The Three Paradises

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘That’s a tempting thought, my friend, but what would happen if Alketas and Eumenes did finally manage to make an alliance and managed to take control of Anatolia? Where would I be then if I had executed their allies?’

  EUMENES.

  THE SLY.

  ‘THE TIMING HAS never been better,’ Eumenes stated, looking over at Alketas, Attalus, Docimus and Polemon in turn, standing opposite him, the stiff breeze pulling at their cloaks and hair; they were on a hilltop in snow-capped, mountainous terrain just south of Iconium on the border between Phrygia and Pisidia – a branch of truce lay between them and their mounted escorts waited behind them, further down the hill, just out of earshot; Hieronymus sat behind Eumenes taking notes of the negotiations. ‘Antipatros is taking the kings and a good part of his army back to Europe. It just leaves Antigonos here in Anatolia; we all know that three thousand of Antigonos’ men, commanded by one Holcias, deserted a few months back. His lads aren’t happy. If we combine our forces, we will have enough troops to make a fool of him by leading him around western Asia, living off the land, taking what we want as I have been doing but on a much greater scale. Eventually, Antigonos will be such a laughing stock more desertions will deplete his army and the locals will despise him for allowing us to inflict such misery on them without hindrance. He will be forced to negotiate; all we will ask for is a pardon and for everything to be as it was. Thus the civil war will be over.’

  ‘So do I get Babylonia back?’ Docimus asked, looking at the little Greek with distaste.

  Gods, these high-born Macedonian have as much brain as they have manners. ‘Seleukos is satrap there now, on Antipatros’ orders; I think it would be hard to remove him, especially as you seized the satrapy without any official sanction in the first place.’

  ‘I’ll make the bastard pay for what he did, some day.’

  ‘What? Make him pay for sparing yours and Polemon’s lives and giving you safe conduct to Pisidia?’

  ‘Humiliating us; allowing us no escort, no baggage, no slaves, just our wives and children and a few spare tunics each.’

  ‘And your weapons,’ Eumenes reminded him. ‘You came as free men not prisoners.’

  ‘We didn’t have a denarius between us,’ Polemon complained. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yet all your expenses were paid. I think, gentlemen, that you have cause to be grateful to Seleukos. He would have been well within his rights to have had you both executed. Indeed, it could be argued that he broke the law in not doing so.’ Eumenes waved these concerns away and concentrated his attention back on Alketas and Attalus. ‘Think of it: if we can get them to the table then the war will be over and our positions safe.’

  The two men looked at one another and then back to Eumenes.

  I think I might be winning the argument; somewhere deep in the dark military mind of a Macedonian is an appreciation of strategy and it may well have just been awakened in these two fine specimens. I’d better tread carefully with the next part. ‘Now that we no longer have a navy, the interior is our only option.’

  Attalus stiffened and searched Eumenes’ face for any implied criticism.

  Eumenes held up a hand. ‘I don’t mean to apportion any blame, Attalus, I just state the facts as they stand: since the Rhodian navy destroyed your fleet in defence of their island, we have no means to counter Kleitos’ fleet and must, therefore, stay away from the coast. So bring your men inland to me and together we’ll confound Antigonos. What do you say, gentlemen?’

  ‘I will naturally have overall command with Attalus as my second, of course,’ Alketas said.

  Eumenes gazed in surprise at the younger man, fifteen years his junior. ‘Of course you won’t; I will command and you can be my second.’

  ‘I’ll not take—’

  ‘Orders from a Greek.’ Gods save us from the arrogance of these people; they would rather lose the war and their lives than have their dignity, as they see it, diminished. ‘No, you’ll take orders from a proven commander; one who wins. One who beat Neoptolemus and Krateros; one who forced Antipatros to despair and go home; as well as out-thinking Antigonos. A winner, in other words; men follow a winner.’ He stared at them, defying them to contradict him.

  ‘We’re winners too,’ Alketas asserted in a voice that came out less forceful than intended.

