Funeral Games

by Christian Cameron

  Abraham stumbled over to Satyrus and put his hand on his arm. ‘God - you look fit to kill us. Joke, friend.’ His eyes flicked over Bion and in a stage whisper, he said, ‘We know.’ And then he sputtered a few times and subsided.

  Satyrus found that he was smiling. So was Xeno. After a while, Bion smiled too. ‘Fuck the lot of you,’ he said in his low voice.

  ‘Don’t go leaving angry,’ Dionysius called. ‘Or if you do, leave the wine.’

  That got another round of laughter, until voices from behind them ordered them to pipe down.

  Half a skin of wine later, Dionysius declaimed his hymn to the breasts of an unknown avatar of Aphrodite. Bion drank wine indifferently, and when Dionysius lay down on his cloak, he found a snake - harmless, Bion assured him several anxious moments later.

  Philokles and Theron came to drink the last of the wine. Theron gave Bion a long look but said nothing. Philokles produced his Spartan cup and filled it. ‘Who among you poured a libation?’ he said.

  That silenced them.

  ‘What a thankless bunch of recruits you are. The noisiest men in the camp, and no libation?’ He poured a good half of his cup into the sand. ‘I offer this wine to all the gods - but most of all to Grey-Eyed Athena to keep us safe, and to that god most men never name - gentle Hades, take only the old and leave the young to enjoy their youth.’

  ‘That’s a chilly health, Strategos,’ Dionysius said.

  Philokles shook his head. ‘Men will die tomorrow. Men you know. You may be dead yourselves. Lack of sleep could kill you as dead as an enemy arrow, lads. I doubt that ten of you could get any ill from one skin of wine, but I think it’s time to get in your cloaks and sleep.’

  ‘Still,’ Theron put in, after taking his sip of wine, ‘I’d rather hear my front rank laughing their arses off the night before a fight, than pissing in their beer.’

  Philokles smiled. ‘Anyone afraid?’

  Satyrus managed a smile, and a nervous silence greeted Philokles, who laughed.

  ‘You’re all lousy liars,’ Philokles said. ‘But brave ones!’

  Theron put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Know what, Satyrus? This will be my first fight. In a phalanx. I’m so scared I can’t get to sleep.’ He raised his cup.

  Philokles took the cup from his hand and drained it. ‘This will be my eleventh fight in a phalanx on a big field.’ He looked around at the younger men, and they looked at him, the very image of the warrior. ‘I’m as scared as any of you - more, because I know what I face tomorrow. But listen - no philosophy here, lads, just the straight bronze, as we say in Sparta. Keep your spot in the line and get through their pikes as fast as you can, and we’ll be fine. We’re really quite good. Tomorrow, you’ll see how good we are.’

  ‘Will we win, Philokles?’ Dionysius asked.

  Philokles scratched his head like a farmer. ‘Lad, I don’t know. We ought to lose. Ptolemy is taking a mighty risk. There are still men in this army - Macedonians - who want us to lose. So the Greeks and the Aegyptians have to fight extra hard. See? Now go to bed.’

  And they did.

  PART VII

  THE CONTEST

  26

  312 BC

  Stratokles had plenty of time to be disgusted with himself.

  The worst of it was that he had been wrong. He, the great political philosopher, had backed the wrong horse as surely as Demosthenes had with Alexander. It wasn’t that Demetrios the Golden was incompetent. He was ruthless and he had strokes of brilliance, and his will was strong. It was simply that he was too young and too inflexible to command an army. His own brilliance and beauty clouded his judgment. He assumed himself to be a child of the gods and behaved accordingly. And even when events proved him wrong, he couldn’t be seen to change his mind.

  Stratokles watched as the golden boy’s strategy unravelled, and he shook his head quietly. He didn’t need spies to tell him how badly their cavalry was losing the foraging war - he saw the wounded, the empty saddles, the disgust of the Saka and Mede nobles.

