They stepped out of the shadows, Bulis leading and Temenos pulling a “reluctant” Prokles after him by the elbow. Bulis approached the first slave he saw watering a horse and recited in his stiff Persian, “Take me to the Great King. I have a message for the Great King.”
The slave pointed and babbled directions that they could not understand. So they followed the direction of his gesture, and Bulis asked the question again and again, until they stood before a massive tent flying many different pennants and lit by scores of torches. There were evidently many lamps burning inside as well, because the tent seemed to glow in the darkness. They could see shadows moving about inside, and music wafted out of the tent. More significantly, important-looking men were coming and going. It looked like the right place, but Bulis hesitated. “No Immortals,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?” Prokles growled back.
“I mean, the sentries here aren’t Immortals. Xerxes is always guarded by a company of Immortal spearmen. This can’t be his tent.”
“Ask again,” Prokles insisted.
Bulis had no intention of asking one of the men with curved swords at their hips or bows on their backs. He waited until he spotted a eunuch with a clutch of wax tablets and other writing utensils. Bulis approached him and tried his worn Persian phrases. The eunuch answered in Greek. “This is the tent of our Great Master, may Ahuramazda grace him with long life!”
“But where are the Immortals?” Bulis challenged him.
“They have other duties tonight. Why do you want to know?”
“I have this deserter here,” Bulis waved a hand contemptuously in Prokles’ direction, “that I was ordered to bring to the Great King.”
The eunuch looked Prokles up and down. “Why?”
Bulis shrugged, “Damned if I know. My captain told me to take him to the Great King and no one else. The officers were in an uproar when they got him in the firelight and they saw who he was.” He looked back at Prokles as if he were reassessing his prisoner. “I gather he is someone important.”
“No doubt from your perspective,” the eunuch told him condescendingly. “But the Great King has many more important matters to attend to tonight. I’m sure he won’t see the likes of you now! You’ll have to wait until tomorrow, after we’ve swept these vile Spartans and their slaves out of the Pass.”
Bulis shrugged. “See if I care!”
The eunuch hurried away and Bulis returned to Prokles. “Now what?”
“This trick has got us as far as it’s going to,” Prokles announced. “Take me to the copse of trees over there.”
Bulis did as ordered, and here in the shadows, Prokles unwound the cord from his wrists. His hands free again, he tied the cord around his waist again and then suggested, “Let’s walk around to the back and see what sort of sentries are there.”
The three Spartans slowly circled Xerxes’ great tent, discovering that it was not so much a tent as a complex of tents―some smaller, some larger, some taller, some lower, some lit on the inside, some dark. Sentries paced slowly back and forth across the front and back and on one side, but the fourth side of the complex abutted the river Asopos. There was no evidence of sentries here.
The Spartans crossed to the far side of the river and walked along the far shore. They were directly beside another large tent from which mouth-watering scents wafted. Music and laughter escaped, muffled by the canvas. Someone sang in a very high voice, either a woman or a young boy.
“Some of the bastards obviously don’t give a damn about the losses of the last two days,” Temenos commented.
“What did you think?” Bulis snapped back. He hated Temenos and felt demeaned to be on this mission with him. “We’re among the Persians here; the dead were Medes and Cissians, Lydians and Armenians, Egyptians and―”
“We get the point. We’re not idiots!” Temenos snapped back.
“You act like it!” Bulis insisted.
“Shut up!” Prokles ordered. “Look over there! That tent nearest the water. That’s where we go in.”
The other two stared at it. Temenos guessed first. “It’s the latrine.”
“Exactly, and since the Great King probably doesn’t like being watched by mere mortal slaves while shitting, the sentries probably have orders to look the other way. We’ll go a couple hundred yards upstream, wait for the moon to set, then drop into the river and come downstream with the current until we’re beside that tent. We scale the bank into the latrine and from there we just keep going as far as we can, killing anyone we meet.”
