[Hegemonia City-States Persian Empire/Greek Mercenary Story/AAR] In The Shadow of the Medes [Updated: 31/8/2012]

[McScottish]

Prologue – Part I

The disgruntled scribbler snorted his contempt, shaking his head from side to side, and once more tried to rub the very feeling of sleep from his eyes, his partially calloused fingers rough against his eyelids, his bronze stylus and one of his many wax tablets lay on the table before him, but this tablet had nothing on it, waiting as it was for a tale to fill it.

What writing lay on its fellows was the cursive script of the Hellenes, the poleis of those 'frogs around a pond', the Greeks. Why the writer was so discontented would not immediately be revealed to the observer, apart from his apparent fatigue, but if one were to press for an answer, then they would be told in no uncertain terms that it was because he had lived within the bosom of Parsā for too long and had almost forgotten the ways of writing in his native tongue.

For to look at the figure, swaddled in a thick brown chlamys and with only a chiton covering his body, his long red hair neatly arranged in ways that would make a Spartiate proud, it would be more than obvious that he was no native of the great empire which stretched from the Indus river in the far east, to the wild wildernesses of Thrakia in the north-west.

No, he was one of those frogs, and it was he who would narrate the tale of his life, and what a tale it was!

“I was born into a family of shepherds,” he began, reaching over and plucking up his stylus, a gift from a satrap of his acquaintance, speaking the words out loud that he may better remember them as he put sharpened tip to wax, “in one of the fertile mountain valleys which are plentiful in my home of Arkadia, within the small village of Skias, inside a simple shepherds hut where a wailing woman named Oreithyia opened her legs wide and bought me into the world. My mother. I believe my father, Eteokles, was also present but I was but a babe and remember it none more than what I have been told.”

His hand, usually so steady, had began to shake, as it often did when he wrote of or remembered his home. Arkadia, that pastoral land of which so many verses were composed and sung, where shepherds entertained themselves using Pans own invention, sweet was its sound to the ear of man, and where he had for many years longed to be. Instead he had been sent here, to the Ionian polis of Lebedos, close enough to Ephesos that an eye may be kept on him by those informers of the Great King.

“Not knowing then what the Gods had planned for me, I was raised to live the simple life of a shepherds son. For years I was taught the finest methods of grouping the sheep so that they would not stray, and the art of playing the pipes, which still comfort me on long nights alone, growing strong and sturdy clambering up and down mountains and skipping along there narrow dirt tracks with the nimbleness of a goat.”

A snort of laughter escaped from between his lips, a spark of mirth in his eyes, as he took the hair of his wispy beard between his thumb and forefinger and nodded. Indeed, he had become more goat-like in his later years than he had truly intended.

“Yet, as all good Hellenes know, Arkadia is sparse and not good for much except raising livestock. It is not rich in material wealth, though it is as beautiful as I imagine the Ēlýsion pedíon to be. We Arkadians are seen as rather simple folk, not known for the strength of our minds, but rightly renowned for that of our arms, many of my closest kin leaving to follow the life of a wandering hoplitēs, and it was one which I was fated to follow...but I get ahead of myself.”

Tracing a finger over the tablet, he sought the unfilled space he had deliberately left at the top of the hardened wax and twisted his features into a look of extreme concentration as his blue eyes moved from side-to-side.

“This is a tale inscribed for my fellow Hellenes of all city-states, told by a faithful servant of the Shāh who has not forgotten where he came from or all that has been done for him. Who has suffered much, loved and lived long, and who even now yearns for his home.”

[Rex Anglorvm]

Woo hoo a new tale!

Runs off to get the pop corn and coke in anticipation.....sits in a comfy chair and waits....

[McScottish]

Prologue – Part II

My life, or at least the life of which I am going to write, began with the arrival of a man to our mountain home. To me he seemed a man like any other man, but what you do not know can most certainly hurt you...

************

Swinging my thickening legs back and forth in bottomless air, my hands feeling the grass behind me, my eyes scanned the sleepy and rustic village below. From my vantage point on the edge of a plateau a quarter-way up the mountainside, I could see my entire and beloved village of Skias and let out a sigh of contentment. With eyes as young as mine, and a mind as quick, I did not miss much.

I saw Eetion the village elder pacing along the dirt trail that served as a road in these parts, with his stooped back and sleek grey beard, and his stick, taller than he, always in his hand. Then there was Itheus, a lad no older than myself but with only a quarter of my own mind, he was the archetype of all that it was to be Arkadian, larger than life and simpler than the sheep we herded. Linus and Lukos, brothers whose father had been killed by a Tegean doru, played as they did every day, rolling about in the dirt outside and all around the many wooden huts, their mother emerging from their own and scolding them both thoroughly, before dragging them away by their ears.

With a whoop of laughter and a thrusting upwards and of arms downwards, I was on my feet and half-running half-stumbling over the rugged terrain, nearly falling back down towards the village I had just been watching. My brown chalmys, made from dyed sheep's wool, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, whipped about me and my bare feet, there soles toughened by years of doing just the same as I was doing then, glanced off of rocks without being cut and crushed the grass beneath them in a most pleasant way. The wind moving through my hair, considered special by many due to its fiery hue, my parents both without such a gift, made me laugh even loader and throw my arms this way and that most carelessly indeed.

By the time I reached the bottom of the mountainside, slowing to a walking pace as I neared the fringes of the village on the valleys floor, the place was quiet again, the blazing sun of lord Apollo being so high overhead meaning that many of my kin would be sleeping or at least taking a meal with their family.

It was then, as I went swiftly up the trail and over a hillock to reach my house, like a fleet and soundless shadow, my body sweating under the heat of Helios, that I first saw him.

In any other place he may have been considered a slave or a beggar, his chiton torn and stained from hard travel, his black beard thick and unkempt and his hair dishevelled, his feet bare and his eyes wild, but in Arkadia to see such a man was no uncommon thing and I thought very little of it. That was until he barred my passage and spoke to me in a soft voice, squatting down in front of me and looking me deeply in the eyes.

“Boy, I have travelled far to find a friend, his name is Eetion of Skias and I must speak with him urgently. Do you know where I might find him?”

I remember making some faint gesture towards the home of Old Eetion, the man slipping from my thoughts as quickly as water swept down a river. Instead of asking his business, or even listening to his thanks, I simply stepped around him and continued on my way to my own home, where I knew my mother would be preparing a noon-time meal for my father and I.

Now, I have never lived in luxury, not even now when it would be possible for me to do so, I have too much of Arkadia in my veins and a farmers love of the soil and the dirt of the earth-mother. It was the same with my father, and our home was a sparse one, a small wooden hut of a circular shape roofed with thatch, surrounded by a small fence of intertwined thorn-branches, a gap left to act as a gateway of sorts, a paddock within the fence was where we kept our animals and inside the hut we had but one room with a central fire which was used for everything from cooking to warming water in the cold winter months.

