Dienekes thanked him and told him where the grave lay. To my surprise, Polynikes took Rooster's hand too. The gods love a bastard, he said.
Rooster informed us that Leonidas had freed with honor all the helots of the battle train. We could see a group of a dozen now, passing out among the warriors of Tegea. Leonidas has released the squires as well, Rooster declared, and all the foreigners who serve the army. He addressed my master. That means Suicide – and Xeo too.
Behind Rooster the train of allied contingents continued their march-out.
Will you hold him now, Dienekes? Rooster asked. He meant me.
My master did not look in my direction but spoke in reply toward Rooster. I have never compelled Xeo's service. Nor do I now.
He drew up and turned to me. The sun had fully risen; east, by the Wall, the trumpets were sounding. One of us, he said, should crawl out of this hole alive. He ordered me to depart with Rooster.
I refused.
You have a wife and children! Rooster seized my shoulders, gesturing with passion to Dienekes and Polynikes. Theirs is not your city. You owe it nothing.
I told him the decision had been made years ago.
You see? Dienekes addressed Rooster, indicating me. He never had good sense.
Back at the Wall we saw Dithyrambos. His Thespians had refused Leonidas' order. To a man they disdained to withdraw, but insisted upon abiding and dying with the Spartans. There were about two hundred of them. Not a man among their squires would pull out either. Fully four score of the freed Spartan squires and helots stood fast as well. The seer Megistias had likewise scorned to retreat. Of the original three hundred Peers, all were present or dead save two. Aristodemos, who had served as envoy at Athens and Rhodes, and Eurytus, a champion wrestler, had both been stricken with an inflammation of the eyes that rendered them sightless. They had been evacuated to Alpenoi. The katalogos, the muster roll, of survivors marshaling at the Wall numbered just above five hundred.
As for Suicide, my master before departing to bury Alexandras had commanded him to remain here at the Wall, upon a litter. Dienekes apparently had anticipated the squires' release; he had left orders for Suicide to be borne off with their column to safety. Now here the Scythian stood, on his feet, grinning ghoulishly as his master returned, himself armored in corselet and breastplate with his loins cinched in linen and bound with leather straps from a pack mount. I can't shit, he pronounced, but by hell's flame, I can still fight.
The ensuing hour was consumed with the commanders reconfiguring the contingent into a front of sufficient breadth and depth, remarshaling the disparate elements into units and assigning officers. Among the Spartans, those squires and helots remaining were simply absorbed into the platoons of the Peers they served. They would fight no longer as auxiliaries but take their places in bronze within the phalanx. There was no shortage of armor, only of weapons, so many had been shivered or smashed in the preceding forty-eight hours. Two dumps of spares were established, one at the Wall and the second a furlong to the rear, halfway to a small partially fortified hillock, the most natural site for a beleaguered force to rally upon and make its last stand. These dumps were nothing grand-just swords stuck blade-first into the dirt and eightfooters jammed beside them, lizard-stickers down.
Leonidas summoned the men to assembly. This was done without so much as a shout, so few yet stood upon the site. The camp itself seemed suddenly broad and capacious. As for the dance floor before the Wall, its sundered turf lay yet littered with Persian corpses by the thousand as the enemy had left the second day's casualties to rot upon the field. Those wounded who had survived the night now groaned with their last strength, crying for aid and water, and many for the merciful stroke of extinction. For the allies the prospect of fighting again, out there upon that farmer's field of hell, seemed more than thought could bear. This, too, was Leonidas' decision. It had been agreed among the commanders, the king now informed the warriors, no longer to fight in sallies from behind the Wall as in the previous two days but instead to put its stones at the defenders' backs and advance in a body into the widest part of the pass, there to engage the enemy, the allied scores against the Empire's myriads. The king's intent was that each man sell his life as dearly as possible.
Just as order of battle was being assigned, a herald's trumpet of the enemy sounded from beyond the Narrows. Under a banner of parley a party of four Persian riders in their most brilliant armor picked their way across the carpet of carnage and reined in directly beneath the Wall. Leonidas had been wounded in both legs and could barely hobble. With painful effort he mounted the battlement; the troops climbed with him; the whole force, what there was of it, looked down on the horsemen from atop the Wall.
The envoy was Ptammitechus, the Egyptian marine Tom-mie. This time his young son did not accompany him as interpreter; that function was performed by an officer of the Persians. Both their mounts, and the two heralds', were balking violently amid the underfoot corpses. Before Tommie could commence his speech, Leonidas cut him off.
The answer is no, he called down from the Wall.
You haven't heard the offer.
Fuck the offer, Leonidas cried with a grin. And yourself, sir, along with it!
The Egyptian laughed, his smile flashing as brilliantly as ever. He strained against the reins of his spooking horse. Xerxes does not want your lives, sir, Tommie called. Only your arms.
Leonidas laughed. Tell him to come and get them.
With a wheel-about, the king terminated the interview. Despite his carved-up legs he disdained help dismounting the Wall. He whistled up the assembly. Atop the stones the Spartans and Thespians watched the Persian envoys rein their mounts about and withdraw.
Behind the Wall, Leonidas again took station before the assembly. The triceps muscle in his left arm had been severed; he would fight today with his shield strapped with leather across his shoulder. The Spartan king's demeanor nonetheless could only be described as cheerful. His eyes shone and his voice carried easily with force and command.
Why do we remain in this place? A man would have to be cracked not to ask that question. Is it for glory? If it were for that alone, believe me, brothers, I'd be the first to wheel my ass to the foe and trot like hell over that hill.
Laughter greeted this from the king. He let the swell subside, raising his good arm for silence.
If we had withdrawn from these Gates today, brothers, no matter what prodigies of valor we had performed up till now, this battle would have been perceived as a defeat. A defeat which would have confirmed for all Greece that which the enemy most wishes her to believe: the futility of resistance to the Persian and his millions. If we had saved our skins today, one by one the separate cities would have caved in behind us, until the whole of Hellas had fallen.
The men listened soberly, knowing the king's assessment accurately reflected reality.
But by our deaths here with honor, in the face of these insuperable odds, we transform vanquishment into victory. With our lives we sow courage in the hearts of our allies and the brothers of our armies left behind. They are the ones who will ultimately produce victory, not us.
It was never in the stars for us. Our role today is what we all knew it was when we embraced our wives and children and turned our feet upon the march-out: to stand and die. That we have sworn and that we will perform. The king's belly grumbled, loudly, of hunger; from the front ranks laughter broke the assembly's sober mien and rippled to the rear. Leonidas motioned with a grin to the squires preparing bread, urging them to snap it up.