Funeral Games

11

E umenes’ camp sprawled across several stades of scrub and red dirt, and the smell hit them while they were still a stade away – raw excrement, human and animal, from forty thousand people and twenty thousand animals, a hundred of them elephants. Tents of linen and hide stretched away in disorderly rows, intermixed with hasty shelters made from branches. Every tree on the plain was gone, cut by thousands of foragers from both sides to fuel thousands of fires. The smoke from the fires rose with the stench.

‘That’s the smell of war,’ Diodorus said. ‘Welcome to war, lad.’

‘Antigonus’s camp looks bigger,’ Satyrus said.

‘He has a bigger army. He has every Mede cavalryman in the east. Asia must be empty – he’s got Bactrians! And Saka!’ Diodorus watched the enemy camp. ‘See the patrol going out? Those are Saka, with some Macedonians for stiffening.’

The enemy camp was so close that Satyrus could see the flash of gold from the Saka horses.

‘Why are the Massagetae fighting for my enemies?’ Melitta asked. ‘Someone should speak to them.’

Diodorus shook his head. ‘You are your mother’s daughter, lass. Why don’t you just ride over there – whoa! That was what passes for humour around here.’ He had a hand across her chest. ‘Honey bee, I’m taking you to my wife, and she’s going to look after you. Greek maidens don’t belong in army camps.’

‘I am not a Greek maiden,’ Melitta said. ‘I am a Sakje maiden.’

Diodorus took a deep breath and looked at Philokles.

‘They’re growing up,’ Philokles said. He spread his hands. ‘I couldn’t stop them.’

Diodorus gave his friend a look that indicated that he held the Spartan responsible. ‘Let me get you children under cover,’ he said.

Philokles rode up next to Diodorus. ‘They’ve both killed,’ he said. ‘They’ve fought and stood their ground.’

Satyrus felt as if he might swell from the praise.

‘They aren’t children,’ Philokles said.

Diodorus let out another breath. ‘Very well. Satyrus, would you care to come with me?’

Satyrus nodded politely, and the cavalcade rode on.

They passed through two rings of sentries to enter the camp. The outer ring was cavalry, small groups of them spread wide apart, a few mounted and the rest standing by their horses. Closer in, spearmen stood in clumps where there was shade. Eumenes was being careful.

‘Where are the elephants?’ Satyrus asked.

‘The opposite side of the camp from the enemy,’ Diodorus replied. ‘Antigonus made a grab for them last year – nasty trick. We only just stopped it. We can’t put them with the horses – horses spook. So they have their own camp where it’s safest.’

‘May I see them later?’ Satyrus asked.

‘I’ll take him, lord,’ Hama said.

Diodorus nodded. ‘Listen, twins. I’m a strategos here – a man of consequence. I love you both, but we’re a day or two from the largest battle since Arbela and I won’t have much time for you. Understand?’

‘What’s the battle about?’ Satyrus asked.

Diodorus looked at him. ‘You really want to know?’

Satyrus nodded. ‘I know that Eumenes is one of the contenders for Alexander’s empire, and Antigonus One-Eye is another. I know that Ptolemy is backing Eumenes because Antigonus is a bigger danger to Aegypt.’

‘Then you know more than most of my cavalrymen,’ Diodorus said. ‘We’re fighting for the treasury at Persepolis and the allegiance of the Persian nobles – winner take all. This is the Olympics, boy – the winner of this battle should be able to reconquer all Alexander took. Unless-’

‘Unless?’ Melitta asked.

‘What am I, your war tutor? Unless the price is too high, and the battle wrecks both armies.’ Diodorus squinted south, into the dust. ‘Eumenes and Antigonus have each beaten the other. Eumenes is a superb general, but he forgets he’s not a Homeric hero. Antigonus is not a superb general, but he tends to get the job done and his preparations are always excellent. Now – is that enough? I have several thousand men to see to.’

‘Of course!’ Melitta shot back. ‘Do you think we’re foolish?’

‘I’ll see to them,’ a handsome blond man said. He made a barbarian bow from his saddle. He had a pair of gold lion fibulae and gold embroidery on his cloak and a sword that seemed to be made from a sheet of beaten gold. He was covered in dust.

‘Crax!’ Philokles said. ‘It has been a long time!’

Crax bowed again, a broad smile dimpling his round Getae face.

‘You look prosperous,’ Philokles said.

‘I like gold,’ Crax said. He drew his sword and presented the hilt to Melitta. ‘I was sword-sworn to your mother. Now I will swear to you – both of you.’

‘That is a beautiful sword,’ Satyrus said.

