Killer Of Men Part 24

As it turned out, I had Herk as my file-leader. Of course, as helmsman, he was an officer I was unused to taking orders, which may seem a foolish comment from a former slave, but it was true. Still, I did well enough, and the men in my file were all veterans, at least of some raids and a siege or two, and I had plenty to learn about camping and eating and keeping clean. I was amazed at how much time the Athenians spent on their gear polis.h.i.+ng and cleaning with pumice and tallow and sc.r.a.ps of tow, every spare moment.

Agios was my file-closer in the eighth rank. He was a well-known man, and at sea he was a helmsman far too important to serve in the front rank and get killed, or so I understood. He and Herk were peers, and good friends. Later, they were my friends, but on the march to Sardis, Agios had few good words for me. Even as I was amazed at how hard the Athenians worked on their gear, so Agios was disgusted with how careless I was with mine. It was there marching to Sardis that I learned how much of the business of war was in maintenance.

My mood was black so black that I have no memory of marching upriver to Sardis. We crossed the mountains through the pa.s.s, I a.s.sume, but I don't remember it. I had to carry my own gear because I had no slave. I don't remember anything of that, either, although I must have sweated like a pig and been the laughing stock of the Athenian taxeis.

I had a hard time with Briseis in my head. I hated her, and yet, even then, I knew that I was lying to myself. I didn't hate her. I understood her. I understood her. But I also knew that my life had been smashed again as thoroughly as my enslavement had smashed it. But I also knew that my life had been smashed again as thoroughly as my enslavement had smashed it.

I was locked inside the prison of my head for the whole march. It rained and I was wet and at the top of the pa.s.s it was cold. I know that my friends talked to me Stephanos and Epaphroditos and Heraklides, because they all referred to it later. But I remember nothing but a waking nightmare of the loss of Hipponax and Archi and Briseis.

Hipponax and Archi were in the same army I was in there were only eight or nine thousand of us, all in, and I saw both of them every day, at a distance. They must have known that I was with the army, marching just a stade or two from them. I do do remember wanting to go to them, every day a yearning to face them, to receive blows or embraces. I think I believed that they would commiserate with me. Now, I shake my head. remember wanting to go to them, every day a yearning to face them, to receive blows or embraces. I think I believed that they would commiserate with me. Now, I shake my head.

We were fifteen days marching on Sardis, and despite our long delay at Ephesus, we caught the city unawares. Which will give you an idea of how badly prepared the Medes were for us. I think that Artaphernes never really believed that men he had counted as friends and guest-friends men like Aristagoras and Hipponax would actually march on him. And so great was the name of Darius, King of Kings, that no man had ever dared to strike at him. Amongst the Ionians, they talked openly of conquering Persia. Amongst the Athenians, they laughed and talked about increasing their trade with Ionia. No man so much as mentioned Persia. I remember that, too.

At any rate, the Persians were unprepared.

When we came down the pa.s.s, the scouts told us that the gates of the great city one of the richest in Asia were open.

We lost all order. The whole army broke into a ma.s.s of sprinting soldiers racing for the gates. At least, that's how it seemed to me, and I was close to the front. Aristides roared like a bull to make us stand our ground, and we ignored him and raced for the nearest gates.

I followed Herk. He was fast, but nothing like me, and I loped easily, keeping pace. The rest of our file fell behind Herk wasn't the fastest, but he had stamina. Other men caught us, and a few pa.s.sed us, but the upshot was that a dozen of us came to the Ephesus Gate of Sardis, just around the hour men leave the agora, and the gates were open.

Even as we ran up, the Lydian gate-guards finally decided that they were in peril and began to close the great wooden doors or perhaps they closed them every day in late afternoon.

Herk threw himself at the nearest door and men joined him. I flashed through the narrowing gap and my spear caught a Lydian and killed him, and the other guards broke and fled and the gates were ours, and I was the first man in the city.

Then I saw men behave as animals, and men treated as animals, and it was amidst the slaughter that I awoke from my nightmares of the loss of Hipponax and family and Briseis. I found myself in the wreckage of the agora, watching a trio of Eretrians raping a girl while others looted the stalls in an orgy of destruction, like animals let loose from cages. Oh, you haven't seen what men are until you see them let loose inside a city.

I did nothing to stop it. It was happening all about me. And my sword was red, and blood dripped down my hand.

