Alexander (Vol. 2) (46 page)

‘Take me to the mountains then.’

‘But really . . .’ Ptolemy began.

‘There’s snow up there, Teacher,’ Leonnatus grinned. ‘You’ll catch a chill.’

Leonidas, however, was resolute. ‘This ship sets sail on its return voyage in five days’ time and if I don’t see Alexander then I will have come all this way for nothing. I want to see him again. And that is an order.’

Leonnatus shook his ruffled head and shrugged his shoulders, ‘He’s still our old teacher,’ he grumbled. ‘He hasn’t changed one bit.’

‘I’ll have silence from you, you idiot! I remember, you know, I remember the frogs in my soup,’ croaked the old man.

‘Well then, who’s going to take him up there?’ asked Leonnatus.

Lysimachus stepped forward. ‘I’ll take him and that way I can deliver the messages as well.’

They set off the following day with an escort of
hetairoi
and reached Alexander towards evening. The King was amazed and much moved by the most unexpected visit. He took the old man into his care and dismissed Lysimachus, who returned to the camp down by the shore.

‘You have been most reckless,
Didáskale
,
to come all the way up here. It is dangerous – we must go up even higher to reach our auxiliary troops, the Agrianians, who are guarding the pass.’

‘I am not afraid of anything. And tonight we will chat a little, you must have many things to tell me.’

They set off, but Leonidas’s mule could not keep up with the soldiers’ horses and so Alexander let them go ahead while he remained behind with his old teacher. At one point, after darkness had fallen, they found themselves before a fork in the road: the ground in both directions showed signs of horses’ hooves and Alexander intuitively chose one of the paths, but he was soon in isolated, deserted country that he had never seen before.

The darkness had thickened and with it had come a cold wind from the north. Leonidas was numb now and he gathered his woollen cloak around his shoulders as best he could. Alexander looked at him, saw how much he was feeling the cold, his watery eyes full of exhaustion, and he felt a deep sympathy well up inside him. This old man, who had crossed the sea to be with him, would not see the night through in this wind. It was clear that Alexander had taken the wrong road, but it was too late now to go back and reach the others and, what was more, they could see almost nothing now. He had to light a fire somehow, but how exactly? He had no embers, nor could he see any dry wood nearby – all of the branches were sodden and covered with snow and the weather was worsening rapidly.

Suddenly he saw a fire glowing in the darkness, not far off, and then another. He said, ‘Teacher, don’t move from this position, I’ll be back straight away. I’ll leave Bucephalas with you.’

The horse protested with a snort, but Alexander reassured him and he stayed with Leonidas while Alexander slipped through the darkness towards the fires. They were enemy soldiers getting ready for the night and the fires had been lit to warm themselves and to cook by.

Alexander approached one of the cooks, who was putting some meat on a skewer. As soon as the man moved away to do something else, Alexander crawled over to the fire, grabbed a thick stick with glowing embers on one end, covered it with his cloak and turned back towards Leonidas. But just then the noise of a snapping twig gave him away. One of the enemy soldiers shouted out, ‘Who goes there?’ and approached the edge of the darkness, his sword unsheathed. Alexander hid behind a tree, his eyes watering because of the smoke, his breath held to stop himself coughing or sneezing. Fortunately for him, just at that moment another soldier, who had moved off to relieve himself in the woods, returned towards the camp.

Ah, it’s you,’ said the soldier as he sheathed his sword just a few steps away from Alexander. ‘Come on, supper’s almost ready.’

The King slipped away again, careful this time not to make any noise, still keeping the smoking ember well hidden. It began to snow and the wind became even icier, as sharp as a blade – the old man must have been at the very limit of his endurance.

He reached him soon after, ‘I am here,
Didáskale.
I have brought you a present,’ he said, showing him the glowing stick. He then found a sheltered spot under a hidden rock and began blowing on the embers until the flames took hold. He added twigs and then branches until there were more flames than smoke and plenty of warmth.

