-open society of the Athenian tribes, having a buddy in the ranks would help an outsider like himself to no end. He studied Callicles with interest. He already knew that hoplites were liable for active duty up to sixty, with no concessions of any kind to their age, and Callicles was fifty if he was a day—a much riper age than it was in Jason’s world. But he looked like a tough old bird.

  “Thanks,” Jason said. “I know I’ll be grateful to have you around, not being a member of the Leontis tribe at all.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Callicles reassured him. “Themistocles told us about you. He explained that you’re a well-born soldier in your own country.” Not a tradesman like most metoikoi in Athens, was left unsaid. “Some of the men’s sense of humor may be a little rough around the edges, I grant you. But nobody will really give you a hard time. Come on. We’re over here.” As he turned and led Jason toward his fellows of the Leontis, he spoke to Mondrago over his shoulder, as an afterthought. “The ekdromoi are over there,” he said shortly.

  Jason saw Mondrago make a gesture in the direction of Callicles’ back—a gesture he suspected was a very old one in Corsica.

  They joined the Leontis ranks, and Callicles greeted various fellow veterans of numerous campaigns in defense of the Athenian democracy. As he did, Jason noticed a knot of older men off to the side, surrounding a much younger man wearing only a loincloth and a headband. They seemed to be giving him last-minute instructions. A gooseflesh-raising thought occurred to Jason: Could that possibly be . . . ? Moved by a sudden impulse, he turned to Callicles. “Who is that young man over there?”

  “Pheidippides. You wouldn’t know about him, not being from Athens. He’s the best runner we’ve got. We’re sending him to Sparta to ask for their help.” Callicles spat expressively and rubbed his grizzled beard. “Small chance, if you ask me. But even the Spartans ought to be smart enough to see that they’re next, after throwing those Persian emissaries down a well.”

  Jason stared, and brought up information from his implant. Pheidippides was in his late teens or early twenties, tall and long-legged, with barely an ounce of body fat overlaying muscles that were long and flowing rather than massive and knotted. He looked like what he was: one of the greatest long-distance runners the human species would ever produce. For he would run the one hundred and forty miles of rough, winding, hilly roads to Sparta in two days—something a few athletes would duplicate starting in the late twentieth century, wearing high-tech running shoes and served by numerous watering stations. Then he would turn around and return to Athens in the same incredible time. And then he would fight in the Battle of Marathon. And then—if legend was to be believed—he would carry the news of victory the twenty-six miles to Athens in full armor, with an urgency that caused him to fall dead after gasping, “Rejoice! We conquer!” The last part had given rise to the Marathon race of the modern Olympic games (whose runners were not required to wear armor), but modern historians had been inclined to pooh-pooh it, asserting that Pheidippides’s run to Sparta had become confused in popular imagination with the Athenian hoplites’ rapid march back to Athens from Marathon after the battle. Rutherford wanted them to settle the question.

  But there was another story that was somewhat more relevant to their present situation. On his return run from Sparta to Athens, on the heights just this side of Tegea, Pheidippides would afterwards swear that the god Pan had appeared, greeted him by name, and asked why the Athenians did not worship him, promising to aid them in the coming battle if they would do so henceforth. Historians had naturally written this off as an exhaustion-induced hallucination. It was, Jason reflected, an assumption they might just have to rethink.

  He was, however, puzzled about one thing: how was Franco going to get his pet “god” to the Tegea heights, roughly two thirds of the way to Sparta, for the occasion? Even assuming that they had already departed, travel by daylight would be out of the question, as Pan was not exactly inconspicuous.

  But then there was no time to dwell on the matter further, for Themistocles was bawling orders and the roughly nine hundred strong muster of the Leontis tribe was shaking itself into marching order. Jason consulted his implant’s calendar function. It was August 5.

  The optic display read August 7 as Jason leaned on the camp’s earthen defensive barrier, still drenched with sweat under the early afternoon August sun even though he was now out of his armor, and gazed out over the plain of Marathon.