  On the other hand, his networks - his carefully paid webs of informers and messengers - hung together, and he had at least two reports a day on the treason of Ptolemy’s Macedonians. The Foot Companions - the elite of Ptolemy’s army - would change sides as soon as the fighting started. The deal was done. When they changed sides, every Macedonian on the field would know who the winner was - and the golden boy would owe his throne to a wily Athenian and his web of informers.

  ‘If he was a wrestler,’ Stratokles commented to his one-time kidnap victim, ‘Demetrios would be at the edge of the sand, with one foot on the line, down two falls to one.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Amastris said. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

  ‘I thought more highly of the boy and his father than either deserves,’ Stratokles answered. Having begun on a path of scrupulous honesty, he didn’t deviate. ‘It might be said that I erred.’

  Amastris nodded. ‘Except?’

  Stratokles spread his palms. ‘Ah, despoina, there are some things even you are not yet ready to hear. You have other loyalties. Let us say that I have the means to save the golden boy from his folly.’

  ‘And thus render him deeper in your debt than would have been the case if he had been as competent as you imagined him to be.’ Amastris settled on to her cushions and smiled at him. She had no problems looking at his face.

  ‘You are a superb student,’ he said, and she glowed at his praise.

  Stratokles had always devised plans in layers, so that when one layer failed, he had a reserve - sometimes two or three. He looked at his new student of statecraft, and he thought lovingly of his new reserve.

  In Demetrios’s camp palace - a set of tents as big as Xerxes’ captured tents in Athens - he had a young hostage. A glowering, handsome boy who claimed to have had Alexander himself for a father. Herakles.

  In Macedon, Herakles was a rumour. Now that Stratokles had laid eyes on him, it was hard not to plot. Difficult to keep himself from imagining what he could accomplish for Athens - for the world - if he had Alexander’s heir and this brilliant girl.

  He looked at her again and knew that she was not for him. But neither was the satrapy of Phrygia. Suddenly it seemed like a limited ambition - a wasted life. He didn’t need to be lord of a rich province. Instead, he could stand behind the throne of the earth, the trusted advisor, the hands - gentle hands - on the reins of state. Athens would be the richest city in the world, and he would have a statue in bronze on the Acropolis.

  ‘You have seen the man that calls himself Herakles?’ Stratokles said to his student.

  She allowed herself a smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is the son of Alexander. He may well prove to be the most important player on this board.’ Stratokles stroked his beard.

  ‘He’s younger than my Satyrus, and has no experience of anything but being a hostage.’ Amastris waved for a cup of wine.

  ‘His experience is not the issue,’ Stratokles said. ‘His blood is the issue.’

  ‘Ahh!’ she replied.

  ‘A child of yours by him - Alexander’s grandson - could guarantee the future of Heraklea for ever,’ Stratokles said carefully.

  She didn’t blush. Instead, she smiled demurely and shook her head. ‘Or make my city a target for every adventurer with an army,’ she said. ‘And my child. And me.’

  ‘Ahh!’ Stratokles responded, and they both laughed.

  Nonetheless, he sent for his Lucius, and gave him some exacting instructions.

  So - while Stratokles had plenty of time to be disgusted with himself, he was not. He was too busy plotting.

  27

  Satyrus rose with the first of the light, feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all, bitten by insects and with his left hip sore from sleeping on the ground. His guts churned, and every time he looked out over the sand towards Gaza, they flipped again.

  He went out beyond the horse lines and did his business, but it didn’t help. Before the sun was another handspan hig
her in the sky, his guts churned again and he felt as if he had the same trots they’d all had camping on the Nile. When he stood still, he shook.

  After a while, he ran. It wasn’t a decision - he just dropped his chitoniskos on his pack and ran off, naked except for his sandals. He ran a stade, and then another, along the ‘streets’ where men lay in rows, some awake, facing the dawn, and others snoring in bliss or simply in exhaustion. He ran until he passed the sentries to the west, where the road led towards Aegypt. And then he turned and ran back. Without disturbing Basis or Abraham, he used pumice to polish the scales of his cuirass, and then he buffed the silver on his helmet until it shone like the moon.

  Like thousands of other men, he went down to the beach and swam in the cool dawn. Far down the beach towards Gaza, he could see thousands of other men performing the same ritual.

