Orion and the Conqueror

by Ben Bova

  Appalled, I blurted, "You can't go into the enemy's camp!"

  "And why not?"

  "You'd be recognized! You'd be killed or captured and held for ransom. You could wreck your father's entire plan!"

  Alexandros smiled at me, pityingly. "How little you understand, Orion. I cannot be killed. Not before my time. My mother is a priestess of the Old Gods and she has prophesied that I will not die until I have conquered all the world."

  "Not all prophecies come true."

  "You doubt my mother?" he asked coldly.

  I knew where that would lead, so I evaded with, "Even if you are not killed, if the enemy captures you they will hold you a hostage until your father surrenders to them."

  "In the first place, Orion, my father is more likely to be Zeus than mortal Philip. In the second place, if I am discovered I will fight to the death rather than allow myself to be captured."

  "But—"

  "And since I am not destined to die until I have conquered the world," he overrode me, "I obviously will not be killed now."

  There was no way to penetrate such logic.

  "You must accompany me; that is my mother's command."

  "And the king's," I reminded him. "Your father commanded me to protect you at all times."

  He laughed and headed for his tent.

  Chapter 14

  We waited until the crescent moon was setting behind the jagged mountains to the west. All our camp was asleep, except for the sentries standing muffled in their cloaks against the night's chill.

  I slipped out of my tent without waking the other men of the royal guard sleeping there, and wrapped the scabbard of my sword with a long strip of cloth as I made my way to Alexandros' tent. Silence would be our ally, and I wanted no clink of metal to reveal our presence—either to the enemy or to our own sentries. I wore a dark woolen vest over my chiton, leaving my arms and legs free. The cool night air was no discomfort to me; I simply adjusted my body's circulation to keep myself warm.

  There were two guards on duty before Alexandros' tent, leaning sleepily on their spears at its entrance. They allowed me inside without challenge. Alexandros was awake and bristling with energy, pacing the length of his tent, which was larger than the one in which six of us guardsmen slept and furnished almost as handsomely as his quarters in the palace. As soon as he saw me he wordlessly took up a dark half-length cloak and fastened it across his shoulders.

  "Do you have a hat or a hood?" I asked. "That golden hair of yours is a dead giveaway."

  He nodded and went to a chest at the foot of his cot. From it he pulled out a dark woolen cap and tugged it over his hair.

  As far as the guards were concerned, the prince was going for a late-night stroll through the camp with his personal bodyguard. The sentries were a different matter. We had to slip past them without being seen.

  "Follow me," whispered Alexandros. "I scouted our own camp this afternoon."

  He led me to the little stream that meandered through the camp. Tangled bushes grew at its banks, except for the places where the soldiers had cut them down to get at the water. We waded knee-deep into the icy water and made our way out of the camp. When we came to sentries posted on either bank, we ducked low and let the shrubbery screen us. When the stream turned at an angle that hid us from the sentries' sight, we clambered out, struggling through the thorny bushes onto bare dry ground.

  Alexandros shivered, but I thought it was more excitement than the cold. He was happy as a little boy at play. We pressed on toward the enemy camp.

  "We should tell Parmenio or one of the other generals that someone can sneak into our camp through that stream," I whispered.

  He made a grunt that might have been an affirmative.

  Up ahead I could see camp fires, thousands of them. It looked as if the dark countryside had been visited by a plague of fireflies. But these lights did not dart and flicker through the shadows; they remained fixed in place. I knew that each of them represented anywhere from six to a dozen or more soldiers. There must be fifty thousand troops facing us, I figured.

  Far in the distance a few other lights gleamed wanly. I touched Alexandros' shoulder and pointed.

  "That's the town," he whispered to me. "Chaeroneia."

  We went down on our bellies and crawled like beetles to get past the enemy sentries. It took a long time; we would inch along, then stop, wait, glance around to see where the sentries were and if they were looking our way. Then we dragged ourselves across a few more feet of the dusty hard ground.

