Memnon

by Oden, Scott

  The tip of the Persian’s knife obliterated their position.

  Ephialtes grumbled. “So what do we do? Play this game with them until winter sets in and we all go home?”

  “The Macedonians don’t break off their campaigns on account of the seasons, Ephialtes, and neither do we.” The Rhodian’s other officers joined them: Omares, Patron, and Damastes, the former governor of Abydus.

  “What’s the word, Memnon?” Patron asked. Since his return from Syracuse, Patron had renounced the sea, becoming a land commander and even working at developing his skill as a horseman. Saw too many good lads lost to Poseidon’s fury, he told Memnon once, while deep in his cups, unburied and cursed to never know peace. By Hades! I want my bones put under good, solid earth when I die! “Do we attack?”

  Memnon pursed his lips. “We’ve seen them. They’ve seen us. Parmenion doesn’t expect me to make a move until he does, and he won’t. He remembers the holy terror we caused when we crossed Mount Ida in the spring and caught his man, Attalus, by surprise at Cyzicus. That debacle cost him three thousand good soldiers. He likes his odds if he can wait us out and lets us make the first move. Let’s crush his hopes again, shall we? To your posts, gentlemen,” he said. “Prepare to sound the withdrawal.”

  A quarter of an hour later the salpinx blared. Slowly, like some great lumbering beast, Memnon’s forces hung a fresh curtain of dust in the air as they pulled back from the riverbank. From the Macedonian side could be heard jeers and catcalls. Sarissas rattled and laughter erupted as a few of Parmenion’s highlanders raised the hems of their linen tunics and shook their genitals at the backsides of the retreating Greeks. “Come over,” they called, “and we’ll give you a proper fucking!”

  Last off the field, Memnon simply waved to the Macedonians and strolled after his column.

  While the Macedonian camp lay less than a mile from the Skamandros, Memnon pitched and fortified his own some five miles up the river valley; now, a well-worn road led between camp and potential battlefield. The first two miles passed in less than an hour.

  His men were in good spirits, as they should be, for they were well paid, well fed, and well commanded. After defeating the Macedonian invaders at Pitane on the Gulf of Elaea, then at Cyzicus, and finally at Percote, they had driven them back almost into the Hellespont’s turbulent waters. All that remained to Parmenion were Abydus, Cape Rhoeteum, and the Dardanian Plain.

  “Soon, not even that,” Memnon said. He marched among his men, listening to their stories as he spun fables of his own. The only long face belonged to the Athenian.

  “At least we could have camped closer,” Ephialtes muttered, “then we wouldn’t have so far to march every gods-forsaken day!”

  “It’s beautiful weather, my friend, and marching is good for the soul. Truly, what else do you have to do?” Memnon clapped the Athenian on the shoulder.

  “Killing Macedonians would be preferable to slogging through this heat and dust.”

  “Patience, Ephialtes.”

  Halfway into the third mile a flurry of activity behind them brought Memnon up short. He turned as a mounted scout, a native of the Skamandros Valley, reined in and vaulted from his saddlecloth.

  “My lord!” he said in an accent so thick as to be almost unintelligible. “The Macks! They didn’t wait around! Gone back to their camp, they have! And they put out no patrols!”

  “Sentries?”

  “Aye, but they ain’t paying much heed!”

  Memnon thanked the man and walked away. He studied the makeshift road, looking back the way they had come. It was late afternoon, the sun bright and hot in the western sky. They should have plenty of time …

  A sharp whistle brought his aides running. Memnon sent a command to Pharnabazus at the head of the column. He didn’t use the trumpeters in case the sound of their clamor echoed over hill and hollow. A single word, the command easily remembered by even the most lack-witted ground-pounder: exeligmos. The aides ran to do his bidding and in moments the army shuffled to a halt. Memnon heard his command bawled down the line, from officers to veteran rankers to individual infantrymen; he watched as his five thousand men executed a countermarch with practiced precision.

  At the command “Exeligmos!“ the ten soldiers leading each thousandman company stepped right, faced to the rear, and marched between the files, back the way they had come. The second soldiers followed, and the third, until finally the troopers in the one-hundredth position, the ouragoi, had but to turn in place and dress ranks with their mates. An aide brought Memnon his shield and helmet as his officers hurried to take their posts at the new head of the column.