  That was too much for Eumenes. ‘Winners? Attalus has just had almost his entire fleet sunk beneath him in his ill-judged and badly reconnoitred assault on Rhodos; in saying badly reconnoitred I’m doing him the service of implying that there was a degree of reconnaissance, normally considered a prerequisite for a military undertaking, but actually he just blundered in thinking that Macedonian will always outdo Greek. Well, forty ships and almost five thousand men say that isn’t true.’ Eumenes stood, pushing his chair backwards onto the floor and, fuming, pointed at Attalus. ‘Don’t even try to defend yourself because that’s how it happened. And as for you, Alketas, what have you done but skulk around Pisidia? Oh, yes, you managed to kill Alexander’s half-sister, Cynnane; that was a winning move, wasn’t it? The army almost mutinied, you had to be saved by your late sister and your late brother was forced to allow the bitch’s whelp to marry Philip, thus adding to poor Perdikkas’ problems. Well, go back to Pisidia and carry on your winning ways there. Or see sense, and come back with me to Phrygia; join me and together we really do have a chance of winning.’

  ‘Only if I am in command,’ Alketas stated.

  Eumenes cocked his head as if he had not heard correctly and then gave a weak smile when he realised that he had. ‘Gentlemen, I’m wasting my time with you; our business here is done. Good day to you all. Come, Hieronymus, I trust you have sufficient evidence of the bone-headed stubbornness of the Macedonian warrior class.’ With that he turned and walked at pace back to his Kappadokian cavalry escort waiting down the hill.

  ‘You’re a Macedonian, Apollonides,’ Eumenes said to the commander of his escort, having contemplated the stubbornness of Alketas as they descended from the meeting place. A thin snow had started to drift; flakes settling on his horse’s neck melted almost instantaneously. ‘Why would Alketas rather risk death than take orders from a Greek?’

  Apollonides had no hesitation in answering. ‘Hundreds of years of being looked down upon as barely literate yokels with a dialect of Greek that would make even an Epirot blush is not easily forgotten by the noble houses. Since King Philip subdued the greater part of Greece twenty years ago, they feel that their superiority has been asserted and are therefore incapable of taking orders from—’

  ‘Inferiors who have been beaten. Yes, I understand all that; what I’m asking is why do they take it to such an extreme so that they would rather die than take orders from a Greek? You take orders from me, after all.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I’m a soldier who has worked his way up through the ranks; I wasn’t born with a sense of entitlement like Alketas. I was born in a hovel and my father cared more for his sheep than he did for me. And rightly so as the sheep could keep the family alive whereas I was a liability until I was six or so and could be of some use looking after the flock. As I was a younger brother I had little choice but to join the army and it has treated me very well; why would I put that at risk just because you are a Greek? I know that it is my lot to take orders, so who gives them is all one to me. Alketas, however… well, it would be more than his pride and dignity are worth to be seen bowing to a Greek; he could never go home again.’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to be going home anyway if he stays in Pisidia without a fleet to protect him,’ Eumenes mused, ‘so it doesn’t make much odds either way, I suppose.’

  It was as they approached his camp that evening, three leagues north of Iconium – a town that had already suffered badly from Eumenes’ army foraging – that Eumenes realised that something was amiss: one whole section, at the far end, judging by the lack of smoke from cooking fires, looked remarkably empty.

  ‘They left in the middle of the night,’ Xennias explaine
d, ‘very quietly; by the time I knew they were going it was too late. They were right at the other end of the camp and just crossed the picket lines and headed north; they were half a league away before I caught up with them. Diocles, their leader, refused to stop and, short of attacking them, there was nothing that I could do.’

  ‘How can three thousand men just walk out of the camp “very quietly”? Three thousand men in full equipment with all their baggage and everything quiet? No, I think not, Xennias.’

  Xennias’ face displayed displeasure at being disbelieved. ‘Think what you like, sir, but that is how it happened.’

  Careful, don’t alienate him. ‘I’m sorry, my friend, I’m sure you’re right. The question is; what to do about it? We can’t just allow a fifth of the army to disappear. Do you know where they are going? Antigonos, I suppose.’

