The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  Stones and shale fell rattling on the road, dislodged by scrambling men. Thoas at the escort’s head shouted out, “Ware thieves!”

  The men reached the road, thirty or forty or them, on foot, with spears. Among them the escort looked what it was, a troop of willing, confused old men. Those who had ever fought had done it in Philip’s wars. But they were true Macedonians, with the archaic virtues of the liegeman. They shouted defiance, and thrust at the bandits with their spears.

  The squeal of a wounded horse echoed against the rocks. Old Thoas fell with his mount; a huddle of men closed stabbing over him.

  There was a high shout, a wordless “Hi-yi!” of challenge. Kynna leaped down from the cart, Eurydike beside her. Their spears had been at hand; with practiced speed they had kilted their skirts into their girdles. With their backs to the cart, which rocked with the shifting of the frightened mules, they stood to face the enemy.

  Eurydike felt a shiver of exultation. Here at last was war, real war. Though she could guess the consequence of defeat if they were taken alive, it was mainly a good reason for fighting well. A man reached out at her, fair-skinned, with a week’s red stubble on his chin. He had on a hide cuirass, so she went for his arm. The spear sunk in; he leaped back crying out, “You hell-cat!” grasping the wound. She laughed at him; then realized with a sudden shock that here, in Lydia, a bandit had spoken Macedonian.

  One of the lead mules, hurt by a spear, suddenly squealed and leaped forward. The whole team bolted, the cart bucking and bouncing behind. It struck her, but she just kept her feet. There was a cry beside her. Kynna had fallen; she had been braced against the cart when it moved off. A soldier was leaning over her with a spear.

  A man came forward with upheld hand. The men around her withdrew. It grew quiet, except for the struggling mules which had been pulled up by the soldiers, and the groans of three of the escort on the ground. The rest had been overpowered, save for old Thoas, who was dead.

  Kynna moaned; the almost animal sound of a warmblooded creature struggling in pain to breathe. Her breast was stained with red.

  Eurydike’s first impulse was to run to her, take her in her arms, entreat the bandits for mercy. But Kynna had trained her well. This too was war; there would be no mercy for asking, only for winning. She looked at the chief who had been at once obeyed, a tall dark man with a lean cold face. Knowledge was instant: not bandits, soldiers.

  Kynna groaned again; the sound was fainter now. Pity and rage and grief lit like one flame in Eurydike, as they did in Achilles, shouting for dead Patroklos on the wall. She leaped to her mother’s body and stood across it.

  “You traitors! Are you men of Macedon? This is Kynna, King Philip’s daughter, the sister of Alexander.”

  There was a startled pause. The men all turned towards the officer. He looked angry and disconcerted. He had not told them.

  A thought came to her. She spoke this time in the language of the soldiers, the peasant dialect of the countryside she had known before she was taught court Greek. “I am Philip’s grandchild, look at me! I am Amyntas’ daughter, the grandchild of King Philip and King Perdikkas.” She pointed at the lowering officer. “Ask him. He knows!”

  The oldest soldier, a man in his fifties, walked across to him. “Alketas.” He used the name without honorific, as a freeman of Macedon could do to kings. “Is what she says true?”

  “No! Obey your orders.”

  The soldier looked from him to the girl, and from her to the other men. “I reckon it’s true,” he said.

  The men drew together; one of them said, “They’re no Sarmatians, like he said. They’re as Macedonian as I am.”

  “My mother …” Eurydike looked down. Kynna stirred, but blood was running from her mouth. “She brought me here from Macedon. I am betrothed to Philip, your King, the brother of Alexander.”

  Kynna stirred. She rose a little on one arm. Chokingly she said, “It is true. I swear by …” She coughed. A rush of blood came out, and she fell back. Eurydike dropped her spear and knelt beside her. Her eyes fixed, showing the whites.

  The old soldier who had faced Alketas came over and stood before her, confronting the rest. “Let them alone!” he said. Another and another joined him; the rest leaned on their spears in a confused and sullen shame. Eurydike flung herself on her mother’s body and wept aloud.

