When they were gone, it was dawn. Alexander sat back on his stool and looked at me. ‘Any remarks?’ he asked.
‘You need to talk to them,’ I said. ‘Yourself. And not give them a town to pillage.’
He shrugged, as if he regretted the absence of a town to pillage.
I saw red.
‘They just want to go home!’ I said, suddenly. ‘They’ve crossed the whole gods-created world at your behest, and we’re in the arsehole of the universe, Hyrkania, and it’s going to go on for ever, and they know it!’
He laughed. ‘I love it when you, the aristocrat, remind me of what the common man wants,’ he said.
I shrugged.
He ordered Hephaestion and Philotas to form all the Hetaeroi. And then he summoned the taxeis, all together, and we met with them in a great stone bowl cut in a Hyrkanian hillside.
They stood muttering, and the stone carried their angry whispers like evil spirits. I stood close by the speaker’s pnyx and every whisper seemed to come to me from ten thousand men, and again, as at the fire by the Tigris, I felt as if I was listening to the dead as well as the living, fifty thousand corpses demanding to be taken home.
Perhaps I still had a touch of fever.
And then he came up the steps, bounding up two at a time. The whispers stopped.
He came up to the pnyx, in armour but without a weapon or helmet.
‘Friends!’ he shouted, and his voice cut across the whispers – smashed them flat. ‘I understand that you all want to go home!’
A roar greeted him.
‘What a simple lot you are, to be sure!’ He smiled. ‘You think that, because Darius is dead, the war is over? How many of you marched through Babylon? Through Susa? The Medes and the Babylonians will crush us if we let them out from under our heel. Even now, Bessus rides to the east with four times our number of cavalry. Do you want to see him facing us on the plains beside Pella? Do you want your sons to have to face the same foe – march over the same ground?’
He waited.
‘Now! Now is the time!’ he said, slowly but clearly.
Silence.
‘Now, when they feel beaten, we will finish them. I will follow Bessus to the ends of the earth, and I will kill him, and then – then, when Persia has no army but our army, and when all of this is ours – then, my friends, your farms are secure, your sons and daughters are secure, and then we can rest. But you owe it to your sons to finish this enemy now. We are so close.’
Some shouts, and some hoots.
‘Friends – do you hate me? Have I not led you to victory after victory? Have you ever been defeated when I was in your ranks?’ Alexander seemed to grow larger. ‘Are you ingrates, to forget what I have given you? The suzerainty of the earth – the mastery over every man and woman you will ever meet, the lords of creation! You were farmers in Pella and Amphilopolis, and now you stride the earth like giants! Will you go back to being peasants?’
Now they shouted. ‘No!’
‘Will you deny me my hour of triumph? Your king? The moment when I am undisputed master of Asia – a moment for which I have sacrificed everything and taken every risk?’
NO!
‘Or will you tuck your tails between your legs and leave a beaten Persian army to follow us, gnaw at our tail and take the war across the sea to our homes?’
NO!
‘Or rather, will you follow me again to the ends of the earth to preserve the virginity of Macedon – to keep her inviolate, to put fire into the homes of our enemies and steel in their breasts until we, and only we, rule the world? Will you?’
YES.
They shouted – they chanted his name.
And he turned to me, and smiled.
It wasn’t what he said. It was that he said it at all. He’d been even more distant than usual since Gaugamela, and that morning, he treated the pezhetaeroi like men – like his men.
Their opinion of themselves, and of him, soared.
Thaïs said it made him more human. I thought that it was all making him think he was a god.
Three things happened in Hyrkania – four, if you count Banugul.
We took the capital. Or rather, we marched into it. Banugul’s father had been satrap of Hyrkania, and she received troops and support to go and reconquer it. Hyrkania means the ‘Land of Wolves’, and the only wolves I saw there had two legs. They fight endlessly, but not very well, and Banugul retook her city with three thousand mercenaries, many of whom had just joined us – Darius’s last loyal men.