‘You like it, lord? It is yours,’ Crax said.

Philokles laid a hand on Satyrus’s shoulder. ‘Gift it back to him,’ he whispered. ‘If you are his lord, he must give you anything you ask.’

Melitta put her hands on either side of the sword hilt. ‘You are our man and our knight,’ she said, using the Sakje words.

Satyrus reversed the sword and handed it back. ‘It pleases me for you to have this,’ he said. ‘It is one of the finest swords I’ve seen. As fine as Papa’s.’

Crax took the sword back with pleasure. He turned to Diodorus. ‘We waited all night, Strategos. We were not discovered – neither did the gods give us a challenge. We collected a dozen prisoners and returned by the secret way.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘Get some rest. Crax commands my scouts.’

Melitta leaned forward. ‘May I ask a question, Uncle?’

Diodorus nodded, although there were other men waiting for him under the awning of a striped tent. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

‘Where is Ataelus?’ she asked.

‘Off with Leon, searching the oceans for lost money. Perhaps in the Hesperides fetching golden apples. Not here, where I need him.’ Diodorus slipped off his big charger, and a swarm of slaves took his horse and began to take off the tack. As soon as his feet hit the ground, men fighting for his attention surrounded him.

‘Take them to Sappho,’ Diodorus ordered. Then he was lost in his staff.

Crax kept them mounted with the wave of a hand. ‘This is his command tent,’ he said. ‘He sleeps in our camp. Come!’

They rode off, unnoticed in the masses of soldiers, servants and slaves who filled the camp. They passed wide streets and narrow streets, stalls selling produce and wine and a hide-covered brothel whose occupants were as noisy as the animals in the street outside, much to Satyrus’s embarrassment and his sister’s amusement.

The camp was larger – and better populated – than most of the towns that passed for cities on the Euxine. Satyrus tried not to stare as they rode, although there was more to contemplate than you’d ever see in a town – there were no walls and no courtyards, so that every business was plied in the open. Boys squatted in front of tents, polishing bronze helmets or putting white clay on leather corslets to make them whiter. A sword-sharpener hawked his talents to a pair of Argyraspids, men in their fifties with shields faced in solid silver and inlaid with amber and ivory. Phrygian infantrymen stood in groups having just left an inspection, and a squadron of Lydian lancers cantered by, shouting and laughing. Their officer wore a garland of roses and he bowed to Melitta and then blew her a kiss. A porne knelt in the mud of a street, servicing a client while he dictated orders. A pair of dirty children sold sweets off a broad leaf.

The twins drank it in as if they had been starved. Philokles told an abbreviated version of their adventures to Crax, and introduced Theron, who seemed as stunned as the children at the spectacle around him.

The Getae man pointed to a magnificent pavilion in scarlet and yellow that towered over every other tent in the central area. ‘Banugul,’ Crax said. ‘Remember her?’

Philokles laughed. ‘It’s rather like muster day for old friends,’ he said. Satyrus couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. But his attention drifted when Kallista threw back the shawl on her hair and immediately drew whistles and more vocal attention. She smiled on every admirer.

Theron watched her. ‘Going into business?’ he asked, his voice tense.

She pouted and flipped her shawl back over her head.

Philokles shook his head. ‘You can’t transform a porne into a wife overnight,’ he said. ‘And I believe that she is the slave of my mistress.’

Theron glared at the Spartan. ‘Ahh, the philosopher is back,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to give me some sage advice?’

‘I would,’ Philokles said. ‘But you wouldn’t take it. I scarcely ever take my advice myself – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.’

‘Did you find all this wisdom in your amphora of wine?’ Theron spat.

‘There, and elsewhere,’ Philokles returned, but the comment hurt him, Satyrus could tell. ‘She will not do well with jealousy,’ Philokles said.

‘And you are an expert with women, I find!’ Theron said. ‘Really, it is a pleasure to have you sober!’

‘Theron, shut up,’ Melitta said. ‘Philokles, please don’t be offended. Theron is as happy to find you returned without your ill-daimon as we are. He has forgotten his place and will apologize. Theron, if you ever wish to lie with my serving maid again, you’ll apologize.’

Theron shook his head. ‘You are going to be a formidable woman, Melitta. Mistress. Philokles, I’m sorry.’ He extended his hand.

The Spartan took it. ‘As am I.’

Kallista glared at all of them from under her shawl. ‘I was only playing, ’ she said.

Melitta nodded. ‘Ask my permission next time,’ she said. ‘Your actions reflect on me.’

