The Lost Army (33 page)

I can remember what Sophos said then. ‘Let us eat and drink . . . tomorrow . . .’ A sudden wind came up just then, carrying away his last words. But Xeno completed them, because they were the same words spoken by the king who had chosen to fall with his men at the Fiery Gates, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall dine in Hades.’

When they had all gone back to their quarters, I brought Xeno a bowl of warm wine.

‘What will happen tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will they attack us again?’

‘As long as there’s a single one of them left and as long as he’s breathing.’

‘But why? Why can’t they just let us go? Can’t they understand it would be best for them?’

‘Do you mean that letting us pass would cost them infinitely less than trying to prevent us?’

‘Exactly. They’ve lost many men, without counting the wounded, and they’ll lose many more. What are they thinking? It’s worth your while to fight if you want to stop an enemy from entering your territory, but we’re already here and we want to leave and go somewhere else. They must know that a weapon that stays in your body will kill you, while a weapon that pierces cleanly from side to side will spare you if no vital organs are harmed. No one wants to die without a reason. How can you explain it?’

Xeno took a sip of wine and replied, ‘Remember what the interpreter told us? An army of the Great King invaded this land once and disappeared into nowhere. They’ve done this before and they’re doing it again, with us. They simply want the world to know that any army that enters their territory will be annihilated. So no more armies will invade their territory.’

‘What about Tissaphernes? He wanted to annihilate us too. For the same reason?’

Xeno nodded. ‘The same. Whoever enters can’t be let out.’

‘But why didn’t the Persians do it when they had us surrounded, without food or water? Why did they have to kill our commanders?’

Xeno shook his head.

‘And what about the interpreters? Where do they come from? Who sent them?’

‘I don’t know.’

I had insinuated the worm of doubt, as I had tried to do before our commanders went to meet with the Persians.

‘Take care, Xeno. Virtue can’t win against deceit.’

‘I hear you, but everyone is fighting with the same courage here; everyone is risking his life. Each one of my comrades, from the commander-in-chief to the last soldier, has my full trust. There’s another thing: no one has anything to gain from betrayal. The only way that we can hope to save ourselves is by each person doing his duty, playing his part in the whole of the army.’

‘That’s true,’ I replied, ‘but tell me this: is there someone who wants this army to disappear? Is there someone who will be badly damaged if the army returns?’

Xeno caught my eye for a moment with an inscrutable look. As if there were an unspeakable thought there, like the look that the Queen Mother’s servant girl had given me. I didn’t insist. I didn’t say another thing. It was something that he’d even listened to me. I helped him to take off his armour and went to fetch some water from the torrent so he could wash before he abandoned himself to slumber. I waited until he was sleeping to go and look for the pregnant girl. She was so tired she’d stretched out on the bare earth.

The wind was picking up, scattering pale white shapes across the sky. A horde of trembling ghosts, the dazed souls of those who were no longer with us.

‘G
ET UP,
’ I told her. ‘I’ll give you a sheepskin, and a blanket. You can use the mule’s pack to lay your head on.’

She started to cry. ‘I can’t make it. I’m going to lose the baby. Here, in these mountains, on these rocks.’

‘No, you’ll save him: he’s a son of the Ten Thousand, the little bastard, he’ll make it. And you’ll save yourself to save him. Or her. It might be a girl.’

‘It better not. Being born a female is the worst of fates.’

‘Being born is hard on anyone. How many of these young lads, yesterday, today, have lost their lives, how many will lose it soon! You and I are alive. Tell me, have you ever loved anyone?’

‘Loved? No. But I do know what you’re talking about. I would dream of him. I dreamed of a man who looked at me with enchantment in his eyes and made me feel beautiful. I’d wait for him to visit me as soon as I closed my eyes.’

‘And now? Doesn’t he come to visit you in your dreams?’

‘He’s dead. Death is the most powerful of dreams. Abira, will they bury us when we die? If you can, cover us with dirt and stones, don’t leave us to the beasts of the forest.’

‘Stop that. When someone dies they don’t care about anything.’

I took the sheepskin and blanket and helped her to settle down. I brought her the leftovers from our dinner that I’d hidden and a little wine to give her strength.

She dozed off and I hoped her young lover would come to visit behind her closed eyelids.

The moon rose from the mountains and lit up the valley. It glittered, reflected in a thousand sparks of silver, in the torrent that splashed and flowed over a bed of clean sand.

All I wanted was sleep, to stretch out exhausted next to Xeno, but instead I watched the warriors assigned to sentry duty. They must have been tired as little children, falling asleep on their feet, and yet there they stood in their metal shells, wrapped in the cloaks that had become as black as the night.

I would have liked to know what they were thinking.

The others were already asleep, with the last echoes of combat still in their ears. What were they dreaming of? A mother’s step, perhaps, carrying a fragrant, freshly baked loaf of bread.

There were stray dogs that had been following the army for some time, getting thinner and thinner because there was never anything left over for them. They howled sadly at the moon.

The wind blew from the coldest corners of the sky. It whipped lightly like a bird of prey rising from his nest among the snowy peaks, but the tent was tepid with Xeno’s warmth, his body was soft under the wool of his cloak and I fell asleep, snug and secure, dreaming of other countrysides, other sounds, other skies. The last thing I saw before dropping off was the hanger that held his armour: in the dark it looked like a fierce warrior awake and contemplating massacres among a sleeping multitude. The last sound I heard was the voice of a big river, a river of seething waters, rushing over barren boulders and through rocky gorges. The wind . . .

The wind had changed.

I
AWOKE BECAUSE OF
the bitter cold gnawing at my feet. I could see that they were outside the blanket and I sat up to cover them. Xeno was gone, and the hanger that bore his armour was empty.

