Asteria was nowhere to be found, either among her friends or in any hiding place I could think of, and my duties could not allow me to continue searching any longer. Returning through the Rhodians' camp, I spotted Nicolaus, his foot now healing cleanly, and quickly pulled him off to the side.
"Nicolaus, you heard Xenophon's orders," I whispered huskily, out of breath. "All useless plunder and camp followers are to be left behind."
He shrugged his shoulders and stared at me in puzzlement. It occurred to me that the Rhodian boys were perhaps the only soldiers in the entire army completely unaffected by Xenophon's measure, being too young to have wives among the camp followers, and too new in their battle positions to have earned any plunder. I grasped him by the upper arm to prevent him from leaving.
"Have you seen Asteria?" I asked.
A shadow of concern flickered across his face as he shook his head no.
The fear I had felt when Asteria first suggested defecting to the Persians weeks before rose up again in my throat.
"Have you seen any of Tissaphernes' scouts still tailing us?" I pressed.
Puzzled now, Nicolaus considered the question carefully. "Occasionally, yes, but only from a great distance. They are few in number, and prefer to remain out of sight, for fear of our slings."
"Nicolaus: In the name of all that Xenophon has done for you, in the name of everything you believe in-if you see Asteria, find me."
Nicolaus stood rooted to his spot, astonished at my intensity. I realized the grip I had on his thin arm must have been hurting him terribly, yet he said nothing as he looked at me.
I persisted. "Will you swear it?"
"Yes."
"By all you hold sacred?"
Nicolaus hesitated, and I realized what I had asked of this orphaned boy, exiled from his country, lamed by a wild animal, without an obol to his name. He smiled bitterly.
"Theo, go back to your duties. I'll let you know if I see her."
I trotted back to Xenophon's camp to find him saddling up his own horse in irritation. He threw me a tight-lipped glance and I could tell by his expression that he was aware of my loss-but he methodically continued his cinching and preparations, and when finished, climbed up on his mount and trotted off wordlessly to confer again with Chirisophus. His silence to me spoke volumes. I knew he had been voted general by popular acclaim, rather than appointed. He was utterly trusted by the men; he could speak to them and carry a sword like them. I also knew that he bore the burden of his duty to them like a permanent weight, like a battle scar or a trophy shield which to him represented a sense of honor more precious than life or love or his very happiness. An inviolable confidence would be shattered if he were to ever betray the men by breaking one of the rules he himself had laid down, or if he willingly allowed another to do so. I was his friend, his lifelong servant, his brother; my entire life I had forsaken my personal desires in order to serve and follow him, and he knew this, and I believe was grateful for it-but he would not, could not, make an exception for me. His duty was clear, and I would have rather driven my own sword into my belly than ask him to violate it. Yet even that might have been preferable to his silence.
The army passed through the inspection that Chirisophus and Xenophon had set up at the road narrows, and hundreds of pounds of surplus supplies, lame livestock, unneeded wagons and heavy baggage, and dozens more camp followers, slaves and captives were caught attempting to be smuggled past and were left behind, forbidden on pain of death from following the army. Soldiers involved in the smuggling were flogged, and the troops passing by averted their eyes from the scene, either in shame at their comrades' disobedience of orders, or so as not to attract attention to their own violations, large and small. The occasional good-looking boy or woman might get through, I was sure, in exchange for favors, and all I could do was pray that Asteria, in her cleverness, would herself find a way to do so unscathed and to somehow remain with the army; but I had no such hope.
The entire day and half the night we marched, twenty-five miles, as the enemy continued to slow our progress, skirmishing with us, rolling logs and boulders into our path to obstruct the wagons, throwing rocks from the steep cliffs overhead, pelting us with stones and arrows from behind trees. The men collapsed in exhaustion when Xenophon finally called a halt, most without even bothering to start fires or cook supper. The emotional pain of the morning, and the physical exhaustion of the day's events had done us in. He had still not said a word to me, but watched me carefully from under his brows. I, in turn, could not find it in my heart to say anything to him, in his unrelenting movement and action and confounded busyness. There was neither the time nor the occasion for any words that might lift the weight pressing on my soul.
The next day dawned stormy, with heavy winds and sleet; the men were exhausted, yet we could not remain where we were, without the shelter of a village and with no provisions at hand, so the officers made the decision to press on, hoping to find respite within a day's march. Chirisophus, as usual, led the van, with Xenophon guarding the rear, and enemy skirmishers attacked vigorously and from close range, not only with their usual slings, stones and rolled boulders, but with bows the likes of which we had never seen before, which threw even the Spartan men-at-arms into consternation. Composite bows they were, with the main shaft made of fine, stiff ash, while on the "belly" of the bow, by which I mean the inner surface facing the archer as he shoots, a thin layer of horn had been glued for further stiffening and resistance. More important, however, was the thick layer of sinew taken from the neck tendon of an ox or stag, which was glued to the outside of the bow, and which, when stretched as the bow was drawn, provided for considerably greater springiness and a much more powerful snap as the sinew returned to its original shape, than did a bow made of wood only.
The bows were not only powerful, but enormous: as tall as a man, and when fired, they required that the bowman brace his foot against the lower end while drawing the string almost the length of his arm stretched out behind him. The arrows were as long as the peltasts' javelins, and in fact the Cretans, who were the finest javelin men in the Hellenic army, made a point of saving every such arrow they found and using them for just that purpose, after adding a small finger loop to each one for better throwing. We lost two very good men before we even realized the power of these formidable weapons: Leonymus, a Spartan, was shot by such an arrow, which penetrated right through his solid oak and bronze shield, his corselet and his ribs; and the Arcadian Basias, who to the amazement and dismay of all was shot square through the skull, the arrow emerging to half its length on the other side of his head, despite the fact that he was wearing a heavy bronze war helmet.
At one point, when the rear was being particularly heavily besieged, Xenophon sent word up to Chirisophus at the front to call a halt and send back reinforcements. The army's vanguard was several miles ahead along the road, and it took some time for messages to flow back and forth; yet when the runner returned he reported that not only had Chirisophus refused to send reinforcements, he had picked up his pace, spurring his peltasts and Spartan rangers on to a trot.
Xenophon was furious, though I tried to point out to him that Chirisophus was an experienced officer, and most likely had good reason to have advanced so rapidly. That afternoon, when we finally caught up with the vanguard below a summit where they had halted, he galloped straight up to Chirisophus, his face black with anger.
"Why the hell didn't you halt?" Xenophon spat. I rarely heard him speak coarsely, though it was a technique at which he was gaining more skill over time, as Chirisophus seemed to understand no other language. "My men-at-arms were getting torn to shreds back there by the Kurds' longbows and we had no shelter-we had to march and fight at the same time! By the twelve gods, Chirisophus, are we two armies or one? I lost two good men, one of them a Spartan, and we couldn't even make the fucking Kurds hold fire long enough for us to collect the bodies-they used them for target practice and laughed at us from the distance!"