The Lost Army

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Someone should inform the men before they begin to scatter. Better for you to go; you won’t be missed here. Agasias is outside. Find him and tell him.’

  ‘I can do that. I’ll leave as soon as I’m sure no one will notice.’

  In the meantime, I’d nodded to Melissa, who whispered something to Cleanor. He glanced at Xeno with a significant look.

  ‘Wait,’ continued Xeno. ‘Listen carefully. Tell Agasias that when they see an incendiary arrow shooting into the sky all the men should gather in the main square. All of them, understand?’

  I left.

  It wasn’t easy to find Agasias, who was outside with his men, but I managed to pass on the order. While the festivities were at a peak, the entire army began to assemble, under the surprised and worried eyes of the onlookers, in the city’s main square. Shortly thereafter, a flaming arrow rose into the sky and a war cry broke loose. Xeno and the others ran up, arms in hand.

  The men were infuriated.

  This time the city would hear the roar of the Ten Thousand.

  At Xeno’s order, they stormed the citadel, overran the city’s defences and occupied the fort. The garrison was taken by surprise and the men who staffed it were forced to surrender.

  The governor and his admiral were notified of what was happening, and they promptly escaped, putting out to sea on a ship.

  The soldiers lifted Xeno onto their shoulders and carried him to the general headquarters of the Spartan garrison. The commanders flanked them, decked out in their best armour. The city was at their feet!

  ‘Byzantium is ours!’ they were shouting. ‘And ours it will remain!’

  ‘Yes, we’ll tax and levy tolls on all the goods in transit for the straits and we’ll grow rich. With the money we get we’ll enlist more soldiers – we know where to get them – and no one will be able to drive us out.’

  ‘We can form alliances with the tribal nations inland. We’ll become a great power, and everyone will have to reckon with us!’

  They were right. That’s what they should have done. But to carry out such a project they needed a leader who was capable of dreaming the impossible and turning it into reality. Xeno was not that man. He had courage, and had proved it, he could devise clever strategies, but not build dreams. He could only conceive of doing what was realistically possible, and only after consulting the gods to make sure they agreed. The army spent the night in the square.

  Before dawn, a messenger from Cleander, who had entered the city in disguise, informed Xeno that seizing the citadel would be considered an act of war by Sparta. If Xeno didn’t resolve the disastrous situation, the affair would end in a bloodbath.

  That morning, Xeno convinced the assembled army that it was necessary to leave the city. He asked them to trust him, and promised that he would negotiate acceptable conditions with the Spartans. If they wanted to avoid the most dire consequences, they would have to surrender the city. Only then would the Spartan governor agree to help them.

  Crestfallen and dissatisfied, the Ten Thousand, or what was left of them, abandoned Byzantium.

  THE RUNAWAY RULERS returned, furious at having been exposed as cowards, but they continued to stall any real solution, and to provide just enough supplies for the men to survive.

  The soldiers became despondent. They saw no future in store and many sold their armour and scattered. Many officers as well. Some of the most valiant, including Aristonymus of Methydria and Lycius of Syracuse, vanished without saying goodbye. Glous, whom I’d continued to see every now and then, disappeared as well.

  They probably couldn’t bear the wretchedness of the situation and the pain of so bitter a parting. A new governor arrived in the city. He arrested all the wounded and ailing soldiers who had been allowed to remain within the walls and sold them off as slaves. Xeno knew about it but did nothing; I suppose he thought it was the lesser of two evils.

  In the end, after further unnerving and exhausting delays and negotiations, the conclusion was that nobody wanted a band of uncontrollable and dangerous mercenaries hanging around. The solution finally arrived, whether by chance or strategy I couldn’t say. A barbarian prince from Thrace called Seuthes offered to engage the entire army and to pay the soldiers, officers and generals in coin, each in proportion to his rank. Xeno put the proposal to a vote and it was accepted.

  A sign of the times: just under a year ago they had departed under the orders of Prince Cyrus, and now they were in the pay of a man dressed in fox hides, with a fur hat on his head instead of a tiara.

