After the council, I approached the
king concerning the matter of Medarnes.
I explained what had happened this morning, expecting the Great One to
deal with Medarnes as he usually does.
But there was no imprisonment, no flogging or quick execution. The king called Medarnes forward and publicly
dressed him down, it is true, but then after ordering him to cease his vengeful
pursuit of Lysis, he let him go, even reinstating him to his unit and sending
him back into battle.
I am somewhat perplexed in this
matter. It has always seemed to me that
Medarnes was an unstable character in any event, yet the king has often
tolerated his outbursts. What else is
there in this? I wonder. I saw Phraortes lurking about after Medarnes
departed. The look he gave the Persian
cannot bode well for Medarnes. But I
also have the distinct feeling Phraortes is keeping a very close eye on me as
well. Well, that is immaterial at this
point. Unless this tactical situation
changes, I can do nothing, no matter my intentions.
I have taken a liking to this
Lysis. He is an intelligent man, and his
story grows more intriguing by the day.
Plus, of course, he kept his word the other day in returning to our
lines, and he has shown courage in this Medarnes affair. Besides, it may be that I will have to
confide in him at some point. There may
be no other option.
I must go now. The king has just sent a messenger asking me
to join the council. Perhaps he will
listen to me now.
Lysis
The second day's fighting went much
like the first. I was under heavy guard,
but Demaratus allowed me to go close enough to see what was going on. The frustration of the Persians grew in
proportion to their casualties. And
their casualties were horrific. Even
from where I was standing, I could see the sand and dirt stained with puddles
of blood. The men who were brought back
for treatment were not likely to survive, and their wounds were ghastly. An eight-foot spear can tear open a man's
guts or obliterate a face. I admit that
even I felt sorry for them.
But it could have been no less
awful for the Greeks. They seemed under
a constant hail of arrows, and when not, they were fending off the deadly
flight of thousands of javelins and the prying of massed spears, looking for
entry. It was a desperate game they
played. The leather "skirts" under their
shields could protect against many of the projectiles, but it only took one
instant of fatigue to let the shield guard down, and find oneself impaled in
the neck or shoulder. I was familiar
with Phalanx fighting, or course, and I knew also how hot it could get under
that armor and how heavy the fifteen-pound shield could become. That is why Leonidas kept trying to rotate
the troops. Not only would their weapons
be broken or destroyed, but the physical fatigue, combined with the severe
mental stress and terror the warriors experienced, could wear men out very
quickly.
Anticipating this need, the
Persians seemed to be giving them very little rest., . From my vantage point, I saw a great many
more Greeks go down than in the previous day's fighting. And the noise. I cannot adequately describe the din of
battle, even from where I was, the missiles clanging off bronze-faced shields
and helmets, the clash of spear upon spear and javelin against shield, the
clang of swordplay. The screams of the
wounded were awful, and not just for a little while, either. Some lay between the lines screaming all day
long. It was terrible to watch. Terrible.
Yet such valor I had never seen.
From both sides. The Persians
were less impressed. As the day wore on,
my guards' natural animosity toward me grew in intensity. They began to cast dark looks my way, and I
began to look around anxiously for Demaratus.
He did not appear, however, until
late in the day, after the final attacks had been launched and beaten
back. Once more, as the sun dipped
behind the mountains, the scene on the field of battle looked as I had only imagined
when listening to Homer's account of our ancestors' assault on Troy. Across the plain from where we stood to the
Phocian wall, against which the Greek line held, the ground was covered with
the bodies of the dead, and the cries of the wounded and the next-to-be-dead
reverberated in the air.
Demaratus motioned to me wearily as
he approached my vantage point. "Come,
Lysis," he said. "You will see nothing more today."
I followed him, surrounded by my
ever-present protectors, back along the beach toward his tent. We walked for a while in silence, the gentle
rolling of the low surf on the beach the only sound.
When we werenearly at the water's
edge, he stopped and stood looking out over the bay, his gaze fixed on the
darkening horizon.
"Why do we do what we do, Lysis?"
he said finally, surprising me. "Why do
you think men throw themselves at death the way we do, heedless of the end?"
I assumed it was a rhetorical
question; besides, I knew not the
answer.
He glanced at me, though, as if
expecting one, and then raised his eyes to the heavens, where already a few
stars were glowing faintly against the dark blue of the twilit sky. "Look up," he said, "and all you see is the
gods' domain- unchanging, always beautiful, never sullied." He turned to me then. "And look there." He pointed to the battlefield. "All you see is man's domain- cruel,
heartless and brutal." Pausing for a
moment, he closed his eyes. "Would that
it were the other way around."
He was silent then, but resumed his
walk, his eyes still on the sea.
"Xerxes drives this army," he said,
"and men do his bidding, even unto death.
He whips them, threatens them, humiliates them. Yet still they give him what he wants. They are lashed to it, literally. And their fear takes them into the fire. It is an amazing thing." By this time we had arrived at the tent, and
Demaratus ordered a soldier to bring him his camp chair. He seated himself and his eyes clung to the
blackness of night.
"Yet over there," he continued,
"there is a different kind of leader.
There is a leader who does not lash, a leader who awakens the character
of each man, who does not lead his men into the fire but creates the fire
within his men. And yet," he paused
again, "his men still die. They still
suffer. Is there really any difference?"
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