"Nicolaus came to me three days ago," she said in her softly accented Greek, "the day Xenophon gave the order to leave the camp followers. One of his scouts saw me climbing into the hills, looking for a hiding place where I could survive without the army. I had never spoken to Nicolaus in my life, I swear, except when changing the dressings on his foot. He came running on my trail-I hadn't gone very far, and he dragged me back down, making me walk casually as we entered the camp. I was terrified-I had no idea what this boy would do to me."

I remained still. Nicolaus. My mind was already preparing for vengeance.

"He told me you couldn't bear the thought of my falling into the barbarians' hands, and had ordered him to smuggle me. He said it was my decision, to be smuggled, or to risk my fate with the Kurds, but that if I went with him, I would have to keep silent. He said he owed everything to you and Xenophon, and that if anyone found out about me, it would be death for us both and a terrible disgrace to you.

"Nicolaus didn't even let me tell my friends, or return to gather my things. He said it was too dangerous, that it had to look as if I had simply disappeared, like so many other camp followers. He found a Rhodian slinger's tunic and cape for me to wear. I was skeptical at first, but I looked around and saw that everyone in his company were only thin boys, hardly bigger than me. I could easily look like one of them if I bound myself properly and carried myself right. I laughed when I saw my reflection in the shield they held up for me, but not when I saw what was behind me-Nicolaus was standing there with his blade, preparing to cut my hair! Of course I knew my hair had to go, all the Rhodians have cropped hair, but still I wept-my hair had never been cut."

At this I was astonished, for in the darkness I had not even noticed that the thing that had most attracted me to her at first, the beautiful hair that fell to her nates and which she kept lovingly combed and dressed, had been cut as short as a galley slave's. I lightly brushed my hand over her stubbly head, and could feel her involuntarily shudder.

"Since then I've traveled with the Rhodians, in scouting parties along the army's flanks so that no one would look at me closely. My feet and legs are in agony, Theo, and the sandals they gave me don't fit. I keep my face grimy, which isn't hard, and I'm not permitted to talk. Once Nicolaus caught me humming and he slapped me hard in the face. He's terrified as much for himself as for me if I were to be caught. I still have the black eye-it's the make-up that best goes with the costume, is it not?" She gave a short, bitter laugh.

We talked more that night, much more. Asteria said that the Rhodian boys treated her like one of them, though they managed to make special efforts for her personal needs and privacy. She trusted them implicitly, as a sister her brothers, and what choice did she have? Or did I have, for that matter, for she was now completely beyond my assistance and protection, and at the mercy of these rough country boys, and whatever extra prayers I might be able to offer on their behalf for their troubles.

Dawn with her pink-tipped fingers might have shone all too early that morning had the gods not thought, in their benevolence, to slow the passing night, reining in Blaze and Aurora, the frisking colts that usher in the morning. Finally, however, the doorway began to grow visible as the darkness gave way to a gray mist. Tiny chinks in the stonework above us let shine narrow beams of light, which pierced and illuminated the feathery cobwebs, still waving vaguely in the invisible breezes caused by our rustling or our breath, or perhaps by even smaller movements, the blinking of eyelashes, the parting of lips. I stood to go, reluctant though at the same time eager to depart before Nicolaus and his comrades emerged from their huts and shot me their sly, questioning glances as I crawled awkwardly from the coop. There was much to be done, and Xenophon would be waiting.

Never in my life had I seen so many rivers.

Greece is a parched and rocky land, with sufficient water, to be sure, to irrigate the crops and raise the livestock we require, but our water of life usually flows in the form of seasonal rivulets, small streams or wells. Large, wide-flowing, navigable rivers are a rarity.

When we crossed the Syrian desert, what seemed like a lifetime ago, even we river-starved Greeks were struck by the paucity of water, the fact that one could travel days or even weeks without catching so much as a glint of dew in the sun, the only water being that which had lain lukewarm and festering in the goatskin bags we carried in full sun on the backs of mules, water that made one gag with its slimy texture and long for the cool, clear, mountain-fed creeks of our native land.

But unlike Socrates, the gods know nothing of moderation, nor seek it in anything; in fact they spurn it as unworthy of themselves, and search always for the extreme, as being more godlike in essence and glorifying to them, irrespective of its positive or negative quality. Crossing through the country of the Kurds we could measure our days by the number of rivers we crossed-not the passive and refreshing little streams of Greece, along which nymphs and naiads are said to frolic, but rather large, deadly, rushing waters, devoid of plant life along their rocky, gravelly banks, crashing thunderously through steep-walled canyons, defying mortals to peer into the brownish, silt-laden waters originating from the mountains of some distant and barbaric fastness, challenging us at every step to find a route to circumvent their rushing, death-dealing flows. Fords we would sometimes find after exploring for miles in either direction. At other times we would be reduced to improvising rafts or even floats from inflated goatskins. Occasionally-only very occasionally-we would be fortunate enough to find an intact log or stone bridge that the hostile inhabitants had not destroyed ahead of us to hinder our passage.

Always we found a way, always we crossed to the other side, though this was not without hardship. On every occasion a wagon would be lost, or one or two of our precious horses would trip and become lame or worse, or a man would lose his footing on the slippery river bed and sink beneath the torrent, dragged by armor or injury, and would not rise again. Were this to happen once or twice the harm would be regrettable, though not serious, and the army would shrug its collective shoulders and move on as it was trained to do. But the rivers were many, unending in number, and the accumulating impact of all these small losses was taking a toll on our provisions, our manpower, and our morale. What is more, the season was advancing, and as we moved higher into the mountains the water became colder, sometimes mixed with ice or snow. It was becoming increasingly difficult to wade into the freezing current for the second or the eighth time in a single day, and harder to dry out our tattered clothing and hides at night before undertaking the next day's trudge. And what had we to look forward to, upon successfully completing the crossing of the day's last river? What had we to anticipate when trying to determine by calculation or by guess how far we had come, what distance we still had before us? What had we to expect the next day?

Another fucking river.

And so it was this day as well, seven days after recovering Asteria, a hundred miles of marching through hell, fighting the Kurds at every step, seeing them inflict more damage through their daily, deadly raids than Tissaphernes' troops had caused during the entire battle at Cunaxa and their subsequent pursuit.