A Choice of Destinies

by Melissa Scott

  “Get some wine,” Hephaestion said to Bagoas, and gently eased the king’s tunic back up over his shoulders. “Neat.”

  The Persian did as he was told, returning in an instant with a cup of the syrupy liquor. Alexander drained it in two swallows, and whispered, “More.”

  Bagoas brought a second cup. Alexander took another swallow, then set the rest aside. Color was returning to his face, staining his broad cheekbones. Seeing that, Hephaestion said, “You should have Philip to see to this.”

  Alexander shook his head and managed a rueful smile. “And have him tell me I shouldn’t fight tomorrow? It would only worry him.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t fight,” Hephaestion said.

  “How can I not?” Alexander asked, smile widening.

  Hephaestion shook his head, but returned the smile. Other kings had avoided battle when they were wounded, but not Alexander—never Alexander. The suggestion had hardly been worth making.

  He remained with the king a little while longer, until Alexander’s face returned to its normal ruddy color, and the king seemed to be moving with less pain. Only then did he start back to his own tent.

  Pasithea was crouched beside the doorway of the king’s tent. Hephaestion, heedless in his own exhaustion, nearly tripped over her. A page’s soft exclamation warned him and he just managed to avoid her huddled form. The sudden noises woke the Syrian and she blinked at the cavalry commander, smiling sleepily up at him. Hephaestion stared back at her, overcome by nameless fears. To quiet them, he said, “No trouble, is there, mother?”

  The Syrian blinked at him and Hephaestion was suddenly aware of the pages, hanging on every word. He waved them off, glaring, and dropped down beside the seeress. She sat up fully then, drawing her layers of clothing around her. She looked a little cleaner than she had in Asia, but a sharp, animal smell still rose from her.

  “Have you had more warnings, Mother?” Hephaestion asked again, lowering his voice discreetly.

  Disconcertingly, Pasithea giggled. “And if I had,” she whispered, “you would not believe in them, I know.” Then her feral face softened slightly. “No, no warning, not for the king. But I’ll watch the night out and that will be for luck.”

  “The gods send us luck,” Hephaestion said, more devoutly than he had spoken in a long time, and pushed himself to his feet. “Gods know, we’ll need it.”

  A Choice of Destinies

  Chapter 8:

  Latium, winter (Peritios), 31 imperial (325 B.C., 428 A.U.C.)

  The scouts were on their way well before dawn, so that they would be in a good position to take a final look at the Roman lines by first light. The rest of the army was roused a little later, file-leaders and half-file-leaders kicking their protesting men out of tents and bedrolls. The men armed themselves in the half-light, exchanging grim estimates of the probable Roman strength, and ate the meager, cold breakfast issued them. Even before they had finished, the file-leaders were moving among them again, ordering the tents struck and returned to the baggage carts. Infantry and cavalry obeyed, cursing. The carts and the camp followers, already grown to a fairly sizable train, would remain at the campsite, guarded by a skeleton detachment made up of the engineers, most of the royal pages, and a scratch battalion of older soldiers and semi-invalids.

  The king was awake early, too, snatching his own breakfast while the pages armed him. He was wearing a bell corselet now, front and back each cast in a single piece, rather than the segmented corselet that had broken outside Neapolis—the old-fashioned bell corselets were enjoying a sudden vogue in the Macedonian army—and he settled the increased weight more comfortably across his shoulders, shifting his own weight automatically to help the pages pulling on the sock-like underboots and fastening the stiff greaves. His wound was less painful now that the splinter had been removed, settling to a nagging ache that he could easily ignore, but there was an odd, indefinable weakness. Alexander stood very still for a few moments even after the pages had finished arming him, trying to analyze it, then shook himself and shouted for a groom to bring his horse.

  The army was slowly sorting itself out, the soldiers milling about in the open space between the king’s tent and the portable altar where the sacrifices would take place. As the king emerged from his tent, there was a cheer from the nearest squadron of Companions, quickly echoed up and down the line of soldiers. Alexander acknowledged it with a wave of his hand and beckoned for the groom to follow him. The two senior pages chosen to accompany the king into battle, as bodyguards and messengers, exchanged proud, frightened glances, and flung themselves onto their saddlecloths. Other pages handed them the king’s helmet and lance, then stood staring enviously after their fellows.

