Force of Kings

22

It was a perfect summer evening, and the camps stretched away from the ridges on the east flank to the river on the west, and no man present had ever seen such a confrontation — not at Gaza, and not when Alexander still walked the earth.

Satyrus informed Phoibos, and he made the symposium happen as if he arranged wine for two hundred guests every day — perhaps he did.

There were Sakje. It was not possible to invite just a few Sakje — they had no notion of invitation. A party was for drinking. The first man on a pony arrived at Satyrus’s pavilion an hour before sunset, while Phoibos and his slaves were still stacking the wood for four concentric bonfires. Other slaves brought sheep, goats, a pair of cows and a bull.

Phoibos, now an accepted part of Satyrus’s military household, found Draco — a trusted retainer, in his eyes, if a heavy drinker and a dangerous fornicator — already at the slaves. Phoibos caught the killer’s eye. ‘Sir, I need an errand that only a gentleman can run for me.’

Draco tore himself away from the contemplation of a willing accomplice in lechery. ‘Whatever you need, laddy.’ The word ‘gentleman’ had gone to his head. Phoibos knew his way around soldiers.

‘I need a priest … a decent priest, a Greek with a civil tongue. Otherwise Lord Satyrus will do the sacrifices himself, which is not seemly.’

Draco clucked. ‘The things you worry about, Phoibos. But … you do this stuff, and I don’t. Antiochus has a priest of Zeus. An Athenian. I met him yesterday.’

‘Would you be so kind? ‘ Phoibos asked, already holding out the Macedonian’s dusted and re-pressed cloak.

Draco nodded and set off across the camp. He took a horse, and because he had to go to the horse lines, he put on a sword. And when he thought of who he would be addressing, he stopped and changed his chiton as well.

Well before dark, Phoibos presented Satyrus with another quandary. Having invited his friends — his father’s friends — and the Sakje, now some of the other officers wished to invite themselves. The sight of a line of wine jars the width of a phalanx, and a set of bonfires like the funeral pyre of Petrocolus, and a herd of sacrificial meat big enough to feed the army …

‘Lord Antiochus wishes to attend,’ Phoibos said. ‘The King of Babylon. The King of Thrace. The strategos of Macedon.’

Satyrus looked grim. ‘Not the party I intended.’

Melitta shook her head. ‘Of course it is. If Mater and Pater were here, wouldn’t they do just this? What can better hearten the army than to see the chiefs together in piety and amity?’

Satyrus smiled. ‘Very well. We host the world.’

‘Very good,’ Phoibos replied. ‘I have already taken the liberty of telling them so.’

It wasn’t yet full dark, and the Sakje were clamouring for the fires to be lit. There were quite a few eastern Saka with the satrapal levies, and now there were two hundred of them alone flooding the area set off for the symposium. Most of them had enough sense to bring wine, and pallets to lie on.

A tall, handsome man with a big nose and beautiful dark skin like fine wood bowed low to Satyrus. ‘You don’t know me,’ he said. He had the voice of a Greek actor playing a Persian.

‘Darius,’ Satyrus said.

They embraced, and Darius embraced Melitta. ‘Where’s Leon?’ he asked.

‘Out on the sea, covering our flank,’ Satyrus said.

‘Ahh. He will be sad to have missed this.’ Darius looked out at the Saka and the Sakje. ‘I apologise — many of them are mine, Persae and Saka. So I have brought some wine and some extra hands to serve.’ In fact, every man behind him had an amphora of wine — a veritable fortune.

‘I am not a poor man,’ he said with a smile. ‘Seleucus has given me high rank.’

‘You will be in the morning if we drink all that,’ Melitta said.

‘And this handsome man?’ Darius asked.

‘My friend, Anaxagoras,’ Satyrus said.

Melitta laughed. ‘My husband, whenever he troubles to ask me.’

Satyrus had the pleasure of watching Anaxagoras blush in consternation.

Old friends crowded around to offer their congratulations, but Melitta gave her shout of war and they stilled. ‘He has to ask me,’ she said. ‘I’m Greek enough in my heart that I cannot ask him.’

Anaxagoras grinned, bowed … and vanished.

