The New Achilles

by Christian Cameron

  He looked down into the storm of death, and he imagined he found himself, and there he lay, Philopoemen and his heavy horse towering over him, fighting, fighting …

  The Gortynians were advancing, and they roared, now.

  ‘ACHILLES!’

  He seemed to fall from the eagle’s height into his own body, a long plummet to consciousness. His head seemed to explode and he …

  Alexanor heard the noise of the battle before he regained full consciousness. He was on his back, and he was looking up into the belly of a horse, and he rolled, aware that his leg was hurt, aware of pain, fatigue, thirst, sweat, abrasions …

  He rolled onto one knee and got to his feet, digging the point of someone else’s xiphos into the bloody dirt. His right leg was bad; it wouldn’t take all his weight …

  An iron arm closed around his thorax and he was lifted off his feet.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Philopoemen said. ‘Damn it, you weigh a hundred talents.’

  And then he went out; darkness fell.

  He awoke to pain.

  ‘Catch him!’ Philopoemen roared.

  Alexanor felt himself being lowered and realised that he was going in and out of consciousness. He felt his knees crumple, and great pain …

  ‘Lie down,’ Leon said. ‘Lie down immediately.’

  Alexanor struggled to rise to one elbow. He was lying on the sand and gravel of the hillside, near the spring. Below, the enemy mercenaries were well down the valley, holding together, stumbling away, but he could hear fighting, very close.

  ‘The Lyttians,’ Leon said. ‘They held. They’re still holding.’

  Almost at their feet, just over the lip of the hill, a thousand Lyttians still stood. Their line was now bent all the way back along the base of the low hill, and they faced all of Nabis’ Aetolians. They gave ground, and died, but would not break.

  Above him, the shadow of Philopoemen fell across the wounded. When Alexanor looked up at him, the sun was behind him, so that a nimbus of unbearable brightness surrounded his head.

  All around them on the ground lay the army’s wounded – hundreds of men between life and death.

  ‘Comrades,’ Philopoemen called. ‘I have no one left to ask, except you who have already given all you have. I know from your wounds that every man here is a hero. If your legs will hold you, rise. This is the moment, and there is nothing that can stop us but fear, or death. You have already beaten fear, and brothers, death comes to us all.’

  Around Alexanor, men – wounded men who had been dragged to the shade of the oak trees and the beautiful taste of clean water, men who had endured the fear and the pain and lived, men who had thought their task complete – rose. Some stumbled; more than one sank with a groan.

  But more than a hundred rose amid the oak trees. And Alexanor was one of them, although he had to use Leon’s priest’s staff to walk.

  The hundred walking wounded took any weapon near them and followed Philopoemen towards the back of the Lyttians. They shambled. They stumbled.

  The Lyttians fell back again. Men died, but still, despite everything – the heat, the desperate enemy, the flailing hooves of horses, their terrible losses – still, the Lyttians would not break. They died for their lost wives, their butchered children, and for men and women they did not know. They died hard, for a city that was not theirs, because their own was lost.

  Philopoemen’s horse slipped into the Lyttian line, and the walking wounded came up behind the Lyttians and began to push, weary men pressing other weary men. The retreat stopped, and for as long as it would take a choir of priests to sing a hymn, the battle balanced: Nabis and his Aetolian horse pressing from in front, the battered Lyttians and a hundred walking wounded pushing back.

  And then there was pressure against Alexanor’s back. He felt it but never turned his head. He was pushing with one leg, trying not to think, waiting for the moment when the two Lyttians in front of him were dead and he had to fight.

  He pressed forward a step against his will. A step, and another painful step, his hip feeling as if he must fall from the pain. A long cavalry spear caught in his crest, passed between his arms, and slammed into the ground, and Alexanor caught at it with his left hand and held it. Above him, the cavalryman, his snarl like a mask of hate, tried to take it back, but he only had one hand and his balance was limited. Then he was gone, and Alexanor had his spear, and the whole line went forward, first one step, then five, then ten, and Alexanor fell, his right leg unable to bear the stress. He lay and watched men pour past him, until two grinning peasants got him under his armpits and lifted him.

