A Choice of Destinies

by Melissa Scott

  Hephaestion paused in the doorway. The outer of the two rooms was very stuffy, the air heavy with the odor of singed bread and the stink of incense, both burned to disguise the stink of lamp oil. Apparently the pages had realized that neither tactic worked: the shutters stood open on the window that overlooked the stableyard, but the cold, lifeless air had not yet washed away the unpleasant smells. The cavalry commander shook himself and came fully into the room, saying, “Yes, she’s provided for.”

  The king gestured to the hovering page, who brought wine. Hephaestion accepted a cup and a handful of dried fruit, and went on, “I made some inquiries as well. She has quite a reputation among the men.” He looked inquiringly at the king, who nodded.

  “Go on.”

  Hephaestion took a swallow of wine. “She’s a Syrian,” he began slowly, “and, as best anyone can tell, she’s been following the army since we entered Babylon. No one knows her real name—she refuses to say if she even has one—but she answers to Pasithea. The men also call her Alecto, and she’s been left strictly alone since she cursed a man who promptly died in battle. She’s living now in the quarters of some Companion troopers, of Aristo’s squadron—I understand she takes up with soldiers as she pleases, brings them luck so long as they do what she wants. From everything I’ve been told, there’s not a man in the army who’d dare cross her, but I warned Socrates—Socrates son of Sathon, it’s him she’s living with—that she was under your protection.”

  “Good,” Alexander said. “And her present?”

  “She refused to take it until the danger is completely over,” Hephaestion said. “Her god forbids it.”

  Alexander shrugged, but accepted the excuse. “Do you believe in her now?”

  Hephaestion swirled the wine in his shallow, silver cup, and did not answer for a moment. There was less water in the mix than he liked for drinking in the middle of the afternoon, especially when there was good water available. “The stories are convincing enough,” he said, reluctantly, “but I’ve heard the same things about other fortune-tellers.”

  The king grinned. “Whom you trusted less?” His eyes shifted to the door, and he said, rather irritably, “What is it, Adaeus?”

  The page, a handsome, dark-eyed boy, bobbed his head in apology. “Your pardon, sire, but Metron son of Polystratus, file-leader of Nicomachus’s battalion, and Machaon son of Alexander of Mieza request an immediate audience.”

  Hephaestion looked up sharply. “Nicomachus—that’s part of Craterus’s brigade, isn’t it?”

  Alexander nodded, frowning. “Admit them.” Metron he knew, a reliable, undistinguished man, who had reached the rank of file-leader primarily by virtue of his herculean size, but the other name was unfamiliar. Then the door opened again, and Metron ducked into the room, looking even more ungraceful than usual. He was followed by a bearded man with the look of a merchant, a man whose clothes were badly travel-worn. Alexander eyed him uneasily, noting the outline of a dispatch bag beneath the stained cloak. “What is it?”

  Metron hesitated, and the king, following the direction of his eyes, frowned even more deeply. “Heiron,” he said, to the page hovering beside the wine table. “You may go. And you, Adaeus.”

  Both boys bowed and hastened away, exchanging glances, half frightened, half curious. Alexander gestured for the newcomers to seat themselves, and waited, leaning back in his chair.

  “News from Greece, sire,” Metron said at last, when the messenger said nothing.

  The king studied the two faces. Metron was nakedly afraid; the messenger, Machaon, was too exhausted to show open emotion. “How bad is it?”

  The messenger took a deep breath. “Very bad, sire.” He shook himself. “My name is Machaon son of Alexander, citizen of Mieza. I have dispatches from Antipater: the Greek cities are in revolt.”

  Alexander made a soft sound between his teeth. “Which cities?”

  “Sparta, Thebes,” Machaon answered. “Athens almost certainly by now, and with her the rest of the League cities.”

  “Gods, what an unholy alliance,” Hephaestion said. He jerked to his feet, unable to sit still any longer, and crossed to the window, pushing the shutters open even farther to drink in the cold air. “Has Antipater—?”

  Seeing some flicker of emotion in the messenger’s face, Alexander flung out a hand to silence his friend. “What else, Machaon?”

