Of Merchants & Heros (37 page)

I stared up and down the mole, to see what vessel I might commandeer. But the only ships were the great hulking transports, tied one to another and to the quay in a tangled net of lines and rigging, their gangboards down, their sails furled and bound.

Reading my thoughts in my face the Macedonian laughed and said, ‘You will not catch him now, Roman.’ And all along the line the prisoners raised their heads and smiled, enjoying, in the midst of their defeat, this brief moment of triumph.

He was right. There was nothing I could do. I turned and stared helplessly out across the water. The prow of the cutter was beginning to pitch now, as it moved beyond the shelter of the bay. But Dikaiarchos remained where he was, right out in front, letting the spray wash over him, his feet set firm, the wind ruffling his scarlet tunic and blowing back his wild flaxen hair.

Fury burned in my heart. Even from so far away I knew that he was laughing.

TWELVE

WE LEFT EUBOLA, AND
returned south, rounding Cape Sounion and setting a course for Korinth.

During the voyage Doron praised Lucius’s bravery as if he had won a great battle. He admired too the looted treasures, and eventually as a keepsake got a filigree casket inlaid with malachite and lapis; and, to put in it, a heavy onyx signet-ring with the octopus symbol of Eretria carved on top in chalcedony.

He showed it to me triumphantly, saying, ‘You see, he loves me.’

With the sack of Eretria, Lucius had become rich overnight. He had sent home to Italy a transport-ship stuffed with treasure. He said little of it, sensing, perhaps, that there was something shameful in it.

But Doron was not so reticent: he boasted of the luxurious villa they would buy, which would be furnished with the looted statues, paintings, gilded lampstands and silverware. It would be the envy of Rome.

Meanwhile, news had come of Titus. While Lucius was busy in Euboia, he had finally broken out of Epeiros into the broad plains of Thessaly and was laying siege to the cities held by Philip.

As he advanced, Philip retreated, drawing our legions onwards, refusing to engage in battle.

It did not take long for his strategy to become clear. Each city that Titus came to had been abandoned and put to the torch. The fields had been destroyed, the water supplies fouled, and Philip had taken off the citizens of fighting age, abandoning the rest – the women, the old, or the infirm. Titus’s progress was slowed. He had expected to feed the army from the lush fields of Thessaly. Instead he had to send the men foraging far and wide over the countryside, or wait for supplies to arrive through the passes from Epeiros. Autumn was drawing on. Nothing had been achieved.

It was from Lucius that I heard this. By now he had allowed himself to be persuaded by Doron, and by his own vanity, that his shameful sack of Eretria had been a marvellous victory; and he could not resist crowing about it even to me.

And worse, he began to set his own great victory against Titus’s difficulties, saying, as Doron smiled and nodded beside him, ‘If I were leading the army, I should be in Macedonia by now.’ Or, at another time, ‘He has lost his touch. He is too timid.’

This was what he said openly. What he said in private, I could only guess at. But as I heard these constant sneering remarks, it came to me that in spite of all Titus’s efforts to help his brother, Lucius resented him bitterly. He wanted nothing more than to outshine him, even if it meant defeat and humiliation for Titus. He delighted in every new piece of bad news, retelling it eagerly to whoever would listen.

That year, Titus had been sending envoys to the cities of Greece, trying to persuade them to come over to his side. Most had agreed.

But Korinth, with its impregnable mountain fortress of Akrokorinth, refused. Greece would never be free while Philip held it. Everyone’s eyes were upon us. We could not afford another setback.

And so, while Titus was still holed up in the north, we brought our forces to Korinth.

I was billeted once more with Lamyros. One morning, while we were washing, he said to me, ‘I was down at the waterfront taverns last night.’

‘Oh?’ I said with a laugh, splashing my face as I talked, ‘and who was the lucky girl this time?’

Lamyros had a roving eye, and Korinth-port was well known for its attractions.

‘I don’t recall,’ he said, flicking the water across the trough at me.