Satyrus watched it all with admiration, but while they were dismounting, he said, ‘I thought that you were against slavery.’

‘I am,’ his sister agreed. ‘But if you are going to do a thing, do it well. Kallista needs a mother. Since she doesn’t have anyone but me, I’ll do it as her owner.’

And then they were led into a tent with cool, dark panels of blue-green canvas.

Sappho – a family friend since they were born – reclined on a couch, fanned by a pair of children. She sat up as soon as they were escorted in.

‘Children! I have wine and cakes for you. I heard that Srayanka is – dead. I’m sorry to be so blunt – my wits are astray and I’m an old woman.’ She spoke at random, her arms wrapped around both of them.

Satyrus had forgotten her smell – a wonderful smell of incense and musk and flowers. No one in the world smelled like Sappho, and she was as beautiful at forty-five as she had been at twenty-five, her beauty the outward form of a hard-won happiness. Her shoulders were held high and her skin soft, her face lined with both laughter and pain, but more enhanced by the lines than aged, especially when she smiled. Her eyes were unchanged, large and liquid.

They both kissed her and allowed themselves to be held while slaves bustled around them, and then they were taken away to another tent to be bathed. Satyrus was mortified to be bathed by women, as if he was a child, but he was clean for the first time in thirty days. He found his riding boots and a fresh chiton on a stool and he put them on.

Melitta had beaten him to it, although she seemed embarrassed to be dressed in a long woman’s chiton and gilded sandals. To Sappho, she said, ‘I cannot ride like this. Please, domina – I am not a Greek woman.’

Sappho shook her head. ‘You are while under my tent, my dear,’ she said. ‘There is likely to be a battle. Women dressed as men will be in danger.’

Melitta’s brow furrowed. ‘I can be raped to death as effectively in this kit as in my trousers,’ she shot back.

‘Where did you learn such things?’ Sappho asked. ‘War is awful – but no one is going to be raped to death here. Sold into slavery is more likely.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I would know.’

‘From my mother,’ Melitta answered. But she had lost the initiative. Sappho, who had endured the sack of Thebes, had survived rape and worse, and Melitta had no answer for her calm.

‘If you wish to go riding,’ Sappho agreed, ‘I will see to it that you dress appropriately. In the meantime, you will be a Greek maiden for a while. And that slave of yours?’ she said, reaching out a long white arm to point at Kallista. ‘She is a hetaira, not a maidservant. Why do you have her? She’s worth a few talents.’

‘It is a long story, despoina,’ Satyrus said. ‘Melitta – inherited her from Kinon, Uncle Leon’s factor in Heraklea. We promised to free her.’

Sappho crooked a finger at the beautiful girl – more beautiful still, now that her hair was clean and she had on a clean gown. ‘Come here, my beauty. Can you dress hair?’ she asked.

Kallista nodded.

‘And perfumed oil? I imagine you know how to apply it?’ she asked.

Kallista looked at the ground under her feet.

‘Your mistress came into my tent looking like a cross between a barbarian warrior and a ragpicker. Do you have any excuse?’ Sappho asked. She had the other girl’s wrist between her fingers.

‘Please, mistress! We were in disguise! People tried to kill us!’ Kallista’s voice was breathy.

‘Hmm,’ Sappho said. She looked at Melitta. ‘I can give you a far better maidservant and have this one sold. She’d benefit herself – with that body and voice she’ll be free before she’s twenty.’ Sappho’s look at the girl was not unkind. ‘You’ll never purchase your freedom as a maid, dear.’

‘We promised to free her,’ Satyrus said. ‘We owe her.’

Sappho nodded sharply. ‘Very well. We’ll discuss this later. Satyrus, you are to go with Crax to see the elephants. Melitta will stay with me. I see that I have a great deal to catch up on.’

‘Despoina,’ Satyrus said in his new-found voice, ‘we are not children. Please, Aunt, don’t be offended, but we’ve spent a month being chased and poisoned. We’ve killed men and seen – things.’ He kept his voice steady by force of will. ‘Melitta is not a child. Neither am I.’

Sappho reached out and took their hands in hers. ‘I hear it in your voices, dears. But it is exactly because you are not children that I must be so careful, especially with your sister. She could be married – any day. And her reputation will matter to her.’

Melitta stamped her foot, which didn’t do her case any good at all.

Satyrus, feeling like a traitor, slipped out of the complex of tents with a cleaner Crax by his side. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said to Crax, and to Philokles, who was waiting by the horses, ‘It’s not fair,’ he said again. ‘She’s always been allowed to ride and hunt. She’s braver than I am!’