  The first of his news told without an explosive mishap, the messenger grew suddenly talkative. “The regent fought a battle, sire, and took heavy losses. He’s driven back into Thessaly. The generals in Asia have sent more men, but the allies are wavering, and the levies are too raw to be of much use.” He reached beneath his cloak, and brought out the bulging dispatch bag. “The regent sends you these.”

  Alexander took the bag, snapping the brittle seal. “Who else knows of this?”

  It was Metron who answered this time. “Only myself, sire, and maybe my file. But all they know is there are letters from the regent. I brought him here at once, not talking to anyone else, as soon as he said it was urgent.”

  The king nodded to himself. Hephaestion said, “So we have a little time.”

  Alexander nodded again. “Metron, you’ve done well. Go back to your file now, and see that they keep quiet about this. I know I can trust you not to repeat anything you’ve heard.”

  “By the Styx,” Metron answered promptly, the most binding oath he knew.

  Alexander smiled. “Good man.” His smile faded abruptly. “Adaeus!” There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs, a pause as the page hesitated in the face of Metron’s bulk, and then the boy appeared in the doorway.

  “Sire?”

  “Have Chares send runners for Craterus, Ptolemy, and Perdiccas. And Peucestas. They’re to come at once, whatever they’re doing.” The page nodded, but Alexander was staring through him. “Then send Proxenus to me.” He would have preferred Polydamus, who was the most reliable of his agents, but Polydamus was currently employed inspecting the line of forts being built to hold the northern border against the marauding Scythians.

  “At once, sire,” the page said, and hurried away again.

  Hephaestion leaned against the windowframe, watching the king unroll the first of Antipater’s letters. In the sudden silence he could hear the sound of the Foot Companions at their interminable pike-drill, a battalion captain shouting the cadence. Beneath that, very faintly, came the sound of the Bactra market, a murmur of many voices, like the noise of distant waves. The news was very bad. If Antipater was really driven back into Thessaly, that was the war half lost already—and the letter had to be at least five months old. Hephaestion shook himself. Antipater had been one of Philip’s chosen generals, he would know how to recoup his losses… But Alexander had stripped Macedon bare of soldiers the previous spring. Antipater’s troops would be the half-trained levies, while the cities would have the experienced men who had served as the League’s troops to draw on. Hephaestion glanced quickly at the king, and saw from his face that it was true. The terms of the treaty that created the Greek League had been clear: each city was obliged to supply troops to the Hegemon Alexander only so long as the Persians remained undefeated. With Darius’s death and the defeat of Bessus, Alexander was unquestionably Great King, master of the Persian empire, and had felt obliged to keep the treaty and send the majority of the foreign levies home. But those troops had been hostages for the good behavior of their parent states; with them home again, the cities had felt no compunction about rebellion.

  Hephaestion pushed himself away from the window and poured a cup of wine for the messenger, who drank thirstily. One unit alone had been deemed too dangerous to allow to return, but that single act of good sense seemed not to have done any good. “It’s the Thebans that worry me,” he said aloud, and reached for the first scroll that lay discarded on the table.

  Alexander nodded without looking up: as always, Hephaestion’s thoughts had matched his own.

  “Sire?” Adaeus stood in the door
way again, looking around nervously. “Proxenus is here.”

  “Admit him,” Alexander said.

  Proxenus shouldered past the page, a stocky, lightweight man who moved like a fighting-cock. He glanced quickly from king to messenger to hovering general, summing up the situation, but said only, “Trouble, sire?”

  “Trouble enough,” Alexander answered, setting aside the last of the scrolls. “I want you to pick out a couple of your men, men who know how to keep their mouths shut, and set a watch on the Thebans. They’re not to know they’re being watched, either. If there’s anything at all out of the ordinary, I want to know about it. You lead them.”

  Proxenus nodded, thoughtfully. If there was time enough for secrecy, then things weren’t desperate; still, he looked curiously at the scrolls discarded on the table.

  Seeing the look, Alexander said, “There’s trouble in Greece, Proxenus—which isn’t public knowledge yet, and I don’t want it to be.”

