The Lost Army (24 page)

‘I am Chirisophus of Sparta and I ask you to entrust me with the command of this army in Clearchus’s place. You will be able to count on me by day and by night, through heat and cold, whether you’re healthy or ill. I will run every risk, I will face every threat and every danger and – by all the gods in the heavens and the Underworld – I’ll take you home, I swear it!’

In any other situation, his words would have been greeted by a resounding roar of enthusiasm, but the men’s uncertainty was too great, their doubts too many. The warriors realized what kind of hardships they would be up against and they knew already that many of them would fall. The Chera of death was already marking with black fog those she had chosen to drag back with her to Hades. Very few voices rose to acclaim his speech.

Sophos began again. ‘I know what you’re feeling now, but I swear to you that I will keep my promises. We shall vote now! Those in favour of my proposition come forward and touch the shaft of my spear. If the majority of you do not have confidence in me, I will gladly obey the man that you choose in my place. But before the third shift of guard duty begins, this army must have a commander or we’ll be all dead within days.’

I was thinking of what Clearchus and Agias, Proxenus and Socrates must be going through. But I couldn’t get my mind off Menon. He who had described the atrocity of the tortures used by the Persians with such frightening realism, he was their victim now. I felt terrible for him, I had a knot in my throat, a hole at the bottom of my stomach that made me shake. What colour was his pure white cloak now? What remained of his statuesque body?

Xeno was the first to touch the shaft of Sophos’s spear. Next was Agasias and then Glous, and Neon, who looked him straight in the eye as he did. The other officers lined up and, one by one, did the same.

I couldn’t bear to just stand there and watch that long line of men who were electing their new commanders. I needed to know more about the men we’d lost. I wanted to be able to tell Melissa, who must have been going mad with the uncertainty of not knowing.

I don’t know how I found the courage but I managed to sneak off and to reach the banks of the Tigris. I stripped off, tying my gown around my waist, and slipped into the water, letting the current carry me off. The moon in the sky was almost full and the river glittered with myriad reflections. The water was warm and comforting. It didn’t take long to reach the point where the pavilion stood. It was a large tent like the ones used by the desert nomads, erected on poles and a system of braces. There were no other structures as far as the eye could see; that had to be where the ambush had taken place. There were still people inside; I could see their shadows in the lamplight, and the sentries had lit a fire on the southern side.

I swam to the bank and crawled over the ground so as not to be seen, because there were large groups of Persian horsemen scattered around the tent for quite some distance. The progression of events leading up to the attack soon became clear to me. The riverbank was all trampled upon; there were what looked like hundreds of footprints and muddy tracks leading all the way to the tent. Alongside me were a great number of reeds cut to a length of about one cubit. They were strewn all over the terrain. I picked one up and blew into it: it was hollow.

I understood all at once where the ambush had come from: the river! The attackers were hiding under water, disguised by the floating water weed. They were using the reeds to breathe through. They must have leapt suddenly out of the water after our men had already gone into the tent. They’d killed the guards our commanders had posted outside, probably at a distance, using arrows. Maybe they were the same soldiers who were patrolling the territory now. I waited there, lying in the mud, for a long time, until the moon started sinking in the night sky.

Then I saw them come out!

There was a line of prisoners shackled together, and a Persian officer was securing the first man’s chains to a horse’s saddle. I couldn’t recognize them because I was too far away, but I dared not go any closer. I waited until they had been led away and all the horsemen had disappeared, and then I crept up to the abandoned tent. Lying outside were the unburied bodies of our soldiers which had been mutilated by the Persians and left to the jackals. Soon the only thing left of those lads – who just a day before were so full of pluck – would be their bones.

I looked inside the tent, but the lamps were gone and I could see nothing but murky darkness.

I started walking back at a quick pace, keeping to the left bank of the river, and I reached our camp before daybreak.

Sophos had been acclaimed commander by the great majority of the warriors. The other officers who had fallen in the ambush were simply replaced by a show of hands: Agasias the Stymphalian, Timas the Dardanian, Xanthi the Achaean and Cleanor the Arcadian were chosen, in addition to Xeno. By the time they had finished the sun was rising.

No one had slept, no one had eaten. Those lads had nothing in them but a desperate will to survive.

M
ELISSA DRIED HER TEARS
and tried to stop sobbing. ‘Are you sure it was them?’ she asked.

‘I’m certain. It was too dark to see their faces, but there were five of them and they were wearing Greek military tunics. I recognized them from the way they were walking. Who else could it have been?’

‘You didn’t hear anything? A word, a signal?’

‘No, I was too far away and I was afraid to get any closer. I stayed crouched down in the river mud so they wouldn’t see me, but once they had left, I saw what they left behind. The horror that wounded my eyes will be with me in my nightmares for the rest of my life.’

‘Did you see signs of torture?’

‘I told you, it was dark. The inside of the pavilion was pitch-black.’

‘If you had told me, I would have come with you.’

‘It’s better you didn’t. You might not have been able to control yourself, and we both would have been in trouble.’

‘Answer me honestly: do you think there is any chance that anyone has survived?’

‘What I think doesn’t matter. Fate has dragged us into events which are bigger than we are, and we’re like bits of straw in a windstorm. But if you want to hear my opinion, I think there is very little probability that anyone survived, but if anyone managed, it would be Menon.’

Melissa’s face lit up and I instantly felt badly for raising her hopes. ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked.

‘I do, but I’m afraid what I think doesn’t count. They’re in a desperate situation. But Menon is the shrewdest and most intelligent of them all, and he never loses his head. The only way they’ll get him is if they kill him right away and don’t give him the chance to think his way out, or after he’s already tried everything. If there is a single chance for him to save himself, he’ll find it. Don’t torment yourself so, and think about surviving yourself; it’s not going to be easy for you either from now on.’

