“Perhaps you’d like to go out there and take charge of the city yourself?” asked Phocion.
“Maybe I should,” said Leosthenes, and he could see how that remark set more wheels to turning, as the other archons wondered if he was serious and how his absence would affect the council.
“Someone is going to have to,” said Hypereides. “Someone we trust.”
“We don’t even trust each other,” muttered somebody, and there was general laughter at the understatement. That Macedonian intelligence had been in touch with members of the council wasn’t open to dispute. Leosthenes was reasonably sure that everyone had been approached—he certainly had been, on multiple occasions, though it was hard to tell which inquiries were serious and which were jokes and which were attempts by Athenian intelligence to entrap him. But there was no denying Athens was a hotbed of espionage these days.
It was also a hotbed of sedition. The situation in the wake of Alexander’s assault on the city had only grown more volatile. That was why the archons were meeting in secret, in the northern wing of the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis. Through the windows, the moonlit city was visible below; pictures of the city’s famous battles lined the walls. The meeting had started late and was probably going to run much later.
“And Aristotle? Have we heard whether he’s still in Syracuse?” said Thrasybulus impatiently. He had extensive business interests in the West, and those who knew him knew that business was all he really cared about. Which was all very well—Athens’ economic power constituted the sinews of its strength, but viewing everything through the lens of money could lend itself to a certain myopia. And if the smart money started to think that Macedonian rule might actually be more profitable….
“We haven’t heard shit,” said someone.
“I don’t know about that,” drawled Hypereides lazily. “I heard that Phocion here has heard something.” All eyes turned to Phocion, who looked uncomfortable.
“That may have been what Cleon got himself killed over,” he said softly.
“Do tell,” said Hypereides.
“Cleon may have taken Aristotle into custody,” said Phocion, and his voice was almost a whisper.
“I didn’t hear you,” said Hypereides. “Can you say that louder?”
“I think you heard me just fine,” said Phocion, and for a moment the two men exchanged a look of pure hatred.
“But we could use some help on the implications,” said Erasinides. A retired veteran, he spoke little but when he did speak, his voice carried more weight accordingly. “If Cleon was killed not by Syracusan rebels but by Macedonians—then Aristotle may be back in Macedonian hands.”
“He’s not,” said Phocion, “he’s dead.” Hypereides’ face remained expressionless, but Leosthenes knew in that moment that this was the admission he’d been intending to force from his rival. Consternation broke out amidst the council-chamber; it seemed like every archon in the room was talking. But then Hypereides’ voice rose above the din.
“Aristotle is alive,” he said. Everyone stared at him.
“So where is he?” asked Thrysabulus.
Hypereides sighed. “That’s the part I’m still trying to figure out,” he said.
Moonlight lit the desert as the man staggered through the sands. His horse had long since died, and he knew that he was halfway there himself. He was only capable of moving at night now, and he realized with what little cognition he had left that the coming day would almost certainly finish him off. His tongue had swelled to the point where it felt like someone had shoved their foot down his throat. He could no longer swallow, and he had forgotten what water tasted like. But he kept on moving forward, up one dune and then down the next until he wondered if he had already died and gone to a hell of sand that stretched out in all directions forever.
But he was still alive. Still lost in the middle of the desert known to man.
The worst of it was that he’d been going home. He’d finally been given the task of returning to Egypt as the bearer of a message from the expedition that had been charged with taking Carthage. The expedition that would almost certainly never reach that city. He’d been so busy thanking the gods for his deliverance it was a long while before he realized that they’d abandoned him. They’d done it in their time-honored fashion: by cursing him with hubris. He’d been trying to take a short-cut west of Cyrene where the land bulged out into the sea. Naturally he’d gotten lost. Now he was well and truly fucked. It was hard to see how this could any worse.
That was when he heard the howling. It sounded like wolves. But there were no wolves in this desert.
Other than the human ones.