  ‘We’ll take you to the doctors, mate,’ one said. ‘They’ll have you right as rain.’

  He was surrounded by Boeotian mercenaries and the Neodamodeis, who appeared as if out of the air.

  ‘Let me look,’ he said.

  The two men turned him, and he was high enough on the hill to see the Aetolian cavalry over the now-swelling ranks of the Cretan League. There was no order left; Lyttians who had lasted an hour against impossible odds simply sank to the ground, to be replaced by Boeotians and Gortynians and epheboi and Neodamodeis, all intermixed, all pushing together down the hill.

  There was a last flurry, as the cavalry drew off and made a charge. Alexanor saw Nabis, his face red under his magnificent helmet, order another, but then, all the men around Alexanor were shouting.

  In the olive groves to the east, behind the Aetolian cavalry, there was a sparkle of bronze.

  Men stopped, and stared.

  Even among the Aetolians, men turned to look.

  A stade away, a tall man with three huge plumes stepped out of the olive trees like a predator stalking his prey, and he began to run at the Aetolian cavalry. A line of bronzed warriors burst into the sunlight behind him.

  ‘Plator!’ Alexanor called.

  All around him, wounded men and rear-rankers took up the shout.

  The Aetolians didn’t break. But they and their officers took one look at the charge of the Illyrians, and the narrowing gap between the new enemy behind them and the road home to their employer’s city, and they put their heads down and rode for it. Telemnastos, still out there in the trees and grass, now facing Rhodian marines in the broken ground, managed to empty a few saddles, but most of the archers had loosed their last shafts. Alexanor watched Nabis ride free, his cloak fluttering like a red wound behind him, his Thessalian escort close by.

  Closer, the sun caught Philopoemen. He was slumped forward, his helmet gone. There was blood coming from under his breastplate. His hands were empty; at some point he’d lost his sword.

  But his eyes were on the Aetolians, and Nabis. And a slight smile fought fatigue for possession of his mouth.

  ‘Help me,’ Alexanor said. ‘I need to walk.’

  The two psiloi were willing enough, and they helped him hobble forward a few steps.

  ‘Get off that horse at once,’ Alexanor said. ‘You’re bleeding, damn it. You should be flat on your back.’

  Philopoemen looked down. ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ he said.

  And then his eyes rolled. He seemed to collapse, and the two men helping Alexanor had to catch him as he fell.

  BOOK V

  EXILE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Gortyna

  217 BCE

  Alexanor rode back into Lentas five weeks later. His fine bay gelding was dead, so he rode a mule. He thought about the horse that Philopoemen had given him all too often, and he cursed his own weakness: other men had given their lives or their arms or legs to defeat Knossos, and he had given a few measures of blood and a horse.

  But he missed the horse.

  And despite an awareness that wounds and illness made him a difficult man, he couldn’t stop himself from snapping at Leon and at Philopoemen, who rode beside him on a fine Arab, the very picture of martial accomplishment.

  ‘Why do you get a magnificent animal, and I get a mule?’ he muttered.

  Leon turned,
one eyebrow raised. ‘I’d swear that you insisted on it yourself,’ he said.

  Alexanor took a breath and tried to muster a crushing retort, but nothing came, and he was further infuriated by Philopoemen’s smile.

  ‘We could trade this minute,’ he said.

  ‘You know that’s ridiculous,’ Alexanor spat. ‘You can’t ride in to talk to the Rhodians on a mule.’

  ‘I could, though,’ Philopoemen said.

  ‘Don’t humour him,’ Leon said.

  Kleostratos laughed. ‘You’re a fine healer,’ he said. ‘But damn, you suck at being hurt.’

  Below them, the sanctuary came into sight for the first time. In one beat of his heart, many of his anxieties vanished. He could see the Asklepion and the baths, untouched; he could see statues glowing with colour in the corners of the stoa. The Rhodians had occupied Lentas in the middle of the siege; they still held it. His people.

  He smiled, despite himself.

  Behind them, Periander’s Boeotians marched along, singing songs from Thebes and Thespiae and Plataea.