The storming of a city is the grimmest of man's acts, and the one most likely to draw the wrath of the G.o.ds. Sardis was defenceless, and the men and women of the city had never resisted us, or done us any hurt greater than taking some of our money in their trades. But we butchered them like lambs.

Some fools set fire to the Temple of Cybele, and that sacrilege was repaid a hundredfold later. But worse was to come.

The initial a.s.sault took the city, but we had no officers and no enemy to fight, so we all became looters and rapists, roving criminal bands. The men of the town gathered, first to fight the temple fire and then to resist us, and as the flames spread, they were driven towards the central agora.

Because we had no leaders.h.i.+p and no order, we didn't storm the citadel. I was no better than the rest I a.s.sumed that the city had fallen. I stood in the agora, watching the city burn, refusing to rape and contemptuous of the looters, and I watched the other side of the market fill with men panicked men, I a.s.sumed.

And then Artaphernes was there. His armour glittered in the fires, and he led the Lydians of the town and his own picked men of the citadel straight at us, and the Greeks were scattered the way sheep are scattered by wolves.

I saw Artaphernes coming. Greeks ran past me and some were already casting aside their s.h.i.+elds. That's how bad we were. We must have outnumbered the Lydians three or four to one, and they scattered us.

When the attack came, Herk was stripping a gold-seller's stall like a professional sea wolf, which he was. 'f.u.c.k,' he said. 'I knew this was too easy.'

He began to blow on his sea whistle, and I fell in next to him. He had his s.h.i.+eld and I had mine, and other men who were not utterly in the grip of chaos and panic joined us, and in a few moments we were a hundred men. I noted that the man on my right was the athlete from Eretria, Eualcidas, whose friend I had thrown from the symposium. War makes strange s.h.i.+eld-fellows. Agios was close on me, standing behind Herk.

The Lydians stopped short of us.

That was their mistake, because as soon as the other Greeks saw the Lydians halt, they turned and became men. So it is in any fight.

Aristides was there, then. He ran across the front rank and praised us for standing, a few quick words, and more men joined us, Chians, mostly. Our s.h.i.+eld wall covered the agora, and we were four or five men deep not a proper phalanx, but a deep line of mixed men.

Then the Lydians came at us. They weren't big men, or well armoured, except Artaphernes' bodyguard in the centre, where I was. And the fates laughed, because the man coming at me in the fire-lit afternoon light was Cyrus, with his three friends around him. They halted ten paces from us, to see if we would give way, but we had Aristides to give us some wood in our backbones, and we shuffled but held.

Artaphernes' men began to shoot at us with powerful bows at close range. Eualcidas on my right took an arrow through his s.h.i.+eld into his s.h.i.+eld arm that's how strong their bows were close up. I saw that Heraklides slanted his, and I did the same, and then, under cover of my s.h.i.+eld, I got the shaft out of Eualcidas's arm and two other Eretrians dragged him to the rear. The next man to stand beside me got Cyrus's arrow in his ankle I saw the shot and then Aristides exposed himself to the fire and ran along the front, ordering us to kneel behind our s.h.i.+elds, and we did. He was magnificent. He was only a couple of years older than me, and I wanted to be be him. him.

So I indulged in some bravado of my own. I called Cyrus's name until he saw me, and I stood up and took off my helmet. Arrows rattled on my s.h.i.+eld, and one pinked my naked thigh above my greaves, sc.r.a.ping along the muscle without penetrating.

'Cyrus!' I roared.

He raised his axe over his head and waved it at me. 'You fool!' he called, and laughed. The Greeks around me wondered aloud how I knew a Persian, one of the elite, and I laughed.

And then their line stopped shooting and charged us.

Artaphernes led his men from the front. Never believe all that c.r.a.p about the Medes whipping their men forward that's the slaves they sometimes use as living s.h.i.+elds. The real Persians and Medes like Cyrus and Artaphernes are like lions, eager for a fight all the time.

They only had ten paces to come at us. I had a stranger behind me and another on my right, but I had Heraklides on my left. I looked back at the man behind me. He seemed steady. When the Medes charged, I stood crouched, s.h.i.+eld on shoulder, and as they came up I punched out with my first spear and caught Cyrus in the leg, my spear in his calf, and down he went. Pharnakes was right with him, and he had a heavy axe, which he put in the face of my s.h.i.+eld as I threw my second spear into the second rank, where an uns.h.i.+elded man took it in the gut a Persian and went down. I pushed my s.h.i.+eld in Pharnakes' face, axe and all, and the man behind me stabbed him while I got my sword out from under my arm.