Adrenaline surged through him, fueling him with sufficient strength to somehow pick up the pace. The Berbers had found his trail. Or they’d smelt him out. Flesh-eating marauders who had harassed the army ever since it had left Egypt, picking off stragglers—and now he’d become one himself. He could hear them calling to each other in their barbaric tongue, incomprehensible to him yet filled with the dire warning of all the things they would do if they took him alive. He resolved not to let that happen. Ahead of him the desert was so flat it looked like water.
He blinked. It was water, moonlight shimmering off its rippled surface. He’d reached the sea once more. As he raced down the sand dunes and onto the beach, he realized that it offered him one final chance at survival. Waves lapped at his feet as he charged toward the water. Behind him he heard the cries of the Berbers intensify as they closed in on him. As he waded out into the surf, he chanced a glance backward, saw shadowy figures coming over the crest of the dune. They were sprinting toward him—but now he was neck deep in the water that they believed it was death to enter. As they reached the edge of the ocean, he was already swimming, paddling out to sea, their furious cries dimming in his ears as the waves crashed over him. There was so much salt in the water that he had no trouble keeping his head above the surface. He kept on swimming, praying for a miracle from heaven. Athenian ships had been stalking the expedition since they left the Nile, keeping pace and keeping watch. Maybe one of them lay off the shore tonight. Maybe they would spare him in exchange for the secrets he carried.
But only if he knew them.
His hands clutched frantically at the scrollcase at his belt. He lifted it above the water, slid away its lid, drew out the scroll enclosed within and broke the seal of Craterus, the man to whom he’d delivered the message from Alexander and Philip all those weeks ago. He continued to thresh his way further from the voices on the shore as he read the words by the light of the moon overhead. Had Craterus and Perdiccas discovered a way forward? What would they do if they reached Carthage? Did they have a plan for getting out of the mess they’d gotten into?
Incredibly, they did.
The scale of the lie he’d been fed—the lie the whole army had swallowed—was so colossal that he started laughing in spite of himself. The truth was on the paper in front of him and yet he still couldn’t believe it. Nothing was what it seemed. Everything was a subterfuge. He laughed and laughed, and couldn’t wait to tell somebody—anybody—the truth.
He barely noticed the tug on his foot.
At least, it felt like a tug. And the nudge against his leg felt like just a nudge. But as the blood pooled on the surface of the water around him he realized otherwise. He didn’t even have time to scream—next moment he was pulled under as the sharks that had found him fought one another for his flesh. He broke the surface once more—thought he heard the jeering voices of the Berbers back on the beach. Then he was hauled under for good, leaving behind that single piece of paper floating on the surface, the water making the ink run until it was just another piece of flotsam floating beneath the starry field above.
Perdiccas tore his gaze away from the lights in the sky, returned his attention to the lights around him. It was cold in the desert at night, and there were nowhere near enough fires to keep the army warm, for the simple reason that there were no trees out he
re. The dung of the pack-animals was the only fuel the army had available, but those animals had been dying off in alarming quantities.
As had everyone else. Even the Macedonians were suffering. Nearly all of the camels had been slaughtered, their water and blood guzzled, their meat eaten to keep the army moving, staggering forward, westward along the Mediterranean coast toward Carthage. The maps said they weren’t that far from the green plains of Tunisia, but the terrain they were in remained as barren and inhospitable as it had been since they left the Nile delta, trudging along the tractless coast. The endless expanse upon which the coast bordered had given way to the heaped rocks of mountains—no longer flat, but still unrelenting desert.
At least the Berbers were no longer a factor. They’d been left behind; the problem was they’d been replaced by a new threat that was all the more menacing for going largely unseen: the mountains were infested by small creatures called troglodytes who lived in caves and rolled down stones upon any Macedonian so foolish as to venture into the heights that overlooked the coast. But the blocking of the mountain heights made it almost impossible to get any perspective on the army’s position. Was greenery in sight? Was there ever going to be an end to this? Or would the trogolodytes venture down into the coastal lowlands and attack the Macedonian army directly? During the day, that wouldn’t be a problem. Even an enervated army could deal with them handily.