Satyrus wondered if he was angry. Anaxagoras was not easy to hurt — perhaps he had not liked this public denouement.

Hard to know.

Old friends pressed close once more, and Satyrus forgot in a whirl of reminiscence.

Sophokles needed to get clear of the compound and ride for it. He knew everything — everything useful that he could get.

He’d spent the day wooing Seleucus’s physician, a man who had never been to Athens and needed all the help he could get. Sophokles gave him good advice, shared two of his best drugs, free of charge, and discussed bandages and poisons. In exchange, he asked nothing except to sit one tent wall from the command tent and listen.

He didn’t like how confident the Seleucids were. But he had the fault lines of their alliance firmly in his head, and now he could tell Neron which of the satraps could be bribed; he’d heard it from Antiochus himself.

He bowed to all, and hurried out of the palace complex of tents — hurried too fast, so that the sentries in the outer cordon stopped him. It was the sort of mistake he hated to make. He vowed never to make it again.

Draco dismounted at the officer’s picket line, near the King of Babylon’s tents. His horse hated the smell of elephants, and he drove her picket pin in to the ring. Then he walked up to the sentries, dusting his hands to get the sand off.

There was a handsome enough man just passing out of the palace of tents, walking too fast. The soldiers didn’t like it — Draco applauded their professionalism — they stopped and asked his business.

Draco thought that perhaps he knew that voice. He froze.

When the man finally passed the cordon, Draco followed him into the streets behind the palace of tents, where the companion cavalry and infantry were camped.

Indecision was not in Draco. He watched the man walk, and he was sure.

He followed him down the main street of infantrymen, and then along a side street, past the petty-wine shops, the men who sold olive oil and new pans to soldiers.

He followed the man right to the door of his tent, and there, without breaking stride, he plunged his sword into his back.

Then he rolled the man over. His eyes were glazing.

‘Know who I am?’ Draco said. ‘I hope so. Here — eat this, you fuck.’ He buried his sword in the man’s mouth, so the point came out the back of his neck. Draco put a little more pressure on the point and snapped the vertebrae, sawed messily a little and beheaded him. He sighed when he remembered that he was wearing his best cloak. But he wrapped the head in the cloak.

Pushed the corpse to bleed out in the door of the tent.

Picked up the head and went looking for a priest of Zeus.

Anaxagoras returned to the party like a thunderbolt. He was mounted, and he had — of all people — Scopasis and Thyrsis at his side, and they rode through the party like an enemy charge, scattering the guests, but not a one was injured. It was a pretty feat of riding, and it was made better by the agility with which Anaxagoras snatched the Queen of the Assagetae from the conversation she was sharing with Sappho and the Lady Thais, Antiochus’s concubine, as well as Lucius and Stratokles. One moment she was talking to them, and the next she was across his horse, riding away.

His arms were strong, and his grip on her was like a band of bronze.

‘Marry me?’ he asked.

The sound of her laughter trickled past the sound of his horse’s hooves, back through the party.

It made a fine way to launch the festivities, especially when they came back, dismounted and more orderly, and announced their betrothal. Phoibos glared at Draco, who entered looking rumpled, drunken, and soiled, but had indeed brought the priest, who hastened to do his master’s bidding.

But Satyrus insisted, as host, in sacrificing the bull.

Even the Sakje were silent.

No man — no worshipper, no priest, no pious aristocrat — sacrifices a bull lightly. Not just the money — but the cut. A bull does not die as easily as a lamb or a dove. A priest might slash the bull’s throat with a sharp knife, but a soldier was expected to do it the old way.

Satyrus believed in the old way. He stepped up to the altar and handed the rope to Anaxagoras, who pulled it tight, stretching the animal’s neck across the altar. The old way.

Satyrus looked off into the heavens, into the last light in the sky, and it seemed to him that he saw an eagle there, or perhaps a raven, on the auspicious right side of the sky — spiralling away — and just for a moment, he wished that he was there in the sky, high above the needs of men and women.

He sent his thoughts up to Olympus, to Herakles, and drew — rotated his hips, and brought the blade down.

It was not his fighting sword, it was the heaviest sword he could borrow. And Tyche was with him: his blade went between the vertebrae of the neck as if the God himself had his hand on the hilt.

