The shadow king, p.18
The Shadow King, page 18
‘It’s like this, Lord,’ Atarrhias said, ‘your family never had enough men to protect Lyncestis. The Illyrians and Paeonians were always coming over the border. All too often we ended up fighting the other upland houses of Pelagonia or Orestis. Philip gave us security, brought us down from the hilltop refuges, made Macedonians something in the world. That is why we ordinary men love the Argeads.’
Free speech was the right of every Macedonian, even if it was unwelcome to their betters.
We had reached the apples and nuts when there was a commotion down at the siege lines: torches flaring, many men shouting.
‘Another sortie over the breach,’ Atarrhias said, without undue concern. ‘Greeks by the shape of their shields, but Craterus’ battalion will throw them back.’
‘Maybe not,’ Eumaeus said, ‘look!’
Another phalanx of Hellenes was streaming out of the Triple Gate.
‘Cunning old Memnon,’ Atarrhias said, ‘he must have had only a single skin of bricks blocking the gate, ready to be demolished. The cunning old Rhodian.’
This was bad. Craterus’ men, already fighting the defenders from the breach, would be taken in the flank by those from the gate. Atarrhias summoned a youth, and told him to run and warn Perdiccas and Meleager; their battalions were needed at the front. The boy shifted uneasily, and said both officers were away dining with Alexander. Atarrhias snapped that he should tell their deputies to bring up the men as fast as possible. The youth sprinted away.
The hoplites from the Triple Gate had run a boarding bridge out over the ditch. You had to admire whoever was in command.
Atarrhias stood, tugging at his beard. ‘It will take too long,’ he muttered. ‘Craterus will be overwhelmed before the other battalions get here; all the siege machines will be alight.’
As if to confirm his words, there was a huge outcry as the hoplites from the gate crashed into the unshielded right of the Macedonians defending the siege lines.
‘Fuck it,’ Atarrhias said, ‘it’s down to us.’ He roared for the veterans to arm, and form phalanx on him, then stomped into his tent. Eumaeus and I followed.
‘We will fight with you,’ I said.
Atarrhias nodded to me. ‘You can use my spare sarissa and shield. Eumaeus go and borrow each from the next door tent.’
These old warriors knew their trade. In no time at all, without any fuss, a phalanx of at least two thousand strong was formed in the darkness. I took my place at the head of the file alongside Atarrhias.
‘You have no panoply, my Lord—’ Atarrhias was polite but firm ‘—go to the rear ranks.’
‘No.’ I was equally insistent. ‘The Bacchiads may no longer be Kings of Lyncestis, but our place is among the forefighters. Why else are we paid honour in the Land of the Lynx?’
‘And paid rents,’ he laughed, and singled out a very elderly veteran. ‘Damon, you are about the same build, give the Lord your armour and helmet, then go and act as file-closer.’
It was nicely done, not demeaning the dignity of the old warrior Damon. In battle the file-closer is the next most important place after the leader.
‘The youths get some torches behind us, so we can see what the fuck we are doing.’ Atarrhias had a clear head, was thinking of everything.
The helmet was too small, so I gave it back. I would have to rely on my hat – a kausia is made of thick felt, it might turn a weak blow. The linen armour did not fit all that well, but was a lot better than nothing.
‘Sarissas vertical! Phalanx advance at a walk!’
Already some soldiers from Craterus’ battalion were leaving the fight, trying to melt into the night. The veterans mocked them as they ran: Wait a little, see how real men fight!
Ahead there was a spurt of flame as the first siege tower was fired.
‘Easy boys,’ Atarrhias shouted. ‘As the old bull said to the young one, let’s just walk down to the meadow, and fuck them all.’
The hoplites had seen us coming. By the lurid light of the burning tower, I could see Greek officers in bright sashes and with elaborate plumes on their helmets shoving men into line to face this unexpected attack.
‘Level sarissas!’
Those of us in the first four ranks brought our pikes to horizontal. We were in assault order, three feet for each rank. On either side of me, at waist level, three shafts of ash wood swung into place. Now projecting out in front of us was a layered hedge of deadly iron points.