  As was only fitting, Alexander approached the altar on foot, his escort following at a discreet distance, but nothing could prevent the battalions’ cheering as he passed. The king acknowledged the shouts with a lifted hand and called his own greetings to those within earshot. The excitement was contagious. The rush of emotion, joy and terror mixed, drove away any lingering remnants of the odd weakness that had gripped him earlier. Hephaestion, trying to gather his personal squadron and listen to the complaints of other squadron leaders, saw the change come over the king, and shook his head in fond amazement. He himself was coldly terrified—as always before a battle—and controlled his fear only with an effort. For Alexander it was different, incomprehensibly so. Hephaestion shook his head again, and turned his attention to his own people.

  Aristander, the chief augur, was waiting beside the altar, several lesser seers hovering respectfully at his shoulder, but there was no garlanded sheep waiting for the sacrifice. All the captured livestock had gone to feed the army. There was wine, however, and incense in quantity. Alexander poured generous quantities of both—the incense sending thick, blue clouds into the augurs’ faces—making the ritual prayers to the gods of his house, to Zeus the King, to Athena the war goddess, then to his own god Zeus Ammon and the ancestors of his house. He stepped back from the altar then, and in that instant the sun rose over the horizon, highlighting him against the smoke still billowing from the altar.

  There was an awed murmur from the watching soldiers, and Aristander shouted into it, “The gods show the sign of their favor. The gods are pleased.”

  The murmuring swelled to a full-throated cheer. In the center of the column, Perdiccas caught at Hephaestion’s foot. The cavalry commander leaned close and Perdiccas said, “I hope Alexander pays him what he’s worth.” Even his voice was less skeptical than usual.

  Hephaestion, despising himself for the sudden shiver of superstitious fear, shrugged, and shook himself free of the brigadier.

  After such a favorable omen, it took less time than usual to form the army into marching columns. Alexander and his personal squadron of Companions rode at the head, the king and his suite riding a little apart from the rest of the troopers. As they approached the river and the Roman position, scouts began to trickle back in. Some of the squadrons had seen hard fighting already; all brought bad news. The Romans had worked like slaves through the night, and had come very close to finishing their defenses. There were lightly armed troops throughout the hills on both sides of the river—it was those troops who had inflicted such losses on the scouts—but most of those men did not seem to be Romans. Amyntas, who had lost nearly half his squadron and been wounded himself, had nevertheless managed to secure a prisoner and bring him back alive. Under rough questioning—there was no time for subtlety—the man admitted to being an Ardean and that two legions were made up of troops from the smaller Latin cities dominated by Rome, but either would not or could not tell anything else of use. Alexander, already contemplating altering his dispositions, filed the information.

  The Romans were well aware of the Macedonian advance. Fabius waited until he had heard that the scouts’ probes had been driven off, then made a final circuit of his own lines. Roman and allied legions alike seemed ready, waiting at ease behind their rough palisades. The
light infantry, a mix of allies and poor Romans who could not afford the heavy panoply of a true legionary, were ready, too. They set up a quick cheer at the consul’s approach, and Fabius, touched by the unexpected show of affection, spent some minutes reminding them to be careful passing through the pitted ford. His own right wing extended some distance beyond the passable section of the river, in hopes of luring unwary Macedonians into the deep water. Before he could reach those troops, however, a gasping runner overtook him and informed him that the Macedonian skirmishers were in sight. The consul ordered that message passed to all the commanders, and hurried back to his own place with the central legion.

  The Macedonians advanced very slowly, well screened by the light infantry and cavalry. Alexander listened to the reports brought by the runners who marched with those troops, and then made his own necessarily brief reconnaissance. The Roman position was even stronger than he had expected, particularly on their left wing, where a horde of skirmishers and light cavalry anchored the Roman line against the foothills of the Alban mountain. The generals, gathering for the last time to listen to the scouts’ final reports, drew the same conclusions. They stood murmuring together, shaking their heads, and watched the king.