Abruptly Temenos recognized how futile their mission was. He had allowed himself to be excited by it, even honored. After all, no matter what others thought of him, everyone knew that Leonidas loved Prokles. It had seemed obvious that Leonidas wouldn’t send Prokles on a completely senseless suicide mission. And so far things had gone well. The ease with which they had moved around inside the camp had given Temenos a sense of security so complete, he’d hardly felt nervous.
But when Prokles said they would just kill everyone until they were killed themselves, Temenos realized that Prokles didn’t have any plan for getting out again. Prokles expected to die here, very soon. That was chilling.
Temenos looked over at Bulis. Bulis looked as arrogant as always. Apparently he, too, expected to die tonight, and didn’t care. Why should he? He’d been prepared to die four years ago when he went to the Persian court. His family was already dead. Technically, he shouldn’t have been allowed to come, because Leonidas had said only the fathers of living sons….
Temenos felt his stomach lurch. Technically he shouldn’t have been here either, because his sons, living though they were, weren’t Spartiate. And Prokles was an exile, a mercenary….
Temenos was beginning to understand Dienekes’ choice. They were all dispensable, all pariahs in their own way.
Prokles had found a grassy knoll near the river to wait out the setting of the moon, which hovered close to the top of the mountains behind them. It wouldn’t be more than a half-hour before it sank from view and the night lost the illumination that had made movement relatively easy up to now. Meanwhile, a thin film of cirrus clouds diffused the light a little.
Bulis lay back and closed his eyes as if he were napping, but Temenos looked up through the long, limp needles of the pine trees and thought of his kleros. It had lots of pines that were always filled with crickets. The crickets screeched day and night. He had a helot woman who made honey that tasted of pine needles. His boys loved that honey. Just a week ago he had brought some over to Chryse’s mother so she could use it for cooking, but Kinadon had nipped in under his mother’s arm and managed to reach out an index finger. He wiped his finger along the rim of the jar and then inserted it into his mouth with an expression of defiant satisfaction. His mother had cuffed him, but his expression said clearly: “It was worth it.”
“Moon’s down,” Prokles announced, getting to his feet.
Bulis sat up instantly.
They followed a track made by water bearers to the edge of the river and stepped off into the running stream. The water was cool, mountain-fed. Prokles sloshed ahead of them, finding his footing carefully on the rocky bed of the river. Temenos found himself in dialogue with his sons. He was telling them how much he loved them, how proud he was of them. It wasn’t his fault that the laws were so harsh. If he could have sponsored them in the agoge, he would have. He’d talked to Alkander about it, and Alkander wanted to help―but he’d resigned as Paidonomos, and Ephorus wouldn’t hear of it. He’d hoped that Leonidas….
“Here!” Prokles pointed. They had reached the point where the royal latrine sat over the river.
Prokles started up the steep bank, and the others followed. It stank of shit, and Temenos knew with inner revulsion that the black goo on his hands was as much feces as mud.
Prokles paused to listen, but the latrine above their heads appeared empty. He took his shield off his back and onto his arm. With it he shoved upward against the woode
n seat, which had a large round hole in it for the royal bottom. The seat was nailed down, and his first push produced nothing but the dull thud of wood on wood. Prokles cursed, adjusted his stance, and tried again, this time with more force. To Temenos, the thuds sounded so loud that he was amazed the entire camp wasn’t in an uproar. But no one came running. At last Prokles broke through. A moment later, Prokles had hauled himself up into the chamber housing the latrine, with Bulis and Temenos close behind him.
They paused to get their bearings and looked around in some amazement. The royal toilet had carpets on the floor and a big basket with dried rose petals and sprigs of lavender. There was also a pitcher of water, towels, and a stack of square linens too small to dry one’s hands on. “I’ll be damned,” Prokles muttered, “they must be to wipe his ass!”
Temenos picked up the pitcher and poured water over his hands to clean them.
“Too sensitive for shit, are you?” Bulis mocked.
“No, I just prefer to have a firm grip on my spear shaft,” Temenos retorted.