The vizier who helped murder Darius awaited us at Zadracarta, the capital, if such a dreadful place could be called capital of anything. Banugul left us, and Thaïs informed me that she was pregnant by the king, and I took that at face value. If she had influence with the king, I never saw it – he liked her, and she pleased him, and that had lasted a few months and no more.
But Nabarzanes, Darius’s vizier, received a full pardon in advance, and then joined us, and he brought Bagoas to replace her. He – I never checked, but I assume Bagoas was formed as a man – was the most effeminate man I have ever seen. He was beautiful – I loathed him, but I could see the beauty – and he moved with a carnal grace I had only seen until then in women. He knew exactly how to use his body. He was not a handsome man – he was a beautiful, wilful woman trapped in a man’s body. He had been Darius’s catamite, and now, in hours, he became the king’s.
By Ganymede, he was a horror. He blatantly manipulated the king’s generosity and his desire to be ‘godlike’, seizing money and small political powers for himself as fast as he could. Nicanor, Parmenio’s son, shared a couch with me one night, and he took a sip of wine, watched the Persian boy writhing next to the king and spat.
‘He sucks power with the same greed he sucks dick,’ Nicanor said.
I almost choked on my wine. And when I repeated it to Thaïs, she shook her head. ‘Men always make sex sound like a financial exchange,’ she said crossly. She was angry with me for a day.
Now, from the lofty height of my advanced years, I realise that it was the wrong joke to make to a courtesan.
But on balance, despite the number of men who maintain that Bagoas was directly responsible for all kinds of sins – the king’s increasing attraction to things Persian, the king’s occasional lapses of judgement, the king’s open flouting of his willingness to bed the boy – while all these charges are, at their base, true, none of them mattered. They were the grousing of a tired, battered army on the edge of mutiny, looking desperately for a reason that their king was suddenly alienating himself. Bagoas was no worse than any of Philip’s minions – he was prettier, anyway, and no less bitchy or demanding. Macedonians had a tolerance for such things. The king used the boy as a vacation from reality. The trouble was, the soldiers didn’t get the same vacation, and it was just too far to home.
Alexander retained genuine affection for Bagoas, and the boy returned it, so that years later, after India, their affair was renewed. That speaks a little in the boy’s favour.
But mostly, he was a horror.
Philotas led a set of punitive raids against the Mardians – mostly to seize remounts. Alexander grew bored with waiting for Ariston to return and led one of his own.
I went with him, because I was determined to separate him from Bagoas and keep his mind on his job – odd, and you’ll note that I was trying to make him function as god-king and keep him from being human, which was not my usual role.
We burned some villages, killed some women and children and got ourselves some fine horses. Our third night in the high valleys, and the Mardians raided us. They took Bucephalus. No other horse. Just Bucephalus.
Alexander sent us out to bring in prisoners. I brought in two, and Philotas six.
Alexander gathered them, had them bound and then stood over them.
‘I want my horse back,’ he said. He was not calm. He could scarcely breathe, he was so angry. I think he meant to make an elegant speech, but he couldn’t get it out. He stoo
d there, breathing too fast, and finally, in an odd voice, he said, ‘If I don’t have my horse by this time tomorrow, I will kill every man, woman and child in these hills. I will use my entire army, and I will wipe your pathetic little race from the face of the earth. I won’t let my soldiers rape your women, because any children they had would allow your kind to continue to walk the earth. Do you understand?’
The interpreter, another former officer of Darius, was so scared that his voice shook and his knees trembled.
Coenus, on the other hand, merely laughed. He thought that Alexander was finally growing tired of the locals.
Bucephalus was returned immediately.
At Ecbatana, Alexander had left Parmenio as his satrap of Persia. While this seemed the ultimate honour, the army that marched into Hyrkania didn’t have Parmenio as chief of staff and planning officer, and we felt it. Little things seep through the cracks – just as an example, Bucephalus was only taken because no one had given the night guards a password, for the first time in about forty years.