  At last we were deep enough inside the camp to get to our hands and knees and scamper behind the shelter of a decent-sized rock.

  Alexandros was grinning. "We used to play at this when we were boys, Ptolemaios and Harpalos and I."

  He was little more than a boy now, I thought. But I said nothing.

  Once inside the camp's guarded perimeter it was almost easy to walk around. There were men from many different cities and tribes, and even though they tended to camp amongst their own, we saw that many others were walking through the camp, talking with friends or strangers or drifting alone with their thoughts, unable to sleep on the night before battle.

  Alexandros could distinguish among them by their accents. He spoke to several men, low and brief in his words. I noticed that he used the Attic accent rather well, disguising his native Macedonian tongue.

  Finally we were among the Athenians. I saw a very large tent, bright with candles within and guarded by half a dozen men in armor.

  "Their generals must be there," I said to Alexandros as we stood in the shadows between lesser tents. "Making their last-minute plans."

  "I wish we could get close enough to listen." But even reckless Alexandros saw that it would be impossible. The area around the tent was cleared for a good fifty feet and lit at all four corners of the open space by watch fires. The guards could see anyone approaching the tent from any direction.

  Then we saw a familiar figure leave the tent: thin, stoop-shouldered, balding, combing the fingers of one hand through his bushy beard.

  "Demosthenes!" Alexandros hissed.

  "Their generals don't need his oratory now," I said.

  We watched Demosthenes make his way to his own tent, head bent, walking slowly, like a man deep in thought. The instant he stepped through the tent's entrance Alexandros started after him.

  I tried to stop him. "Are you mad? One yell from him and you're a prisoner."

  But he pulled away from me. "He won't yell with my sword's point at his throat."

  I could either overpower the young hothead or go with him. I went with him.

  There was no guard at Demosthenes' tent. We pushed right inside, drawing our swords.

  He looked up, startled. The tent was no great affair, big enough for a cot and a table, little more. Demosthenes was at the table. A dark-skinned man in a colorful robe, his head wrapped in a white turban, stood next to him.

  "A Persian!" Alexandros snapped.

  "Who are you?" Demosthenes demanded.

  "I am Alexandros, prince of Macedon."

  I swiftly took in the tent's furnishings. The table was bare except for a pitcher of wine and two cups. A hoplite's panoply of armor stood arrayed on a wooden form in one corner. Next to it rested a large round shield painted blue, with the words "With Fortune" in white around its edge. Four spears stood behind the armor, poking up into the shadowed ceiling of the tent. A chest next to the cot, a sword in its scabbard atop the chest. Nothing else.

  "I am not a Persian," said the dark-skinned man, in strangely accented Attic Greek. "I am from Hindustan."

  "Hindustan?" Alexandros seemed almost to ignore Demosthenes. "Where is that?"

  The turbaned man smiled condescendingly. "Far from this place. It lies on the other side of the Persian Empire." He had large dark liquid eyes. His skin seemed to shine in the lamplight, as if it were oiled.

  "Young Alexandros," said Demosthenes, his voice trembling slightly.

  Alexandros suddenly
remembered why he was here. Pointing his sword at Demosthenes' throat, he advanced on the Athenian. "And you are the man who calls my father a sly dog and a vicious beast."

  "One c-c-cry from m-me and you're a d-d-dead man," Demosthenes stuttered.

  "It will be the last sound you ever make," Alexandros said.

  "Wait," I snapped. Turning to the Hindi, I said, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

  "I serve the Great King," he answered in singsong cadence. "I carry gold and instructions to this man here."

  "Gold and instructions from the Great King," muttered Alexandros. "The man who preaches the glories of democracy over tyranny serves the Great King of the Persians, the tyrant who holds the Greek cities of Ionia in bondage."

  Demosthenes pulled himself to his full height, little taller than Alexandros. "I serve no m-m-master except the de-democracy of Athens."

  "This man says otherwise."

  With a lopsided smile, Demosthenes answered, "The Great K-King serves me, Alexandros. His g-g-gold helps me to fight your f-father."