  Alexander barely seemed to hesitate. His right wing could not strike the decisive blow, as planned, until—and unless—the Roman skirmishers were cleared from the hills to let the cavalry and the phalanx cross the river. The left wing, then, would have to carry the weight, for all that the terrain was against it. He lifted his arm, beckoning to the waiting officers. “Erigyius, Hephaestion,” he said. The two men spurred close, waiting for their orders.

  “The Thessalians will take the right wing,” Alexander went on. “Hephaestion, the Companions will have the left.”

  Both commanders nodded—there was still time to make those changes—and waited for the rest. Alexander smiled unexpectedly, and Hephaestion bit back an exclamation, recognizing that expression. Craterus, crowding close to demand more of Ombrion’s archers to deal with the Romans in the hills, recognized it too, and fell silent, one hand lifted absently to ward off Erigyius’s excited bay.

  “Pithon,” Alexander began, and looked around for the Agrianian. “Ariston?” A moment later, Pithon shouldered his way through the cluster of officers, but the Paeonian commander was nowhere to be seen. Alexander shrugged to himself—it was unlikely Ariston would be capable of appreciating the minor change in his orders in any case—and turned to the Agrianian.

  “There’re more skirmishers than we thought. It’ll be a hard fight to clear them but it’s more important than ever.”

  Pithon gave the king a broad smile, showing broken teeth. “Never worry, sire, we’ll deal with these barbarians, too.”

  Alexander nodded his acknowledgement and turned his attention to the cavalry surrounding him. “Tyrimmas,” he said, and, when there was no immediate response, said, “Pass the word for him. The rest of you, everything else stays the same—except, Hephaestion, I am taking three squadrons, my own, Hegelochus’s, and Peroecles’s, to cross the river below their battle line, and take them on their right flank.”

  Hephaestion began, “That leaves me only seven squadrons, Alexander—” and then Tyrimmas appeared, forcing his dun gelding through the crowd.

  “Sire?” the scout asked.

  Craterus said, “Alexander, the river’s impassable.”

  “Not for horses,” Alexander answered, still smiling, and glanced at the scout. “You said horsemen could get across below Laomedon’s mark?”

  “Yes, sire,” the scout said, his face suddenly impassive beneath his helmet.

  “Then we do it,” Alexander said. He looked around at the waiting faces, staring down any possible opposition. “Is that clear?” There was a murmur of agreement, and the king beckoned to one of the pages. “Fetch Hegelochus and Peroecles.”

  “At once, sire,” the boy answered, and rode away.

  Craterus nodded slowly to himself, not daring to exchange looks with the other infantry commanders. It was a dangerous move but at least it would take some of the burden off his own men. Everything would depend on Alexander’s party being able to cross without attack from the Romans: if the Roman cavalry spotted his move and brought their own horsemen downriver to counter it, not even Alexander would be able to force a passage.

  The pages returned with the two squadron leaders. Hastily, Alexander explained the change in plan, not minimizing the risks, but infecting them with his own enthusiasm and certainty of success. “We’ll go now,” the king finished, and glanced for a final time at the other commanders. “Take your time getting into position. We’ll cross as quickly as we can to relieve you.”

  There were neither protests nor comments, only grim agreement. Alexander smiled brilliantly at them all, then held out his hand for his weapons. The older page, Adaeus, instantly produced the king’s double-plumed helmet. Alexander settled it into place, and took his lance from the second boy. It was a new lance, and seemed heavier than it should be. Alexander hefted it curiously, then put the thought aside.

  “Tyrimmas, you’ll guide us,” he said. “The rest of you, follow me.”

  The horses moved off at a walk, Hegelochus and Peroecles shouting for their squad leaders to close up and join them. As the horsemen sorted themselves out, and the squadron leaders passed the word of their new mission, the king picked up the pace, until the horses were moving at a bone-jarring trot. They swung wide to the south, keeping well out of the Romans’ sight.

