Stealing Fire (27 page)

Down the line I could hear Ptolemy's voice raised as well. “Out of the water! Get back!”

Another man screamed as he was pulled under by an unseen shape, the water boiling with blood and bits of his flesh.

“Everybody back!”

Perseus splashed toward the shore. Now the water was up to his shoulders, now only to his knees.

I stopped. “Everybody back! Form up!”

“Form up on shore, you sons of bitches,” Glaukos was shouting. I couldn't see him, but I heard him clearly above the din.

Perdiccas’ men were in a panic. Some were throwing arms and harness away, swimming madly for the island. Some of them even made it.

Others plunged forward into us, dropping swords and sarissas, begging for quarter. They should rather a hundred times surrender to our men than face the monsters in the water.

Soaked to the skin, I stood on Perseus and felt it flow through me like lightning, like rain in distant lands, the ancient power of Egypt. Sobek, the defender, embodied in all his children, fought for Memphis.

Egypt has Horus again
, the lioness whispered beside me.
The powers obey Pharaoh, Our son, Our hands on earth.

About Perseus’ knees I felt the river rise.

The current had been swifter, but now came the water, the Nile rising fingerwidth by fingerwidth, swollen with rain fallen nine days ago a thousand miles away.

The river rose.

“Get out of the water!” Ptolemy's horse was ankle-deep, cantering through the very edge of the flood, as he swept down the lines. “Everybody out! Grant quarter if they drop their weapons! Everybody out of the water. You there, surrender and you will be spared!”

The sun did not make a halo about him, and no god touched him with fire, but I felt the power crackle around Ptolemy, felt it bending to his will. Pharaoh commanded, and Egypt herself answered.

“Out of the water! Drop your sword, man. Quarter is given.”

They were surrendering to him in tens and twenties now, casting away sarissas and flinging themselves face down on dry land, when two or three of them could easily have dragged him from his horse and killed him. He was one man among many of them, but none raised a hand to him. Instead they threw down their arms and begged for quarter.

“Quarter is given,” Ptolemy shouted. “Throw down your weapons and get out of the water!”

The river was running swift and dangerous now. Crocodiles roiled the depths, as in darkness at the dawn of the world. Men swept away did not surface again.

I shouldered my way to Ptolemy. “All right?”

“Not a scratch,” Ptolemy said. He looked me up and down. “You need a better horse. I saw you spinning around out there.”

I felt the blood rising in my face. “I apologize, sir,” I said stiffly.

He leaned forward and clapped me on the shoulder. “No need for that. You did well. Get that end of the line formed up. Let's see what we've got and where we are. And get Glaukos over here to take charge of prisoners. We're going to have plenty.”

“Quarter to all who ask it?” I said. That wasn't usual, and I wanted to make sure.

Ptolemy nodded. “Quarter to all. Let's get these men rounded up.”

I went back down to the right. Past the end of our lines, four elephants were standing exhausted in the date grove on the edge of a farmer's field, their drivers dead and their tack smashed to splinters, though none of them seemed gravely injured. I thought I would just let them alone for the time being.

Glaukos and five or six others were still mounted, trying to get the last of our men out of the water, mostly infantrymen who were bogged down by their heavy breastplates.

A little farther along a group of my men had formed up on the shore. The troop leader called to me, “Orders, Hipparch?”

“Get the wounded back into the walls of Memphis. Give quarter to all who ask. And keep out of the water,” I said.

“Don't have to say that twice,” he said, grinning with the strange euphoria that comes over men when they expected to die and instead have lived.

On the island, Perdiccas’ rearguard still waited. Some of the men who had tried to cross had struggled back to the island, but now there was nowhere to go. On both sides the river ran fast and strong, patrolled by the sacred crocodiles of Sobek. They would have a long, cold, wet night of it, I thought. And no way off without boats. Perdiccas was more than welcome to it.

I counted men, took tallies of prisoners and wounded, and went to report to Ptolemy.

“I've four hundred and two men fit to fight, sir,” I said. “Another eighty-eight wounded and seventy-six dismounted. Artashir is dismounted, but he's not hurt. I don't think his men were too cut up. I've thirty dead confirmed, though there are men missing.”

Ptolemy nodded. “The river,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “We can look for bodies downstream. What are we doing tonight?”

