Wake up to this! he would say, though in his dense Ionian accent it came out as Week up to thees!

This phrase was immediately and with high glee adopted by the entire army.

Cheese and onions again, week up to thees!

Double drill all day, week up to thees!

One of the two Leons in Dienekes' platoon, Donkeydick, rousted the merchant that succeeding dawn by brandishing before his slumber-dazed eyes a prodigious erection. They call this a phimos, week up to thees!

The tradesman became a kind of mascot or talisman to the troops. His presence was welcomed at every fire, his company embraced by youths as well as veterans; he was considered a raconteur and boon companion, a jester and a friend.

Now in the wake of this first day's slaughter, the merchant appointed himself as well unofficial chaplain and confessor to the young warriors whom he had over the past days come to care for more intimately than sons. He passed all night among the wounded, bearing wine, water and a consoling hand. His accustomed cheerfulness he contrived to redouble; he diverted the maimed and mutilated with profane tales of his travels and misadventures, seductions of housewives, robberies and thrashings sustained upon the road. He had armed himself as well, from the discards; he would fill a gap tomorrow. Many of the squires, uncompelled by their masters, had taken upon themselves the same role.

All night the forges roared. The hammers of the smiths and foundrymen rang without ceasing, repairing spear and sword blades, beating out the bronze for fresh shield facings, while wrights and carpenters manned spokeshaves limning fresh spearshafts and shield carriages for the morrow. The allies cooked their meals over fires made from the spent arrows and shivered spearshafts of the enemy. The natives of Alpenoi village who a day earlier had peddled their produce for profit, now, beholding the sacrifice of the defenders, donated their goods and foodstuffs and hastened off with shuttles and handbarrows to bear up more.

Where were the reinforcements? Were any coming at all? Leonidas, sensing the preoccupation of the army, eschewed all assembly and councils of war, circulating instead in person among the men, transacting the business of the commanders as he went. He was dispatching more runners to the cities, with more appeals for aid. Nor was it lost upon the warriors that he selected always the youngest. Was this for speed of foot, or the king's wish to spare those whose share of remaining years was the greatest?

Each soldier's thoughts turned now toward his family, to those at home whom his heart loved.

Shivering, exhausted men scribbled letters to wives and children, mothers and fathers, many of these missives little more than scratches upon cloth or leather, fragments of ceramic or wood.

The letters were wills and testaments, final words of farewell. I saw the dispatch pouch of one runner preparing to depart; it was a jumble of paper rolls, wax tablets, potshards, even felt scraps torn from helmet undercaps. Many of the warriors simply sent amulets which their loved ones would recognize, a charm that had pended from the chassis of a shield, a good-luck coin drilled through for a neckband. Some of these bore salutations-Beloved Amaris… Delia from Thea-gones, love. Others bore no name at all. Perhaps the runners of each city knew the addressees personally and could take it upon themselves to ensure delivery. If not, the contents of the pouch would be displayed in the public square or the agora, perhaps set out before the temple of the city's Protectress. There the anxious families would congregate in hope and trepidation, awaiting their turn to pore through the precious cargo, desperate for any message, wordless or otherwise, from those whom they loved and feared to behold again only in death.

Two messengers came in from the allied fleet, from the Athenian corvette assigned as courier between the navy below and the army up top. The allies had engaged the Persian fleet this day, inconclusively, but without buckling. Our ships must hold the straits or Xerxes could land his army in the defenders' rear and cut them off; the troops must hold the pass or the Persian could advance by land to the narrows of the Euripus and trap the fleet. So far, neither had cracked.

Polynikes came and sat for a few minutes beside the fires around which the remains of our platoon had gathered. He had located a renowned gymnastes, an athletic trainer named Milon, whom he knew from the Games at Olympia. This fellow had wrapped Polynikes' hamstrings and given him a pharmakon to kill the pain.

Have you had enough of glory, Kallistos? Dienekes inquired of the Knight. Polynikes answered only with a look of surpassing grim-ness. He seemed chastened, out of himself for once.

Sit down, my master said, indicating a dry space beside him.

Polynikes settled gratefully. Around the circle the platoon slumbered like dead men, heads pillowed upon each other and their yet-gore-encrusted shields. Directly across from Polynikes, Alexandras stared with awful blankness into the fire. His jaw had been broken; the entire right side of his face glistened purple; the bone itself was cinched shut with a leather strap.

Let's have a look at you. Polynikes craned forward. He located among the trainer's kit a waxed wad of euphorbia and amber called a boxer's lunch, the kind pugilists employ between matches to immobilize broken bones and teeth. This Polynikes kneaded warm until it became pliable. He turned to the trainer. You better do this, Milon. Polynikes took Alexandras' right hand in his own, for the pain. Hang on. Squeeze till you break my fingers.

The trainer spit from his own mouth into Alexandras' a purge of uncut wine to cleanse the clotted blood, then with his fingers extracted a grotesque gob of spittle, mucus and phlegm. I held Alexandras' head; the youth's fist clamped Polynikes'. Dienekes watched as the trainer inserted the sticky amber wad between Alexandras' jaws, then gently clamped the shattered bone down tight upon it. Count slowly, he instructed the patient. When you hit fifty, you won't be able to prise that jaw apart with a crowbar.

Alexandras released the Knight's hand. Polynikes regarded him with sorrow.

Forgive me, Alexandros.

For what?

For breaking your nose.

Alexandros laughed, his broken jaw making him grimace.

It's your best feature now.

Alexandros winced again. I'm sorry about your father, Polynikes said. And Ariston.

He rose to move on to the next fire, glancing once to my master, then returning his gaze to Alexandros.

There is something I must tell you. When Leonidas selected you for the Three Hundred, I went to him in private and argued strenuously against your inclusion. I thought you would not fight.

I know, Alexandros' voice ground through his cinched jaw.

Polynikes studied him a long moment.

I was wrong, he said.

He moved on.

Another round of orders came, assigning parties to retrieve corpses from no-man's-land. Suicide's name was among those detailed. Both his shot shoulders had seized up; Alexandros insisted on taking his place.

By now the king will know about the deaths of my father and Ariston. He addressed Dienekes, who as his platoon commander could forbid him to participate in the retrieval detail. Leonidas will try to spare me for my family's sake; he'll send me home with some errand or dispatch. I don't wish to disrespect him by refusing.

I had never beheld such an expression of balefulness as that which now framed itself upon my master's face. He gestured to a flat of sodden earth beside him in the firelight.

I've been watching these little myrmidons.

There in the dirt, a war of the ants was raging.

Look at these champions. Dienekes indicated the massed battalions of insects grappling with impossible valor atop a pile of their own fellows' fallen forms, battling over the desiccated corpse of a beetle.