Alexander at the World's End

by Tom Holt

  I left the baths, where I’d gone to read the letter, and started to walk back to the garrison barracks, where I was staying. It was a warmer than average evening, and I had a hill to climb, so I was taking it slowly, my mind still full of Alexander and his letter. Consequently I wasn’t paying much attention to the people around me and didn’t notice the man in a military cloak and helmet who came bustling up behind me until he’d rammed me in the back like a warship and sent me sprawling on the ground.

  He went down too, and I distinctly heard a crack, the unmistakable dry-branch-snapping noise of a human bone breaking. At once he started to curse and groan. I untangled my feet from the hem of his cloak and got up.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, rather foolishly.

  ‘No, I’m bloody well not,’ he replied. ‘You clown, you’ve broken my leg.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I replied. It wasn’t the most intelligent thing I could have said, I grant you, but I meant it for the best. He wasn’t impressed, though.

  ‘Sorry’s not damn well good enough,’ he gasped, and then let out another roar of pain. ‘Well, you’re going to regret this, I promise you, because I’m a colonel in the King’s army, and nobody...’

  ‘Eudaemon?’ I asked.

  He jerked his head round and glowered at me. ‘Do I know you?’ he said.

  ‘Eudaemon, it’s me. Euxenus.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Euxenus,’ I repeated. ‘Your brother.’

  ‘Oh, for gods’ sakes.’

  Just then a couple of soldiers happened to pass by; they helped Eudaemon up off the ground, prompting yet another leonine roar of agony, then told me I was under arrest.

  ‘Don’t be so damn stupid,’ Eudaemon wheezed. ‘This idiot’s my brother, apparently.’

  The soldiers weren’t quite sure what that had to do with anything; brother or not, I was still a civilian who’d apparently caused grievous bodily harm to a serving Macedonian officer. Before they could hurl themselves at me and start tearing up flesh, however, Eudaemon started giving them orders; you could almost hear the click as they disengaged their brains, allowing their superior officer’s voice to act directly on the muscles, nerves and tendons of their bodies. They picked him up and carried him, his arms around their shoulders like a drunk being taken home, in the direction of the barracks. I followed.

  The surgeon wasn’t in his quarters; he was out to dinner. Eudaemon sent someone to find him, and we were left alone, in a courtyard outside the surgeon’s office.

  ‘Hello, Eudaemon,’ I said. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  He frowned. ‘Really,’ he said.

  I tried to think of something else to say. ‘How are you keeping?’ I asked.

  ‘Not so hot,’ he replied. ‘Some damn fool just pushed me over and broke my leg.’

  I looked at him. He was a little shorter than I remembered, but considerably more massive; whatever he’d been doing over the last twenty-odd years had invested him with an enormous amount of muscle and flesh. His shoulders, arms and chest were huge, and his belly sagged over his belt in a bulging fold. Even his fingers were enormous; my hand would disappear into his, like a child holding hands with its father. His cheeks were round, like an apple, and his beard came up almost to the sockets of his eyes. I’ve never seen such a thick neck in all my life. Under all that beard it was hard to see anything of his face, except that he’d developed an exaggerated version of our father’s long, flat nose. On the inside of his left forearm, almost exactly midway between his wrist and his elbow there was a suitably large and spectacular scar, the residue of a severe burn — I saw something similar once on the shin of a blacksmith, who’d stumbled while holding a billet of white-hot bronze and ended up kneeling on it for a brief, agonising moment.

  ‘What happened to your arm?’ I asked.

  ‘Cave-in,’ he replied, in a detached, almost bored voice. ‘Seige operations at Tyre . We’d dug a shaft under the wall, and we were burning out the gallery props to collapse it and bring the wall down. Some fool had skimped on the job and it came in too bloody early. I got buried, and six foot of burning beam landed on my arm. Of course, I couldn’t move, just had to lie there till someone came back and hauled me out. No fun,’ he added, with a small, grim smile.

  ‘Anyway, how about yourself? I gather you moved back home. How is the old place?’

  His tone of voice as he asked was one of forced interest, such as you’d use when asking after the health of a distant and rather disreputable relative.

  ‘Not so bad,’ I replied. ‘It hasn’t changed much since your day. I’ve tidied it up, put things in some sort of order.’