“Good, you are here,” laughed my mother with a smile, her hands busy spooning a thin meal of barley and mutton into a rough wooden bowl, “did you meet Pan on the hillside?”

“No,” I replied slowly, “but I did meet a man on the path outside, he was looking for Eetion.”

My father, who had until this point been carving a small wooden goat from a piece of wood, using his favoured hunting knife, suddenly looked up from his work and I could see the alarm in his eyes, “tell me, Panaetios, what did this man look like?” So I described him as well as I could, my fathers face darkening with every mark on which I commented or how his voice sounded, or the only reason I had understood him at all was because we lived close to Messenia and I had often heard those people speak to one another.

“Wait here, and eat your meal. I shall return shortly,” the look he exchanged with my mother should have alarmed me, but it did not, my father had always returned when he said he would and I had no reason to doubt his sincerity this time. I was just a boy, and my senses to such matters as trouble and danger were as blunt as this stylus.

I waited, we both waited, my mother and I, eating our cooling bowls slowly and with no talk between us. She was shaken, that much I knew, her head turning at every sound and her hand shaking slightly as she spooned another mouthful upwards and into her stomach.

It took only moments to realise everything.

Raised voices could be heard from outside, shouts in a tongue unknown to me and then in the dialect of my own people, my fathers voice amongst them. I did not wait, but sprung to my feet and vanished out of the doorway, my mother yelling for me to come back but my ears empty to her pleas. I wish to this day, to all the Gods, that I had just gone back into the house, as then I would not have had to watch my father die.

All three of them died; Eetion, my father and the unknown man, all executed by crimson-cloaked assailants, Spartiates so sure of themselves that they did not even hide who they were from our dull-witted eyes. Seven there were, one being wounded by a cut from my fathers knife, the bodies of those who I knew and the one I did not all still on the ground now, and the stinging tears came to my eyes immediately.

“Get away from him!” I screamed, running down the dirt path towards them, bending to pick up a stone and hurling it at the nearest murderer, “go away, leave my father alone.”

They laughed at me, one or two pointing with their short swords and gloating in their alien tongue, one even tried to grab me, but when I skipped away he simply made a gesture with the thrusting of his groin and then slapped one of his fellows on the back. They walked away without looking back, picking up their bronze-faced aspis' and marching over the southern ridge and away into the distance.

Such was the beginning of my hatred for the polis of Spartē.

************

Father was burned upon a pyre that same evening, my eyes seeing things amongst the flames that I believed to be visions of the future, but which were more probably just flames. Beside me my mother wept and wailed, gnashing her teeth and tearing at her hair, several of the villages women doing likewise, the pyres of Eetion and the unknown stranger, revealed as a runaway helot, bursting into flame to either side. Each man of the village, nearly sixty of us all gathered, all good strong men, stood about in the cool air and questioned their neighbour on how this could have happened and why nothing was done to stop it.

I did not care for these questions, or for there answers, and knew only that I wanted vengeance upon Spartē, and would get it any way that I could.

It was on this very night, stood with my mothers arm resting on my shoulder, that the idea came to me to follow in the footsteps of many an Arkadian before me. Perhaps it was one of the Gods whispering to me, but I knew I was a strong and robust boy, though but two-and-ten years of age, and was already aware of the reputation my people had as wandering warriors who sold their lives into service, or epikouroi, for all manner of reasons.

A few years would need to pass before I could fully gain this ambition, and until then I was needed to look after my mother and my village, but what I understood above all other things was that when such an idea bore fruit, it would change my life.

[McScottish]

Ninety-one views and only one comment, thank you Rex Anglorvm!

[O'Ciarain]

Apologies, for not replying here or on the Saxon one before now. I have been busy with other things, but have still found time to read the updates, and as always, remain impressed and caught with my pants down at every twist! Eagerly looking forward to the next chapters! (Even though it might be a couple of days before I get around to reading them)

[McScottish]

(Copyright 2001 © - The ARCADIA website)


Prologue – Part III

It was the year of the seventh and sixtieth Olympiad when I first came to the shores of Ionia, the lands of the Eastern Greeks. Eight-hundred stadia from north to south inland, three-thousand four-hundred and thirty if you went by boat all along its coast, it was a lush and fertile landscape which had been taken from the Maeonians, Pelasgians and Karians in the distant past. They speak, in this oddest of lands, four different dialects, that of the Hellenes who settled in their poleis along the coast dominating all others.

But, first, a little more of my past, if you will allow me.

************

Since the death of my father I spent three more years, long years of bitter hardship and stinging tears, consoling my mother. I told her that father had gone to the fields below, where he would be happy and content, where his shade would meet with those of Herakles and Akhilleus and other heroes, where the sheep were plentiful and the sweet sound of music was never silent.

My fathers role was handed to me, a boy of five-and-ten years, a boy that had grown strong in body and sound in mind since the slaying of his elder by red-cloaked assassins. All he had tried to do was what he knew how to, to help others, and he had died for it. Whether it was the very thought of being so close to Spartē or some other, more divinely guided, path that made me feel sick to my stomach I do not know. I only knew that after these five years, tall enough and broad enough to be a man, I could not longer stand to remain in Skias.

Emotions whirled inside me, the thought of leaving my home, the thought of leaving Arkadia to seek employ with a foreigner, maybe even amongst the barbaroi. What, however, was to keep me in my place? I had never sworn my life or my arms to anyone, to Arkadia, to Olympia, to anyone or any cause other than that of my own self. And whilst I had no cause to hate Hellas, the land of my birth, I had none to stay now that my father was dead.

My mother? She had partially lost her senses following his end, calling me Eteokles and asking me questions which I could not answer. The only difference that would be made, if I remained, was that I would be there to see her wither away and die like some undernourished plant or young lamb.

No, I would go.

On the day I walked out the door for the last time, the sun almost blinding me, and a bundle containing two weeks provisions slung over my back, she did not even rise from the floor to see me go. I called to her once and she did not move, I called to her again and she shifted but made no answer. My hands clenched into fists then, and I cuffed away heavy tears from my eyes, and at the last I told her honestly that I loved her and would always remember her. I like to think that I heard her voice follow me from the place, telling me that she returned my love, but in truth it was just as likely to have been the wind.

************

I was no hoplitês, I had no eight-foot doru with its bronze lizard-killer, no bronze-faced aspis backed by wood and no helmet hammered from a single sheet of that same metal to call my own, only the itchy brown chiton, thick woollen chlamys of white edged with brown and floppy-brimmed felt petasos hat to cover my neck and eyes from the glaring Arkadian sun.

