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.
Xenophon stared at Ariaius with scorn, that he could have so faithlessly betrayed his Greek comrades, and then sent the interpreter into camp to identify any captains who might have remained behind when Clearchus departed. He came running up a few minutes later with Cleanor and Sophainetos, who had been busy arranging the engines and troops and had not seen the approach of the horsemen. They were the only captains remaining in the camp.
"Hellenes, you dogs!" shouted Ariaius. My neck bristled. "Clearchus broke his oath and the truce, and has now been justly punished with death! But Proxenus and Menon, who faithfully reported his breach and his plot, are even now being honored by the king! The king demands, and Proxenus and Menon support him in this, that you lay down your arms immediately and surrender the camp. All that you have is his, says the king, for it belonged to Cyrus, who was the king's brother and slave."
At this, the Hellenes roared in outrage, the sentries clattering their shields with their spears and raining insults down on the heavily armed Persians. The situation had the potential to evolve for the worst. Finally Cleanor raised his shield and bellowed for silence, as ranking officer present:
"You goat-fucking wretch of a Persian slave, Ariaius! You dare to come riding here with your shit-eating ass-kissers, to the Greeks who saved your hide at Cunaxa, and demand that we surrender to your treachery? Have you no shame before real men? Do you not fear the gods, for having broken a solemn pledge, for having betrayed us to your monkey-faced Tissaphernes and his eunuch of a brother? You murdered the very man to whom you swore allegiance, and joined our enemies! May you die a filthy and godforsaken death at the hands of those you betrayed!"
Ariaius smiled thinly at Cleanor's threats, and I could see Tissaphernes' brother muttering something to him from behind, his eyes glittering in a cold rage. Xenophon raised his hand for quiet and spoke up in an effort to ward off the imminent riot. "So Clearchus has been punished. If he did betray his word, then he deserved his punishment. But what about Proxenus and Menon, Ariaius? They are our generals. If they are truly safe, send them here-they are friends with both sides, and it is they who should be negotiating any surrender of the Hellenes to your forces."