God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great (113 page)

I became the chief of staff. I didn’t outrank either Coenus or Philotas or Nicanor or Hephaestion, but I could handle the mathematics and the planning. And Alexander trusted me – again. Who knows what clicked in his head? But it was odd – and almost eerie – to move my folding desk and my old wax tablets back into the striped tent that housed the Military Journal. Many years had passed since I had held this post, or one like it.

Immediately, I had to start laying out the route and the depots for the march east, into Bactria, which up until then was merely a name. I arranged for Ariston – for all scouts – to report directly to me. This, too, had a feeling of irony – there was Strako standing at my desk with his reports from the Angeloi, and there were Prodromoi I’d worked with on the plains of Caria.

They had, once, reported directly to Parmenio, and Alexander had taken that power from him – because we all feared Parmenio would use the scouting reports against the king. But I no sooner held the logistics in my hands than I realised how much I needed the scouting reports.

We had outrun Thaïs’s network of friends – they ended at Babylon. But she knew how to organise information, and she was bored. And she had worked with the Prodromoi before Tyre, with great success, and I encouraged her to take part.

The first news she brought us was that Satibarzanes, satrap of Aria, was ready to defect. We checked and double-checked with couriers and agents, and then we laid out a march route to Susia, sold the king on the plan and marched.

This was the way to make war. Our information was spot on, and our scouts covered our movements, our advance parties had water and food, and despite the terrain . . . Alexander’s army was used to terrain. There are mountains everywhere – or at least, everywhere Alexander wanted to go.

We marched off the edge of the world.

And we moved fast.

Whatever Satibarzanes may have thought, or planned, we were on him too fast for him to change his mind. Our cavalry seized every approach to his capital and then we ‘arrived’. It was Alexander’s plan, but Coenus and Hephaestion and I executed it, and I still look back on it with pleasure. Everyone was fed, everything moved on time and no one died. Good soldiering.

Satibarzanes was a snake – the very kind of Persian that Craterus and his Macedonians expected every Persian to be. Thaïs had enough evidence to hang him, but Alexander was in a hurry and he confirmed the man as satrap – when we had all his troops in our power.

That night, I lay beside Thaïs in my new pavilion – a magnificent tent of striped silk with a tall separate roof that held its walls up on wooden toggles – superb work, a piece of engineering as much as a bridge or a tower.

It is lovely to make love to your own intelligence chief – it makes staff meetings more secret and much more fun. We were both still breathing hard when she said, by way of love talk: ‘Satibarzanes will turn on us as soon as we turn our backs.’

I kissed her, and agreed.

‘I need money to spread around,’ she said, rubbing her hand down my legs and over my belly.

‘You know,’ I said, and I paused, unsure of whether my joke would be well received – ‘you know, I owe you four years of your fee as a hetaera.’

Her hand slipped along my thigh, over the hard ridge of muscle and then along the crease between groin and leg – the most ticklish part of my body. ‘Pay up, old man,’ she whispered.

‘I could marry you, instead,’ I said. I was perfectly willing. It came into my head just then. I was one of the most powerful men in the world, and I didn’t have to give a thought to the opinion of anyone but my peers and my soldiers.

She laughed. ‘To save money, you mean?’ she said, and that was that.

But two days later, I was planning provisions for the advance guard as Ariston scouted us a march route east. Into Bactria. And writing out a receipt for ten talents of silver to Thaïs.

Eumenes the Cardian came into the Military Journal tent. ‘Everyone out but Lord Ptolemy,’ he ordered.

The slaves fled, and Marsyas looked at me. He had a fine hand and an excellent understanding, and I used him as my own chief of staff. He gave me a long look, but I shook my head. He picked up the scroll he was checking and left.

Eumenes and I had got along for years without a skirmish, but I didn’t really know him at all. He was Greek – now that Kineas was gone, he tended to lead the ‘Greek’ faction on the staff. He’d worked for Philip, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, and Alexander had taken a long time – a
long
time – to trust him. Hephaestion still viewed him as a spy for Parmenio.

He poured wine from an amphora at his own desk and put the krater down between us.

‘You have a reputation as a straight arrow, my lord,’ he said. He drank and passed me the cup.