My feet, as most Arkadians can empathise with, were bare of any form of boot or sandal, toughened by an existence amongst mountain peaks and only becoming tougher as my feet pounded whole stadia over the landscape, along dirt tracks known to goat-herders and cattle traders as well as those more unknown paths through forest and valley and studded with rock capable of injuring a man so heavily that he would never be able to run again.

Nonetheless, I was an Arkadian, part of a people known for our strength and valour in battle since the time of Troia, noted by the great tale-teller Homer and singled out amongst all others as such, led by the great Agapenor to that foreign war. Our land was not rich in much, except herds of livestock and many wild and dangerous beasts, but one commodity available to all who wished it were the inured and hardened bodies of our people. Tough and loyal mountain and valley-dwellers from a fractured and disunited region of the Peloponessos, a region of Hellas herself which was known by all to provide the most unstinting and war-ready of her warriors.

No outside power had ever dominated my people, behind our mountain walls, never obedient to others if we did not wish to be so, not even to those Lakonian dogs who think themselves greater than those who have made war a way of life, but who remain ever-loyal to only a pair; to their paymaster and to their homeland.

Do not think that my age and lack of training, even that given in larger poleis of Hellas to those who could make or buy their arms and armour, meant that I was any more ignorant of the hoplitai and their world. I had seen many impoverished Arkadians come through Skias hands, other dejected and downtrodden and others smiling as if they had just been freed from servitude and bondage.

When I was nine, I was fortunate enough to be taken by my father to a gathering of all the villages people, to watch a display by an Arkadian hopolomachos and his youthful charges, all boys in the bloom of their lives, all preparing to leave our destitute lands and sell their fighting skills to whomever would pay, Hellene or no. They had dressed in their finest bronze, burnished to a glittering sheen, their aspects made fierce by the light of the flames reflecting from their polished thorax and helmet, tall crests bobbing and fluttering as they performed the hoplomachia, always sternly said to originated in Arkadia, the series of movements that taught young hoplitai how to fight. Where to stand, how to stand, where and how to thrust, the quickest ways to kill a man and the way to stand your ground in the field of Ares.

The sight enthralled me, bringing with it a desire to become like those young warriors, a desire that had lain like a sleeping beast within my breast. There had been moments, such as leaping from one rocky ledge to another, or racing other boys of the village through glens and narrow passes, that I would wish to be one of those armoured slayers of men but, while not discouraged or chided by him, I knew my father, a shepherd to his bones, did not agree with such things.

Yet he was dead now, gone to join his ancestors, and I was alive.

That was all that mattered to me as I wandered toward that mighty polis of Tegea in Tegeatis, the gateway to and from Lakonia. It was, and is, the most celebrated of the Arkadian poleis, having resisted the overbearing influence of the Lakedaemonians until coming to a pact made with terms from both sides. To get to Tegea I had to cross the great northern plain which moved toward Mantineia, the second greatest of the Arkadian city-states. In the east the polis borders the Argolid and that famous polis of Argos and, as I have wrote, to the south lay Lakonia and Spartē without walls.

Here, in Tegea, was where I met the man who would change me and my life, although for the better or for the worse is a decision only those that ever read this can judge.

His name was Baerios of Kaphyai, and he would be my guide.

[McScottish]

Prologue – Part IV

I still do not know whether he found me, or I found him. I believe it is something I will never know, but what I do know for certain is that from the moment we met our destinies were already being written and entwined. I was just a young boy wandering through the crowded streets of Tegea, a dozen dialects from across the Peloponessos buzzing about my ears, several figures looking at me in puzzlement, though they must have been foreign to Arkadia, for a boy walking alone in my homeland was hardly an uncommon enough sight.

It was when I reached the agora that fate took a sudden plunge, a large group of hoplitai standing lazily about and laughing at one another whilst throwing crude poems and rhymes at one another, the other citizens of the polis and the traders who came regularly to sell and buy all giving them a wide berth. I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame, to their weapons and their armour and their company, but was stopped in my paces when a man stepped out in front of me, forcing me to slow myself one moment too late.

Instead of ceasing my advance, I felt his corslet hit my face and body like a fist, nearly toppling backwards but managing to keep my balance with a swinging of my arms and a grasping for empty air. As soon as I recovered, praying that he had not noticed me, I turned to run from this place and find shelter somewhere more discrete. It was not to be so, however, and before I could launch myself away, like the fleeing deer into the forest, a hand grabbed my shoulder in a grip only a warrior could muster, and I was frozen in place.

“By the dangling testicles of Hêphaistos Klytotekhnes!” That hand, digging into my shoulder, twisted me about on the spot to stare fearfully into a pair of sky-blue eyes, “what do we have here...” those eyes narrowed, but a smile spread wide across his face, “how old are you, boy?”

This was not a question I had been expecting, and my mouth opened and shut several times without a sound, before I murmured at last, “I am five-and-ten years, lord,” my voice no more than a squeak from my throat.

“Five-and-ten...” his hand reached down to place itself under my chin, tilting my head and his own coming so near that I could smell the wine on his breath, “and where are you going, brave young man?” I could have pulled away then, I should have pulled away, but something moved in my mind and told me not to, this man seemed to wish no harm on me and could even be called tender, so I replied, “anywhere but here, I wish to escape this place and become a hoplitês!” This made his smile grow even wider, his weathered olive skin, like toughened leather, creasing around the forehead and eyes and a small chuckle coming from his mouth.

“Lad, if you are half as brave as I think you may one day be, I will make you an offer,” he took a deep breath, his hand once more on my shoulder, taking a knee before me and looking around conspiratorially, over his shoulder I could see his fellows watching but my attention was soon drawn back by a gentle tug on my frame, “those are my taxis behind me, rough and ready warriors with a taste for action. I am Baerios, taxiarchos and, if I am not mistaken, an Arkadian like yourself. Now listen well, for here is my offer. Become my skeuophoros, polish my armour and keep my weapons sharp, carry them and anything else I may give you and in exchange I shall make you into one of us and take you from this place to a distant land over the horizon.”

A skeuophoros was a slave or servant, most hoplitai having one or more, that would do as Baerios had requested of me.

“What makes you think I would want to be like you, you or your men?!”

This retort earned me further pain as he dug his fingers ever deeper into the meat of my shoulder, “because I have seen the way you look at this,” he said as he half slid his xiphos from the sheath that was hanging from a baldric about his torso, “you will be paid, you will be trained and you will thank me for it all when the time is right. So, do you accept my offer?”

