Of Merchants & Heros (36 page)

‘It does to him. He is afraid Attalos will take Eretria without him.

He doesn’t want anyone to steal his glory.’

Menexenos fell back on the pillow and let out a long breath.

When it came to Lucius, neither of us had need for words.

Our small flotilla sailed next day.

Off Andros we met as arranged with the fleets of Pergamon and Rhodes, and together proceeded up the sea-strait north towards Eretria. What Lucius did there would be remembered for a long time by the Greeks.

Eretria is a port-city, on the west side of the long island of Euboia, overlooking the gulf of water that separates it from the mainland. To the north is the great stronghold of Chalkis, one of the Fetters of Greece, where Philip had posted Philokles his general and a force of Macedonians, for he had no intention of losing it. The Eretrians too were allied to Philip. He had left a Macedonian garrison in their city, to make sure of their loyalty, in case they thought to question it.

Everyone had assumed, in as much as we had thought of him at all, that Doron would be staying behind in Athens. But on the morning of our departure he had appeared on the quayside, dressed up in a parody of military clothing – soldier’s scarlet embroidered with blue prancing warriors – and declared in front of the astonished marines that he had come to fight at Lucius’s side.

Lucius had come hurrying down the gangboard and, speaking in the cooing love-talk they used in private together, had pleaded that the mission was too dangerous.

At this, Doron cried out that he would rather die in Lucius’s arms beneath the walls of Eretria, than live his life without him.

The poets and philosophers say that a man’s lover helps him to be brave, and to remember his own virtue. No doubt Doron had picked up some of this from the hack-rhapsodes and cheap entertainers in the dockside taverns of Sami. He had a quick mind, like all tricksters; and now he came out with a long, embarrassing monody to love.

Lucius listened with tears welling in his eyes, as if he were hearing the words of the divine Muses themselves. When the boy had finished he declared, after a short unconvincing protest, that he had lain awake half the night, hoping Doron would come. ‘We shall live or die together!’ he cried. ‘Like the great heroes of old.’

The dockhands, his audience for this pitiful scene, looked on astonished.

In due course, we made landfall close to Eretria.

Though we ourselves were few, Attalos had brought his army and a fleet of twenty-four quinqueremes, and the Rhodians had brought twenty warships of their own fleet, under the command of their general Akesimbrotos.

I had expected to be given my own company to command. But Lucius, I soon found out, had other plans, and shortly after we arrived he summoned me to his tent and said that since I spoke Greek so well I should act as liaison between Attalos, Akesimbrotos and him.

It was little more than a messenger’s work, and he knew it. But it would have been futile to protest. Besides, I was soon glad of this assignment, for I was always one of the first to hear what was going on, and it was through this work that I came to know King Attalos.

At the start, the Eretrians defended the city with vigour. But then, one morning, Attalos said, ‘Marcus, come and listen to this.’

He led me across his encampment towards the guardhouse, explaining as we walked. The night before, he said, his scouts had captured two shepherds who had crept out of the city under cover of darkness, to see what they could retrieve of their flocks. He wanted me to hear what they had to say.

The shepherds were scarcely more than boys. They were being kept in a disused stable, but they had not been tied, and had been given food and drink. They were clearly overawed by old Attalos in his purple-hemmed uniform and royal diadem; but he had told them they had nothing to fear, and during the night they had talked. Now Attalos told them to repeat to me what they had told him.

The walls, they said, had been weakened by our artillery. Food stocks were running low, and it was clear the city could not hold out.

The magistrates had said they wished to sue for terms, but the commander of the Macedonian garrison would not permit it. When the magistrates had objected, the Macedonians threatened them. The Eretrians had had enough of it.

We learnt, too, that Philip had sent urgent messages ordering the Eretrians to hold out at all costs, saying he was sending a force to relieve the city. We doubled the watch on the northern coastal approaches, with scouts keeping watch from the forested high ground, and a few days later an advance party of Macedonians appeared on the road.

We were ready for them, and surprising them with a charge from the hills we drove them back. Old Attalos, though he was then in his seventieth year, rode in the vanguard, on a splendid white horse caparisoned in red. Lucius rode at his side.