Philokles gave him a hard look. ‘I doubt it, boy,’ he said.

Crax shrugged. ‘Greeks hate women,’ he said. He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know why. Afraid, maybe.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll break her out, lad. But listen. Lady Sappho – well, she’s the only wife in this camp. There’s some soiled flowers of various shades, but she’s the only wife. She needs somebody to talk to. Hear me?’

Satyrus shrugged.

‘Want to see some elephants?’ Crax asked, vaulting on to his mare’s back.

Satyrus banished thoughts of his sister. ‘Yes!’

The elephants were huge. Not only were they the largest animals Satyrus had ever seen, they were many times larger than anything in his experience – horses and camels. They had long, wicked tusks that looked like curved white swords and they made noises that all but panicked his horse.

On the other hand, their eyes had a curious intelligence. ‘Are they as smart as a horse?’ he asked Crax.

‘Fucked if I know,’ the Getae replied. ‘Let’s ask a mahout. Hey – India-man!’ he shouted at a wrinkled brown man sitting in the shade.

The elephant-keeper stood from his cross-legged squat with a foreign elegance and walked over. ‘Master?’ he asked.

‘Are they intelligent?’ Satyrus asked.

‘Yes,’ the man said, with an odd sing-song inflection to his Greek. ‘Very smart. Smarter than horse or cow or dog. Smart like person.’ He patted a big cow-elephant on the shoulder. ‘Like person, they don’t make war until man teach them.’ He shrugged. ‘Even then, they won’t fight unless they have men on their backs.’

Hesitantly, Satyrus patted the heavy skin of the animal’s shoulder. It was criss-crossed with scars. ‘She has been in battle?’ he asked.

‘Since she was five years. Now she has fifteen years. Ten big fights and ten more.’ The mahout beamed with pride – a sad pride, Satyrus thought. He spoke to her in another language – liquid and rather like a paean, Satyrus thought. She raised her head.

‘I tell her – battle comes.’ The India-man shrugged expressively. ‘Men teach them war – but when they make war so much?’ He shrugged again and smiled. ‘Like a drunk man with wine? So is an elephant trained to war, and a battle.’

‘War has the same effect on some men,’ Philokles said.

‘Yes!’ the India-man said. ‘Like elephants, man can be taught to love anything – even murder.’

‘You’re a strange one, for a soldier,’ Crax said. He grinned at Philokles. ‘Long-lost brother of yours?’

The India-man had a name, which proved to be something like Tavi, so Tavi was what they called him. They spent most of the afternoon roaming the elephant camp, meeting the beasts. None of them seemed very warlike, despite their size.

‘Let them smell you,’ Tavi said. ‘Let them see you. Then they know you on the day of battle.’

Satyrus submitted to being smelled, and in some cases prodded, by elephants. He fed them nuts and grass, delighted by the manipulations of their trunks and the play of intelligence in their beady little eyes. ‘I want to be a mahout,’ he exclaimed with twelve-year-old enthusiasm.

Tavi put him up on the older cow, and he rode on the beast’s neck with the India-man behind him. He was allowed to carry the goad, and he tapped the old girl, called Grisna, on her shoulder and she turned obediently.

‘This is power,’ he said to Philokles and Crax when he had jumped down from the beast’s neck.

‘More proof, if any were needed, that war is the ultimate tyrant,’ Philokles said. ‘These beasts are as intelligent as men.’ He shook his head. ‘More intelligent, in that Tavi says they won’t make war without men.’

Crax bit his lip. ‘Always you say war is so wrong,’ he said. ‘Why? How do you stop an invader? How do you keep your freedom? By talk?’

Philokles made a clicking noise with his tongue and nodded to the Getae. ‘That’s the root of the matter, isn’t it, Crax? You must train every man in the world out of his love for war at the same time – if you leave just one, he’ll drag the rest of us back to Ares’ bloody altar.’

Crax glanced around, as if looking for another speaker. ‘So I’m right?’ he asked.

Philokles looked at the elephants. ‘Too right.’ He turned away.

Dinner was a subdued affair, punctuated by Satyrus’s excited descriptions of the elephants and of Tavi, the mahout, who had made a lasting impression on him and on Philokles. But Sappho was attentive to her husband, and Diodorus was far away. He would listen with a smile on his face to an elephant story and then his eyes would drift off the speaker and he would eat absently.

‘Is it upon us?’ Sappho asked, as the roast kid was cleared away.

‘I’m sorry,’ Diodorus said. ‘I’m not happy with the arrangements for my wing. Excuse me for a moment.’