  ‘Mended the hole in the scullery roof?’

  I nodded. ‘But the store-room door still sticks,’ I added.

  ‘Really? I can’t remember.’ He tried to shift a little, but the pain made him wince. ‘Really, Euxenus, you’re a bloody menace. Haven’t seen you in twenty-six years and the first thing you do is cripple me. You always were a clumsy bugger.’

  ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ I replied, guilty-irritable.

  ‘I never said you did,’ he said. ‘But you never did look where you were going. I remember that time when we were kids and you dropped that ladder—’

  ‘Eudaemon,’ I interrupted, ‘you’re amazing. We haven’t seen each other in gods know how long. I really thought you were dead. Dammit, I thought all our family was dead. And then suddenly, out of the blue, you come to life again and all you can say is, Euxenus, you always were a clumsy bugger. Really—’

  ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘Look, if you’re telling me you really didn’t know I was still alive then I’ll believe you, though I find that hard to credit. So all right, you’ve lost touch with me. Not the same the other way round. Oh, no. I’ve been hearing about you so long you’re lucky I don’t break your foul neck.

  Dammit, if it wasn’t for you—’

  I held up my hand. ‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘you’ve lost me.’

  ‘The celebrated Euxenus,’ he went on. ‘Euxenus the philosopher. Euxenus, the wisest man I ever knew. Euxenus, without whom none of this would ever have been possible. I tell you, brother, there were times when for two pins I’d have shaved my beard, changed my name and deserted just so I wouldn’t have to hear any more about wonderful, sun-shines-out-of-his-bum Euxenus. And to cap it all,’

  he added angrily, ‘as if you haven’t done enough already, the first thing you do when finally our paths cross is break my goddamn leg. Figures,’ he concluded bitterly. ‘On reflection, if the worst I end up with is a bust leg I reckon I’ll have got off light.’

  ‘Slow down, will you?’ I said. ‘Just what exactly am I supposed to have done?’

  He laughed unpleasantly. ‘That’s bloody rich, that is. Euxenus the Great Sage, teacher, mentor and living inspiration of the divine Alexander, son of Zeus, stepson of Philip. For gods sakes, brother, you’re one of the most famous men in the Empire. And,’ he added with a shrug, ‘I’m your kid brother. Wonderful.’ He let go a long, measured sigh. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘by the look of you it hasn’t all been wine and honey-cakes. You look pretty bloody awful, brother, no offence.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said.

  Just then the surgeon bustled in. He was wearing a fancy dinner gown with red wine spilt down the front, and as he walked through the door he masked a cavernous yawn with the back of his hand. I don’t know, there was something about him that didn’t inspire confidence.

  ‘What the hell was so urgent,’ he said, ‘that I had to be dragged from my dinner...?’

  He’d made a tactical mistake. He’d got just a little bit too close to the bench my brother was lying on, and before he could finish his sentence, Eudaemon reached out with his enormous left paw, grabbed the surgeon’s gown where the folds hung round his neck, and dragged him to his knees. Sweetly done.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ he said.

  The surgeon was too shocked to answer; so would you have been, I recko
n, if you suddenly found yourself kneeling at less than arm’s length from my brother’s savage, staring eyes. Eudaemon held him there for a count of five, then relaxed his fingers and let him go. He stood up and backed away a couple of paces.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ I asked.

  ‘No, of course not,’ the surgeon replied.

  ‘You’ve got booze all down your front,’ my brother said. ‘If you can’t even find your face when you’re sober, you must be a bloody rotten surgeon.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ the surgeon said, rather desperately. ‘Look, do you want me to set your leg or not?’

  My brother made a soft, growling noise in the back of his throat. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I used to think I was a pretty tough character; I mean, I’ve fought the Persians and the Bactrians and the Medes and the Indians and a whole lot of other people whose names escape me right now, and they didn’t bother me too much. But I’ve got to admit, this clown scares the shit out of me.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the surgeon said. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  The unfortunate man froze in mid-step. I’d have done the same. My brother had the perfect parade-ground voice, not so much loud (though it was loud enough) as densely packed with a lifetime of contempt, weariness and disgust.

