A Captain of Thebes

by Mark G McLaughlin

  The Macedonians knew this was no rabble. Like themselves, these men of Thebes were soldiers, heirs to the legend built by Epaminondas and Pelopidas, raised on the gloried remembrances of victories at Haliartos, Coronea and Leuctra. Many were veterans who still rankled at their defeat by Philip and his son Alexander at Chaeronea three years ago. These men, sons, and grandsons, and great-grandsons of the dragon-sown men of old, came forward in grim silence. Like the fabled warriors of bronze who had painted the club of mighty Hercules on their shields, these common men of Thebes marched into the square, the crowd parting as a curtain upon the stage. In measured step they came, seeking not just to spill blood but also to reclaim their honor.

  In that narrow gateway, phalanx crashed into phalanx. Spears and pikes shattered on shields. Swords battered helmets and sliced at feet. Daggers sought for the slightest of openings in the great armored barriers – and where daggers failed, hands and fingernails and teeth bit and tore.

  A new wall formed, one built of the dead. Theban and Macedonian corpses were its stones, and their blood the mortar. Behind that horrible barrier the garrison eventually found desperately needed succor. The barricade of corpses blocked the path gateway just enough, just barely long enough, for the Macedonians to take one last step back. It allowed them the moment they needed for the great gates to be shut and barred, thus for the time being robbing the Theban hoplites of their final revenge.

  Or at least delaying it, for then began the siege of the Cadmea, a fortress within a fortress, a garrison surrounded by a city, a band of soldiers alone, waiting for salvation from a dead king – their cherished Alexander.

  2

  Pelion

  On the Border between Epirus and Illyria: (175 miles North of Thebes): The King's Tent

  “I told him that a king should lead and that he should command – but to charge up those heights, pike in hand like some common soldier, that was never my lesson!”

  “Langaros, do not blame yourself. Philip’s son was always headstrong. Remember that charge of his at Chaeronea, when he slaughtered the Sacred Band of Thebes?”

  “Aye, Philotas, the gods know he should have died that afternoon, the young fool, fighting at the front of the cavalry as he did. Philip was so proud of his boy that day.”

  “He would have been no less so this day, urging forward your Agrianian light infantry on one side of him and my phalangites on the other. We both did our best to guard him. Oh, King Langaros, what else could we have done?”

  “Had I been but two steps closer, General, perhaps I could have stepped between him and that Dardanian javelin…”

  “…and then it would have been your body here on the pallet for the priests to cleanse.”

  “So it should have been, Philotas, so it should have been.”

  “At least we have the field – and the heights. Alexander bought us those with his life. Now we have Cleitos shut up in the town, and we can begin a proper siege.”

  “To what end, Philotas? To what end? The king is dead. The army shaken, the commanders already bickering and scheming among themselves, each dreaming of marching back to Pella to take the crown for himself.”

  “Parmenion will never allow that. Nor will Olympias.”

  “Hah! Parmenion is old, a companion of one dead king, and now what, general to another royal corpse? The soldiers may respect him but that is all. As for the queen, Philip had already set her aside. If not for the sake of Alexander, they’d have killed the witch!”

  As the king of the Agrianian hillmen spat out that last word, a cold wind kicked up, nearly snuffing out the torches by which the apparently lifeless body of Alexander was illuminated. The whistle of the wind masked all other sounds, giving way only to the rustle of silk and the slight footfall of a woman entering the company of the mourning warriors.

  “King Langaros, think you I would die so easily?” said the woman, her accent thick and her tone as deadly as it was seductive. “The blood of the gods courses through my veins, as it does through those of my son.”

  “Majesty,” said the hill king, surprised, embarrassed, and wary at the sudden appearance of the storied mother of the young royal whose body lay still yet beautiful on the pallet. “We thought you in Pella, at court.”

  “What good would I do my son there?” replied the queen regally, gently folding back the hood of her cloak. “Alexander is at war, and boys who play at war oft have need of their mothers.”

