The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

The fourth of them had men talking and looking out; men with disabled limbs, not too weak to be alert. She saw inside a familiar face; it was the veteran who had first taken her part on the Sardis road, when her mother died.

  “Thaulos!” she called, riding up to the tailboard. “I am sorry to see you hurt.”

  She was hailed with amazement and delight. Queen Eurydike! And they had taken her for some young blood in cavalry! What was she doing here? Had she meant to lead them into battle? A daughter of the house—her granddad would have been proud of her. Ah well, lucky she had been too late for yesterday’s work. It did one good to see her.

  She did not understand that it was her youth they found endearing; that had she been thirty instead of fifteen they would have made a barrack-room joke of her for a mannish termagant. She looked like a charming boy without having lost her girlishness; she was their friend and ally. As she walked her horse beside the cart, they poured out their discontents to her.

  Perdikkas had marched them to a place on the Nile called Camel ford. But of course the ford was guarded by a fort across the stream, with a palisade, a scarp, and the wall of the fort on top. Perdikkas’ scouts had reported it lightly manned.

  A younger veteran said resentfully, “But what he forgot was that Ptolemy learned his trade from Alexander.”

  “Perdikkas hates him,” said another, “so he underrates him. You can’t afford that in war. Alexander knew better.”

  “That’s it; of course the fort was undermanned. Ptolemy was keeping mobile, till he knew where the stroke would be. Once he did know, he came like the wind; I doubt Alexander would have been much quicker. By the time we were half across, he was in the fort with a regiment.”

  “And another thing I’ll tell you,” Thaulos said. “He didn’t want to shed Macedonian blood. He could have lain low, and fallen on us as we crossed; for he’d come up out of sight. But up he stood on the walls, with a herald, and his men all shouting, trying to scare us back. He’s a gentleman, Ptolemy. Alexander thought the world of him.”

  With a grunt of pain, he eased himself over on the straw to favor his wounded leg. She asked if he needed water; but they were all in need of talk. The desperately wounded were in other carts.

  Perdikkas, they said, had made a speech calling upon their loyalty. It was he who was guardian of the Kings, who had his appointment direct from Alexander. This they could not deny; moreover he was paying them, and their pay was not in arrears.

  Scaling-ladders had been carried by the elephants; and it was they, too, who had torn down the palisades on the river-bank, as their mahouts directed them, plucking out the stakes like the saplings whose leaves they fed on, their thick hides making little of javelins from above. But the defenders had been well trained; the glacis was steep; the men dislodged from the ladders had rolled down the broken palisade into the river, where the weight of their armor drowned them. It was then that Perdikkas had ordered the elephants to assault the walls.

  “Seleukos didn’t like it. He said they’d done their stint. He said there was no sense in a beast carrying two men up where they’d be level with a dozen, and exposing its head as well. But he was told pretty sharply who was in command. And he didn’t like that either.”

  The elephants were ordered to give their war-cry. “But it didn’t scare Ptolemy. We could see him up on the wall with a long sarissa, poking back our men as they came up. An elephant can scare any man down on the ground; but not when he’s on a wall above it.”

  The elephants had labored up the scarp, digging their heavy feet into the earth, till Old Pluto, the one the others followed, started to pull at the wall-timbers. Old Pluto could shift a battering-ram. But Ptolemy stood his ground, threw off the missiles with his shield, reached out his long spear and got Old Pluto’s eyes. The next elephant up, someone picked off the mahout. So there were these two great beasts, one blind and the other unguided, pounding and blundering down the scarp, trampling anyone in their way.

  “And that,” said one man, “is how I got a broken foot. Not from the enemy. And if I never walk straight again, it’s not Ptolemy I’ll blame for it.”

  There was a growl of anger from every man in the cart. They had seen little more of the action, having been wounded about this time; they thought it had gone on all day. She rode by them a little longer, offering sympathy, then asked them the way to Camelford. They urged her to take care, to do nothing rash, they could not spare their Queen.