  ‘Please,’ the surgeon said, ‘make your mind up. Either you want me to treat you or you don’t.’

  My brother sighed. ‘Get on with it,’ he said. ‘And do a proper job, or you’ll wish you were never born.’

  Now, I’ve never had a broken bone, so I don’t know from personal experience, but people I’ve met who’ve had bones set say it’s probably the most intense pain there is, though women tell me childbirth is worse. I’ll admit, the click as the surgeon put the thing back where it belonged was enough to make me want to throw up. But Eudaemon didn’t make a sound, apart from a tiny grunt, the sort of noise you’d expect from a fieldmouse belching. As for the surgeon, he looked scared to death. I had the feeling his evening wasn’t going quite the way he’d planned.

  ‘Well,’ Eudaemon said, after the surgeon had packed up his things and gone, ‘that wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be.’

  ‘You don’t like doctors, do you?’ I said.

  ‘Whatever makes you say that?’ Eudaemon replied. ‘True, half of them are butchers and the other half are frauds, but by and large they’ve never done me any harm. Though I’ve always done my best to stay well clear of them, I’ll be honest with you there. Anyway, you’d better help me back to my quarters.

  And this time, try not to break anything else. I really don’t want to have to go through all that again.’

  Luckily, Eudaemon’s quarters weren’t too far away. He had a place to himself, smaller than a cowshed but much larger than a clothespress, say, or a beehive.

  Inside it was sparse, to put it mildly. Stacked against the wall, his armour —

  expensive breastplate and helmet, lavishly decorated with enamel that had been chipped and scraped into worthlessness, a small shield with a large letter A painted on it, and a pair of battered silver-plated greaves — and beside it a goatskin pack with the hair still on, the strap frayed and repaired with rawhide cord. There was a plain cord-mattress bed, the type common to all the quarters in the place, and a folding three-legged stool with a patched rush seat. That was it.

  ‘So this is home,’ I said, as I lowered him off my shoulders onto the bed.

  ‘Of course not,’ Eudaemon replied. ‘I’m not planning on staying here, or at least I wasn’t. Now I guess I’ll be stuck here for however long it takes the bone to knit. Thanks again.’

  I sat down on the stool and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. ‘All right,’

  I said. ‘Maybe now you’ll tell me what’s going on. I got this crazy-sounding letter, apparently from Alexander himself—’

  ‘No apparently about it,’ Eudaemon interrupted. ‘I know all about your precious letter, thank you very much. Seems like I’ve got you to thank for being elbowed out of the service.’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t blame me,’ I said. ‘First I knew of all this was when a couple of soldiers turned up outside my house and told me I was going to Asia .’

  Eudaemon was silent for a moment. ‘Figures,’ he said. ‘It all sounds a bit like Alexander arranging things for the best. You know, that man’s a miracle. He can do more damage with a good intention than twenty thousand of the Great King’s crack guardsmen let loose in a crowded marketplace.’ He turned his head and looked at me. ‘From what I gather, you’re pretty much the same, though on a suitably low and primitive level. I don’t know; maybe it’s one of the things that marks you men of destiny out from the rest of us.’

  I let go a long, deep sigh and shifted the stool back a few yards. ‘All right,’

  I said. ‘Now you can start explaining what’s behind that and all the other snide little cracks you’ve been making ever since I laid eyes on you. And before you start lashing out and trying to strangle me, you’ll please observe I’ve had the sense to move out of range.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ he replied with mock approval. ‘Obviously a certain rudimentary tactical ability runs in our family. You really think I’d hurt you, my own brother?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Also,’ he added, ‘an ability to judge character at a glance.’ He wriggled a little, trying to get comfortable, and groaned. ‘You know, you’re not the same man as the one I’ve had cluttering up my memory all these years. At least,’ he added with a sigh, ‘I guess you were both one and the same person, but you’ve sort of grown apart, like we have. Figures; my version of you has been all round the world with me, seen things you’ll never see if you live to be a hundred and twelve.’

  I nodded. ‘Which of us do you prefer?’ I said.

  He thought about that. ‘Hard to say,’ he replied. ‘I mean, my version’s a right bastard, done me no end of harm over the years. But he never went so far as to bust my leg.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘about this Euxenus of yours.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Draw up a seat, I’ll tell you all about him.’