  Proxenus pursed his lips in a soundless whistle of comprehension. “I understand, sire,” he said. “I’ll get on it at once.” Then he was gone, clattering down the stairs.

  “Let’s hope there’s such a thing as a soldier who won’t talk,” Hephaestion said sourly. He remembered Proxenus from his own boyhood, and not fondly.

  Alexander said, “He’ll find some, or gag them himself.”

  Hephaestion grunted dubiously, but turned his attention to the scroll in his hands. The news was even worse than the messenger had said: not one defeat, but two. Antipater had tried to recoup the first losses by bringing out the levies, hoping to crush the Greeks by sheer weight of numbers. It should have worked—would have worked if it had been hoplite against Macedonian phalanx. But Antipater had found himself up against the regiments of the League, not trained to the phalanx themselves, but not afraid of it, either. Experience had told: the levies had broken, hundreds were killed fleeing, and in the aftermath Antipater had lost his hold on the Greek city-states. Mazaeus, the satrap in Babylon, reported that he and the commanders in Asia, Antigonus, Seleucus, and the rest, had sent reinforcements, but had few men to spare. “Gods,” he said softly, “this must be three, four months old, too.”

  The king nodded his agreement. “But Antipater holds Thessaly, and will. Thessaly hates the League—and there are enough small cities who fear Athens and Thebes more than they fear us.”

  The door opened again, and Adaeus said, “Pardon, sire. The generals are here.”

  “Show them in.” Alexander collected the last of the scrolls from Hephaestion and set them together on the wine table.

  Predictably, it was Craterus, muffled to the eyes in a showily woven cloak, who pushed his way in first. “What’s going on now, Alexander? That brat wouldn’t say a word—”

  “He wasn’t supposed to,” Hephaestion said, quite audibly, and was instantly ashamed of himself. By way of apology, he began to pour wine for the newcomers, first adding more water from the silver pitcher.

  Alexander said, “News from Greece.”

  Ptolemy lifted his head sharply. “Bad news?”

  The king gestured to the scrolls. “Bad enough. Sparta and Thebes have risen, and they’ve beaten Antipater.”

  Ptolemy’s heavy eyebrows rose, and he reached hastily for the letters. Perdiccas whistled sharply, running a hand through his sandy hair.

  Craterus, his annoyance abruptly quelled, tugged thoughtfully at his chin. “Where they go, Athens follows,” he said, “especially with the old man beaten.”

  Peucestas’s hand tightened visibly on the walking stick he affected along with the rest of his Persian dress. With an effort, he relaxed his grip and set the stick against the wall, wiping a suddenly sweaty palm on the skirts of his coat. “How old are the letters?”

  Alexander glanced at the messenger, who was asleep, head resting on his folded arms. Craterus snorted, following the direction of the king’s gaze, and stretched out a long arm to shake the messenger. The man started and sat up, looking around wildly.

  “Sire—sirs. I—beg your pardon, sirs.”

  “Just a few questions,” Alexander said. “Then you can rest.”

  The man looked desperately tired. Ptolemy looked up from the second dispatch long enough to push his own cup toward the man. “Here, drink up.”

  The messenger took it gratefully, drained the cup, and poured himself another without being told. The king waited until he had finished that before asking, “How long were you on the road?”

  “Three months, sire, and a little more.” The wine had brought brief color to Machaon’s sunken cheeks, but it was clear the effect would not last. “But I came from Babylon. The man who brought these had come by sea, maybe two months’ journey…”

  “Was there any other news?” Ptolemy asked, setting aside the first scroll.

  The messenger shook his head. “No, sir, only rumors. They were saying Athens would join the rebels—”

  “Probably already has,” Craterus muttered.

  “But Antipater was still in Thessaly,” Alexander said.

  “Yes, sire.”

  “He’s surely back in Boetia by now,” Perdiccas said, but his tone was less certain than his words.

  Craterus picked up the scroll Ptolemy had discarded. “I told you you shouldn’t send any of our so-called allies home, Alexander.”