But Doron, in spite of all he had said, was not there, for when the alarm had come, and the camp was abuzz with all the hum and rattle of an army preparing to march, he had developed a sudden stomach cramp. I heard him whining and simpering in Lucius’s tent. He suspected last night’s supper.

Lucius, grief-stricken, was sure the supper was the cause – though no one else had fallen ill – and ordered the camp surgeon to have a healing posset prepared and to sit with the boy. He would have remained behind himself, he said, except he would not leave all the glory to Attalos.

After that day the Macedonians remained at Chalkis and did not venture out again. Attalos, a shrewd old bird, made sure the Eretrians got to hear of it, and, soon after, the townspeople sent envoys to negotiate.

That same night, Attalos called us together. The city, he said, was ready to come over to our side. The only obstacle was the Macedonian garrison. ‘But the garrison is small, and the citizens are many. If we are wise, Eretria will fall into our hands without a fight.’

I shall not relate all that was said. In the end the common view was that we should give the magistrates of Eretria the assurances they asked for, and wait for them to admit us secretly to the city. In the meantime, we should do our best to spare the citizens, and not mount a full-scale assault on the walls.

I glanced at Lucius. He was not a listener by nature. Usually he was the first to make his views known, but tonight he was quiet. He stood biting his lip, as he did when his mind was working.

In the days that followed there was a slackening in the city’s defence.

It was nothing sudden, nothing the Macedonian garrison might notice. I was sharing my tent with Lamyros the ship-pilot. One night, past midnight, something woke me. I opened my eyes and listened, staring into the darkness.

Outside, near the tent, men were stealthily moving. I reached for my sword beside the bed.

‘Lamyros,’ I said in an urgent whisper.

He stirred in his bed, then jolted up. I silenced him with a gesture. We listened, then grabbing our weapons we rushed out, thinking the enemy had found a way into the camp.

But instead I saw our own men, a line of marines passing in the shadows along the outer path of the camp, carrying scaling-ladders and dressed for battle.

I found one I knew by name, and asked him what was happening.

‘Why, has no one told you, Marcus sir? We are going to take the city – a surprise attack . . . But what is it? Is something wrong?’

‘No, Tertius. Nothing’s wrong.’

I left them, hurriedly pulled on my clothes, then went looking for Lucius.

I found him standing outside his tent, dressed in his best parade- armour: a sculpted, gleaming, muscled cuirass; shining strap- buckles; a gold-studded sword-belt; and a crested helmet of combed red and white horsehair. Doron was at his side, got up in his strange uniform, trying to look like a soldier.

The night was dark almost to blackness. Lucius did not notice me till I stepped into the circle of light thrown by the cresset. Then, seeing who it was, he broke off from whatever he was saying to the boy and glared. He was trying to look fierce and challenging, but he had the look of a schoolboy caught stealing his neighbour’s apples. It was at that moment I knew for sure he had intended to deceive me.

‘Yes, tribune?’ he said coldly.

I asked him what was happening.

‘Is it not clear? We are taking the city.’

I glanced out across the plain, towards the camps of Attalos and the Rhodians. But I had already guessed what I should see. Here and there watchfires burnt, but otherwise all was still.

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘the city is ready to open its gates to us. It will be any day now. There is no need for this battle.’

‘Do not presume to tell me what is needed,’ he snapped. ‘If the city is ready to fall, then I shall take it.’

I lowered my eyes, lest he see the flaring anger in them. I was beginning to understand, and with that understanding came a dull, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was no oversight that I had not been told: he had kept his plans from me deliberately, thinking I would warn Attalos. He wanted the glory of taking Eretria for himself alone, whatever the cost in the citizens’ blood. The Eretrians had been led to believe we were their friends, ready to assist them against the Macedonian garrison. Because of that they had lowered their guard. Now all Lucius needed to do was pluck the ripe fruit from the tree. No wonder, I thought, he had put on his dress-armour. It would be as easy as taking a rattle from a baby.