  I’d actually shifted the stool an inch or two before I saw it. ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘What did you call it? Basic tactical ability?’

  ‘Rudimentary was the word I used. Sounds better. Longer.’ He shrugged, then regretted it as a spike of pain made him shudder. ‘Please yourself, then, and stay where you are. This Euxenus I know is an arrogant, thoughtless, self-centred jerk who doesn’t give a stuff about anybody except himself — not really bothered about himself, even, or at least not in the way most people are.

  Doesn’t really care about money or position or pleasure or even comfort. He’s the sort of cold, dead bugger who cares about ideas, not people. Dangerous sort, that; they tend to be horribly persuasive, people listen to them and get all fired up with these ideas of theirs. They attract disciples, like honey attracts wasps. Give one of these arseholes a disciple or two and he can burn down cities.’

  ‘Or found them,’ I added with a smile.

  ‘Same difference,’ he said. ‘You need the same mentality for both. Now me,’ he went on. ‘I’ve been a soldier all my adult life—’

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupted again. ‘What about that? Last I knew, you were hanging round that man — what was his name? The one who made you read the book about the bees.’

  Eudaemon looked at me, then burst out laughing. ‘Bias,’ he said.

  ‘And the book was Aeneas the Tactician. Now there were two more inspirers-of-disciples. If I had my way, the whole lot of you’d be rounded up like sheep and strangled with your own intestines.’

  ‘Probably wise,’ I admitted. ‘Go on. You were a sort of apprentice to the man Bias.’

  Eudaemon sighed. ‘We went to join the service of the King of Macedon,’ he said.

  ‘Or at least, I did. I’d saved up a bit of money —thirty drachmas, I think it was — to pay my passage and t
ravelling expenses to get there and buy some extra kit, and Bias told me he’d make the necessary arrangements for us both, so I gave him the money and I never saw him again; at least, not for years. But by the time I twigged, of course, I was on board this ship going up the coast, and without so much as a dud copper obol to pay for my fare. The master wasn’t at all pleased, as you can imagine.’

  ‘How far had you got?’ I asked.

  ‘Bias told us both he’d be joining the ship at Oropus — why he said that and why we believed him I have no idea. Anyway, there we were at Oropus, and no sign; so that bastard of a ship’s captain slung me out, kept my sword and spear for payment, which was a total rip-off, and sailed away. I had a breastplate, a helmet, shield and a pair of greaves (all second-hand, and the greaves didn’t fit worth a toss) but no weapons and no money; so after a day or two of moping about in Oropus getting laughed at when I went looking for work I did the sensible thing, sold the rest of my gear for what I could get — secondhand armour was a real drug on the market back then, of course, because of all the kit taken off dead people after battles; you’d be amazed how cheap people let their armour go for when they’re dead — and then bummed around a bit more trying to decide what to do.

  ‘Couldn’t bring myself to slink back home; nobody wanted to hire me as a mercenary soldier, or anything else much, at that. Finally I decided I’d had enough of sitting in the shade eating my capital, so I set off to walk to Macedon. Turned out to be far less hassle than I thought it’d be — straight roads all the way, not much bother. Didn’t have much to eat, of course, or anywhere to sleep, but there’s always a wall or a tree when you want one, and it toughened me up, got me used to long marches, short rations and sore feet.

  Arrived at Pella , found Philip wasn’t there, off beating the crap out of the Illyrians or some such improbable race; but they were hiring men for General Parmenio and the home guard, weren’t all that fussed about who they took. I pretended I was a veteran of gods know how many campaigns — made half of ‘em up, and nobody knew the difference — so they took me on, issued me with some kit and the mighty sarissa; now there’s an evil device if ever there was one. I’ll tell you about it some time if I can be bothered. Anyway, that’s how I came to be a soldier; and I was chugging along quite nicely, worked my way up to junior captain of auxiliary infantry, thought of myself as more of a Macedonian than I’d ever been an Athenian, when suddenly King Philip dies and King Alexander takes over, and somehow — gods know how — word reaches him that Captain Eudaemon is the brother of his old schoolmaster, Euxenus of Athens. At which point,’