  He had always regarded himself—accurately—as being in excellent physical condition. It had been fortunate that he was, for the hoplites had marched from Athens to Marathon at a pace he was surprised that Callicles and the rest of the older men could sustain. Hoplites, he was learning, were very, very tough—especially the hoplites of Athens, who had been at war more or less continuously in defense of their fledgling democracy for almost twenty years. These men might not be professional soldiers—unlike the Spartans, they had day jobs, normally in agriculture, the only really respectable occupation for men of their class—but all of them except the very youngest were seasoned veterans.

  They had arrived in time, while the Persians were still organizing themselves on their beachhead, amid the inevitable chaos of all amphibious landings. They had deployed across the two roads to Athens in a strong defensive position, facing northeast from rising ground with the higher wooded slopes of Mount Agriliki behind them and a temple of Heracles with its sacred grove shielding their right flank. Callimachus and Miltiades—who seemed to function as unofficial chief of staff cum operations officer, not that either term existed in this era—had set them to work establishing a fortified camp. From there they could look out across a scene that Jason was sure caused these men, brought up on Homer, to imagine what the defenders of Troy must have witnessed.

  The beach curved away to the northeast, where the bay was sheltered by a rocky promontory called the “Dog’s Tail.” For miles, that beach was black with six hundred ships hauled up on the sand. About half of these were triremes—fighting galleys that could have overwhelmed Athens’s seventy-trireme fleet had the Athenians been suicidal enough to commit it. The rest were transports of various kinds, including fifty specialized ones that carried twenty horses each. The almost fifty thousand rowers and other sailors stayed on or near the ships. Just inland from the base of the promontory was a marsh. Between it and the Athenian position stretched a flat, barren plain, hemmed in by hills and divided into northern and southern halves by the Chardra, a stream mislabeled a river. To the southwest of the marsh, just inland from the narrow sandy beach, was the vast Persian camp, three miles from where Jason stood, pullulating with thousands and thousands of outlandishly clad invaders. Jason’s practiced eye confirmed the modern estimate of their numbers, which meant the Athenians were outnumbered about three to one, even counting their light troops (which almost nobody ever did) and the addition of almost a thousand hoplites who had arrived, to vociferous cheers, from the small city-state of Plataea—its entire levy. It wasn’t a large reinforcement, but it was the only help the Athenians were to get, and Landry had mentioned that Athenian gratitude to the Plataeans would endure for generations.

  Then a stalemate had commenced. Something like a ritual had been established. The Greeks would form up their line in the morning, with light troops like Mondrago carrying forward abittis cut from the trees on the slopes to shield the phalanx’s flanks. The Persians would also form up, and their dread cavalry would ride forth in their colorful trousered costumes, perform show-off caracoles, and shout taunts—the language was incomprehensible, but the tone was unmistakable—at the Greeks, who had no archers to respond. It was, of course, intended to draw the Greeks out, off the high ground and onto the plain. The Greeks would not rise to the bait; and the Persians, armed for raiding and not for shock tactics, would not v
enture to charge uphill against the shield line. And thus another day’s morning ceremonies would conclude.

  Jason became aware of Mondrago at his side. The Corsican was bathed in sweat even though he hadn’t been encased in hoplite armor. “This is ox shit,” he said with feeling.

  “You look tired,” said Jason solicitously.

  “Tired? You’d be tired too. All you hoplites have to do is go through this morning charade, then sit on your asses the rest of the day while we ekdromoi go out on patrol!”

  My God! thought Jason. Is Athenian class consciousness getting to him?

  “But,” Mondrago continued, calming down a little, “I’m sure Callimachus and Miltiades are happy as clams at high tide.”

  “How so?” asked Jason, who thought precisely the same thing but was curious to see if Mondrago had come to the same conclusion by the same path.

  Mondrago waved an arm in the direction of the Persians. “They can’t sit here forever. The food supplies for that horde must be getting used up fast, and they’ve been trying to gather some locally. Remember what I said about going out on patrol? At least I’ve been getting some practice with my sling. We’ve been going out into the hills to keep them from foraging—us and the horsemen.”