  Hephaestion stirred, but Peucestas spoke first. “The terms of the League—”

  “Be that as it may,” Alexander said, rather sharply. “It’s the allies still with us that worry me.” He glanced at the messenger, who was drowsing again. “Metron—your man, Craterus, the file-leader in charge of the gate watch—had the sense to bring him here directly, without letting him talk to the file.”

  “I’m surprised he had the brains,” Craterus muttered.

  “And I’ve set men to watch the Thebans,” the king went on as if no one had spoken.

  Ptolemy grunted his agreement. “What about the other foreigners?”

  Hephaestion said, “The Allied Horse have been brigaded with the Companions since we came into Bactria. I can vouch for them—so will Erigyius.” Erigyius was another of the king’s Friends, who held overall command of the mix of Greek mercenaries, Thracians, and Scouts who made up the light cavalry.

  “You can’t tell how they’ll react when it’s their city or Alexander,” Craterus said. He looked at the king. “I’d’ve said the same thing about the infantry; I had them for six months against the damned Sogdians, but against their own city? It’s not a chance I’d take, Alexander.”

  “I don’t know,” Perdiccas said. “The ones who stayed—it was their choice, and they’re the young ones, anyway. They’d rather be lords of Persia. The ones to worry about have already gone home.”

  “Except for the Thebans,” Peucestas said.

  “Right,” Craterus said. “You can’t take chances with them, Alexander. That’s the Sacred Band, they’re for Thebes first, last, and always. I say, take a couple of brigades of hypaspists down there—now, before word can spread—and kill them all.”

  Hephaestion and Peucestas started to protest at the same moment, and stopped in confusion, each gesturing for the other to speak. Into the silence, Ptolemy said, “It might not be the worst thing, but if we did that, we’d have to consider the rest of the foreign troops.”

  “Thebes broke the treaty, and the Sacred Band was the hostage for their good behavior,” Craterus said. “The king has a perfect right to kill them.”

  Perdiccas shook his head thoughtfully. “It’s too dangerous. Suppose it got out of hand?”

  Hephaestion said, “You really think the other mercenaries would listen to that sort of logic? We can’t afford to frighten them into a mutiny.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Craterus snapped. “Three hundred top fighting men—do you want to try keeping them under house arrest until they’ve proved their loyalty? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Alexander looked away from the argument, shutting out the rising voices. The
Sacred Band, hostages for Thebes’s good behavior, were the immediate danger, and, obstinately, he refused to consider the other obvious consequence of the revolt. The Band could be destroyed, despite its deserved reputation, but it would be a waste of good men, both the Thebans and his own troops. More than that, it would be an admission that he could not hold their love.

  “Peucestas.” The king did not raise his voice, but the wrangling stopped instantly.

  “Yes, Alexander?”

  “If the League cities are smart, they’ll try to cause me trouble in Asia. I want Darius’s kindred watched, very discreetly. You deal best with the Persians, you handle it.” Without waiting for Peucestas’s murmured acknowledgement, the king went on, “Craterus, inform your watch commanders of the rebellion, and have them keep a special eye on the foreigners in the city. I’ll speak to the army as a whole in the morning. Perdiccas, I want your men under arms as well, just in case. I don’t care what excuse you give them.”

  “Surprise maneuvers,” Perdiccas muttered, and Craterus said, “I’ll see to it at once, Alexander.”

  “Ptolemy, I want you to take care of him.” Alexander nodded at the messenger, asleep again and forgotten. “See that he gets the rest he needs, and a good meal, but when he’s rested I want everything he knows about the rebels.”

  “All right,” Ptolemy said. He hesitated briefly, gauging the king’s mood, then added, “And the Sacred Band?”

  “I’ll deal with them,” Alexander said.

  Hephaestion, recognizing the tone, looked up quickly, but the expression on the king’s face silenced his half-formed protest. Alexander’s normally ruddy complexion had gone pale, and his mouth was set in a familiar, grim line.

  “Alexander,” Craterus began, then, seeing the king’s anger, shook his head slowly and beckoned to Perdiccas. Ptolemy shook Machaon awake, then, with Peucestas’s help, eased the messenger down the stairs.