  As she rode on, a dark moving bulk appeared in the middle distance, coming slowly from a palm-grove that fringed a pool. As it drew near, she saw two elephants in single file, the smaller going first, the bigger one holding it by the tail. Old Pluto was going home, led as he had been by his mother forty years ago in his native jungle, to keep him safe from tigers. His mahout sat weeping on his neck; his wounded eyes, dropping bloody serum, seemed to be weeping too.

  Eurydike noted him, as proof of Ptolemy’s prowess. At home her chief diversion had been the hunt; she took for granted that animals were put into the world for men to use. Questioning the other mahout, who seemed to have his wits about him, she learned that Perdikkas had abandoned the assault at evening, and marched after dark, the man did not know where. Clearly, if she rode on she risked falling among the enemy; so she turned back to the camp.

  No one had missed her but old Konon, who recognized her as she came back; but, as she warned him with her eyes, it was not his place to rebuke her. He would not dare give her away. For the rest, Philip’s wedding had been a nine days’ wonder, and just now they had other concerns. It was she herself who began, dimly and gropingly, to see her way ahead.

  The army of Perdikkas, what was left of it, came back next day.

  Stragglers came first, unofficered, undisciplined, unkempt. Clothes, armor and skin were plastered with dried Nile mud; they were black men, but for their light angry eyes. They went about the camp, seeking water to drink and clean themselves, spreading each his tale of confusion and disaster. The main force followed, a sullen, scowling mass, led by Perdikkas with a face of stone, its tight-lipped officers keeping their thoughts to themselves. Her female dress and seclusion resumed, she sent out Konon to learn the news.

  While he was gone, she became aware that round the small circle of the royal quarters a ring of men was gathering. They settled down in groups, not talking much, but with the air of men agreed upon their business. Puzzled and disturbed, she looked for the sentries who should have been somewhere near; but they had joined the silent watchers.

  Some instinct dispelled her fear. She went to the entry of the royal tent, and let herself be seen. Arms went up in salute; it was all quiet, it had an air of reassurance, almost of complicity.

  “Philip,” she said, “stand in the opening there, and let those men see you. Smile at them and greet them as Perdikkas taught you. Show me; yes, like that. Say nothing, just salute them.”

  He came in, pleased, to say, “They waved to me.”

  “They said, ‘Long live Philip.’ Remember, when people say that, you must always smile.”

  “Yes, Eurydike.” He went to lay out with his shells some beads of red glass she had bought him from a peddler.

  A shadow darkened the tent-mouth. Konon paused for leave to enter. When she saw his face, her eyes moved to the corner, where they kept Philip’s ceremonial spear. She said, “Is the enemy coming?”

  “Enemy?” He made it sound like an irrelevance. “No, madam … Don’t be in a worry about the lads out there. They’ve taken it on themselves, just in case of trouble. I know them all.”

  “Trouble? What trouble?”

  She saw his old soldier’s stone-wall face. “I can’t say, madam. They say one thing and another in the camp. They were cut up badly, trying to cross the Nile.”

  “I’ve seen the Nile.” Philip looked up. “When Alexander …”

  “Be quiet and listen. Yes, Konon. Go on.”

  Perdikkas, it seemed, had given his men a few hours’ rest after the assault upon
the fort. Then he had ordered them to strike camp and be ready for a night march.

  “Konon,” said Philip suddenly, “why are all those men shouting?”

  Konon too had heard; his narrative had been flagging. “They’re angry, sir. But not with you or the Queen. Don’t fret about it, they won’t come here.” He took up his tale again.

  Perdikkas’ men had fought through the heat of the day and on till evening. They were discouraged and dog-tired; but he had promised them an easy crossing, further south at Memphis, down the east bank of the river.

  “Memphis,” said Philip brightening. Long ago, from a window, he had watched the tremendous pageant of Alexander’s enthronement as Pharaoh, Son of Ra. He had seemed to be made all of gold.

  Konon was saying, “Alexander, now; He knew how to make a man throw his heart into it.”

  Outside, the voices of the encircling soldiers rose a tone or two, as if receiving news. The sound sank again.

  In the dark before dawn, Konon went on, they had come to the crossing-place. Here the river was split by a mile-long island, breaking its force, and the forks were shallower. They were to cross in two stages, assembling on the island in between.

