The Lost Army (40 page)

‘I’m afraid no one knows.’

‘You’re telling me that no one knows where we’re going? Xeno should know, and you’re his woman.’

‘The army takes its bearings from the sun. We’re heading north. Xeno thinks we’ll have to cross another big mountain chain before we reach the sea.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Twenty days should do it. But none of our men has ever crossed this region. And what’s more . . .’

‘What?’

‘I’m afraid, Melissa. I just can’t shake all these doubts I have . . .’

‘Doubts about what?’

‘Maybe it’s just a sensation, but there have been so many coincidences. Too many. The way our commanders were deceived. Whole armies that appear out of nowhere to bar our path, traps that spring up suddenly. The turbulent river we had to ford. The suicidal opposition of the Carduchi. Now that made no sense whatsoever. I feel like our real enemies are invisible, and impossible to defend ourselves against. I’m afraid we can expect anything and everything.’

Melissa gave a disheartened sigh and dropped her head.

‘No, take no notice,’ I said. ‘As I was saying, maybe I’m seeing things that don’t exist.’

Melissa raised her eyes. ‘If something happens, stay close to me. Help me, please. You’re the only person I trust.’

‘Cleanor will defend you at any cost,’ I protested. ‘Surely you’re safe with him.’

‘Stay close to me anyway.’

I left her to find Lystra, who could be giving birth at any time. I asked Xeno if one of the surgeons could help me, because I had no idea what to do.

‘Women have babies on their own,’ he replied. ‘The surgeons are busy with other things.’

I’d expected that.

W
E STAYED IN
those villages for a while to recover from our ordeal. Sophos often had dinner with us. He really was quite a fascinating man: tall, athletic, with that teasing look of his and a ready answer to everything. Nothing seemed to worry him. But if you watched closely, there were moments when he seemed to drift away. It was almost imperceptible, but his eyes would cloud over at a sudden thought. He was a true Spartan, a descendant of one of those three hundred who eighty years earlier had stopped the Great King at the pass of the Fiery Gates, as Xeno called it.

I listened as they discussed matters, evaluated possibilities, itineraries, strategies.

‘As soon as we reach a place that’s known to the Greeks,’ Xeno said once, ‘our suffering will be over. We’ll know how to proceed and we’ll quickly find a spot from which we can sail for home. We’ve always headed due north; we’ve never gone off course except for a slight detour here or there. We should be on the right track.’

Sophos smiled. ‘I know a fellow who, after an evening drinking in a tavern, left because it was time to go home. He walked all night and the next morning he found himself at the same tavern. Either that was where he knew he’d find the best wine in town, or he’d wandered in a circle without realizing it.’

Xeno and the other officers who were present laughed heartily. The sense that our destination was not far off was becoming very strong. The food and the beer boosted their optimism, and the Armenians who lived in the villages seemed peaceful folk and willing to give a hand. There was reason to believe that the worst was behind us.

I went to Lystra before going to bed. ‘Have this child now, here, where it’s warm, girl. You’ve got everything you need here.’

Lystra answered with a tired smile.

We started our journey again on a grey, still morning. Sophos asked the village chief to be our guide, and he was forced to accept. He had seven male sons: they took one along to make sure he wouldn’t betray them and turned the boy over to a soldier from Athens. But perhaps the chieftain would have accepted anyway: having ten thousand guests who ate three times a day was heavy going and he needed some way to get rid of us.

After several days of marching in thigh-high snow, Sophos lost his patience, because we’d seen neither a hut nor a village since we’d left. He began to insult the chief, who defended himself stoutly:

‘There are no villages in this region. I can’t give you what doesn’t exist.’

‘You bastard!’ he shouted. ‘You’re leading us out of our way.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Confess that you’re taking us in the wrong direction!’

The man reacted by shouting back even more loudly. Sophos took a stick and started to beat him. The village chieftain yelled and tried to defend himself, but he was unarmed and Sophos’s blows fell with violent force. Xeno tried to stop him. ‘Leave him alone, can’t you see he knows nothing? We have his son as our hostage. If he knew something, he’d talk.’

Sophos paid no attention whatsoever and continued beating the man until he fell to the ground coughing up blood.

‘You’ve broken his ribs, are you happy now?’ Xeno accused him furiously.

‘I did what I had to do! This bastard thinks we’re idiots!’

Xeno lowered his head and walked away, muttering under his breath, ‘It makes no sense, no sense at all . . .’

It snowed all night. The next morning the man was gone.

‘What do you mean, he’s gone?’ exclaimed Xeno as soon as they had told him. He dressed hurriedly and rushed to Sophos’s tent. ‘How did he get away? Where were the guards? Why did no one stop him?’

‘They must have thought that he was in such a bad way that he couldn’t get far, and that he wouldn’t have abandoned his son.’

‘They must have thought?’ repeated Xeno, incensed. ‘What does that mean? Who’s responsible for this? I want to interrogate the men who were on guard last night!’

Sophos snapped back, ‘You won’t be questioning anyone, writer. You have no authority to do so. You have no rank in this army.’

Xeno turned his back on him. He was seething; his friend had never treated him this way before.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Wherever I damn well please!’

Sophos changed his tone. ‘Listen, I’m angry as well, but I can’t punish men who spent the night out in the snow and have been living under such desperate conditions for months. We’ll find our way without him.’

‘If you say so . . .’ Xeno replied, his teeth clenched. He left.

I’d never seen them arguing like that, and the other officers were taken aback as well. Xanthi called, ‘Wait, come back. We have to talk.’

‘Let him go,’ said Timas. ‘He’ll get over it. We’ll talk later.’

Xeno returned to the rearguard without saying a word. He was furious.