The bull slumped — the last morsel of flesh tore with the weight of the body — and the head rolled free, falling at Anaxagoras’s feet.

The roar of the soldiers was like an avalanche of sound.

Seleucus — dignified, gracious Seleucus — slapped his back as if they were wine-bibbers. ‘Spectacular!’ he shouted over the crowd.

Satyrus wiped his blade clean and bowed to the priest, who gave him the look of a man with a hard act to follow.

But the priest did a competent job, making his way through lambs and goats, and the pool of blood under the altar grew deeper and deeper — libations were poured, and smoke rolled into the heavens from the long bones wrapped in fat and laid on the fires on the altar. A pair of acolytes cut the meat and passed it to Phoibos — a dignified Phoibos in a shining red chiton — who cut it into slices with an expertise and speed that made his flaying look like magic.

Satyrus, his act of piety complete, felt like a hero, and he poured a special libation and then stood with his friends, passing a cup of watered wine, watching the priests — a sacrifice to Athena, a sacrifice to Hera, a sacrifice to Aphrodite …

Seleucus came up by Satyrus. ‘Thank you, King of Tanais. This was well thought out — a proper way for men to show their respect for the gods on the eve of battle. A proper show that we are Hellenes, here in the land of the barbarians.’

Satyrus was looking at a crowd of Darius’s tribal Saka gathered around Melitta, and smiled. But he appreciated that Seleucus was trying to be genial, to overcome his habitual reserve — and besides, the two had shared Ptolemy’s court.

‘Great king, your praise is sweet in my ears,’ Satyrus said.

‘I don’t call myself “Great King”,’ Seleucus said.

But you will, Satyrus thought.

‘Is there news from the fleets?’ he asked.

Seleucus nodded. ‘Our fleets are already dispersing. Demetrios’s fleet is in Athens and Corinth. There were two actions — Plistias declined both times. I understand that your friend Abraham, the Jew — how well I remember him from Alexandria, always the handsomest of the young men — distinguished himself in the Dardanelles. But each time he was offered battle, Plistias rowed backwards and tried to draw our fleet into disarray.’ Seleucus shrugged.

Antiochus, his son, grinned. ‘Lord Leon insisted that the fleet row and row. He would never allow them to raise their sails, not even on the reach from Alexandria to Cyprus. And Leon made sure the rowers were paid every month at the full noon. Strong, well-paid rowers — that’s all anyone needs to know about naval tactics.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Leon was one of my father’s men, and they are all gathered here. I was hoping he’d make his way over the mountains.’

Antiochus shook his head. ‘Lord Leon and Abraham the Jew and your Aekes — what a polyglot crew your people are! He’s a Spartan helot, isn’t he?’

‘I think that he is now a Bosporon navarch,’ Satyrus said.

Antiochus didn’t take offence. ‘Oh, of course. At any rate, they took some city on the Propontus less than a week ago — Plistias’s last garrison. So now the grain fleets can sail, and our allies have both sides of the Propontus. They must be twelve hundred stades from here.’

Lysimachos came up and offered Satyrus wine in a gold cup — unwatered wine. Satyrus had a sip. ‘Thanks for doing this, Satyrus. The troops like a display of piety. Makes the prospect of battle easier to swallow. Eh?’ He smiled and drank.

The priest was sacrificing the last ram — a black one, for the god many called ‘Pluton’, god of good fortune. But every Hellene present knew that the priest was invoking Hades, god of the underworld.

He poured a heavy phiale of wine onto the altar, and with the stinging copper scent of blood, the rich aroma of cooking fat, and the spiced and steaming wine over the spitting, burned bones, the air was full of the smells of the gods.

‘Pluton, lord of good fortune — husband of Persephone, who brings the spring in all its abundance, Demeter’s lovely daughter; brother of Zeus, all powerful under the earth, lend us your daughter Tyche and withhold your hand from us. And let the shades of our friends drink deep of these libations of wine and blood, and remember when they were men, and walked the earth beneath the kiss of the sun.’

The sun was just setting — a red fireball on the distant horizon of the ridges to the west.

