Fire From Heaven (29 page)

Relieved or frustrated at being left behind, in either case the men were inclined to take things easy. Before the trim well-burnished youth on his sleek black horse had ridden half down the line, they were dressing ranks with nervous care and trying, with scant success, to conceal defects. One or two were sent in disgrace straight back to barracks. The rest spent a strenuous morning. Afterwards, the veterans who beforehand had grumbled loudest, jeered at raw men’s complaints; the youngster might have sweated them, but he knew how many beans make five.

‘They shaped quite well,’ said Alexander to Hephaistion. “The chief thing is, they know now who’s in command.’

It was not, however, the troops who first tested this.

‘My darling,’ said Olympias, ‘there is a little thing you must do for me before your father comes back; you know how he crosses me in everything. Deinias has done me so many kindnesses, looked after my friends, kept me warned of enemies. Your father has held back his son’s promotion, just out of spite. Deinias would like him to have a squadron. He is a most useful man.’

Alexander, half whose mind had been on mountain manoeuvres, said, ‘Is he? where is he serving?’

‘Serving? It is Deinias, of course, I meant is useful.’

‘Oh. What’s the son’s name, who’s his squadron commander?’

Olympias looked reproach, but referred to her notes and told him.

‘Oh, Heirax. He wants Heirax to have a squadron?’

‘It’s a slight to a distinguished man like Deinias; he feels it is.’

‘He feels this is the time to say so. I expect Heirax asked him.’

‘Why not, when your father has taken against him for my sake?’

‘No, Mother. For mine.’

She swept round to face him. Her eyes seemed to explore some dangerous stranger.

‘I’ve been in action,’ he said, ‘with Heirax, and I told Father what I saw of him. That’s the reason he’s here instead of in Thrace. He’s obstinate, he resents men who are quicker-thinking than he is; and then when things go wrong he tries to shift the blame. Father transferred him to garrison duty, rather than demote him. I’d have demoted him, myself.’

‘Oh! Since when is it Father this and Father that? Am I no one to you now, because he gives you the Seal to wear? Do you take his part against me?’

‘I take the men’s part. They may have to be killed by the enemy; that’s no reason to have them killed by a fool like Heirax. If I gave him a squadron, they’d never trust me again.’

She struck back at the man in him, with love and hatred. Once long ago, in the torchlit cave of Samothrace, when she was fifteen, she had met the eyes of a man before she knew what men were. ‘You are growing absurd. What do you think it means, that thing stuck on your finger? You are only Antipatros’ pupil; it was to watch him govern that Philip left you here. What do you know of men?’

She was ready for the battle, the tears and the bloodstained peace. For a moment he said nothing. Suddenly he grinned at her. ‘Very well, then, Mother. Little boys should leave affairs to the men, and not interfere.’

While she still stared, he took three quick strides across and put his arm round her waist. ‘Dearest Mother! You know I love you. Now leave all these things and let me deal with them. I can see to them. You’re not to be troubled with them any more.’

For a moment she stood rigid. Presently she told him he was a wicked cruel boy, and she could not think what she would say to Deinias. But she had softened in his arm; and he knew she had been glad to feel its strength.

He gave up his hunting-trips to stay near Pella. In his absence, Antipatros would feel justified in taking decisions without him. Feeling short of exercise, and rambling through the stables, he found a chariot fitted up for the dismounters’ race. Years ago he had meant to learn the trick, but then had come Mieza. The chariot was a synoris, a two-horse racer of walnut and pearwood; the bronze hand-grip for the dismounter was about the right height; it was not a race for big men. He had two Venetian ponies yoked to it, called for the royal charioteer, and began to practise jumping down in mid-course, running with the car and leaping up again. Besides being good exercise, it was Homeric; the dismounter was the last heir of the chariot-borne hero, who drove to the fray in order to fight on foot. His spare hours were given to acquiring this archaic skill; he became very fast at it. Old chariot-sheds were rummaged, so that friends could give him a race; this he enjoyed, but never arranged a formal one. He had disliked set contests, from as soon as he had been old enough to perceive that there were people who would let him win.