  “But it was deeper than he’d thought. Half over from this side, they were chest-deep. With the current pulling at their shields, some of them keeled over; the rest had all they could do to keep their feet. So then Perdikkas remembered how Alexander crossed the Tigris.”

  He paused, to see if she knew about this famous exploit. But she had encouraged no one to talk about Alexander.

  “It’s a fast stream, the Tigris. Before he sent the infantry across, he stood two columns of cavalry in the river, upstream and down of them. Upstream to break the current, downstream to catch any man carried away. He was the first man in on foot, feeling out the shoals with his spear.”

  “Yes,” said Eurydike coolly. “But what did Perdikkas do?”

  “What he did was to use the elephants.”

  “They didn’t get drowned?” said Philip anxiously.

  “No, sir. It was the men that drowned … Where’s that idle loafing Sinis? Trust a Karian to go off at a time like this. A moment, madam.” He took a taper to the little clay day-lamp which kept a source of fire, and kindled the cluster on the big branched lamp-stand. Outside, a red glow showed that the soldiers were making a cook-fire. Konon’s shadow, made huge by the light behind him, loomed dark and manifold on the worn linen hangings of the tent.

  “He put the elephants upstream, in line across, and the cavalry downstream; then he told the phalanx to advance. They went in, the phalanx leaders each with his men. And when they got to the middle, it was as if the Nile had come up in flood. It was over their heads; the horses downstream had to swim for it. It was the weight of the elephants did it; it stirred up the muddy bottom, which the Tigris didn’t have. But the worst of all, they all say, was to see their mates being taken by crocodiles.”

  “I’ve seen a crocodile,” said Philip eagerly.

  “Yes, sir, I know … Well, before it deepened too much, a good few men had scrambled up on the island. Perdikkas saw there was no going ahead; so he hailed them, and ordered them to come back.”

  “Come back?” said Eurydike. She listened with new ears to the sounds outside; the muttering that rose and fell, a long keening from the bivouacs of the soldiers’ women. “He ordered them back?”

  “It was that or leave them there. It meant throwing away their arms, which no Macedonian did as long as Alexander led them, and they don’t forget it. Some of them shouted out they’d as soon take their chance in the west channel, and give themselves up to Ptolemy. No one knows what became of them. The rest went back in the water, which was deeper than ever, full of blood and crocodiles. A few got out. I’ve talked with them. One of them left his hand in a crocodile’s mouth. The rest of his arm’s in ribbons, he’ll never live … They lost two thousand men.”

  She thought of the groaning hospital carts, a mere drop now in the ocean of disaster. A sweeping impulse, compounded of anger, pity, contempt, and ambition grasping at opportunity, lifted her out of herself. She turned to Philip.

  “Listen to me.” He waited, attentive; recognizing as a dog would do the note of imperative command. “We are going out to see the soldiers. They have been treated badly, but they know we are their friends. This time, you must speak to them. First return their salute; then say—now, listen very carefully—‘Men of Macedon. My brother’s spirit would grieve to see this day.’ Don’t say anything more, even if they answer you. I will talk to them then.”

  He repeated it after her; they went out into the falling dark, lit from behind by the lamps inside the tent, and from before by the soldiers’ fire.

  An instant cheer greeted them; the word ran round, men ran up crowding to hear. Philip did not falter; she had not charged him with more than he could retain. She saw him pleased with himself, and, lest he should be tempted to improvise, turned to him quickly with a show of wifely assent. Then she spoke.

  They were all ears. The King’s sense of their wrongs had amazed and pleased them; he could not be as slow as people said. A man of few words. No matter, the Queen would be worth hearing.

  Roxane, near by in her wagon, had supposed the troop to have been posted for her own protection. Her eunuchs had told her there was trouble in the camp; but their Greek was poor, and no soldier had had time for them. Now with bewildered anger she heard the young ringing voice crying out against the waste of the gallant dead; promising that when the time came for the King himself to rule them, he would see to it that good men’s lives were not thrown away.