Leonidas regained colour and some life. Alexander went to the pannier that was strapped to Bucephalas and took out some bread, which he crumbled for his toothless teacher, then he sat alongside him, near the fire.

Leonidas began chewing on the bread. ‘Well then, my boy, is it true that you have taken Achilles’s weapons, and his shield, the one Homer describes? And Halicarnassus? They say the Mausoleum is as high as the Parthenon and the temple of Hera at Argos put one on top of the other – is such a thing possible? And the Halys? You have seen it, my boy. I find it difficult to believe that it can be three times as wide as our Haliakmon, but you have seen it and you will know the truth. And the Amazons? Is it true that the tomb of the Amazon Penthesilea is near the Halys? And then I was wondering if the Cilician Gates are really as narrow as they say they are and . . .’

‘Didáskale,’
Alexander stopped him, ‘you want to know many things. It is best if I answer one question at a time. As far as Achilles’s weapons are concerned, things went more or less like this . . .’

And he talked with his teacher all night long and he shared his cloak with him, after having risked his life to defend him from the cold of the mountain. Safe and sound, they met up with the others the following day and because Alexander did not want him to run the risk of another winter crossing, he asked Leonidas to stay on at Tyre. He would set off again when the good weather returned.

T
HE NEW CAUSEWAY
was ready towards the end of winter and its upper surface was levelled with beaten-down soil, to facilitate the passage of the new assault towers, which Diades had constructed incredibly quickly. On the floors corresponding to the level of the battlements, he had located batteries of catapults with torsion springs which launched heavy iron bolts horizontally, and on the top, dominating everything, were the ballistae. These devices threw not only rocks in an arching trajectory, but fireballs as well – incendiary devices steeped in pitch, oil and naphtha.

The Tyrians’ reaction was fierce and the battlements seethed with soldiers, like the top of an anthill after a child has poked it with a stick. They too had mounted tens of catapults on the parapets and when they saw the invaders trying to burn the city gates, they poured down white-hot sand which they had heated in bronze shields over a blazing fire.

The sand penetrated the Macedonians’ clothes and entered under their armour. The pain was terrible and it drove them to throw themselves into the sea as they sought relief from it. Others took off their breastplates, immediately presenting sitting targets for the archers, while others again were run through by harpoons and hooks launched from above by strange new machines and then dragged upwards to be left hanging and shouting until death put them out of their misery. The bloodcurdling cries of these poor souls were a torment for the King, who could find no rest, neither by day nor by night. He prowled around at all hours like a hungry lion outside a sheep-pen. And his soldiers too became progressively more brutalized at the sight of such horrors.

Alexander, however, was reluctant to lead the final attack which would inevitably finish in a massacre and he tried to think of other, less drastic solutions that might save his honour and leave some way out for the Tyrians, whose great valour and extraordinary tenacity he greatly admired.

He took advice from Nearchus, of all his men the one with most chance of understanding the situation and the mentality of a city of seafaring people.

‘Listen,’ the admiral said to him, ‘we have already wasted almost seven months here and we have suffered considerable losses. I think you should move on with the army and leave me to continue the blockade. I have one hundred warships now and others will arrive from Macedonia. No one will enter or exit from Tyre until they surrender, and then I will offer them honourable peace terms.

‘Tyre is a wonderful city from every possible point of view – its mariners have sailed to the Pillars of Hercules and beyond. It is said that they have visited lands no other human being has ever seen and that they even know the course that leads to the Isles of the Blessed, which lie beyond the Ocean. Consider things carefully, Alexander, when this city forms part of your empire, is it not better that it should be preserved as it is rather than destroyed altogether?’

The King reflected long and hard on these words, but then he recalled some other news he had received recently. ‘Eumolpus of Soloi informs me that the Carthaginians have offered assistance to Tyre and that the arrival of their fleet may well be imminent. And let us not forget that the Persians are still navigating in the Aegean and they might suddenly swoop on us here if I were to leave. No, the Tyrians must surrender. But I will leave them one last way out.’

