The Lost Army Read online

  The night I ran off with him, I knew my people would disown and curse me. I had betrayed the promise of marriage with the boy I was betrothed to, I had broken the pact between our two families. I had dishonoured my mother and father. But I’d never known such happiness. As our horse raced over the plains illuminated by the last glimmer of dusk and then by the rising moon, all I could think about was the man my arms were holding and of how beautiful my life would be alongside my love, who had come back for me. No matter how short a time my bliss might last, I would never regret my decision.

  The force and the immensity of the feelings I experienced those first days meant more than years of dull monotony. I wasn’t thinking about any difficulties to come, of what I would do if he left me, where I would go, how I could survive. All I thought about at that moment was being with him, and nothing else mattered. Some say that love is a kind of disease that hits you out of the blue, and maybe that’s true. But after all this time, and everything I’ve been through, I still think that love is the most noble and most powerful feeling that a human being is capable of. I’m also sure that love makes it possible for a person to overcome obstacles unimaginable for anyone who has not felt its power.

  We caught up with the army that night after dark, when everyone had finished eating and was preparing for the night. Everything was new for me, and difficult. I wondered how I could hold on to a man I couldn’t even talk to, but I planned to learn his language as soon as possible. I would cook for him and wash his clothing, I would look after his tent and I would never complain. Not if I was tired, not if I was hungry, not if I was thirsty. The fact that he had felt the need to learn even just a few phrases in my language meant that he cared very much and didn’t want to lose me. And I told myself that I was beautiful, much more beautiful than any woman he’d ever met before. Even if it wasn’t true, the thought gave me confidence and courage.

  Xeno loved the way I looked. He’d spend hours watching me. He’d ask me to move my body in a certain way and he’d look at me from various points of view, moving around me. Then he’d ask me to move a different way. To stretch out or to sit or to walk in front of him or to let down my hair. At first he’d use gestures, but then little by little, as I learned his language, he’d use words. I realized that the poses he asked me to take corresponded to works of art that he had seen in his city or in his land. Statues and paintings, things I had never seen because there were no such things in our villages. But I’d often seen children moulding mud into little figures and letting them dry in the sun. And we’d make dolls as well, which we’d dress with scraps of fabric. Statues were something like that, only much bigger, as big as a person or even more so. They were made of stone or clay or metal and they were used to adorn cities and sanctuaries. Xeno told me once that if he were an artist – that is, one of those men capable of creating such images – he would have liked to portray me as one of the characters of the ancient stories told in his homeland.

  I soon discovered that I wasn’t the only woman following the army. There were many others. A great number were young slaves, most of them owned by Syrian and Anatolian dealers who leased them out to the soldiers. Some of them were very pretty; they got enough to eat and had nice clothing and wore make-up to be attractive. But their life wasn’t easy. They couldn’t refuse their clients’ demands, not even when they were ill. Their only advantage was that they didn’t have to walk; they travelled on covered wagons and they weren’t made to suffer hunger or thirst. That was something in itself.

  There were others of the same trade who met with only a few men, or even only one man alone, if he was very important: the commanders of the army divisions, noble Persians, Medes and Syrians, or the officers of the red-cloaked warriors. That type of man doesn’t like to drink from the same cup as everyone else.

  The red-cloaked warriors didn’t mix with the rest. They spoke a different language and had their own habits, their own gods and their own food. They didn’t speak much. When they stopped to rest they would always polish their shields and their armour so that they shone, and they would practise fighting. They seemed to do nothing else.

  Xeno was not one of them. He came from Athens, the city that had lost the great thirty-year war. When I was able to converse in his language, I understood the reason why he was following the expedition. It was only then, when I learned the Greek of Athens, that his story became mine. The accident of fate that had torn me from my village was woven into a much bigger destiny: the destiny of thousands of individuals and of entire peoples. Xeno became my teacher as well as my lover. He provided everything I needed: my food, my bed, my clothing, in a single word my whole life. I wasn’t just a female for him, I was a person to whom he could teach many things and from whom he could learn many others.

  He spoke rarely of his city, although it was clear how curious I was about it. And when I insisted that he tell me why, the unexpected truth came out.

  After Athens had fallen into the hands of the enemy, she’d had to accept being ruled by her conquerors: the Spartans, the warriors who wore the red cloaks!

  ‘If they defeated your city, why are you on their side now?’ I asked him.

  ‘When a city is defeated,’ he began, ‘people are divided, each side blaming the other for the disaster. As they say, victory may have many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. This dissension can grow so profound, so visceral, that the two sides attack each other with weapons in hand. That’s what happened in Athens. I sided with the wrong faction, the one that lost, and so I – and many others like me – were forced into exile.’

  So Xeno had fled from his city, from Athens, the same way I had fled from Beth Qadà.

  He had wandered Greece from one end to the other without finding the courage to leave. One day Xeno received a letter from a friend asking to meet him at a place beside the sea because he wanted to talk to Xeno about something important: a great opportunity to win glory and riches while experiencing a thrilling adventure. They met one night at the end of winter at a fisherman’s wharf, an out-of-the-way place that wasn’t very busy. His friend, whose name was Proxenus, waited for him in a small house out on an isolated promontory.