Before the night was out Eretria had fallen. The terrified citizens, fearing they were about to be slaughtered, fled with their wives and children to their akropolis, where the temples were, and threw themselves upon the mercy of the gods. The Macedonian garrison, seeing they were surrounded and cut off even from the rest of the city, quickly gave themselves up.

But still Lucius was not content. At first light he went to the treasury, which the Eretrians keep in the temple of Apollo, and, finding it empty, demanded to know of the leading magistrate where he had hidden the gold and silver.

The terrified man answered that there was none, for Philip had taken it ‘for safe keeping’ to Chalkis.

‘You lie!’ shouted Lucius. He pushed the man roughly aside and went searching through the inner rooms of the temple, banging about among the jars and tripods and other sacred vessels. Then he began tapping the flagstones and walls, searching for a concealed vault.

As this proceeded, the rest of us stood outside in the porch, scarcely daring to look at one another, while from within we listened to Lucius’s curses and frustrated grunts.

Then suddenly, without warning, Doron, who was with us, rushed forward and gave the old white-bearded magistrate a vicious kick, yelling in his high-pitched voice, ‘You are a liar! Where have you hidden it?’

The poor man, who must have been four times Doron’s age, wrung his hands and pleaded he had told the truth. ‘Please, sir,’ he cried, abasing himself, ‘just ask anyone. We all saw the Macedonians take it away.’

I think he feared Doron was about to run him through with his showy new jewel-encrusted sword. In truth, I doubt he could have managed it. But before it came to this, I stepped up and put myself between them, and turning to the old magistrate, who was trembling and clearly expecting to die at any moment, I said, ‘Come sir, you have had a long night of it. I shall take you home.’

Needless to say, the man was telling the truth and Lucius found no treasure. But in his fury at being thwarted he ordered his quinquereme to be rowed into the city harbour, and I watched with the citizens and our allies as he set his men to loot every valuable thing that could be carried away.

The shrines and temples and galleries were stripped. Antique pictures were torn down from the walls of the public buildings and dragged along the streets. Bronze sculptures were sawn from their pedestals and piled up on the quayside like corpses. Tripods were taken from the temples; gilded wreaths from the altars. Even the houses of the citizens were ransacked, and their silver plate and precious cups piled up in barrows, and carted down to the waiting ship.

At one point, in the midst of this plunder, Attalos, standing some distance off with his generals, caught my eye and gave me a questioning, reproachful look. I shook my head, full of shame, hoping he would understand I had no part in it.

The worst, however, came from someone I did not know at all, an old Eretrian citizen who happened to be standing on a street corner.

Thinking I did not understand his Greek, he said to the man beside him, ‘You see, they are nothing but barbarians, just as Philip warned.

So much for our liberation. We have exchanged one tyrant for another.’

The Macedonian garrison was ransomed. The troops were stripped of their arms and allowed to depart for Boiotia.

That day, Lucius had gone off hunting in the forest with Doron, leaving me to oversee the embarkation of the men onto the transports.

The Macedonians were filing down the landing-pier, a long line of them, unwashed, dishonoured, sullen in defeat, with their heads bowed.

Beside me the captain of one of the transport ships was complaining, talking on and on, grumbling of the low fee Lucius had required him to accept.

Eventually I turned impatiently to him, and was drawing my breath to tell him for the third time there was nothing I could do, when in the corner of my eye I caught a sudden movement.

I looked round. Halfway down the pier one of the Macedonians, a hard-faced squad-captain with a grizzled beard and a deep rutted scar on his cheek, had turned seawards and was signalling discreetly to a comrade further down the line. Then he saw me, and quickly looked away. But it was enough to make me follow his gaze.

Out in the bay, in the middle distance, perhaps two furlongs off, a cutter had struck out from the shore, emerging from behind a low wooded promontory and rowing furiously. A man was standing in the bow.

I stared. Even from this distance I knew him. I should have known him anywhere.

‘Where did he come from?’ I shouted, rounding on the Macedonian captain.

But he merely glared at me, and shut his mouth firm.