  "Politics," Alexandros spat.

  "What do you know of politics, princeling?" Demosthenes shot back. Suddenly his nervous stuttering was gone, vanished in the heat of anger. "You play at war and think that conquest is everything. What do you know about ruling people, about getting free men to follow where you lead?"

  "I will rule when my father dies," said Alexandros. "And I will conquer all the world."

  "Yes, I see. You were born to be a ruler of slaves, like your tyrant father before you. All you have known all your life has been luxury and pleasure—"

  "Luxury and pleasure?" Alexandros' voice nearly broke. "I was raised like a Spartan helot. I can run twenty miles and live for weeks on roots and berries. My body is trained and hard, not a soft slug of a worm like you."

  "But all your life you have known you would be king one day. You have never doubted it. You have never had to wonder where your next meal would come from, or if you would have a roof over your head."

  "I've spent more nights in the open air than with a roof over my head."

  "What of it?" Demosthenes challenged. "I was born in poverty. All my life the only safety I have had has been from my wits. I have worked all my life, since earliest childhood. No one gave me a place at the table; I had to struggle to get where I am. No one named me prince and assured my future. I had to earn my position as a leader of Athens. And even today, even at this moment, my position can be taken from me. I have no security, no father to protect me, no wealth to shelter me from hunger and cold."

  "By the gods," Alexandros almost whispered. "You're jealous of me!"

  "Jealous? Me? Never! Never!"

  I kept one eye on the Hindi. He was not armed, and he made no move toward the sword on the chest behind him.

  He seemed to be following the argument with intense interest.

  "You envy my position," Alexandros insisted. "You think that you should be a prince, instead of me."

  "Never!" Demosthenes repeated, so vehemently that I thought Alexandros had touched the most sensitive nerve of all. "I want no princes, no kings, no tyrants to rule over men. I want democracy, where men rule themselves."

  "Where men are swayed by demagogues such as yourself," Alexandros said. "You want a nation of obedient idiots swept by emotion and your rhetoric. You want followers, slaves to your words."

  "And you want slaves outright!"

  "Not so. The king of Macedonia is not a birthright, as you seem to believe, Athenian. The king must be elected—"

  "By your army, yes, I know."

  "And our army is all the able-bodied men of the kingdom. How does that differ from your democracy?"

  "Because your army will elect the son of the old king, and well you know it!"

  "They will elect the son of the old king if they deem him worthy. Soldiers do not willingly elect fools to lead them. But from what I've seen of your democracy, anyone can be a leader if he promises enough and has enough fancy words to stir the mob."

  Demosthenes took in a deep, shuddering breath. Eyes squeezed shut, he said in a low voice, "You represent the power of the sword and the privilege of birth. I represent the will of the people. Tomorrow we will shall see which is stronger."

  "If you live to see tomorrow," said Alexandros.

  Demosthenes' eyes popped open. "I should h-have expected n-n-nothing less from the s-son of Philip. You would kill an unarmed m-man."

  "I would decapitate a poisonous snake."

  "That's not why we came here," I reminded Alexandros. "And making a martyr of this man will only make the Athenians fight harder."

  Alexandros glanced at me, then returned his gaze to Demosthenes. "Where will the Athenians be placed in tomorrow's formation?"

  "On the far left," said the Hindi, before Demosthenes could open his mouth. "The Thebans will be on the right, which will be the stronger side."

  Alexandros blinked at him.

  "I will tell you whatever you wish to know, so long as you do not kill this man."

  "Why?"

  The Hindi made a sad little smile. "It is my religion. No man should kill another, or allow one to be killed if he can help it."

  "What kind of a religion is that?" Alexandros wondered.

  "It is The Eightfold Path. The Way of the Buddha."

  I asked, "Do you know all the dispositions of the troops for tomorrow's battle?"

  "Oh yes."

  "Can we believe that?" Alexandros demanded.

  "I am the representative of the Great King," he replied easily. "My lord Dareios and his advisors will want to know every detail of tomorrow's battle. I am to carry that information back to them."