My eyes moved from that short sword which had been returned to its sheath, then moved to his face and eyes framed by those long brown locks, and then my mouth spoke the words would forever seal my fate and from which I would never be able to escape. All sound seemed to fade, and time herself to slow her unceasing surge, only my breathing could I hear as I opened my mouth.

“I accept.”

It was done.

[King of Thessaly]

Awesome!

[McScottish]

Apologies, for not replying here or on the Saxon one before now. I have been busy with other things, but have still found time to read the updates, and as always, remain impressed and caught with my pants down at every twist! Eagerly looking forward to the next chapters! (Even though it might be a couple of days before I get around to reading them)

That's fine, and thankee, your compliments are much appreciated, sir. Take as long to reply as you need, just as long as you reply!

Awesome!

Well thank you too, Mr. King. I'm glad you think so and hope you will continue to read as I update, I do so enjoy writing for others.

[McScottish]

(From http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Phoeni..._i7691875_.htm)



Chapter I: Ionia – Part I

By the time we reached the polis of Teos in Ionia, I had learnt all the essential and necessary acts with which a skeuophoros was charged.

It had was over a month before Baerios and I, along with his gathered taxis of hoplitai, which had grown to nearly one-hundred warriors of varying arms and quality, took ship, or several ships to be precise, from Nauplia, the largest port in the Argolid and only seaport of Argos, found on a rocky peninsula and only joined with the Peloponessos herself by a slim isthmus.

Until having come to Argos, a polis itself of which I had heard many tales but never seen before with my own eyes, Baerios had travelled throughout Arkadia, as well as Elis and Achaea, to gather as many poor and down-trodden men as he could. I was taken along with them, and Baerios confided in me that we were bound for the Persian Empire across the Aegean. It was because of this that he took any man, whether he could afford arms or armour or not, whether he was rich or the poorest of them all, saying to me and to them that his benefactor would gladly give them all enough gold and equipment to make them the equals of any two leaders of Hellas.

During these travels I learnt all my duties; rising each morning to polish my mentors armour and weapons, seeing that he had food and drink enough for the day, carrying his aspis, helmet and thorax during the long hot days and then seeing to them again once the march was over and the coolness of the evening had nestled down amongst the hills and valleys of the peninsula. Each night we would stop, prepare camp with whatever tents we could buy or owned, those who had no tents would lie under the winking celestial lights, and I would listen as I patiently wiped the dust from his aspis to the men make crude ribald rhythms and insult one another's mothers, upbringing, and lineage.

It was especially interesting, because I could not understand the most of them.

We Arkadians are from a native race of people, here before those like the Spartans came, tied to our land and it to us. Through blood, through care and through ancestry. So much were we set apart from other Hellenes that even our language was strange to them, and theirs to us, and as I could understand little of their words as I watched them. Though I could not comprehend them fully, abiding close enough to each region to understand a word or two, I only had to watch them to know about what they were speaking and who, and by this method I became in short order no rough hand at reading men and their true purpose by their bodies alone.

Maybe it was this intuition that told me what Baerios wanted, one cold night in the Achaean mountains, before he even opened his mouth. I could see the desire there, the desire for me and my flesh, and I could not help but be flattered. In Arkadia, as many have heard, it is no odd thing for a man to love a boy or a boy to love a boy...or a man to love a goat. I did not feel uncomfortable or ashamed when he called me to his tent, a simple piece of leather thrown over a central pole, and asked that I made sure we were alone. After all, favouritism is a terrible divider of men.

“Panaetios, you distract me every moment,” he admitted to me as I came to sit by him, already cross-legged on the grassy floor of his tent, his cloak spread out on the ground beside him, “your fiery hair and lithe body...” his eyes blinked and he turned his head away a moment, “ach, I do desire you boy, but it is not in the wrong manner which I wish to take you.”

Yes, there are incorrect ways in which to become closer to a boy, and as I looked at that face, bronzed by the sunlight of the east, I knew more than ever that he was an honourable man.

“Young Panaetios of the Thrakian hair, I wish to teach you arête. To show you the excellence in training to become, and becoming, a warrior. My boy, I wish to make you my erômenos, and with it my closest pupil in the ways of war, yet I will not force this upon you and it is a choice, like your coming here, which I leave to you.”

“I have no farther left to approve of you, worthy and moral Baerios,” came my words as I leant towards him and placed the side of my head on his broad shoulder, “if you shall teach me, then I shall be your erômenos.”

Yes, I learnt what it was to serving another, not just as a slave might, but as a lover also and in doing so drew closer to the man who was now mentor and mate.

************

A week passed before we reached Argos, making our way to the harbour, where a ship and a sea-faring tradesman lay already waiting for our arrival. This man, an Ionian himself, had been paid weeks in advance and had kept to his promise. More of his kind had been paid, lots more, but as Baerios had predicated only three or four of those tens he had given Persian gold to had returned for their charges. Provisions were already aboard and, after a small and discreet meeting with each ships owner and captain to make sure each knew his course and destination, the taxis was divided up and sent by groups onto each vessel.

As we drifted along, surging through the bluest water I had ever seen, with a tinge of green to it, I heard the first tale of the Persian Shāh the king of kings, known to we Hellenes as Dareîos but to his own people as Dārayavauš. The same Ionian that had been the first to acknowledge our arrival at the harbour, now spouting the glories of the Great King to my mentor, Baerios translating it in its entirety to me later that day, after explaining to me the theory behind your aspis being used as a weapon for both attack and defence.

He told me that the talkative Eastern Hellene had spoken of Dareîos returning from his campaign against the Skythians in the north, bringing with him a huge army of thousands, to subdue the largest settlement of the troublesome Thrakian tribe called the Odrysae. After descending upon their polis of Bizye, he had massacred a large garrison or fighting men left there, seen by him as too larger a threat to his empires stability in the region of the Bosporus and Hellespont. Afterwards, so I was told, he then slaughtered the elderly and the young and sent those in the prime of their lives away into the wilds of Thrake. Those most fortunate were recruited into his army as subject warriors, their skills in war prized by all but the most foolish polemarchos.

It was indeed an interesting time, a time in which I used my mind most of all. For there was little space to move aboard the deck of the ship, and so what education I received was vastly in the route of more mentally stimulating theories and practices. Where to hit a man, how to hold your weapon when standing still, how to wear each piece of armour and equipment and so forth.

To my great happiness, and relief in later years, I remembered it all, everything from those days on the great clear Aegean.