  Hephaestion watched them go, shaking his head unhappily. After the king’s wound had broken open the night before, he wished that Alexander had sent some other commander—himself, for instance—to manage the crossing. There was too much danger of tearing it open again, of fresh bleeding… The cavalry commander shut that thought away with his other fears, and wrenched his horse around, heading back toward the rest of his men. Erigyius gave him an ironic salute as he passed, shouting, “I don’t envy you my job, Hephaestion.”

  Hephaestion returned the gesture. He himself did not envy Erigyius the job of forcing a crossing on the right wing, but was not about to say so. The Companion squadron leaders were waiting for him, already warned that something was up. Tersely, the cavalry commander explained the change in plans, and the squadrons began to move, swinging around behind the coalescing phalanx. They marched in parade order, horses prancing excitedly. The Thessalians, passing behind them with the same parade-ground precision, lifted their lances and shouted cheerful insults. Then the maneuver was complete, the depleted Companions now stationed on the left flank, the Thessalians on the right.

  From his place in the center of the phalanx, Ptolemy saw the signals that indicated the cavalry was in place again, and signalled for the phalanx to speed up its advance. He did not dare move too slowly, least the Romans learn that something was up, but at the same time he had no desire to close too quickly… From the front ranks of Roman skirmishers came a sudden shouting, and, faintly, the musical sound of metal against metal: the battle had begun. There was more shouting from the far right wing as the Agrianians made contact with the Roman skirmishers in the hills.

  The phalanx continued its steady advance in silence. The skirmishers pressed forward ahead of them. Then, almost at the last minute, the Thracians’ commander gave the signal to retire. The phalanx opened ranks to let them through, the movement precise as a drill, then closed up again. The light cavalry wheeled right as planned, moving to reinforce the Agrianians and Paeonians. The Roman skirmishers, raggedly-clothed men armed with spear and shield, with only a wolf-skin cloak for protection, gave way slowly before the phalanx. At the river’s edge, they paused abruptly to release a flight of javelins, sowing gaps all across the Macedonian front. Craterus ducked behind his shield as a spear whistled past, and heard a shout of fury from the man at his left. He turned quickly, and saw the file-leader tugging frantically at the spear embedded in his shield. The metal shaft bent under his tugging, and the man stopped abruptly,
cursing, fumbling with the straps of his shield. His sarissa wavered wildly, a danger to his neighbors.

  “Get out of the line, you,” Craterus shouted. “Second-rank man, take his place.”

  The file-leader dropped back, still cursing vilely. Ahead, the Roman skirmishers darted back through the water, dodging this way and that to avoid the pits that half blocked the ford. Perdiccas, whose brigade faced the ford itself, cursed bitterly to himself, and shouted, “Watch where they go, men, and follow them.”

  The shout was echoed by the battalion commanders of the brigades that faced the pitted ford, less as a real order than to reassure themselves that there were safe passages left. Ptolemy glanced up and down his line. The second- and third-rank men had closed the gaps opened by the Roman javelins; on the right, the Agrianians and Thracians seemed to be holding the Roman light troops, clearing the river banks for the hypaspists and the Thessalian cavalry. There was nothing to be gained by waiting. He took a deep breath and gave the war cry. The phalanx surged forward, dropping down the low bank and into the water, knee-deep only at the ford. The formation wavered and loosened as men floundered in the water, stumbling and cursing as they fought to avoid the pits.

  On the left wing, Hephaestion urged his horse into the water, careful to keep upstream of the white rock—as Laomedon had promised, it was impossible to miss that landmark—and shouted for his squadron to follow him. The horses fought their riders, snorting and blowing as the chill water rose over their knees. The current tugged at the riders’ feet; upstream, the first file-leader stumbled and fell in the waist-deep water, was swept downstream to fetch up, gasping, against the legs of Hephaestion’s horse. The Romans, watching from the far bank, gave a derisive cheer. Hephaestion cursed them bitterly, and bent from his saddle to drag the trooper to his feet.