And Heraklides yelled, 'Back! Back up! Back, you dogs!'

I raised my s.h.i.+eld and backed a pace. Our line was shattered. Lydians were butchering the men who ran.

I got back in the line I'd pushed forward into the Medes but they weren't fighting my partner or me. They were flowing around us, left and right, towards easier pickings, as men do when the melee becomes chaotic. I got my s.h.i.+eld under the front edge of Heraklides', and the man who had been at my back now stepped up to fit in next to me it was all going to s.h.i.+t and then he was gone, an axe in his head, and his brains showered me.

I grabbed a spear and fought with it until it broke. We could hear Aristides and we followed his voice back and back and back, and the enemy seldom fought us, because we kept together. There were men behind us, Agios and two others, and I never knew them, but they stayed with us, and more than once a spear from over my shoulder kept me alive, until the four of us made it to an alley entrance where the Athenian captain had another little knot of men. He had waited for us. I never forgot that, either. It probably only took us a minute to reach him, but he might have been as safe as a house for that minute, and he stood and waited.

Well, Heraklides was his helmsman, of course.

We got to the alley, and then we ran.

We ran all the way to our s.h.i.+ps, eh? Well, not quite. We ran back across the bridges and made a better stand, and Artaphernes took a light wound as his advance was stopped. I fought there, and I was in the front rank, and I probably put a man or two down, but it was desperate stuff, no ranks or files, and the Ionians were a pack of fools with no order. Mostly, I was trying to keep Heraklides on my left and my s.h.i.+eld with his. I don't know who hit Artaphernes, but that man saved our army. Because their attack petered out at the bridges, and we managed to withdraw to Tmolus across the Hermus River, and there was no pursuit.

Half of the army had never been in the fight at all, and they wanted to storm the city again. Those of us who had fought were angry, and those who had run magnified the number and ferocity of the enemy, and many angry words were said.

I was sitting, bleeding from a few wounds and breathing like the bellows for a forge, when a man came up. He was an Eretrian and he had a scorpion on his aspis, and he looked like a hard man.

He came straight up to me.

'You are the Plataean?' he asked.

I was sitting on my s.h.i.+eld, so he couldn't quite see the device. I nodded. 'Doru,' I said.

He nodded. 'You saved my father he's telling everyone how you covered him against the arrows and drew the one from his shoulder.' He offered me his hand. I took it. 'I'm Parmenides.'

I clasped his hand, and he offered more praise. I shook my head. But later, he came back with his father, and they brought a full skin of wine, which I shared with my mess. Then Stephanos came from the Aeolians the men of Chios and the coast of Asia opposite and sat with my mess group. He was a sixth-ranker, and proud just to wear the panoply. For him, it was an enormous promotion as great as my step from slave to free man. The Aeolians take n.o.ble blood much more seriously than Atticans or Boeotians.

When Stephanos went back to his own mess, I lay down, my head spinning from the wine. Heraklides lay down beside me, and we missed the part where Aristides accused the Milesians of cowardice.

I've done poor Aristides an injustice if I've failed to make him sound like a prig. He was always right, and some men hated him for it. He never lied and seldom even shaded the truth. Indeed, among the Athenians, some men mocked him as a man who saw only black and white, not the colours of the rainbow.

But Melanthius had taken a wound in the agora of Sardis, and Aristides was in command of the Athenians now, and he took this very seriously. We loved him, for all his priggish ways. He was was better than other men. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut. better than other men. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut.

A failing I understand, honey.

Anyway, the Milesians had, indeed, hung back from the city. Aristides apparently told them that their cowardice had cost us the city. Aristagoras, as their chief, resented the remark, and the army's factional nature increased to near open enmity.

The next day, my body ached, I was filthy, with blood under my nails and matted in my hair, and there wasn't enough water, because we were too far from the banks of the river and the Persians would shoot any man who went down the bank for a helmet of water filthy water, in any case. Later in the day, parched, angry and dirty, we stumbled back to the pa.s.s, and we heard that the Lydians were rising behind us that the men of all Caria were marching to the aid of their satrap. In those days, the Carians were called the 'Men of Bronze' because they wore so much armour, and they were deadly. Later in the Long War, they were our allies. But not that week.