Ptolemy glanced across the water. “We wait,” he said finally. “They can't leave. Let's give Perdiccas a while to think about the predicament he's in. Get our wounded in to the surgeons and get everybody a square meal and a rest. In the morning we'll be good, and Perdiccas won't be.”

“There's something else,” I said. “We've also got between Glaukos and me over eight hundred prisoners.”

Ptolemy blinked. “Eight hundred?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mostly Silver Shields infantry. They were in the vanguard, so most of them were on our side of the river when they got cut off. We've basically got the whole phalanx except for their dead.”

Ptolemy whistled. The Silver Shields had been Alexander's crack infantry, veterans of all his campaigns back to Chaeronea. Some had served since Alexander's father's time. “That's what? Half or a little more of the total?”

I nodded. “I'd say five hundred. The other three hundred are from assorted units. Some of this, some of that. I've given quarter as you said, and ordered that their wounded should be treated.”

“Good. Because they're on our side now.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are they?”

“They will be when I'm done talking to them.” Ptolemy clasped my wrist, and went past me to where the prisoners sat at the edge of the field, their hands folded before them, looking out across the river in flood toward Perdiccas’ banners on the island.

The setting sun cast shadows across us as it westered behind Saqqara. Above, a desert falcon turned on the air.

“Horus of Egypt,” I said.

I lifted my head and felt the wind of victory.

THE BARGAIN OF
THE PTOLEMIES

I
dreamed, and in my dream I fought again. I fought not beside the Nile in flood, but in the streets of Alexandria. Warships crowded the harbor, men landing sword in hand, while above all our half-completed buildings burned, streamers of flame shooting up to the sky. Showers of sparks fell around me as I struggled hand to hand in our streets. The curve of the harbor was engulfed.

I was looking for someone, but I didn't know who. About me our city burned.

Smoke billowed, acrid and thick. My head spun, my chest heaved.

She stepped from the flames, a woman wreathed in red sparks with the head of a lioness. “Ptolemy grasped the fire,” She said. “And a new world dies aborning.”

“No!” I ran toward her, shaking my watering eyes. “No! I tell you this will not be!”

Her golden eyes were sad. “So passes another Great King. So passes another might have been.”

“This will not be, I tell you!” I shouted. “This must not be!”

“That is not yours to decide, Lydias of Miletus,” She said. “That rests with Ptolemy. It is up to him whether or not this comes to pass.”

“We didn't lose,” I said. “We won.”

“The danger lies not in losing, but in winning,” She said.

I stood beside her in the burning street, but the blowing cinders did not injure me. “Why do I dream this?”

“It is one of the paths of the future,” She said. “Something that might be.”

I lifted my head, and it seemed I had known forever how it might work. “But not necessarily be,” I said. “Visions of the future don't work that way. The gods do not see the future.”

I thought that the lioness smiled at me, Her great teeth gleaming. “Only mortals see the future. And you, oracle, know that what you see are paths only, things that may be changed by the will of men.”

“Then this may be changed,” I said.

“If Ptolemy takes what is offered, this will be,” She said. “If he seizes that fatal fire. It is up to him.”

“I do not know what choice you mean, Lady,” I said.

“You will,” She said, and for a moment as the dream faded I thought the clouds of smoke gave way, clearing as if in a strong wind.

Instead of burning, a white city circled a cerulean harbor, green parks glittering like gems, while on the island off the coast a bright beacon gleamed clad in marble, light flashing from its pinnacle.

L
YDIAS
? L
YDIAS
?” B
AGOAS
was shaking me. “It's a dream. Wake up.”

I opened my eyes. It was still dark, and I lay in Bagoas’ room in Memphis. He sat beside me, one hand on my shoulder, frowning with worry.

“It's a dream, Lydias. Wake up now.”

I blinked. The burning city had seemed so real. It had seemed so tangible. My heart pounded still. “War,” I said. “War that goes on and on and on. And in the end we will lose. In the end Alexandria will burn.”

Bagoas looked nonplussed. “It's a dream, Lydias. When a man has been in battle, often he goes on fighting in his sleep long after the battle is ended.”

“I do not know how to avoid it,” I said. “I do not know what choice.”

Bagoas put his hand to my shoulder, gentling me as though I were a nervous horse. “Calmly, dear. You dreamed, still fighting though the battle is over. It's over. You won.”

“Winning is more dangerous than losing,” I said. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “I need to go find Ptolemy.”

