God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

by Christian Cameron

  I was done. Your pater was the last man I moved off the field. A young healer found me, ordered me to sit, and I went down like a sack of grain. He wrapped the wounds on my arms and my thigh, looked at my scalp and pronounced me fit enough.

  ‘Don’t drink wine tonight, lord,’ he said. He pointed at my scalp. ‘A blow to the head does not go with wine.’

  So I stumbled back to my tent. To where Nike had stood waiting, as I heard it, for seven hours.

  She embraced me, blood and guilt and all. I never loved her better – except when she washed me clean of the blood, wrapped me in a blanket and laid me on some straw she’d foraged like the miracle worker she was. I was out in a second. Show me a man interested in a tumble in the hay after a fight, and I’ll show you a madman. Men talk about it. Show me one who got laid after Chaeronea.

  I slept.

  For about an hour.

  Nike woke me. ‘The king has asked for you. At his dinner. He means to honour you. So they say.’

  I wasn’t stiff yet, and I was young enough that I was able to function, but I felt as if I’d been wrapped in felt and kicked a hundred times by giants. Everything seemed to come to me from afar – words, thoughts, gestures.

  Nike was worried. Polystratus had a look – I didn’t like his look.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked him.

  Just beyond the lamplight of my tent, someone was standing. The messenger from the banquet, I assumed.

  ‘Clean chiton,’ Nike said, laying a soft wool cloth over my arm. ‘Best gold pins. Myndas, get the sandals on him.’

  Polystratus pitched his voice very low. ‘The king and prince are not doing well together,’ he said.

  Nike fussed over my shoulder and the cuts on my arms. ‘It’s not fair. They can live without you.’

  It was Cleitus. As soon as he moved at the edge of the lamplight, I knew it was Black Cleitus.

  ‘Alexander listens to you. He needs to go to bed and stop bragging.’ Cleitus shrugged. ‘It’s bad.’

  I sighed. ‘He did win the battle.’

  Cleitus looked as if I’d slapped him. His loyalties were deeply divided – he loved the king, and he owed everything to Alexander.

  ‘He’s not insane, Cleitus. Just vain and tired. He won the battle, and Philip can’t face it. I shouldn’t have passed out. Who let him go to dinner?’

  Cleitus appeared ready to cry – an odd face on a man who always looked like the worst thug in a darkened street. ‘Philip ordered him. Hephaestion tried to stop him.’

  I nodded, and Nike put my best cloak over my head, the pin already closed – tugged it, and planted a kiss on my lips. ‘He’s a grown man,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not,’ I answered, smiling, as I always ended up doing, even when we had a spat.

  And then I headed off down the hill to find Hephaestion. Cleitus followed, begging me to come straight to the king.

  ‘Relax,’ I said. This is where being born a great noble with my own estates had its advantages. I could be late for the king – I could, if I had to, live comfortably despite his displeasure. So sod him.

  I found Hephaestion standing in the door of the command tent under the old oak.

  ‘Come,’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t summoned,’ he said. Shrugged.

  ‘I order you,’ I said. ‘On my head be it. Alexander needs us.’

  Hephaestion nodded, pulled on his best cloak. ‘Thanks.’

  What we found at Philip’s great tent was an orgy – an orgy of middle-aged self-congratulation and bragging, the sort of thing that writers of comedies think is only done by boys.

  I’m past the age now that Philip was that night. I understand now how much worse the experience of battle is when you are older, when other men are faster, when the joy of the thing is utterly gone, when there’s nothing to war but a vague feeling of shame because your kingdom is killing all these nice young men. Oh, yes. That, and the endless pain of the body – even the hardest body. The failure of reflexes, the slowing, the dimming of vision . . .

  . . . and so, when you win that victory, when you put your man down, when you bed a beautiful girl, it is a greater victory, and you brag as you did when you first did these things – from relief that you still can.

  Trust me on this, boy. The only thing worse than experiencing the ageing of the body would be to not experience it – to have your body rotting somewhere in the mud.