  ‘No, sir, it seems that your tactics have shown that banditry pays: those men who deserted Antigonos last month have set themselves up in Kappadokia. Now that Nicanor has been recalled to Macedon, our lads—’

  ‘Have decided to join them. We’ll soon see about that; get all the cavalry, all of it, light, heavy, Macedonian, Kappadokian, Thracian, Paphlagonian and any other sorts of “ians” we have, ready to ride as soon as possible. Those bastards will not reach Kappadokia.’

  ‘They’re in the valley up ahead, half a league away,’ Apollonides said, pulling his horse up with a scattering of gravel; his breath steamed in the cold mountain air.

  ‘Good. We’ll just track them for a while to give our horses a rest before we tackle them. How are they formed up?’

  ‘In a standard column; very disciplined, no lagging and the ranks and files are in perfect order.’

  Eumenes reflected on that for a few moments. ‘So their discipline hasn’t gone; that’s a good sign. I may be able to bring them back to their duty. Who’s at the head of the column?’

  ‘Diocles, still, with a few of his junior officers.’

  Eumenes smiled, grim and determined. ‘Then he’ll be easy to find.’

  A moan rose from the column as two files of cavalry raced from its rear, up either side of it, as it travelled through a valley whose dun-coloured slopes were made up of jagged rocks, scree and the occasional patch of snow. As Eumenes neared the van, orders were bellowed and the great snake of men came to a creditable halt; anxious faces looked at him.

  What did you all think? That I’d just let you walk out on me, leaving me barely strong enough to survive, whilst you plunder my province? Eumenes drew his mount up at the head of the column, facing it a couple of paces from Diocles, a grey-bearded, brown-leather-skinned veteran of strong build and great age, who noticeably failed to salute him. ‘Men, my men, where are you going?’ Eumenes voice was high and clear in the crisp air.

  ‘We’re heading out on our own,’ Diocles said. ‘Seeing as we’ve been nothing but outlaws ravaging the country for this past year and more, we reckoned that we might as well just set up on our own and leave you to it, so as to speak; more for everyone that way, see?’ His smile was gapped-toothed and rotten; it came nowhere near his eyes.

  ‘So you all thought that you would go and plunder Kappadokia, my satrapy, did you?’

  ‘Well, you ain’t there at the moment, is you?’

  ‘As soon as you started raiding then you would have found me there.’

  ‘And besides, we heard that Antipatros had appointed his son, Nicanor, satrap, in your place.’

  ‘He’s not the legitimate satrap. I was appointed by Perdikkas, but I’m not here to bandy words with you.’

  ‘What are you here for, then, Greek?’

  ‘This!’ In one fluid motion he pushed his mount forward, swept his sword out and, leaning out, sliced the tip across the veteran’s throat.

  It was with a look of complete surprise, and then bewilderment, that Diocles clasped his throat but that did nothing to stem the spillage of blood; shock registered on the faces of his junior officers, just behind him, and on the men in the forward ranks of the column. He started to sway, as if inebriated, a gurgle rose in his gorge as blood flowed freely down his leather cuirass. Knees buckled and down he went, legs twitching at a disconcerting pace.

  ‘Seize them,’ Eumenes shouted, pointing at the junior officers.

  They made no attempt to resist arrest, as there was nowhere to hide from cavalry; nor did they struggle as, one by one, they had their heads struck off.

  ‘They died well,’ Eumenes declaimed, sitting on his horse over the headless bodies, ‘but they died unnecessarily as a result of stupidity. Did you really think that I or Antigonos would allow you and Holcias’ men to join up and ravage a part of the empire? It might even have brought us together for a temporary truce whilst we dealt with you and then it wouldn’t have been these few lying here missing their heads, no, it would have been all of you to serve as a lesson to anyone else who thinks that they can take advantage of the civil war. Whatever happens, we will keep order in the empire because without order there is nothing to fight for; not for me, nor Antipatros or Alketas or Antigonos; do you understand? Now, return to your duty and we’ll say no more about it. But mark my words: Antigonos will deal with Holcias far more brutally than I have dealt with you.’

  ANTIGONOS.

  THE ONE-EYED.

