Gates of Fire (37 page)

THIRTY-FOUR

T
he preceding pages were the last delivered to His Majesty prior to the burning of Athens.

The Army of the Empire stood at that time, two hours prior to sunset, some six weeks after the victory at Thermopylae, drawn up on line within the western walls of the city of Athena. An incendiary brigade of 120,000 men there dressed at a double-arms interval and advanced across the capital, putting all temples and shrines, magistracies and public buildings, gymnasia, houses, factories, schools and warehouses to the torch.

At that time the man Xeones, who had hitherto been recovering steadily from his wounds sustained at the battle for the Hot Gates, suffered a reverse. Clearly the witnessing of the immolation of Athens had distressed the man profoundly. In fever he inquired repeatedly after the fate of the seaport Phaleron wherein, he had told us, lay the temple of Persephone of the Veil, that sanctuary in which his cousin, the girl Diomache, had taken refuge. None could provide intelligence of the fate of this precinct. The captive began to fail further; the Royal Surgeon was summoned. It was determined that several punctures of the thoracic organs had reopened; internal bleeding had become severe.

At this point His Majesty stood unavailable, being on station with the fleet, which was drawing up in preparation for imminent engagement with the navy of the Hellenes, expected to commence with the dawn. The morrow's fight, it was anticipated eagerly by His Majesty's admirals, would eliminate all resistance of the enemy at sea and leave the unconquered remainder of Greece, Sparta and the Peloponnese, helpless before the final assault of His Majesty's sea and land forces.

I, His Majesty's historian, received at this hour orders summoning me to establish a secretaries' station to observe the sea battle at His Majesty's side and note, as they occurred, all actions of the Empire's officers deserving of valorous commendation. I was able, however, before repairing to
this post, to remain at the Greek's side for most of the evening. The night grew more apocalyptic with each hour. The smoke of the burning city rose thick and sulphurous across the plain; the flames from the Acropolis and the merchant and residential quarters lit the sky bright as noon. In addition, a violent quake had struck the coast, toppling numerous structures and even portions of the city walls. The atmosphere bordered upon the primordial, as if heaven and earth, as well as men, had harnessed themselves to the engines of war.

The man Xeones remained lucid and calm throughout this interval. Intelligence requested by the captain Orontes had reached the medical pavilions to the effect that the priestesses of Persephone, presumably including the captive Xeones' cousin, had evacuated themselves to Troezen across the bay. This seemed to steady the man profoundly. He appeared convinced that he would not survive the night and was distressed only insomuch as this would cut short the telling of his tale. He wished, he said, to have recorded in what hours remained as much of the conclusion of the actual battle as he could dictate. He began at once, returning in memory to the site of the Hot Gates.

         

T
he upper rim of the sun had just pierced the horizon when the party began the descent of the final cliff above the Hellenes' camp. Alexandros' and Lachides' bodies were lowered by rope, along with Suicide, whose wound in the groin had robbed him of the use of his lower limbs. Dienekes needed a rope too. We crabbed down backward. Over my shoulder I could see men packing up below, the Arkadians and Orchomenians and Mycenaeans. For a moment I thought I saw the Spartans moving out too. Could it be that Leonidas, acknowledging the futility of defense, had given the order for all to withdraw? Then my glance, instinctively turning to the man beside me on the face, met the eyes of Polynikes. He could read the wish for deliverance so transparent upon my features. He just grinned.

At the base of the Phokian Wall, what remained of the Spartans, barely above a hundred Peers yet able to fight, had already completed their gymnastics and had themselves in arms. They were dressing their hair, preparing to die.

We buried Alexandros and Lachides in the Spartan precinct beside the West Gate. Both their breastplates and helmets, Alexandros' and Lachides', were preserved aside for use; their shields Rooster and I had already stacked among the arms at the camp. No coin for the ferryman could be located among Alexandros' kit, nor did my master or I possess a surrogate. Somehow I had lost them all, that purse which the lady Arete had placed into my safekeeping upon the evening of that final county day in Lakedaemon.

“Here,” Polynikes offered.

