She rode as well as Gorgo, or better. She rode astride, and she seemed one with her horse — and all of her decorative ladies mounted as well, a cavalcade of beautiful centaurs. Horses were brought for each of us, and Aristides proved an excellent horseman — no surprise.
‘Put the Greeks in the middle,’ the queen said. ‘They do not ride like us.’
Well — I suppose it is true. There was something. . organic about the way Persians rode. We were stiffer. But then, I’ve never loved horses. Aristides did, and even in the torchlight he looked more like a Persian than I did.
Some things cause me more fear than others. I’ve never been great at public speaking — although I can manage a good thing on occasion — and this sort of escape probably caused me more fear than all the battles I’ve ever seen. We were stopped four times by soldiers — but on each occasion, a single glimpse of Atosa was enough to render the guards impotent, and our little caravan wound down the hill, through the streets, and out the northern gate. We rode in the moonlight along the river, and when the sun rose, we were already in rockier terrain, and there were hills rising on our left.
We rode all day until we reached an extensive horse farm. We changed horses in a stable attached to a fine estate, where Cyrus found his entire cavalry detachment, and I found the Spartan envoys, as well as Brasidas, Nikeas and Hector.
There was a great deal of back-slapping. I’m not sure, until we found each other in a barn north of Susa, that any of us expected to make it out alive.
Cyrus joined us where we were gathered. He drew me aside.
‘Atosa is leaving in half an hour. She intends to ride north into the hills. I would like to leave her here and go north and west across the Masabadan — the land of the Medes. By staying in the hills, we can avoid most of their searches and slip up the Euphrates to Dura.’ He waved at his men. ‘With twenty of the best, we’ll be fine — especially as Atosa has offered me sixty horses. A rich gift indeed.’
He watched me for moment. ‘You hesitate?’ he asked.
‘I had hoped to return via Babylon,’ I said.
‘Arwia’s palace will be watched — indeed, it was watched before you ever arrived. She is a snake, that one. She, not her husband, should have been given over to the sword.’ Cyrus shrugged. ‘I would not advise you to pass Babylon. Or rather — I will not go there, and I’m willing to compel you to come with me. I promised Artapherenes.’
I shrugged.
‘I promised Briseis, as well,’ Cyrus said.
‘Let me talk to my friends,’ I said.
I walked back to Brasidas, Aristides, Bulis and Sparthius. The two Spartan heralds were not good riders, but they’d had almost two months to harden, and they were better than they had been.
I laid out the choices for all of them.
Sparthius pointed at my trousers and laughed. ‘It really is hard to take you seriously that way,’ he said.
I pointed at his.
Aristides frowned. ‘Gentlemen, we are not schoolboys. Arimnestos, our duty is to return with what we have learned.’
I shrugged. ‘I confess I might be self-interested, but my thought was that Greece might be saved in Babylon.’
Brasidas nodded. ‘I think the same. Babylon is smoking like a pile of sticks just before they ignite.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I think I know how to provide the spark.’
I suspect I looked jealous. ‘You?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘I have a message for a certain lady of Babylon from a former King of Sparta. Not all plots concern you, Plataean.’
Neither of the other two Spartans looked surprised.
But Aristides took me by the shoulder. ‘Brasidas knows his way around this plot,’ he said.
I looked at him, and he smiled. ‘I do, at that,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to Babylon. You go home and make the Greeks move.’
I suppose I might have protested more — but to be honest, I had had enough of the East. Babylon was a lush memory, but it was not a place for me.
Aristides — the least underhanded of men — nonetheless was the one to point out the flaw in our plan. ‘Cyrus will not want us to send aid to Babylon. He may be willing to help us, and happy to do Mardonius a disservice, but he’s still a loyal Persian officer.’
Brasidas cursed.
We all stood there under the sun, tired, dispirited despite our escape, in alien territory, heads down.
Very, very quietly, Hector spoke up. ‘You could. . just say. . you are going. . er. . back to Demaratus at Susa.’ Hector flushed. ‘I’m sorry, lords. But Cyrus knows that Brasidas. . knows the Spartan king.’
Brasidas brightened. He smiled again, and Bulis tousled the boy’s hair.
‘Odysseus born again.’ He looked at Brasidas. ‘How will you get to Babylon? You don’t speak any language but Greek.’
‘It won’t work,’ I said. ‘You’ll never get there from here.’ I stared at them. ‘We have to go somewhere near Babylon — remember how far across the plain you can see it? Then Brasidas slips away and we cover for him by dressing Niceas here as a gentleman. We only need to give Brasidas a day’s head start.’ It occurred to me in a single breath — that I could slip away in the same way — and that I’d be missed much sooner than the taciturn Brasidas.
At parting, the queen sent me a guest-gift. Her chamberlain delivered it.
‘My mistress sends you this, a treasure of our house, that no Greek will be able to return to his people empty handed from the court of the Great King. She says — go, return to your homeland, and tell them of all you have seen, and the glory of the Great King, and tell them to give their earth and water and become loyal subjects.’ He bowed deeply — as if I were a great noble — and handed me a cedar box inlaid in silver.
I handed it to Niceas without looking at it.
The chamberlain sneered. ‘It will be the handsomest treasure in Greece. And you are too foreign to look at it? Or are you Greeks merely dead to beauty?’
Aristides vaulted into his saddle like a man twenty years younger. ‘We have beautiful things in Greece,’ he said. ‘Hills, valleys, waterfalls, the sea, and women.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re not much for treasures.’
Bulis laughed. ‘We’re too poor!’ he called.
And we rode away, leaving the chamberlain to his contempt. Myself, I think it was one of Aristides’ prettiest speeches.
So in the end, we all rode together, dressed as Medes — up into the high country west of Susa, up the valley of the Eualaeus, past the walls of Hulwan, and then down into the plains at Me-Turnat, a journey of almost fifteen days — some days so slow that at the end of the day we could see the previous day’s campsite in the clear air, and always short on water. We slept on the ground and hunted every day, and I was astounded to watch the facility with which the Persians shot from horseback.
Me-Turnat to Babylon is five hundred stades, and the roads were well marked. Indeed, we saw a column of spearmen, and when I spoke to their officer, he described his travels and in the process told us exactly how to reach the great city in the middle of the plain.
We began to ride due west across the plain, and summer was ending. In the mountains it had been cool, but here, despite the sun, the heat was also less, and the turning of the seasons reminded me that I had another two months’ journey to reach the coast, unless we took the Royal Road, which Cyrus feared to take. Even as it was, he wanted to skirt the plain instead of crossing it, staying at the fringes of the highlands.
When we reached Dura on the Tigris, the gods took a hand in our affairs, and sent us a pair of Phrygian merchants with a convoy of goods travelling by river to Babylon. They spoke Greek.
We pooled our money and Brasidas vanished on to the docks. There was no time or place for long farewells. I was afraid — afraid I was sending him to his death, and afraid that I was sending him to my fate when I could have done his job better. But Aristides was unrelenting in his insistence that my role was to get them all back to Greece. They were my ships, and, as he pointed out, my relationship with Artapherenes.