Coenus was there. He was born of one of the oldest families in Greece, who claimed descent from Zeus, or so the poets told, and he was unmoved by Macedonian kings.

Seleucus extended his arm. Coenus had been an intimate of Ptolemy’s at Alexandria, and the two men knew each other well. They clasped hands, and Coenus embraced Diodorus, who had made his career with the King of Babylon.

‘If he raises the shades of all of our friends,’ Coenus said, and there were tears in his eyes.

Seleucus nodded. ‘All the men that Alexander took to Granicus, Issus, Arabela, the Jaxartes River and the Hydaspes, Persepolis, Babylon, India. There must be five armies there.’

Lysimachos habitually wore an air of irony, as if there was nothing he took seriously, neither life nor death, danger, scorn, even defeat. But as the sun sank below the horizon, he shook his head. ‘Why did the priest say that? Those shades — they would outnumber every man here, in both armies.’

Coenus nodded. ‘Perhaps the night before a battle is the time to remember the fallen — as we may well join them tomorrow. When you are cold and rotten in the ground, brothers, would you not want to think that other men will pour wine over your memory from time to time, and think of all your deeds, and praise you?’

They were a great circle of men and women around the altars, then — the sun was going down, and he cast a last blaze of bronze colour over everything.

Unbidden, a man — a Macedonian — spoke up. ‘I remember Granicus,’ he said. ‘I remember trying to climb the river bank, and Memnon and all his fucking hoplites at the top, killing us. My brother fell there.’

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of voices came out of the dark. ‘Aye!’ they shouted, and they said aloud the names of the men they’d known who fell there.

Diodorus held up his wine cup. ‘I remember Chaeronea, brothers. I stood with Athens against Macedon, and I saw my father’s corpse, and two of my boyhood friends died there.’

And again, the chorus — smaller, this time. Again the shouts of names.

Coenus took the cup. ‘I remember Issus. I was with the allied cavalry. Kleisthenes fell there, where we broke the Persian nobles.’

Now the chorus from the dark was louder, hundreds of voices raised, and the list of shouted names went on for as long as a man might drink a cup of wine, on an evening under the stars.

‘I remember Arabela,’ Seleucus said. ‘I was with the Companions, when we won Asia. So many of my friends fell there …’

And again, louder yet. Hundreds of voices, hundreds of names.

‘Ectabana!’ shouted one of the pikemen.

‘The fight in the passes by Persepolis!’ shouted another.

‘Hydaspes!’ shouted one of Seleucus’s staff officers. ‘The elephant fight!’ And the chorus had become a throaty shout.

The names of battles continued from the dark around the fire as the sun finally settled below the horizon — the siege of Tyre and the battles of the Lamian War, named in order by Stratokles, the first contests of the Diadochoi … skirmishes of which Satyrus had never heard.

His sister came and put a callused hand in his. The names came from the darkness — never strictly chronological, but as men drew the courage to shout a name — famous battles and skirmishes, an eternal litany of war and the victims of war. And sometimes the voices in the dark were women’s voices.

Eumenes of Olbia raised the cup. ‘The Ford of the River God,’ he said.

The Sakje roared their approval.

Lysimachos shook his head. ‘Zopyron died there, and four thousand Macedonians, farm boys and veterans, and Thracians — not the wisest choice to mention.’

‘Jaxartes River!’ Melitta called into the darkness, and again the Sakje roared, and all the Saka, and many of the Bactrians and Persians.

‘Kineas fell there, defeating Alexander!’ Melitta shouted again.

Lysimachos growled but Seleucus nodded as the Saka and Persians were emboldened to add their dead. But Herakles, Alexander’s son, looked at the fire. And Lucius put his arms around the boy and led him apart, lest he be recognised and acclaimed, or worse.

It was fully dark now, and the bonfires roared, full force, their fire an exchange for the sun.

And the veterans of a hundred battles continued to shout the names of their fights, and their absent friends — Raphia, Tanais River, Cyprus, Gaza, — land fights and sea fights, skirmishes and battles, and now the chorus was the roar of a thousand lions that filled the darkness.

The priest of Zeus came and bowed to Seleucus. ‘My lord … I had no idea … my apologies. I did not mean this to happen.’

