Gates of Fire (30 page)

“And I promise you: they are
not
fresh. They've been sitting on their dogblossoms all day, watching their allies carried and dragged back, hacked to pieces by us. Believe me, their imaginations have not been idle. Each man has conjured his own head cleaved at the neck, his own guts spilling into the dirt and his own cock and balls brandished before him on the point of a Greek spear! We're not the ones who are worn out, they are!”

Fresh shouting and tumult erupted from the allies, save the Spartans, while the Thespaians on the field continued their butchery. I glanced to Dienekes, who observed this all with a grim twist upon his features.

“By the gods,” he declared, “it's getting ugly out there.”

We could see the Spartan Knights, led by Polynikes and Doreion, taking their stations about Leonidas in the forefront of the line. Now a lookout came running back in from the forwardmost post. This was Hound, the Spartan Skirite; he sprinted straight to Leonidas and made his report. The news spread swiftly: the next wave would be Xerxes' own household guard, the Immortals. The Greeks knew that these comprised His Majesty's picked champions, the flower of Persian nobility, princes schooled from birth “to draw the bow and speak the truth.”

More to the point, their numbers were ten thousand, while the Greeks had fewer than three thousand still fit to fight. The Immortals, all knew, derived their name from the custom of the Persians that replaced at once each royal guardsman who died or retired, thus keeping the number of Xerxes' finest always at ten thousand.

This corps of champions now advanced into view at the neck of the Narrows. They wore not helmets, but tiaras, soft felt caps topped with skull-crowns of metal glistening like gold. These half-helmets possessed no cover for the ears, neck or jaw and left the face and throat entirely exposed. The warriors wore earrings; some of their faces were painted with eye kohl and rouged like women. Nonetheless they were magnificent specimens, selected it seemed not merely, as the Hellenes well knew, for valor and nobility of family but for height and handsomeness of person as well. Each man looked more dashing than the fellow at his shoulder. They wore sleeved tunics of silk, purple rimmed with scarlet, protected by a sleeveless coat of mail in the shape of fish scales, and trousers atop calf-height doeskin boots. Their weapons were the bow, belt scimitar and short Persian lance, and their shields, like the Medes' and the Cissians', were shoulder-to-groiners made of wicker. Most astonishing of all, however, was the quantity of gold ornament each Immortal wore upon his person in the form of brooches and bracelets, amulets and adornments. Their commander, Hydarnes, advanced to the fore, the only mounted antagonist the allies had so far beheld. His tiara was peaked like a monarch's crown and his eyes shone brilliantly beneath kohled lashes. His horse was spooking, refusing to advance across the charnel sward of corpses. The foe drew up in ranks on the flat beyond the Narrows. Their discipline was impeccable. They were spotless.

Leonidas now strode forth to address the allies. He confirmed what each Hellenic warrior presumed by sight, that the division of the enemy now advancing into view was indeed Xerxes' own Immortals and that the number of their company, as nearly as could be estimated by eye, was the full ten thousand.

“It would appear, gentlemen,” Leonidas' voice ascended powerfully, “that the prospect of facing the picked champions of all Asia should daunt us. But I swear to you, this battle will prove the most dustless of all.”

The king used the Greek word
akoniti,
whose application is customarily to wrestling, boxing and the pankration. When a victor overthrows his opponent so swiftly that the bout fails even to raise the dust of the arena, he is said to have triumphed
akoniti,
in a “no-duster.”

“Listen,” Leonidas proceeded, “and I will tell you why. The troops Xerxes throws at us now are, for the first time, of actual Persian blood. Their commanders are the King's own kinsmen; he has brothers out there, and cousins and uncles and lovers, officers of his own line whose lives are precious to him beyond price. Do you see him up there, upon his throne? The nations he has sent against us so far have been mere vassal states, spear fodder to such a despot, who squanders their lives without counting the cost. These”—Leonidas gestured across the Narrows to the space where Hydarnes and the Immortals now marshaled—“these he treasures. These he loves. Their murder he will feel like an eight-footer in the guts.