So he decided to send another embassy to the city and chose the oldest and wisest of his councillors to participate in it. Leonidas came to hear of the initiative and asked to see the King.

‘My boy, let me go as well. You won’t remember, but your father Philip entrusted me with several secret missions, extremely delicate matters, and I was always successful, if I may say so, in a most accomplished manner.’

Alexander shook his head, ‘It’s out of the question,
Didáskale.
This affair is extremely risky and I have no wish to expose you pointlessly to . . .’

Leonidas put his hands on his hips. ‘Pointlessly?’ he asked. ‘You have no idea what you are saying, my boy. This mission has no chance of success without your old Leonidas. I am the most expert and capable man you have available to you, and let me add that you were still wetting the bed when I first led a delegation on your father’s orders, may his name live on for eternity. It was a mission to deal with the ferocious and barbarian Triballians and I managed to reduce them to the meekest of behaviour without any violence whatsoever. Do you still read the
Iliad
?’

‘Of course I still read it,
Didaskale,’
replied the King. ‘Every evening.’

‘Well, then? Who did Achilles send as an envoy to the chiefs of the Achaeans? Was it not perhaps his old teacher Phoenix? And since you are the new Achilles, it goes without saying that I am the new Phoenix. Let me go, I tell you, and I guarantee I will succeed in bringing those blockheads to see reason.’

Leonidas was so decided that Alexander felt unable to deny him this moment of glory and gave him the job. He then sent his delegates off on a ship flying flags of truce, their mission to negotiate the surrender of the city. Understandably anxious, he went into his tent at the end of the causeway to await the outcome. But time passed and nothing happened.

Towards midday Ptolemy entered, his face dark and solemn.

Well?’ Alexander asked. What is their response?’

Ptolemy gestured to follow him outside, and from there he pointed to the highest towers of the city of Tyre. Five crosses had been placed up there, each with a blood-covered body nailed to it. Leonidas’s was clearly distinguishable because of his bald head and his skeletal limbs.

‘They tortured and crucified them,’ said Ptolemy.

Alexander was dumbstruck, paralysed by the sight before them. His face darkened just as the sky did, black clouds deepening the intense darkness in his left eye.

Then, suddenly, he let out a cry, an inhuman howl that seemed to come from his very innards. The raging fury of Philip and the ferocious barbarism of Olympias exploded within him at one and the same instant, unleashing a blind and devastating rage. But the King immediately regained his composure, from somewhere he found a solemn and disturbing calm, like the calm of the sky before the storm.

He called Hephaestion and Ptolemy to his side. ‘My weapons!’ her ordered. Ptolemy nodded to his adjutants who replied, ‘At your service, Sire!’ and they ran off to get things ready and to dress him in his most shining armour, while another brought the royal standard with the Argead star.

‘Trumpets!’ Alexander ordered again. ‘Give the signal for all the towers to attack!’

The trumpets blared and shortly afterwards the din of the battering-rams hammering the walls and the hissing of the missiles launched from the catapults and the
ballistae
resounded across the gulf. Then he turned to his admiral: ‘Nearchus!’

‘At your service, Sire!’

Alexander pointed to one of the assault towers, the one nearest the walls. ‘Take me up there on to that platform, but in the meantime take the fleet out, break into the harbour and sink all the ships you meet.’

Nearchus looked up at the ever-darkening sky, but he obeyed and had himself transported together with the King and his companions on the quinquereme flagship. He immediately gave orders to lower all the sails and to take all the masts down, then he hoisted the battle standard and raised the anchors. From all the one hundred ships of the fleet there now came the rumble of the drums beating out in unison the rhythm for the rowers and the sea boiled with foam in the wind and the stirring movement of a thousands of oars.