A Choice of Destinies

by Melissa Scott

  Alexander’s scouts, shadowing the Roman army at a discreet distance, pushed close enough to see the signs of fresh-dug earthworks and raw timber, and turned at once to warn the king, still a day’s march to the south. Alexander listened to the scouts’ reports and cut off Craterus’s curses with an impatient gesture. “We push on,” he said, and smiled grimly. “We can’t give them time to finish their defenses.”

  Other scouting parties had reported a good, defensible campsite a few stadia south of the Roman position. It was just within reach of a long day’s march and Alexander ordered the army to push ahead.

  It was a hard march, as the king had expected. The Foot Companions and the three brigades of mercenary infantry struggled to keep the pace their officers set them, cursing the Romans and their own officers impartially. The cavalry, marching on foot to spare the horses, complained as bitterly. The sun had set before they reached the spot the scouts had selected. In the gathering dusk, many of the soldiers threw down their bedrolls where they could, not bothering to wait for the baggage carts and their tents, or even to establish a perimeter. Alternately cursing and cajoling them, the king shamed the front-rank men of Meleager’s brigade into setting a perimeter guard. Under the lash of Craterus’s scorn, his brigade took up the vanguard’s job of patrolling the campsite itself, shunting each new arrival into his unit’s traditional place. The Companion Cavalry, under Hephaestion’s iron control, set up its picket lines with more efficiency, but the other cavalry was less disciplined. A few foreign troopers tried to insinuate their horses into the Companions’ line, and quarrels and a knife-fight followed.

  It was fully dark before the worst of the confusion was brought under control. By then, all but the last stragglers had made their way into the camp. A gang of slaves and servants unloaded the baggage carts while file and half-file-leaders waited impatiently to retrieve their tents. Eumenes’s men had thrown up a cordon around the supply wagons, and the issue of rations was proceeding in a relatively orderly fashion. There would be no bread tonight—there had been no time to bake during the past week’s march—only grain for the universally detested porridge, supplemented by a handful of olives or a wedge of strong-smelling cheese. The soldiers grumbled, but took what they could get.

  Alexander, accompanied by only a page and a pair of troopers, made a final circuit of the camp, pausing at every campfire to tease the men into a better humor, consulting quietly with every officer he found, junior or senior. The march had tired him, too, and the weeks-old wound in his side ached abominably. By the time he had reached the Agrianians’ precinct, and spoke with Pithon, their gap-toothed commander, he could feel an oozing dampness, like sweat, beneath tunic and bandages.

  A fire was already burning in front of the king’s tent. A pair of pages tended it, supervising the slave who cooked for the royal household. The rest of the watch stood to attention under the outstretched flap that screened the doorway, and the senior page said quietly, “The generals are waiting, sire.” The words came out as a reprimand rather than the polite warning the boy had intended. Alexander gave him a sharp look, but nodded his thanks, and ducked into the tent.

  A few of the Friends were still missing—neither Hephaestion nor Menidas was present and Pithon had not yet settled his men to his satisfaction—but the rest of the generals had drawn their chairs into a wide circle around a cleared spot of ground. Amyntas and a second scout commander knelt between the chairs, scribbling in the dirt with lengths of stick. Two oil lamps gave an uneven light to their work.

  The pages had set out the high-backed chair the king had favored since being wounded. Alexander settled into it gratefully, murmuring a response to the generals’ greeting, and accepted a cup of watered wine from a slave. He kept his cloak pulled close around his shoulders, hiding any sign of fresh bleeding. The scouts, after a quick glance in the king’s direction, went on with their work, overturning an empty wine cup to represent Lanuvium.

  “Where are the others?” Alexander asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ptolemy said, and Perdiccas looked up, blinking even in the dim lamplight.

  “Last I saw, Hephaestion was down by the horse lines.”

  “I’m here,” Hephaestion said, from the tent flap. At the same instant, the senior page said, “General Hephaestion, sire, and General Menidas.”

  Both the newcomers were scowling as they found empty chairs, and the other generals eyed them warily. Craterus said, “Trouble?”