Seleucus poured wine on the ground from the cup that Phoibos pressed into his hand. ‘I can feel them pressing in — and I am no superstitious man, priest.’

Apollodorus, emboldened by wine, shouted at the commanders, ‘You helped make the shades! Now endure them!’ and hundreds of voices roared approbation.

It might have led to a fight-the contest of victories and the bitterness of the lost friends. There stood Persians with the men who had killed their fathers, and there were Macedonians with the Saka who had fought them on every field.

But Phoibos kept the wine flowing, a legion of slaves carrying amphorae as far as the firelight carried, with wine bowls that were, by day, wooden campaign bowls, or mess pots, or simply fire-hardened clay that had a sticky feel and stained black with the wine — and the Sakje shared with the Persians, with the Macedonians and the Greeks, the Ionians and the Syrians — the wine passed, and with it, some of the fear.

And then Anaxagoras began to play.

He may, indeed, have been playing for an hour — the sound of a lyre is not loud enough to compete with the roars of five hundred men. But as silence fell, respectful and tired, his lyre song rose above the whispers in the dark.

And when he was sure that he had them, he played the paean of Apollo.

Of all the songs of the Hellenes, the paean of Apollo was one that the Sakje and the Bactrians knew as well. Lysimachos began to sing, and Prepalaus, and Diodorus and Antiochus and Seleucus, and Coenus and Apollodorus, Melitta and Scopasis and Charmides and Thyrsis and Draco and Phoibos — even the slaves sang, so that the song rose to the night with the wine and the blood.

A little away from the fires, Stratokles wept. Lucius put an arm around him. ‘At least this time, we’re on this side of the line,’ he said.

Stratokles laughed through his tears.

Four stades away, Demetrios stood looking at the glow coming from the south-east — the left end of his enemy’s camp. Roar after roar came from the glow, and now he could hear the unmistakable sound of the paean.

A man came out of the dark — an officer, short, stocky, with blond hair that shone in the firelight. ‘Lord,’ he asked, ‘what is the watchword for the night?’

Demetrios didn’t recognise the officer but he wasn’t worried about a night attack. ‘Zeus and Victory,’ he said.

The officer stopped, listening to the sound of the paean. ‘Ahh,’ he said. He seemed disappointed.

He turned and began to walk towards the distant fires, and Demetrios wondered who he was. But when he turned to call out after the man, there was no one there.

He shrugged and went into his father’s pavilion. Antigonus was subdued — he ate a good dinner, but he was neither ribald nor dismissive of their enemies — not his usual pre-battle performance at all, Demetrios thought.

‘I have had such dreams, the last few nights,’ Antigonus said.

‘Something you ate, I suspect,’ Demetrios said. He shook his head. ‘Pater, one more battle. We’ve got them where we want them — all of them, except Ptolemy.’

Antigonus raised his head, and his half smile and cunning eyes were those Demetrios had known all his life. ‘Aye, lad. We have all of them in a basket. But I begin to wonder: can a pack of hyenas make themselves into lions? Have you heard the sounds from their camp?’ He shook his head. ‘And where in the great girdle of Mother Earth has Seleucus found so many elephants?’

Demetrios had never been the one to reassure his father — it felt odd. ‘Pater, relax. Are you not the one who always tells me that elephants are a gimmick? That they have little effect on a battle?’

‘Two hundred elephants can have a mighty effect,’ Antigonus said. ‘I intend to put all of ours into the front line — spread at intervals to add weight to our skirmishers and overawe their elephants.’

Demetrios shrugged. ‘There you are, then. I’ll take the right flank cavalry-’

‘You’ll have most of the good cavalry. I have planned a little surprise for the morning.’ Antigonus drank some wine.

Demetrios nodded. ‘Which is?’ he asked.

‘What, afraid you’ll miss the sound of the trumpet, boy?’ Antigonus asked. ‘Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m past mark of mouth. You’ll get my orders with all the other officers — in the morning.’ He sipped his wine. They were singing again, four stades away. Antigonus shook his head.

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he said.

