The Ten Thousand

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE AFTER ANOTHER the muttering, swaying seers stood up from their crouching position, their arms bathed in blood to the elbows as they finished examining the entrails of the sacrificed goats and conferred with each other on their meaning. The prince had gathered the entire army at the makeshift drill grounds on the riverbank to watch the omens being taken for crossing the enormous river and proceeding on to Babylon. The men craned their necks, peering at the mysterious doings, their hearts heavy at the thought of either outcome. The seers finally nodded at Cyrus to approach, and with somber expressions they explained to him in low tones the results of their omens. A hundred thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on his face as it slowly broke out in a grin, and he raised his arms in triumph.

"The gods are with us!" he cried. "The omens are good, we cross today!"

Scattered cheers broke out among the troops, and those on the outer edges began to disperse, some separating into the crews that had already been organized and for several days had been working to repair the bridge, while others returned to their individual units to begin breaking camp. All stopped their departures, however, when they noticed what Cyrus did next.

Gathering together his elite bodyguard of six hundred cavalry, he calmly and deliberately rode down to the bank of the river, and without pausing, urged his mount in, followed closely by his troops. On they splashed, as the broad river became gradually deeper, to the horses' knees, to their bellies, to their withers. The men stood silent, some muttering questioningly to themselves as they wondered how the prince would swim his horse safely across the fast-moving stream, and even if successful, how he would expect a body of a hundred thousand troops, most of whom could not swim, to follow him, laden with weapons, armor and the enormous baggage train.

The horses continued wading forward, and had now reached the middle of the brown river, the water swirling about their flanks. Even at this distance we could see the desert-trained Persian ponies hesitating, their eyes rolling in terror, but the disciplined cavalry soldiers, sitting bolt upright and looking straight ahead at the opposite side, kept a firm grip on their reins. Suddenly, with all eyes upon Cyrus, we saw that his horse's belly had emerged from the current-then its tail and its hocks. With a final flourish the prince urged his mount into a canter and the entire six hundred pranced through the shallows on the other side, frothing the water in a cloud of spray and raising a distant cheer that we could clearly hear over the din of a half mile of water flowing in front of us.

We reciprocated with an ear-splitting roar-every man raising his fists, his spear, his helmet, in jubilation at the most remarkable omen we had yet seen from the gods: the mighty Euphrates, considered by the locals as being impassable without boats, had given a sign that Abrocomas' vicious burning of the bridge had been a wasted effort. Even the river itself had made way for the prince's army.

As we marched, we kept the Euphrates on our right, though at times because of the roughness of the terrain we were forced to divert ourselves away from its course for miles, even days. For a month after the crossing we picked our way silently across that accursed terrain, where the Persian sun god Ahura-mazda tormented the land with a blinding light and oppressive heat by day. By night, he was replaced by some evil lunar deity who took advantage of his colleague's temporary absence from the skies to send darkness as gelid as a Scythian winter to torment the troops in their sleep. The wood of the wagons grew so dry and shrunken that pegs and joints fell out of their own accord, and the spokes rattled and spun dully in their hubs, unless tied with green hides or secured with pebbles wedged into the gaps. The land was as flat and hot as an armorer's anvil, the heat rising in waves on the horizon, forbidding even trees from growing, for nothing could survive save twisted, stunted little shrubs not sufficient even for small cooking fires for the army, and pitiful, ground-hugging little herbs.

For thrice a hundred miles even this sparse forage failed us completely, and dozens of baggage animals starved to death. The ground was bare, and the men ran out of grain. The market that Cyrus' camp followers maintained charged exorbitant prices-certain of them had a knack for business, and were wiser in the ways of provisioning than our own quartermasters. Even a rancid donkey's head could scarcely be bought for sixty drachmae. We were beggared long before we emerged from the desert, and most had resorted to gnawing the thin, stringy meat of the mules and pack oxen that died of starvation or thirst along the way. Only the camels in Cyrus' train appeared content, if camels can ever be said to be so, evil-tempered creatures that they are.

Xenophon was philosophical about the situation, and once I even caught him smiling as he listened to a Spartan captain, Chirisophus, complain bitterly about the price he had just been forced to pay for wheat.