************

Since the first day of stepping outside the boundaries of Arkadia, and hitting Baerios in the back with myself, I had come to realise that there were many different things in the world that I had not seen but wished to see. The sky-on-earth of the Aegean had startled me, living in a world of valleys, huts and goats, having never even seen the sea before, and then to hear of such peoples as the Thrakians, Skythians and the Persians that all seemed to fear or respect made me recognise what a backwards and primitive people we Arkadians must seem to the rest of the world. A wanderlust grew in me on that ocean, a young Arkadian shepherds son, like a fire that only grew fiercer when we came within sight of the Ionian coast.

There were ships, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, all manner of ships roving here and there. On board were the figures of a thousand kingdoms and poleis, growing ever larger as we neared them, my youthful eyes widening to see men as black as fertile soil with dotted skins on their backs, or golden-helmed men of subjugated Phoiníkē, a land that now provided the Great King with his ablest sailors and warships. Beside these were Aiguptioi, garbed in linen of purest white, tall men with long limbs and narrow faces, as well as others of Lydia, Assyria, Phrygians and Kappadokians and more.

All were subject to the Great King Dareîos, ruled over by his satraps in his name, apparently given power by him but never fully trusted by him.

There were two harbours of Teos, and we drifted slowly into one of them, the entire space filled with more ships. Teos was a great trading power in Ionia, not bad for a colony of Orchomenos.

“My young charge, behave yourself now. Do not speak unless spoken to, and when you do speak then remember always to tell the truth, for you are about to meet the man who will pay us all.”

His hand rested gently on my shoulder, though he was not that much taller than myself, my being a tall boy for my age, his eyes peering over the side of the ship. My own blinking eyes swept back to see that our brothers of the taxis were behind, which they were to my small comfort.

When I looked back to the harbour, only a spears length away now from the side of the ship, I saw the man who would take us out of Ionia, still a realm of Hellenes, just brewing beneath the surface with resentment against the Great King, and into Persia proper.

[Rex Anglorvm]

Your writing is as ever excellent

[King-Of-Sparta]

I like your style

Keep the updates coming, will be watching

KOS

[McScottish]

Chapter I: On The Road Into Lydia

The one who met us, as we disembarked from the Ionians vessel, was not Persian at all, although it was quite clear from the way that he dressed and held himself that he wished deeply that he were. His complexion, composure and face marked him out as a Hellene, probably one of the Iones, but the way he arranged these features and his clothing were far from familiar to me.

As tall as Baerios and just as broad, muscle clearly visible beneath the alien garb he wore, the Ionian had oiled and tightly curled the locks of a luxuriant chestnut beard, his hair, grown long in the Spartan and Persian style, was likewise formed and draped almost ceremoniously over each shoulder. Two green eyes gave both ourselves and our companions aboard the other vessels the same steady gaze, the expression on his face never moving from that of neutrality, only moving when he began to speak.

“Welcome to Ionia,” came the clear and precisely announced syllables, “greetings to lochagos Baerios of Kaphyai from my master, prince Artaphernes of Sardis, brother of Dareîos the King of Kings and khšaçapâvâ of Sparda.”

Everything was spoken in perfect Ionic Greek, unknown to me at the time but translated for me when Baerios and I were next alone. It interested me, however, that this Ionian mingled Persian words with that of his own tongue, such a thought never having occurred to me in my thoughts before. When I enquired of my lover what certain words meant he laughed and translated for me; put as simply as possible, Artaphernes was the younger brother of the Persian king Dareîos and 'satrap' of a city named Sardis in the Persian region or province of Lydia.

My mind and eyes wandered quite frequently, this time because I had no idea what they were saying to one another, Baerios replying in the same garbled dialect as our new friend. So, free of such troubles, I gazed at the wonderfully coloured garments of this envoy with an ever-curious eye. It all intrigued me, the long-sleeved and loosely tied robes which made a soft swishing sound at his slightest movement, the bloated trousers tied at the waist and ankles of the man, and the soft and pointed shoes on his feet. Upon all of these were exquisitely sewn and decorated patterns, some shaped like flowers, others zigzagging up the legs and even more simply of amazing variety covering him all over.

Only as I was following the pattern which ran across his shoulder, covered by his beard, did I notice one of the twin figures standing in the background on either side of the clearly important envoy.

They were hoplitai, of that there could be no doubt, both standing tall in their bronze helmets and armour, armour developed to such a degree that they were almost works of art to behold. The helmets, of the Korinthian style, covering everything but the eyes and mouth, were topped with red horse-hair crests. I did not know then, but these were attached with sticky black pitch to the metal, which then hardened, and had to be re-attached from time-to-time. Their concave shields each bore a different design, the anonymous warrior on the left a single wide eye with a blue centre and the other the form of a black crouching lion on the bronze face of his aspis. The pair stood as silent as the dead, each of their spears unmoving in the gentle sea breeze which ruffled their crests, the Persian sun causing them to glint and glimmer like two inhuman statues.

“Boy,” came the grunted Arkadian that bought my mind back to my body, “keep your mind where it belongs.”

The tone of the statement was not accusatory, nor was it made with malice, and as I looked up into the bearded face of Baerios I realised once again that every rebuke was another lesson.

“Our host, Aspacanah, known to the Ionians as Aridolis, is soon taking a ship to Lakonia it seems. We and ours are to follow these fine men and he,” he sniggered as he motioned to the two unmoving hoplitai, “all the way to Sardis itself. Best prepare yourself, we shall be meeting the brother of the Great King.”

Baerios, who had been holding his own aspis and doru until that moment, now handed them both to me with a grin. His helmet he kept, moving off to organise his hundred or so warriors, men from all across the Peloponessos, into a semblance or a marching column.

************

Teos had proven to be a flourishing port, but a barely populated polis, the streets sparsely filled with anyone other than ship owners or traders and merchants. When I asked our guide why this was, one of the quite knowledgeable Ionian hoplites translating my words for his superior, the Ionian-turned-Persian gave me a brilliant smile and told me a tale as we walked of a Persian ruler called Cyrus the Second, known as the Great, who had invaded Lydia and Ionia some eight-and-twenty years previously. This king had destroyed the two great harbours, leading to the building of the ones now used, the Teans then fleeing to a polis across the Thrakike Khersonesos and turning west until they reached Abdera. The coin used there, known commonly as a 'griffon', is said to harken back to the wealthy past of Teos.

I was not sad to leave that place, crossing with almost twenty-and-one-hundred others across the sandy isthmus that joined Teos with the mainland of the Ionian coast. For days we marched inland, stopping only to rest and to buy food and drink, the system of roads built with the help of the Persians being quite wonderful to lay eyes on. Such works of engineering I had never seen before, being both young and from a near-trackless land, but it appeared that my admiration for the Persians would only grow as we went further.