Charmides sang the Iliad — almost the whole first book, the Rage of Achilles, like a reminder of how pride and anger could divide an army of allies. His voice was beautiful, his postures noble, and Anaxagoras’s notes fell from his lyre like flames of a fire, igniting the imaginations, soothing the fears, and Charmides sang the poet’s words until his voice was gone.

Satyrus sang a poem of Sappho, and when he sang, he sang to Miriam, a thousand stades away.

Melitta sang a bawdy song of Theogonus, about a man who loved boys too much — funnier than ever, from a woman — and the Greeks pounded their thighs and laughed, and then she sang a Sakje song about a maiden who avenges the death of her lover by killing his murderers, one by one, and the Saka howled their shrill war cries.

Sappho came to the fire, poured a libation, and stood still in the dark for a long time, and then came and stood with Diodorus, Crax, Antigonus and all of the ‘old men’ who had served with Kineas and Diodorus.

Satyrus found that he was weeping. He watched Sappho embrace Diodorus, and he watched Apollodorus sacrifice a lamb — chanting a prayer to Kineas, with half a hundred men.

‘Will we win tomorrow?’ Satyrus asked Coenus.

Coenus shrugged. ‘I am not a commander,’ he said. ‘But these men are in high heart.’

Stratokles, who had been talking to Antiochus — plotting, Satyrus suspected, and plotting without conscious thought — stopped talking. He came and offered his horn cup full of wine to Coenus. ‘I feel that we will win,’ he said.

Seleucus extricated himself from Prepalaus, who had drunk too much. ‘We will not lose,’ he said. ‘We have a good army and a safe retreat, and this evening has done much to bind our army together.’

Satyrus made a wry face. ‘I’m not satisfied to avoid defeat,’ he said. ‘Wine has made me over-bold, perhaps, but I am not in this war to avoid defeat. I’m in this war to see it over. I am twenty-eight-’

‘Not for nearly a month,’ said his twin.

‘I am nearly twenty-eight, and I have been at war since I was twelve. The men around these fires know no other life. They deserve an end.’ Satyrus crossed his arms, having said more than he intended.

Anaxagoras smiled. He took the cup and drank deeply. ‘Playing that long is like an athletic competition,’ he said. ‘Listen, Satyrus, I agree that this war should end. But consider, if you will — there are fifty thousand men around these fires, and the enemy has the same again. And the last thirty years — by the gods, Satyrus, the last fifty years — have given men the habit of war. Hellenes have lost the habit of peace. They settle everything by war. One battle will not fix that. The losers will creep away to rebuild, the winners will squabble among themselves.’

Stratokles nodded. ‘How will these men make their livings, Satyrus? War is an honourable profession — should they be bandits? The gentlemen — where will they go? Back to the cities that exiled them, back to ruined farms and dead families? The smaller men — to what shall they return? The cowards who stayed at home — the young men who stayed with the loom and the potter’s wheel and the blacksmith’s shop — they have all the jobs. They rise in the trades. What, exactly, is a man who has been the file leader of a file of hoplites for twenty years to do, back in Corinth? Go back to his dye vat? Serve as an apprentice under a man ten years younger?’

Satyrus took the wine cup — freshly filled by Phoibos himself — and drank. Pure water with a little vinegar; Phoibos was telling them all it was time for bed. He nodded.

Melitta agreed. ‘I wouldn’t be here at all but my brother insisted we tip the scales so that the allies could end this stupid dream of a universal empire and everyone can return to their own grass.’

Anaxagoras smiled at her, but he shook his head. ‘It has become fashionable to blame King Alexander for everything,’ he said. ‘But I am a student of history, and I say that Ashniburnipal and Darius and Xerxes — and Agamemnon and Priam — Sargon — the dream of universal conquest is everywhere. Alexander didn’t start it.’

Seleucus nodded. ‘I know those names from Babylon,’ he said. ‘Sargon — you are an educated man. But Alexander did more than any man before him.’

Anaxagoras nodded. ‘Perhaps. But smashing Antigonus will not smash the restless urge to conquer. Nor will you, Lord King, give up your spear-won lands — nor Ptolemy, nor Lysimachos, nor Cassander.’

Seleucus nodded. ‘It is true.’

