Such is the complexity of humanity, which at times confounds even the gods, and ultimately prevents them from being mere celestial puppeteers, from representing the earth as a malleable stage set. The world in which men live and act, although not totally inexplicable, is not completely rational either. Reason and folly, the foreseen and the unexpected, madness and calm exist side by side, not only between two individuals but within the same person as well, all to different degrees. The contradictions of life, the simultaneous sorrow and relief at parting, the destruction inherent in creation itself, all these befuddle the mind, as well as illumine it. In my memoir thus far I have written of war and love as two separate entities, unrelated to each other, perhaps even in direct defiance of each other, one the sickness and the other the cure, each pushing and struggling like wrestlers for whom the dusty ring holds room for only one champion. It is time to move beyond such shallow poesy, for this is not life, nor is it my story.
CHAPTER ONE
THE WINTER, WHICH had long been threatening the army with graying skies and freezing temperatures, finally descended in all its fury. Just as a long-awaited battle, when it finally arrives, is more a source of relief than a cause for fear, so too, at least at first, was the vicious cold of the winter we had so long dreaded. When it arrived the army was actually billeted under shelter, in comfortable barracks and huts surrounding the palace of Tiribazus, King Artaxerxes' satrap and governor of southern Armenia, who had grudgingly agreed to a truce provided that we not burn his villages and that we take only the supplies we needed. We had secured food and comfortably settled in for a few days to tend to the sick and injured, which in truth included all of us, and to reorganize our supplies. The first night we were there Zeus dropped two feet of snow on our roofs, and over the next few days several feet more, raising the level of the drifts up to the eaves of our low huts and keeping the men and animals practically immobilized in the cluster of villages into which we had moved. Not a word of complaint was heard, however. In fact, the silent snow muffled all words completely, and as I trudged out on my rounds, bearing messages between Xenophon and the captains and beating a path to the tiny woodshed occupied by Asteria, the only other humans I saw were Chirisophus' and the captains' own couriers, bundled, like me, in skins in a fruitless attempt to ward off the bitter cold. Rumors flew among the men that the army would remain here for the winter, that further travel in the snow beyond this point would be suicidal. Xenophon and Chirisophus, despite their reluctance to delay their stay among the enemy for any longer than necessary, were seriously discussing this option. Trudging through the snow to Asteria's hut to discuss this news with her, and wondering why she had not sought me out as often lately as before, I was surprised at the number of tracks I found in the snow leading to her entrance. Normally Asteria picked the most secluded shelter possible in which to make her bed, an isolated pigsty or chicken coop known only to me and a few of the Rhodians. This time, however, the path to her coop was as heavily traveled as the road to Delphi. Turning the corner around a rocky outcropping behind which her little stone hut was hidden, I was taken aback to find at least thirty Rhodians milling about outside the shelter in various states of limping dishevelment, attempting to keep warm by standing around several campfires that had been built. Other boys were passing in and out of the hut, lifting the stiff, heavy hide she had hung for a door, which had now frozen to the thickness and consistency of a board.
I stood briefly in the snow, amazed at the sight, a growing anger welling within me, as the Rhodian boys looked up briefly and then returned to their own conversations. Shouldering roughly past those standing closest to the doorway, I bent down to a squat to make my way in, and slammed my head painfully against that of a boy attempting to exit at the same time, sending us both sprawling backwards. Seething, I got up and again duck-walked into the hut, this time with my hands extended in front of me to seize the idiot who had run into me. Before I was able to, however, he slipped past me in the darkness and pushed his way out through the low door, and I forgot about him almost immediately as I concentrated on regaining my bearings in the stone structure. Having entered from the snowy glare outside, my eyes took several seconds to adjust to the darkness, and when they did I found Asteria sitting cross-legged in a corner, a Rhodian sprawled on his back in front of her with his foot in her lap, both of them staring at me in surprise.
"In the name of the twelve gods, Asteria," I hissed, unwilling to let my voice resound too loudly. "What are you doing? Do you know how many Rhodians are lined up outside your door?"
Asteria and the boy continued to stare at me in astonishment, and then Asteria, her lips a thin, hard line and her eyes narrowed in anger, bent her head back to the boy's foot in silence, and began applying a salve to the deep, raw grooves where the untanned leather of the sandal thongs had shrunk and cut into the boy's skin. She moved quickly and, I fear, somewhat roughly on account of my having startled her, and the boy winced and grunted several times in pain as she worked her greasy finger deep into the bloody score marks. Finally, she reached behind her and seized a tattered piece of fabric, which I saw with some surprise was the remnant of a gown she had once worn herself in better days and had somehow managed to smuggle this far. She carefully tore a strip along the hem, and wrapped it sparingly around the boy's treated foot in the same pattern as the sandal straps, wasting not an inch of the precious fabric. "Keep your sandal straps over the cloth, not against your skin," she counseled, "and if the cloth slips off or wears through, come to me for more, or use grass or leaves for padding. Whatever you do, don't use untanned hide directly on the skin."
The boy nodded and rose to leave, but as he bent to make his way through the flap, Asteria called him back. "Peleus-ask the next one to wait a moment before coming in." The boy nodded again, silently, and slipped out the door.
As the flap fell back over the entrance and the hut descended again into its semidarkness, Asteria turned on me in a fury.
"By what right do you humiliate me, breaking in on me like this to question what I do?"
"You complain of me?" I said in amazement, no longer even bothering to keep my voice down. "I… we have taken great risks to shield your identity. Do you realize the trouble I endure to steal away at night to see you? And then when I arrive I find a small village camped around your hut, like Penelope's hundred and thirty-six suitors. Truly, you are the army's worst-kept secret."
Asteria stared at me, her eyes wide in astonishment, her mouth working soundlessly as she struggled for words. Finally, she found her voice.
"Are you a prince?" she spat, her words stinging. "Did you inherit me from the Persian royal family? By what law, by whose commandment, do you possess me?!" Her voice was a barely controlled hiss, and in her tense rage I felt as though I were trapped in the close room with a coiled serpent.
"It was these boys who saved me and continued to protect me-" she continued, trembling in her fury, "and for what? What have you done for them? What gold do you have to give them for me? Perhaps I should pay them with this currency?" and she tore open the front of her tunic, exposing her delicate breasts, her slender chest heaving from the exertion of her pent-up fury, her fragile ribs protruding sharply beneath and emphasizing the flat hollow of her stomach. I stared at her in horror.