Empire by Conn Iggulden

Author:Conn Iggulden [Iggulden, Conn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

In darkness, Myronides rounded up prisoners. Torches were lit and dried food brought from the city behind them. Athens was close enough that hundreds of its people had come to see. Though the danger was not past, they walked the battlefield, mothers showing children the bodies of the dead. The ones in red cloaks were the most popular. Myronides set guards on them so they could not be stripped or hacked apart for souvenirs. The older man’s experience showed then. It was not something Pericles would have thought to do.

There was no great sense of triumph in that place, even with the people of the city bringing food and wine. It wasn’t possible to know the extent of the losses until the sun rose, but the battle had been hard, harder even than Pericles had known. His own world had been smaller, but both sides had fought with dark energy and no respite. The result was the spongy ground underfoot, that squelched and reddened the feet of those crossing it. Thousands had bled that day. It was hard not to think of their souls, still close, like bees in the air.

Anaxagoras and Zeno found Pericles with the thousand he had commanded. His section had lost over four hundred, their bodies laid out in dignity alongside whatever parts could be found. When a group of boys from the city came over to see, they were sent on their way with blows and curses. One of them tried to grab a finger on the ground and received a mighty kick that almost lifted him into the air before he ran off howling.

At first, the work was a way to sort out the experiences of the battle and simply breathe, growing slowly calm. Pericles knew Greeks liked to sing and drink wine after a fight, so he was pleased to hear ‘Athena’ rising under the stars as thousands of voices took up the words.

He wondered if the men of Megara and Argos would sing with them. Anaxagoras and Zeno did, though they had both been born far away. They had offered their lives for Athens, he thought. Out of love and sacrifice, they had become one of his people.

There was no possibility of sleep as the moon rose, not with an enemy force still roaming the hills. Myronides visited each spot on the field and seemed pleased to find the forces with Pericles in good order. The polemarch said very little, but gripped Pericles’ hand and nodded in pride before moving on to the next. Pericles watched him, learning what it meant to lead in war.

When the first light showed, it revealed a plain scored and torn. More bodies than they had known lay sprawled. They too were collected and laid to be counted, a mounting tally that pleased no one. There would be thousands of shields returned to families in Athens that day, Pericles realised. They had come to that place to wound Sparta, to weaken them. The cost had been high.

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