North-east was where we went, the landscape changing gradually from that of many coastal poleis to a fertile and lush land of plains, crops and farms. The separation between Greeks, or Yaunâ as the Persians named the Greeks of Ionia and beyond, and the inhabitants of Lydia along the frontier was distinctly blurred, but as you travelled further it became apparent that the influence of the Ionians weakened into nothing.

“Look,” I yelped at Baerios from beneath a cumbersome weight of equipment, “real Persians...” my eyes filled with childish wonderment as I took in the spectacle of bearded men and brazen-skinned women in flowing clothes working side-by-side in the fields of Lydia, Baerios only covering his mouth with a hand as he gave a snort of laughter, “what is it?!” I demanded petulantly, my Arkadian elder giving an innocent shrug, “you were not to know, but these people are not Persians.”

My face flushed with blood then, hot and boiling, turning my skin a shade of red, “then who are they?” Came my question, in equal measure of curiosity and embarrassment.

“My pupil, the Persians command many subjects,” he began in his finest orators voice, “the people here are Lydians, but in all the directions of the winds are others. Medes, Pamphylians, Lycians, Karians, Baktrians and Sogdians and numberless others. The true Persians and their lands act as a central point around which all others move, like a ripple upon water, those closest providing less coin and more men for the army of the Great King, those farthest from the centre paying more coin and sometimes less men. For example, the Lydians pay about five-hundred talents in tribute to their king.”

My mind considered this and I nodded slowly, “they are not slaves?” was the next question which tumbled from my lips.

“The Persians, and their subjects, follow the teachings of one named Zartoŝt, called by us Zōroastrēs. Although they do not consider him to be a God, he is nonetheless viewed as the wisest man to have walked the earth. From him come the Persian traits of truthfulness and free will, the keeping of slaves going against such teachings. It is a little more complicated, my young friend, but I think that is all you need to know to answer your question.”

Aridolis, or Aspacanah, had been listening to all with were saying with an amused look on his lips. It was clear to me then that he knew our own dialect, and could probably speak it well, but then again I think he must have known even more than he showed. Such was the nature of a servant of a satrap, to know everything but to reveal nothing.

“We shall be in Sardis in a couple of weeks, you should probably keep your breath for marching.”

Once he had passed, a look of smugness on his usually motionless face, I gave a grunt and lowered my head once more. Spitting onto the side of the road, I only hoped that Sardis was worthy of so much effort.

[Derbiean]

Derbiean reporting in

Needless to say subbed this and like it thus far, Greek mercenary story will be interesting

[McScottish]

Derbiean reporting in

Needless to say subbed this and like it thus far, Greek mercenary story will be interesting

These Derbieans, always coming out of the woodwork! Should be an interesting story, will have to see about that though.

[McScottish]

(Taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/11005896@N00/153057945/)



Chapter I: The Estate Of Artaphernes, Some Miles Outside Of Sardis

Artaphernes, known in his own tongue as Irdapirna, brother of Dareîos and satrap of Lydia, did not himself live within the confines of Sardis. Although, I was told, most satraps surrounded themselves with high, towering walls and acted as recluses therein, in soaring palaces and waited upon by thousands of subjects – subjects being those who were not slaves, but who were not entirely free either – the complete opposite seemed to be with Artaphernes and his rather less elevated desires.

Sardis, the capital of Lydia, and western capital of the Persian Empire, founded by Gyges of Lydia, who slew an earlier people and even had the audacity to attack Miletos, lay within the distance of a short ride on horseback and, it was said, had inside its protective walls a palace fit for the most powerful rulers and tyrants across the known world. Such was it with every city in Persia where a satrap resided. Yet Artaphernes, thirty years of age when I saw him first, preferred the comforts of a modest walled estate on a fertile piece of Lydian land, where he could raise steeds of the finest breeding and farm with his own hands if he so wished. He was, in more ways than one, nothing like the man I would have expected.

The previous satrap of Lydia had contracted a genital disease, wasting away until he was no more than loose skin dangling from bone. Only a year later, Artaphernes was raised to that lofty position by his royal-blooded brother, and had only been ruling for a single year when I first looked upon him. Almost alone of the children of Hystaspes, father of Dareîos, he had not taken a part in the civil war which had preceded his brothers ascension and was, it would appear to an outsider, almost inexperienced in matters of state and war. Such assumptions, however, would be the ravings of the unobservant and the wrong.

************

My feet were sore and blistered when we came to the outskirts of the satraps inner lands, that is to say the vast swathes of valley and people that he called his estate, as satrap of Lydia he was in possession of far more than just what I could see. I had been told that it took days to travel over all the land that he had in his grasp, and as I raised my head to see the rising walls and then looked about myself I could not doubt such words. From all around us, some hundred-and-a-half dust-coated and sweating hoplitai and the boys which travelled with them, like myself there to carry their mentor or their lovers equipment and weapons, heads were raised from work in the fields and eyes squinted against the continuous sun to get a better view of us. Beyond them and their farmsteads, simple square buildings of mud-brick, were the meandering rivers and mountains which separated Lydia from its neighbouring satrapies in the east and over which any threat to the rule of the Great King and his brother was likely to come, but that is a different story.

It was when the walls had grown to such a height that my neck ached to see them that our host appeared to us in a modest and simple form, even less elaborate than that which our guide, an Ionian Greek decided to take, pacing down the road toward us like a man on a simple riverside walk. He came to us nearly alone, only five others accompanying him, two clearly hoplitai and two others of which neither I nor my mentor were entirely certain.

Artaphernes himself, now no more than a couple of steps away and speaking softly with Aspacanah in hushed tones, was a regal and almost majestic figure, who on this day had decided to dress in the fashion of a Hellene and oddly for a Persian did not look out of place. His black hair, as with others, was oiled and curled and swept back towards the nape of his neck, such a cut of hair leaving his oddly pale-skinned face in plain sight. It was a mans face, if I make sense in saying so; a thick brow with two black masses of hair, moving downwards to a pair of deep-set eyes in sunken sockets, his high cheekbones, shaven and barren of hair, and squared jaw containing a slender but partially bent nose above a pair of full lips. The grey woollen chiton he wore, covered partially by a crimson chalmys, without sleeves and ending in the middle of the thigh, left little to the imagination. Although shorter in height than Baerios and Aspacanah both, he was straight-backed and broad-shouldered, the muscle of his bared arms and legs clearly moving beneath the light skin of his body and his entire bearing that of one who was always confident.

“Welcome to my humble dwelling,” came the greeting in the Persian language, the satrap lifting his arms and opening them wide, his envoy translating every word to my mentor, his lochos and I in any number of various dialects, and my eyes noticing he bore no weapons on his person, “allow me to introduce my entourage.”

“First, Evaenetos. My Xenagos, and leader of my personal Yaunâ guard.”

