The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Xeno told me that when you look at the sea you feel fear but also an irresistible attraction, a yearning to know what’s hiding under her endless vast surface, what islands and what foreign peoples are embraced by her waves. To know whether she has a beginning and an end or if she is a gulf of the great river Ocean that surrounds every land, beyond which no one knows what may exist.

  The night they camped near the port, two officers of the Greek contingent deserted the army and fled on a ship. Perhaps they had known that soon they’d reach the point of no return. Perhaps they had been thrown into a panic by the only fear that could overwhelm such indomitable soldiers: the terror of the unknown.

  Cyrus let everyone know that if he wanted to he could send his fastest ships out after them, or rout them out wherever they had thought they’d found refuge, or annihilate their families held hostage in their coastal towns. No, he would do none of this; let them go, he said. He would force no man to stay on against his will, but he would certainly remember those who remained faithful to him. An able move: this way his soldiers knew that there was a way out for them that wasn’t exceedingly risky if they decided to abandon this adventure, which they worried would become more dangerous with each passing day. They were not fooled by appearances or idle rhetoric: they had no consideration of the Asian troops marching alongside and they trusted no one but themselves. And the idea that they might be marching against the Great King led them inevitably to conclude that it would be the thirteen thousand of them challenging the greatest empire on earth.

  Accustomed as I was to the small size of my village, to the modest emotions and ambitions of its inhabitants – expectations for the harvest, fear of drought or late frosts, of diseases that might decimate the flocks, plans for the weddings and births and funerals that punctuated their lives – when I finally joined Xeno and his companions I was fascinated by the idea that those men were forced to look death in the face almost every day. How did they really feel? How could they bear the thought of not seeing the sun the next day or of having to face a long agony?

  After they had crossed Mount Amanus and destroyed an enemy settlement, the army reached the little group of villages where I lived, and that is when I met Xeno at the well.

  That is when I became part of that way of feeling, when I began to share in their extreme emotions, the midnight anguish and the sudden shocks. The world of the soldiers became my own.

  When Cyrus decided to reveal his true plans, everyone had been expecting them for some time and had grown used to the idea, and so the revelation had a very limited effect on them. It was not difficult for the young, charismatic prince finally to convince them. He promised them immediate payment of a stipend equal to the value of five oxen, plus immense riches if they were victorious.

  Five oxen. I knew those animals well, with their big moist eyes and heavy tread. For five oxen Clearchus’s men bartered their right to live with their willingness to die. It was their job, their destiny; their life was the only thing they had to put on their side of the scale.

  In truth it wasn’t death they were afraid of. They’d seen death too often, they were used to it. They feared other things: the atrocious suffering and hideous torture they would have to withstand if they fell alive into enemy hands, or perpetual slavery, or disfiguring mutilation, or all of these things together.

  How did they keep from going mad? I asked myself that question many times. How could they see the bleeding ghosts of their fallen comrades – or those they had slaughtered themselves in battle – in their dreams without losing their minds?

  By staying together. One alongside the next. While marching, on the line of combat or next to a campfire. Sometimes, on certain nights, I’d hear them singing. A mournful song, something like a dirge, low and solemn. They’d sing all together, and the song would get louder as more voices joined in. Then they’d stop singing all of a sudden to create the silence from which a solitary voice would rise. The clear voice of one of them alone: the one voice – deep and powerful, vivid and vibrant – that best expressed their anguish, their cruel and hopeless courage, their aching melancholy.

  Sometimes that voice sounded to me like Menon of Thessaly.

  Menon, blond and fierce.

  THE VILLAGES OF THE BELT, also called the Villages of Parysatis. Was there ever an encounter more improbable than ours? In the days and months that followed I asked Xeno again and again what he felt when he met me, what struck him about me, what he thought we would do together, besides make love. The story he told me every time I asked shocked me and fascinated me at the same time. He hadn’t thought, or reflected on, or calculated the possible consequences any more than I had. Maybe because I was a barbarian, and he could have sold me at the nearest slave market as soon as he tired of me, or handed me over to one of his comrades, or just maybe – and this is what I like to think – maybe because his passion and desire left him no other choice. But it was difficult to make him admit it.