We washed at the springs of the Hermus, and we filled our canteens and drank our fill and were braver. But we were no longer an army, we were an angry mob. The Athenians did nothing to hide their contempt for all the Ionians as soldiers. The Ionians returned their contempt with angry rejection, and it was muttered that the Athenians were sacrificing the Ionians for their own ends.

Which was true, of course.

Aristides grew angrier and angrier, his pale skin constantly flushed, and he walked along in silence, his slave trotting to keep up.

I stood around, watching Aristides, watching the army disintegrate, and I understood why soldiers were deserting. We were doomed, and the rush of bad omens that surrounded us, including a live hare dropped on a sacrificing priest by an eagle, only confirmed what every man knew. In addition, men who had murdered and raped in the city knew that they had brought their own doom upon them, and they were sullen, guilty or merely dejected.

The Athenians did not suffer from these problems. Heraklides gave me a heavy necklace of gold and lapis that he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the stall in the agora. 'You only saved my life ten times,' he said. 'And I saved my loot. I got the whole bag behind my s.h.i.+eld.' He laughed, showing his snaggle teeth. He was only six years older than me, but he seemed like the old man of the sea himself. I put the necklace on, drank wine from my canteen and marched with the Athenians, who were still a disciplined band. We had come over the pa.s.s as the advance guard, and we were going home as the rearguard, with the Eretrians just ahead.

'At home, they're our worst enemies,' Heraklides grunted at me. 'But you know that, eh? You were in the fight at the bridge?'

'I was,' I said.

'They held us a long time there,' Heraklides said. 'Good fighters. Glad to have them, out here.'

Aristides came up to us. 'You can go into the front rank in place of Melodites,' he said without preamble. He didn't smile, but I did. He had his helmet on the back of his head all the Athenians did, because they marched ready to fight at all times, as did the Eretrians.

I grinned like a fool. 'Thanks, lord,' I said.

He looked grim. 'Don't thank me. When we face the Medes again, you'll be the first to face them.'

I shrugged. 'I was in the front rank in the marketplace,' I said. 'Let's not stand around and let them shoot us, next time.'

He walked off, and I thought that he hadn't heard me, or, more likely, had chosen to ignore me. I was young very young to be in the front rank.

I took the dead man's place and was a file-leader, and the other men of my file thought well enough of me to help me make a plume-holder and a plume to mark my new rank.

I no longer thought of Briseis. I was in the grip of Ares.

When Aristides saw me with my horsehair plume, he came up and slapped my shoulder. He didn't say anything, but it was one of the proudest moments of my life.

From the top of the pa.s.s we could see the river in the distance, and the Ephesians cheered as if we'd been gone a month and marched a thousand stades. We were the last ones down the pa.s.s, and we knew from the scouts that there were Lydians and Carians right behind us.

Aristides wanted to hold the pa.s.s, and we halted at the narrowest part of the down slope. He picked his ground brilliantly a gentle curve in the pa.s.s, so that the longest bowshot was about one hundred paces, and the sides of the pa.s.s as steep as walls on either side. We made camp, a cold, cheerless camp with no water. Aristides sent me as a runner to Aristagoras. I was to ask him to send relays of slaves with water for us.

'Tell him we'll hold the pa.s.s a day,' he said, 'to give the Milesians time to recover.'

But Aristagoras had no n.o.bility and he was more interested in scoring points than in beating Persia. The pompous f.u.c.k! He laughed at the message. 'Tell your chief,' he said, 'that we will do nothing nothing for the convenience of Athens.' He said the words loudly, so that all his Milesians heard him and joined his laugh. for the convenience of Athens.' He said the words loudly, so that all his Milesians heard him and joined his laugh.

I ran the message back. No man had so much as offered me a canteen.

I ran straight to Aristides. He was sitting on a rock, and I crouched at his feet and pulled my chlamys around me against the chill air and tried to spit. My mouth was so dry that my tongue wouldn't move. So I just shook my head.

Mutely, Aristides took his canteen over his head and handed it to me. I drank a mouthful and bowed. 'Thanks,' I said.

He looked away. 'They said no?' he asked.

'They said no. Aristagoras said that he would do nothing for the convenience of Athens.' I shrugged.

While I spoke, Eualcidas came up. He pulled off his helmet he wore a great, winged Cretan helmet and he was grey with fatigue. His arm hurt him, but famous men can't show pain.

