In any event, the interview was at an end.  Demaratus signaled his guards, and in a moment, I was hustled away a plethron or so and chained like a dog to a post amidst the decadence and smell of the Persian host.  I lay down, exhausted, hungry and hurt, my wounds throbbing pitifully, my chest bruises making it difficult to breathe. I turned my eyes to the night sky, cloudless and lit with the gleaming white from thousands of heaven's stars.  If the gods were real and lived among those brilliant lights, I thought, they had certainly conspired to land me in a tight spot. 

 

For a moment, I allowed myself the luxury of self pity.  But then, shamefully, I remembered with unbearable sadness the faces of my friends and shipmates, now dead and gone.  Tears came to my eyes and despair came upon me like a wave.  Where was Hippocrotes now?  Was he standing already on the banks of the Styx with no coin for passage?  Was he a lost soul amongst many lost souls, alone and wailing?  Where were Miretus, and Patrocles, Nocias and so many others?  All that I had, all that I knew.  Gone. 

 

Once more my heart turned to Andronica, and home.  I could see her in my mind's eye, dousing the final lamps of night in the blue-columned house by the Dipylon gate, and retiring to her small room above the beautiful little courtyard where the crocuses and lilies she so lovingly attended throve.  Tonight she slept peacefully perhaps.  Was she thinking of me as well?  Did she somehow know I might never come home to her again, that my promise to her was worth no more than my father's had been to me?

 

I thought of the Greek warriors in the pass, blocking the only practical way of invasion into the heartland of our cities and lands, blocking the way to Andronica, to my family, to Athens.  How could they possibly hold against this vast sea of humanity, an ocean of men whose fires flickered for miles and mirrored in numbers those very stars above?  What, indeed, did I know of the men who barred the way to the enemy, here at the pass of Thermopylae?  What had I been told?  I searched my memory, recalling the rumor and loose talk that circulated around our fires when we beached at night, the confident assertions of overwhelming force that would be brought to bear, here, in this narrow place, where none but the slimmest could pass. 

 

There were no Athenians among them, that was for certain.  For the most part in this campaign, we Athenians manned the fleet, our soldiers either on the ships or back at home.  If those in the pass didn't hold, what would happen to my beautiful Athens?  What would happen to Andronica?

 

I had heard men speak, of course, of Leonidas, the great Spartan king who commanded the men in the pass.  And certainly the fame and the fear of the Spartan warrior ethos were familiar to every Greek, whether Corinthian, Theban, or Athenian.  But I did not think, as Demaratus seemed to feel, that I could understand my own people, much less the Spartans.  What made them what they were?  What made them think they could hold that pass?  Who was this king that he could inspire them so?  And here was Demaratus, a traitor to his own kind.  Were the Spartans then, nothing more than anyone else- frail, human, and ultimately vulnerable?  Maybe, in the end, their task was nothing more than a fool's errand, an exercise in overweening pride.  I didn't know, and as exhaustion overtook me, I didn't care.