  Fortunately, Timas and Neon agreed to come along, as did Agasias, Xanthi and even Cleanor, so I could be with Melissa.

  Seuthes’s plan was to reconquer his lost kingdom in Thrace by attacking in the middle of winter, when no one expected it.

  A harsh, horrible winter, perhaps even colder than the one we’d spend in the mountains of Asia. Many of our men suffered frostbite and lost their ears and noses, remaining disfigured their whole lives. Handsome young men, who would never be able to look at a woman again without feeling ashamed.

  I couldn’t help but weep when I found myself on my own. An infinite sadness weighed on my heart. I cried because I could not adapt to such a wretched life, to such a narrow horizon, to men who seemed like mice. But I had no choice.

  And I cried when Xeno agreed to marry one of the daughters of Seuthes. Necessary for political reasons, he told me. Fortunately, the wedding never took place. We had more important things to think about. Like surviving.

  Xeno had started writing again. He wrote more than ever. This irritated me. What was so interesting that it deserved to be marked down on that white parchment, in such a freezing, barbarous land, among those hairy creatures, where squabbles between villages became wars?

  On those evenings when Xeno was at dinner with the other high officers in Seuthes’s hut, I would invite Melissa to have dinner with me. Talking with her felt good for my soul.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she would say. ‘Xeno did the best thing! What did you expect? That he’d raze Byzantium to the ground and stand up to the most powerful force in Greece on his own? This life is tough, I’ll grant you that, but at least we have food and shelter. Once the winter is over we’ll look for a solution. Don’t lose heart.’

  I didn’t know what to answer. I would prepare a little warm milk with honey by the fire, the only thing that gave me some joy, a small luxury I could share with my friend. And Melissa had wonderful stories to share, stories that would always make me smile, in the end. About how she’d seduced important personages: heads of state, governors, philosophers, artists, all at her feet. She had used them. By giving them the single thing they wanted she’d obtained countless things from them: houses, jewels, gowns, perfumes, delicacies, parties and receptions.

  ‘You know,’ she’d tell me, ‘to tell you the truth, I never held on to any of that stuff. You know, to live the life I did, you always had to be elegant, stylish, made up, sweetly scented, and all that cost a pretty penny. Sometimes I think, what if Cyrus had won . . . can you imagine? I would have been his mistress and he would have covered me in gold . . . But that’s life, right? Too bad. Anyway, Cleanor is a real man. A real bull, I should say! And he treats me well. He gives me everything he can. But when this disgusting war is over, I’m going to go to some nice city on the coast where there’s money to be had. I’ll find a nice little place to receive special guests and I’ll be good as new again in no time. It’s easy, you know? You put on a little transparent something, a pretty pair of sandals, and let yourself be admired as you go to the temple to offer a couple of doves to Aphrodite. Then you let out what baths you like to visit and . . . that’s that! Once they’ve caught a glimpse of you naked they’ll pay any sum. If you have the body, obviously. You know, Abira, you’re not so bad yourself. If Xeno ever leaves you, you’d have a future with me. We’d do well together!’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I’d say. ‘You know, I’d come with you gladly, but
I don’t know how to seduce a man. I could be your maid, though. We’d have lots of laughs together, wouldn’t we?’

  And we’d giggle away the melancholy of those long nights.

  One evening I gave in to temptation and asked her to do something I never should have asked: to read me what Xeno had written.

  ‘Why would you ask me to do that? We did it once and it got both of us in trouble. Xeno cares about you, he’s always wanted you with him. His writing is something he never shows to anybody, right?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. But I must know what’s written on that scroll.’

  ‘Most likely nothing of what you’re expecting. He’s probably writing down his thoughts on life, the principles, virtues and vices. He was a student of Socrates, you know.’

  ‘Socrates the Achaean? I didn’t know they knew each other back in Greece.’

  ‘No. Another Socrates, his teacher. The greatest thinker of our time.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re right. Xeno is writing the story of this expedition. Just read me the last part.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because I’m looking for the answer to a question I’ve been wondering about for a long time.’