  Ephialtes glanced about, a bemused look on his face. “What goes?”

  “It’s time,” Memnon said, slipping his arm into his shield’s leather sleeve. “Now, we kill some Macedonians.”

  MEMNON’S SUDDEN REAPPEARANCE CAUGHT THE GLUM MACEDONIANS unprepared. Annoyed at being denied battle once again, most had stripped off their armor and were tending their cook fires, baking bread for their evening meal or slugging back their daily ration of wine. The last thing they expected was to see a battle line of Greeks fording the Skamandros, charging full-tilt toward the ditch and earthworks protecting their camp.

  Trumpets blared on both sides. Five thousand Greek throats raised the alala, the undulating war cry that vented fear and bolstered courage; from Macedonian throats came curses and shouts of alarm. Parmenion and his officers scrambled to whip their men into some semblance of a phalanx. The Macedonians jostled one another, tripping over their equipment; some snatched their sarissas and met the Greeks half-naked, others paused to throw on chest armor or a helmet.

  It availed them nothing.

  With Memnon in the lead, the Greeks breached Parmenion’s defenses. The Rhodian leapt the ditch and scrambled up the earthworks, his shield held high to deflect sarissa blades or sword strokes. He reached the top and, with an underhand thrust, sheathed his spear in an attacker’s unarmored vitals. The man went down screaming, clutching the blood-slick shaft. Memnon clambered over the crest of the earthworks and planted a foot in his victim’s groin, tearing the weapon free. Another Macedonian naked but for greaves and a Thracian helmet howled as he charged into the breach. Memnon swung his shield edge-on. Oak and bronze met flesh and bronze with a sickening crunch; the man dropped, helmet and skull staved in. The Rhodian shifted his weight. A third attacker, coming on the heels of the second, received the gory blade of Memnon’s spear on the point of his bearded chin. His head snapped back in a spray of blood and shattered teeth as the iron sliced through the roof of his mouth, into his brain. Memnon kicked the corpse free of his spear.

  Greeks poured over the earthworks on three sides of the camp. Damastes’ company struck from the right; Omares’ from the left. Memnon’s company, flanked by Pharnabazus’s and Patron’s, drove through the Macedonian center, making for the command tent and Parmenion. Here, the fighting was fiercest. A wild mob of highlanders, men of Parmenion’s own county, raised a hedge of sarissas to protect their general and kinsman. Iron ripped through bronze and flesh, each true strike marked by a rooster-tail of bright blood. The ground underfoot, churned and saturated with bodily fluids, became reeking mud that clung to a man’s sandals.

  The Greek advance might have faltered there had Ephialtes, bareheaded and bloody, not carved a breach in the enemy line. Memnon watched as the huge soldier hoisted a wounded Macedonian over his head and hurled the unfortunate onto the sarissas of his comrades, adding another and another until their combined weight snapped pike-shafts, opening a hole. Ephialtes, snatching up a sword in each hand and bellowing like a madman, plunged into this rupture. Memnon sent a dozen hoplites after him to give the Athenian cover.

  With his camp overrun and defensive line shattered Parmenion had little choice but to call for a general retreat if he hoped to salvage anything of his army. A salpinx wailed, its final note trailing off in a mournful echo. Memnon recognized the signal. Through his own trumpeters, he or
dered the Greeks to cease their slaughter. By the hundreds, the Macedonians disengaged and ran; those unable, through wounds or the ravages of heat, threw away their weapons and begged for mercy.

  Ephialtes struck down one would-be prisoner and had his sword upraised over another as Memnon caught his arm. The Athenian, eyes glassy and wild, snarled and tried to shake free; Memnon backhanded him across the cheek.

  “Get hold of yourself, damn you!” Memnon roared. “Get hold or I will kill you where you stand!” Ephialtes blinked. Blood drooled down his face, and his chest heaved with his exertions. Lowering his sword, he looked around not unlike a man waking from a deep sleep. “Go,” Memnon said, gently this time, “take some rest. You’ve earned it.” The Athenian nodded, stumbled toward the earthworks.