Dispatches came from Propontis, where Philip, as he had foretold, was finding Perinthos hard to crack. It stood on a headland impregnable from the sea, and strongly walled inland. The Perinthians, prospering and increasing on their steep rocks, had for years been building upward; four-and five-storey houses, rising in tiers like theatre benches, overlooked the ramparts, and now harboured slingers and javelineers to repel assaults. Philip, to give his men covering fire, had built hundred-foot siege towers, and mounted a platform of catapults; his sappers had brought down part of the wall, only to find an inner one, made from the first row of houses packed solid with rock, rubble and earth. As he had expected, too, the Byzantines were supplying the enemy; their fast triremes, with pilots expert in local waters (Macedon had never been a strong naval power) brought in crack troops, and kept open the way for the Great King’s store-ships. He was fulfilling his pact with Athens.

King Philip, who dictated these reports, was a crisp and clear expositor. After reading one, Alexander would pace about, aware of the great campaign he was missing. Even the Seal was scant amends.

He was on the race-track one morning, when he saw Harpalos waving. A Palace messenger had passed the word to someone who could stop him without disrespect; it must be urgent. He jumped down from the car, ran with it a few steps to keep his balance, and came over, plastered with track-dust which coated his legs to the knee as thick as buskins. Through the mask of sweat-striped dirt shone his eyes, looking by contrast turquoise-blue. His friends stood well away, not from good ma?nners but to keep him off their clothes. Harpalos murmured behind him, ‘It’s an odd thing; have you noticed he never stinks, when anyone else would be rank as a dog-fox?’ ‘Ask Aristotle,’ said someone. ‘No, I think he must burn it up.’

The messenger reported that a courier was in from the northeast border, awaiting the Prince’s leisure.

He sent a servant running to fetch him a fresh chiton; stripped and scraped-down under the horse-yard fountain; and appeared in the audience-room just before Antipatros, the scroll still correctly sealed, had finished questioning the courier, who had more to tell. He had barely got back with his life from the highlands up the Strymon river, where Macedon knit with Thrace in a mesh of disputed gorges, mountains, forests and grazing-grounds.

Antipatros blinked with surprise at Alexander’s uncanny promptness; the messenger blinked with exhaustion, his eyes gummed by lack of sleep. Having asked his name, Alexander said, ‘You look dead tired; sit down.’ Clapping his hands he ordered wine for the man; while it came, he read the dispatch to Antipatros. When the man had drunk, he asked him what he knew.

The Maidoi were hillmen of a strain so ancient that Achaians, Dorians, Macedonians and Celts had all, in their southward drift, passed by the tribe’s savage homeland in hope of better things. They had survived in the mountains and the Thracian weather, tough as wild goats, keeping up customs older than the age of bronze, and, when in spite of human sacrifice their food-gods were still unkind, raiding the settled lands. Philip had conquered them long ago, and taken their oaths of fealty; but with time he had grown dim to them and faded into legend. Their numbers had increased; boys come to manhood needed to blood their spears; they had broken south like a flash-flood in a river bed. Farms had been stripped and burned; Macedonian settlers and loyal Thracians had been cut up alive, their heads taken for trophies, their women carried away.

Antipatros, for whom this was a second hearing, watched the youth in the chair of state, waiting kindly to meet his need with reassurance. He remained, however, with his eyes fixed on the messenger, sitting forward eagerly.

‘Rest awhile,’ he said presently. ‘I want a few things in writing.’ When the scribe appeared, he dictated, checking them with the messenger, the Maidoi’s movements and the main features of the country; adding, himself, a sketch-map worked up in the wax. Having checked this too, he ordered that the man be bathed, fed and put to bed, and sent out the clerk.

‘I thought,’ he said scanning the tablets, ‘we should get all this from him now. A night’s sleep should set him up, but one never knows, he might die. I want him well rested till I start out, so that I can take him as a guide.’

Antipatros’ brows with their foxy grizzle met over his fierce nose. He had felt this coming, but decided not to believe in it.

‘Alexander, you know how gladly I would have you with me. But you know too it is impossible we should both be out of Macedon, with the King at war.’

Alexander sat back in his chair. His hair, streaked with dust and damp from his makeshift bath, hung limply on his brow; his nails and his toes were grimy. His eyes were cool, and made no pretence at naivety. ‘But of course, Antipatros. I should never think of such a thing. I shall leave you the Seal, while I am gone.’