  ‘It’s not a good idea. You know why? What a person thinks and writes when he’s alone might not be the truth. The truth is what you do in reality, the way you act. It’s facts, not words, that count.’

  ‘Please. I’ve always been your friend, even when . . .’

  ‘. . . I betrayed you?’

  I hesitated a moment before I said: ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’ But it was too late and Melissa had understood.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘As you wish. I owe you and I’ll do as you ask, but it’s a mistake and it could ruin your life.’

  ‘I know,’ I answered. And I opened the drawer.

  ‘Where should I start?’ asked Melissa. ‘Each stage of the expedition has a number.’

  ‘From where we left off.’

  ‘From when we were still at the river?’

  ‘Yes, from there.’

  Melissa started reading and I listened from the entrance to the hut with the door half-closed so I could warn her if I saw Xeno or anyone else arriving. I had my back turned to her, and she couldn’t see the expression in my eyes or my face as she continued.

  The story narrated what had happened, from Xeno’s point of view, and the events flowed rapidly through my mind, sometimes as vivid images of facts that I’d witnessed myself personally, dialogues that I’d heard myself or had him repeat. He spoke of himself as if he were speaking of another person. He didn’t say ‘I’; he said ‘Xenophon.’ Perhaps he found it embarrassing to speak well or badly of himself. There was no mention of the battle of the crater. That day of glory, worthy of being remembered for all time, would leave no trace, and it was because all those deaths weighed too heavily on his conscience. Because his mistake, even though involuntary, lay at the source of that trail of blood. The story ended with what had happened five days earlier. He’d been very busy in the past few days and hadn’t had time to update his account.

  Melissa replaced the scroll in the drawer and said, ‘It finishes here.’ I turned without thinking, to thank her, and she glared back at me.

  ‘You have tears in your eyes. I told you so.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I answered. ‘I didn’t want. . .’

  ‘I knew this would happen. If it had been up to me . . .’

  ‘He didn’t say a word about anything that happened on our journey down the Araxes river, that much we’d already seen. But not a word about the battle of the crater, about all those who fell there . . . I suppose I could have expected that. But it has saddened me terribly. Forgive me, Melissa, I’ll never ask you to do this again. Next time we’ll talk about other things. I promise.’ I gave her a kiss and she walked back to her lodging as it began to snow.

  THE ARMY FOUGHT from mid-autumn until nearly the end of winter: night assaults, raids, exhausting marches, combat on the open field. They were spared nothing, and yet they continued to do battle, as they had always done, to survive, as Commander Clearchus had ordered them to do when he addressed them for the first time. But there was no future, no one knew what would happen at the end of that small bloody war. A destiny of slow, steady destruction seemed to be playing out day after day.

  Sometimes the thoughts that tormented me seemed to be the fruit of my imagination. I tried to marshal all the coincidences, the many tragic events, the ambushes, the betrayals, trying to find the logic that tied them all together. Had the ambush at the crater been planned or did it happen by chance? And then? After that? Had the Spartans ever really wanted to completely wipe out the Ten Thousand? Or had they simply given up along the way? After all, the final massacre that I was expecting – and that perhaps Xeno was expecting, although he never told me so – never took place. Ever since Heraclea, when the army had split up and Xeno first mentioned us going off on our own and leaving everyone behind, a terrible thought had been worming its way into my mind. Had Xeno wanted to abandon the army to its destiny out of fear? So as not to share its fate when the day of reckoning finally arrived?

  He’d said the same thing again in Byzantium. But then he changed his mind: he assumed his responsibilities with courage and wisdom. Yes, wisdom was the right word. In my mind’s eye I always saw the young hero I’d met one spring evening at the well of Beth Qadà, and now I felt I couldn’t accept the prudent person who carefully took stock of his experiences and was capable only of realistic calculations. The religious man who, having been saved so many times by chance, now depended on the gods to ensure his survival. But most of all, I couldn’t accept what Melissa had read to me; it was difficult for me to separate the man from what he wrote. I kept hoping that the man I loved would win me over again and dissipate my doubts by making a gesture of true generosity.