  He went back to his pack and took out his best red chitoniskos, and then he put on his armour - all of it, even the greaves, which he had only worn for parades. Then he walked around the Phalanx of Aegypt, feeling hollow, and made sure all the men ate a good meal.

  Melitta was up with the dawn, having lain with Xeno and regretted it somehow - not the act itself, but the surrender. The triteness of sex before battle. Xeno was going to face battle with a thousand friends, and he was scared. She understood. She was scared herself.

  She and her people were facing the elephants.

  Archers, javelin men, all of the peltastai - they were out on the sand, digging pits and putting stakes in the bottom. Ptolemy’s greatest fear was the power of Demetrios’s elephants - fifty of the monsters, where Ptolemy didn’t have a single one. So the light troops went out in the new dawn, each attended by a handful of slaves, and they dug. This time they had tools. Ptolemy prepared for things like this.

  She dug and dug. She thought of Argon and his too-shallow hole, and she dug more.

  She was soaked in sweat by the time yet more slaves came with food, and she got out of her hole and ate, slurping cool water from a clay cup and then eating mutton soup so fast that barley streamed down her chiton. She regretted every minute that she’d stayed awake the night before, but she found, as the sun rose and the colour of the world changed, that she didn’t have to be worried about being pregnant.

  That was for tomorrow.

  Today, she had elephants.

  Both armies threw out clouds of skirmishers first. Demetrios, with all of Asia in his father’s hip pocket, put out several thousand peasants with javelins and the occasional sling or bow.

  Satyrus watched them. He had his shield on his foot and his spear in his hand, but most of his file was still donning armour or finishing a bowl of soup. Rafik stood with Philokles at the head of the parade, the trumpet still on his hip.

  Food was not helping. Satyrus felt that if he let go a fart, his breakfast would stream down his legs with the last of his courage. He gritted his teeth.

  Abraham came up, put his shield face-down on the ground and raised an arm. ‘Buckle my cuirass?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure?’ Satyrus said. ‘Where’s Basis?’

  ‘Praying,’ Abraham said.

  Satyrus got the buckle done. ‘Hold my spear?’ he asked. ‘I have to piss, again.’ He ran off to the edge of the parade and ran back, still feeling as if his guts would leak out, picked up his shield, took his spear from Abraham and tried to stand tall.

  Rafik blew the trumpet. Satyrus felt his knees lose their strength. He wondered how men who were condemned to death felt. He hated his weakness, but the weakness was real.

  ‘Priests!’ Philokles called.

  One by one, the serving priests came to the head of the parade. All along the line, men sacrificed - a hundred animals died in as many seconds.

  Satyrus was surprised - through the fog of his fear - to find that the Phalanx of Aegypt was next to the Foot Companions. The Macedonian foot-guards were just a few paces to the right of his file, silent except for the occasional order. The men in the ranks had their armour on, but their sarissas were being carried by servants.

  Their priest cut the throat of a young heifer.

  Out on the sand in front of them, men died - javelin men and archers and naked men throwing rocks, four stades from the line of priests. The battle had started.

  The enemy light troops were terrible - like slaves driven forward with a whip. In fact, for all Melitta knew, they were driven forward with a whip. All of Idomeneus’s toxotai were together - a better-armoured band than they had been before the ambush - spread at two-pace intervals over several hundred paces of ground. Aegyptian peltastai with small shields and heavy javelins moved through them to face the hordes of Demetrios’s peasants, and the fighting - such as it was - didn’t last long before the peasants ran.

  Idomeneus came by and offered her an apple. She smiled at him and took it.

  ‘I love apples,’ she said.

  Another band of psiloi came out of the rising dust and hurled rocks at the peltastai, who charged and drove them off, but this time a few of the peltastai were left to bleed in the sand.

  She could feel the earth pounding under her feet before she saw them. They were immense. Too big to be real. They moved with an un-horse-like gait, and they were slow - but they were coming.

  Ahead of them came a fresh wave of psiloi - men with light armour and round bucklers who seemed to have some spirit.

