Xenophon and his rearguard backtracked to join the baggage train laboring up the path the Arcadians had supposedly secured the night before. Alarmingly, however, every hill we climbed was occupied anew with enraged Kurds, and we would no sooner chase them off one than more would appear on the next, or on the one we had just left, flowing like water over and around the boulders and rocks, giving us no respite. On our own we could have easily climbed off the path and run the Kurds off the ridges above; but the path was the only means by which we could force the terrified pack animals and baggage through, and so we had a long and bitter struggle that day before the three dispersed units of the Hellenic army were finally united.

Though this battle was like so many others we fought on the march, I risk the reader's impatience by recounting it, because of a singular event that befell me. Xenophon was leading a charge up a rocky incline while I carried his shield. I tripped over a root, however, and rolled down a steep ravine, twisting my ankle and hitting my head so hard against a rock it cracked my helmet and knocked me momentarily senseless. Xenophon had been looking the other way and had not seen me fall, and when he turned and saw I was not there he became furious, thinking I had deserted him in fear of the rocks rolling down on us from the barbarians above. In part he was right, for I was terrified, as was every man among us that day having to fight boulders rather than flesh and blood warriors we could defeat. But as for deserting him-I was infuriated by his accusation, for in all the battles we had fought together, never once had I left his side, never had I failed to shelter him faithfully behind the shadow of my shield, even at the risk of exposing myself to the enemy. Another hoplite, Eurylochus, saw him standing in the field alone, and bravely ran up to cover him with his own shield.

When Xenophon later saw my swollen ankle and bloody head as I limped into camp, he understood and promptly apologized; I am not sure that I, however, have ever forgiven him his unfounded suspicion, which drove another thorn into my heart, contributing to the widening gulf being created between us.

Listen closely to me. Heed what I say.

Of all the creatures that move and breathe in this world,

Mother Earth breeds nothing more feeble than man.

As long as he prospers, has strength in his knees,

He believes no thing can harm him, nor evil befall him.

But when the same blessed gods bring him sorrow,

Man must endure it, come what may, and harden his very heart.

– HOMER

THAT NIGHT I lay alone on a coarse, moss-filled mattress in the stone hut I had commandeered for Xenophon and myself, unable to sleep, my mind troubled. At about midnight he walked quietly into the room, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the lamp's low light and glancing at me to see if I was awake. From the lateness of the hour and the sounds of soldiers carousing in the village, I would have expected him to be smelling of wine and feeling in high spirits. He was completely sober, however, and stood motionless, gazing out of the tiny, plaster-edged window punched through the thick stone walls, while the drizzle fell softly outside.

Moisture seemed to hang in the very air, drops accumulating and falling lazily from every surface as if counting the slow passage of time. I thought of the rain falling on the white, sightless eyes of the fallen soldiers we had been forced to leave behind, washing the blood and grime from their faces and hands, like weeping Niobe grieving over the stone-dead bodies of her children. I envisioned her tears gently caressing their lifeless faces, as white and cold as the marble in the Parthenon, as expressive in their final agonies as plaster masks hung in the theater. Though the bodies were abandoned by the living, unable to be prepared for Charon's crossing of the river, no mere army priest, no crone in black bearing myrrh and incense, no trained undertaker could have washed and caressed and blessed the remains of the fallen Greeks more carefully than did Nature herself. Even if a soldier is returned home, his most likely resting place is merely an abandoned cemetery, where after a few years he lies unsung and unhonored by those who have forgotten to cherish their dead. Perhaps in the absence of a mother's tears or a wife's embrace, a sodden field in a hostile land is the most appropriate monument to the fallen, for the rain conveys just as sacred a blessing on the brow of a dead son. Even more so, for the caress of the rain, with its qualities both destructive and life-giving, derives from the very gods themselves, a fact that has both comforted and terrified men since the beginning of time.

Xenophon stared out the window for a long time, knowing I was awake and watching him, yet saying nothing. Nor did I break the silence, for I had no desire or willingness to talk. Finally he turned and faced me, peering at me, though unable to see my face hidden in the shadows. Giving up, after a moment, his attempt to read my eyes, he slumped back against his wall and began to talk, to muse really, in a voice that was barely audible.

"Sometimes, what you most want in the world is within your grasp, there for the taking, like a peach hanging on its twig so ripe it is ready to drop," he said. "You pause a moment to savor not its taste, but rather its potential taste, the anticipation of possessing it and making it your own and consuming it, because anticipating a pleasure is the better part of pleasure itself. But then some unforeseen event-a sharp wind, a clever thief, a destructive worm, a more worthy friend-slips in front of your hand and steals away the object of pleasure before you are even able to realize the anticipation. You are left worse off than before, for knowing what might have been."

He stared at me, but I remained silent. After what I had seen today, words, Xenophon's words in particular, had little meaning; his sentiments were shallow. If he were trying to console me with cheap philosophy, I was not about to be bought so easily.

He sighed and paced across the small room several times before finally settling down on his own cot to prepare for sleep. His face had hardened again.

"I almost forgot to tell you. Nicolaus the Rhodian wanted to see you." He stared at me with a strange expression.

Despite my weariness I was relieved at having the opportunity to occupy my mind again with other thoughts and to escape his presence. I buckled my sandals and threw a cloak over my shoulders as he quickly explained the location of the cluster of buildings in which the Rhodian slingers were billeted. Seizing the single oil lamp, I stalked out of the door in silence, rudely leaving him in darkness. He didn't say a word.

The muddy streets of the little town were deserted and the soldiers' laughter and merrymaking had by now died down to silence, with only an isolated guffaw floating out of the tiny windows here and there. The steady rain and the sagging, soggy vegetation lent a dismal, funereal aspect to the village, and to nature itself. I limped down the road, my ankle stiff after my hours of inactivity, and the route led me out of the main concentration of buildings to another collection of low-roofed peasant huts hard by the river, two or three hundred yards away. This secondary hamlet consisted of several tiny huts for the farmers or fieldworkers, a half dozen small, beehive-shaped stone shelters for poultry and other animals, most of which had already been slaughtered and eaten by the hungry Rhodian boys, and a large granary, where the bulk of the slingers were lodged. I knocked on the door of the hut that Xenophon had told me housed Nicolaus, and entered.