  Presently, through the sound of her own crying, she heard voices raised. It was the sound of mutiny. Had she known, it was one with which Macedonian generals were growing over-familiar. Ptolemy had confided to close friends in Egypt that he was glad to hand-pick his men, and be rid of the standing army. It put one in mind of Alexander’s old horse Boukephalas, liable to kick anyone else who tried to mount him. Like the horse, it had been too long used to a rider with clever hands.

  More urgently now, Eurydike thought of throwing herself upon their mercy, begging them to burn her mother’s body decently, give her the ashes to bury in the homeland, and take her back to the sea. But, as she wiped the blood from Kynna’s face, she knew it for the face of a warrior steadfast to the death. Her shade must not find that she had borne a coward.

  Under her hand was the gold pendant her mother always wore. It was bloodstained, but she slipped it over the lifeless head, and stood erect

  “See. Here is my grandfather King Philip’s likeness. He gave it to my grandmother Audata on her wedding day, and she to my mother when she married Amyntas, King Perdikkas’ son. Look for yourself.”

  She put it in the veteran’s cracked horny hand; they crowded round him, poring over the gold roundel with the square-boned, bearded profile. “Aye, Philip it is,” the veteran said. “I saw him many a time.” He rubbed it clean on a fold of his homespun kilt and gave it back to her. “You should take care of that,” he said.

  He spoke as if to a young niece; and it struck a chord in all of them. She was their foundling, the orphan of their rescue and adoption. They would take her to Sardis, they told Alketas; she had Philip’s blood in her as any fool could see; and if Alexander had promised her his brother, wed they should be, or the army would know why.

  “Very well,” said Alketas. He knew by now that discipline hung by a thread, and maybe his life. “Then get the road cleared, and look alive.”

  With rough competence the soldiers laid Kynna out in the cart, and covered her with a blanket; brought their own transport-cart for the dead and wounded guards; picked up the baggage which the porters had dropped when with the maids they fled to the hills. They settled the cushions for Eurydike, to ride beside her dead.

  One of them rode off willingly with Alketas’ despatch to his brother Perdikkas. On his way would be the main camp of Perdikkas’ and Eumenes’ armies, where he could spread the news.

  So, when the last turn of the road showed her the red-rock citadel with the city around its feet, it showed her also a great throng of soldiers, crowding the road, and parting to make an avenue of honor, as if for a king.

  As she came they cheered her. Close to her by the road she heard gruff murmurs: “Poor maid.” “Forgive them, lady, he told them wrong.” The strangeness, the dreamlike consummation of their long intent, made her mother’s death dreamlike too, though she could have reached out and touched the body.

  From her high window, Kleopatra looked down with Perdikkas, fuming, beside her. She saw his impotence, and struck her hand in anger on the sill. “You are permitting this?”

  “No choice. If I arrest her, we shall have a mutiny. Now of all times … They know that she’s Philip’s grandchild.”

  “And a traitor’s daughter! Her father plotted my father’s murder. Will you let her marry his son?”

  “Not if I can help it.” The cart was coming nearer. He tried to descry the face of Amyntas’ daughter, but it was too far. He must go down and make some gesture which would preserve his dignity and, with luck, gain time. Just then new movement below, from a new direction, caught his eye. He leaned out, stared, and, cursing, swung back into the room.
/>   “What is it?” His rage and dismay had startled her.

  “Hades take them! They are bringing Philip out to her.”

  “What? How can—”

  “They know where his tent is. You wouldn’t have him here. I must go.” He flung out, without even the curtest apology. For a very little, she thought, he would have cursed her, too.

  Down below in the thick outer walls the huge gates stood wide. The cart halted. A group of soldiers, pulling something, came running out of the gateway.

  “Lady, if you’ll please to step down, we’ve something here more fit for you.”

  It was an old and splendid chariot, its front and sides plated with silver gryphons and gold lions. Lined with tooled red leather, it had been built for Kroisos, that legend for uncounted riches, the last Lydian King. Alexander had made a progress in it, to impress the people.

  This moving throne made her sense of dream grow deeper. She came to herself to say that she could not leave her mother’s body untended.