  ‘Stand your ground!’ the Aegyptian officer yelled. His voice was not reassuring.

  She found that she’d finished her apple. She dropped the core and kicked sand over it without thinking.

  ‘About to be our turn, I think,’ Idomeneus said. ‘Luck, Bion. Shoot straight.’

  ‘Same to you, pal,’ she said. And then she strung her bow.

  Satyrus could see the light troops, as far as his eyes could see - several thousand men. Their movement raised a curtain of dust, but it was nothing like what it would be later in the day, and nothing like it had been at Gabiene. Just the thought of the fight on the salt flats made him take a sip from his canteen.

  ‘The army is going to move forward,’ Philokles called. ‘Be ready.’

  This far out, there was no marching. When the trumpet sounded, men lifted their shields and trudged forward in open order, their servants still carrying canteens and food - some men in other taxeis were still making their servants carry their shields. The movement sounded like thunder and the ground moved as sixteen thousand pikemen and their servants and shield-bearers - almost thirty thousand men, and not a few women - walked forward. The polemarchs and the phylarchs watched attentively, and men at the flanks of formations roared at each other, because crowding or bowing at this point could disorder the whole line which had been formed so carefully.

  Satyrus saw humps moving opposite him. Elephants. He stumbled and forced himself to stand upright. Ares. Ares, god of war, do not let me be a coward.

  Curiously, the elephants had a steadying effect on Satyrus, most of all because he knew that his sister had to face them and he wanted her safe. Thinking of other people was a strange relief from fear, but it was real - as if fear was something selfish.

  Aha.

  Satyrus smiled. He turned and looked at the pale faces of his companions. Philokles was still ahead of the phalanx, as was Theron on the opposite flank.

  ‘Watch your spacing, Aegypt!’ Satyrus called. He forced a smile at the front rank. ‘They’re only elephants, gentlemen!’

  Fifty paces forward, and then a hundred, and then another hundred. The elephants were two stades away - less - and he could feel it when they moved. In less than a minute, the great brown and grey creatures would be among the Ptolemaic skirmishers - and his sister would be facing the monsters.

  ‘Halt!’ the trumpets called.

  ‘Fall out the shield-bearers!’ Philokles called.

  This is it.

  Abraham reached over, shield and all, and they embraced. Satyrus reached past Abraham to clasp arms with Dionysius and then with Xeno. Xeno held on to his arm. �
�I’m sorry,’ he said. Behind him, his boy flashed a shy smile and turned to leave the ranks.

  Satyrus grinned and hugged him. ‘Tell me later!’ he said, and his grin wasn’t faked.

  All around him, as the servants cleared the files, men clasped hands. Satyrus got a quick squeeze from Diokles and another from Namastis, a kiss from Dionysius, and then the files were clear.

  ‘Half files, close to the front!’ Philokles called. The same order could be heard from the Foot Companions, who were just to their right.

  Namastis marched his half-file forward to fill the opening left by the shield-bearers. Now the phalanx was eight deep but much closer in order. Behind Satyrus, Diokles and the rest of the file shuffled forward to form the close-order battle formation.

  Satyrus could see Panion, the commander of the Foot Companions, striding across the sand towards Philokles. His body betrayed rage.

  ‘You are crowding my files with your fucking slaves,’ Panion said. ‘Double your files again and give me room.’

  ‘Your men must have drifted on the march,’ Philokles said. ‘We’re matched with the White Shields on our left.’ He shrugged. ‘Open out to the right.’

  Panion spat. ‘I’ve had enough of you, Greek. You and your corps of baggage-handlers don’t belong in the line. I told Ptolemy you’d lose him the battle. Now you’re on my flank. And you know what? You and your pack of dogs? Cowards!’

  ‘Go back to your taxeis,’ Philokles said. ‘We are in the same army. I do not question your courage - have the courtesy to do the same.’

  Panion spat. ‘Listen to you!’ He turned to face the Phalanx of Aegypt. ‘Most of you will be dead in an hour! You don’t even have to stand in the line! Your so-called polemarch demanded that you stand in the battle line. Run along home, now, Gyptos!’