  Hephaestion made a face, and beckoned for the slave to bring wine. Menidas said, “Nothing too serious, just a fight on the horse lines that we had to sort out.”

  Craterus sneered faintly, but he was too tired to make a quarrel. Pithon arrived a few moments later, and, last of all, Polyperchon, whose brigade had had the rearguard. The scouts had nearly finished with their crude map, disputing in whispers over the placement of a few final lines. Once, Laomedon, who had been in charge of interrogating the few prisoners—mostly peasants pressed into service as guides—leaned over and made a low-voiced correction. Amyntas looked up at last.

  “This is what we saw, sire.”

  Alexander leaned forward, holding his cup in both hands. The movement set off a new pain in his ribs, as though he had been stabbed again. His hands tightened around the cup, the fragile gold bending under his hands. He took a careful breath, and the pain struck again, so sharply that it was an effort not to cry out. Across the circle of chairs, Hephaestion saw the convulsive movement of the king’s hands, and looked up. Alexander had gone suddenly pale, muscles of jaw and neck starkly apparent. The cavalry commander opened his mouth to ask what was wrong and Alexander stared him down. The pain eased, very slowly. After a moment, the king loosened his grip on the wine cup—it was no longer perfectly circular, but a slightly dented oval—and took a cautious breath. The pain was there still, but not as badly, and he forced himself to concentrate on what the scouts were saying.

  The other generals had noticed nothing. Amyntas swept his hand toward a cluster of pebbles that extended to both sides of the line marking the river, saying, “The hills aren’t too steep at first, but they look to rise pretty sharply once you re in among them.”

  “We couldn’t get too close,” interjected the second scout, Tauron of Larisa. “The ground’s very open all along the river, until you reach the hills.”

  Amyntas nodded. “The Romans are camped along the river here.” His hand swept out again, indicating two lines of twigs stretching from just below the pebbles almost to the end of the line that marked the river. “I assume that’s the ford, they were crossing freely along it. The banks looked fairly steep, and it looked like they were adding palisades on the low parts.”

  Craterus muttered a curse, tugging at his beard, and leaned forward to study the plan more closely. Alexander said, “Laomedon?” His voice sounded odd in his own ears, hoarse and strained, but none of the others seemed to notice.

  Laomedon, who had been trying to get a word in, gave the king a grateful smile. “The ford is only about a quarter of a mile wide—that’s a hair more than two stadia—but the river is passable for two stadia to either side of the ford.”

  “What do you mean, passable?” Craterus growled, and at the same moment, Perdiccas said, “You got this from those peasants we took? Were they telling the truth?”

  Laomedon said, with some dignity, “Each one told me the same thing, and they had no time to invent a common story. I think they were telling the truth.” He looked at Craterus. “I meant passable, Craterus. A man on foot can cross there, without too much risk of drowning. Downstream, the water runs waist-deep instead of knee-deep, and gets deeper. One old man said there were a crooked tree and a white rock for markers: you can cross below, but not above. Upstream of the ford, it’s no deeper, but the channel is narrow and rocky, and the current is fairly fast, coming out of the hills.”

  Craterus shook his head slowly, but said nothing more. A crossing under those conditions would be murderously difficult, imposs
ible for the phalanx to keep the line. And with the Romans waiting in prepared positions, there would be fierce fighting to secure a foothold on the bank before the real battle could begin. It would be like Issus, where he had lost nearly a hundred men from his brigade, only worse: the river here was deeper, and the Roman commander, unlike Darius, did not seem the kind of man to run away before the battle was over.

  Ptolemy rubbed at his forehead. “Is this the right place to meet the Romans?” he wondered aloud.

  “Is any place the right place?” Perdiccas jeered.

  Alexander, instead of answering, gestured for Eumenes to speak. The secretary smiled faintly, saying, “If we try to avoid battle now, and go southwest, we’re still blocked by the river, which doesn’t become any more fordable. And, of course, the Romans would simply follow along the river.”