Antipatros opened his mouth, breathed deep and paused. Alexander cut in ahead, with inflexible courtesy. ‘I haven’t it on me, I’ve been at exercise. You shall have it when I leave Pella.’

‘Alexander! Only considerÉ’

Alexander, who had been watching him like a duellist, made a small gesture to say he had not done speaking. After a crucial instant, Antipatros’ voice trailed off. With stately formality, Alexander said, ‘Both my father and I know our great good fortune, in having such a man to entrust the realm to.’ He stood up, feet apart, hands on his belt, and tossed back his tousled hair. ‘I’m going, Antipatros. Settle your mind to it?, because we’re short of time. I shall start at dawn tomorrow.’

Antipatros, who perforce had risen too, tried to use his height but found it ineffectual. ‘If you will, you will. But just think first. You’re a good field officer, that’s common knowledge. The men like you, agreed. But you’ve never mounted a campaign, or kept it in supplies, or planned its strategy. Do you know what that country’s like?’

‘By this time they’ll be down in the Strymon valley; that’s what they came for. We’ll discuss supplies at the war-council. I’m calling one in an hour.’

‘Do you realize, Alexander, that if you lose, half Thrace will blaze up like a fire of myrtle-brush? Your father’s lines will be cut; and once the news is out, I’ll be holding the north-west against the Illyrians.’

‘What troops would you need for that?’

‘If you lose, there wouldn’t be enough in Macedon.’

Alexander tilted his head a little to the left; his gaze, floating beyond Antipatros’ head, went slightly out of focus. ‘Also, if I lose, the men won’t trust me again and I shall never be a general. Also, my father may well say I’m no son of his, and I shall never be a king. Well, I shall have to win, it seems.’

Antipatros thought, Kassandros should never have crossed himÉThe eggshell was cracking indeed. One must already be very careful. ‘What about me? What will he say to me for letting you go?’

‘If I lose, you mean? That I should have taken your advice. Write it down, and I’ll sign to say you gave it me; win or lose, it goes to my father. How’s that for a fair bet?’

Antipatros looked sharply from under his shaggy brows. ‘Ah. But you’d hold it against me after.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Alexander blandly. ‘Of course I should; what do you suppose? You make your bet, Antipatros. You can’t expect to hedge it. I can’t hedge mine.’

‘I think the stakes as they stand are high enough.’ Antipatros smiled, remembering that already one must be careful. ‘Let me know what you want, then. I’ve bet on worse horses in my time.’

Alexander was on his feet all day, except during the war-council. He could have sat while he was sending out orders, but he could think more quickly pacing to and fro; perhaps it came from the walking discussions at Mieza. He had meant to see his mother earlier, but there had been no time. He went when he had settled everything, but did not stay very long; she was inclined to make a fuss, though surely this was what she had been wanting. She would see that later. Meantime he had Phoinix to say good-bye to; and it was important to get some sleep.

Ê

It was a quiet morning in the camp before Perinthos; there had been an engagement on the wall the night before, and the men were being rested. The noises were those of lull: mules whinnied, men serviced the engines with shouts and clanks, a man with a head-wound shouted insanely from the hospital shed; a captain of artillery, detailed to see the besieged did not take a holiday, shouted to his crew to lift her up a chock, and grease the bolt-track; there was a clang from the pile of massive bolt-heads, each stamped with the laconic message, FROM PHILIP.

Philip had had a large timbered hut put up for him; when not on the move, there was no sense in using the royal tent, to sweat under stinking leather. He had made himself snug like an old campaigner; local straw matting covered the floor, his baggage-train had carried chairs, lampstands, a bath, and a bed broad enough for company. At a pinewood table, made by the camp carpenters, he sat with Parmenion, reading a dispatch.

‘Having summoned also the troops from Pydna and Amphipolis, I marched north to Therma. I had planned to go by the Great East Road to Amphipolis, to learn the enemy’s movements, and to make whatever dispositions seemed best, before going north up river.

‘But at Therma, a rider met me, from the country of the Agrianoi. He had been sent by Lambaros, my guest-friend, in fulfilment of a vow.

‘Guest-friend?’ said Philip. ‘Guest-friend? What does he mean? The boy was a hostage. You remember, Parmenion?. I’d have bet a talent the Agrianoi would have joined the Maidoi.’