“If it will make you feel better,” Bagoas said. “Though Ptolemy may be asleep too. It's an hour or more until dawn.”

“He won't be,” I said. I dressed and, putting on harness and sword, went to the walls of Memphis.

Across and upriver on the island I could see the faint glow of a few campfires. There would not have been much to burn on the island. At my feet, the city of Memphis slept, houses and temples and markets and all, silent in the night. Only a few lights burned here and there fitfully, at the temples and about the courtyard of the House of Life where the wounded lay.

I do not know how long I stood upon the walls, half waiting and half dreaming. It cannot have been long before Ptolemy came.

“Anything going on over there?” he asked, and my eyes popped open. No doubt he thought I was only tired.

“Not that I can see,” I said. “Their fires are dying down.”

“There was some fuss and commotion a few hours ago,” Ptolemy said. “The watch said something was happening, but who can tell what from this distance?”

“Maybe some crocodiles came ashore on the island,” I guessed. “That ought to cause some trouble.”

“Could be.” Ptolemy shrugged. “We'll find out in a few hours. After sunrise we're going over in boats under a truce and see what Perdiccas is willing to give up to get out of the trap he's put himself in.”

“Do you think he'll treat with you?” I asked. Perdiccas was known as a stubborn man, and a ruthless one.

Ptolemy nodded. “I think he'll treat. Or he can keep sitting on the island. Or he can try to wade to shore. Those are pretty much his choices right now. At least until the flood goes down. How long does that usually take, Lydias? Do you know for certain?”

“Two to three weeks after the flood peaks before the water starts going down,” I said. “That's a long time for him to sit on the island. And it's hard to tell in the dark, but I'm pretty sure the river is still rising.”

“He's not going to be able to sit there for more than a few days,” Ptolemy said. “No food to speak of. So let's see if he's ready to make a deal. Tell Artashir I want him to come too. My Persian's not good, and somebody needs to be able to talk to the Persian officers.”

“I'll let him know, sir,” I said. “And it doesn't hurt to have that someone be of the house of Darius the Great. They can't say he's a nobody who's on the lookout for the main chance, not when he's got a distant claim on the throne himself.”

“I know,” Ptolemy said. “And a blood feud with Roxane. We'll just see how this all shakes out.”

T
WO HOURS AFTER
the sun rose we set forth on an Egyptian ship, one of the lateen-sailed rivercraft that they have made from time immemorial, with a good, experienced captain from Memphis. Artashir and ten of his men came with us, as well as ten of our infantrymen, steady men who knew their business and would not start a fight.

The river was running fast and deep. It took thirty oarsmen to beat dead upstream, as there was no wind to carry us. The water flowed swift and true. I did not see any crocodiles beneath its smooth surface, but I supposed they were still there.

As soon as we got within bowshot we hailed them. “We come under truce! Ptolemy, Satrap of Egypt, would like to speak with the Regent!”

There was a movement among the people on the bank, and I recognized Polemon, who had chased after me so well when I had stolen the hearse. Beside him was an older, slighter man, a Companion I recognized as Seleucus, one of the infantry officers. He had been one of the most Persian of the Macedonian officers, marrying a lady of the Persian nobility by whom he now had a number of children. From the things our prisoners had said, it seemed he was now Perdiccas’ second in command.

Now he leaned out from the crowd and called across the water to us. “If Ptolemy would like to speak, he is welcome to come ashore and speak with me. I will grant him safe passage and truce.”

Ptolemy mounted the bow himself as we came closer. “Ho, Seleucus! My men are coming ashore too.”

Seleucus shook his head. “No.”

“Twenty men among your five thousand?” Ptolemy called back. “Don't be ridiculous. The risk is mine, not yours.”

Polemon bent his head and said something to Seleucus, who straightened. “All right, Ptolemy. Agreed. Your men can come ashore.”

Artashir and I exchanged a look. We would be entirely surrounded and outnumbered. Then again, they couldn't get off the island without us, and taking us hostage was not much of a plan. Memphis would hardly throw its gates open in exchange for Ptolemy.

Ptolemy turned, dropping his voice. He didn't sound worried at all. “Artashir, I want you to talk to the Persians. Anybody who might defect to us will be treated as honorable gentlemen, and serve with us under the same terms as my other men. I'll rely on you to say the right things.”

Artashir nodded.