  “I am afraid, my Queen, that your son is beyond such need.”

  “Why do you say such nonsense, Langaros? Look, here he is, sleeping sweetly before your eyes, waiting for me to wake him.”

  “Majesty,” interjected the general, his voice choked with sorrow, “he is not sleeping. He is dead. Even now the priests are preparing the bier so the army may pass in review, and the soldiers pay their last respects to their king.”

  “You are as much a child as ever, I see, my dear General,” chided Olympias. “You know nothing of me or of my son, let alone of his destiny or of the power that lies within us. Look upon his body with a more discerning eye and you will see that though his chest does not move, his color is not like that of a man whose soul has departed. I say he is not dead but merely asleep. Alexander has not left this world; he is still with us, dreaming of victories yet to be won, and of honors and glories soon to be showered upon him.”

  “Olympias,” sighed King Langaros gently, moving closer in an attempt to offer some comfort. “It is a great sadness to lose a child, but denying it will not undo the loss. Come, we shall find suitable quarters for you in the camp. Leave the priests to complete this last task for their king.”

  “No, Langaros,” replied Olympias calmly, yet with a forceful majesty in her voice that made Langaros quake. “It is these ignorant priests who must go. Have these charlatans leave me and my ladies in waiting to our task. General,” the queen added as she addressed Philotas, her voice royal and commanding, “have your men remove my son and place him in the royal pavilion. Surround it with a wall of men in armor, pikes held high and backs to the tent. Let none enter but me and my women.”

  “Majesty…”

  “You have your orders, General. I give them to you as your queen, not merely as the mother of Alexander. King Langaros, if ever you loved my late husband or my son, I ask that you, too, do the same. Protect the camp and the pavilion, and keep those bumbling, foolish priests away. Will you do this for me, and if not, will you at least do so for my son?”

  The king and the general looked at each other, both uneasy at their charge yet neither willing to further confront the chillingly beautiful and coldly calm woman who stood so imperially before them.

  “It shall be as you command, my Queen,” replied Philotas with a sigh.

  “My men, too, shall do as you ask, Olympias,” consented the Agrianian king.

  “Thank you both. Now go about your tasks as my women and I go about ours – and again I caution you, for your own sakes, see that we are not disturbed.”

  The pavilion into which the body of Alexander was carried was not overly large or richly appointed. It was the tent of a king but of a king at war, and of a young king at that, Spartan in its furnishings as would become a soldier more eager for battle than for comfort. Olympias lovingly daubed the now naked body of her son with scented oils, taking special care around the raw, reddish gaping mouth of a wound from which a deadly javelin had been pulled.

  “There, there, my sweet boy,” she murmured soothingly, tracing serpentine patterns on his arms and chest with first one oil then another from a chest of tiny vials. “Sleep while you can for now, for come the dawn you will never need sleep again.”

  As Olympias continued her ritual, her women began their appointed tasks, the younger ones stripping naked and writhing slowly, dancing methodically to music only they could hear. Other, older women brought forward baskets from which they coaxed snakes and serpents of varying sizes and hues. These they directed to the pallet upon which Alexander lay, guidin
g the larger to coil around his ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. The smaller, thinner snakes they helped to his mouth, to his wound, and to other openings and orifices, assisting them to slither on, around and into his now oddly warming corpse.

  Again and again the women went to the baskets, bringing forth more and more of the slithering monsters to cocoon and encapsulate the body in a glistening, moving shroud. Upon this quivering mass of man and monsters, Olympias drizzled yet more oils and slathered greasy unguents from small twisted jars, all the while chanting beneath her breath in a language neither Greek nor Macedonian. Sometimes singing, sometimes murmuring, but always speaking, she worked to draw life from the serpents back to her son.

  Slowly, steadily and methodically did the Queen of Macedonia work her magic, invoking names of gods and heroes and powers from ages long thought passed. As the moon crested in the night sky, she signaled silently to three of the young virgins of her party, each of whom then left the tent only to return moments later, leading three charges.