  ‘You really expect the Rhodians to just hand over the sanctuary?’ Alexanor asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Philopoemen said. ‘They’re really very civilised.’ He raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Leon.

  ‘You are all conspiring against me,’ Alexanor muttered.

  ‘Try not to get wounded again,’ Leon said. ‘It’s too hard on your friends.’

  That afternoon, Alexanor was welcomed back into his own temple precinct by those of his priests who had not been with the army. Together, they made the rounds of the precinct walls, Alexanor limping all the way, and then they cleaned and censed the altars and Alexanor made a sacrifice, favouring his right leg.

  Philopoemen met briefly with the Rhodian admiral, Polemecles. Later, Alexanor hosted an evening symposium inside the temple’s sanctuary walls. It was a beautiful space, with a view out over the bay, where six Rhodian warships lay at double anchors in the shallow water. Their oarsmen and marines were camped on the beaches, and some of the marines were being treated in the Asklepion. There had been no violence in the town – no resistance offered, no one killed or molested.

  Alexanor hadn’t realised how deep were his fears of meeting the Rhodian admiral until the man clasped both of his hands.

  ‘I came early, to have a talk,’ Polemecles said. ‘Let me begin by saying that I knew your father,’ he added. ‘May I pass my condolences.’

  Alexanor felt as if he’d taken another wound.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Polemecles said.

  ‘We were … estranged,’ Alexanor said.

  The Rhodian nodded. ‘I’d heard something like that. Our thanks for arranging this symposium. It’s a bloody mess out there,’ he added.

  ‘Literally,’ Alexanor agreed.

  ‘What do you think of the Achaean commander?’ Polemecles asked.

  Alexanor shrugged. ‘He is perhaps my closest friend. I cannot give you an unbiased judgement.’

  ‘And yet, you are a veteran, a man of Rhodes, a citizen,’ the admiral said.

  Alexanor led him to a couch and Leon put a cup of wine into his hand.

  ‘Not a citizen any more,’ Alexanor said, with as little bitterness as he could manage.

  ‘You are no slave,’ the navarch said to Leon. ‘I know you – you were with my wounded after the battle.’

  The Rhodians, posted on the extreme right of Nabis’ array, had spent the action trying to drive Telemnastos’ archers out of the olive groves.

  Leon smiled. ‘I have been a slave,’ he admitted.

  Polemecles shrugged. ‘That’s true of many good men.’

  Alexanor put a hand on Leon’s shoulder. ‘I thought it might be better if we had no other witnesses tonight,’ he said.

  Polemecles nodded. ‘You are wise.’

  He lay down and drank some of the wine he was offered, and Alexanor sat on the edge of his couch while Leon returned to the door in the yard, the perfect steward.

  ‘This was a mare’s nest from the beginning,’ Polemecles admitted. ‘And we were always divided in our councils. There are men on Rhodes who care for nothing but their profits, and they think it is their right to use the fleet for their own ends.’ He shrugged.

  There were other guests arriving. Polemecles glanced at the door and leant forward.

  ‘For my part, I’d like to see the Cretan ports closed to pirates. And some of the Cretan ports are the pirates. Do you think there’s any level on which I can engage your friend?’

  ‘He’s no friend of slavery,’ Alexanor said, glancing at Philopoemen, who was embracing Leon.

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ Polemecles said. ‘Listen. Why do you say you are not a citizen? Did you relinquish your status because of … the war here?’

  ‘No, my father stripped me of my citizenship,’ Alexanor said.

  Polemecles shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it. I think I’d know. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Why would he say such a thing?’ Alexanor asked.

  Philopoemen was coming over, with Dinaeos and Kleostratos and Lykortas around him. Telemnastos was in the doorway, making a small sacrifice to the statue of Apollo in the niche at the door.

  ‘Frustrated parents lash out,’ Polemecles said. ‘Wait until you are one. Believe me, the most surprising—’

  He rose from his couch and took Philopoemen’s hand.

  ‘These are some of my officers,’ Philopoemen said, introducing his friends.