“Remember that this battle at the Hot Gates is not the one Xerxes came here to fight. He anticipates far more momentous struggles to come, in the heartland of Hellas against the main force of our armies, and for these clashes he wishes to preserve the flower of his army, the men you see before you now. He will be frugal with their lives today, I promise you.

“As to their numbers: they are ten thousand, we are four. But each man we slay will sting like a regiment to their King. These warriors are to him like miser's gold, which he hoards and covets beyond all else in his treasury.

“Kill one thousand and the rest will crack. One thousand and their master will pull the remainder out. Can you do that for me, men? Can four of you kill one of them? Can you give me one thousand?”

TWENTY-SIX

H
is Majesty himself may best judge the precision of Leonidas' forecast. Suffice it to note, for this record, that darkness found the Immortals in shattered retreat, under His Majesty's orders as Leonidas had predicted, leaving the broken and dying upon the
orchestra,
the dance floor, of the Narrows.

Behind the allied Wall the spectacle was one of corresponding horror. A downpour had drenched the camp shortly after nightfall, drowning what few fires remained with none to tend them, all effort of squires, attendants and mates being required to succor the wounded and the maimed. Slides toppled from the wall of Kallidromos, sluicing the upper camp with rivers of mud and stone. Across this sodden expanse, slain and spared sprawled limb upon limb, many still in armor, the slumber of the exhausted so profound that one could not distinguish the living from the dead. Everything was soaked and muck-begrimed. Stores of dressings for the wounded had long since been depleted; the spa-goers' tents requisitioned by the Skiritai rangers as shelter now found their linen called to duty a second time, as battle compresses. The stink of blood and death rose with such palpable horror that the asses of the supply train bawled all night and could not be quietened.

There was a third unrostered member of the allied contingent, a volunteer other than the outlaw Ball Player and the roan bitch Styx. This was an
emporos,
a merchant of Miletus, Elephantinos by name, whose disabled waggon the allied column had chanced upon during its march through Doris, a day prior to arrival at the Gates. This fellow despite his misfortune of the road maintained the merriest of spirits, sharing a lunch of green apples with his hobbled ass. Upon the brow of his waggon rose a hand-painted standard, an advertisement as it were of his congeniality and eagerness of custom. The sign intended to declare, “The best service only for you, my friend.” The tinker had misspelled, however, several words, chiefly “friend,”
philos,
which his hand had inscribed
phimos,
the term in Doric for a contraction of the flesh which covers the male member. The waggon's banner declared roughly thus:

         

“The best service only for you, my foreskin.”

         

The luster of this poesy rendered the fellow an instant celebrity. Several squires were detached to assist him, for which courtesy the tradesman expressed abounding gratitude. “And where, if one may inquire, is this magnificent army bound?”

“To die for Hellas,” someone answered.

“How delightful!” Toward midnight the tinker appeared in camp, having tracked the column all the way to the Gates. He was welcomed with enthusiasm. His specialty lay in applying an edge to steel, and at this, he testified, he stood without peer. He had been sharpening farmers' scythes and housewives' cleavers for decades. He knew how to make even the meanest untempered trowel hold an edge, and moreover, he vowed, he would donate his services to the army in repayment of their kindness upon the highway.

The fellow employed an expression with which he spiked his conversation whenever he wished to emphasize a point. “Wake up to this!” he would say, though in his dense Ionian accent it came out as “Weck up to thees!”

This phrase was immediately and with high glee adopted by the entire army.

“Cheese and onions again, weck up to thees!”

“Double drill all day, weck up to thees!”

One of the two Leons in Dienekes' platoon, Donkeydick, rousted the merchant that succeeding dawn by brandishing before his slumber-dazed eyes a prodigious erection. “They call this a
phimos,
weck up to thees!”

The tradesman became a kind of mascot or talisman to the troops. His presence was welcomed at every fire, his company embraced by youths as well as veterans; he was considered a raconteur and boon companion, a jester and a friend.