  All around, shattered by heat, thirst, and exhaustion, Greeks sprawled amid the dead and wounded Macedonians, gasping for breath through the narrow slits of their Corinthian helmets. Others scoured the bodies for allied wounded, ignoring Macedonian pleas for succor.

  “No, brothers!” Memnon called to them, wrenching off his helmet and handing it to an aide. “Help them, as well!” Water bearers circulated among friend and foe, alike.

  The Rhodian found Pharnabazus sitting outside Parmenion’s tent, bruised and blood-spattered, but otherwise unharmed.

  “This one is going to keep the old bastard up nights, Uncle,” he said, smiling. “I imagine he is cursing himself for letting you leave Thrace alive.”

  “Ah,” Memnon said, “but the true test for us will come later. Parmenion is a mere preamble, a rehearsal for the carnage that is Philip.”

  “Surely Philip will not be so foolish as to continue his plans for an invasion, not after we have sent his famed general back to Europe with a bloodied nose?”

  Memnon smiled. He held out his hand and helped Pharnabazus to his feet. “That, too, is but a preamble. Come, we’ve much left to do besides taking care of the wounded and the dead. We will camp here, tonight. Anything of any use we’ll take back with us tomorrow. Send out the scouts. I want to know precisely where Parmenion is. I’ll have Patron set sentries and guards for the prisoners—how ironic would it be if we fell victim to our own ruse, eh?”

  Memnon’s men worked well into the night securing the Macedonian camp. Men fed from captured stores while bonfires of sarissa shafts provided enough light for Greek armorers to harvest every scrap of bronze and iron. Sweeter smelling cressets flared around the surgeons’ tents on the edge of camp, nearest the Skamandros. Cleaned up, though still armored, Memnon went among the pallets of wounded, talking to men of both sides. His own soldiers he hailed by name, asking after their wounds and listening as they recounted their deeds that day; among the Macedonians, he introduced himself and tried to allay their fears, asking their names and their fathers’ names in return. Many of them recognized him from his exile at Pella.

  Memnon saw one familiar face in particular among the Macedonian wounded. The Rhodian crouched. “Koinos, isn’t it?” he asked. The red-bearded man nodded. Blood welled from a cut in his side; another in his scalp left his hair matted and filthy. “It’s been many years since the road to Mieza, but I’ve not forgotten your patience with my nephew. Is there anything I can do for you, my friend?”

  “My lord,” Koinos croaked, tears in his eyes. He rose on his elbow. “I beg your mercy. Kill me and have done, for I’d rather be dead than any man’s thrall.”

  Memnon, though, summoned one of his Greek surgeons. “Get this man cleaned up. You need fear neither death nor slavery, Koinos,” he said. “I give you my word. You and your men will be my guests until terms can be arranged with Parmenion. Failing that, I will send you back to Pella myself. All of you.”

  Koinos sighed his thanks and sank back onto his pallet.

  Damastes and Omares were among the wounded, as well. For Damastes, the surgeons held out little hope. His helmet had been split open by an axe-wielding highlander, the skull beneath shattered. Memnon sat at his side, clasping his limp hand and whispering reassurances in his ear. Omares’ prognosis was much better, though the sarissa wound to his left thigh would keep him bedridden for a month or more.

  “I’ll send you off to Assos,” Memnon said, smiling. “Let a few courtesans nurse you back to health.”

  “Praise Zeus! Better make it two months,” Omares replied. His grin became a grimace. A surgeon worked over his leg, stitching and cauterizing. “Wish your Egyptian was here. This one has a ham-handed touch.”

  “Ah, Barsine won’t let Khafre out of her sight.” In truth, he wished Khafre were here, too. Perhaps he could do something for poor Damastes. But, he’d sent the Egyptian to Ephesus with Barsine and the children to keep them well out of harm’s way. Memnon smiled. “You told me once that each of your wounds reminded you of something. What will this one remind you of?”

  Sweat glistened on Omares’ scarred forehead. “That I’m slower than I used to be.”

  An hour later, Pharnabazus found him still at Omares side. The older man slept fitfully; Memnon studied the dancing flame of a lamp. The Persian’s light touch on his shoulder roused him. “A messenger delivered this.” Pharnabazus held a scrap of parchment, torn from a corner of a map, rolled up, and tied with a leather thong.

