Fire From Heaven (31 page)

Alexander turned and beckoned the first rider whose eye he met. The man cantered up smartly, and gazed at the wonderful boy with fervent affection.

‘Polemon. If that man’s not past help, have him picked up. They fought well, hereabouts. Or else finish him quickly.’

‘Yes, Alexander,’ said the man adoringly. Alexander gave him a slight approving smile; he went radiant off on his mission. Presently he remounted; the vultures, with satisfied croaks, closed in together.

Far on ahead of them shone the blue sea; soon, thought Hephaistion with relief, they would be past the battlefield. Alexander’s eyes wandered over the bird-haunted plain, and beyond it skywards. He said:

Ê

‘Many brave men’s souls it flung down to the house of Hades,

While their flesh made a feast for dogs, and all the birds of the

air.

And the will of Zeus was fulfilled.’

Ê

The rhythm of the hexameters matched itself smoothly to Oxhead’s pacing. Hephaistion gazed at him silent. He rode on, at peace, with his unseen companion.

Ê

The Seal of Macedon stayed some time with Antipatros. Alexander had been met by a second courier, bidding him come to his father’s siege-lines, to be commended. He turned east to Propontis, taking his companions with him.

In the King’s lodging before Perinthos, a well-lived-in home by now, father and son would sit at the pinewood trestle, over a tray of sea-sand and stones; heaping up mountains, digging out defiles with their fingers, drawing with writing-sticks the disposition of cavalry, skirmishers, phalanxes and archers. Here no one disturbed their game, except sometimes the enemy. Philip’s handsome young squires were decorous; bearded Pausanias with his ruined beauty, now? promoted to Somatophylax, Commander of the Guard, watched impassively, never interrupting except for an alarm. Then they would buckle on their armour, Philip with veteran curses, Alexander eagerly. The troops whose section he joined would raise a cheer. Since his campaign he had a nickname: Basiliskos, the Little King.

His legend had run before him. Leading a scouting party against the Maidoi, he had walked round a crag straight into two of them, and dispatched them both while the men behind him were still catching their breath; neither had had time to shout a warning. He had kept a twelve-year-old Thracian girl in his tent all night, because she had run to him when the men were after her; had never laid a finger on her, and had given her a marriage dower. He had run between four big Macedonians brawling with their swords already out, and shoved them apart with his bare hands. In a mountain storm which had rained thunderbolts, so that it seemed the gods had resolved to destroy them all, he had read luck into it, kept them moving, made them laugh. Someone had had his wound stanched with the Basiliskos’ own cloak, and been told his blood was a dye more honourable than purple; someone had died in his arms. Someone else, who had thought him raw enough to try old soldiers’ tricks on, was sorry and sore. You would need to watch out, if he took against you. But put a fair case to him straight, he would see you right.

So, when in the light of the falling fires they saw him running towards the ladders, burnished like a dragonfly, greeting them as if they had all been bidden to a feast, they would call to him, and race for places near him. It was well to keep your eye on him; he would think quicker than you.

For all this, the siege went badly. Making an example of Olynthos had cut two ways; the Perinthians had decided that at the pinch they would rather die. And the pinch was still far off. The defenders, well supplied by sea, met assaults in strength and often went over to attack. They were setting their own example. From the Chersonesos, just south of the Great East Road, word came that the subject cities were taking heart. The Athenians had long urged revolt on them; but they would not take in Athenian troops, who were seldom paid and forced to live off the. country. Now the cities had been emboldened. Macedonian outposts had been seized, and strongpoints threatened. War had begun.

‘I swept one side of the road for you, Father,’ Alexander said as soon as the news arrived. ‘Now let me sweep the other.’

‘So I will, as soon as the new troops come. I’ll use them here; you’ll need men who know the country.’

He was planning a surprise assault upon Byzantion, to stop their aid to Perinthos; as well deal with them now as later. He was committed, more deeply than he liked, to this costly war, and had needed to hire more mercenaries. They were coming up from Argos and Arkadia, states friendly to his power because for generations they had lived under the threat of Sparta; they did not share the anger and dread of Athens. But they cost money; which had been swallowed by the siege like water poured in sand.

