'My father fell fighting your phalanx,' I said quietly. 'I was behind him, and I stood over his body for a little.' I stopped, because it was a bitter memory – how I had been too weak to stand my ground, and how the rain of bronze and iron had beaten me to my knees and knocked me down.
I told it just like that. 'When I awoke, I was a slave,' I finished.
Eualcidas shook his head, and his teeth gleamed in the dark. 'You need to go to Delphi,' he said. 'You are god-touched, and you have been betrayed. No man of Euboea sold you as a slave. We ran. I ran,' he said, and he smiled that boy's smile. 'If you live long enough, you'll run, too. The day comes, and the moment, and life is sweet.'
I found that I was holding his hand. He had hard calluses on his palm.
I felt better. 'I don't think there's shame in running when everyone runs,' I said. I'm not sure that's really what I thought, but he was a great man, and suddenly he was looking for my comfort.
He smiled, and it wasn't his boy's smile. It was a very old smile indeed. 'Wait until you run,' he said. He shrugged. 'You're a good young man. I like you, but I have a feeling you won't come and share my blanket.'
I shook my head. 'Sorry, lord,' I said. I was, to be honest, tempted. He was kind. He was a killer of men, but something in him was basically good. And just sitting with him taught me – I don't know what, but maybe that what I was becoming could be greater than the sum of the corpses I left.
In many ways, Aristides and Miltiades were better men. They built to last, and they did things for their city that will live for ever. Aristides was a noble man in every way, and his mind went deep. And Miltiades was the best soldier I've ever known, except maybe his son.
But Eualcidas was a hero, a man from the age of gold. Almost like a god.
He kissed me. 'Let's be heroes tomorrow,' he said. And went off among the rocks, back to his own men. They tried us in the dawn, but we were cold, surly and awake, and the shower of thrown spears bounced off our shields and we chased them down the pass without trouble. My part of the line wasn't even engaged.
The slaves brought us some dried meat and some cheese, and I ate what I could get down and drank my share of water. My canteen was still full, and I kept it and my leather bag on under my shield, while most of the Athenians sent all their gear away with their slaves.
Late in the morning, I saw men on horseback round the bend and come forward, and I saw that it was Artaphernes, his right arm in a sling. We were standing in our ranks, and he rode quite close, but had the sense to stay a spear's cast away from us. Then he shook his head, made a quip to one of his aides and rode away.
It was perhaps an hour before they made their effort. We were bored, and nervous, and Aristides and Eualcidas kept walking along our front and talking – which made the boys nervous. You – the writer with the wax tablet – if you ever lead men to war, let me tell you something not to do. Don't have long conferences with your subordinates. Got that?
What an old bastard I am. My pardon, sir – you are a guest in my house. Have some more wine. And send some to me – talking of battle is thirsty work.
Do you know that most of what men say about war is a tissue of lies? All the girls know it – women get a distrust of male bragging in their mother's milk, eh? Hah, you aren't blushing now, my pretty. No – what I say is true. When the spears go down and the shields smack together, who in Tartarus remembers what happens? It all goes by in a blur of panic and desperation, and you are always one sword thrust from the dark, until you stand there breathing like the accordion bellows in my father's shop and someone tells you it is over.
What soldiers remember is the time before, and sometimes the time after. At the fight in the pass, I remember Cleon – my second-ranker – had to piss four times, even though he hadn't had enough water for two days. And Herk's best spear's head was loose, and he kept making it rattle in irritation – not that we could hear it, but the vibration annoyed him, and he kept at it the way a man will pick at a sore.
Heraklides – in the front rank on the right – had the finest horsehair plume of any men among the Athenians. He removed it, combed it out and remounted it, which was a nice way of showing his contempt for the Medes, and did a lot for the rest of us.
Then Eualcidas threw one of his spears. He didn't run or hop – he just stepped forward and threw with all his might, and, Ares, he was a hero. I had time to say something while it was in the air – I said, will you look at that?, or something equally inane while it cleft the heavens.
It struck point first, and then he ran along the front. 'Unless you bastards think you can out-throw me,' he said, 'no one throws a spear until the Medes are closer than that. No waste!'
We cheered him.
And then the Medes came. They knew their business. They poured around the corner of the pass – the bodyguard itself and then more Persians, their high hats and scale armour obvious, less than half a stade away. They halted and formed their front in a matter of instants, much faster than any of us had anticipated.
The first flight of arrows hit while we were still watching them in admiration. We were mostly veterans, and all our shields were off our insteps, up on our arms and held high. I doubt a man died in that first flight, but a few men took an arrow in the instep. Cleon had one ring his helmet and it dazed him, and all of us had shields moved by the weight of the arrows. Two arrows punched through the thin bronze on the face of my aspis, and the heavier one went right through the rim.
And that was just one volley.
The second volley came in and the third was in the air, and already men were losing their nerve. After the second volley there were screams, and I can't remember the next five or six, except that it was as if a big man was throwing stones at my shield. I took a graze along the outside of my left thigh and another arrow hit my left greave so hard that I almost fell – but the bronze held despite the mediocre work.
I turned and looked because Cleon's shield wasn't pressed against my back. He wasn't far away – an arm's length – but he was also looking back.
'Close up and get your fucking shields up!' I yelled, and then the next pair of volleys hit. More screams. Now we had men down, and other men pressing back.
Heedless of the arrows, Eualcidas ran across the front of the phalanx. 'Ten men to run with me!' he shouted.
I had no idea what they had planned, but if Eualcidas was leading it, I was going.
'Front rank!' I shouted at Cleon. I stepped out as the next arrow storm hit.
Aristides was no coward. He stepped right out from his place as the strategos. 'As soon as you rush them, we'll march!' he shouted.
Oddly, ten paces in front of the phalanx, only one arrow hit my shield. The Persians were lofting their arrows.
Now I understood what we were doing. And how suicidal it was.
Most of the men who stepped up were Euboeans. I think there were eight of them, and Eualcidas wasn't waiting for more.
'First man into the Medes will live for ever!' he said.
And we ran.
We ran as if we were running in the hoplitodromos, the race in armour. We ran right at their line – three hundred Persians, a front rank of spearmen with big shields, scalloped like Boeotian shields, and then eight more ranks of men with heavy bows and short swords. Cyrus would be there, and Pharnakes, if I hadn't put him down, and all the others I knew.
I thought all that in one step, as my sandal crunched the gravel.
I had about two hundred more strides to run, or die. We must have surprised them, and we surprised them again by being so fast. We were fast. When I think of that run, I remember what it was to be young – to be so stupid that I would dare to cross a field of Persian arrows alone, and to be so strong that it seemed a reasonable risk.
We set the Medes a quandary – shoot the runners, or shoot the phalanx? The phalanx came in behind us, and they were not slow. They began to sing the Paean, and it wasn't the best I've ever heard, but it was loud in the narrow confines of the pass.
Then you have to understand the Persian way. The front rank, as I say, is spearmen – sometimes the second rank as well. So all the archers have to shoot over the first two ranks, and that means that they lose the ability to pick off individual men. Master archers – the officers – decide how they will shoot. It is hard for them to detail a few men to shoot one target while the rest shoot another.