But night might be a different story. That was why Perdiccas was now standing on the edge of the army’s encampment, inspecting the sentry positions personally, staring out into the black. The army had fallen a long way that it should be scared of midgets, but Perdiccas knew that one more disaster might just drive them all into the sea. He paced along the trench that marked the edge of the camp line, before slowly retracing his footsteps back toward the command tent, past the pockets of men gambling what remained of their water rations. No one was getting enough water, so the temptation to chance what one had in the hope of getting more was considerable. Of course in the morning some wouldn’t have water to make it through the day, and their bodies would contribute to the trail now littering the wake of the Macedonian army. Turning a blind eye to the gambling was a small price to pay to minimize the butchery that had already started to occur. Every day when the army rose and dismantled its tents, a few of them were left standing—and those who entered found only lifeless husks inside, drained of much of their blood. Such tents were nearly always those of the auxiliaries and allies. The conclusion as to what was happening was as obvious as what to do about it: nothing. Appalled as he was by what was taking place, Perdiccas realized that in truth he should be grateful that his Macedonians had discovered a simple expedient that would allow them to march further. His army was adopting the habits of nocturnal demons in its quest to stay above the ground. He lifted the flap of the command tent and entered, ignoring the smell of sickness that assailed his nostrils.
He walked through into the main room where Craterus lay on piles of pillows. Every time he saw him he couldn’t believe how much weight the man had lost. The man who had once been a giant was rapidly becoming a wizened husk. It was as though Craterus had aged years in the space of days. Perdiccas thanked the gods above that the illness that had laid his commander low hadn’t turned out to be a plague capable of spreading like wildfire among the ranks. Not yet anyway. The fever had settled on Craterus’ lungs, gradually tightening its grip. The end couldn’t be that far away now. Perdiccas was the acting commander, and very soon he would be the actual one. But until that happened, he continued to observe the formalities, consulting with his senior officer every evening. Craterus raised his head, opened a pair of bloodshot eyes.
“I told you to come back tomorrow,” he muttered.
Perdiccas felt uncomfortable. “It is tomorrow,” he said.
Craterus closed his eyes. “So what happened today?”
“We marched.”
“How many died?”
“Close to a hundred.”
“How many were Macedonians?”
“Eleven. But that number is going to increase if we don’t find water soon.”
Saliva dribbled down Craterus’ chin. “There’s water in the mountains.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“So find it,” ordered Craterus.
“We will,” said Perdiccas. Though he knew they wouldn’t. Because they weren’t even going to look. The troglodytes had ensured that. It wasn’t until three scouting parties searching for water had been lost that Perdiccas had realized they were dealing with a new menace—and when survivors from the fourth party told the story of how miniature demons had sprung an ambush and dropped stones upon their heads, he had ordered no further incursions into the rocks. The bastards had probably poisoned the wells anyway. Perdiccas had tried to explain all this to Craterus, but Craterus kept asking the same questions over and over again—kept ordering a move into the mountains to find water. Now Perdiccas just nodded until Craterus got tired of the subject. And he certainly had no intention of telling him about that his beloved Macedonians were turning into a pack of blood-drinkers. There were some things that were better left unsaid. Easier to just let Craterus’ mind run in its accustomed circles. Easier—and more merciful.
“How close are we to Carthage?” asked Craterus.
“I wish we knew.”
Craterus looked anxious. Mustering what must have been considerable effort, he raised his head. “But you know what to do when we get there,” he said.
“Yes.”
Craterus relaxed, leaned back on his pillows. “I was telling him I could rely on you.”
“Telling who?”
“The physician.”
Perdiccas drew a deep breath. A nasty feeling was creeping up his spine. “What did you tell him?”
“That you could be relied on to carry out the plan.”
“Oh.”
“When we get to Carthage.”