Now in the wake of this first day's slaughter, the merchant appointed himself as well unofficial chaplain and confessor to the young warriors whom he had over the past days come to care for more intimately than sons. He passed all night among the wounded, bearing wine, water and a consoling hand. His accustomed cheerfulness he contrived to redouble; he diverted the maimed and mutilated with profane tales of his travels and misadventures, seductions of housewives, robberies and thrashings sustained upon the road. He had armed himself as well, from the discards; he would fill a gap tomorrow. Many of the squires, uncompelled by their masters, had taken upon themselves the same role.

All night the forges roared. The hammers of the smiths and foundrymen rang without ceasing, repairing spear and sword blades, beating out the bronze for fresh shield facings, while wrights and carpenters manned spokeshaves limning fresh spearshafts and shield carriages for the morrow. The allies cooked their meals over fires made from the spent arrows and shivered spearshafts of the enemy. The natives of Alpenoi village who a day earlier had peddled their produce for profit, now, beholding the sacrifice of the defenders, donated their goods and foodstuffs and hastened off with shuttles and handbarrows to bear up more.

Where were the reinforcements? Were any coming at all? Leonidas, sensing the preoccupation of the army, eschewed all assembly and councils of war, circulating instead in person among the men, transacting the business of the commanders as he went. He was dispatching more runners to the cities, with more appeals for aid. Nor was it lost upon the warriors that he selected always the youngest. Was this for speed of foot, or the king's wish to spare those whose share of remaining years was the greatest?

Each soldier's thoughts turned now toward his family, to those at home whom his heart loved. Shivering, exhausted men scribbled letters to wives and children, mothers and fathers, many of these missives little more than scratches upon cloth or leather, fragments of ceramic or wood. The letters were wills and testaments, final words of farewell. I saw the dispatch pouch of one runner preparing to depart; it was a jumble of paper rolls, wax tablets, potshards, even felt scraps torn from helmet undercaps. Many of the warriors simply sent amulets which their loved ones would recognize, a charm that had pended from the chassis of a shield, a good-luck coin drilled through for a neckband. Some of these bore salutations—“Beloved Amaris”…“Delia from Theagones, love.” Others bore no name at all. Perhaps the runners of each city knew the addressees personally and could take it upon themselves to ensure delivery. If not, the contents of the pouch would be displayed in the public square or the agora, perhaps set out before the temple of the city's Protectress. There the anxious families would congregate in hope and trepidation, awaiting their turn to pore through the precious cargo, desperate for any message, wordless or otherwise, from those whom they loved and feared to behold again only in death.

Two messengers came in from the allied fleet, from the Athenian corvette assigned as courier between the navy below and the army up top. The allies had engaged the Persian fleet this day, inconclusively, but without buckling. Our ships must hold the straits or Xerxes could land his army in the defenders' rear and cut them off; the troops must hold the pass or the Persian could advance by land to the narrows of the Euripus and trap the fleet. So far, neither had cracked.

Polynikes came and sat for a few minutes beside the fires around which the remains of our platoon had gathered. He had located a renowned
gymnastes,
an athletic trainer named Milon, whom he knew from the Games at Olympia. This fellow had wrapped Polynikes' hamstrings and given him a
pharmakon
to kill the pain.

“Have you had enough of glory, Kallistos?” Dienekes inquired of the Knight.

Polynikes answered only with a look of surpassing grimness. He seemed chastened, out of himself for once.

“Sit down,” my master said, indicating a dry space beside him.

Polynikes settled gratefully. Around the circle the platoon slumbered like dead men, heads pillowed upon each other and their yet-gore-encrusted shields. Directly across from Polynikes, Alexandros stared with awful blankness into the fire. His jaw had been broken; the entire right side of his face glistened purple; the bone itself was cinched shut with a leather strap.