Prokles took the pitcher and poured water over his own hands before handing it to Bulis. They dried their hands on the Persian king’s towels. Then Prokles pulled on his helmet, and Temenos and Bulis followed his example.
Temenos’ heart was galloping in his chest. This wasn’t like battle. In battle he was in the line, in his place, and he could feel, smell, and hear the men to his left and right, in front and behind. Now he felt utterly alone. “Chryse, thank you for all the love and understanding you gave me,” he was thinking. “I’m sorry I can’t help you anymore, but your parents and Gorgo will look after you.”
With the tip of his spear, Prokles slowly pushed aside the curtain that shielded the royal latrine from the rest of the tent complex. They were in a kind of corridor, a canvas tunnel leading to another tent. Prokles slid into the tunnel on silent feet. He moved very slowly. There was no rush. It was the darkest hour of the night, and most men were asleep. The tent ahead was dark but not empty. They could sense that more than they could actually see or hear. Then, suddenly, very close at hand, came a little cry.
It was high-pitched. A gasp, really. And it came again. Higher. Sharper. Then it was smothered. A deeper grunting replaced it. The three Spartans looked at one another, flabbergasted.
Prokles recovered first. Using his spear, he reached toward the next curtain and pushed it aside. They looked into a chamber of rich carpets, silken cushions, gleaming hangings―everything threaded with gold, so that the diffused light from the chamber beyond glinted here and there. And there, in the midst of all this luxury, was the white body of a man fornicating with a woman, who lay on her back with her feet in the air. She had little bracelets on her ankles with baubles that dangled and danced as she was shoved back and forth in time with the man’s grunting. The man had a rich mane of curly dark hair and a thick, full beard, pointed in the Persian fashion.
Temenos was awestruck with their luck. Helen herself must have led them here! They had got themselves into the royal bedroom, and here was the Great King, not only unprotected, but completely naked and distracted. They could kill him and return the way they came! They could be back in the Spartan camp before the Persians even knew their “Great King” was dead!
Prokles took two strides into the chamber, his spear raised. His footfall made a slight noise, but Xerxes was lost in his sexual ecstasy and heard nothing. Prokles rammed the spear down with all his might, aiming to put it through his back beside the spine and right into Xerxes’ vital but unprotected internal organs below the rib cage. The spear easily broke through Xerxes’ soft, white back. It pierced clear through him and came out his belly, burying itself in the intestines of the woman under him. A hard metallic clack told them the point had bitten into the ground beneath.
Xerxes emitted a croak, while the woman howled. Then Bulis’ sword flashed through the night to decapitate the Great King, and the blood that spewed out of his neck covered the face of his concubine, flooding her windpipe even as her life fled from her punctured innards. Her gasping and moaning sounded like a woman in climax, and no one in the surrounding rooms of the tent took fright.
But Bulis was staring at the face, which had rolled two feet across the floor to stare up at him. “That’s not Xerxes!” he gasped.
“What?” Prokles spun about, instinctively drawing his sword. “Who else would dare f**k the Great King’s women?”
A voice from the next chamber was raised in alarm. It asked a question in a challenging tone. The Spartans could neither understand nor answer. They went dead still. The question came again and then a third time―sharper now, and obviously alarmed. A hand reached for the curtain, pulled it aside. A eunuch stuck his head into the chamber to see what was going on. His eyes widened in horror and then his head hit the carpet, bounced dully, and rolled to a halt beside the skewered corpses of the lovers, whoever they were.
But the eunuch had not been alone in the next room. Behind him were others, and they were awake and aflutter. Prokles plunged into this next chamber, killing everything he met as fast as he could. The fact that they were evidently inside Xerxes’ harem and killing nearly-nude women made no difference. Only when they had killed all five of the women and two more eunuchs did Temenos notice that Prokles’ and his own swords were dripping blood, but Bulis was just standing in the entry, his sword and spear pristine.
“What’s your problem?” Temenos asked his white-faced tormentor. “Don’t tell me you could rape Chryse but have a problem killing a Persian whore?”