He held out, still folded in a wrap of oiled linen, the coin his wife had burnished for himself, a silver tetradrachm minted by the citizens of Elis in his honor, to commemorate his second victory at Olympia. Upon one face was stamped the image of Zeus Lord of the Thunder, with winged Nike above his right shoulder. The obverse bore a crescent of wild olive in which was centered the club and lionskin of Herakles, in honor of Sparta and Lakedaemon.

Polynikes set the coin in place himself. He had to prise Alexandros' jaws apart, on the side opposite the “boxer's lunch” of amber and euphorbia which with steadfast loyalty yet held the fractured bone immobilized. Dienekes chanted the Prayer for the Fallen; he and Polynikes slid the body, wrapped in its scarlet cloak, into the shallow trench. It took no time to cover it with dirt. Both Spartans stood.

“He was the best of us all,” Polynikes said.

Lookouts were hastening in from the western peak. The Ten Thousand had been spotted; they had completed their all-night encirclement and stood now in full force six miles in the Hellenes' rear. They had already routed the Phokian defenders on the summit. The Greeks at the Gates had perhaps three hours before the Persian Immortals could complete the descent and be in position to attack.

Other messengers were arriving from the Trachis side. His Majesty's lookout throne, as the raiding party had observed last night, had been dismantled. Xerxes upon his royal chariot was advancing in person, with fresh myriads at his back, to resume the assault on the Hellenes from the fore.

The burial ground stood a considerable distance, above half a mile, from the Spartan assembly point by the Wall. As my master and Polynikes returned, the contingents of the allies tramped past, withdrawing to safety. True to his word, Leonidas had released them, all save the Spartans.

We watched the allies as they passed. First came the Mantineans, in nothing resembling order; they seemed to slouch as if all strength had left their knees and hams. No one spoke. The men were so filthy they looked like they were made of dirt. Grit caked every pore and cavity of flesh, including the creases at the pockets of their eyes and the glue of sputum that collected uncleared in the corners of their mouths. Their teeth were black; they spit, it seemed, with every fourth step and the gobs landed black upon the black earth. Some had stuck their helmets upon their heads, cocked back without thought, as if their skulls were just convenient knobs to hang the bowls upon. Most had slung theirs, nasal foremost, across the bundles of their rolled cloaks which they bore as packs across their shoulders against the biting gripcords of their slung shields. Though the dawn was still chill, the men trudged in sweat. I never saw soldiers so exhausted.

The Corinthians came next, then the Tegeates and the Opountian Lokrians, the Philiasians and the Orchomenians, intermixed with the other Arkadians and what was left of the Mycenaeans. Of eighty original hoplites of that city, eleven remained yet able to walk, with another two dozen borne prone upon litters or strapped to pole-drags drawn by the pack animals. Man leaned upon man and beast upon beast. You could not tell the concussed and the skull-fractured, those who no longer possessed the sense of who or where they were, from their fellows stricken to numbness by the horrors and strain of the past six days. Nearly every man had sustained multiple wounds, most in the legs and head; a number had been blinded; these shuffled at the sides of their brothers, hands tucked in the crook of a friend's elbow, or else trailed alongside the baggage animals, holding the end of a tether attached to the pack frame.

Past the avenues of the fallen trudged the spared, each bearing himself neither with shame nor guilt, but with that silent awe and thanksgiving of which Leonidas had spoken in the assembly following the battle at Antirhion. That these warriors yet drew breath was not their own doing and they knew it; they were no more nor less brave or virtuous than their fallen fellows, just luckier. This knowledge expressed itself with a poet's eloquence in the blank and sanctified weariness inscribed upon their features.

“I hope we don't look as bad as you,” Dienekes grunted to a captain of the Philiasians as he passed.

“You look worse, brothers.”

Someone had set the bathhouses and the spa compound on fire. The air had stilled and the wet wood burned with acrid sullenness. The smoke and stink of these blazes now added their cheerless component to the already baleful scene. The column of warriors emerged out of smoke and sank again within it. Men threw the rags of their discarded kit, blood-begrimed cloaks and tunics, used-up packs and gear bundles; everything that would burn was flung willy-nilly upon the flame. It was as if the allies withdrawing intended to abandon not so much as a scrap to the enemy's use. They lightened their loads and marched out.

Men held out their hands to the Spartans as they strode by, touching palm to palm, fingers to fingers. A warrior of the Corinthians gave Polynikes his spear. Another handed Dienekes his sword. “Give them hell, fuckers.”

