‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s our duty.’ I drank deeper to steady my nerve. ‘And duty is everything, whatever you feel about doing it. We may or may not be needed to save the Empire. But we have to try to save these people and others like them. What I’m wondering about is the practicalities. When all is said and done, we’re not leading people like yours or mine into battle. These are untried amateurs.’
Rado laughed. ‘Samo told me that untried amateurs like these saw off the Persians last year.’
‘That was a raiding force, at the end of its supply line,’ I said. ‘Also, the numbers were more evenly matched.’
Rado laughed again. ‘You said yourself that, if we hit them in the pass, their numbers won’t count. Also, I don’t think those animals we killed the other day were much above the common level. Our men are fighting for their homes. That means a lot. So long as we keep out of sight tomorrow, we’ll take them by surprise and give them a bloody nose they won’t ever forget.’
This was the moment when everyone woke up. It began as a commotion among the outlying watch. By the time we’d got our swords and were hurrying from the tent, it had turned into a noise, from many throats, of inarticulate horror. It sounded as if it would go on without end. It wasn’t the Persians, we could be sure. But it was all they needed, if any were about, to tell them something was up.
‘Shut up, the lot of you!’ I shouted, sword in hand. I struck it three times against a rock. In the light of the torches that had now been lit, I looked at the hundred or so young men. I could guess they’d blundered into us and the knowledge that they weren’t alone in the darkness had set them off. Sobbing or crying out with terror, shrinking from the sudden light, they cowered on the ground. One of them, I could see, had an arrow or a spear wound on his bare lower arm. Others looked as if they’d been knocked about.
‘Put those torches out,’ I ordered. ‘One light only.’ I turned to one of the priests. ‘Try and shut them up,’ I said. ‘See if you can get any sense out of them.’
It was a nasty story, quickly told. As I’d suspected, the far plain was in a district without militias. Persian foragers had turned up at a cluster of five linked villages. Instead of the usual murder on site, they’d entertained themselves this time by gathering the whole population together and setting everyone off at a run towards our mountain. Those who’d refused to run, or couldn’t, had been burned alive in their church. Of those who could run, those who fell behind were stabbed in the guts and left to bleed to death where they lay. The old went first and then the very young and the women, and then every man who couldn’t keep up the pace set by laughing demons on horseback. Every tie of blood or affection was tested to snapping point. Those that didn’t snap led to certain death. Those of the runners who survived, even for a little time, survived only as individuals — women who threw down their babies, men who cast their children aside, anyone strong enough and terrified enough to pull someone else out of the way and keep at the front of the terrified, gibbering crowd.
Of the five or six hundred who started on the run, I counted barely a hundred who’d made it far enough into the woods for the Persians to get bored and go off to pat each other on the back for a job well done. Of necessity, these survivors were the fittest and strongest, and those most terrified by the prospect of death into dropping every consideration of love or decency. Looking at the faces of these survivors in the light of a single torch, I saw fear — but I also saw the realisation of a shame in survival that would never fade this side of the grave.
‘Give them food and drink,’ I said. I turned to the priest. ‘Give them what comfort you can.’ I raised my voice. ‘Let anyone who cares join us in the morning. We’ll see how, even without training, men can fight when they have nothing left to lose.’
I paused outside my tent. Inside, Eboric had finally been pressed into giving a fuller description of my dealings with Chosroes than I’d so far given. He didn’t know their full extent, and his lack of Persian blurred his narrative. But I listened to his low, trembling account of our banquet in the night palace as if I were hearing about somebody else. At the time, I’d been scared shitless and I’d been too busy trying to kill the Great King to reflect on things. After that had come the long strain of the escape and, after that, the reunion with Antonia and the preparations for the counter-offensive. Now, I sat down and put my head in both hands. It didn’t help hearing the proud rise in Eboric’s voice every time he found reason to explain how brave I’d been and how devoted to the safety of those I loved.
I looked up at the bright stars. I really wasn’t another Leonidas. I was an English semi-bandit with a thick layer of civilian piled on top of that. Eboric was young and silly. I could expect him to see me as a hero. But Rado could see right through me. How he could have gone calmly back to his tent to sit playing with another of his pebble maps, was beyond me.
‘Stiff upper lip,’ I whispered in the darkness. ‘Stiff upper lip.’ Once more, I found myself speaking in English.
Chapter 66
We shed our first blood about noon the following day. Our guides were leading us out of sight through some low hills, when we came on several dozen mounted and unmounted Persians. I won’t say they were actually dripping with Greek blood. But they were close by a village we’d skirted, where every gust of smoke carried over on the breeze smelled of burning meat. The swagger of the footmen and the squealing laughter of them all, told us enough of what they’d been about.
My own inclination was to wait and see if they’d noticed us — and, if they hadn’t, simply to watch them go past. But Rado was already taking out his sword. ‘Get them. Kill them. Strip them,’ he rasped in his functional Greek. ‘No prisoners. None to get away.’ Before I could open my own mouth, he was galloping straight at them, every one of our horsemen close behind him.
It was brutal work, but complete and mostly silent. I cut down one of the horsemen as he tried to escape past me. It was an impressive kill, requiring me to dodge away from his own sword blow, and then skewer him through the side of his throat. Still sitting up and holding his reins, he was dead before I had my sword out of him. But I don’t think anyone was watching. Mine had been the only horseman to survive the first rush of our assault. By the time I was beside Rado again, all attention was on the footmen.
‘Gag them!’ He commanded. ‘Kill slow, but gag them.’
They did both, though with an emphasis on the slow killing. Icons held up to witness the torments, the priests who didn’t join in darted about, exhorting the men to greater excesses. Rado looked on impassively as the banks of a stream now swollen to a small river turned red with gore and was covered with parts cut from the bodies of the living. He raised his voice above the desperate, choking buzz of men who’ve had stones rammed into their mouths to keep them from screaming. ‘This is how they fight their war against us,’ he said. ‘Will you complain if we fight back?’
I might have commented on his shift, in under a day, from speaking of Greeks in the third person to talk of ‘us’ and ‘we’. Instead, I looked about for Antonia. She was holding hands with Eboric and watching as one of the captives had his eyes scooped out. ‘The punishment is just,’ I said flatly.