  "You'll give it to Philip and his generals first," said Alexandros.

  "Willingly, if you will spare this man."

  Curious, I asked him, "You will help us to slay thousands tomorrow if we spare this one individual?"

  "Tomorrow you will fight and thousands will be slain no matter what I do. I have no control over that. But if I can save the life of this one man, I must do it. That is the Way."

  I turned to Demosthenes. "Can we trust you to remain silent while we take this man to our camp?"

  He glanced at Alexandros, still brandishing his sword, then nodded.

  "You may trust this demagogue, Orion," said Alexandros, "but I don't."

  Sheathing his sword, Alexandros went to the armor standing in the corner of the tent. He pulled the straps from the cuirass and greaves and used them to bind Demosthenes hand and foot. Finally he stuffed a gag in the orator's mouth and tied it with a strip of cloth.

  "Now we can trust him," Alexandros muttered, "for a little while."

  Standing by the blue shield with its lettering, Alexandros looked back at Demosthenes, lying helpless on the bare ground.

  "With Fortune," he read grimly. "I will look for you on the battlefield tomorrow."

  Then we left with the Hindi and started back toward our own camp.

  The Hindi's name was Svertaketu. "It is acceptable for you to call me Ketu," he said modestly as we made our way through the predawn shadows back to the Macedonian camp. "The words of my native language are difficult for your tongues to pronounce."

  All the way back to the camp Alexandros pressed Ketu for information about his native land.

  "Tell me of the lands beyond the Persian Empire," the young prince asked as we hurried across the grassy, rolling ground between the camps, where tomorrow's battle would be fought.

  "It is so large that it has many names," replied Ketu. "Indra, Hind, Kush—many names and principalities. A far land, very large, very distant. A great, great empire with vast palaces and temples of gold. And lands beyond that, too. Cathay is an even larger empire, far to the east. It stretches as far as the great eastern ocean."

  "The world is much larger than I knew. I must tell Aristotle of this."

  I wondered what was going through his mind. Alexandros felt it was destiny to conquer the whole world. Was he dismaye
d that there was so much more to it than he had thought? Or was he excited at the prospect of new lands to see, new empires to conquer? He sounded more excited than dismayed to me.

  We let the sentries of our camp see us, and when they challenged us Alexandros pulled off his dark cap and shouted his name to them. Swiftly we strode through the camp, while the sky began to turn milky with the first hint of dawn, and went straight to Philip's tent.

  True to his word, Ketu told Philip and his generals everything he knew about the enemy's battle plans.

  "How do we know this man is telling us the truth?" Parmenio grumbled. "And even if he is, won't Demosthenes and the Athenian generals change their plans?"

  Philip made a wry grin. "Do you think they have enough time to bring the Thebans and all the others together and change their order of battle? From what my spies tell me, it took them more than a week to work out the plan they've agreed on."

  Scratching at his beard, Parmenio admitted, "Yes, it would probably take them another week of arguing to get them to make any changes."

  Philip nodded and dismissed Ketu, indicating with a gesture that I should go with him. I saw in his one good eye a conflict of anger and admiration for his son. For me he had nothing but anger, I thought. Yet he knew as well as I that no one could prevent Alexandros from doing whatever he wished to do. He could not blame me for the Little King's foolish risk-taking. Or could he?

  Alexandros remained in the tent with Parmenio and the other generals, digesting the intelligence Ketu had provided and altering their plans for the imminent battle.

  As Ketu and I stepped outside into the brightening morning, I could hear Parmenio asking bluntly, "How do we know he's telling us the truth? He could have been planted here to give us false information."

  Alexandros immediately objected. I showed Ketu the direction to the tent I shared with some of the other guardsmen.

  "They do not trust me," he said as we walked along.

  "It does seem very fortunate," I said, "that you are so knowledgeable—and cooperative."

  He shrugged his slim shoulders. "We are all directed by fate. What purpose would it serve for me to be obstinate?"