We rode westward through the foggy fenlands south of Lake Kopaïs. Through rolling farm land we passed Koroneia, and Lebadea, and Chaironeia with its great stone lion in memory of the Boiotians who fell fighting against King Philip. We entered Phokis and crossed yet another River Kephisos at Potamoi. Mount Parnassos, rising hugely on our left, already bore its wintry snowcap.
Nirouphar and I, like any young couple in love, rode side by side and talked all the time, largely about things of no importance. Vardanas, usually so gay, was sunk in one of his glooms and said little.
Elatea, our next large town, stands on a hill, a spur of Kallidromos that cuts across northern Phokis. We reached it on a cold, clear afternoon after a day of rain. After a long uphill ride we drew rein at an inn on the south side of the city, outside the wall. The road stretched off to southward in a straight line. We were handing over our horses to the grooms when Inaudos said:
"Hipparch, look at those riders!"
I looked southwards along the road and saw, several furlongs distant, a small dark spot that might have been a group of horsemen. "What make you of them?" I said.
The Kordian's blue eyes seemed to bulge with the effort of seeing at the limits of vision. "Five—no, six riders, galloping, and some led horses," he said.
"What of it? We're no the only travelers in Hellas."
"Ah, but I think those are same men I saw on the road between Chaironeia and Potamoi! You remember, there was a place with long view there, too."
"Why spoke you not then?"
"Because I said to myself, like you, we are not only travelers. But now I see them again, and that is different."
"In others words, you think they're pursuing us. Ea, Vardanas!"
With groans for the warm beds we durst not stop to enjoy, we pressed on, riding so hard that we wind-broke one horse and had to abandon it. In the dark we stumbled through the passes between Mounts Knemis and Kallidromos. We arrived at the coast of Lokris-below-Knemis half frozen and half falling from horses whose weary heads hung nigh to the ground. Vardanas said:
"If we fain would keep ahead of those men, Leon, we must needs buy spare horses."
The village of Thronion was asleep when we arrived. The innkeeper gave us room in his bugsome dormitory. Ere cockcrow we were off again. At Skarphea we picked up two horses, and another at Nikaia. Each successive horse seemed to cost us more and be of lesser worth than the last. Although it shames me to confess it, I paid over seven hundred drachmai for those three nags, though the lot were not worth four hundred.
In midmorning we passed the hot spring of Thermopylai, where stood the pillars reared to the men who fell fighting Xerxes' Persians. As we had not yet broken fast, we dismounted to snatch a bite and let the horses graze on the narrow strip, a bare sixteen paces wide, between the Trachinian Cliffs and the sea. Whilst we munched, Vardanas read the inscriptions. On reading the one to the Spartans:
Go, stranger, and to Lakedaimon tell
That here, obeying her commands, we fell
he broke into tears—not for pity at the Spartans, who had after all been fighting his own forebears, but at the poetic elegance of the couplet.
"They come still," said Inaudos, shading his eyes to look back along the shore road.
"I hope your eyesight is as good as it seems," I said, clasping my hands to give Nirouphar a leg up. "Get up, all!"
We reached Lamia ere nightfall in the midst of an anxious discussion of our best route. The main wagon road continues on around the north side of the Malian Gulf and follows the shore all the way to the head of the Pagasaian Gulf, with many turns and twists. A lesser road, not suitable for wheels but much shorter, runs north from Lamia over the Achaian mountains into Phthiotis and thence into Thessalia. I held that our horses were failing, even with the spares; that the quicker we reached my own land the easier it would be to summon help; that we must leave the road to hide overnight in hope our pursuers would pass us by; and that this would be more feasible in the Achaian mountains than on the shore road.
So we took the track north from Lamia instead of the main road eastward. Nightfall found us plodding on panting beasts into the Achaian hills. Our pursuers dropped behind at Lamia, no doubt to ask which way we had gone. But, ere the sun had set, Inaudos, looking back from the top of a long rise, said they were on our trail again.
When we neared the crest of the Achaians, which divide Ainania from Achaia Phthiotis, I cast about for a hiding place. As this range is well forested with oak and pine, such a haven was not hard to find. With a quick look back to make sure our pursuers were not in sight, I waved my people off the road and up the course of a brook. A furlong from the road we found a well-hidden hollow with plenty of browse for the horses.
Leaving Nirouphar, Inaudos, and the Scythian in the hollow, Vardanas and I returned to the road on foot and lay behind some ferns, watching. I said:
"Take that polluted bucket off your head, laddie. They'll see it a league away."
Vardanas doffed his tall Persian hat. We must have waited half an hour before the pursuing party appeared. Like us, they were alternately cantering and walking. Now they were walking, strung out in a long line, two horses abreast, because of the narrowness of the track. It was some comfort to see that they and their beasts looked nigh as tired as we. Vardanas whispered:
"I could nail two or three with arrows ere they knew what had befallen them."
"Nay. We know not yet if they be Harpalos' men."
"How will you learn? By standing up and asking?"
"I'll tell you anon. Now hush!"
We lay whilst the twelve horses plodded past, with men on the backs of six. Although it was too dark to make out the men's faces, they wore rough plain clothing and carried both swords and spears. When they had gone, Vardanas asked:
"Perhaps you know what you do. Meseems you have let slip a chance that will not soon come again."
"I told you I should find out if they're Harpalos' men, did I not? Now hear this. If they be pursuers, they've been stopping at towns along the way to ask for tidings of us, thus making sure we had not left the road. Now, if they be but harmless fellow travelers, they'll go on about their business, and we shall never see them more. But if they seek us, they'll ask at the first towns in Phthiotis. When they learn we've not passed that way, they'll wheel around and come pelting back through these mountains, looking for side trails by which we might have left the road. So a watch and wait of a day or two, at this point, ought to settle the question."
"Mithras!" he said. "You are a tactician second only to Alexander himself. I think you err in leaving the army."
" 'Tis nought so wonderful," I said.
"But what shall we do then?" quoth he. "Take up our journey again on this road? Or try to give them the slip in the forest?"
"We might try either. But I fear these slopes are too steep for horses. Besides, they know I'm bound for Atrax, and so would soon be on our trail again."
"What then? An ambuscade?"
"My thought exactly, buckie. Yonder's a fine place for fell work."
We took stock of our weapons. Everybody but the Scythian had a knife. I had a sword. Vardanas was much the best armed, having a sword, a spiked club, a bow, and his Persian kamynda of braided leather. I said:
"If this rope were stretched across the road at a height of two or three feet just before the foe arrived, they'd trip over it and fall in a fine heap."
We talked of methods of stretching the rope. Then Vardanas said: "We do not need a man on each end. If we fasten the noose around a tree, it will be enough for one man on the other end, across the road, to stretch it taut and give a quick turn around another tree to hold it."