Passing the spring, we came upon Rooster. He was pulling out too. Dienekes drew up and stopped to take his hand. No shame stood upon Rooster's face. Clearly he felt he had discharged his duty and more, and the liberty with which Leonidas had gifted him was in his eyes no more than his birthright, which had been denied him all his life and now, long overdue, had been fairly and honorably won by his own hand. He clasped Dienekes' hand and promised to speak with Agathe and Paraleia when he reached Lakedaemon. He would inform them of the valor with which Alexandros and Olympieus had fought and with what honor they had fallen. Rooster would make report to the lady Arete too. “If I may,” he requested, “I would like to honor Alexandros before I go.”

Dienekes thanked him and told him where the grave lay. To my surprise, Polynikes took Rooster's hand too. “The gods love a bastard,” he said.

Rooster informed us that Leonidas had freed with honor all the helots of the battle train. We could see a group of a dozen now, passing out among the warriors of Tegea. “Leonidas has released the squires as well,” Rooster declared, “and all the foreigners who serve the army.” He addressed my master. “That means Suicide—and Xeo too.”

Behind Rooster the train of allied contingents continued their march-out.

“Will you hold him now, Dienekes?” Rooster asked.

He meant me.

My master did not look in my direction but spoke in reply toward Rooster. “I have never compelled Xeo's service. Nor do I now.”

He drew up and turned to me. The sun had fully risen; east, by the Wall, the trumpets were sounding. “One of us,” he said, “should crawl out of this hole alive.” He ordered me to depart with Rooster.

I refused.

“You have a wife and children!” Rooster seized my shoulders, gesturing with passion to Dienekes and Polynikes. “Theirs is not your city. You owe it nothing.”

I told him the decision had been made years ago.

“You see?” Dienekes addressed Rooster, indicating me. “He never had good sense.”

Back at the Wall we saw Dithyrambos. His Thespaians had refused Leonidas' order. To a man they disdained to withdraw, but insisted upon abiding and dying with the Spartans. There were about two hundred of them. Not a man among their squires would pull out either. Fully four score of the freed Spartan squires and helots stood fast as well. The seer Megistias had likewise scorned to retreat. Of the original three hundred Peers, all were present or dead save two. Aristodemos, who had served as envoy at Athens and Rhodes, and Eurytus, a champion wrestler, had both been stricken with an inflammation of the eyes that rendered them sightless. They had been evacuated to Alpenoi. The
katalogos,
the muster roll, of survivors marshaling at the Wall numbered just above five hundred.

As for Suicide, my master before departing to bury Alexandros had commanded him to remain here at the Wall, upon a litter. Dienekes apparently had anticipated the squires' release; he had left orders for Suicide to be borne off with their column to safety. Now here the Scythian stood, on his feet, grinning ghoulishly as his master returned, himself armored in corselet and breastplate with his loins cinched in linen and bound with leather straps from a pack mount. “I can't shit,” he pronounced, “but by hell's flame, I can still fight.”

The ensuing hour was consumed with the commanders reconfiguring the contingent into a front of sufficient breadth and depth, remarshaling the disparate elements into units and assigning officers. Among the Spartans, those squires and helots remaining were simply absorbed into the platoons of the Peers they served. They would fight no longer as auxiliaries but take their places in bronze within the phalanx. There was no shortage of armor, only of weapons, so many had been shivered or smashed in the preceding forty-eight hours. Two dumps of spares were established, one at the Wall and the second a furlong to the rear, halfway to a small partially fortified hillock, the most natural site for a beleaguered force to rally upon and make its last stand. These dumps were nothing grand—just swords stuck blade-first into the dirt and eight-footers jammed beside them, lizard-stickers down.

Leonidas summoned the men to assembly. This was done without so much as a shout, so few yet stood upon the site. The camp itself seemed suddenly broad and capacious. As for the dance floor before the Wall, its sundered turf lay yet littered with Persian corpses by the thousand as the enemy had left the second day's casualties to rot upon the field. Those wounded who had survived the night now groaned with their last strength, crying for aid and water, and many for the merciful stroke of extinction. For the allies the prospect of fighting again, out there upon that farmer's field of hell, seemed more than thought could bear.