Before we marched east after Bessus, Alexander divided the roles that had been Parmenio’s three ways. Craterus would become, to all intents and purposes, his deputy commander of the Macedonians, but for the moment he was far to the south, collecting reinforcements. Hephaestion continued to command the Aegema on occasion, but he became the de facto commander and liaison with the Iranian and satrapal forces – an increasingly important part of our army.
I became the chief of staff. I didn’t outrank either Coenus or Philotas or Nicanor or Hephaestion, but I could handle the mathematics and the planning. And Alexander trusted me – again. Who knows what clicked in his head? But it was odd – and almost eerie – to move my folding desk and my old wax tablets back into the striped tent that housed the Military Journal. Many years had passed since I had held this post, or one like it.
Immediately, I had to start laying out the route and the depots for the march east, into Bactria, which up until then was merely a name. I arranged for Ariston – for all scouts – to report directly to me. This, too, had a feeling of irony – there was Strako standing at my desk with his reports from the Angeloi, and there were Prodromoi I’d worked with on the plains of Caria.
They had, once, reported directly to Parmenio, and Alexander had taken that power from him – because we all feared Parmenio would use the scouting reports against the king. But I no sooner held the logistics in my hands than I realised how much I needed the scouting reports.
We had outrun Thaïs’s network of friends – they ended at Babylon. But she knew how to organise information, and she was bored. And she had worked with the Prodromoi before Tyre, with great success, and I encouraged her to take part.
The first news she brought us was that Satibarzanes, satrap of Aria, was ready to defect. We checked and double-checked with couriers and agents, and then we laid out a march route to Susia, sold the king on the plan and marched.
This was the way to make war. Our information was spot on, and our scouts covered our movements, our advance parties had water and food, and despite the terrain . . . Alexander’s army was used to terrain. There are mountains everywhere – or at least, everywhere Alexander wanted to go.
We marched off the edge of the world.
And we moved fast.
Whatever Satibarzanes may have thought, or planned, we were on him too fast for him to change his mind. Our cavalry seized every approach to his capital and then we ‘arrived’. It was Alexander’s plan, but Coenus and Hephaestion and I executed it, and I still look back on it with pleasure. Everyone was fed, everything moved on time and no one died. Good soldiering.
Satibarzanes was a snake – the very kind of Persian that Craterus and his Macedonians expected every Persian to be. Thaïs had enough evidence to hang him, but Alexander was in a hurry and he confirmed the man as satrap – when we had all his troops in our power.
That night, I lay beside Thaïs in my new pavilion – a magnificent tent of striped silk with a tall separate roof that held its walls up on wooden toggles – superb work, a piece of engineering as much as a bridge or a tower.
It is lovely to make love to your own intelligence chief – it makes staff meetings more secret and much more fun. We were both still breathing hard when she said, by way of love talk: ‘Satibarzanes will turn on us as soon as we turn our backs.’
I kissed her, and agreed.
‘I need money to spread around,’ she said, rubbing her hand down my legs and over my belly.
‘You know,’ I said, and I paused, unsure of whether my joke would be well received – ‘you know, I owe you four years of your fee as a hetaera.’
Her hand slipped along my thigh, over the hard ridge of muscle and then along the crease between groin and leg – the most ticklish part of my body. ‘Pay up, old man,’ she whispered.
‘I could marry you, instead,’ I said. I was perfectly willing. It came into my head just then. I was one of the most powerful men in the world, and I didn’t have to give a thought to the opinion of anyone but my peers and my soldiers.
She laughed. ‘To save money, you mean?’ she said, and that was that.
But two days later, I was planning provisions for the advance guard as Ariston scouted us a march route east. Into Bactria. And writing out a receipt for ten talents of silver to Thaïs.
Eumenes the Cardian came into the Military Journal tent. ‘Everyone out but Lord Ptolemy,’ he ordered.