Evaenetos was a bullock of a man, his almost perfectly square head sitting atop his equally shaped torso with nearly no neck to sit on. His arms, covered in a thick mass of brown hair, plainly bulged with muscle and the two tree-trunks that he called legs moved at the pace of a crawling insect as he stepped forward and gave us a stiff nod. He may have been dressed in a red chiton of his own that day, a stout belt securing it at the waist, but it did not take even my young imagination to create an image of him charging into battle bellowing war-cries, clad all in bronze and seeming like Ares himself come to earth.

“This man is Adarvan, one my brothers many eyes and ears, sent here to make sure I do not step out of line and do my utmost to rule wisely in his name during his absences.”

Like Aspacanah, this man, lean and with the same neutral expression on his face, had clothed himself in the brightly-coloured garments which true Persians – and Persian imitators - seemed to favour. Everything was an exuberant purple colour, almost painful to my eyes, used as they were to the dull browns and greens of dirt and trees, from the peaked cap he was on his head to the soft shoes which enveloped his feet. Golden threading edged his sleeves and ankles, his shoes and the cap he wore, and on his fingers were a number of rings which appeared to be of solid and purest gold.

“Lastly, this shadowy figure is my greatest ally. Sometimes I find it quite odd that even I do not know his name or origins,” the satrap gave a small shrug and waved a hand in his general direction.

This last creature was the one that my eyes lingered on for the longest, the person not even deigning to step forward and be recognised by us. My mind found it disturbing that the man did not speak, did not move, and kept his body swaddled in a black and hooded robe which obscured the features of both his body and his face. A part of me even wished to turn and flee, but sense prevailed, I was in an alien land and had I fled it could have been the death of me...well, only the moirai know.

“Please, you look weary from your travels. Your warriors may follow my own,” his hand pointed toward the two crested hoplitai at his back, “they will be cared for until they are needed, meanwhile you, Baerios of Kaphyai, my friends here, and your young shield-bearer may enter and enjoy the hospitality of my home.”

Slowly he turned, his eyes delaying a moment as he looked at Baerios and I, a shade of a smile playing over those lips, before he was no longer watching us like an eagle watches its prey but instead striding ahead without waiting for us to follow.

“Come,” hissed Aspacanah, turning aside and waving us past him, our guide right until we entered the hall of his master, “follow me,” he said as he watched us both, his eyes twinkling for a moment and his mouth opening into a grin, “I hope you are both very hungry, and very talkative.”

[Derbiean]

This last creature was the one that my eyes lingered on for the longest, the person not even deigning to step forward and be recognised by us. My mind found it disturbing that the man did not speak, did not move, and kept his body swaddled in a black and hooded robe which obscured the features of both his body and his face. A part of me even wished to turn and flee, but sense prevailed, I was in an alien land and had I fled it could have been the death of me...well, only the moirai know.

Its death LEG IT!



Dunno why but i imagine they will be walking into a orgy...filthy mind much?

[McScottish]

Its death LEG IT!



Dunno why but i imagine they will be walking into a orgy...filthy mind much?

Been watching too much 300 with this guy methinks...







But, sorry, no orgy...not yet anyway.

[McScottish]

Chapter I: The Estate Of Artaphernes, Some Miles Outside Of Sardis

I did not know what had the greater impression on me, the vast and sumptuous mass of food and drink bought out from many doors by many servants and placed on a table long enough for a hundred people, or the architecture, uniquely Persian in design and scope, which surrounded us all as we ate our fill. My eyes roved unceasingly about the room, my ears ignoring or deaf to the conversation taking place between the satrap and my teacher nearby, the high arched ceiling and domed roof of the main hall taking my breath away, and the mouthfuls of swishing wine and cooked meat in my mouth causing me to chew far more than was necessary, just to keep it where I could taste it. Absent of much thought, I raised a hand to rub the painful nape of my neck beneath my locks of red hair and, as was my want to do, began to take in exactly what I saw.

We had been guided into the large central hall of the satraps estate, two wide doors of thick wood swinging inward, pulled so by two towering Persians. These Persians were the first warriors of that culture that I had seen, both with thick beards and with spears clutched in their hands, their clothing not all that different from that of their master except more sturdy in its make and probably more functional too. Aspacanah followed us as we made our way into a walled courtyard, a fountain, where two more bearded guards stood like silent sentinels, bubbling away merrily as we passed.

To our left were the stables, a stout building of brick with only one entrance and a veneer, like the rest of the buildings, which caused you to believe that the building was made of sand only. Artaphernes was fond of breeding some of the finest steeds in all of the Empire, and from where I strode I could hear some soothing whispers and the whinnying of its current four-legged inhabitants.

On the right had been raised a long block, which almost seeped into the wall with its ramparts and look-outs, where Aspacanah told me Artaphernes kept his most loyal and ferocious warriors, his foreign – that is to say Greek – fighters being kept outside of the walls in a separate barrack of their own. Inside that barrack they could speak their own language and adhere to their own customs, worship their Gods and celebrate their festivals, but inside this enclosure they acted as the satrap would have them and worship who he demanded they worship. All this they did for the pay he provided and the prestige that came with a posting to his personal guard, a number of hand-picked Greeks which never left his side, even when he slept.

The dining hall was reached by walking through a high-roofed fore-room and narrow hall, paintings depicting ancestors and great Persian victories spread out over every wall, busts of stone in the shape of famous kings and captive princes glaring at us from illuminated alcoves as we passed, and here and there a bronze-wearing warrior would almost blend into the surroundings but for the slight movements of the eyes and the distinct colour of their skin against a background of stone.

All this was new and vivid in the mind of a five-and-ten year old, myself who had never been outside his own village for more than a few days, and only a few stadia then anyway. Now I was being almost submerged, drowned, in the ways of a foreign land and its people, at least that was how it appeared to me at the time.

When we reached the main hall my eyes grew wide, a table of the deepest brown wood I had ever seen placed in the centre of the hall, the width of the room large enough to fit in fifty men of noble birth and their retinues, the length of the table able to seat many, many, guests. On either side of the table were equally dark benches hand-carved of the same wood, and this is where the seven of us took our seats, we Greeks – including Aspacanah – sitting on one side and the three Persians sitting down to peer at us from the other.

I had only just settled down, placing the aspis and helmet of my teacher and lover on the floor behind me, when a figure scurried from the recesses of the room and scooped them up to carry them away. I was about to yell after him, a man that seemed to be unable to straighten his back from a perpetual bow, when I caught the ever-watchful eye of Adarvan. A barely perceptible shake of his head stopped my outcry from ever passing my lips, and instead I furrowed my brow in confusion, in slight annoyance even, and turned back to face the others. Though I faced them, my eyes were never on each of them for longer than a few moments.