We started up again and we walked all that day and the next under the snow, which was falling quite heavily. Towards evening of the second day, we reached a river bank. Westward, the cloud cover was opening a bit, letting through the last rays of the setting sun which spread in bloody streaks over the water and the snow.

It seemed unreal, a magical spell. But it only lasted a few moments.

The river was wide and flowed full and fast from left to right. Eastward, I thought. There was no way to cross it but at least there were no other dangers in sight.

Sophos summoned his staff to a meeting. Xeno didn’t want to go, but Agasias and Cleanor convinced him in the end, although they practically had to drag him there.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Sophos, scowling.

‘A bridge,’ suggested Xanthi. ‘There are trees over on those hills.’

‘A bridge?’ repeated Timas. ‘Yes, why not. We’ll drive the stakes in the river bed two at a time, binding them together, and we’ll build a footbridge, adding stakes as we go along, until we get to the other side.’

‘Let’s get started,’ said Cleanor, ‘and get one more obstacle out of our way. I’ll bet you anything that on the other side of those mountains there we’ll be looking at the sea.’

‘Or we’ll be looking at another mountain chain.’ Agasias dampened his enthusiasm. ‘You know how deceptive appearances can be around here.’

‘I say we’ll see the sea,’ retorted Cleanor.

‘It’s no use quarrelling over whether the sea is there or not,’ Agasias commented.

Xeno hadn’t said a word. He scrutinized the current and tried to understand.

‘We have to figure out what river this is,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, our guide has bolted.’

‘I’ve heard enough about the guide!’ Sophos burst out. ‘And I don’t want to hear any more!’

‘Let’s try to stay calm,’ suggested Timas.

Xeno went on, ‘This is a big river, an important river. It must have a name. Maybe it’s a river we know. If we could find out, I think I could calculate fairly accurately where we are, and establish what direction we should take. It’s essential that we avoid long detours and not waste time and energy in building a bridge if it’s not necessary.’

Agasias dropped his head into his hands as if searching for an idea. ‘We need to find someone from around here who speaks our language. I haven’t seen a soul.’

‘Then let’s build this bridge,’ concluded Xanthi.

‘One moment,’ interrupted Sophos. ‘Look down there.’

Just then they glimpsed a man walking along the river bank with a dog, carrying a basketful of wood on his shoulders.

‘Run, before he gets away!’ shouted Agasias, as he set off full tilt in the direction of the man who’d appeared as if by magic. The others took off after him, and Xeno passed Agasias by running where the snow was less deep.

The man with the basket stopped, seeming more curious than afraid of the group of foreigners hurtling towards him, jumping like madmen through piles of drifted snow. The dog started to bark in alarm but didn’t move.

Xeno got there first, panting. ‘What is this river?’ he asked, all in one breath.

The dog kept barking. The man shook his head. He didn’t understand.

‘The name of this river!’ shouted Timas as he caught up to them.

Agasias started to gesticulate, trying to imitate the current flowing between the river’s banks. ‘The river, understand? What do you called this damned river?’

‘He doesn’t understand, can’t you see that he doesn’t understand?’ said Xanthi.

The man gave a start, and finally seemed to intuit what they were asking. He said ‘
Keden? Keden gotchetsyal . . . Pase! Pase!’

‘
Pase
. . .’ repeated Xeno. ‘
Pase
, that’s what it’s called.
Pase
. . . yes, of course! Of course! This is the Phasis! The river Phasis. I know where we are! I know exactly where to go. No bridge. We will follow the river and it will lead us to the sea and to a beautiful city. We’ve made it, boys! We’ve done it!’

Everyone started shouting and cheering with excitement, throwing handfuls of snow at each other like children.

I was the only one who still couldn’t understand.

I couldn’t understand why the water was flowing east, towards the heart of the Persian empire. Away from the sea, not towards it.

T
HAT NIGHT,
in our tent, holding each other close under a ram’s skin, we listened to the sound of the river running swiftly towards its destiny. All kinds of thoughts and questions were jostling in my head.

‘How can you be so sure that the river is the Phasis? And why should the Phasis lead us to safety?’

As he’d done before, Xeno wrapped his arms around me and told me a story.

‘The Phasis is the only big, fast-flowing river in this region. I’ve looked at the stars and I have no doubt about it. The name that man used,
Pase
, is certainly the original name that our Phasis comes from. Besides, Chirisophus is sure of it as well. He knows I’m right and he’s backing my plan to follow the current.’

‘But the water is flowing in the opposite direction to the way we should be marching,’ I couldn’t help but point out. ‘If we follow it, we’ll end up in a land even more distant and more unfamiliar than the region we’re crossing now.’

‘Water flows downward, and towards the sea. If the current is flowing east instead of west at this point, it’s only because of the slope of the land. But it will change direction and descend towards the sea, and at the mouth of the river we’ll find a city that one of our heroes visited many centuries ago.’

‘Who was this hero? What was he doing in such a remote land?’

‘His name was Jason and he was a prince. He was taken away from his kingdom as a young child on the night that his father Aeson was killed by his own half-brother, Pelias, who seized power in his brother’s place. The boy was raised in secret by a marvellous creature of infinite wisdom. When Jason was an adult he left the caves on the mountainside where he had grown up and returned to his kingdom. As he was crossing a river, he lost his sandal, and thus clad he arrived at the royal palace, frightening to death his uncle, who had been told by an oracle that he would be deposed by a man wearing a single sandal.

‘So Pelias sent the young man to carry out what he thought would be an impossible task: to bring home the fleece – completely made of gold – of a gigantic magic ram. This fleece was considered the most powerful talisman on earth. The precious object was to be found in Colchis, the most extreme eastern region of the world, and was guarded day and night by an enormous dragon who breathed flames from his nostrils.