At length they came, square stocky men of Philip’s own build; his Argive descent still showed in him, bridging the generations. He reviewed them and conferred with their officers, from whom for better or worse hired troops would never be divided; it made a weak link in the chain of command. However, they were trained men who would earn their pay. Alexander and his troops marched west; already the men who had served with him in Thrace were patronizing the others.

His campaign was rapid. Revolt was still in the bud; several towns took fright, exiled their rash insurgents and pledged their loyalty. Those already committed, however, rejoiced to hear that Philip, the gods having sent him mad, had trusted his forces to a boy of sixteen years. They sent defiances, Alexander rode to their citadels, sat down before them one by one, looked for the flaws in their defences, or, if there were none, created them with ?saps or ramps or breaches. He had learned his lessons at Perinthos, and improved on some of them. Resistance soon died out; the remaining towns opened their gates on his terms.

Riding out from Akanthos he viewed Xerxes’ Ditch, the ship canal through the isthmus neck of Athos, cut for the Persian fleet to bypass its mountain storms. Its great snowy peak reared up from its shaggy buttresses. The army turned north, along the curve of a pleasant bay. Perched on the foot-slopes below the wooded hills stood a long-ruined town. Brambles grew on its fallen walls; the terracing of its vineyards was collapsing from the winter rains; its weed-grown olive groves were forsaken, but for a herd of goats nibbling the bark, and some naked little boys tearing off low branches. Alexander asked, ‘What place was this?’

A trooper rode to ask, and, when all the boys fled yelling at the sight of him, grabbed up the slowest, who struggled like a netted lynx. Dragged before the general, and finding him no older than his own brother, he was struck dumb. When the portent let him know that all they wanted of him was the name of the spot they stood on, he answered, ‘Stagira.’

The column rode on. Alexander said to Hephaistion, ‘I must speak to Father. It’s time for the old man to have his fee.’

Hephaistion nodded. He had seen that schooldays were over.

Ê

When the treaties had been signed, the hostages delivered, the strongpoints manned, Alexander went back to Philip, still sitting before Perinthos.

The King had waited for him, before moving against Byzantion; he had needed to know that all was well. He was marching himself, leaving Parmenion here; for Byzantion would be tougher than Perinthos, three sides protected by Propontis and Golden Horn, the land side by massive walls. He set his hopes upon surprise.

They milled over the campaign together, over the pinewood trestle. Often Philip would forget it was not a grown man he was talking to, till some careless bluntness would set up the boy’s back. It was rarer now; rough, wary, touchy, their contact was warmed by a secret, mutual pride in one another’s acceptance.

‘How are the Argives shaping?’ asked Alexander not long after, over a midday meal.

‘I shall leave them here. Parmenion must cope with them. They came here I suppose to swagger about before half-trained citizen levies, as they can in the southern cities. Our men think them raw hands, and let them know it. But what are they, soldiers or bridesmaids? Fair pay, good rations, good quarters; yet nothing’s right for them. They sulk at drill; they don’t like the sarissa; all they mean is they’re clumsy still and our own men laugh. Well, they can stay here and use the short spear, for this work it’s well enough. When I’ve marched with my people, and they’re cocks of the walk, they’ll pick up, their officers tell me.’

Alexander, scooping up fish sauce with his bread, said, ‘Listen.’

His first question had been prompted by half-heard sounds of discord. They were getting louder.

‘Hades take them,’ said the King. ‘What now?’

Shouted insults, in Greek and Macedonian, could now be heard.

‘Anything looses it off, when they’re at odds like this.’ Philip pushed back his chair, wiping-off his fingers on his bare thigh. ‘A cockfight, a squabble over a boyÉParmenion’s on reconnaissance.’ The noise was growing; each side was being reinforced. ‘Nothing for it, I shall have to sort them myself.’ He walked with his stolid limp towards the doorway.

‘Father. They sound ugly. Why not get armed?’

‘What? No, that would make too much of it. They’ll give over when they see me. They won’t heed one another’s officers, there’s the mischief.’

‘I’ll come too. If the officers can’t quieten themÉ’

‘No, no; I don’t need you. Finish your food. Simmias, keep mine hot.’

He went out as he was, unarmed but for the sword he always wore. Alexander got up and looked after him from the door.

