Steven Pressfield: Tides of War, a Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War

Others hunted him as well. Darius of Persia had deceased that spring, succeeded on the throne by his son Artaxerxes. Alcibiades, aware that the Thirty at Athens were applying pressure to Lysander to procure their countryman's end, had approached the satrap Pharnabazus, against whom he had won many victories but to whom now he proposed friendship. He wished, Alcibiades did, to offer his services to the throne of Persia and had intelligence to impart concerning certain perils, namely Prince Cyrus, abetted by Lysander, who, no longer vexed by Athens, would turn about and make his own run for the Crown. Alcibiades could be of great use to the king in this campaign and, he assured Pharnabazus, advance the satrap's standing as well. Pharnabazus, dazzled by his new friend, provided an escort and sent him on to the Interior. It was then that envoys arrived from Sparta. These informed the Persian that if he wished to avoid incurring Lysander's wrath, not to say full-scale war, he would rethink the hospitality he had vouchsafed to the only man living who constituted a threat to Spartan hegemony in Greece. Pharnabazus did not need to hear music to know when to dance. He dispatched riders to overhaul and assassinate Alcibiades. Alcibiades evaded these, slaying several.

His Mysians vanished and so did he.

A second pursuit party was organized at Dascylium under Susamithres and Magaeus, Pharnabazus' deputies and kinsmen. It was to this posse that Telamon and I became attached. This was at Callatebus. Endius accompanied this cohort, with two other Peers of Sparta, under orders of Lysander to confirm the kill.

Reports put Alcibiades on the track to Celaenae. The party pushed to Muker and the Stone Mounds, beneath which the Phoenix is said to have deposited two eggs, to hatch on that day when the race of men tames its unpacific heart. Privateers scoured the trace. The price on Alcibiades' head, one told us, was ten thousand darics; another quoted a hundred thousand. Between Canae and Utresh are no towns, only a staging area, a coop, called the Tailings. At this site we encountered five brothers of the Odrysians, likewise in pursuit of Alcibiades. My horse had developed an abscess and was suffering terribly; one of these brothers possessed skill with the lancet; he performed the veterinary's service and would take no money. I spoke aside with him.

Alcibiades had dishonored the brothers' sister; the maid had taken her life. Such an outrage is called in the Thracian tongue atame; it may be requited only by blood. The brothers claimed to have scoured the dozen overnights to the east; their prey, they swore, was behind us; we had overrun him. They would spur in that direction; their youngest in fact made off that night. Our guides informed us that no Odrysian may exact blood vengeance, inatame, absent his prince's permit, in this case Seuthes'.

Alcibiades had rendered himself fugitive, thus, from Spartan, Athenian, Persian, and Thracian.

Our party pressed on. A peculiar bond had evolved between myself and Endius, as on occasion when one journeys in company great distances by horse. Each rode daylong at the other's shoulder, neither speaking nor glancing in his companion's direction yet each attuned to the other's mood and preoccupation. In camp Endius kept to his mates of Lacedaemon, then with morning's trail fell in again upon my flank. “Will you indeed murder him, Polemidas?” he inquired one nooning, his first words all day.

“Will you?”

I give thanks to God such is not my charge.”

Of that troop he and I alone seemed alive to the enormity in whose service we trekked. On another day he edged his mount alongside mine. “If you bolt ahead, or attempt to deal him warning, I shall kill you.”

I inquired if he made this threat in his own name or that of Lacedaemon. To my wonder he began to weep. “By the gods, what a catastrophe!” And he spurred, in tears, away to the van.

There is in Phrygia in the district of Melissa, where the Ephesus-Metropolis road bears east toward the central provinces, a place called Elaphobounos, Deer Hill, blessed by nature and the ordering hand of man. The prospect from the village, Antara, excellently contoured and cultivated, is among the most delightful in the world. Encamped at this site on an evening, my course came clear to me.

I could not perform this slaughter. I would make off this night, informing none, including Telamon, that he escape implication.

That which I could do for my children, I would, to carrying them with me on the tramp. I had set my resolve and even commenced transferring my goods from the pack stock to my own mount, when a great commotion arose across the valley.

A compound was afire. Men of the estate rushed upon our site in terror. We saw the boy, youngest of the five Odrysian brothers, dismounting breathless. Their party had doubled back from the west, the tale burst from him, having picked up the prey's trail, and skirted our camp in the night to beat us to him. “Etoskit Alkibiad!” the youth cried, gesturing toward the flames. “Alcibiades is taken!”

All sprang to their horses' backs. The party raced at a gallop, at terrific hazard to the animals and ourselves as the ground had been staked to receive vines and was pocked with trenches and voids.

One saw a house. A farm cottage. The brothers had apparently encircled it in darkness and piled faggots against its walls. The place blazed like a tinderbox. No doubt the flames had driven the quarry forth from his bed to such exposed position as permitted the hunters to shoot him down without hazard to themselves. My heels beat the ribs of my mount. The party raced onto the site. You could not see Alcibiades (he was obscured by the wall of the forecourt) but only the brothers. Two were horseback, at the gate, pouring bowfire point-blank from their elevated vantage. The others, and their attendants, occupied positions atop and behind the wall; these slung javelins and darts. The brothers, even at this remove, stood so flush upon the conflagration that their garments and hair caught and smoked.

I was first upon the court. The heat was monumental. My mount balked and pinwheeled; I sprang to earth.

Now I saw Alcibiades. He was naked, save shield and runt xiphos sword. His back was charred like meat. Shafts and missile bolts made a stubble field of his shield. The woman Timandra sprawled flat at his heels, a carpet or some heavy garment over her, cloaking her from the flames.

As our party roared upon the site, the brothers did not break off but intensified their attack, ejaculating in their savage tongue that the prize was theirs and they would slaughter any who sought to rob them of it. The Spartans and Persians overran them at once.

Endius, Telamon, and I rushed to the gate. The holocaust howled, sucking the breath from our throats. The Spartan dashed in first, snatching up the woman and bearing her from the court.

She clutched at her lover's limbs, crying something we could not hear. Telamon and I, elevating cloaks to our faces, ploughed in next.

Alcibiades turned toward our sound, as if to attack, then dropped the way a dead man does, not breaking his fall with the strength of his arms, but pitching face-foremost. His shield crashed first and then he, forearm yet within its sheath, plunged upon it. His skull struck like a stone. I have never seen a man shot through with so many bolts.

We hauled him from the inferno. I propped him upright on the far side of the wall. I had no doubt he was dead. My intent, deranged no doubt, was that these cowards not behold their prey stretched forth in the dust.

He was alive and sought to rise.

He cried Timandra's name, in such anguish as I have never heard.

She responded in equal affliction, from Endius' arms bearing her clear. Alcibiades relented, reckoning her safe. His hand clutched me by the hair.