‘No,’ replied Sophos. ‘That wasn’t part of the agreement. We’ll take on anyone who offers armed resistance and we’ll burn the villages. Don’t ask for more.’
Millions of stars were teeming in the sky that night. The white veil that crosses the firmament from one side to the other seemed to rise and fall as if a mysterious wind were setting it aflutter and the air was full of the perfume of unfamiliar flowers.
After dinner Sophos went up to the ridge, dressed only in his cloak, gripping his spear in his hand. Xeno joined him.
‘I can’t believe it. Four days from now we’ll see the sea,’ he said.
‘You shouldn’t believe it. Not until we’ve seen it.’
You’re right. We’ve had our share of complications.’
They stood there in silence, until Xeno spoke again. ‘What will you do when we get back?’
‘Me? Nothing. I’ll never get to Sparta.’
Xeno didn’t comment. Sophos was pronouncing his own death sentence and there was nothing that Xeno could say to counter it. They sat on the ridge for some time, looking at the villages that they would put to fire and sword the next day.
As the men were pitching camp I had discovered a spring of clear water under a big rock covered with green moss. When it had grown pitch black I went there, stripped off my clothes and slowly immersed myself in the icy water. At first it was so cold I couldn’t even catch my breath, but at last I was able to wash and purify my body and my hair in the uncontaminated waters. It was like being born into a new life, and as soon as I lay down, I plummeted into a deep sleep.
I WAS AWAKENED by a chorus of screams and cries of terror, and the sinister crackling of fire. I ran outside and saw that the camp was empty; only a small unit had been left behind to garrison it. I climbed up the ridge and watched our soldiers paying the price to see the sea: slaughter.
The men of the village were fighting with all that they had, but there were few of them left standing because the assault had taken them by surprise, before sunrise. Many lay sprawled on the ground, transfixed. Some of the women were running off with babes in their arms, seeking refuge in the forests, while others wept over the bodies of their slain husbands. The children tried to take up the arms of their fathers who had fallen fighting off an implacable enemy that had pounced out of nowhere on their sleeping village. The huts with roofs of wood and straw burned like torches, raising swirls of dense smoke and sparks to the heavens. Before long, the crackle of the flames was the only sound to be heard. The army formed ranks again, led by the guide, and one by one destroyed every village on the mountainside, leaving a wake of smoke-blackened ruins. The ravages lasted three days, and only when our guide declared himself satisfied did we move on, towards the crest of the mountain range we were crossing.
As we climbed, the snow reappeared, but only in patches, here and there. In the pastures we saw fleshy white flowers which were very beautiful and, a little higher up, carpets of purple blossoms with thin, long petals arranged in a star shape. It was a splendid sight. I saw some of the girls gathering them up and I picked one too, and put it in my hair. I hated to see them crushed under the warriors’ heavy feet.
The head of the column had nearly reached the crest, but we still lagged far behind with the pack animals. Xeno and his men were on foot, leading their horses by the reins. Finally even we women arrived at a high plain which was wide enough for two battalions to pass side by side. Towards the west it shelved gently upward.
All at once, confused shouting could be heard from the head of the column, getting louder and louder. Xeno was just a little way behind me with Lycius of Syracuse and the others of his squad. I heard him shout, ‘Mount your horses, men! The vanguard is under attack! Be quick! Move!’
In an instant they had vaulted onto their horses and were racing alongside the column, which had ground to a halt. The officers were fanning out their units so as to reach the battle line more quickly and come to the aid of their comrades. The shouts were getting even louder.
But something in that sound struck me as strange and I had a sudden realization. I ran like mad towards the front of the column.
It was a prolonged, powerful cry, like the rolling of thunder, and the closer I got the more the cry grew in intensity, till my heart felt it was about to burst.
It was a word they were shouting, one word, the same I’d heard pronounced as a hope and an invocation during the freezing nights, in the endless marches. I’d heard it in the melancholy songs that rose from the camp when the sun was dying behind the grey winter clouds.
The sea.
Yes, that’s what they were shouting, ‘The sea! The sea! The sea! The seeeeeeeaaaaa!’
My heart was pounding by the time I got to the top, panting and covered in sweat. Xeno saw me and shouted: ‘Look! It’s the sea!’
Delirium surrounded me. The warriors were beside themselves; they couldn’t stop repeating that cry. They embraced each other, they embraced their officers as if in thanks for not giving up on them. Then, brandishing their swords, they began to beat them on their shields without ever ceasing their cry, making the air tremble with the deafening roar of bronze.
For a long while they stood there dazed by that vision. The thick cloud cover that hid the foot of the great mountain chain was opening and with every passing moment, with every renewed cry from the warriors, the break was growing wider, and there before us lay an intense and splendid stretch of blue, a sparkling, translucent blue, rippling with a thousand glittering waves, edged with white foam. I’d never seen it before.
The sea.
28
THEIR ENTHUSIASM AND JOY showed no signs of diminishing. The sight of the sea was not only the end of a nightmare, it was a vision of home. It meant familiar shores, places studded with the settlements, villages and cities that the motherland had founded on the continent.