What came next almost made me leap with pleasure, when Artaphernes with a clap of his hands summoned a swarm of bustling food and drink-bearers from every direction to lay before us every manner of delicacy available to a satrap of Persia. Carried by two girls, probably of my age and handsome to gaze upon, came ever-filled golden jugs of water-cut wine, to fill our own goblets forged of the same glittering wealth. Then, from all points of the winds, flew flat plates of pure silver upon which lay slices of seasoned pork, all manner of birds, fish from oceans and rivers, the meat of goats and animals I had never heard named, vegetables such as onion, spinach and a white food called a carrot. Fruits spilled from deep-dished bowls, apples, grapes and dates and dozens of baked foods littered the lower reaches of the table, too far to reach but not far enough that a willing servant would not bow and scrape to reach it for you.

************

On that day, a young Arkadian boy was treated in the manner of the greatest basileus, and he has never forgotten.

Before long I was bloated with wine and delicious food, juice and fat dribbling down my chin and onto my chest, staining my chiton with so many colours that I laughed to think I could be mistaken for a Persian. My hands were equally treated, wiped lazily on the lower fringes of my clothing only to be tarnished again in a glimmering sheen of greasy stewed pig. I am sure my table-manners were wholly unsuitable for the present company, but to my embarrassment it seemed that Artaphernes was actually enjoying watching me eat.

His eyes caught my own as I was wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, the errant limb ceasing its path and lingering there until he gave me a teeth-filled smile and turned to murmur something to Baerios, who had gone to sit beside him since beginning the feast, which caused my fellow Arkadian to turn and regard me. In those eyes I could see, both at the same time, the love he bore me as a father would a son but also the lusty reflection that a man of drunk state would have for a particularly attractive boy or girl. I met his gaze with a playful smile, wiping it from my face as soon as he turned his attention back to his Persian paymaster, hoping both that I had and had not given him a cause to lay his hands on me that night.

“Attention!” Spoke Aspacanah suddenly, Artaphernes clapping his hands together and sending the fluttering servants scurrying back to where they had come, all except the wine-bearers who were ordered to remain as a necessity, “his highness Artaphernes will now speak.”

My head felt drowsy with wine as the Persian satrap began to talk, our guide and interpreter continuing to act in a balance of both roles, a guide to his words and an interpreter of his masters meaning, telling us all – including Evaenetos – as exactly as possible what the Great Kings brother mused upon. He spoke as if he were Artaphernes himself, referring to himself as 'I' and giving his words in exactly the same tone and manner as the satrap of Lydia.

“My brother, the Great King Dareîos, has gone west with a tremendous host to subdue the warring barbarian tribes of those you call Thrakians,” began the go-between, his mouth moving only a fraction of a moment after Artaphernes had ceased speaking, “he has taken Megabazus, his most able general, and with him march many more warriors. Already we know he has tamed the wild Odrysae of Bizye, and now takes his host north to Uskudama and the savage Bessi. We who remain here have been placed to rule in his name, and the Great King has given to me an even greater task, it is my duty to curb the inhabitants of Bithynia and make loyal subjects of them. It is for this reason that I ask Yaunâ into my service.”

There was a pause, Artaphernes looking to Baerios with a raised eyebrow, the Arkadian lifting his goblet and draining its contents in reply. This gesture served both as a sign that the prince should go on, and that my mentor was enjoying the hospitality of his host.

“There will be conflict with some of your Megaran brothers, those who call themselves the people of Chalkedon, what do you say to that?”

This time Baerios mused for a moment, his jaw jutting out, his lips turning into a smile and his eyes looking mischievously at the satrap. Evaenetos, sitting on the other side of Baerios, looked for his part quite unhappy.

“Tell me, your highness,” asked Baerios plainly, “for me to kill my brother Hellenes, how much shall you pay me and mine? Hellenic blood is not cheap.”

Artaphernes seemed to take no affront at the distinctly discourteous question, instead having a muttered exchange with Aspacanah, who then turned and spoke, “because I respect the arms of the Yaunâ so highly, even surrounding myself with them, and because their blood is not cheap, I will promise two Darics a day to you and each of your men. Does that sound reasonable?”

Baerios seemed to light up at the mention of these 'dareikos', but to me it was simply a name, at least then it was. In my future, although I could not even conceive of it in those young and heady years, that gleaming golden archer would become the currency which would command and compel me to spill my blood.

“Agreed, two darics a day for each...now, where else will me and my lads be going and who will we be fighting?”

“Artabazos, cousin of Pharnaces, awaits you in Bithynia. You will travel north, taking Evaenetos as your guide, and join your own warriors to his. You will then bring Bithynia under the firm grasp of the Great King, taking Chalkedon and showing the Thrakians there that they are as subject to his highness. as the Lydians and Mysians.”

My eyelids were beginning to close by themselves, and so it was almost as if the Gods had intervened when Artaphernes clapped his hands once more and rose from his seat, all those present following quickly, my leg nearly becoming caught on the bench and sending me flying into the table as I did.

“I am weary and wish to rest, Evaenetos will show you to your barracks. Pleasant sleep to you all.”

The satrap was followed from the hall by his group of advisors, all except his Xenagos who grunted at us to follow him. I gave one last, sleepy-eyed look at the feasting hall, servants already scrambling to clear the table, before I half-skipped after the two experienced warriors towards the barracks of the Greeks outside the walls of the estate.

************

It was almost oppressively hot in the barracks, eighty men to a vast room, each sleeping on a single bed arranged in a long row, forty men on each side of the room. I shifted uneasily, naked except for a simple undergarment, Baerios already snoring loudly beside me, his chance to do anything other than talk to me swiped from his grasp by our separate places.

Eventually I ceased my tossing and turning, laying on my back and staring up at the smooth earthen roof of the room, my wine-addled mind wondering in amazement how I had even come to be where I was. In the westernmost part of the Persian Empire, an Empire that stretched ever east and, to my mind, was a place with no boundaries, man-made or otherwise.

Did Baerios really expect me to kill the Megaran settlers of Chalkedon?

I supposed that that was what he was training me for, to kill whoever we were instructed to kill, for two round and golden coins each day, to make all who marched with him into rich men. He had sworn to teach me the hoplomachia, the instructive dance that was taught to all young hoplites in time, once he reached a suitable place. Well, this place was as suitable as any.

So, I would march north with these hardened and destitute men and together we would bring 'rebellious' poleis into the loving embrace of Persia. When I thought of that, a shudder proceeded down my spine and a sickened feeling entered my stomach, I ignored it and told myself it was the rather over-large amount of food I had consumed.

[Derbiean]

I suddenly have a craving for food and alcohol