The Macedonian

by Nicholas Guild

  It was not until that night, alone in his tent with no company except the flickering light of an oil lamp, that he looked again at Deucalion’s letter.

  “My throne seems secure,” the king of the Eordoi wrote. “I owe this as much to your uncle Menelaos as to you, since my nobles seem to have profited from his experience with Pleuratos and realize that if they hope to avoid being overrun by the Illyrians, they need a king who commands universal support—I enjoy the luxury of being the only available candidate.

  “And behind me, of course, they see you. We are perhaps a barbarous people, but we hear a little of what happens in the larger world and reports of your victories have found their way to us and have freshened memories of my father’s defeat at the hands of a certain king of the Elimoitai. News that the Athenians and Paionians have suffered a similar fate has done much to soothe my nobles’ wounded vanity. Their attitude toward you is one of fear mingled with a certain pride, for, if you are not an Eordoi, the Eordoi are at least Macedonians and thus your triumphs become in some sense ours.

  “So for the moment I feel myself safe from challenge, and I am making it understood that the Eordoi have a stake in the outcome of the great conflict that is coming, that we must choose sides while there is still time, that it is simply not in our power to remain neutral spectators. This is less difficult than you might imagine, for my nobles are at least not fools and have a great yearning to be on the winning side. Beyond this, they have before them the example of King Menelaos and know that the Illyrians are no less dangerous as allies than as enemies. I have not been an open partisan of Macedon, for it is better if my nobles draw the right conclusion for themselves and this is thus a decision that seems to make itself. Yet I have no doubt of the outcome.

  “Thus, when the spring comes, I will be able to offer you perhaps a thousand infantry and eighty to a hundred cavalry. I am training them in the tactics I learned from you, so perhaps they will not utterly disgrace us.

  “Be of good cheer, Philip, king of all the Macedonians, and know that your enemies are mine. Your friend and faithful servant…”

  And as king of all the Macedonians Philip was pleased. His careful cultivation of the boy who had been his hostage was being repaid handsomely. It was on a more human level that he read Deucalion’s pledges of allegiance as almost a reproach.

  Deucalion’s assessment was largely correct. The Eordoi could not help but be drawn in on one side or another, and they had more to hope for from Macedon than from the Illyrians. Philip knew, however, that his young protege’s estimates were based more on the impulses of personal loyalty than on the cold-eyed appraisal of a situation that should mark the calculations of a king. Deucalion had chosen Philip as his personal hero—after all, Philip had gone to some trouble to ensure that choice—and a hero, by definition, is always victorious. Therefore, the Macedonians would triumph over the Illyrians. How could it be otherwise?

  Yet what if he lost? Philip was not a callow boy to be blinded by a reputation, even his own—perhaps most especially his own. He put his own chances at no better than even. His own defeat was even a probability, and what then? What if, like Perdikkas, he was simply overwhelmed and destroyed? Philip knew that if he perished, his allies would perish with him and then he would have betrayed this boy, whom he loved almost as a younger brother.

  Thus he was aware that, at least in one sense, he was betraying a trust. That such betrayals were a king’s business in life, that it was his duty to make whatever use he could of whatever instruments were within his grasp, was not a consolation. He was privately appalled at his own ruthlessness.

  Well, then, he thought as he blew out the tiny flame of his oil lamp and lay down for what he knew in advance would be a night of tortured sleep, I suppose then I have no choice but to win.

  * * *

  By the middle of Panemos, that month when the snow was still deep but was beginning to take on a certain cheesy softness that is the earliest hint of warmer weather, Philip moved his base camp to within a few hours’ ride of the border with Lynkos to be ready to march north with the first thaw. The camp was made large to accommodate eight or nine thousand men, but the soldiers from outlying garrisons were still making their slow way to the assembly point, so there was only a small force with Philip when the patrols reported back that a group of fifty riders was on its way down the mountain trails.

  “They were no more than two hours from the plains when we spotted them, but their horses will be nearly spent after such a journey. They are probably three or four hours behind us.”

  “Could you identify them?”

  “No, Lord, but from that direction they must be coming from Pisoderi.”

  “Then they are probably emissaries sent by King Menelaos. Dispatch an honor guard to receive them.”

  But Philip’s conjecture was not quite borne out, for King Menelaos was himself a member of the party—along with four or five men in the dress of Illyrian nobles. They arrived half an hour after dark and were all exhausted, having been forced to sleep in the snow for two nights together. They were given a hot meal and a tent with a brazier in it, so the Illyrians in the party were not in a mood to take offense that the king of Macedon did not receive them that first night. They had probably all been asleep for an hour when Philip had a private audience with his uncle.

  “Who are your friends?”

  The two men walked together along the camp’s defensive perimeter, where they could be sure no one would overhear them. There was a slow but icy wind. Even inside the fleece-lined cloak, Menelaos looked profoundly miserable.

  “They arrived six days ago, under token of truce,” he said as if even to admit this much was a humiliating concession. “I presume they carry some sort of offer for a peaceful settlement.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  The king of the Lynkestians shook his head. “They made it plain their embassy was to you, not to me—all they wanted was safe passage through such territory that I still control. I thought it best to come along, however, since it is my fate they have come to discuss.”