Someone abruptly yelled something that I didn’t understand, but everyone in earshot began to gather stones. Soon the entire army and many of the girls as well were joining the soldiers in adding rocks and pebbles, each as many as he or she could carry. They found a great number of them in a depression in the ground about two or three hundred paces away, and they built up several huge mounds to mark the spots from which they’d first seen the sea. It would serve as the reminder of what they had achieved, a trophy that would stand for centuries and perhaps for millennia in memory of their victory over their enemies, over hunger, thirst, cold, wounds, illness and betrayal. It would celebrate their impossible endeavour for all time.
They were so excited that the pile of stones grew before my eyes, taking on huge dimensions. The guide, standing off to the side, said nothing. He watched with a puzzled look, not realizing what they were doing, not understanding, I believe, the meaning of such behaviour. He didn’t move, didn’t bat an eyelid, as the totally spontaneous and monumental project took shape, growing by the hour.
By dusk their task was complete. Each mound was more than twenty paces wide and about ten cubits high, rising at the rim of the clearing, looming over the steep slope that descended towards the sea. The clouds in the meantime were crowding the sky again and obscuring the sight of the boundless blue expanse. When the monument had been completed, the soldiers tossed onto it the weapons that they’d taken from their enemies, and only then did the guide react. He broke some of them in pieces and asked our men to do the same. His hate for those who had carried them must have been extreme.
It was time to reward him for having guided us to that point. He was given a horse from those the men used in common, a beautiful Persian robe and ten gold darics, a fortune and a sign of the army’s unending gratitude. But the guide had set his eyes on their rings and pointing at the soldiers’ fingers, he asked to be given those as well. Many turned them over happily. Even Melissa: I saw her take a ring off her little finger and give it to the guide, who put it in the sack with the others. Then, without saying a word, he turned on his heel and melted on horseback into the shadows of
the night.
A sense of calm fell over the army then, in the silence, and an infinite sadness. The euphoria, the wild, irrepressible enthusiasm, the crazed yells, the furious raising of a symbol of their salvation, all faded, giving way to reflection and memory. They had somehow survived an undertaking that had cost continual sacrifice and struggle, a battle one thousand battles long, a war against everything and everyone. Their eyes saw the scenes that would never leave them as long as they lived: comrades fallen in battle, dying slowly amid atrocious suffering, youth maimed, wounded, doomed to wander for ever in a blind, dark world.
That’s who those mounds were dedicated to: to the ones who hadn’t made it. Their heroism, their valour, their courage. No other monument like them existed in all the world. This was no work commissioned by great wealth from a renowned artist and lavished with gold and bronze and precious marbles. No, those mounds had been raised by those who remained, each man adding a stone or two stones or a hundred, without the design of any architect, inspired only by their hearts.
At dusk I saw more than one of those young warriors off on his own, weeping. Others had gathered around the biggest mound and were raising their voices in a sad, majestic song that rose to the sky, where the first star was already shining.
The next day we started to march again, downhill this time. The Ten Thousand were leaving the world of the heights that they had crossed from one end to another. Solitary peaks, unending chains of mountains furrowed by turbulent rivers roaring through rapids and exploding into foaming falls, all behind them now. They were going back to the sea, from where they had started.
We crossed a wood of shrubs not much taller than a man, laden with purple flowers. Beyond them were green fields dotted with other marvellous blooms, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Here and there ran dozens of little brooks that carried down to the valley the water of the glaciers and the snows that had melted in the heat of what had become late spring. They splashed from one rock to another, releasing a fine mist that shone in sunlight with the colours of the rainbow. The sound of all this rushing water, of each little fall, the gurgling and bubbling that changed in tone and intensity at every stone, formed a single, indefinable, magical voice, joined by the chirping of the birds and the rustle of the leaves in the breeze.
This is how paradise on earth must have been, in the golden age, I thought. The bright reflection of the sun penetrating between the branches, glistening dewdrops, fragrances carried on the warm wind that blew in from the sea, redolent with other scents.
Our suffering truly seemed behind us, hardship and hunger a mere memory, but we soon were forced to realize that not everything would be so easy. A local tribe barred our path at a river, and only after long negotiations were we allowed to cross unscathed. When Xeno asked the young skirmisher who had stepped up to offer himself as an interpreter how he had learned the language of a people living so far from Greece, he replied, ‘I don’t know . . . I suddenly realized that I could understand them when they were speaking.’
It was a kind of miracle, with no easy explanation. Then the youth said that, as a child, he had been sold as a slave in Athens and so it was possible that he was a son of that people. His mother tongue had stayed buried in his mind, neglected for years and years, until his memory was awakened by an unexpected contact with his forgotten origins.
They were forced to fight further on, at a mountain ridge where a line of soldiers was drawn up: the Colchians, the people of the golden fleece!
I felt that I had stepped into a wondrous universe where truth and legend were mixing constantly, in which real visions were transfigured in fanciful settings.
This time Xeno led the charge, urging the warriors to seize this last pass. He rode up and down the ranks encouraging them, joking, cursing in his military jargon, until I heard him yell, ‘Let’s get on with it, we’re going to eat them alive!’