  I had to read it in his eyes, feel it in his caresses, understand it in the little gifts he gave me.

  For me all of this meant love, but the Greeks had an entirely different way of reasoning about these things, complicated and hard to comprehend. In their country they married a woman and slept in her bed only until a male child was born and no longer. For me the fact that we made love so often seemed an unmistakable sign of his attachment to me. He was careful to do it in such a way that a child would not be born, and that was only right. We had a terrible trial ahead of us, a trial that would break men of the strongest temper. And I was sure that his being careful was another sign of his love.

  I would often stop and think about my village, about my friends at the well . . . about my mother and her dry, work-toughened hands. My heart told me that I’d never see her again but I told myself, I fooled myself into thinking, that sometimes your heart can be wrong.

  The Villages of Parysatis marked the start of Syria, my land, and for the whole time we were crossing it, the sunny colours of the countryside, the aroma of baking bread, the scent of wildflowers and herbs made me feel at home. Then, as time passed and the landscape changed I realized we were entering a different land. We started to see wild animals: gazelles and ostriches that looked at us with curious eyes. The male ostriches had beautiful black feathers and they would carefully guard their flock of grazing females. The Greeks called the ostriches a name that meant ‘camel-bird’. I could see why: their curved backs looked a little like camels’ humps. The soldiers had never seen them before, apart from the few who had been to Egypt, and they pointed them out one by one as they marched, or would even stop to gawk at them.

  One thing I hadn’t known about Xeno was that he had a real passion for hunting. As soon as he saw the ostriches, he jumped onto his horse with a bow and arrows and tried to get within shooting range of a large male. But the ostrich burst into such a fast run that Xeno’s horse couldn’t gain on him. Xeno pulled him up short when he saw he’d lost sight of his prey. The Asian guides said that that apparently shy and harmless bird could be very dangerous; a blow of its sharp claws could easily crush a man’s chest.

  Xeno didn’t come back from his ride empty-handed: he brought back an ostrich egg as big as ten hen’s eggs. I remembered how once a merchant had come from the coast to our village with some fabric and modest ornaments to sell, marvels that he’d laid out on the ground to attract the attention of the inhabitants. There was also an ostrich egg painted with beautiful colours, but none of us had anything precious enough to barter for that useless but incredibly desirable object.

  The egg Xeno collected had been freshly laid and we cooked it over the fire. It was good; with a little salt and some herbs and accompanied by the bread I’d baked on a stone, it made an appetizing meal. Xeno sent a portion as a gift to Cyrus, and was thanked for it.

  The next day we met up with a group of onagers, a kind of wild ass. Xeno tried to hunt one down but was once again unsuccessful. The magnificent steed he called Halys was humbled in h
is race against those shaggy, ungainly animals.

  When his comrades teased him about his failure, Xeno replied that he’d already thought up a way to capture one and that he’d put his plan to work the next day. All he needed was two or three volunteers on horseback. Three men came forward, two Achaeans and an Arcadian, and Xeno set about instructing them by drawing lines in the dirt and placing pebbles at a certain distance from one another.

  The next day I was to learn what those stones meant: they were the stalking positions of the three horsemen. One began the chase, then, when his horse was worn out, the second stepped in and then the third, driving the exhausted ass towards the point where Xeno would be waiting, in the shade of a cluster of sycamore trees. When the onager arrived Xeno urged on his charger as fast as he could go and let fly. The first arrow fell short because the ass suddenly swerved and changed direction, heading back towards us. The second hit its mark but didn’t bring the animal down. But now it was only a question of time.