  ‘THE REPORTS WERE correct, Father. Leonidas is bringing them down from their camp now,’ Demetrios reported, urging his mount to the top of the hill where Antigonos stood with his old friend, Philotas, looking east. ‘The ruse has worked.’

  Antigonos chuckled to himself, rubbing his hands together, as he looked up to the low cloud shrouding the uplands from where Holcias and his deserters had terrorised western Kappadokia. ‘He’s a good man, that Leonidas, he must have been very convincingly against me for them to trust him so quickly. Just four months and they elect him as their general. I wonder how he did it.’

  Demetrios shrugged. ‘Tempted them with a large prize, no doubt. What will you do to them?’

  ‘I’ll use them to out-sly that sly little Greek, that’s what I’ll do with them; now get your cavalry ready.’

  Looking puzzled, Demetrios turned his mount and cantered off down to where a force of four thousand cavalry was formed up on the smooth plain of a river-valley – two thousand on either bank of the shallow, fast-flowing stream just ten paces wide.

  Antigonos again chuckled to himself and then blew into his cupped palms, warming them against the mountain cold. ‘The coming of winter affects me more with each passing year; it gets right into my joints.’

  Philotas grunted. ‘And that’s not all it affects; at our age we’re lucky if we can get an erection any time between the autumn and spring equinoxes.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, old friend, I find a pair of warm and willing hands answer very well.’ He looked at his pale fingers. ‘I just wish I could keep mine warm.’ But the temperature could not lower his spirits; things were finally coming together as he had hoped they would. He had, of course, protested in the strongest possible terms – as he would have been expected to – when Antipatros had ordered him to hand over the kings: loss of status for himself, bad for the morale of the men, takes away from the legitimacy of the Royal Army and a whole lot more besides, all convincingly argued and all, thankfully, rejected and he had submitted with gruff grace, a sour expression and joy coupled with relief in his heart. Antipatros was leaving Asia for good and the kings were to go with him – and with them the two harpies who clung to their flesh like things deranged. And, what was more, he was taking that sneaking brute, Kassandros, with him.

  It had been the best day’s work for a long time, ridding himself of all that baggage and being left in sole charge of the army of Asia; and now that Antipatros was on his way home, Antigonos was determined to deal with Eumenes and, preferably, bring him and his army onto his side for he could never have enough men and enough competent generals to lead them for what he had in mind; and there was no doubting that Eumenes had proved himself to be a ve
ry competent general indeed.

  From down on the plain a horn sounded.

  ‘The deserters must be in sight,’ Philotas observed as the mounted force began to move forward; ranks and ranks of shieldless, lance-armed Macedonian heavy cavalry, whose combined smell, both human and equine, rose to their vantage point imbuing Antigonos with an even greater sense of well-being as it reminded him, vividly, of the pleasures of war.

  He inhaled deep for a few moments and turned his face to the sky, revelling in life. ‘We had better get going then, old friend.’

  The two of them stalked down the hillside in the stiff-jointed manner of older men negotiating an uneven, treacherous surface. Down they struggled as the cavalry moved east along the valley at whose far, eastern, end a column of infantry, supported by a few cavalry, a very few cavalry, flowed down from the mist-wreathed hills.

  As the column reached the valley floor, Demetrios’ command moved from trot to canter and then to full gallop, covering the half league to the infantry quickly enough to prevent them forming into line; they were caught in the open by cavalry and, with very little horse of their own, their fate was obvious: surrender or be destroyed.

  ‘Well done, Leonidas,’ Antigonos said, a short while later, when he reached the captive troops, now all sitting on the ground, whispering amongst themselves and looking nervously around at the cavalry surrounding them. ‘That was a fine performance.’

  ‘Thank you, general,’ Leonidas said as he rose and grasped his general’s proffered forearm. ‘Like most of these sorts of creatures, their greed was their downfall.’

  ‘You treacherous bastard!’ a voice shouted as Antigonos and Leonidas embraced.

  ‘He may be a treacherous bastard to you, Holcias,’ Antigonos agreed, ‘but he’s a loyal bastard to me. You are the treacherous bastard. Now shut your mouth before I lose my sense of benevolence.’