  Xeno arrived a little before midnight, on foot, leading his horse by the reins. He knocked at the door but there was no answer, so he tethered his horse, unsheathed his sword, and went in. There was nothing inside but a table with an oil lamp on top and a couple of chairs. Proxenus’s chair was set back, beyond the halo of light, but Xeno recognized his voice.

  ‘You entered without knowing what you would find in here. Risky.’

  ‘You summoned me here,’ retorted Xeno. ‘Why would I expect danger?’

  ‘Not too smart, are you? Danger is everywhere these days and you are a runaway. A wanted man, even. This might have been a trap.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve got a sword in my hand,’ replied Xeno.

  ‘Sit down. Not that what I’m about to tell you will solve your problems.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Tell me what all this is about.’

  ‘First of all, what I’m going to say must remain between you and me.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘All right. At this moment there are five commanders in various regions of this country looking to enlist men who are ready for a good fight.’

  ‘So what else is new?’

  ‘This is very new. The official reason is that they’re trying to muster an expeditionary force to crush certain barbarian tribes in Anatolia who are making trouble in Cappadocia, raiding and sacking the villages.’

  ‘But the true reason is . . .’

  ‘My gut feeling is that there is another explanation, but no one’s talking.’

  ‘Why does there have to be another reason?’

  ‘Because their task is to recruit from ten to fifteen thousand men, all from the Peloponnese, as many as possible from Laconia; the best going. Doesn’t that seem a little too many to put down a bunch of chicken-thieving oafs?’

 
‘Curious, to say the least. Is there more?’

  ‘The stipend is generous and guess who’s paying?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Cyrus of Persia. The brother of the emperor, Artaxerxes. He’s waiting for us at Sardis, in Lydia. And the word is that he’s recruiting troops as well: fifty – but some say as many as one hundred – thousand men.’

  ‘That’s a lot of men.’

  ‘Too many for such a mission.’

  ‘You’re right there. So what are you thinking?’

  ‘I think there’s a much bigger game at stake. An army of this size can have only one purpose and one aim: to conquer a throne.’

  Xeno fell silent, too taken aback by what his friend was implying to venture any hypothesis of his own. In the end he said, ‘So you’re in on this?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  ‘But what have I to do with any of it?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re not a fighting man, are you? Then again, an expedition of this sort might offer a lot of opportunities for someone like you. I know that you’ve got yourself into a bit of trouble – they say that your fellow citizens want to bring you to trial. Come with us and you’ll be in the inner circle, you’ll have access to Cyrus himself. He’s young, ambitious, intelligent, as we are. He can recognize talent and determination and maybe give you the chance you deserve.’

  ‘What would I do? Is there any alternative to joining a combat unit? I’d need a mission, a role, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘You’ll be my personal adviser. And you can keep track of everything that happens, keep a diary, a chronicle of the expedition. Think about it, Xeno: the Orient! Incredible places, dream cities, beautiful women, wine, perfumes . . .’

  Xeno sheathed the sword he’d laid on the table and got to his feet, turning his back to his friend. ‘What about the Spartans? How much are they involved in all this?’

  ‘Sparta knows nothing about it. That is, the government either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know. There’s not one regular Spartan officer in the entire force. It’s obvious they want to stay clear of the whole thing. They want absolutely no involvement, and that confirms my suspicions. It means we must be talking about something big, otherwise why would they bother to be so cautious?’

  ‘That may be. But it seems impossible that they’re ready to let this happen without controlling it in any way.’

  ‘They’ll find a way if they want to. Well then, what do you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Xeno. He turned to face his friend. ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘Excellent decision,’ commented Proxenus. ‘I’ll be waiting for you three days from now at the wharf. After midnight. Bring everything you need with you.’

  XENO WAS NOT invited to spend the night, which meant that not even Proxenus, who was his friend, could take the chance of being associated with an outlaw, a fugitive. This strengthened Xeno’s resolve to leave with the expedition. It was a bitter choice, but he had no other.

  To the Greek way of thinking, your own city is the only place worth living. The Spartans are the only Greeks who have a king – no, two actually, who reign together. None of the other Greek cities is ruled by a king. The people choose to be represented by an individual, who can be anyone among them: a nobleman, a wealthy landlord, or even a person who is not particularly in the public eye. A tradesman, a doctor, a shipowner, a merchant. Or even a carpenter or a shoemaker! Xeno told me that one of their greatest commanders, the man who had defeated the fleet of the Great King Xerxes at sea, was the son of a shopkeeper who sold beans.

  This makes them feel free. Everyone can say what they like, can criticize or even offend those who govern the city. And if these governors don’t do a good job, they can be kicked out of office at any time and sentenced to pay compensation, if the citizens have been damaged by their ineptitude. Every Greek thinks that his own city is the best, the most beautiful, the most desirable place to live, the most ancient and illustrious. The citizens of any given city are convinced that they have the right to the best property and the sunniest, most beautiful coastlines, and thus the right to expand their territory over land and sea. The result is that these cities are continually at war, forming alliances to fight against one another. Then once a coalition wins it starts to split apart and those who were allies become enemies and band together with the cities they have defeated.