  They were loud, and they were behaving badly. When I arrived in the royal precinct, Philip had just stumbled out of the tent. He had Demosthenes dressed in a purple robe, being prodded along with a spear – a dozen other Athenian leaders were there, too, and Philip was leading them on a tour of the battlefield. He was drunk – drunk even by Macedonian standards. He had most of his cronies by him, too – Attalus was there, and Diomedes, and Philotas, Parmenio’s son, and Alcimachus, one of his somatophylakes. And over against the tent wall was Alexander. The prince was alone. I’d never seen anything like it – there were no courtiers with him. His face was the face of a statue – pale in the moonlight, and set like good mortar.

  ‘I’ll show you poncey Greeks how a battle is fought,’ Philip declaimed. He took a spear from the guards to help him walk, and with it, as they went out on to the field, he prodded Demosthenes.

  ‘Demosthenes, Demosthenes’ son, Paeonian, proposes!’ he roared, and all his cronies laughed. In fact, it was funny. Philip had one gift his son never had – a strong sense of peasant humour. He was parodying the great Athenian orator’s delivery – the way he’d rise to his feet and start in against Macedon.

  Philip prodded him with the spear. ‘Philip son of Amyntas, Macedonian, imposes!’ he shouted, and the Macedonian officers roared their approval. I saw Alexander, then – caught his eye.

  Just for a moment, I could see what he was thinking before the mask snapped back. He was looking at the king, and his mouth and eyes roared their contempt.

  I had never seen him like this.

  I got Hephaestion to his side with the same ruthlessness I’d massacred routing Athenians – I stepped on feet, used my elbows – I was richer and better born than they, and they were drunk. I elbowed a swathe through the staff and got to Alexander before he exploded, and Hephaestion actually grabbed his arms.

  We started on a battlefield tour.

  Battlefields are incredibly grim at night – but you know that. Dead things and things that eat dead things. And a bunch of drunken Macedonians and their prisoners.

  I walked with Alexander, Hephaestion, Cleitus and Polystratus for a stade, and then, when I thought it safe, started to slip away. But Philip was wily-old, wily, and somewhere down inside, desperately angry.

  ‘Going to bed so soon, son of Lagus?’ He came back through his staff, locked an arm around my neck and his breath stank. ‘Drink!’

  ‘The surgeons told me . . .’ I began, and then Attalus pinned my arms and Diomedes poured wine down my throat. I bathed in more of it than I drank.

  I was sober.

  Attalus had arm-locked my left arm. He did it casually, and to cause me pain.

  I got an arm up, reversed Attalus’s hold and slammed his head into the ground. If I didn’t dislocate his shoulder – well, I must have hurt it a great deal.

  There comes a moment in your life when you must make an enemy. Up until that moment, I was a good boy who served my prince and did what I was told. I never played the factions. I did what my pater had done – stayed clear.

  Until fucking Attalus put his arm around my throat and poured wine into me. That was it. I knew what he stood for. Knew who he was for and who he was against, and as soon as I had the leverage, I threw him over my hip and put him head down in the dirt.

  ‘If I want a Ganymede, I’ll choose my own. A pretty one,’ I said to Diomedes.

  He tried to slam the wine bowl into my head.

  Alexander got him in a head lock. The prince was completely sober and completely in control of himself. In fact, in his horrid way, he was enj
oying the bad behaviour of the others. He locked Diomedes up and began to force his head down against his chest.

  ‘Let him go,’ Hephaestion said. ‘He’s just a little arse-cunt. Lord – let him go. Don’t do this . . .’ Hephaestion recognised, as I did not, that Alexander meant to break his neck.

  All at once, Alexander released his hold and the handsome man collapsed.

  Philip had walked on. The entire drama had played out in twenty heartbeats, I had made a bitter enemy and Alexander had acted to support me. Heady stuff.

  Philip was already standing near the centre, where our pikemen had shattered the allies.

  He was pointing dramatically to the west.

  ‘We’d already turned,’ he said, ‘and started to drive Athens back, when—’

  ‘Like fuck you had!’ said a young man with the prisoners. Your uncle Diodorus – one of the richest men there, and hence, on the guest list.