  Exhausted, wounded, the ass slowed down and finally stopped: his open mouth was sucking in air, his head drooped forward. His legs gave way little by little until he fell to his knees, seemingly waiting for the final blow. Xeno grabbed a javelin and plunged it between his shoulder blades so that it pierced his heart. The onager collapsed onto his side, his legs still kicking for a few moments before he stiffened into death. It was a male.

  At a certain distance his groups of females looked on with a detached air certainly not fitting to the tragedy they’d witnessed, and as Xeno picked up his dagger and started to skin the animal, they began grazing again, nibbling here and there at the wild wheat stubble.

  It made me sad to watch the scene, man’s crafty victory over that spirited animal that ran like the wind, whipping the air with his bristly tail. It seemed brutal and unfair, and I was sorry I had seen it.

  That day Xeno suddenly became very popular among the soldiers who had appreciated his public lesson in elementary cavalry tactics. He’d shown them he was a man of action. When that evening he invited a large circle of men to join him in feasting on the well-roasted meat – including Clearchus, Socrates and Agias with their adjutant and subordinate officers – his popularity grew even further. Menon, who hadn’t been invited, was nowhere to be seen that evening. Sophos showed up late and cast a wary eye at the remains of the banquet.

  ‘What does it taste like?’ he asked, but then walked off into the dark without waiting for an answer.

  Xeno muttered, ‘To me it tastes like venison.’ It was his way of saying that it had a gamey flavour, but having slain a male, it couldn’t have been otherwise.

  Sophos was still very elusive, although Xeno tried in vain to involve him in various conversations. He kept an eye on the newcomer, especially when he saw him approaching Clearchus’s tent. I would watch as Xeno attempted a casual stroll in the vicinity, perhaps trying to listen in on whatever they were saying, but as far as I knew he never managed to hear anything worthwhile.

  That night we heard the yelping of jackals fighting over the donkey’s carcass. At dawn we set off on our journey once again and for the first time I was approached by some of the other women. They seemed to want to befriend me, or get to know me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Not yet.

  The hills to the north got further and further away, and we could begin to see the green foliage of the trees bordering the Euphrates.

  The Great River.

  We camped on a slight rise overlooking the banks and that night I couldn’t sleep. I sat on a palm stump and couldn’t take my eyes off the glitter of the water in the moonlight. If I saw a branch or a log floating by I’d try to imagine where it was coming from, how long it had travelled before I’d caught a glimpse of it. Very few people in my village had ever seen the Euphrates – we called it Purattu in our language – and they had exaggerated its size until it became so wide you could barely see the other shore.

  The next day the sun’s light revealed the city located at the ford. It was the only point where you could cross that stretch of the river and a number of caravans were crowding around, waiting to pass from one side to the other. There were also ferries going across, but those who had large animals with them – like horses, mules, asses or camels – were crossing on foot. The confusion was incredible! The costumes, languages, colours, the shouting and braying, people fighting, even, arguing in loud, discordant voices. The caravans were led by men who had crossed mountains and deserts to bring goods of every description from the countries of Asia to the sea and the port cities where they would be loaded on ships departing for other destinations. The name of the city we could see meant ‘ford’ and it was populated mainly by Phoenicians who had made it their staging post towards the interior.

  ‘Do you see that water?’ asked Xeno, approaching me. ‘See how fast it’s flowing? In two days’ time it will be under the bridges of Babylon. It will take us the better part of a month. The water never sleeps, it travels by day and by night, it fears no obstacles. Nothing can stop it until it reaches the sea, which is its final destination.’

  Again, the sea. ‘Why do all rivers go to the sea?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s simple,’ he answered me. ‘Rivers are born up high, on the mountains, and the sea is down low, in the cavities of the earth that need to be filled.’

  ‘So all you have to do is follow a river, any river or stream, and you’ll surely reach the sea?’

  ‘That’s right. You can’t go wrong.’

