Soldier of the mist

Artayctes said, "You are three set at one. Kill him and return to your duties."

The Sestians to my right and left stepped forward so that with the third they might enclose me. I knew that was death and edged to the left, so that the man there would have to fight me alone, if only for a moment.

He grappled, and I struck him with my fist below the navel and in the face with the crown of my head. He reeled and fell backward, his nose gushing blood.

At once the older man flung himself upon him, face to face as lover kisses lover. Until then I had not been certain the rest could not see the two who had come last, but when I saw them I knew. I circled and feinted, sure delay would favor me.

Nor was I wrong. The grizzled man rose, his mouth crimson with blood, and seized one of my opponents from behind. Still the man did not see him, yet his movements were slower.

"I am Odysseus, son of Laertes and King of Ithaka," the grizzled man whispered. "We need more blood, for Peleus's son."

"I doubt it," I told him, for I had seen that the remaining Sestian watched my eyes and not my hands.

When the fight was over, Drakaina smiled-I could see her lips through the thin stuff of the scarf. "My lord Artayctes feels the news I've brought is too important to remain caged here. Furthermore, there isn't food enough in the city for it to resist much longer-the people are boiling the straps from their beds."

Artayctes spoke some angry word, but Drakaina did not look chastened.

"He hoped for relief before this. It hasn't come; so he will go, taking his own people and those from the far lands. He plans to leave the Hellenes here, knowing they'll negotiate a surrender that will spare their houses and their walls. When he's conveyed my news, he'll get an army from the Great King and return to crush the barbarians, if they're bold enough to remain. I've told him you've sold your sword to the Great King, and he's just seen you're a fighter to be reckoned with. He asks if you'll go with him to Susa, where he expects to find the Great King."

I nodded, adding, "Yes, certainly."

Speaking for himself in his harsh accent, Artayctes asked, "Are you not of the Hellenes? You look as they."

"No, my lord."

"Then prove it. Let me hear your native tongue. The Hellenes will learn none but their own."

I did as he said, swearing in the tongue in which I write these words that I owed no allegiance to Thought or any such city. I do not think Artayctes understood me, but he seemed convinced. He took my sword from behind the scarlet cushions on which we sat and handed it to me.

"We will go by night," he said. "The barbarians will be asleep, save for a few sentries. No one must know. The people of this city tell all they learn to Yellow Horse, no matter how often they swear their loyalty. You are to ride beside me and carry this woman with you. See that she is not harmed." By "Yellow Horse" he meant Xanthippos, but he broke his name as I have broken it here.

When we had left the brightly hung audience chamber, Drakaina said, "Before we go, you must be armed. Wouldn't you like a shield and spear besides your sword? What of a helmet?"

Io told me, "You had round things for your chest and back when I met you, master."

I nodded. "A shield and a helmet, certainly, if there's going to be real fighting. No spear. I'll take a couple of javelins instead."

The armory was in the lowest part of the citadel. I asked for an oblong shield of medium weight, but those they had were hoplons, round and very heavy, or peltas shaped like the moon and very light.

"These honor my goddess," Drakaina said, holding up one of the latter. "It's the kind the javelin men in Thessaly use."

I told her that leather over wicker would stop only arrows and slingstones.

"That's because that's all they have to worry about," she said. "They stay well away from the spears."

I shook my head, knowing that if there is any fighting at all tonight, it will be hot work. I will not be able to run from the spears.

"Here, sir," the armorer said. "Try this. It's the smallest hoplon in the whole place."

It is a cubit and a hand across (I have just measured it), and faced with bronze, as I believe they all are; but there is wood and a leather lining behind it; and as he said, it was the lightest.

Io called, "Here's a nice helmet."

"Nice for a Hellene, perhaps," I told her. "But I don't want the men from Parsa to think I'm a Hellene in the dark."

The armorer snapped his fingers. "Wait a moment, sir. I believe I've got just what you need." He returned carrying a helmet shaped like a tall cap. As soon as I tried it on, I knew it might have been made for me.

Io said, "I've heard people talk about the Tall Cap Country, where they wear caps like that. And the bowmen on Hypereides's ships had them, but theirs were foxskin. I didn't know they made helmets the same way. Is it far from here?"

"Across Helle's Sea," the armorer told her, "and a good way by land after that; it would probably take you three or four days. Do you have a boat?"

Io laughed and said, "I'm not going," which I thought singularly ill omened.

I got a cuirass as well-not one of the heavy bronze corselets the shieldmen wear, but one of many layers of linen stitched together. It should give a good deal of protection while weighing not much more than a warm cloak. The javelins were easiest of all, for the armory had any number of good ones.

"The satrap has assigned me a house," Drakaina said when I had collected all the equipment I needed. "I'm going there now to get some sleep before tonight. It wouldn't do for him to see me with circles beneath my eyes." She hesitated. "You would be welcome, but I don't know that it would be wise."

I told her I wanted to go up on the wall and have a look at the country.

"As you wish, then."

The armorer said, "I could show you around, sir. Oschos's my name."

Io told him, "My master has no money."

"But he's been talking with the satrap," Oschos answered, smiling. "So perhaps he will have." To me he said, "Our citadel's built right into the wall, sir, on the east side, so you can start from here and go right around, passing through the guard towers."

I studied the plain and the hills beyond as we walked along the wall. The Hellenes will expect any escape to be made to the south and west, so Artayctes says. A short march that way would bring us to a place from which we might easily cross the strait by boat, evading the blockading ships. He means to try the northeast instead, making overland for the port cities of a sea called the Propontis. Because Oschos was with us, however, I could not give more attention to that direction than to any other; and so I studied them all, and even the harbor, where the ships of Sestos cant their scorched masts through the soiled water.

When we left the wall we passed a marble building guarded by eunuchs, out of which some slaves were carrying chests and baskets. "What's that?" Io asked.

Oschos looked respectful. "The house of our satrap's women." Io remarked that it looked more like a tomb.

"It was one," Oschos told her. "I hear that he uses them whenever he can. He feels a gynaeceum without windows is more secure, and who can doubt it?"

When we were alone here Io commented, "I wouldn't like to be Artayctes when he dies. The gods below aren't going to like his putting his concubines in a tomb."

"Who are the gods below?" I asked her as I hung up my new shield. The truth was that I felt I already knew one at least.

"The gods of the dead," she told me. "There's quite a lot, really. Their king is the Receiver of Many, and their queen is Kore, the Maiden. They have a whole country of their own under the ground, Chthonios, the world of ghosts."

Now I write and Io sleeps. When night comes I will ride with Artayctes and the People from Parsa, perhaps to the world of ghosts, because I have pledged my honor. But I will leave Io here, as she herself prophesied. Perhaps I shall never see her again. A moment ago I brushed her hair from her brown cheek, wondering whether there was ever a face dearer to me than hers; and though I ca