‘But guess who was there? It was that pretty-boy of Lucius’s.’

‘Is that so?’ I said, looking up. ‘Well I suppose dockside taverns are where he feels at home. Was he selling, or buying? . . . And where was Lucius?’

‘I don’t know. But he was not there, anyway. The boy was drunk.

He can do quite a turn at bawdy songs, you know. And when he was not singing, he was holding forth about the war, boasting how Lucius was going to take Korinth and win the war himself.’

I shook my head. ‘Easy to brag, when someone else must do the fighting. But let us worry about today’s work today. Has no one told him it is unwise to tempt the gods?’

The previous night, while Lamyros was listening to Doron in the tavern, I had been to supper with Akesimbrotos the Rhodian commander, and a group of Attalos’s generals. It had been clear they were uneasy, and eventually, before the night was out, they told me why.

It did not look good, they said, to besiege a great and ancient city like Korinth, with the eyes of all of Greece upon us. They had come to free Greece, not conquer it.

‘But surely,’ I had said, ‘everyone knows the Korinthians are little more than hostages of Philip’s garrison.’

‘That is not what Philip is putting about,’ said Akesimbrotos. ‘He is saying the garrison is there to protect them.’

‘And is he believed?’

‘If you say a thing often enough, somebody will believe you.’

At this one of Attalos’s men said, ‘Well either way, Korinth must be taken.’

‘Yes,’ said Akesimbrotos. ‘But let it be quick, and done with justice.’ He glanced towards me. ‘We do not want another Eretria.’

The siege began. Not for nothing did Philip call Korinth one of the Fetters of Greece. Attalos’s men told me it had been contested by opposing armies time out of mind. Seeing it, with its mountain fortress of Akrokorinth dominating the whole plain of the isthmus, I could understand why. Whoever held it held Greece by the throat.

Our strategy at first was to give a show of force. King Attalos had insisted that the fewer citizens that were harmed, the better for our cause. If we could drive a wedge between the Korinthians and the Macedonian garrison, they might throw the garrison out, or invite us into the city without a fight.

But before long it became clear that this was not to be.

The defence was fiercer than we expected. The heavy siege- engines, and ramps, and scaling-ladders and catapults were brought forward; and that evening Attalos convened a council of war in his quarters. When the dispositions had been discussed and agreed, he stood back from the map-table and said, ‘Well, it is unfortunate that news of what happened to Eretria has spread all over Greece.’

‘Unfortunate?’ snapped Lucius. ‘How so?’

Attalos looked at him. He was an experienced politician and a king; but for a brief moment the contempt showed in his face.

‘Because,’ he replied in an even tone, ‘the Korinthians might otherwise have been persuaded to open their gates.’

Lucius gave him a chill smile.

‘Then too bad for the Korinthians. I shall take the city anyway.

And when I do, they will wish they had not resisted.’

‘I remind you, sir, this is not a war of conquest. We are here to free the Greeks from Philip’s yoke. If ever they begin to think otherwise, they will close their cities against us, and Macedon will have won. You would do well, sir, to remember that. Or must I send to Titus and discuss the matter with him?’

Lucius jutted his chin forward and glared, as he did when he wanted to terrify the clerks and junior officers. But Attalos kept his steady eye on him.

‘It was I, not you, who took Eretria!’ he cried. He turned and swept out of the door, before anyone could answer him.

Attalos watched him go with one brow raised. There was an appalled silence. For a moment our eyes met. Then he turned back to the map-table, and continued in a wry tone. ‘Well, gentlemen, I believe that concludes our discussions for tonight.’

Later, when I returned to my quarters, Lamyros said, ‘Oh, Marcus, a messenger was just here looking for you; you must have passed him in the street. Lucius wants to see you. But haven’t you just left him?’

I thought, ‘Now what?’ and walked out again.

Lucius had requisitioned a large villa near the port, casting out the owner and telling him to seek lodgings elsewhere. I found him in the marbled dining room beyond the peristyle courtyard, just starting his supper, with Doron at his side, sharing one couch.