I raised it to him. ‘As do you,’ I said. I drank.

He nodded. ‘Good. Let us try and do this the man’s way. I don’t want to give up the Military Journal. I intend to prove myself to the king and get a military command of my own, and this is my office.’

I thought about that. ‘Agreed,’ I said carefully.

He brightened. ‘Yes? Then the rest is details.’

I must have brightened, too. ‘You thought I was after the Journal?’

He shrugged. ‘Callisthenes is still trying to get it back. You ran it very well – for an amateur. I’ve read all your entries.’

He was older, and he’d been Philip’s military secretary. So there was no need to take offence.

‘What about the collection of intelligence?’ he asked. ‘I’ve noted in the last ten-day that you have all the scouts reporting to you. Now, you are a king’s friend, an officer of the Hetaeroi, one of the inner circle. Of course they take your orders.’ He paused. ‘But it’s my job, and I
need
the reports, as you know.’

I thought about that. You have to appreciate his honesty. Instead of having a typical staff cat-fight – they can go on for years – he was laying it out.

I nodded. ‘I need the information. I plan all the march routes.’

‘So we need it together. Can we get it together? And on days when one or the other is busy, can we collect notes and pass them?’

This may be boring you, lad, but this is staff work. Eumenes was offering to help me, if I would help him. This is how we conquered the world – good logistics, good intelligence, good staff work.

I nodded.

He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. ‘Who is the chief of intelligence for the king?’

I smiled. ‘Thaïs,’ I said.

Eumenes shook his head. ‘No, I am. Thaïs gave the position up – if it was ever truly hers – back at Tyre.’

I began to grow angry.

‘If your paramour wants to run some agents, she can do it through me,’ Eumenes said.

‘No,’ I said.

He sat back. ‘Well, you’re honest.’

I crossed my arms. ‘What have you ever done, in terms of actual accomplishment? Thaïs gave us Memnon, took cities in Asia Minor and opened the Gates of Babylon.’

Eumenes narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve never heard of any of these operations.’

I smiled.

He laughed. ‘Fair enough, Ptolemy. But we can’t have two separate intelligence services.’

I shrugged. ‘Why not? We have all the money in the world. And Thaïs says that two sources of information are always better than one.’

Eumenes turned away, and I could see he was on the point of a nasty verbal cut. But I’ve seen this before – mostly with rational Athenian gentlemen at a symposium – a man takes a verbal hit, and before he can shoot back, he absorbs the content, thinks it all through – realises the point is valid. Only a mature man or woman can do this.

The Cardian took another sip of wine. ‘Who collates the intelligence?’ he said.

I leaned forward. ‘Honesty for honesty. I can imagine that you and some other man might vie – racing to Alexander’s side with your latest scrap – the best traitor, the open gates,’ I said. I took the wine cup. ‘But Thaïs doesn’t need Alexander’s ear, and I have it all the time. So if you give credit where credit is due, I think Thaïs would be happy to send her news through you.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll have to ask her.’

‘I would like to meet her,’ Eumenes said. ‘I’ve seen her at dinners. We’ve never spoken.’

‘And if you try to go behind her back . . . well,’ I said with a smile, ‘I see the king six times a day.’

Eumenes shook his head. ‘I know that,’ he said, a little peevishly.

‘Come and have dinner with us,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk this out together.’

And that was that. Five minutes of straight talk, and we avoided a clash. After that, I got steady reports from Eumenes, and Thaïs shared all her information with him. And we became friends – real friends. His wife was not always with the army, but when she was, Athenais became Thaïs’s closest female friend.

You have the look that all boys have when they find that war runs on gold and grain and rumour and intelligence, not blood and honour. Listen. In all of Aria there was
just barely
enough surplus grain to feed our army for three weeks. We could not linger. We needed to get out of the endless hills and down on to the fertile plains. That’s how war really works.

So we marched into Bactria. We had a flood of defectors, many of whom were the last of Darius’s loyalists who would never go over to Bessus. But some had just waffled – because they had fresh reports from Bessus, who was across the Oxus river, raising troops. He was rumoured to have forty thousand cavalry.

