Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire - An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

The goddess unbound her veil and let it fall. Will you understand, Xeo, if I say that what was revealed, the face beyond the veil, was nothing less than that reality which exists beneath the world of flesh? That higher, nobler creation which the gods know and we mortals are permitted to glimpse only in visions and transports.

Her face was beauty beyond beauty. The embodiment of truth as beauty. And it was human. So human it made the heart break with love and reverence and awe. I perceived without words that this alone was real which I beheld now, not the world we see beneath the sun. And more: that this beauty existed here, about us at every hour. Our eyes were just too blind to see it.

I understood that our role as humans was to embody here, upon this shadowed and sorrowbound side of the Veil, those qualities which arise from beyond and are the same on both sides, ever-sustaining, eternal and divine. Do you understand, Xeo? Courage, selflessness, compassion and love.

She drew up and smiled.

You think I'm loony, don't you? I've gone cracked with religion. Like a woman.

I didn't. I told her briefly of my own glimpse beyond the veil, that night within the grove of snow.

Diomache acknowledged gravely.

Did you forget your vision, Xeo? I forgot mine. I lived a life of hell here in this city. Until one day the goddess's hand guided me within these walls.

She indicated a modestly scaled but superb statue in an alcove of the court. I looked. It was a bronze of Veiled Persephone.

This, my cousin declared, is the goddess whose mystery I serve. She who passes from life to death and back again. The Kore has preserved me, as the Lord of the Bow has protected you.

She placed her hands atop mine and drew my eyes to hers.

So you see, Xeo, nothing has transpired amiss. You think you have failed to defend me. But everything you've done has defended me. As you defend me now.

She reached within the folds of her garment and produced the letter written in the lady Arete's hand.

Do you know what this is? A promise to me that your death will be honored, as you and I honored Bruxieus and we three sought to honor our parents.

The housewoman appeared again from the kitchen. Di-omache's children awaited within; my boy guide had finished his feed and stood impatient to depart. Diomache rose and held out both hands to me. The lamplight fell kindly upon her; in its gentle glow her face appeared as beautiful as it had to my eyes of love, those short years that seemed so long past. I stood too and embraced her.

She tugged the cowl atop her cropped hair and slid the veil in place across her face.

Let neither of us pity the other, my cousin spoke in parting. We are where we must be, and we will do what we must.

Suicide shook me awake two hours before dawn. Look what crawled in through the bunghole.

He was pointing to the knoll behind the Arkadian camp, where deserters from the Persian lines were being interrogated beside the watch fires. I squinted but my eyes refused to focus. Look again, he said. It's your seditious mate, Rooster. He's asking for you.

Alexandras and I went over together. It was Rooster, all right. He had crossed from the Persian lines with a party of other deserters; the Skiritai had him bound, naked, to a post. They were going to execute him; he had asked for a moment alone with me before they opened his throat.

On all sides the camp was rousing; half the army stood already on station, the other half arming.

Down the track toward Trachis you could hear the enemy trumpets, forming up for Day Two. We found Rooster next to a pair of Median informers who had talked a good-enough game that they were actually being given breakfast. Not Rooster. The Skiritai had worked him over so hard that he had to be propped up, slumped against the post where his throat would be slit.

Is that you, Xeo? He squinted through eyeholes battered purple as a boxer's.

I've brought Alexandras.

We managed to dribble some wine down Rooster's throat.

I'm sorry about your father were his first words to Alexandras. He, Rooster, had served six years as squire to Olympieus and saved his life at Oenophyta, when the The-ban cavalry had ranged down upon him. He was the noblest man of the city, not excepting Leonidas.

How can we help you? Alexandros asked.

Rooster wished to know first who else was still alive. I told him Dienekes, Polynikes and some others and recited the names of the dead whom he knew. And you're alive too, Xeo? His features twisted into a grin. Your crony Apollo must be saving you for something extraordinary.

Rooster had a simple request: that I arrange to have delivered to his wife an ancient coin of his nation, Messenia. This thumb-worn obol, he told us, he had carried in secret his whole life. He placed it into my care; I vowed to send it with the next dispatch runner. He clasped my hand in gratitude, then, lowering his voice in exigency, tugged me and Alexandros near.

Listen closely. This is what I came to tell you.

Rooster spit it out quickly. The Hellenes defending the pass had another day, no more. His Majesty even now was offering the wealth of a province to any guide who could inform him of a track through the mountains by which the Hot Gates could be encircled. God made no rock so steep that men couldn't climb it, particularly driven by gold and glory. The Persians will find a way around to your rear, and even if they don't, their fleet will break the Athenian sea line within another day. No reinforcements are coming from Sparta; the ephors know they'd only be enveloped too. And Leonidas will never pull himself or any of you out, dead or alive.

You took that beating just to deliver this news? Listen to me. When I went over to the Persians, I told them I was a helot fresh from Sparta. The King's own officers interrogated me. I was right there, two squares from Xerxes' tent. I know where the Great King sleeps and how to deliver men right to his doorstep.

Alexandros laughed out loud. You mean attack him in his tent?

When the head dies, the snake dies. Pay attention. The King's pavilion stands just beneath the cliffs at the top of the plain, right by the river, so his horses can water before the rest of the army fouls the stream. The gorge produces a torrent coming out of the mountains; the Persians think it impassable, they have less than a company on guard. A party of half a dozen could get in, in darkness, and maybe even get out.

Yes. We'll flap our wings and fly right over.

The camp had come fully awake now. At the Wall the Spartans were already massing, if so grand a term may be applied to so meager a force. Rooster told us that he had offered to guide a party of raiders into the Persian camp in return for freedom for his wife and children in Lakedaemon.

This was why the Skiritai had beaten him; they thought it a trick designed to deliver brave men into the enemy's hands for torture or worse. They won't even relay my words to their own officers. I beg you: inform someone of rank. Even without me it can work. By all the gods I swear it!

I laughed at this reborn Rooster. So you've acquired piety as well as patriotism.

The Skiritai called to us sharply. They wanted to finish Rooster and get themselves into armor.

Two rangers jerked him to his feet, to lash him upright to the post, when a clamor interrupted from the rear of the camp. We all turned and stared back down the slope.

Forty men of the Thebans had deserted during the night. A half dozen had been slain by sentries, but the others had made good their escape. All save three, who had just now been discovered, attempting to conceal themselves among the mounds of the dead.

This luckless trio was now hauled forth by a squad of Thespian sentries and dumped into the open to the rear of the Wall, smack amid the marshaling army. Blood was in the air. The Thespian Dithyrambos strode to the breach and took charge.