'You planning to hold the pa.s.s?' he asked. He was ten years older than Aristides and, although he commanded many fewer men, he was a much more famous warrior. He looked up the pa.s.s, where we could see a handful of Lydian slingers prowling around. 'You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds stood by us in the city,' he said, and spat, by way of explanation.

Aristides shrugged. 'I asked them to send us water. Aristagoras refused.'

'And you're surprised? You called them cowardly fools, lad.' Eualcidas laughed. 'Which they are! But they'll never forgive you.' He looked around. 'f.u.c.king Ionians, eh?' He smiled at me. 'You're a handsome man. And thanks for my life. Not many men can say they saved Eualcidas!'

I blushed, and he laughed. He winked at Aristides. 'You do do have some handsome men. Listen we'll stand here with you. Better than trying to face the Medes down on the plains. Any day now they'll get their cavalry together then we'll be doomed. Better fight them up here.' have some handsome men. Listen we'll stand here with you. Better than trying to face the Medes down on the plains. Any day now they'll get their cavalry together then we'll be doomed. Better fight them up here.'

Aristides shook his head. 'We can't camp here without water.'

Eualcidas shrugged. He had a boyish grin. He was a hard man to dislike. 'That's why we have slaves,' he said. 'Send them down the pa.s.s. Tell them to bring wine, too. If I'm going to die tomorrow, I think I want a feast.' He turned away with a salute and put his hand on my hip. 'A feast,' he said into my eyes.

Hah! I've made you blush again. Listen, honey. He was a famous athlete and a man who had grown up at a trading station on Crete. All Cretans are boy-lovers it's their way. It is in their laws. Superb soldiers and athletes. Not much for the crafts. Not always the smartest. Oh, he was beautiful the most famous warrior in our army. What he wanted was obvious.

So we sent all our slaves down the hill for water, and the Medes pushed some skirmishers around the pa.s.s. A handful of our men with a few dozen slaves chased them off with rocks and spears, and we settled to our cold rocks.

I remember that night because my body hurt. It's something that the bards never talk about, eh? The bruises you take in a fight G.o.ds, the bruises you take in the gymnasium! Split knuckles, broken fingers, a rib bruised here, the black burn on your shoulder where your s.h.i.+eld rim rides your shoulder bone, the cuts on your legs Ares knows the toll. It is worst for the men in the front rank, and I had stood my ground in the agora of Sardis and now, three days later, I still still hurt. My wound was slight, but it ached when I rolled on it, and I was lying on the ground on sand and gravel. And we had few fires, because we were high in the pa.s.s and there were no trees. hurt. My wound was slight, but it ached when I rolled on it, and I was lying on the ground on sand and gravel. And we had few fires, because we were high in the pa.s.s and there were no trees.

The word was, we were going to die. I was too inexperienced to do anything about such talk.

Eualcidas came out of the dark with Aristides and Heraklides and a Euboean I did not know. My file was not asleep we were huddled together in the dark, whispering, afraid of the morrow and trying not to show it, as soldiers always do.

Aristides had a little bronze lantern and he put it on the ground, and I swear that bit of light did more for our morale than all his talk.

Aristides was a serious man, and he spoke seriously. He explained that we were going to do a deed of arms, that men would never forget our actions to save the rest of the Greeks, and then he explained that as long as we held our ground, we were safe.

He was a good man, and my file was better just seeing his face and hearing his voice.

Eualcidas waited until he was finished and then he smiled his infectious smile. 'We'll kill us a load of Medes tomorrow,' he said. 'And then we'll slip away tomorrow night while they get ready for a big a.s.sault.' He looked around in the dim lamplight. 'I've faced the Medes before, boys. Thing to remember is that they all wear gold, so when we push forward over their dead, our back-rankers need to get their rings and brooches. And then everyone shares together.'

That's how you inspire troops. Dying for all of Greece may appeal to a handful of n.o.ble young men, but everyone likes the sound of a gold ring.

We were the junior file, just left of the centre of the Athenians, and we must have been the last group they needed to visit. Aristides slapped a back or two, gave my hand a squeeze and walked off into the darkness. He left his lamp at the time, I thought that it was a tribute to how rich the man was, that a bronze lantern with a fancy bronze oil lamp inside could just be abandoned on a rock. I remember picking it up and looking at it carefully. Pater never made anything like it. It wasn't good work I could do better but the construction was crisp.