Melissa dropped her head. ‘I know. With Menon gone, I’m easy prey again. You know, Abira, what I do in life and which arts I’ve perfected. But Menon defended me without asking for anything in exchange. I was the one who asked him to make love to me, to stay beside me in my bed. He almost seemed reluctant to accept.’

‘Maybe because he loved you, and he knew how likely it was that he would die and have to leave you alone without protection. He wanted you to be free to use the only truly powerful weapon you possess: your beauty.’

I stayed with her until she fell asleep. As I walked back towards my tent, crossing behind the horse pen, I saw Sophos inspecting the guard when Neon came up and pulled him away, towards the pen. I stopped and stood stock-still; I had a feeling that something strange was about to happen. Neon was saying something. Sophos listened and seemed quite shaken; he reacted harshly and started to walk away, but Neon held on to his arm. I heard Neon shout, ‘Those are your orders and you have no choice!’ Then they started to quarrel heatedly in a dialect I couldn’t understand. Neon left then and Sophos remained alone. He folded his arms on the fence and rested his head on them as if he were being crushed by an unbearable thought. I held my breath. He was so close I could hear him panting. Then he lifted his head suddenly and gave the stake a great punch, cursing. He walked off in long strides.

We set off as soon as we could, but all that day and the next we suffered continual attacks. The enemy wanted to see how easy it might be to wear down our resistance and to test the morale of our headless army. They soon realized they’d bitten off more than they could chew, but it was evident that we were vulnerable to attacks from their cavalry. As long as Ariaeus had been on our side, his horsemen had covered us, as had Cyrus’s. They were the best of the ruling class, young men who were extremely loyal and courageous. But we obviously couldn’t count on them now, and every time our warriors reacted to an attack, the Persians would swiftly and easily ride off beyond the range of our spears.

Sophos kept his promise not to leave anyone behind. Anyone who was wounded or fell ill was well cared for. I wondered how he’d be able to keep his word when there were dozens, or hundreds, of men injured. Nicarchus of Arcadia journeyed with us, stretched out in a wagon. His belly was as swollen as a wineskin and as hard as leather, but every time we stopped to rest the surgeon would probe his wound with a silver tube and drain the evil humours from his bowels. His fever was very high, and the heat of the sun added to that of his body made him delirious. All night he groaned, and many of his comrades found themselves wishing that he would die, to end his agony and their own. I was sure that somewhere, a long way away, there was a person hoping with all their heart that he would come back, praying every day to a god to protect him from the countless perils of his profession and bring him home safe and sound. Those hopes and prayers deserved to be answered, because they were like Melissa’s thoughts for Menon, like mine for Xeno when he was not with me.

The idea of thwarting fate gave me great satisfaction, and I worked hard to help Nicarchus battle against death who, like a jackal, prowled around his wagon at night, eager to carry him off to the land of listless ghosts.

We crossed a river on a bridge of boats and proceeded in the direction of an abandoned city the locals called Al Sarruti.

I realized that there were quite a few women travelling with the expedition; a long line of them walked alongside the wagons being used for the wounded. They were all very young and scared to death in such a precarious situation. Some of them were pregnant, and I wondered how they would be able to make it through long marches and endure privation and hardships of every kind. The men who were their lovers or whose keeping they were in would certainly have preferred not to put them through such strenuous conditions, but the women had no choice, except for migrating to the enemy camp, which must have seemed altogether too dangerous.

The difficulties were beginning now, that much was clear. What we’d experienced until that moment was nothing; we’d had food and drink, at least, and we’d had our commanders, men who inspired courage and always made the right decisions. I knew that just because I was in love with Xeno, that didn’t mean that he was equal to the task he’d set out to accomplish. Could he really lead his comrades to safety? Sophos impressed me as being up to the job, now that he’d come out into the open. But there was something he was hiding, something he wouldn’t say. Maybe other men would emerge, others who had remained in the background until then.

One evening as I was cooking dinner with the little we had left to us, I told Xeno about the night of the ambush, how I swam down the river until I reached the pavilion and saw our generals dragged away in chains. I told him I’d discovered how the enemy had surprised them by lying in wait under the water, breathing through reeds.

My story upset him: he couldn’t believe I’d done something that only a man could do to his mind. But what disturbed him most was the reason why I’d done it: to bring Melissa news of the man she loved, even though that man was Menon of Thessaly, whom Xeno despised.

‘Are you going to write about your disdain for him in your diary?’ I asked.

‘Certainly,’ he replied, ‘every man will have the fame he deserves.’

‘But you’re the one who’s deciding what kind of fame he deserves, and that’s not fair. What do you know of his life? Haven’t you ever thought that back in your city someone might be writing even worse things about you?’

Xeno seemed astonished, perhaps more because I was able to formulate such a statement in Greek than for the substance of what I’d said.

I told him about the other scene I’d witnessed, the quarrel between Neon and Sophos, but he seemed not to grant it any importance. It was nothing to fret about, he said, certainly just some minor difference in opinion. I couldn’t stop worrying about it, though. I’d never seen Sophos in such a state.

I remained awake that night long after Xeno had fallen asleep. I was looking out towards the west, towards the land I’d come from, when I saw strange shapes passing in the darkness, shadows that quickly slipped away. I thought I could hear voices as well from somewhere in the distance.

There were boats on the Tigris.

I looked over at Melissa’s wagon, covered by a tent, and wondered what would become of her. I listened to the shrieking of the night birds and imagined that I was hearing the cries of our commanders, tortured and killed, angry ghosts crossing the threshold of the night.