  Philip whirled on him. ‘We folded the Athenian hoplites—’

  Diodorus laughed. ‘Save it for an audience who weren’t actually there, King of Macedon.’

  Alexander, who until then had been so completely in control of himself, laughed.

  Every head turned.

  A brittle silence fell, and while it stretched on and on, every one of us waited for it to be broken.

  Into that moment came a mounted man, wearing a green cloak and bearing a heavy bronze staff. He came out of the dark, and Hephaestion spoke to him – at the edge of my peripheral vision.

  He was a good-looking man, and he dismounted in respect, but stood as straight as an ash tree.

  ‘I am the Herald of Athens,’ he announced. ‘I request words with the King of Macedon.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Philip said.

  The herald started violently.

  I thought that the king had misspoken, but he went on. ‘Fuck off – Athens is done. I’m the victor here, and if I want to send all these worthy men to my silver mines – it’s my whim. Athens is done.’

  Demades – another one of the prisoners, and another famous orator – stepped up behind Diodorus, who stood with his arms crossed. ‘Philip, stop being a drunken tyrant!’

  Odd that no Macedonian uttered those words. Or not so odd, given what happened. Athens had some great men.

  ‘Shut up,’ Philip said.

  ‘Fortune has cast you as Agamemnon, and you seem determined to be a drunken satyr,’ Demades said. ‘Be worthy of your victory, or be forgotten.’

  Philip stood up straighter – as if he’d been slapped.

  I waited for him to take his spear and gut the orator. I must say, even Demades flinched.

  But Philip furrowed his brow and then, with a grand gesture, tossed his wine bowl.

  ‘You, sir, have the right of it,’ he said to the stunned Athenian. ‘I’m drunk, and playing the fool.’ He nodded, five or six times. Turned to the herald.

  ‘Forgive my impiety, friend. Yes, of course great Athens may bury their dead. A three-day truce from now. And I have prisoners – Demades here will know their names. And more of your wounded with my surgeons. I seek no more war with Athens.’

  Well.

  I like to think that one of the signs of greatness is the ability to know when you’ve been an arse and apologise. But I’ve never seen it done so publicly, by such a great man. That was the measure of Philip, right there.

  He tapped Diodorus on the shoulder as he passed him, walked over to Alexander and embraced him.

  ‘I might have lost without you today,’ he said. ‘Whatever spirit closed my mind to it – I see it now. Thanks, my son, for a field well fought.’

  They were the right words, and I swear by all the gods he meant them.

  About two hours too late.

  Perhaps if I hadn’t had a nap. Perhaps if I’d stayed by Alexander, or Philip.

  Or perhaps it was the will of the gods that two men, both so far above the common man, should demand each other’s esteem in a way that could only lead them to war.

  The next day dawned bright and clean, despite the stacks of naked corpses. Philip forbade any further pursuit – suddenly he changed roles, and we were to act the saviours of Greece and not the tyrants.

  He was always a merciful man—once he’d won his victory, the sort of man who instantly forgives any man he has beaten, in contest or in battle. And he was as changeable as his son, and usually unable to keep to the harsh lines he often set himself. In truth, a few more dead Thebans might have done everyone a world of good, including Thebes, which might yet stand.

  I awoke as randy as a satyr, despite stiffness elsewhere and serious pain in my shoulder, and Nike satisfied me with a sort of impatient ‘I need to get on with my day’ response that moved me to work her pleasure until I made her squeak.

  I was, you see, alive.

  Alive is better than dead by a long, long way.

  I went and saw to my troops and my horses, walked the lines, visited my wounded.

  Kineas the Athenian was awake.

  I took his hand. He knew me from the fight, and I remember laughing at his confusion, and we shook hands.

  ‘I imagine you’ll be with us for a while,’ I said. ‘Are you worth a ransom?’

  He nodded. ‘A good ransom,’ he said.

  I never saw a penny, of course, because Philip declared the Athenians free – even Demosthenes. The Thebans he kept – even sold a few as slaves – but the Athenians walked away.