It had all happened so fast, I had had no time to be scared. Until this moment I had not realised Eumaeus was leading the file on my right. The old bastard had no armour or helmet. I should have given him my borrowed panoply, or sent him to the rear. Too late now.
Advancing inexorably, backlit by torches, we must have looked a hideous sight to the ragged line of mercenaries. To their credit they stood and fought. As we came together, there was a deafening clatter of iron on wood and metal. Our sarissas outreached their spears. They tried to use their shields to push the points of our pikes aside, and get in close. I concentrated on keeping the head of my pike in line. Once a hoplite got past. A sarissa from behind me took him in the groin. On either side of me, Atarrhias and Eumaeus were jabbing and thrusting with the skill of long experience. Greeks were falling. The old Macedonians went through the enemy like peasants harvesting grain; steady and methodical, with no wasted effort.
As we ground forward, I had to somehow watch my footing, as well as keep my sarissa in place. There were dead and injured men under my boots. Desperate pleas and screams sounded from behind as the wounded were finished off by our rear ranks with downward thrusts of the lizard-killers on the butts of their pikes.
Then the mercenaries broke. In a mob, they dashed back towards the Triple Gate.
‘Hold the line!’ Atarrhias bellowed. ‘Don’t chase them!’
The discipline of our geriatric phalanx held. We dressed our ranks, then plodded after the rout.
The mercenaries were fighting each other to get across the boarding bridge. It was overladen. With a sharp retort it gave way, hurling men down into the ditch. Those trapped on this side threw away shields and weapons, and scrambled down the slope. And then someone in the city lost their nerve. The great wooden doors of the Triple Gate were closed.
There were hundreds trapped outside the walls, unarmed and panic stricken. It was a massacre. Our long sarissas probing down into the ditch, cruel steel punching down into the huddled masses.
Time loses all meaning at such moments. My shoulders and arms ached with killing. No compunction or sympathy. They would have done the same to us.
‘Fall back!’
Groggily, like men waking from some sanguine reverie, we shuffled away. Eumaeus was still beside me, so too Atarrhias. Suddenly I was very tired.
We halted out of range of javelin throw, hunkered down in close order behind our shields. No bowmen or catapults shot at us from the battlements. The defeat had been too total.
‘Now we wait for orders,’ Atarrhias said.
As the night wore on, the wind rose. It carried the moans of the wounded. Someone passed me a wine skin. I drank greedily.
About midnight we saw the flames. The defenders had fired the tower on the wall beyond the breach. Then more flames from the citadel to our right within the town.
‘They are abandoning the city,’ I said.
‘Perhaps they are withdrawing to the citadels by the harbour,’ Atarrhias replied.
‘We should force the gate. We can take the city.’
‘We wait for orders.’ Atarrhias pointed into the town. ‘Anyway, we would be burnt alive.’
The veteran was right. The strengthening breeze had whirled burning embers into the sky. Whole blocks of the city were beginning to burn.
We stood to all night, watching Halicarnassus burn.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep standing up. Eumaeus nudged me as the sun rose. It cast its rays on a carpet of the dead. Everywhere men sprawled in unnatural stillness, some were piled on each other. Off to my left, on the lip of the ditch, my eyes were caught by a bright scarlet sword-belt and sash. At that instant I knew that my world would never be the same.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Autumn to Winter 334 BC
W
E CREMATED NEOPTOLEMUS THAT morning: me, Amyntas, Leonnatus, Eumaeus, and Atarrhias. We made suitable offerings to his shade, although I took his scarlet sword-belt and sash for the sake of his memory. Neoptolemus may have fought on the other side, but no one objected to our act of familial piety and affection. As the flames began to crackle, others joined us; Lyncestians who remembered him as a child at Lebaea, or the high-spirited youth in Pella. When the smoke billowed, bringing the horrible smell of burning flesh, I thought of his wife and daughter that I would never meet; anything rather than dwell on the physical reality of the pyre.