The men responded with a roar, launching themselves into the attack with fury and overwhelming power. The Colchians were swept away at the first assault and the army camped in several villages that we came upon before evening. Here something very strange happened. Hundreds of our men showed signs of poisoning: they grew exceedingly weak and feverish, with cramps and vomiting. It was said that they’d eaten honey that had intoxicated them, but I’d never heard of bees that could produce poisonous honey. Could they be immune to their own poison? I suspected other causes, and so did Xeno, I think, because he knew that the army had its enemies and that the reasons for wanting it annihilated had not gone away.
Fortunately, those who had fallen ill managed to get better fairly soon, and this helped to allay my suspicions that our persecution would have no end.
We set out again, and at last we reached the coast, which stretched out a long way before us. On the second day, the city of Trapezus appeared. A Greek city.
It had been over a year since our men had been able to speak their own language with a community of people, and their joy was immense. We camped outside the city, and while our commanders made contact with the authorities and tried to secure the help we needed to continue our journey, the men organized games and contests to thank the gods.
When the celebrations were over, it was time to make decisions. The assembled army, with all the ranks taking part, did not leave their officers much of a choice. No one wanted to march any further, face more combat, risk more losses. Their mission was concluded, as far as they were concerned, and they wanted to find a ship that would take them home. One of the soldiers even made a speech that seemed inspired by the monologues of the comic actors at the theatres, performing a parody of the soldier as hero. As if to say: we’ve had enough.
Sophos tried to obtain warships and cargo ships from the city authorities, but the results were disappointing. Only a couple of ships and ten or so smaller vessels were found. On top of everything else, one of the men who was an expert in navigation had been put in charge of the ships, but during the night he weighed anchor and set sail with one of the two warships. His name was Dexippus and he would be for ever remembered as a traitor.
The remaining vessels would certainly not suffice to transport the army, who were thus forced to make forays into the interior so that they could raid and plunder the villages of the native peoples, who defended themselves with tooth and nail. I didn’t witness any of those raids, because I stayed back at camp with the other women, the wounded and the convalescents, but I found out more than I wanted to know from the stories we’d listen to after dark: cruel tales of havoc and destruction, women and children jumping in flames from their houses only to have their bones crushed in the fall, fighters on both sides turned into human torches, ferocious hand-to-hand combat, massacres.
Did they have any choice? They would have preferred to buy what they needed in the markets, but they had little money left, and nothing precious to barter. Even I had begun to think like them, and I knew the law of survival was not something you could ignore. The horrors of war were a sad consequence of that law. Once the battle had begun, the pain, the blood, the agony of body and mind did the rest, and any semblance of decency was cancelled, any restraint overwhelmed. I was fortunate I didn’t have to watch it.
After we’d been camped in the same place for a month, the army had created a void all around us. There were no villages left to be sacked in a range of one or two days’ march. We had to move on. The inhabitants of Trapezus had long had enough of us, and would have done anything to see us gone. At that point it was decided that the non-combatants would board the ships and the available vessels would put to sea: in this way, the amount of food we needed would also be greatly diminished. The command of the fleet was entrusted to Netus, the officer who’d often had differences of opinion with Xeno. It seems that he is writing his own story of the expedition; I’d love to know what he has written.
So the wounded and the sick, the older men and the remaining women left by sea. Yes, the girls were leaving. The girls who had cheered on
the warriors at the turbulent river as if they were athletes at the stadium, the girls who had held them in their arms when they returned from battle, curing and salving their wounds, consoling them and alleviating the hardships of living, of fighting, of facing death every day and every night. The girls who had kissed them and loved them because the next day might be their last. The girls who had followed them to the end of the earth and who had mourned them on their funeral pyres as if they were their brides, sisters, mothers.
They were leaving.
I stayed with Xeno. Melissa stayed with Cleanor, and so did a few others who had become the constant companions of some of the officers. The march resumed again, along the coast. We never lost sight of the sea. For a while we could see ships and boats sailing in convoy and sometimes I thought I could see the girls waving to us with brightly coloured cloths flying in the wind. I’d get a lump in my throat and I couldn’t hold back my tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lystra. About her striving to deliver her baby in the freezing cold, about my own desperation and solitude. Death had demanded his due: a poor slave and a child who would never be born. And in the bright sunshine that reflected off the sea in a million sparkles, I thought of the mysterious divinity of the storm who had taken me into his arms and flown me to the outskirts of the camp so that I could be found. Perhaps he was made of snow and had melted with spring’s return, perhaps his spirit now surged through the fast-flowing torrents that rushed down the valleys and plunged into the sea.
We reached the first important city after several days of marching and, I’m not sure why, the bitter moment of counting up the survivors arrived. Officially, to know how many mouths were left to feed. The army was drawn up in full order, and the officers commanding each unit loudly called out the roll. When the name of one of the survivors was called, you’d hear ‘Present!’, but often the call was met with a long silence. Although the officer knew he was calling a dead man, he’d repeat the name because that was what the military tradition demanded, and only after prolonged silence did he go on to the next name. As the roll continued, the expressions of those present darkened, because each silence corresponded to a comrade, a friend, a brother who had lost his life, and brought up memories of blood and suffering.