Alexander wasn’t just low on grain. He was genuinely worried that, having marched off the edge of the world, he was going to get stuck in a fight he couldn’t win. But he was elated – Bessus was proving to be a foe, and a foe meant challenge, opposition and conquest. We summoned the main army – Cleitus with the rest of the pezhetaeroi – and marched east.

Nicanor died two days east of Aria – he’d never grown stronger after the illness, and when the king gave Parmenio the satrapy, Parmenio made his two sons swear to hold their positions with the army. Nicanor commanded the hypaspitoi and Philotas commanded the household cavalry, and that meant that Alexander was still, to some extent, in the power of Parmenio.

Nicanor’s death was sudden. There was no reason to expect it – he was sick, but he was tougher than scrap bronze.

Alexander didn’t even halt the march, and when Philotas broke down – Nicanor was
his brother
– Alexander shook his head.

‘Stay and arrange the funeral, if that’s what suits you,’ Alexander said. ‘Bessus isn’t going to wait for us to hold games. Ptolemy – get them moving!’ he called to me, and we marched off.

I never had any time for Philotas, but Nicanor and I had long since made our peace and become friends. I left Polystratus to make my contribution.

Alexander gave me command of the Hetaeroi. I thought it odd – Philotas couldn’t be more than a day behind us.

But we were tired, hungry and I had all I could handle just getting the food arranged ahead of us. We were living day to day. Not the way the planning staff likes to live.

But two days after we entered Bactria, it was obvious that Bessus had the troops to stop us, and we had other problems. Craterus was twelve hundred stades to the south, marching with Black Cleitus and the four taxeis of the reserve army, and Bessus had more men. And worst of all, bloody Satibarzanes revolted, and so did his cousin in the south, Barseantes, the satrap of Drangiana.

Alexander took the Aegema and turned back. He sent me to lead the main army south, to the edge of Drangiana, to link up with Craterus’s column. Hephaestion went with him.

We smashed the two attempts Barseantes made to stop our march. Behind us, the king drove Satibarzanes across the Oxus and caught most of his army on a wooded mountain. Alexander surrounded the base of the mountain and set the woods on fire. It was brutal, but I can’t disapprove. He was in a hurry, had no rearguard, no base of operations, and he needed a quick victory with no losses.

I had troubles of my own, and I got a taste of what the coming years would hold, moving the main army over brutal terrain full of hostile – or sullenly apathetic – villagers, most of whom were hardy and dangerous. After just two weeks, I gave up on the notion that I could hold open a route to the logistics heads in Iran. I lost men trying to patrol the roads behind me, and leaving garrisons – well, if you have twenty thousand men, and you leave a hundred men each day in small towns in the mountains to watch your rear, how long until you have no army? You do the maths.

In the third week, I halted, recalled all my garrisons and then pressed forward. The next morning I had a staff meeting.

When I entered the Military Journal tent, Eumenes called ‘Attention!’ and most of the officers present snapped to their feet and stood as stiff as statues. It had never happened to me – although we’d all done it for Parmenio. And the king.

Cyrus bowed deeply, and so did his son and a handful of other Persian noble officers.

I decided to think about the implications later. ‘At ease,’ I called. ‘Listen up.’ I walked to the middle of the tent. Eumenes had an easel set up with a sheet of local slate. I had a piece of chalk, the kind tutors in Athens and Pella used to teach children in the agora.

‘First thing,’ I said. ‘We no longer have a road home behind us. All we have is the ground beneath our feet. All forward troops need to assume that every contact is a hostile contact. Rearguard, too. At the same time, foraging and logistics purchases will go better if we can form a market every night and get locals to come in of their own free will and sell us produce. Understand?’

I wrote the words
Firm But Fair
on the slate.

‘I need the Prodromoi to operate a day ahead of the army and I need the Angeloi two days ahead. At least. I need the Prodromoi to scout a box . . .’ I drew a rectangle on the board. ‘And then we can move from box to box. The Agrianians will handle security inside the day’s box, the Prodromoi scout the next one. Any questions?’

In fact, there were a hundred questions, but that became our doctrine for movement in hostile country. It changed a great many things – for one thing, Strako and the Angeloi began reporting directly to the Prodromoi, not to me – but it made our march routes far more secure, and it meant that even as we fought a battle, we already knew where our next camp would be, and it was already secure.