Or would I meet them? In camp the ultimate goal of our expedition was often discussed. Its stated aims were to liberate the Greeks of Asia, and to gain revenge for the Persian burning of Athens. The former was largely accomplished already, although there were cities that claimed to be Greek on the southern coast of Anatolia and on Cyprus. The latter aim might imply something altogether larger. Some considered it would not be achieved until we had torched the Persian capitals of Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis. Whenever one of the Companions raised it with Alexander, he just laughed, and said it was too soon to say, after all we had yet to meet the Great King on the battlefield.
Atarrhias was proved right. The garrison of Halicarnassus had withdrawn to the two seaward citadels of Salmacis and the Isle of Arconnesus. Memnon and the Persian fleet had sailed, it was guessed to the island of Cos. Alexander sent men into the city. Once the fires were extinguished, they pulled down the buildings facing the two citadels, and began to erect fortifications to seal the citadels off from the land. There was nothing we could do to prevent Memnon bringing in fresh troops and supplies by sea. The troops had suffered prosecuting the siege. Our own provisions were running short. There was little to be gained in prolonging the suffering. Alexander decided to leave Ptolemy with three thousand mercenary infantry and two hundred cavalry to contain the garrisons of the citadels, and, if he could, take any other neighbouring places that had not come over. I did not envy Alexander’s illegitimate brother. The force left with Ptolemy seemed barely adequate for the task.
Alexander’s decision about the governance of the province caused much comment in our ranks. Caria had long been ruled by a local dynasty. Before he reached Halicarnassus Alexander had been approached by an elderly lady called Ada. She had once governed Caria, before being ousted by a male relative. Ada had retained one strong fortress. This she had handed over to Alexander. The two had got on well. She sent him sweetmeats and delicacies. More importantly she had adopted him as her son and heir. Alexander referred to her as ‘Mother’. Certainly, many of the troops joked, she would be less trouble than Olympias. Now Alexander appointed her Satrap of Caria. Such an arrangement was nothing unusual for the locals. It is a measure of the servility of these easterners that they can stomach being the subjects of a woman. We Macedonians thought it as well that Ptolemy would be on hand to watch what she did.
The siege had caused many casualties, and the morale of the army had suffered. Alexander ordered that all those who had been newlywed before we had embarked should return to Macedon for the winter. I wished I was going with them. Electra must be near her time. Every day I hoped for a letter. Frequently I prayed. Childbirth was more dangerous than battle.
Two of the Companions, Meleager and Coenus – the latter a son-in-law of Parmenion – were to lead those returning to Macedon. While there, they were to raise fresh levies. Similarly, Cleander – the brother of Coenus – was to go to the Peloponnese to hire more Greek mercenaries.
Meanwhile the army was to divide. Alexander was to head south with the main force to take the coasts of Lycia and Pamphylia, establishing his winter quarters in the region. Parmenion, with just Socrates’ squadron of the Companions and my Thessalians of the frontline troops, along with all the allies, for what they were worth, was to march inland to Phrygia. We were saddled with the baggage train. After ousting the Persian satrap, we were to winter at Gordion, the old capital of the province. There, both Alexander and those returning from marital leave as well as the new troops from Macedon and Greece would rendezvous with us next spring.
It made strategic sense. The Great King had no army in the field in Asia Minor, and it would ease our supply problems. But it took me away from all my friends, except Medius, and even further from news of Electra.
We marched north back up the coast, via Miletus and Ephesus, before turning away from the sea and east to the city of Sardis. From there we went up the Haemus valley. Here, the trees were red and gold, their leaves edged with fire in the sun. The tannic smell of autumn was in the air. After a few days’ march, we left the valley, and turned north-east into the high country. It was fortunate that there was a good Persian road. Not all the plunder of the campaign so far had found its way into the royal coffers. The ordinance of Philip against wagons had gone by the board. Every officer in the army, and many tent-groups of soldiers, had acquired at least one, heavily laden with whatever had taken their eye.