“Let's have a look at you.” Polynikes craned forward. He located among the trainer's kit a waxed wad of euphorbia and amber called a “boxer's lunch,” the kind pugilists employ between matches to immobilize broken bones and teeth. This Polynikes kneaded warm until it became pliable. He turned to the trainer. “You better do this, Milon.” Polynikes took Alexandros' right hand in his own, for the pain. “Hang on. Squeeze till you break my fingers.”

The trainer spit from his own mouth into Alexandros' a purge of uncut wine to cleanse the clotted blood, then with his fingers extracted a grotesque gob of spittle, mucus and phlegm. I held Alexandros' head; the youth's fist clamped Polynikes'. Dienekes watched as the trainer inserted the sticky amber wad between Alexandros' jaws, then gently clamped the shattered bone down tight upon it. “Count slowly,” he instructed the patient. “When you hit fifty, you won't be able to prise that jaw apart with a crowbar.”

Alexandros released the Knight's hand. Polynikes regarded him with sorrow.

“Forgive me, Alexandros.”

“For what?”

“For breaking your nose.”

Alexandros laughed, his broken jaw making him grimace.

“It's your best feature now.”

Alexandros winced again. “I'm sorry about your father,” Polynikes said. “And Ariston.”

He rose to move on to the next fire, glancing once to my master, then returning his gaze to Alexandros.

“There is something I must tell you. When Leonidas selected you for the Three Hundred, I went to him in private and argued strenuously against your inclusion. I thought you would not fight.”

“I know,” Alexandros' voice ground through his cinched jaw.

Polynikes studied him a long moment.

“I was wrong,” he said.

He moved on.

Another round of orders came, assigning parties to retrieve corpses from no-man's-land. Suicide's name was among those detailed. Both his shot shoulders had seized up; Alexandros insisted on taking his place.

“By now the king will know about the deaths of my father and Ariston.” He addressed Dienekes, who as his platoon commander could forbid him to participate in the retrieval detail. “Leonidas will try to spare me for my family's sake; he'll send me home with some errand or dispatch. I don't wish to disrespect him by refusing.”

I had never beheld such an expression of balefulness as that which now framed itself upon my master's face. He gestured to a flat of sodden earth beside him in the firelight.

“I've been watching these little myrmidons.”

There in the dirt, a war of the ants was raging.

“Look at these champions.” Dienekes indicated the massed battalions of insects grappling with impossible valor atop a pile of their own fellows' fallen forms, battling over the desiccated corpse of a beetle.

“This one here, this would be Achilles. And there. That must be Hektor. Our bravery is nothing alongside these heroes'. See? They even drag their comrades' bodies from the field, as we do.”

His voice was dense with disgust and stinking with irony. “Do you think the gods look down on us as we do upon these insects? Do the immortals mourn our deaths as keenly as we feel the loss of these?”

“Get some sleep, Dienekes,” Alexandros said gently.

“Yes, that's what I need. My beauty rest.”

He lifted his remaining eye toward Alexandros. Out beyond the redoubts of the Wall, the second watch of sentries was receiving their orders, preparatory to relieving the first. “Your father was my mentor, Alexandros. I bore the chalice the night you were born. I remember Olympieus presenting your infant form to the elders, for the ‘ten, ten and one' test, to see if you were deemed healthy enough to be allowed to live. The magistrate bathed you in wine and you came up squawling, with your infant's voice strong and your little fists clenched and waving. ‘Hand the boy to Dienekes,' your father instructed Paraleia. ‘My son will be your protege,' Olympieus told me. ‘You will teach him, as I have taught you.'”

Dienekes' right hand plunged the blade of his
xiphos
into the dirt, annihilating the Iliad of the ants.

“Now sleep, all of you!” he barked to the men yet surviving of his platoon and, himself rising, despite all protests that he, too, embrace the boon of slumber, strode off alone toward Leonidas' command post, where the king and the other commanders yet stood to their posts, awake and planning the morrow's action.

I saw Dienekes' hip give way beneath him as he moved; not the bad leg, but the sound. He was concealing from his men's sight yet another wound—from the cast of his gait, deep and crippling. I rose at once and hastened to his aid.