  The first led three black rams. The second led three young girls and the third, three young boys. All seemed oddly calm, dazed, and drugged as they were, their eyes rolling, their voices silent. Each woman motioned for her followers to kneel, as other matrons came forth with golden cups and knives, knives they used to open the veins of boys and girls and rams alike.

  As the cups filled, the young women handed them one at a time to the queen, who slowly poured the contents of each over the snake-encased body of the boy king. Over and over again did the women and the queen perform this ritual, until not a drop remained in any cup or sacrifice. The handmaidens removed the nine corpses just as the sun began to rise. Others of the ladies in waiting to Olympia then opened the eastern flap of the tent to allow the rays of the sun to enter and strike the writhing, slithering, blood-soaked mass that covered the boy king’s body.

  As the bright spears of the dawn's light struck, the serpents slithered away, seeking the warming rocks outside the tent.

  “Bring water, fresh, clean, clear water,” commanded the queen, no weariness but only certainty in her voice. As her women brought forth the great jars, the queen emptied yet more vials into them, swirled them about, and directed her ladies to bathe the body, cleansing it and the pallet of all traces of blood. As they finished, all could see Alexander's chest rise and fall, and his eyes move behind their closed lids.

  “He lives, my queen!” cried one of the handmaidens joyfully. “You have brought him back from the edge of the abyss!”

  Olympias allowed herself to shoot an uncharacteristic smile at the girl. Let the girl believe what she will believe, the queen thought to herself, and let her spread the tale far and wide. With each telling the legend will grow. They will think me powerful, and will come to fear me, and will think twice about challenging a woman who can bring a man back from death. Like Achilles reborn, they will believe him invincible, and to be both beloved of and protected by the gods – if not a god himself.

  “Now, my son,” said the queen sweetly, quietly and lovingly, “awake, and sleep never more.”

  3

  Thebes

  The House of Aristophanes

  “What do you mean, Alexander still lives?” demanded young Aristophanes of his captain. “Demosthenes of Athens himself sent us the news – confirmed news – of the boy king’s death! I heard it from a trader in the marketplace! He even brought forward an eye-witness, a runaway Macedonian soldier who saw Alexander fall to a barbarian blade during a battle up north!”

  “Well…” sighed Dimitrios, a captain of Thebes, as he came through the doorway into the drab, dimly lit, and nearly bare of furniture dwelling, “it seems that somebody got it wrong. And yes, there are still men in the agora who swear that Alexander truly is dead, his blood watering some Illyrian field. They say it is a different Alexander who wears the crown, a lesser Alexander, the son of Aeropos, a kinglet from Lyncestis or some other Macedonian pig-sty with delusions of city-hood. Others claim it is Antipatros or some other noble or prince who has taken command. But they seem too desperate to believe in their own lie – not that it matters. Whoever is leading that army, no Macedonian is going to take it kindly that we murdered their soldiers. They are going to want something for that insult, and my guess is that gold and apologies alone will not do it, nor will any excuses about being lied to by Demosthenes.”

  “Well, even if Alexander is alive,” said Aristophanes as he poured some cool water from a cracked earthenware jug into a chipped clay cup, “his army is stuck fighting those tribes, and it will be months or even a year before he can mount a major campaign on this side of Thermopylae.”

  “If only that were true, my friend,” said the captain.

  “What do you mean?” said Aristophanes, perplexed as he sat down on an old wooden chest, and bid his guest take his ease on a simple wooden stool, one of the few pieces of furniture in his small home in the center of Thebes.