“Lydias, keep your eyes open. If you get a chance, talk to the drivers of the other elephants. You used to speak some of the Indian languages, yes?”

“I did,” I said. That had been five years ago, and I had not been entirely fluent. But I imagined it was more than most men knew.

“Talk the drivers around. The elephants won't serve just any man. If we get the drivers, we get them. Promise them good pay and land in Alexandria. We need some elephants of our own. Let's see if we can hire some.”

“I will,” I said.

The boat came to shore slowly, the oarsmen careful. The river had risen a great deal, and the roots of the largest trees were now underwater. I didn't suppose it would hurt them. This must happen every year, and some of those trees were decades old. However, it would certainly damage the bottom of the boat to run into them, so the captain was very careful in bringing us close. Even so, we could not step directly ashore, but must step out in shallow water not quite to our knees.

I flinched at its cold touch, though I knew full well that all the blood and bodies had by now been carried downstream. I was not stepping through our dead.

The men on the shore looked battered, as though they had passed a mostly sleepless night. They were all in full harness and armed, and the camp had a makeshift look about it, as though it had been squeezed together by the rising river, and the smell of death hung about it. They had had no place to take their wounded.

Artashir and I flanked Ptolemy, one on the left, the other on the right. “I'd like to speak with the Regent,” Ptolemy said to Seleucus pleasantly.

Seleucus’ chin rose. “Perdiccas is dead,” he said shortly, jerking his head toward the camp. “His body's in the tent over there. You talk to us.”

“Did he die of his wounds?” Ptolemy asked.

“You could say that,” Seleucus replied dryly. “He took quite a few before we were done.”

Ptolemy nodded. “I see,” he said evenly. “That does change a few things.”

“Perdiccas was a fool,” Seleucus said. “We're ready to come to terms.”

“What are you offering?” Ptolemy asked.

There was a stir at the back of the crowd, and soldiers pushed them through, a young woman beautiful still, her long hair falling from its combs, her elaborate Persian dress muddy about the hem. Shoved, she stumbled to her knees but did not drop the child. A little boy about three years old looked up at Ptolemy.

“Them,” Seleucus said. “Roxane and her son. We give them to you to do what you like with in return for our pardon, our arms, and our freedom. We will acclaim you as Regent.”

Roxane watched him, her eyes smoldering. On her shoulder, the boy seemed more curious than frightened.

Artashir took a breath.

It seemed for a moment that time stopped. Here all the strands of what had been and what might be met, and turning from this place departed never to converge again. The burning city, the white city by the sea, both were real in this moment, both equally likely. The gods themselves were listening.

Seleucus spoke again. “We'll acclaim you as Regent, or if you want to get rid of them right away, we'll proclaim you Great King. With our backing too, you can have it all, the Persian Empire, Macedon, everything that was Alexander's. Antipatros is an old man. He can't stand against us all.”

“It's mine anyway,” Ptolemy said quietly, though his voice carried far enough. “They're mine, whether you give them to me or not. You're all trapped on this island until my men let you go. If I want the Regency, I can have it. If I want to be Great King, I can have it with you or without you.”

And he could, I thought. I could see him enthroned, the mitre on his head. I could see him thus, crowned in Babylon. That fire was within his grasp. That path was clear before him.

Seleucus spread his hands. “Easier to have it with us, don't you think? My wife is Artashir's cousin,” he said, with a nod to Artashir. “You'd rather have the Persian nobility back you. It would cost you far less. If we acclaim you Regent, you'll have it without a fight. Or kill the boy and be Great King tomorrow.”

I saw Roxane's eyes go from Seleucus to Ptolemy. She was more angry than anything else, not cowed in the least. Alexander had married courage.

“But you can't be Regent without the boy,” Ptolemy said. “Without him you have war with Antipatros and with Roxane's kin in Bactria as well. Not to mention that you'll have Olympias as your enemy. There's only one thing she wants, and that's her grandson on the throne of Macedon. And you'll never be sure of me. Your best chance is to come to terms with the Lady Roxane.” His tone was still light and pleasant, as though he were discussing some ordinary piece of business, not the fate of kingdoms. Not a bit of tension showed in his face.

“True enough,” Seleucus said. “But if we swear ourselves to you, you have it all. It's all yours, Ptolemy.”

Ptolemy bent his head, and there was a small, rueful smile on his face.