  Memnon slipped it out and unrolled it, holding it closer to the light. There was no mistaking the blocky Greek letters … or the location the map fragment depicted.

  “What is it?”

  “A message from Parmenion,” Memnon replied. “He wants to talk.”

  NEAR SIGEUM, ON THE WINDSWEPT DARDANIAN PLAIN, A TUMULUS OF rock and scrub brush overlooked the choppy waters of the Aegean Sea. The sandy strand below had known the tread of giants, for here, in the old days, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and of the Achaeans, beached his fleet and unleashed the fury of the Greeks on the citadel of Troy. That ancient city, now little more than a sleepy village, lay four miles inland, across the Skamandros and near its confluence with the Simois River.

  Memnon approached the tumulus from the south, riding alone along the ridge that formed a natural bastion between the plain and the coast. No guards shadowed him; he had even forbid Pharnabazus from following.

  “It could be a trap, Uncle! You cannot trust him!”

  A beaten man could, indeed, be desperate enough to attempt an ambush, but Memnon did not have that sense about this meeting. Parmenion wanted something—something specific. So Memnon rode alone, his interest, and his instincts, piqued.

  From the base of the tumulus a goat trail wound up to its flat summit. Memnon dismounted, wary. The Rhodian wore his full panoply—a muscled cuirass of silver-inlaid bronze, a kilt of studded leather, bronze greaves etched with images of snarling Gorgon heads, and sandals of thick ox hide. The gold-chased sheath of his cavalry saber hung from a plain leather baldric, and the bronze face of his bowl-shaped shield bore a Persian eagle device, cobaltetched and lapis-inlaid. Memnon’s Corinthian helmet, its tall horsehair crest dyed Egyptian-blue, sat cocked atop his forehead.

  He tied his horse’s reins to a bush and ascended the trail, his hand on his sword hilt, ears straining to catch any sound that might betray an ambush. Above the booming wind and the distant crash and hiss of breakers, though, the Rhodian heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  Reaching the summit of the mound he found Parmenion, fully armed and armored, awaiting him. The Macedonian’s cuirass was of dull bronze, etched not for decoration but from use, as were his plain greaves. His sword hung at his left hip, and he leaned on a short cavalryman’s spear. Sunlight gleamed from its honed iron blade. Neither man moved or spoke.

  Wind whistled through the rocks, ruffling Memnon’s helmet crest. “Do we talk,” he shouted at length, “or do we settle this like Hector and Achilles?”

  Parmenion drove his spear butt-first into the thin soil, stripped off his sword and placed it on the ground. Memnon did the same, leaning his shield against a rock with his helmet and saber. Both men straightened and walked to the center of the tumul
us.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Parmenion said. He looked haggard in the bright sunlight; a man pushed to the edge of exhaustion then asked to take one step beyond. “I didn’t think you’d trust me.”

  Memnon smiled. “I don’t. But, we were friends, once, and I came to show you that I bear you no ill will.”

  “You have some of my men.”

  “And they will be well cared for, I promise you. My surgeons have treated your wounded same as mine.”

  “What of my dead?”

  “We burned them,” Memnon said. “I will have their bones sent to your camp. The men I hold prisoner, however, I cannot return to you until Macedonia leaves Asian soil. I have no wish to fight these same soldiers next month, or a year from now.”

  “Philip won’t like that,” Parmenion said.

  Memnon’s nostrils flared. “Then let Philip come and ask me for their release himself.”

  “He’ll come soon enough,” Parmenion said, baring yellowed teeth in a snarl of defiance. “Why do you prostitute yourself for a foreign despot when a king of Philip’s caliber would be honored to have you in his confidence? Do you not see that your slavish manner is not in your people’s best interest?”

  “On this ground.” Memnon scuffed at the soil. “You serve the foreign despot, not I! My people are not Macedonian, they are Asian Greeks and I serve them admirably!”

  “Persia is unworthy of your best efforts, Rhodian, and you know it! Join us! You’ll lose nothing, but think of what you’ll gain! Imagine it, Memnon! A kingdom of your own stretching from the Straits in the east to the Halys River in the west, and from the Cilician coast in the south to the shores of the Euxine in the north—all the lands and cities therein yours to rule as you see fit.”