"What are you laughing about?" the officer asked, astonished.

"I was thinking about a friend of mine in Athens, Charmides," Xenophon replied.

"I remember him," interjected Menon, who was passing by and had stopped to listen, "from Socrates' chats in the agora. The man actually used to boast of his poverty-said he was so proud that he was no longer a slave to his wealth."

"He was a fool," Chirisophus said. "How could anyone imagine it better to live like a pauper than a rich man?"

Xenophon laughed. "It was just for the sake of argument, really." The notion of argument for argument's sake was way beyond the ken of the impatient Spartan. "Socrates praised the notion of poverty. 'A most worthy asset,' he would say. 'It causes no jealousy or rivalry, requires no protection to keep it safe, and it only improves from neglect.'"

Chirisophus simply stared at us uncomprehendingly. "Who in the hell is Socrates anyway?" he asked, and stalked away, shaking his head at our ignorance.

It was Cyrus' habit to consult with each of his senior officers individually when he anticipated a major encounter, knowing that they would feel freer to express their true opinions to him singly than they would in a group. When his scribe was incapacitated one day by illness, Proxenus asked me to accompany him to a meeting called by Cyrus. Entering the prince's tent, with which I was now familiar, I waited a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then began glancing around eagerly, but unobtrusively, for a glimpse of Asteria. I was promptly rewarded by a quick smile from the corner, where I spied her sitting quietly on a cushion, engaged in sewing a delicate bit of embroidery with her needle. She was almost invisible in the shadows, her olive complexion blending almost seamlessly with the smoke-darkened canvas of the tent walls. Only the whites of her large, limpid eyes occasionally betrayed her presence, as she intermittently focused them alertly on the conversation at the front of the tent before turning them back to her work.

"I understand, Proxenus," said Cyrus, after some preliminary banter, "that you had occasion to battle some Persian mercenaries on one of your Ionian campaigns. Was there anything you learned then that you think might be of use against the king?"

Proxenus thought for a moment, as I divided my attention between rapidly scribbling notes on my wax tablets and glancing at Asteria behind the prince. "With all due respect, sir," he said, "I didn't really fight the Persians, but rather interrogated one we had captured, who happened to be a former member of the king's personal bodyguard, one of his Immortals. He had been disgraced for some reason or another and was hiring himself out for service as an officer. We actually became friends, to a point."

Cyrus straightened in interest.

"As you know," Proxenus continued, "the king's Immortals are highly trained-possibly the best trained guards and horsemen in the world. That's both their strength and weakness, however. According to this fellow, the Immortals are so disciplined, they are inflexible. They are paralyzed without explicit commands from the king."

Proxenus let this sink in for a moment. Cyrus was familiar with the Immortals, of course, having himself been trained and raised with them, and having his own band of them as bodyguards, but this was an aspect he hadn't considered.

"The entire world is terrified of the Immortals," said Proxenus, "and King Artaxerxes has six thousand of them-utterly loyal to their master, ready to die for him at a moment's notice. The only way of dealing with them is to kill the head, the king himself. One bold strike to take out the king-even by a smaller force, perhaps one carrying out a suicide run-and the entire band of Immortals will be immobilized, and seeing that, the whole Persian army will turn tail."

Cyrus sat frozen, deep in contemplation. Asteria's needle was working more slowly, her eyes now fixed unblinkingly on the prince, much to my irritation. Proxenus was not yet through, though.

"The same goes for the king's general, Tissaphernes," he said. Cyrus started, wrenched out of his reverie by mention of the hated name. "I understand that for all his bluster, he's basically a coward. He likes to take credit, to look good, but when faced with a determined force, even a smaller one, he cringes like a boy facing his father's belt."

There was a sudden movement from the corner behind Cyrus, and I saw Asteria ruefully sucking her finger where she had pricked it with the needle. Her concentration was broken, but before she returned back to her sewing I saw her shoot a glance not at me or at the prince, but unmistakably at Proxenus, who was standing to Cyrus' side. Even through the partial darkness of the tent, I could see that her eyes were full of venom.

The prince remained thinking in his seat for a long time without uttering a word. Asteria did not look up from her sewing again, however, and Cyrus finally dismissed us.