  “She’ll be watched with, lady, like she ought, we’ve seen to that.” Worn black-clad women came forward with eager pride; veterans’ wives, looking from work and weather old enough to be their mothers. A soldier approached to hand Eurydike down. At the last moment Alketas, making a virtue of necessity, came up to do the office. For a moment she flinched; but that was not the way to take an enemy’s surrender. She inclined her head graciously and took his offered arm. A team of soldiers grasped the chariot-pole, and pulled it forward. She sat like a king on Kroisos’ chair.

  Suddenly, the sound of the cheering altered. She heard the ancient Macedonian cries: “Io Hymen! Euoi! Joy to the bride! Hail to the groom!”

  The groom was coming towards her.

  Her heart gave a lurch. This part of the dream had been blurred.

  The man came riding, on a beautiful, slow-pacing dapple-grey. A grizzled old soldier led it by the rein. The face of the bearded rider was not unlike the one on the gold medallion. He was looking about him, blinking a little. The old soldier pointed towards her. When he looked straight at her, she saw that he was frightened, scared to death. Among all she had thought of, so far as she had allowed herself to think at all, she had not thought of this.

  Urged by the soldiers, he dismounted and walked up to the chariot, his blue eyes, filled with the liveliest apprehension, fixed on her face. She smiled at him.

  “How are you, Arridaios? I am your cousin Eurydike, your uncle Amyntas’ daughter. I have just come from home. Alexander sent for me.”

  The soldiers all around murmured approval, admiring her quick address, and cried, “Long live the King.”

  Philip’s face had brightened at the sound of his old name. When he was Arridaios he had had no duties, no bullying rehearsals with impatient men. Alexander had never bullied, only made one pleased to get things right. This girl reminded him, somehow, of Alexander. Cautiously, less frightened now, he said, “Are you going to marry me?”

  A soldier burst into a guffaw, but was manhandled by indignant comrades. The rest listened eagerly to the scene.

  “If you would like it, Arridaios. Alexander wanted us to marry.”

  He bit his lip in a crisis of irresolution. Suddenly he turned to the old soldier who led his horse. “Shall I marry her, Konon? Did Alexander tell me to?”

  One or two soldiers clapped hands over their mouths. In the muttering pause, she was aware of the old servant subjecting her to a searching scrutiny. She recognized a resolute protector. Ignoring the voices, some of them growing ribald, which were urging the King to speak up for the girl before she changed her mind, she looked straight at Konon, and said, “I will be kind to him.”

  The wariness in his faded eyes relaxed. He gave her a little nod, and turned to Philip, still eyeing him anxiously. “Yes, sir. This is the lady you’re betrothed to, the maid Alexander chose for you. She’s a fine, brave lady. Reach out your hand to her, and ask her nicely to be your wife.”

  Eurydike took the obedient hand. Large, warm and soft, it clung to hers appealingly. She gave it a reassuring pressure.

  “Please, Cousin Eurydike, will you marry me? The soldiers’ want you to.”

  Keeping his hand, she said, “Yes, Arridaios. Yes, King Philip, I will.”

  The cheers began in earnest. Soldiers who were wearing their broad-brimmed hats flung them into the air. The cries of “Hymen!” redoubled. They were trying to coax Philip into the chariot beside her, when Perdikkas, red and panting from his race down the steep and winding steps of the ancient city, arrived upon the scene.

  Alketas met him, speaking with his eyes. Both knew too well the mood in which Macedonians grew dangerous. They had seen it in the time of Alexander, who had dealt with it at Opis by leaping from his dais and arresting the ringleaders with his bare hands. But such things had been Alexander’s mystery; anyone else would have been lynched. Alketas met with a shrug of the shoulders his brother’s furious stare.

  Eurydike in the chariot guessed at once who Perdikkas was. For a moment she felt like a child before a formidable adult. But she stood her ground, sustained by strengths she was largely unaware of. She knew she was the grandchild of Philip and King Perdikkas, greatgrandchild of Illyrian Bardelys, the old terror of the border; but she did not know they had bequeathed her more than pride in them; she had some of their nature, too. Her sequestered youth, fed upon legends, let her see in her situation nothing absurd or obscene. All she knew was that these men who had cheered her should not see her afraid.

  Philip had been standing with one hand upon the chariot, arguing with the men who had been trying to hoist him into it. Now he grabbed her arm.

  “Look out!” he said. “Here comes Perdikkas.”

