"Where the fuck did you get this!" he burst, waving the blade dangerously under Xenophon's nose and startling the horses. "This was mine! I exchanged this with that pig-headed Gryllus twenty years ago!" And suddenly an expression of recognition flashed across his face, and he grinned evilly.
"Are you the son of Gryllus the Athenian?" he asked hoarsely, leaning so close that his putrid breath made Xenophon feel nauseous. Clearchus wore the same expression of curled-lip disdain that Gryllus had the day he watched the pancration training. Xenophon stared straight ahead, concentrating on holding his horse's pace even with that of the general's animal.
"Yes, sir, I am," he said evenly. "My father is a great man, or was anyway, for I don't know whether he still lives. Still, he contributed greatly to Athens' glory. I am proud to be the son of Gryllus."
"Proud," Clearchus smirked. "Proud! And how proud would Athens be now, how proud would your father be, to see his spawn marching under a Spartan's command, after righting for a Persian's family feud? Wasn't your sorry-ass puke-hole of a city exciting enough for you under Spartan control, that you had to come all this way to become a Spartan yourself?"
"He didn't approve at all. I'm sure it killed him when he discovered what I did."
"And the world would be better off for it," Clearchus hissed. "That man, your father, blocked me every time I was ordered to deal with him, stymied me in every treaty I was sent to negotiate with him. I would have cut him down at the knees if I had been allowed, and he knew it. He set my career back ten years."
"I'm not to blame or praise for my father's conduct. He served Athens, and if his actions were to your detriment, they were to Athens' benefit. I am my own man, and I make my own decisions."
"And that, little Xenophon, son of Gryllus, is to your detriment. I cursed your father to Hades many times, for he was my enemy. But at least he knew what he was. The only thing worse than an Athenian is a traitor, and even an Athenian traitor is no friend of mine. Get out of my sight. It makes me puke to think of you fighting beside me."
Xenophon spurred his mount forward, his face composed but his eyes stinging in anger and his mind a torrent of emotion. If it wasn't Gryllus tormenting him as a boy, it was Clearchus doing so when he was a man, and both for the same reason: because he was Gryllus' son.
"Wait, Athenian!" Clearchus called just as Xenophon had begun to draw away. He spurred his own mount forward to Xenophon's side. "Take this," and he shoved the sword back into the scabbard. "It'll remind you of your betters."
CHAPTER THREE
WRATH-THUS SING THE MUSES, for not since the days of Achilles has any man felt such wrath as that which tormented Xenophon. After returning furious from the outing with Clearchus, he refused even to tell Proxenus about it; but rather raged up and down the officers' tent, stirring up dust and breezing past Proxenus' maps and scrolls until Proxenus finally threw him out with orders not to return until he had calmed himself. Xenophon stormed outside, his anger like a great, pustulant boil that refused to burst and settle, and I attached myself to him like a physician's leech, trying to calm him.
Half the night he paced the outskirts of the camp, worrying at the insults he had received, and his silence in the face of Clearchus' vile epithets directed at his father.
"At my own father, Theo! And I did nothing to defend him, nothing to challenge Clearchus!"
"You would have been a fool to try anything," I countered. "You know his temper-he was just waiting for you to lose control. He would have run you through with your own sword at the slightest pretext, and smiled as he did it."
"Still, I can't ignore his words. If it were my own honor alone at stake I might swallow my pride, but it is my father's!"
"This is not the time for a private quarrel," I counseled. "Settle your squabbles later. Clearchus is baiting you and you'll give him satisfaction if you give in. The army is in peril, and you must focus your energies on that. Let him act the fool. Call on the gods to give you the wisdom to do what is right."
This seemed to calm him somewhat, and he returned to Proxenus' tent and forced down some cold breakfast. He did not mention the incident again that day, except to inform Proxenus in a matter-of-fact tone that he would not be accompanying him to the peace parley that evening at Tissaphernes' camp. Proxenus raised his eyebrows in surprise, but said nothing.
Just as daylight was fading that evening, Asteria slipped over to the tent where I was tending to Xenophon's kit. I was surprised to see her standing at the door, as in the past we had always made careful plans before meeting after dark, and had not done so now for several days. In fact, her failure to seek me out earlier and now her unexpected arrival by daylight irritated me. I stepped outside the tent and while talking I snapped at her for some trivial remark. She was silent for a moment before turning sadly to leave. I reached for her arm and began to apologize.
"Theo," she said, "It's not important. I came here for just a moment. I can't stay, my friends are expecting me back soon. Please, don't go to Tissaphernes tonight. Don't let your master go either."
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.