  Polemecles introduced two of his trierarchs: Demippos and Poseidonos. Both were men that Alexanor knew, if at a distance; both were instantly friendly to him, disarming any lingering notions that he was considered a traitor.

  After they made sacrifices and had a tour of the temple, led by Leon, they reclined to a dinner of strips of beef, the fruit of the afternoon sacrifice of a bull, and a whole, magnificent tuna, brought in by Arkas and Syrmas and two cavalrymen. Alexanor carved the great fish, served his guests, and then sent the rest out into the courtyard, where most of Dinaeos’ cavalry troop and all of the temple servants and some Rhodians fell on it like an avenging army.

  When the fish had been consumed, and several rounds of wine, small cakes, sweets and nuts had made their rounds, Polemecles rose.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said.

  The mosaiced room fell silent, although outside in the courtyard, there were loud shouts and louder laughter.

  ‘Alexanor, our host, was kind enough to give me leave to speak,’ the Rhodian admiral said. ‘I’ll be quick and to the point. Rhodes has no choice but to accept the new alliance of Cretan cities. But I hope to do more than accept it. Even now, while my squadron sits in this bay, somewhere in the Eastern Sea, a pirate ship is striking a village. Pirates take the women, break them to prostitution, and sell them. The men go to agricultural labour. They take our commerce on the seas and ruin our trade in ports that they destroy.’ He shrugged. ‘The Great Council of Rhodes thought that they could end piracy from Crete by supporting Knossos, and that has failed, but my task remains. Is there any chance I can persuade you gentlemen to support me in fighting the pirates?’

  ‘This seems like an about-face, even for a wily politician,’ Lykortas said.

  ‘Perfidious Rhodes,’ muttered Dinaeos.

  But Philopoemen leant forward. ‘Slavery, and the threat of slavery, is the very death of our small farmers,’ he said.

  ‘Except when your small farmers take to boats and become the pirates,’ Polemecles said.

  ‘They are not, strictly speaking, my farmers,’ Philopoemen said.

  Polemecles gave a slight, man-of-the-world smile. ‘You are the Strategos of the Cretan League in all but title.’

  ‘I am a private individual with a troop of mercenary cavalry and –’ Philopoemen smiled back – ‘and a certain reputation. I will discuss the matter with Antiphatas.’

  ‘Philip of Macedon will not support you, if you make an alliance with Rhodes,’ Lykortas said. ‘My understanding is
that he is to be appointed the Hegemon of the League of Crete. He is no friend of Rhodes.’

  Alexanor had not heard that Philip would hold the title.

  ‘Is this true?’ he asked.

  Philopoemen shrugged. ‘He paid most of the bills,’ the Achaean admitted. ‘The Polyrrhenians are very strongly pro-Macedon.’

  ‘And you yourself?’ the admiral asked.

  Philopoemen shrugged and drank some wine. ‘I think it best that I keep my views inside my teeth,’ he joked. ‘Let’s leave it that I will speak to Antiphatas before I leave for home.’

  ‘Home? So you will return to Achaea now?’ Polemecles sounded disappointed.

  Alexanor sat back.

  ‘I’ve sold all three of my farms,’ Philopoemen said. ‘I was sent by the Achaean League to perform a task, and my task is complete, at least for now.’

  ‘And, having cleaned the stables, you are off to kill the Lion?’ Polemecles asked.

  Philopoemen’s smile was political. ‘If by the Lion you mean Macedon, I am more likely to be supporting him than stalking him. I rather expect to be elected hipparchos of the Achaean League.’

  Polemecles nodded. ‘With the consent of Aratos?’ he asked. ‘Listen, say what you will about Rhodes – we’re the centre of the world, for trade and for gossip. My understanding is that Aratos is no friend of yours.’

  Philopoemen was silent for a moment.

  Lykortas sat up. ‘Strategos, he has you there. I confess that I am also puzzled. You expect to serve with Aratos next year?’

  Alexanor had heard nothing of this. ‘It might be dull here without you,’ he said.

  Philopoemen ran his fingers through his beard. ‘I suppose that it’s no secret. As I played no small part in the victory here, the king of Macedon has said that he will support my candidature for the hipparchy.’