  She put her hand over his. “Yes, I see him. Come up here, and stand by me.”

  He scrambled up; encouraging soldiers steadied the chariot as his weight rocked it. Grasping the rail, he stood rigid with scared defiance; she rose to her feet beside him, summoning her nerve. Briefly, they presented an uncanny semblance of a triumphant pair, remote in pride and power. Tauntingly, the soldiers flung at Perdikkas the marriage-cry.

  He reached the chariot; there was a moment of held breath. Then he raised his hand in salute.

  “Greeting, King. Greeting, daughter of Amyntas. I am glad that the King has been prompt to welcome you.”

  “The soldiers made me,” mumbled Philip anxiously. Eurydike’s clear voice cut in: “The King has been very gracious.”

  Philip gazed anxiously at these two protagonists. No vengeance from Perdikkas happened. The soldiers were pleased, too. He gave a conniving grin. Hiding with care her almost incredulous amazement, Eurydike knew that, for the present, she had won.

  “Perdikkas,” she said, “the King has asked for my hand with the goodwill of the Macedonians. But my mother, the sister of Alexander, is lying here murdered, as you know. First of all I must have leave to direct her funeral.”

  Loud, respectful sounds of approval greeted this. Perdikkas agreed with as good a grace as he could. Scanning the sullen faces, thinking of Antipatros’ forces making for the Hellespont, He added that the death of her noble mother had been a shocking error, due to ignorance and to the valor of her defense. The matter would of course be searched to the bottom shortly.

  Eurydike bowed her head, aware that she would never know what Alketas’ orders had really been. Kynna would at least meet the flame with all the honors of war; one day her ashes must return to Aigai. Meantime, her funeral offerings must be courage and resolve. As for her blood-price, that would be with the gods.

  The funeral was barely over, when news reached Perdikkas that Alexander’s bier was proceeding in state to Egypt.

  It struck him like a thunderbolt. All his plans had been directed against the threat from the north, the outraged father-in-law to whom he had already despatched Nikaia. Now, from the south, came a clear declaration of war.

  Eumenes was still in Sardis, summoned when danger came from the north alone. It h
ad come, as they both knew, from neglect of his advice to marry Kleopatra openly, to send Nikaia still virgin home, and advance at once on Macedon. This was not spoken of. Like Kassandra, Eumenes was fated never to reap much good from being right. A Greek among Macedonians had no business to know best. He refrained, therefore, from pointing out that Perdikkas could now have been Regent of Macedon with a royal bride, a power against which Ptolemy could have attempted nothing; and merely voiced a doubt that he was planning war.

  “All he has done so far in Egypt has been to dig in and make himself snug. He’s ambitious, yes; but what are his ambitions? It was a fine piece of insolence to steal the body; but even that may be only to glorify Alexandria. Will he trouble us if he’s let alone?”

  “He’s already annexed Kyrene. And he’s raising a bigger army than he needs.”

  “How does he know? If you march against him he’ll need it.”

  Perdikkas said with sudden venom, “I hate the man.”

  Eumenes offered no comment. He remembered Ptolemy as a gangling youth, hoisting the child Alexander up on his horse for a ride. Perdikkas had been a friend of the King’s manhood, but it had never been quite the same. Alexander promoted on merit—even Hephaistion had started at the bottom—and Perdikkas had outstripped Ptolemy in the end. But it was Ptolemy who had suited Alexander like a well-worn, comfortable shoe; the trusted Perdikkas had never quite matched that ease. Ptolemy, by instinct and from watching Alexander, had a way with men; he knew when to relax discipline as well as when to tighten it; when to give, when to listen, when to laugh. Perdikkas felt the absence of that sixth sense as a man might feel short sight; and envy ate at him.

  “He’s like a vicious dog, that eats the flock it should be guarding. If he’s not whipped back, the rest will be at it too.”

  “Maybe; but not yet. Antipatros and Krateros will be marching now.”

  Perdikkas’ dark jaw set stubbornly. He has changed, thought Eumenes, since Alexander died. His desires have changed. They grow hubristic, and he knows it. Alexander contained us all.

  Perdikkas said, “No, Ptolemy can’t wait. That asp of Egypt must be stepped upon in the egg.”