  He stopped for a moment to fumble with a pair of gloves and for just an instant, before he noticed the appraising expression in his nephew’s eyes, allowed the full measure of his despair to show in his face.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t have brought them here,” he went on. “Everything they see will be reported back to Pleuratos, but I—”

  “There is no harm done.” Philip, perhaps to save his uncle’s feelings, seemed preoccupied with tracing the outline of the earthwork’s crest against the gray-black night sky. “I will have them on their way again by the morning after tomorrow, if only to give them the impression that I am concealing something, but the intelligence they carry home with them will be misleading—it will be at least five days before we even begin to approach full strength. What is your guess as to their mission?”

  Menelaos’s answer was a long time in coming. The two kings had resumed their walk, and the silence between them seemed to have become permanent.

  “I have given up being clever,” he said at last. “When they tell you, and if you elect to take me into your confidence, then I will know. It makes little difference anyway, since Pleuratos is not a man to be trusted.”

  He seemed astonished when Philip began to laugh.

  “We are none of us men to be trusted, Uncle. Nevertheless, I would value your impression of these hill bandits.”

  “They think they have won already. While they were in Pisoderi they swaggered around my court like they had come to pick out their share of the spoils.”

  “Will you join me tomorrow when I receive them? You understand the situation in the north better than I.”

  Menelaos nodded, visibly pleased but valiantly struggling to conceal the fact, and they headed back toward the center of the camp.

  The next morning, when Pleuratos’s envoys were shown into Philip’s tent, the king of Lynkos was present, standing beside his nephew, appearing as if
that fact alone constituted a complete revenge.

  The Illyrians looked embarrassed, which corresponded to Philip’s intention—it seemed unwise to begin negotiations, however remote their prospects of success, by accepting so marked a snub to his ally and close kinsman. The envoys’ mortification manifested itself in an impenetrable arrogance of manner; they kept glancing at King Menelaos as if they could not understand how he had arrived ahead of them.

  For the rest, they had the appearance of prosperous savages, parading their wealth in massive gold earrings and the silver bands they wore on their bare upper arms. One of them, a squat, solidly built man in the middle of life, with a long, ragged scar on his forehead, Philip remembered from his time as Bardylis’s captive.

  “What brings you all this way, Xophos?” he asked the man, whose expression went from surprise to pleasure to something akin to disappointment at having been recognized—ten years ago he had been Bardylis’s man, so perhaps his loyalty to the heir apparent was still suspect and it did not suit him to be received on such familiar terms by Pleuratos’s old enemy. “I might have thought this season of the year would find you at home, fighting mock battles in the snow with the other children.”

  Xophos laughed in spite of himself and then, perhaps thinking that he had nothing more to lose, allowed himself a wide grin.

  “My Lord Philip always loved to go over to the attack,” he said in heavily accented Greek, “but, as I hear you have discovered for yourself, real war is much more amusing.”

  “Well, it appears then we will all have a jolly summer. And now, My Lord, let us know what message you have brought, for there is nothing to be gained from prolonging this visit.”

  After a little shrug, as if at the impatience of a rude boy, the Illyrian turned back to his colleagues. They exchanged a few whispered words in their own language, and then Xophos, who perhaps by default had become their spokesman, cleared his throat—the formal preface, one gathered, to the business that had brought them.

  “My Lord Bardylis, great king of the Dardanians and of many other races, is not without mercy toward his beloved great-grandson and is prepared to make an offer of peace—”

  “And what is the price of the king’s mercy?” Philip interrupted, his eyes narrowing in a display of suspicion. “The Bardylis I remember would have sold his whole family to push the borders of his empire forward another two hundred paces. Exactly what is the going rate in great-grandsons?”

  Menelaos, standing just outside his field of vision, uttered a short syllable of laughter, but Philip never so much as smiled.

  “What price, Xophos? What does the old thief want in return?”

  “Price, My Lord?” Xophos, along with his fellow subjects of the great king, contrived to look appalled at this shocking lack of filial piety. It was not a particularly convincing display. “He asks no tribute, nor any extension of territory. He is content that things remain as they are…”

  “Oh—is that it?” Philip shook his head. “As long as my great-grandfather is allowed to keep what he has stolen, he is content for the present to steal no more—I am filled with admiration for his generosity.”

  “It is a good offer, and kindly meant. My Lord Philip would be well advised to accept.”

  And then, after glancing at Menelaos, whom apparently he had not forgiven his unseemly levity, Xophos, with another of his eloquent shrugs, dismissed him from existence.

  “Besides,” he went on, “why should you wish to go to war when not a dirt clod of your own lands has been threatened?”

  “Has it not? You surprise me,” answered Philip, looking not in the least surprised. “I might remind you that I am king of Macedon.”

  The Illyrians merely looked blank, giving the impression that they were dimly aware of something having eluded them.

