Chirisophus roared in a rage and lunged at Mithradates, his dagger aimed at his throat. I and some others held him back, but Mithradates barely flinched.
"Mithradates, you're under a safe-conduct, and I'd advise you to leave now while you still can," said Xenophon quietly. "The troops are under control, we have a new command. Remind Tissaphernes of his men's cowardly performance at Cunaxa. We will be marching through the king's country today, consent or no consent."
Mithradates glared at him for an instant in a cold fury, then recovered his poise. Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he again pointedly ignored Chirisophus and addressed Xenophon directly.
"Tissaphernes has one more request," he said. "Release all Persians you are holding as hostages, and he will then consider giving you safe passage out of the king's lands."
At this, the Greek officers fell silent, looking to one another in bewilderment. My conversation with Asteria the night before came back to me, and as I glanced at her now she avoided my gaze, fixing her eyes on Mithradates alone. Xenophon stepped forward, to the front of the Greeks, and turned to face us.
"Fellow Greeks!" he shouted in a clear, commanding voice, and all went silent. "Anyone who feels they are traveling under coercion, or who believes it to their advantage to join the Persians, may do so now, unimpeded. I stand here prepared, this very minute, to grant safe conduct to the Persian lines to all who desire." He then stood still and silent, searching the crowd of muttering soldiers from face to face, fiercely holding their stares for a long moment. My eyes locked on Asteria's, and hers, wide and unblinking, focused fixedly on Xenophon, her face bloodless and her lips slightly parted and trembling. I held my breath as I waited for her to react. She stood distraught and tense, poised as if to walk forward at any moment, yet she remained still.
Xenophon finally dropped his gaze and turned back to Mithradates. "We have no Persian hostages," he said evenly, "and Tissaphernes knows that. Everyone traveling with us does so voluntarily. If Tissaphernes is trying to create a pretext for moving against us, then he needn't go to the trouble. Tell him to simply attack, openly and like a man, and then he'll see what it's like to taste Greek iron, rather than holding back in cowardice as he did at Cunaxa."
Mithradates stared at Xenophon wrathfully, then turned on his heels and stalked back out of the camp in the direction from which he had come. His Persian assistants followed, wrapping themselves in as much dignity as they could muster, tramping through the mud and horseshit in their thin pointed slippers. Their stallions had already been disposed of. Chirisophus was still breathing hard, but had calmed down sufficiently to stalk back to his own troops, and had them arranged in marching formation in a trice. The camp followers and rear guard took somewhat longer, but by mid-morning the army was ready, and we moved slowly across the plain, leaving nothing behind but a pile of charred remains emitting putrid black smoke, and the last of our dreams of a triumphant return to Greece through the front door.
CHAPTER THREE
MITHRADATES GOT HIS revenge for the disgrace he suffered at Xenophon's hands. We had hardly started off that day when he appeared again at our rear, this time accompanied by two hundred cavalry and four hundred light infantry. His herald bore a flag of truce, and although we did not halt our march to receive him, Xenophon and several junior officers held back and waited for him to approach, neglecting to call any supporting infantry for protection.
This was a mistake, for as soon as a sufficient gap had opened up between Xenophon's group and the army, Mithradates' cavalry whipped their horses along our flanks, seeking to drive a wedge between us and the main body of our troops and cut us down. We galloped frantically back to the safety of our troops, narrowly avoiding being encircled, but Mithradates' near approach nevertheless caught the army unprepared. Both the arrows from the Persian cavalry and the missiles from their well-trained slingers caused a number of casualties among our rearguard before we were finally able to drive them away by sheer force of numbers. We were accustomed to the powerful, body-length bows the Persians used in warfare, which although difficult to handle gave them a range beyond that of our own Cretan bowmen; but we had not counted on the deadly force of the Persian slingers, whose large stones, though not actually killing any of our men, kept them cowering under their shields and exposed to Persian cavalry charges.
Xenophon ordered pursuit, but without sufficient horsemen we could catch none of the Persian cavalry, and even our fleetest footmen could not gain ground against their slingers and bowmen with such a long head start. By the end of the day the army had covered no more than three miles, and the rearguard troops straggled in from all directions over a period of two hours or more, in complete disarray. Our first day on the march without senior officers had been disastrous, and Chirisophus and the older captains made it clear that there was no one to blame for the debacle but Xenophon. He had allowed himself to be drawn out by the Persians to an exposed position, and then risked his own neck to pursue their retreating troops.
He listened to their criticisms silently, a blank expression on his face, and acknowledged his blame, speaking only to humbly thank the gods that his first trial by fire had involved only a small Persian skirmishing force, rather than the full strength of Tissaphernes' army. As we were walking back to our tent, I could see that, rather than looking discouraged, he was busily puzzling something over in his mind.
"The Spartans disdain slingers," he said. "They call their weapons children's toys, unfit to be used by real men with swords and lances. But did you notice how the enemy slingers cowed our troops today, even the Spartans? The Persians were able to stand far beyond our own range, and yet kept us squatting under our shields like turtles. Do we have any slingers in the army to use in the same way?"
I thought for a moment. "The Rhodians are the most famous among the Greeks for their slinging," I answered. "But no, we have no company of slingers. Our Rhodians are distributed among the other companies according to their various skills-a few are hoplites, most are peltasts and bowmen. I know one-I'll ask him if there are any slingers here among his countrymen."
I sought out an acquaintance I had made during the march across the desert, a young scout named Nicolaus of Rhodes, and asked him whether any of his compatriots knew how to use a sling. Nicolaus was a dark, slightly built youth, with delicate, almost feminine features and short-cropped hair, as was the custom on his island. He seemed barely strong enough to draw a bowstring. Political events on his island had conspired to drive him and many others like him into exile at a very young age, but the Rhodians' reputation as effective mountain scouts and crack marksmen had enabled them to easily gain employment with mercenary armies around the Mediterranean. The Rhodians were known for their good cheer and relentless endurance under conditions of hardship. Nicolaus was delighted that I had taken the trouble to seek him out, and he smiled wryly at my question.
"Take me to Xenophon," he said, fishing out a long, tangled sling from deep within his pack, and seizing a walking stick, "and round up a half dozen sheep to be butchered tonight for the troops." As we trotted back, he whistled to several of his friends billeted in the units through which we passed, all as boyish-looking as himself, and shouted to them in his guttural Rhodian dialect to follow along and bring their slings and sticks.