  Ptolemy flushed angrily at the secretary’s tone, and Craterus said, “Get to the point, pen-pusher.”

  “North and east, we have to skirt that damn mountain,” Eumenes went on, a spot of color high on his sallow cheekbones betraying his own anger. “Not to mention a Roman city—or at least a Roman ally—and a second allied city somewhere on the northern side of the hills. Our best estimate is that it’s nearly four hundred stadia to Rome by that road, and only a hundred and seventy-five stadia from the Roman camp—”

  “I see,” Ptolemy said, still angry. The Romans could swing around the shoulder of the mountain, or even go through the hills—there were bound to be usable tracks—and intercept the Macedonian army at almost any point they chose. But another commander would have taken that chance. He looked at Alexander. “We’ll lose a lot of men here, Alexander. They’re bound to have pitted the ford, just for starters.”

  The king nodded, his face grim. “I know. But there’s also the supply problem.” His voice was still strained. Both Craterus and Ptolemy heard it this time, and looked oddly at the king.

  Hephaestion said, cutting off any comments, “What’s the river like farther down? Could a small party cross below their lines?”

  Amyntas said, “There’s not much cover along the banks, you’d have to go a long way to cross unseen.”

  Laomedon shook his head. “They say it’s been a dry winter,” he said slowly. “I suppose the horses could swim it, but the men would need rafts, or at least something to cling to. And the current is strong.”

  Hephaestion nodded, unobtrusively watching the king.

  Alexander took another careful breath, feeling the pain bite deep into his side. “Let that be a last resort, then,” he said. He started to lean forward and checked himself abruptly. “Ptolemy, you’ll have overall command of the phalanx, and the central brigade. Neoptolemus, the hypaspists will have the right wing, supported by the Companion Cavalry. I’ll ride with them myself. We’ll force a crossing, Neoptolemus, and establish a foothold for you.”

  The hypaspist commander nodded and the king went on, “I expect they’ll concentrate their light infantry in those hills—Pithon, it’ll be your responsibility to drive them back before we try to cross. The Paeonian horse will support you in that—in driving them back.”

  Ariston, the Paeonian commander, nodded cheerfully. It was generally agreed among the Friends that he was too stupid to know when an assignment was difficult or even impossible. He simply did exactly what he had been told, no more, and no less. Such stupidity—heedless bravery, the kinder called it—brought its own rewards: he had not only survived the Asian and the Greek campaigns, but had prospered from them. Alexander, who was well aware of the Paeonian’s faults, eyed him closely before continuing.

  “Craterus, you’ll have command of the left wing, which will be your brigade and the mercenary brigades. The rest of the line, left wing to right: Craterus, Meleager, Perdiccas, Ptolemy, Polyperchon, Coenus. The Companion Cavalry will also have the left wing. The rest of the light infantry and light horse—and your archers, Ombrion—will screen the phalanx as we advance.” Alexander glanced around the circle again. “Amyntas, I’ll want reports as soon as it’s light enough to see their line. The rest of you—this is only a preliminary disposition, I’ll probably want to change things when I see what the Romans have done, so be ready. We’ll take the advance very slowly, half the battle pace.”

  Ptolemy was nodding to himself, studying the plan. Craterus said, with a sort of grim satisfaction, “So the phalanx does the dirty work again.”

  Perdiccas snorted audibly, but said only, “It looks to me like our line might extend further than the passable area. What then?”

  “Deepen the files and cross upstream of Laomedon’s mark—”

  “A white rock, the old man said,” Laomedon interjected. “He said you couldn’t miss it.”

  Alexander nodded. There were other questions, more comments, but not many: the plan was clear enough and its dangers were enough to sober even the most optimistic commanders. One by one, the generals retired to their tents to brief their officers, and then to get as much sleep as they could before the battle. The Friends were the last to leave, Hephaestion lagging behind the others. Perdiccas held the tent flap open for him pointedly and Hephaestion said, “I’ve business with the king, Perdiccas.”