  “Yes, but Lynkos…”

  “Lynkos, My Lord Xophos, is part of Macedon. It has always been part of Macedon. The Lynkestians are Macedonians—my subjects, for, like my fathers before me, I am king of all the Macedonians. They look to me for protection and redress of their grievances, and it is to them and to the immortal gods that I have given my oath as king. You may tell Bardylis that it is not in my power to concede to any other king so much of the sacred soil of Macedon as will fit comfortably inside a horse trough.”

  “Is this your answer, then, My Lord?” Xophos wore an expression of settled gravity, as he might in the presence of some distasteful folly.

  “There is one more thing.” Philip picked up his sword, which happened to be lying across the writing table at his right hand, and held it out as if offering the blade for their admiration. “On the day of my election I washed this weapon at the shrine of Herakles—an ancient rite of Macedonian kings.”

  Slowly he raised the point, until it was not more than a finger’s width from Xophos’s throat.

  “When the snows melt I will wash it again, this time in Illyrian blood.”

  For a moment no one moved. It was even possible that Xophos thought that his death was upon him. Then Philip lowered his sword and smiled.

  “My Lords, this interview is at an end.”

  When the Illyrians were gone, Philip carefully replaced the sword on his writing table and collapsed into a chair.

  “I was afraid you might have accepted,” Menelaos said at last, perhaps only for the comfort of hearing his own voice.

  “What would have been the point? If Bardylis sent this embassy, I am sure he did not expect me to accept. He is a clever old scoundrel and doubtless has achieved his real objective—now his ambassadors have had their look and can go home.”

  “And now there will be war for certain.”

  For a moment Philip appeared not to have heard, and then, very slowly, he nodded.

  “Yes. Now there will be war.”

  * * *

  Two days before the Macedonian army, now numbering eight thousand strong, was to break camp for the march north, one of the watch soldiers came at first light to Philip’s tent to tell him that his great black stallion Alastor was dead.

  “He simply collapsed.” The man stood wringing his hands, seemingly afraid to look Philip straight in the face, as if afraid he would be thought to blame. Everyone knew that the king put a great value on this particular horse. “It happened not a quarter of an hour ago. His knees suddenly buckled and he was down.”

  “I would like to see.”

  Alastor was lying on the ground, his eyes open and his head at a peculiar angle. The tether rope was still around his neck.

  “Their hearts burst, I think,” Geron said. The king’s chief groom, who had put Philip on his first horse when the boy was no more than two, shook his head. “It is a thing one sees from time to time with some stallions. It is as if their own strength destroys them.”

  “Perhaps. No, doubtless you are right.”

  Yet it was somehow terrible that Alastor should have died thus—some horses, like some men, should never die until they are killed. Even Geron felt it.

  “Burn his body,” Philip said, looking away, as if the sight of the dead animal hurt his eyes. “Have a funeral pyre erected, and I will make sacrifice for the repose of his great soul. I will not have the crows making a meal of him.”

  Geron looked troubled—to him it seemed almost an impiety, but he said nothing. The king’s will was not to be ignored.

  “See to it.” Philip turned on his heel and walked away.

  He kept to his tent all that morning, until the chief groom came to tell him that all was in readiness. Men said that as he held the torch to the logs of the funeral pyre he looked as stricken as if he had lost his dearest friend.

  “I wonder what it means,” Lachios muttered to Korous as they strolled away together afterward. “The king’s horse drops dead just before we are to go on campaign—it is an omen, whether for good or ill I cannot guess.”

  “That was the horse that killed the Lord Ptolemy,” Korous announced, seemingly having just remembered the fact.

>   “I had heard that story. Well, he will kill no more of the king’s enemies.”

  “Yes, it is the end of something. Or the beginning.”

  44

  As soon as the spring thaw was under way, Pleuratos began moving the main body of his army up to northern Lynkos, which his soldiers had held all through the winter. This was not because he felt any sense of urgency about the situation there—the Lynkestians were defeated and demoralized, trembling on the verge of collapse, and the Macedonians, for all Philip’s wild threats, were not a serious opponent. No, Pleuratos’s real motive for inflicting on his men a long march over muddy terrain was simply to escape from his grandfather, who was making his life a misery.

  Old Bardylis had not been encouraged by the report of his envoys, who had estimated the Macedonian force at no more than a few thousand strong.

  “Xophos said the camp looked as if it had been laid out for perhaps as many as six or seven thousand men,” he kept saying. “Menelaos probably still commands a thousand or so, plus cavalry. Suppose you find yourself facing an enemy army of eight thousand. What then?”

  “I will have ten thousand, along with five hundred cavalry. I am not a boy anymore, Grandfather. I fought my first battle before young Philip was even born. Are you suggesting that without a crushing advantage I must despair of victory?”

  When the old man remained silent, Pleuratos shook his head in disgust.

  “Besides, the camp was probably a bluff.”

  This made Bardylis laugh. “You mean he built it all on the off chance that we would send someone to look at it? You think he has nothing better to do with his time?”

  “Then perhaps he built it to keep his men occupied during the winter.”

  “You really are a dolt, Pleuratos. I really think your mother must have been playing my son false, because otherwise I am at a loss to explain how you came to be such a fool.”

  These conversations only made Pleuratos hate his grandfather more, if such a thing was possible, so that the mere sound of the old king’s voice grated on him like a carpenter’s file.