The road ran along an upland river called the Sindros, then went due east across a remote region to pick up the headwaters of another called the Kaystros. The terrain in places here was rugged, well suited to defence. Yet there was no fighting to speak of, nothing but a few skirmishes, where bandits tried to raid the baggage. None of the high towers set on crags attempted resistance.
When the wind had shifted to the north, and carried the bite of the coming winter, we reached Gordion. Here at last we understood our largely undisturbed progress. The Satrap Atizyes had been one of those who had escaped the slaughter at the Granicus. Soundly defeated when fighting alongside other satraps, he did not believe he could do any better alone. It was said that he had levied all the troops he could from Phrygia, and retired south-east in the direction of Cilicia. The only fortress still prepared to fight was Celaenae, the new capital of the province, which lay south of our route, and was garrisoned by mercenaries from Caria.
In a sense we were not the first Macedonians in Gordion. Long ago, Midas had been King here after being driven from Emathia in Macedon, the original Gardens of Midas, by our ancestors. The guides at every temple in the town enthusiastically pointed out endless heirlooms of the King. The most interesting was an ancient wagon kept on the acropolis. Its yoke and shaft were joined by an elaborate knot. Legend said that whoever could undo the knot would become King of Asia. It was the sort of thing that Amyntas would have approached with reverence, and Neoptolemus tried to untangle. I examined it closely – it appeared to be made of strips of cornel wood bark – but could find no ends to the cords.
Midas had been a man of poor judgement. Offered any gift by Dionysus, he asked that everything he touched turned to gold. When he discovered that he could neither eat nor drink, he was forced to beg the god to take away the deadly benefaction. The story was enough to induce our soldiers to start digging up the many burial mounds outside the town. Parmenion soon put a stop to this as harmful both to discipline and our relations with the natives. A regime of strict training marches was introduced instead. In the territory of the town was an enormous hunting park of the Great King; one of those the Persians call a Paradise. Darius had never been there, nor had his immediate predecessors. No one except the King could touch its inhabitants, so within its walls was a multitude of all sorts of game: rabbit, hares, deer, boars, even panthers. To show who was now master here, and to demonstrate that as a Macedonian king Alexander was no oriental despot, we organised a mass hunt for the troops. It added much meat to our provisions for the winter, and for the soldiers made a happy change from marching through the rain.
Towards the middle of Peritios, the second month of winter, when the cold rain was turning to sleet, miraculously a courier arrived from Macedon. He would not have been more welcome if he had been Dionysus descended from Olympus to revel among us. There were many letters in his satchel. Two were for me. One was from my mother, giving the doings of Lyncestis: harvests, weddings, deaths; nothing to cause concern. The other was from Electra. I read it second, and had to steel myself to open it at all, in case it contained the news I dreaded. As I broke the seal, I consoled myself with the thought that at least she had not died in childbirth. She was well, and delivered of a healthy boy. As I had instructed, she had named him Arrhabaeus.
I was so excited I picked up Eumaeus and carried him round the room.
He did not seem at all pleased. ‘Put me down, you young fool.’
Having done as he asked, I drew my blade, and danced with that instead; a traditional wild sword dance from a Macedonian feast.
‘You sure Arrhabaeus was a good choice?’ Eumaeus said.
‘A time-honoured name in the Bacchiad House,’ I replied.
‘And the name of an executed traitor.’
I concentrated on a few complicated steps before answering. ‘A child can hardly be implicated in the crimes of his long-dead uncle.’
Eumaeus looked unconvinced. ‘You remember the swallow in Halicarnassus?’
During the siege, while Alexander was taking a siesta, a swallow had landed on his head, twittering with alarm, and not flown away until he was fully awake.
‘Of course I remember: the seer Aristander told Alexander it portended that the treachery of a friend would be unmasked, for swallows are friendly to good men, and exceedingly talkative.’
‘So Alexander will be alive to any hint of disloyalty among his Companions.’ Eumaeus spat on his chest to avert bad luck. ‘Your grandfather, Arrhabaeus III, killed Alexander’s uncle with his own hand.’
‘Yes, years before Alexander or I were born.’
‘Three years before, and kings have long memories.’