  Roxane heard the cheers. All her five years of marriage had been told with cheers; shouts of acclamation, the rhythmic roar as the victory parade went by. This sound was different; starting with indulgent affection, but ending with a chorus of revolt.

  There, thought Roxane, was an unsexed virago! That bastard and fool the husband should never share her child’s throne. Just then the child, who had been on edge all day, bumped into something and began to cry. Eurydike, the cheering over, heard the sound, and said to herself that the barbarian’s brat should never reign in Macedon.

  Perdikkas sat in his tent at his trestle table, stylus in hand, a wax diptych blank before him. He was alone. Before this he should have called his staff to a war council, to decide on his next move; but, he thought, he must give them time to cool. Seleukos had answered him in monosyllables; Peithon had looked foxily under his reddish brows and down his pointed nose, saying this or that, but none of what he thought; Archias, though known to be in camp, had not reported at all. Once more he regretted having sent Alketas north with Eumenes; there was nothing like a kinsman in treacherous times.

  Round the double bowl of his tall-stemmed table-lamp, brittle bronze beetles and papery moths fluttered and fell in a ring of ephemeral death. Outside the tent, the squires on duty were talking softly together. It was a breach of discipline, but he was strangely reluctant to go out and deal with it. All he could hear was, now and then, a name. Through the slit of his tent-flap, like a fiery crack, shone the flame of the fire at which the rest were sitting. He had not—yet—the royal right to choose fresh boys from the noble houses of Macedon. One or two had died of fever, or fallen in war; the rest were all here still, his inheritance from the death-chamber in Babylon. He had not had much time for them lately, just taken for granted that they would be there at call. They had been with him at the Nile, ready with spare horses, waiting till he was ready to cross.

  The soft voices buzzed, a little nearer now, or a little less careful. “Alexander always used to …” “Alexander would no more have …” “Never! Remember how he …” The voices sank; voices not of protest but of intimate, private judgment. He got to his feet, then sat down again, staring at the tiny holocaust around the lamp. Well, he trusted me with his ring; do they forget that? But as if he had spoken aloud, he seemed to hear a murmur: “But Krateros was in Syria. And Hephaistion was dead.�
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  Seeking warmth and comfort, his memory groped back to the days of youth and glory; further yet, to the moment of exultation when, the blood of Philip’s assassin red on his sword, he had first looked into those searching intent grey eyes. “Well done, Perdikkas.” (He knew my name!) “When my father has had his rites, you will hear from me.” The long pageant of the short years unrolled. He rode in triumph through Persepolis.

  There was a break in the sounds outside. The squires had fallen silent. New voices now; older, terser, more purposeful. “You may dismiss.” A single, uncertain “Sir?” Then, a little louder—Peithon surely—“I said, dismiss. Go to your quarters.”

  He heard the click of weapons and armor, the fall of departing feet. Not one had come in, to ask for orders, to give a warning. Two years ago, they had cheered him for defying Meleager. But then, they had only just come from the room in Babylon.

  His tent-flap opened. For a moment he saw the bright leap of the fire, before the press of men blotted it out. Peithon; Seleukos; Peukestes with his Persian scimitar. And more behind them.

  Nobody spoke; there was no need. He fought while he could, grimly, in silence. He had his pride; he had been, even though not for long, second to Alexander. His pride chose for him, when it was too late to think, not to die calling for help that would not come.

  From the royal tent, Eurydike heard the rising confusion of rumor and counter-rumor, contention and savage cheers. Their protectors grew restless, seeking news. There was a sudden stir; a young man ran up, helmetless, red and sweating with excitement and the heat of the fire.

  “King, lady. Perdikkas is dead.”

  She was silent, more shocked than she would have supposed. Before she could speak, Philip said with simple satisfaction, “Good. That’s good. Did you kill him?”

  “No, sir.” (Just as if, she thought subconsciously, a real man had asked.) “It was the generals, as I understand. They …”

  He paused. A new sound had pierced the vague fluctuant din: the roar of a lynch-mob for its prey. Soon it was mingled with the shrieks of women. For the first time she was afraid. A mindless thing was abroad, a thing that could not be spoken with. She said, “What is it?”