  But Kineas stayed with me while he healed. He and the mouthy Diodorus were fast friends, I discovered, and I included them in my mess, so that every night we ate together – Nike and Kineas and Cleitus and Diodorus and Nearchus and Philip the Red and Kineas’s hyperetes, Niceas, who was the boldest lower-class man I ever met. He and Polystratus got along like brothers, and Niceas’s open mockery of aristocrats everywhere got into Polystratus’s speech as well.

  It was a good month. We ate and drank and threw javelins when we were healed – went for rides, sometimes all together, while the envoys went back and forth.

  Philip sent Demades with his demands, and Athens sent him back with Phokion to stiffen his spine – Athens’ best general, their noblest soldier and my new friend Kineas’s mentor. The man was eighty. He was a stick figure of sinew and muscle who exercised constantly. Diodorus called him the ‘Living Skull’, but Kineas obviously worshipped him. He was guest friend to Philip, and one of the few men in the world who could lay claim to having beaten him in battle.

  I didn’t see him the way Kineas did, but found him dour, rude and incredibly stubborn. Alexander, on the other hand, all but fell in love with him – sat at his feet, listened to his harsh remedies for men’s ills, agreed with his utter condemnation of all bodily pleasure . . .

  Aphrodite! He was a dry stick. I left them to it and went riding. We had no duties except to move our camp when the men and horses had fouled the ground too much for it to be pleasant to live on – fifty thousand men do a lot of pissing in the dark. So do horses.

  Kineas took us across the plains to Plataea. We already knew that Philip was going to restore Plataea’s independence – one of his little ploys to pose as the preserver of Greek freedom. Plataea welcomed us again, and ten of us spent days there – we stayed in a fine farm with a stone tower at the top of a low hill overlooked by Mount Kithaeron. Kineas’s family owned the farm, and he said that it was the ancestral home. That was a happy time – we ate too much, slept late in the mornings, went to the assembly of the Plataeans and were treated as great men. Nike’s belly started to swell.

  Kineas ceased to be my prisoner early in the arrangement. We were well matched – he was as wealthy as I, well educated and well read, and he could ride. We raced horses, and talked and talked.

  When you are a nobleman, there aren’t that many peers to talk to – most want something and the rest are potential rivals. I was never going into Athenian politics, and Kineas was never going to be in the royal court of Macedon. We could agree or disagree – we could enjoy t
he pleasure of saying ‘me too!’ in the security of knowing that, as equals, if we said ‘me too’ we meant it.

  Kineas’s friend Diodorus had a wicked turn of phrase that I couldn’t get used to – like Niceas, he said things that were better left unsaid. And after the peace talks were under way, Kineas’s other friends appeared from Athens – Grachus, Lykeles and a few more. We went hunting behind Parnassus, and we spent a week holding an amateur set of military games, all of which was started by Diodorus’s claim that Athenians were better cavalrymen than Macedonians. We won. But not by much – and Kineas won most of the contests that he entered. To see him throw a javelin from horseback was to see how it was meant to be done.

  And then – one night Nike had a sore stomach, the next she was apologetic about being in bed, and the third – she was dead, and our baby with her.

  That’s when Kineas and I became friends, young man. I sat with her corpse for a long time – holding one of her hands. I didn’t really believe she wouldn’t come back to me. I was numb and angry at the same time. And the mound of her pregnancy seemed the harshest mockery – pregnant women are supposed to be immune to disease. And I considered self-murder. She was that much to me that I didn’t really see what I had to live for.

  I sat there for two days, in her folding chair by her corpse. Alexander came and clutched my shoulder and kissed her. That meant a great deal to me. But he left, and then Kineas came, and left. Cleitus and Philip and Nearchus and Cleomenes came, sat with me, and left.

  After a couple of days, Kineas came again. This time he was dressed for riding.

  ‘Come,’ he ordered me, and I simply rose and followed him. Don’t know why.

  We rode through a long afternoon, and camped under the eaves of Kithaeron. He killed a deer and we ate it. I swear that in the whole evening he said only ‘Salt?’ and ‘Have another helping’.

  In the cold mist of dawn, we rode on, up the mountain. Up and up. Until we were on the flat of the crest, with the sea a golden blue in one direction and all Boeotia spread beneath us in the other.