  At first it was hard for me to understand what made these cities so much more desirable than our villages like Naim or Beth Qadà. But then Xeno told me about places they call ‘theatres’ where people sit for hours or entire days watching other men who act as though they were people who lived centuries earlier, portraying their adventures and their trials and tribulations with such realism that they seem true. The people watching become incredibly emotional: they cry and laugh and get indignant and shout out their anger or their enthusiasm. It’s as if they were allowed to live out other lives that they’d never have the chance of experiencing otherwise. So they can live another life every day, or even more than one! And this is truly an extraordinary thing. When would a man who was born in one of the Villages of the Belt ever have the chance to challenge monsters or outwit tricksters, overcome sorcerers or fall in love with women beautiful enough to make a man lose his mind, or to consume exotic foods or magical potions with unbelievable effects? In Beth Qadà, it’s always the same life with the same people and the same smells and the same foods. Always.

  Watching those events unwind before your very own eyes inevitably makes you a better person. You naturally take the side of good against evil, of the oppressed against the oppressors, of men who have suffered injustice against those who have inflicted it. You would be ashamed of acting out any of those wicked deeds that you’ve seen in places called ‘theatres’.

  That’s not all. In their cities live wise men who walk around the streets and squares to teach others what they’ve studied or investigated: the meaning of life and death, of justice and injustice, what’s beautiful and what’s ugly, whether the gods exist and where you can find them, whether it’s possible to live without gods, if the dead are truly dead or if they’re living someplace else where we can’t see them any more.

  There are other men called ‘artists’ who paint marvellous scenes with vivid colours on walls or on wooden boards. Xeno says they can fashion images that have exactly the same shape and appearance as the gods or human beings or animals. Lions, horses, dogs, elephants. These images are displayed in the squares and temples or in private homes simply to give pleasure to those who live inside them.

  The temples, I was saying. The temples are the homes of the gods. They are magnificient structures, built on marble columns which are painted, gilded, glowing. They hold up beams sculpted with scenes from their history and mythology. There are images on the façades as well, marvellous depictions of the birth of their city or other extraordinary events. Inside the temple is the image of the divinity that protects the city: ten times taller than a human being, made of ivory and gold, lit by shafts of light from above that make it shine in the shadows.

  Thinking of all this makes you realize how hard and how sad it is for a man to forsake such a place and the people who live there, those who speak your same language, believe in the same gods and love the same things that you love.

  Xeno left three days later from the wharf of that little town on the sea. Along with five hundred other men, fully equipped warriors who arrived at the port a few at a time, or in small groups, from different directions. There was a small fleet waiting for them, of boats looking like ordinary fishing vessels.

  They weighed anchor that night without waiting for dawn. First light surprised them when they were already far out at sea and the familiar shores of their homeland had vanished on the horizon.

  No one knew yet who would be commanding them, who was to lead them in the greatest adventure of their lives. An adventure which, they imagined, would take them to unknown places, magnificent cities, meeting peoples whose existence the
y could only have dreamed of.

  Other groups of warriors had quietly gathered in other secluded spots and were now journeying towards the same destination, beyond the sea, where they would be joined by a young prince consumed by the biggest ambition that a man could have: to become the most powerful ruler of the entire earth.

  In the meantime, the commander of the expeditionary force was being briefed in Sparta. He had been instructed to attend to Cyrus’s orders and enable the Prince to fulfil his ambitions. In reality he would answer to his city – the city of the red-cloaked warriors – and obey her orders alone, but no one, come what may, was to know of this. For the common soldier he would be just another political exile, cast out of his city and unable to return. Officially he had been condemned to death for murder and had a pretty price on his head. He was a man as hard and sharp as the iron that hung by his side even while he slept. They called him Clearchus, but who knows whether that was his true name or another deceit, like so much of what was said about those warriors who had sold their swords and their lives for a dream.

  4

  CLEARCHUS WAS of medium height, about fifty years old. His hair was black, with a few white threads at the temples, and he was always well groomed. When he was not wearing a helmet he gathered his hair at the nape of his neck with a strip of leather. He always went armed: he wore his greaves and carried a shield and sword from the moment he got up until he went to sleep. It seemed that the bronze had become part of his body. He seldom spoke and never repeated an order. Very few of the men he commanded had ever met him before.

  He appeared out of nowhere.

  One morning in early spring he came forward before the assembled troops drawn up in the city of Sardis in Lydia. He leapt onto a brick wall to address them.

  ‘Soldiers!’ he began. ‘You are here because Prince Cyrus needs an army to fight the barbarians in the interior. He demanded the best: that’s why you were recruited from every part of Greece. We are not at the orders of any of our cities or our governments, but of a foreign prince who has engaged our services. We’re fighting for money, nothing else: an excellent reason, I say. Actually, I know none better.