“Shut up!” Prokles hissed at them, and prepared to advance to the next chamber.
Here their luck ran out. This chamber was full of eunuchs; they had heard the noises and cries and were already in a state of panic. One of them screamed, another started shouting for help, and a third got out the far exit.
Prokles started after him, shouting at Bulis and Temenos to follow. “Don’t waste time with these geldings!” he ordered.
By now the entire tent complex seemed to be in an uproar. Not only was the escaped eunuch running through the wide room beyond, but somewhere farther away something metallic was knocked over and seemed to set off a chain reaction. Some men shouted in fear, others shouted orders. Someone gave a blood-curdling scream that was then choked off by blood bubbling up and overwhelming his vocal cords. Somewhere a horn was blowing, but closer at hand someone said “In there!” in Doric Greek.
They had met up with the other assassination team, or almost. They appeared to be one or two chambers away―still invisible―and between them was their quarry. A moment later men poured toward them. These were armed men, not guards but officers. They were in fine robes with heavy rings, bracelets, and collars, but they were trained fighting men and they had gleaming swords in their hands.
Prokles hurled himself at one of these, using his shield to knock him down, and spun to take the second with his sword. A third sprang on him and Temenos raised his spear, ready to take this man out.
Before he could deliver the blow, however, he heard Bulis gasp beside him: “Xerxes!”
A man had just entered from the far right―a man in long, flowing robes dusted with golden embroidery and wearing a tall headdress. In amazement, Temenos recognized that it was the same headdress he had seen from a distance on the man on the throne. This handsome young man was indeed the Great King!
But turning to look had cost him a vital second. With a grunt, Prokles crumpled up at the feet of the third assailant, and his shield dropped and rolled away from him. Two men were hacking at him, cutting him to pieces.
Bulis and Temenos locked shields and advanced on Xerxes. They were shoulder to shoulder, spears raised, all enmity forgotten in their common purpose. Xerxes’ eyes widened, but he neither flinched nor fled.
Behind him, the wall of the tent seemed to just come apart. Temenos saw three men in crested helmets struggling with a line of Persian guards. The Persian guards were two deep. Even as he watched, one of the Spartans went d
own under an ax blow that smashed right through his nosepiece and sliced off the top of his head. Suddenly limp, his body sank down.
They were just three feet from Xerxes. Temenos drew his breath and cocked his spear. He had time to think: “If I kill Xerxes, they can’t treat my sons like slaves.” Then a volley of arrows slammed into them. One pierced his neck, another his eye socket, and the third caught him in the armpit of his raised spear arm. They extinguished Temenos and Bulis together in the same moment.
* This exchange is recorded in Plutarch’s “Sayings of Spartans,” although worded slightly differently.
CHAPTER 23
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!
(Come and Take Them!)
THE SUN HAD NOT YET COME up over the Malian Gulf, but the sky was pink, and the contours of the land were emerging from the darkness. A light breeze ruffled the purple waters of the bay. From this hillock―far behind the Phocian wall and the killing fields, beyond the stench and flies―it was still beautiful, Leonidas registered, and it had the makings of a fine day.
The night had been quiet. That was both good and bad. It indicated that the Persians had not yet found the Anapaia trail, or the Phocians would have raised the alarm. On the other hand, the silence from the Persian camp suggested that neither assassination team had been successful. If they had come anywhere near Xerxes before being discovered, there would surely have been some sort of commotion in the enemy camp.
The tinkling of a goat-bell drew Leonidas’ attention away from the distant view and down to the foot of the little hillock. A helot youth was dragging an unusually reluctant black ram up the path. The ram twisted its head from side from side, reared on its hind legs, butted, kicked, and tried every conceivable trick to get free.
Leonidas watched the helot boy struggling with the goat, saw him lose his temper and kick it hard with his knee. Sacrificial animals were supposed to be treated with respect. They were also supposed to be willing….
At last the youth wrestled the ram up to the top of the hill. He brought it to Leonidas.
A Heroic King Page 57