  “Oh, indeed,” the brigadier said with a knowing leer, and let the tent flap fall closed behind him.

  Left alone with the king, Hephaestion studied the other intently, noting how he held his right arm immobile, pressed tight against his side. Alexander leaned back against the back of his chair, grateful for its support. After a moment, he said, “What business?”

  Hephaestion said, “You’re bleeding again.”

  Before the king could answer, the tent flap was pulled back again, and a page entered carrying the king’s dinner. The corners of Alexander’s mouth turned down almost petulantly, and he gestured for the boy to take the tray on into the inner chamber. “Then leave us,” he added. When the page was gone, he said, “Yes, I think so.”

  “I’ll send for Philip.”

  “No.” Alexander stood up, wincing, then managed a pained smile. “It just needs to have the bandage changed, I’d rather you did it for me.”

  It was an appeal Hephaestion had never been able to refuse. Against his better judgement, he followed the king into the dimly lit bedchamber. Bagoas was busy with the steaming dishes, trying to present the stewed mess of porridge and onions and the slab of unpleasant-looking cheese as appetizingly as possible. He turned as the king entered, reaching for the wine jug, but the king waved him away and seated himself on the foot of the bed.

  Hephaestion said, “Bring fresh bandages.” Try as he might, he was never able to be anything but abrupt to the Persian. Bagoas gave him a cold glance from under delicately lowered eyelids, but did as he was told. Hephaestion unclasped the king’s cloak—there was only the faintest of stains on Alexander’s tunic, a good sign—then unfastened the pins that held the tunic’s shoulders together. Alexander grimaced irritably as the cloth fell free, revealing the bandages that circled his chest. There was a red stain about the size of a man’s palm on the cloth over the wound. Hephaestion shook his head.

  “I didn’t have time to have it seen to,” Alexander began, and broke off as Bagoas returned, carrying an armful of clean linen strips.

  Hephaestion grunted, unwilling to rebuke the king in the Persian’s presence, and very carefully began to loosen the layers of bandages. Alexander, wincing, lifted his right arm, supporting its elbow in his left hand. The last pad of cloth was stuck to the wound. Alexander’s expression did not change, but he hissed very softly between his teeth. Wincing in sympathy, Hephaestion turned to ask for a bowl of warmed water. Bagoas had it ready. The cavalry commander nodded his thanks, and, as carefully as possible, soaked the bandage loose. Alexander gave a short exclamation of pain, his whole body going rigid.

  Hephaestion cursed softly to himself and bent to examine the wound. Alexander’s side was heavily bruised; the wound itself was partly closed, the scabs new and shiny. It had broken open in two places, o
ne of which had already begun to close again, a new, dark scab forming on top of the older surface. The second break still oozed blood, and something white showed through the scab. Hephaestion sat staring at it for what seemed like a very long time, knowing perfectly well what it was. Philip’s warning—and his own fear—had come true. A piece of bone had broken loose from the cracked rib and had worked its way to the surface of the wound.

  “What is it?” Alexander demanded, between clenched teeth.

  “A bone chip,” Hephaestion answered flatly. “It’ll have to come out.”

  Alexander muttered something of startling obscenity, then said, bracing himself, “Do it, then.”

  Hephaestion braced himself as well, and took careful hold of the protruding sliver. There was barely enough showing above the surface for him to get a good grip; he squeezed it tightly between thumb and forefinger and tugged sharply. Alexander’s whole body jerked convulsively, but the king didn’t utter a sound. Hephaestion swallowed hard, overcoming his own revulsion, and pulled again, harder. The splinter stayed fixed for a moment longer, then, quite suddenly, tore free, bringing a piece of the scab with it. The wound was bleeding freely again, and Hephaestion whispered a curse, groping for the clean bandages. Bagoas put one in his hand, and Hephaestion wadded it hastily against the wound.

  The bleeding slowed fairly quickly, and Hephaestion hurriedly rewound the bandages, his eyes on the king’s face. Alexander was very pale, his mouth a tight, colorless line, eyes staring straight ahead at nothing.