  ONE DAY at the end of the winter the situation had become dire. The army hadn’t been paid in some time and Seuthes, the Thracian prince who had hired them, was avoiding Xeno when he asked to be received. In a stormy assembly, Xeno was accused by some of his men of having pocketed the money destined for the army.

  Nothing like that had ever happened to Xeno; he had never received such a grievous insult. I expected him to whip out his sword to make the man who’d spoken swallow his words, but Xeno gave an impassioned speech instead on everything he had done for his men, a heartfelt defence of his deeds and his decisions.

  We’d touched bottom. The plotting of those who meant to destroy an extraordinary army of invincible warriors was revealed now as it played out according to plan.

  Everything had an explanation, its own glaring logic. Since the army had succeeded in returning more or less to the world it had departed from, and the word of what it had achieved had leaked out, a violent end would only serve to multiply their glory beyond measure and would dangerously draw the whole world’s attention. Better, then, to confine the army instead to this mean, narrow, hopeless existence and to wait until exasperation, disappointment and frustration corroded the monolith of bronze that had forced the soldiers of the Great King to their knees. Whatever remained of its decomposed body would be washed away with the mud of the spring thaw.

  That’s exactly what was happening. I looked at Agasias, Timas, Xanthi, Cleanor. No one spoke up to defend him. I looked at Xeno. His eyes were glittering with tears, with pain more than indignation. He had once been left disaffected and drifting, a man with no hope of making an honourable name for himself in his homeland. But then he’d made the army his homeland and his city, and each time he’d thought of leaving it, he’d never succeeded. He’d always stayed where his honour and his affection had placed him.

  Xeno asked his officers if they had nothing to say. Some of the men defended him, others hurled insults. Scuffles broke out, and some drew their weapons.

  There. That was to be our miserable end. An unworthy end that would obscure the glory of the Ten Thousand. Dying at each other’s han
ds in some lonely place in Thrace, abusing and cutting each other to pieces over some sheep and a handful of coins.

  But just when all seemed lost . . .

  The sound of galloping hoofs!

  A band of mounted warriors.

  Red cloaks!

  The fighting stopped abruptly, the men regained their composure. The officers, shouting and cursing, hustled their soldiers into formation. Xeno mounted Halys.

  I was trembling. What could be going on?

  Two men on horseback stopped in front of Xeno and saluted him. It was a formal, fundamental gesture. It acknowledged him commander of the army.

  ‘Welcome,’ said Xeno. ‘Who are you and what has brought you here?’

  They were Spartan officers. ‘We’ve been sent by the city and by the kings on an important mission. We ask to address the army in the name of Sparta.’

  ‘You are authorized to do so,’ Xeno replied, and ordered the men to present arms. Their shields were lifted to their chests, their spears thrust forward with a sharp metallic sound.

  The first of the two officers spoke. ‘Men! The news of your exploits has spread throughout Greece and filled the Hellenes with pride. The valour you have shown is beyond all imagining. You arrived where no Greek army had ever gone, you held the armies of the Great King in check, you have overcome insurmountable obstacles, and at the price of enormous sacrifices, you are here. We wish to render honour to your commander, Xenophon, whose devotion and dedication to duty has no equal.’

  Many of the officers and soldiers were looking at each other with thinly concealed amazement: what was happening? Wasn’t it the Spartans who had sold their wounded and ailing comrades as slaves in Byzantium, who had plotted to kill them all? Wasn’t it a Spartan governor who had threatened to wipe them out if they didn’t leave his territory?

  ‘Warriors,’ the officer’s voice thundered on, ‘Sparta and all of Greece need you! The Great King seeks to take over the Greek cities of Asia, just as Darius and Xerxes did eighty years ago! We said no then, and we rallied at the Fiery Gates. We are saying no now, and we have landed in Asia. The man we face is Tissaphernes, your sworn enemy, the man who fought and betrayed and persecuted you in every way. In the name of Sparta I ask you to join us in Asia, there where your great adventure began under the orders of Commander Clearchus. You will be fed and paid according to your rank, and you will be able to take revenge on those who inflicted such suffering upon you. What do you answer me, men?’