The slaves fled, and Marsyas looked at me. He had a fine hand and an excellent understanding, and I used him as my own chief of staff. He gave me a long look, but I shook my head. He picked up the scroll he was checking and left.
Eumenes and I had got along for years without a skirmish, but I didn’t really know him at all. He was Greek – now that Kineas was gone, he tended to lead the ‘Greek’ faction on the staff. He’d worked for Philip, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, and Alexander had taken a long time – a long time – to trust him. Hephaestion still viewed him as a spy for Parmenio.
He poured wine from an amphora at his own desk and put the krater down between us.
‘You have a reputation as a straight arrow, my lord,’ he said. He drank and passed me the cup.
I raised it to him. ‘As do you,’ I said. I drank.
He nodded. ‘Good. Let us try and do this the man’s way. I don’t want to give up the Military Journal. I intend to prove myself to the king and get a military command of my own, and this is my office.’
I thought about that. ‘Agreed,’ I said carefully.
He brightened. ‘Yes? Then the rest is details.’
I must have brightened, too. ‘You thought I was after the Journal?’
He shrugged. ‘Callisthenes is still trying to get it back. You ran it very well – for an amateur. I’ve read all your entries.’
He was older, and he’d been Philip’s military secretary. So there was no need to take offence.
‘What about the collection of intelligence?’ he asked. ‘I’ve noted in the last ten-day that you have all the scouts reporting to you. Now, you are a king’s friend, an officer of the Hetaeroi, one of the inner circle. Of course they take your orders.’ He paused. ‘But it’s my job, and I need the reports, as you know.’
I thought about that. You have to appreciate his honesty. Instead of having a typical staff cat-fight – they can go on for years – he was laying it out.
I nodded. ‘I need the information. I plan all the march routes.’
‘So we need it together. Can we get it together? And on days when one or the other is busy, can we collect notes and pass them?’
This may be boring you, lad, but this is staff work. Eumenes was offering to help me, if I would help him. This is how we conquered the world – good logistics, good intelligence, good staff work.
I nodded.
He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. ‘Who is the chief of intelligence for the king?’
I smiled. ‘Thaïs,’ I said.
E
umenes shook his head. ‘No, I am. Thaïs gave the position up – if it was ever truly hers – back at Tyre.’
I began to grow angry.
‘If your paramour wants to run some agents, she can do it through me,’ Eumenes said.
‘No,’ I said.
He sat back. ‘Well, you’re honest.’
I crossed my arms. ‘What have you ever done, in terms of actual accomplishment? Thaïs gave us Memnon, took cities in Asia Minor and opened the Gates of Babylon.’
Eumenes narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve never heard of any of these operations.’
I smiled.
He laughed. ‘Fair enough, Ptolemy. But we can’t have two separate intelligence services.’
I shrugged. ‘Why not? We have all the money in the world. And Thaïs says that two sources of information are always better than one.’
Eumenes turned away, and I could see he was on the point of a nasty verbal cut. But I’ve seen this before – mostly with rational Athenian gentlemen at a symposium – a man takes a verbal hit, and before he can shoot back, he absorbs the content, thinks it all through – realises the point is valid. Only a mature man or woman can do this.
The Cardian took another sip of wine. ‘Who collates the intelligence?’ he said.
I leaned forward. ‘Honesty for honesty. I can imagine that you and some other man might vie – racing to Alexander’s side with your latest scrap – the best traitor, the open gates,’ I said. I took the wine cup. ‘But Thaïs doesn’t need Alexander’s ear, and I have it all the time. So if you give credit where credit is due, I think Thaïs would be happy to send her news through you.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll have to ask her.’
‘I would like to meet her,’ Eumenes said. ‘I’ve seen her at dinners. We’ve never spoken.’
‘And if you try to go behind her back . . . well,’ I said with a smile, ‘I see the king six times a day.’
Eumenes shook his head. ‘I know that,’ he said, a little peevishly.
‘Come and have dinner with us,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk this out together.’
God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great Page 86