‘War is the king and father of all,’ Anaxagoras said. He shrugged. ‘I do not know how to make men make peace. To be honest, I’m not even sure it would be a good idea.’

Satyrus handed the vinegar water on. ‘I’m sure that it is a good idea for me,’ he said.

Water was sent out to the revellers. And Satyrus walked from group to group as they dispersed, with his sister and his friends, clasping hands and wishing men good fortune. He found Draco regaling a crowd of Macedonians with some tale.

‘Bed,’ Satyrus said. Draco was so drunk that his face was flushed bright red — so flushed that it was visible by the flicker of firelight.

‘Killed that fucking doctor!’ Draco said, throwing his arms around Satyrus.

Satyrus’s thoughts were far away — he had no idea what the drunk veteran was saying. ‘Who?’ he asked.

Draco had a cloak rolled under his arm, and he laughed. ‘Wait a mo,’ he said, and howled with laughter. He unrolled the cloak with a practised flick, and the Macedonians cursed when they saw what was wrapped in the folds — but they laughed.

Melitta didn’t flinch. She picked the head up by the hair. ‘Sophokles,’ she said with satisfaction.

Satyrus spat to avoid retching. ‘Where’d you find him?’

Draco guffawed. ‘Wandering about the camp like the fucking spy he was.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘I hate to think how many other spies Antigonus has with us,’ he said. ‘Stratokles, have you seen this?’

The Athenian looked at the head for a long time. Then he took it from Melitta. ‘I knew him,’ he said, with unusual candour. ‘Sometimes we were comrades. May I take this for burial?’

Draco nodded. ‘Sure. Listen, I could take you to his body. I left it in his tent.’ He laughed.

Anaxagoras watched the two of them go off into the darkness together. ‘What does peace hold for them?’ he asked.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘I take your meaning,’ he said, ‘but there must be something. Draco is more like the ruin of a man than a man.’

‘I do not speak this way because I love war,’ Anaxagoras said, ‘although I confess that it does have sharp joys, like love. But merely because of what I observe. Draco lives here, the way a farmer lives on his farm. And he killed that assassin. Without him …’

Satyrus nodded. And sighed, and clasped his sister’s hand. They walked to the fire, and poured libations — one for their father, and another for their mother, and a last for Philokles. He could feel them, right there in the darkness.

An hour later, Draco and Stratokles came to the fires. They had burned well down, but the piles of embers were as high as a man’s thighs, and Draco went off into the dark and returned with Phoibos and a file of slaves, and they piled one fire high with fresh logs — old cedar, from a fence up the valley. And then the Macedonian picked up the corpse of the Athenian doctor and hoisted it onto the fire, burning his leg in the process. And Stratokles put the head with the corpse, and poured wine and oil on the fire. Stratokles went to put oil on the Macedonian’s burns, but the man stumbled away into the dark.

Lucius found Stratokles sitting alone, wrapped in his chlamys, watching the fire burn down.

‘He was no friend of yours,’ Lucius said.

Stratokles nodded.

‘By the gods — he wasn’t working for you?’ Lucius demanded. ‘We are … I thought you’d chosen a side.’ He spoke with sudden suspicion.

‘I have,’ Stratokles said. He sounded tired. ‘I’ve chosen a side, and tomorrow, I will stand in the front rank of my own phalanx and do my best to see Antigonus defeated. But Sophokles and I…’ He looked away. ‘We started together. We ended differently. But I wonder, sitting here, if tomorrow my body will go in a pit — a life of scheming, and a few moments of brutality.’ He shook his head and reached out for Lucius’s canteen, which was handed to him, full of heavy, sweet wine. ‘We started together. I don’t think it’s too late for us to end together.’ He drank.

Lucius took the canteen back and took a drink. ‘Stratokles, you’ve been a good boss. And I’ve made money … piles of money. But win or lose, tomorrow is the end. I’ve had enough for a couple of years … to go back and buy my exile off.’ He shrugged, sat back. ‘So let’s stop being so fucking maudlin and enjoy tomorrow.’

‘One more time?’ Stratokles said. ‘You’ll keep me alive?’

‘Have I ever let you down?’ Lucius asked. ‘You’re alive, aren’t you, you thankless Greek?’

They laughed.