I strained to hear and was struck by a strange sound, a confused buzzing and a distant neighing and snorting of horses. Then the long, mournful call of horns.

And dogs barking as they roamed starving through the camp.

I jumped to my feet, dressed and hurried out of the tent. A group of officers were galloping back and forth along the low ridge that covered the horizon to the north. At a short distance from where I was standing, the generals – Xanthi, Cleanor, Agasias, Timas and Xeno – were gathered around Sophos, fully armed, hands gripping the hilts of their spears, shields on the ground. They were holding council.

I saw the warriors pointing at something and turned to look: the peaks behind us were crawling with Carduchi. They were brandishing their pikes, and what I’d heard was their war horns blowing their implacable anger our way.

‘They’ll never go,’ said one. ‘We’ll never be rid of them.’

‘Then let’s wait here for them and get this over with once and for all,’ replied another.

‘They won’t come to us. They’ll stay up high so they can strike at a distant, roll boulders down on us, stage ambushes. They’ve learned their lesson: they hit and run, we can’t get a hook into them.’

‘Look! What’s happening over there?’ shouted a third.

Many of the soldiers were rushing to the ridge where the officers on horseback had paused to watch something that was happening in front of them. I ran in the same direction, holding a jug as if I wanted to fill it in the torrent. What I saw when I reached the ridge made my heart stop beating: there was a river that crossed the valley from west to east; the torrent running alongside our camp merely flowed into it. On the other side of the river an entire army was drawn up!

And these were not coarsely garbed shepherds. They were warriors wearing heavy armour, infantry and cavalrymen with leather cuirasses and leggings, and conical helmets with black and gold horsehair plumes.

There were thousands of them.

Their massive steeds pawed the ground, snorting clouds of steam from their nostrils.

We were trapped. Caught between the mountain and the raging river, with a horde of implacable warriors at our backs and a powerful army facing us on the opposite shore. They had arrived just in time to cut off our passage, while the Carduchi – who we’d fooled ourselves into thinking we’d left behind – were right at our heels, more numerous and warlike than ever. How was such a thing possible? Who could have coordinated two armies from two different and hostile nations with such precision? A thousand thoughts and disturbing suspicions flooded my mind at once, and I was gripped at the same time by a feeling even more distressing than simple helplessness: even if our commanders were thinking the same thoughts as I was, there was no way out of this. No amount of planning or plotting would help. Only the gods – if they existed and if they cared about us – could release us from the plight that we found ourselves in.

I could overhear two of the officers on horseback, not far from me. Their cloaks were whipped by the wind, bright red against the muddy sky. They were scowling. Their words seemed no different from my thoughts.

‘This time there’s nothing we can do. It’s over.’

‘Don’t say that! Do you want to jinx us? Who are those jokers anyway? They’re not Persians, but they’re not Medes or Assyrians either.’

‘They’re Armenians.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The battalion commander said so.’

‘Our weapons are better, and heavier.’

‘But we have the Carduchi behind us. They’re willing to fight down to their last man.’

‘So are we.’

‘Right. So are we.’

Timas arrived at a gallop.

‘What shall we do, Commander?’ asked the first of the two officers.

‘It’s not as bad as it seems.’

‘It’s not?’

‘No.’

‘Who says?’

‘Commander Chirisophus.’

‘Who has a certain sense of humour, that’s what everyone says.’

‘What’s more, he’s a Spartan. They’re good at desperate situations. I’m not so optimistic.’

‘Nor am I,’ chimed in the other officer.

‘Wait, listen to me,’ said Timas. ‘The Carduchi know that if they try to come down from those mountains we’ll chop them to pieces. Actually, that’s exactly what we’d like them to do: just let them try, and we’ll finally be done with all their endless harassment. The valley is so wide here that they won’t be able to roll any of their stones down on us. But then there are those over there. They’re our real problem.’

‘What about the river? I’d say that’s a problem as well.’

‘True,’ replied Timas. ‘The council has decided that the only way to go is to ford the river, attack them and force them into a rout before the Carduchi decide to come down. When we’ve got a river between us the savages won’t be able to bother us any longer.’

‘When?’

‘Now. We have breakfast and then we attack. We’ll need every bit of strength we’ve got.’

Timas turned his horse and headed back towards camp. The bugle sounded to call the men to eat.

‘Right. So we have some breakfast, cross to the other side, cut them to pieces, then go on our way,’ mused the first officer. ‘What’ll it take? Sounds easy. But wait, how deep is the water?’

‘Let’s see,’ replied the second. He got off his horse and walked towards the river. The other followed and covered him with his shield as they advanced towards the middle of the current. The Armenians kept their distance and didn’t seem interested in what they were doing at all. Perhaps they already knew why.

I instantly imagined why myself. ‘Careful!’ I cried out, at the very moment when the first of the two lost his footing and was carried off by the current. The second tried to grab him, but he slipped as well, and I saw them floundering in the swirling waves, trying desperately to grab onto any handhold. The horses whinnied, pawed the ground and flew off down the river bank with their reins dangling between their legs, following their masters.

I started to shout, ‘Help them! Over there, in that direction!’ Some of the soldiers realized what had happened and galloped at breakneck speed along the bank, but they soon drew up short. They had to give up, powerless to still the hand of fate.

S
OPHOS WAS SERIOUS
about his intentions. As soon as they’d had breakfast the army drew up and formed ranks behind a front about fifty men long. They marched rapidly towards the river. A few remained behind to protect the camp and to guard from an attack from the rear by the Carduchi, who were still shouting and sounding their war horns. They seemed to be increasing in number.