I peered into the tent at Xenophon, who was staring absently at the wall. "There doesn't seem to be much chance of that, does there?" I said sarcastically. "The poor brute is in a fury, trying to decide whether to murder Clearchus quickly or devise a more painful method. It doesn't matter. Tonight is just another peace parley, like all the others we've seen."
Asteria looked at me with round eyes, seeming to stare deep into my mind, before shrugging her shoulders and muttering something about lending Xenophon one of her scrolls she had managed to salvage, to improve his mood. Just before turning away a second time, however, she looked at me again, her eyes smoldering in the gathering darkness. "Clearchus is a simple-minded fool, Theo," she whispered, an urgency in her voice. "He is not worthy of Xenophon's anguish. Only an idiot like Clearchus would take Tissaphernes for granted the way he does."
"What are you saying?" I asked skeptically. "He has gotten the better of Tissaphernes every time they've met. What is there to fear?"
Looking around carefully, she dropped her voice until it was barely audible. "Remember who you are, and what Tissaphernes is. He is filled with hate, and treacherous even for a Persian. I know him, Theo, I know him like… like my own father. Do not mistake his olive branch for a gesture of peace. The same wood can be used to kindle a funeral pyre. Please-tell Xenophon."
I brushed off her words impatiently as the sentimental drivel of an overwrought woman, and she slipped away. In any case, I would be spending a quiet evening with Xenophon here in the tent, and was relieved not to be returning to the Persian camp again.
Clearchus took Proxenus and four other generals with him to Tissaphernes' camp, along with twenty other officers and some two hundred men to procure supplies at the market being held that evening. Chirisophus was the only senior officer who stayed behind, having been delayed on a journey to scour some distant villages for cheaper provisions. Some of the soldiers protested that no officers, including Clearchus, should entrust themselves to Tissaphernes' camp, but he laughed this off, saying that such fears were merely a sign of how well the conspirators had performed their work among the soldiery. Proxenus reluctantly left Xenophon behind, and said he'd talk with him when he returned that evening. Xenophon was so deeply self-absorbed that he scarcely noticed his cousin's leave-taking.
He retired early that night, exhausted from his ranting of the night before, and soon fell into a deep sleep. As he recounted to me later, his first memory of that evening was of my voice calling to him as if from a tremendous distance-a faint voice, seeking him out, urging him to leave behind the comforting haven of his dreams. I could see him making a conscious effort to block out my words, but I spoke louder, more insistently, as if I were a hunter making my way closer to a stag in the forest, patiently cornering him where he could not escape. I roughly shook him awake, calling him with increasing urgency.
"Xenophon… Something terrible has happened. You must get up! Xenophon!"
He sat up groggily, struggling to focus on my face, to grasp the meaning of my disorganized spill of words.
"Come quickly! Nicarchus has returned from the Persian camp, alone. Proxenus and the other officers are still there. Something is wrong."
He stumbled outside as I pointed to where Nicarchus the egg-farmer, one of the lower officers who had accompanied Clearchus to Tissaphernes' camp, was sitting on the ground ashen-faced, surrounded by a growing body of shouting men, a frothing and blood-soaked horse pawing the ground nearby, unattended. As we approached Nicarchus, I saw that a stain of dark blood was spreading blackly in the sand beneath him. He looked at Xenophon with a mixture of horror and unutterable sadness, and when he spread his hands away from his sides in a gesture of resignation and futility, Xenophon nearly choked on his bile, and the fuzziness immediately left his brain. The man's belly had been split open from navel to groin, and what he had been calmly holding in his hands was a glistening, ivory-purplish coil of his own intestines, which had spilled out of his abdomen. Nicarchus tried desperately to hold them in, but shiny, thin loops kept slipping out between his fingers and slithering into the dirt.
Xenophon shouted frantically for someone to fetch a camp surgeon, but with his loss of blood and the corruption of his spilled bowels, it was clear that faithful Nicarchus had but a few minutes of life left to him. I hastily laid a cloak on the ground behind him and helped him to recline in a more comfortable, almost fetal position that would not put too much strain on what must have been an extraordinarily painful wound. How the man bore it as long as he did was beyond my comprehension.
"Nicarchus, by the holy gods, speak! What happened? Where are Clearchus and the other officers?"
By this time, word of Nicarchus' arrival had spread through the neighboring tents, and a growing crowd was pressing in on us, shouting and gesturing.
"Xenophon… they're gone! By the gods, they're gone, all of them!" Nicarchus struggled to keep focused, to hold his gaze and stay conscious. "Clearchus and the captains went in the main tent, and the rest of us stayed outside…"
He choked on the blood rising up in his throat, spilling out blackly from the corners of his mouth, and gasped for breath again.
"There was a signal, and then the Persians all drew swords and cut us down. I… I managed to flop across a horse and ride back here, but the others…" Poor Nicarchus by this time was weeping soundlessly, his voice growing fainter. "I should have stayed with them! Maybe I could have helped…"
I squeezed the dying man's hand and reassured him that without his brave return, our camp could never have been alerted, and might have been destroyed in its sleep. As grievous as Nicarchus' condition was, we had no time to spare. Xenophon was staggered at the shock of what he had just seen and heard. He shouted to the surrounding men. "Battle stations! Everyone assume battle stations! Form a box around the baggage and wagons, heavy armor in front, camp followers in the middle. Engine men! Light coals and place the Boeotian engines in the front!" He arranged what few bowmen and targeteers were available at the entrance to the camp to serve as an early warning, and then I helped him to strap on his own cuirass and helmet before clambering up the makeshift lookout tower to see what might be happening at the Persian camp. It had not even occurred to him that he hardly had the rank to be ordering an army of ten thousand men into battle position; but he saw no other superior officers available, and the men, in their shock at the news, were desperately seeking someone to take charge, and to assign them tasks to keep busy.
In the distance, toward the Persian camp, hundreds of torches and fires had been lit. No enemy forces were advancing that I could see, but great numbers of horsemen were galloping about in random patterns, and periodic shouts, cries of jubilation, and screams of agony were faintly carried over by the wind. I saw that most of the activity appeared to be centered near the river, where the nightly market was held, and I feared the worst for the two hundred soldiers who had gone to the Persian camp to procure supplies for the army.
The Hellenes remained at post, terrified of an imminent attack which did not, in fact, materialize. What did arrive was a body of three hundred horsemen, who suddenly broke out of the chaos and fire of the Persian camp, and galloped towards us, heavily armored and in battle formation. Xenophon stalked over to the sentry posts at the front entrance to the camp, and raised a flag of truce to stop them and discover their intent.
As the party of cavalry approached I saw that they were led by Ariaius, Artaozus, and Mithradates, Cyrus' closest friends among the allied army. Xenophon's interpreter, who had arrived breathless behind me, also pointed out Tissaphernes' brother, who kept his face shadowed in a visor and helmet behind Ariaius, but who seemed to be in communication with him and the other two officers. The band drew up their horses in front of Xenophon, looked down disdainfully, and then called for a captain to whom they could deliver the king's message.