  Xeno’s words struck a deep chord in me, I’m not sure why. Maybe certain phrases we pronounce are involuntarily prophetic, in one way or in the exactly opposite way, like oracles.

  ‘Can I ask you another question?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, if it’s the last. We have to get ready to ford the river.’

  ‘What about the sea? Is there one alone? Or, if there are many, do they flow into one another or remain separate like closed basins?’

  ‘They flow into the river Ocean that surrounds the earth.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘I said only one question. Yes, that’s right. All of them.’

  I would have liked to ask him how he knew that all of them flowed into the Ocean, but I’d already asked one question too many.

  From the top of the hill we watched the fording: the river was quite shallow even though it was the end of spring and the army crossed it on foot with no difficulty. First a group of scouts on horseback and then all the others. Again, there was no resistance from the other side. That seemed strange to me but I said nothing.

  ‘Curious, isn’t it?’ a voice rang out behind me, as if my own thoughts had been spoken aloud. ‘No resistance here either. General Abrocomas isn’t looking for a fight. He’s disappeared.’

  Xeno turned and found Sophos at his back, appearing as suddenly as he had when we were camping near Tarsus.

  ‘It doesn’t seem so strange to me. Abrocomas simply doesn’t feel up to tangling with Cyrus. That’s all.’

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ retorted Sophos. Then he spurred his horse down the slope towards the ford.

  Once across the river, we continued our journey, heading south. The countryside was flat and level but when the sun sank into the horizon, becoming an enormous red sphere, that empty, arid, abandoned expanse was transformed. Under the midday sun, the steppe was white and blinding. After dark, it was transfigured. The tiniest rocks or salt crystals glittered with iridescent reflections. Wild grasses that were invisible by day took shape, their stems, touched by the evening breeze, vibrated like the strings of a lyre, and their shadows grew taller and taller as the sun descended, ready to flatten in a moment when it dipped beneath the horizon.

  The further we got from my village, the more I felt prey to a panicky lightheadedness, a fear of the emptiness around me. When the feeling overcame me I would seek out Xeno, the only person I knew among the thousands and thousands that passed in front of me, that flowed beneath my gaze. But he too was like the ste
ppe, arid and parched by day, no different from anyone else. I couldn’t have expected anything different: no man in the Greek army would ever be attentive to a woman in the light of day, wary of his comrades’ derision.

  But after the sun had fallen, when night descended and the endless expanse of the steppe became animated with fleeting shadows, with the rustling of invisible wings, when a strange kind of serenity spread over the camp and everywhere the men sat around campfires conversing in dozens of different dialects, then Xeno changed as well. He squeezed my hand in the dark or brushed my hair with his hand or my lips with a light kiss.

  At moments like this I felt that I wasn’t sorry for having abandoned my family and my friends, the quiet summer evenings, the suspended, timeless atmosphere surrounding the well at Beth Qadà.

  8

  THE LAST FRESH MEAT we’d have for a long time was consumed during the first days of march along the Euphrates, and again it was thanks to Xeno’s hunting skill. There were great numbers of birds as big as chickens which were rather easy to catch. They rose up in a brief panicky flight and all you had to do was chase them for a while to tire them out and you could capture them with your hands. There were hundreds of them. At first I couldn’t understand why they didn’t fly away, didn’t try to escape. Then I realized that they were all females with nests and that all their flapping and fluttering was meant to lure intruders away from their clutch. In other words, they were sacrificing themselves to save their chicks. Many of the soldiers followed Xeno’s example and threw their weapons to the ground to run off after the birds. The less agile of them ended up empty-handed and in a heap, rolling in the dust; others ran like mad without succeeding in grabbing their prey. They had plenty of fun doing it, laughing and making a real racket. Each time that one of them managed to capture his bird, cries and shouts of jubilation came from the rest of the army as if they were watching a wrestling match or a race. They shouted out the name of the lucky man, who raised his trophy high over his head for all to see.