‘Ah, tribune, there you are.’

He set down his heavy gilded wine-cup. It was the kind of vessel the priests use to pour libations to the gods; and, as the lamplight caught it, I noticed the octopus symbol of Eretria embossed on the side.

‘I suppose,’ he went on, ‘you have been gossiping with that timid old fool Attalos.’

Doron tittered. Lucius smiled at him. There was an unpleasant air of conspiracy between them. I wondered what was coming.

‘In any case, I have not called you here to talk about Attalos. He may choose to preen himself outside the walls, waiting for the citizens to invite him in; but I am here to take Korinth and finish this war, and that is what I intend to do.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Let the Korinthians complain all they want: tomorrow I mean to mount a full assault and take them by surprise. I did it at Eretria; I can do it at Korinth . . . with or without old man Attalos.’

He sat forward, regarding me. A sudden chill of dread crept up my spine. There was a side of Lucius that was terrifying, a part of him that had never learned boundaries, like a madman, or some fearsome monstrous child.

There was a pause. Then he said slowly, ‘I am told you fight well with a sword.’

‘Yes, sir, I fight well enough.’

For a moment his eyes moved to Doron, and I saw a quick, conniving look pass between them. I thought to myself: it is coming, whatever they have planned between them.

‘Then tomorrow,’ he continued, fixing me once more with his eye, ‘you can prove it. You shall fight in the vanguard, with the veteran infantry. I want you at the front. At the very front. Do you understand me?’

He peered at me. I think he was hoping I should flinch, for he knew as well as I what these words meant.

There was a brief silence. I could hear the spluttering of the lamp, and Lucius’s heavy breathing.

I said, ‘Yes, sir. I understand you perfectly.’

‘Good. Then the captain outside will give you your orders.’

He reached to the table, plucked up a slice of suckling kid, dipped it in a dish of sauce, and dropped it into his mouth. Beside him Doron gave me one of his pouting doe-eyed smiles.

I said, ‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes. Go away.’

He gave me a chill smile, then added, with his mouth still full of meat and sauce, ‘If I were you I’d get some sleep. You’ll need it . . .

Goodbye, Marcus.’

Lamyros was lying on his bed when I returned, with his arms folded behind his head. As soon as I walked in he began, ‘Something’s afoot; while you were gone, the order went out to mobilize . . .’ And then he saw my face and sat upright. ‘But what has happened? You look as if you have just seen a demon.’

I shrugged. ‘I saw Lucius. He means to attack at dawn.’

‘Then I hope he knows what he’s doing.’

‘He doesn’t.’

I sat down wearily on the bed opposite him and took up my sword – the sword which had once belonged to Antikles, my teacher.

After some moments looking at it I drew it from its sheath and twisted it in the lamplight. I had kept it sharp and oiled. I always did.

‘He’s put me in front,’ I said eventually, ‘with the veterans.’

Lamyros looked at me. He drew his breath to speak, but in the end said nothing.

There was a pause. I set the sword down.

‘I have a friend in Athens,’ I said. ‘If I die, will you make sure he gets a message?’

As soon as I saw the company I had been assigned to I detected Lucius’s hand in it. They were not merely veterans, they were the hardest of the battle-hardened veterans; dangerous, violent men twice my age who had fought in Africa under Scipio and were proud of it. They knew their job; they despised rank; and they resented having a youthful stranger like me thrust upon them, and made no effort to hide it. I could hardly blame them: no soldier likes to go into battle with a man he does not know.

But already the artillery barrage had begun. There was no time for talk, even if they had wanted to talk to me – and I could see from their faces they were not the talking type. I had to make the best of it. I daresay they were thinking the same thing.

The sun rose in shafts of red over the sea. The air shook with the deep twang and thud of the catapults. The trumpets blared, and the order went out to advance: first the crack veterans; then the light- armed troops, auxiliaries and javelineers.