Perdiccas kept all emotion out of his voice. “And did you tell him what the plan was?”
“I don’t remember.”
Perdiccas stepped backward, his mind racing. Only he and Craterus knew the ultimate objective of the army. Two people in all—and Perdiccas had assumed that Craterus’ illness meant that number was about to drop to one. That assumption had been a rash one. He straightened up, looked into Craterus’ eyes.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” And then he leaned forward and put his arms around Craterus’ neck, began strangling him. Once that bear of a man would have had responded by ripping off Perdiccas’ arms and then beating him to death with them. That man had taught Perdiccas nearly everything he knew about soldiering. They’d crossed the world together and it seemed unfair that their partnership should come to an end in this squalid little tent on the edge of nothing. When Craterus stopped thrashing, Perdiccas let go. Then he called for the captain of the guard outside the tent. The man entered and saluted.
“Our noble commander has breathed his last,” said Perdiccas.
“Sir.” The captain cast a quick sidelong glance at Craterus’ form, but that was all. If he knew either suspicion or regret, he displayed neither.
“Find the physician who attended him and have him executed for incompetence,” ordered Perdiccas.
“Sir.” The captain saluted, turned and left, leaving the new commander of the army of Africa with the body of the man he’d just killed. For long moments Perdiccas stood there, looking down at Craterus’ face. Somehow it seemed that it was he who lay there and that Craterus was the one staring down at him. Perdiccas knew that had their situations been reversed, his commander wouldn’t have hesitated to do what he’d just done. Craterus had been a hard man to deal with, but he’d been fair, and consistent. And foolish—he would have attacked Carthage even without the twist to the plan that Alexander had devised. But now he would never see the walls of that city. Perhaps none of them would. He reached out and closed Craterus’ eyes.
Abruptly, there was a
commotion outside the tent. Perdiccas put one hand on his sword. Had Craterus’ death triggered a long-overdue mutiny? Were the Macedonian soldiers going to slay their new commander even before he’d had a chance to give more than one order? His mind flashed down the list of junior officers who would be most likely to try to replace him. He braced himself to do some fast talking and even faster swordwork. The flaps of the tent burst open and two soldiers stepped into the room.
“Sir,” said one, “the sentries have detained a horseman.”
That wasn’t what Perdiccas had been expecting. “Leaving the camp?” he asked. Deserters had nowhere to run, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been trying.
“No sir,” said the soldier. “Entering the camp.”
“Not a messenger either,” said the other. “Not one of ours. He wants to speak to Craterus.”
Perdiccas exhaled slowly. “Bring him to me,” he said. “Now.”
It was the first day in a long while that explosions hadn’t rung through the mountains. The detonations had become such a regular occurrence that Eumenes had gotten used to it—could scarcely believe they had stopped. In theory that meant the journey had gotten easier. But the snow was still continuing, falling downward in ever-thickening white chunks, coating the roof of heaven. They’d been winding their way across jagged peaks and twisted contours of that roof for some time now.
The Alps, they were called. Beyond them lay Italy.
The elephants were suffering particularly badly. Several had died already, and many more were ailing. Eumenes still found it difficult to believe that Alexander had elected not to strike toward Gibraltar. Not because such a move would have made military sense… but so many of the trails seemed to point in that direction, regardless of how difficult a journey along more than a thousand miles of coast might have been. Though Eumenes had to admit that the numbers of Gaulish mercenaries had swelled still further when Alexander had announced his intent to invade Italy. It turned out there were other Gaulish tribes on the far side of the Alps whose forefathers had achieved considerable success raiding central Italy. In particular, they’d sacked and burnt a city called Rome, though failed to take its citadel—and as a result Rome had risen from the ashes of defeat like a phoenix. From the intelligence Eumenes could piece together, a resurgent Rome had proceeded to conquer the Samnite peoples, thereby establishing hegemony over much of central Italy. None of it sounded like it would pose much of a challenge to Alexander though.
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