A night or two later, I walked to the Anakeion. The horses shifted and snorted, made uneasy by the quiet. Here and there by a watch-fire one or two men would be playing dice, to make the time pass. I came up behind the man I was looking for. He had thrown two sixes, but did not notice it till someone pushed his winnings at him. I touched his shoulder and said, “Xenophon.”
He looked round, and got up from the fire and came aside with me. I saw his eyes searching mine; but he said calmly, as if we had met by chance, “I’m glad to see you, Alexias. Are you able to ride now?”—“No; but I have news for you. Your father is dead.” I saw him give a long noiseless sigh, like a man from whom a burden has fallen. “Is it certain?” he said.—“I have talked to a man who saw him die. He fell at the storming of the heights, a month before the end. All those dead were buried, by the shore of the harbour, in a common grave.” He took my hand, which he had never done before. “Thank you, Alexias. Don’t go yet; I have some wine here.”
Often I had wondered what I could ever say to Xenophon by way of comfort if his father should fall. Thus the event makes fools of our expectations. He divided his wine with me, insisting as one does with the bringer of good tidings; as I was leaving he said, “And for yourself, Alexias? No news yet?”—“Not yet,” I said.—“I am sorry. But there is still time.” I heard nothing, however, though I questioned every survivor I could hear of.
So the Assembly was called, and the men went up the Pnyx. They did not stay very long. I waited for Lysis at the place we had appointed, a saddler’s shop in a street near by. The place smelt of old leather and horse-sweat. Hardly anything in the place was new, so few of the knights could afford it; it was all repair-work. The saddler was at the Assembly; I talked to the foreman, who was a metic, about horse-embrocation and swollen hocks. Our horses were lame half their time for lack of rest; my broken shoulder had been good for Phoenix at least. Then Lysis came in, looking better than he had since he was hurt. The saddler was with him; they were laughing together. He said to me, “All’s well. No surrender.” The saddler slapped the foreman on the shoulder and said, “Cheer up, Brygos. They won’t make a Helot of you yet.”
“Don’t rub your arm, Lysis,” I said. “You know that makes it worse.”—“It itches. It will mend now. I feel in myself that the poison is gone.”
Autumn drew on. The courtyard vines bore their few grapes, and on the hills of Attica the wasted vineyards bore weeds. The war slowed down again, as wars do when winter comes. We made our patrols; the Thebans came out sometimes and made little raids, lest we should feel at ease. Half the cavalry strength kept watch at the Anakeion; the rest, turn and turn about, went home. Sharp mornings began, when, as one pulls off one’s clothes and runs out to the palaestra, one sees steam coming up from the wrestlers. But most of my leave I was running. For the people of Corinth had sent us a herald, announcing the sacred truce of Poseidon, and inviting us to send competitors to the Isthmian Games. I did not tell Lysis my hopes, in case they came to nothing. The City, which would have to send all the entrants round by sea, would not choose many.
We went on patrol again in a fine spell of weather; frosty nights, silver mornings, and noons of gold. One evening we passed the farm where I had lain with my broken shoulder. While we were buying some cheese, the fanner’s wife beckoned me round a corner. With all that had happened, I had remembered her mostly for her bad nursing; but meeting again, it was another matter, and she lost no time in persuading me that what had been good with a sore shoulder would be better with a sound one. She was a fair-haired young woman, slim and firm; her face was tanned, but her body very white. The end of our conversation was that I should come back that night, if we made camp near enough, and meet her in the barn.
Being unable to keep anything long from Lysis, I had confessed my former adventure long ago. If he was ill pleased, he had not the pettiness to show it; but he said I ought not to go after married women, as if a husband had no rights. “It can happen to anyone,” he said, “in a case like that; but the fact remains that it is stealing. You would be ashamed to go off with another man’s horse, after all, so why make free with his other property? Next time you want a woman, you ought to pay for one.” I said, “But Lysis, he cares nothing for such things; he is long past it, and only wants a housekeeper; she told me so.” Seeing me bring out this old tale with such a serious face, he could not keep from laughing. But I did not care now, as you may suppose, to tell him where I was going. I had no watch that night, and slipped off as soon as he was asleep.
I knew, or thought I knew, a short way over the mountain; so I left my horse and my armour; but took a sword, which was sillier than taking nothing, as I should have known. Starting before moonrise I lost my way, and wandered some time before I found a landmark, a shoulder of broken rock. At the same time I heard voices and the sound of armour. The rock threw off echoes and confused the sound. Coming round it, I ran straight into a Theban hoplite. I had drawn my sword when two more seized me from behind. So I could not pass myself off as anything but what I was.
I thought they would kill me out of hand, but they took me round to their camp on the hillside. One does not understand, until one feels it, the difference between struggling with a friend in the palaestra, and being handled by an enemy. They were a small troop, twenty or thirty. Coming to the watchfire, where their officer sat, they pushed me forward roughly, so that I stumbled; having my hands bound I could not save myself, and fell hard. They all laughed at this. I got to my knees, then to my feet. My hair was singed, and my face bleeding. The officer was a stocky man, with a thick black beard and a bald head. They told him I was a spy they had found looking for the camp. He walked up to me, turned me round, and looked at my arms. My left was scarred in one or two places, which you do not find in a hoplite who carries a shield. “Frontier Guard?” he said. I made no answer. “Where’s your squadron?”—“I don’t know. My horse fell; I have been lost all day.” I hoped he would believe me, for I was afraid. He said, “Where’s your armour, then?” The man who had caught me said, “He carried a sword.”
The officer said, “I don’t take prisoners, Athenian. But tell me where your squadron is, and you can go free. See how few we are; we only want to save ourselves.” Two of the men looked at each other. I heard a sound from behind some rocks, where the rest were; there was a glow too from their fire. “Tell me,” he said, “and you can have your life.” I thought, “If I invent something, it only means being dragged along as a hostage, and a worse death at the end.” So I said nothing. Someone said, “Try sitting him on the fire.” The Captain said, “We are Hellenes here. Will you speak, Athenian?”—“I know nothing.”—“Very well. Who caught this man?” The hoplite came forward. “Finish your work.”
Two of them grasped my shoulders, and another hit me across the back of the knees with a spear-shaft, to bring me down. They held me kneeling. It was a bright cold night; the fire crackled and spurted, and in the sky the stars were like sparks from an anvil, white and blue. You never learn how much your courage owes to the wish for a good name among men, to the eyes of lover and friends upon you, till you are alone among enemies. If I had thought that to beg for my life would move them, I would have begged for it; but I would not be their mock. I thought of my mother, left alone with the child. My tongue felt dry and bitter in my mouth. I wondered how long it takes to die, when the sword is in. Then I thought of Lysis.