  “Not only isn’t Philip’s curly-haired young pup dead in the north like some want to believe,” continued the captain – “he’s moving south – moving like Zeus’ own lightning. Whether he beat down or bought off the Illyrians, no matter how he did it, that war is done. And as for Thermopylae, well, our scouts report that he’s already cleared their hot springs. Alexander will be here within the week – and he won’t be alone. Word from Thessaly is he’s got Perdiccas’ with him…”

  Aristophanes could not help but shudder, spilling the water as he set the jug down on an uneven shelf. “Philip’s general? That means the Companion Cavalry, the royal guard pikes, and the hypaspistes, those nasty buggers, – the veteran infantry of the old tyrant’s army.”

  “Yes,” agreed the Theban captain, as he sipped gingerly from the cup, wiping away a dribble. “The same men who beat us before, at Chaeronea…”

  “Don’t remind me, I was there on that sad field…”

  “Aye, Ari, so you were. Even if you were too young to stand in the line, you were there doing your bit – and so were a lot of our friends…your father and brothers among them, the gods have mercy on their souls.”

  “Many of them still lay out there,” Aristophanes interrupted, “those whose bones were trampled under the hooves of Alexander’s Companion Cavalry. Wasn't even enough of them left to bury – or burn.”

  “Yes, right brutal bastard that Philip, he was, that old one-eyed gimp. Beat us right proper, he did. Then made us swear to recognize him as – what did he style himself – Hegemon of all Greeks. Imagine, a Macedonian barbarian claiming not only to be a Greek but also the embodiment of all that is Greek.”

  “Yes,” agreed the younger man, “and then as if that was not enough, he robbed us blind and stuck an army of occupation in our own citadel, on our own acropolis, just to make sure we did not forget our humiliation. I am glad somebody put a knife in the old bastard last year. Wish it had been me, or that I’d been there to see that.”

  “Well, it’s not the old lion we have to worry about now, but his son,” replied the captain. “But he’s brought with him that superb war machine his father built. A machine that has trampled the liberty of all Greeks, that has forced proud city states to kneel and pay homage to... to...to a bunch of unlettered sheepherders one generation removed from pure barbarism.”

  “And now it’s our turn, again?”

  “That is precisely why our elders have called us to arms,” Dimitrios replied, the sounds of such a gathering rising in the distance, in the street outside the humble house of Aristophanes.

  “Well at least we won't be alone,” said Aristophanes with confidence. “They say in the market that Demosthenes of Athens has put out the call to all of Greece to rise up against the tyranny of these foreign barbarians. I heard a rumor that he sent five talents – five – of his own money to pay for new arms and armor for our men.”

  “That will barely make up for what we lost after Chaeronea, especially after the elders take their cut...” snarked the captain, who took anothe
r sip of water. Aristophanes nodded in agreement with his captain's assessment, gave out a big sigh, and stood up to pace about the single room that was his family's home.

  “So how close is Alexander?” asked Aristophanes of his friend.

  “Well,” murmured the captain, pausing to scratch his head and to sift through the many rumors that had washed over him, “a fisherman from Lake Copais, up near Onchestos, brought his catch to the market this morning. He says there were some strangely attired horsemen poking around there yesterday – ‘foreign looking’ he said they were, with javelins, and shields, and…”

  “Lake Copais! Onchestos!” remarked Aristophanes, jumping upright with surprise. “That’s six miles from here – a morning’s stroll, even for an army of heavy infantry!”

  “Which are no doubt close behind those scouts. We’ve already doubled the force holding the palisade…”

  “You think that little hasty wall of dirt and stakes south of the city will stop Alexander?” asked Aristophanes rhetorically. “It was built to seal off the southern gates of the Cadmea, to keep what is left of the besieged garrison in, not to hold off a relief force coming from the outside.”

  “That’s why we need to strengthen it – and for that we need time,” Dimitrios explained. “That’s why I’ve come for you. I need you to spread the word, gather the rest of our company together. The general has already mounted up the cavalry and sent them out on the road to Onchestos. The light infantry are about to set after them, and at a run. We and a few other companies of heavy infantry are to follow. Add some punch to their little jabs, says the general. Or give them a base of support to rally back on, cover their withdrawal if they meet any serious opposition…”