Between the town, and the straggling village of the siege-lines, was a wide space through which slit trenches ran out? to the siege-towers, and fortified guard-posts stood. Here between men on duty or changing guard the brawl must have begun, visible all along the lines, so that the factions had gathered quickly. There were already some hundreds; Greeks, who had been nearer, outnumbered Macedonians. Racial taunts were flying. Above the din, voices that sounded like officers’ were exchanging recriminations, and threatening each other with the King. Philip stumped forward a few paces, looked again; then shouted to a trooper who had been riding towards the crowd. The man dismounted and gave him a leg up. Provided now with a living rostrum, he cantered purposefully forward, and shouted for silence.

He chose seldom to be formidable. Silence fell; the crowd divided to let him in. As it closed again, Alexander saw that the horse was restive.

The squires who had waited at table were talking in excited undertones. Alexander gave them a look; they should have been waiting for orders. The next hut was the lodging of all the body-squires; the doorway was full of heads. He called out, ‘Get armed. Be quick.’

Philip was wrestling with the horse. His voice, which had carried power, now sounded angry. The horse reared; there was a roar of abuse and cursing; it must have struck a man with its forefeet. Suddenly it gave a great scream, stood almost upright, and sank down, the King still doggedly clinging. Horse and man vanished into a threshing, shouting vortex.

Alexander ran to the armour-pegs on the wall, snatched his shield and helmet - the corselet would take too long - and called to the squires, ‘They’ve killed his horse under him. Come.’ Soon outdistancing all the others, he ran without looking back. The Macedonians were pouring out of barracks. It was the next moments that counted.

At first he simply shoved at the mob, and it let him through. These were sightseers, or mere accretions, easily shifted by anyone who knew his own mind. ‘Let me pass. Let me through to the King.’ He could hear the squeals of the dying horse, weakening to groans; no sound from his father. ‘Back, get back, let me pass. Make way, I want the King.’

‘He wants his dad.’ The first defiance; a square-shouldered, square-bearded Argive stood grinning in his way. ‘Look, here’s the cockalorum.’ The last word choked off. His eyes and mouth gaped, a retch came up from his throat. Alexander with an expert jerk freed his sword.

A gap appeared; he could see the still twitching horse, on its side, his father lying with one leg under it, unmoving; over him stood an Argive with a lifted spear, irresolute, waiting for encouragement. Alexander ran him through.

The crowd heaved and swayed, as the Macedonians flung themselves at its edges. Alexander bestrode his father’s body, one leg braced against the horse which had stiffened in death; he yelled, ‘The King!’ to guide the rescuers. All round him, uncertain men were urging each other to strike. For anyone behind him, he was a gift.

‘This is the King. I will kill the first man who touches him.’ Some were scared; he fixed his eyes on the man they had been looking at for guidance. He stuck out his jaw and mumbled, but his eyes were flickering. ‘Get back all of you. Are you mad? Do you think if you kill him or me, you can get out of Thrace alive?’ Someone said they had got out of worse places; but no one moved. ‘Our men are either side of you, and the enemy has the harbour. Are you tired of life?’

Some warning, a gift of Herakles, made him whip round. He hardly saw the face of the man whose spear was lifted, only the exposed throat. His stab severed the windpipe; the man reeled back, bloody fingers clawing at the hissing wound. He swung round to confront the others; in this instant the scene had changed, he saw instead the backs of the royal squires, shields locked, heaving off the Argives. Hephaistion came breasting through like a swimmer through surf, and stood to shield his back. It was over, in about as long as it would have taken him to finish his half-eaten fish.

He looked round. He had not a scra?tch, he had been a stroke ahead each time. Hephaistion spoke to him and he answered smiling. He was shining and calm at the centre of his mystery, the godlike freedom of killing fear. Fear lay dead at his feet.

Loud voices, expert in command, cleft the confusion; the Argive general, and Parmenion’s deputy, roared at their troops in familiar tones. Hangers-on turned swiftly to spectators; the centre fell apart revealing a scatter of dead and wounded; all the men near the fallen King were arrested and led away. The horse was dragged aside. The riot was over. When shouts began again, they came from those on the outskirts who could not see, spreading rumours or asking news.