He rolled off his couch and went to the door of the tent and called one of his officers. They could all hear him speaking, and the brief replies, and then he was back. ‘That’s better,’ Diodorus said when he returned.

‘Will we fight tomorrow?’ Philokles asked.

‘Yes,’ Diodorus said. ‘Crax pulled in a dozen prisoners today, and Andronicus brought in as many yesterday. They all say the same thing. Antigonus will form his line of battle in the morning.’

Sappho bit her lip. But when she spoke, her voice was light. ‘Then we must get you to sleep early, my dear. You’ll be up in the dark.’

‘You are the best soldier’s wife in this army,’ Diodorus said fondly.

‘Faint praise indeed,’ she returned. ‘Considering that I’m the only wife around.’

‘What of the children?’ Philokles asked.

Diodorus shook his head. ‘They’ll stay in camp, of course. I expect that we’ll fight on the plain to the north. They’ll be safe enough here. Shall I find you a corslet, Philokles?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve never accustomed myself to the idea of fighting on horseback, and I don’t care to stand among strangers – Asiatic strangers, at that. I’ll stay in camp with the children.’

Theron nodded. ‘As will I, Strategos. Without offence, this is not my fight, and I have equipment only as a hoplite.’

Diodorus looked at the two of them and smiled. ‘I could base one hell of a taxeis on you two,’ he said. ‘Theron, you’re like a second Philokles. I’ll bet you’re a terror in the scrum.’

Theron shook his head. ‘I’ve never done it,’ he said. ‘I’ve drilled with the ephebes, and I’ve fought men, but I’ve never stood my ground like my father at Chaeronea.’

Philokles smiled grimly. ‘You haven’t missed a thing,’ he said.

Sappho’s steward came in and bowed deeply. ‘Master, there are more and more men waiting outside, asking for the strategos.’

Diodorus wiped his mouth. ‘Excellent meal, my love. I must go and listen to Eumenes’ fears and worries.’

‘I remember him as a first-rate commander,’ Philokles said.

‘He is. But the Macedonians hate him for not being Macedonian. One of the reasons he hired me is to have a Greek officer on whom he can rely – but even that has made trouble. The Macedonians dislike me – all of us, really.’ ‘They haven’t changed much, have they?’ Philokles asked.

He and Diodorus both smiled, sharing some memory. Satyrus thought that it was like dining with the gods, to hear such things. They discussed the great Eumenes the Cardian as if he were just someone they knew, like a playmate!

Theron sat up on his couch. ‘I heard some things I didn’t much like today,’ he said. ‘About Greeks. About Eumenes.’

Diodorus looked around and lowered his voice. ‘You notice that I came back to my own regiment to eat and sleep – that we have our own guards, and we’re a little separated from the rest of the army? It’s that bad, friends. If we lose tomorrow – if we even look as if we’re losing, this army will disintegrate. The idiots in the Argyraspids would rather kill Eumenes because he’s a Greek, than beat Antigonus who hates them.’

Sappho drank wine carefully, held her cup out to a slave to have it refilled and spoke slowly. ‘You have never spoken so directly, husband,’ she said. ‘Should I make preparations?’

Diodorus rubbed his beard. ‘It’s never been so bad. I suspect that One-Eye is putting bribes into the Argyraspids but I can’t figure out how he does it. I keep telling Eumenes to parade Banugul and her brat to quieten the hard-liners-’

‘That’s Banugul who claims to have been Alexander’s mistress, and Herakles her son,’ Sappho said, with a significant look at her husband. ‘He’s just your age, or a little younger, and the very image of Alexander.’ She smiled, but her eyes did not smile. ‘She herself is unchanged.’ To the twins, she said, ‘Banugul is the inveterate enemy of Olympias. Her son Herakles threatens everything Olympias aims at.’ She shrugged. ‘She should be your ally.’

Diodorus spoke over his wife as if she hadn’t made a sound. ‘But he won’t. Says that he’s not going to run his army through a child. Yes, Sappho. There’s going to be trouble. In fact, I’m pushing us into a battle to see if we can beat One-Eye before the Macedonians assassinate my employer.’ He shrugged. ‘All in a day’s work.’

Sappho summoned her steward. ‘Eleutherius? Collect a string of horses and pack animals and have us packed and ready to move by first light. Leave the tents standing and all their contents. Just pack the clothes and bedding and what we’d need to live, eat and move fast.’

Diodorus got off his couch, leaned over his wife and kissed her. It was embarrassing for the other men in the room, because it was a lustful kiss, and it went on for too long. When he broke off, she slapped him lightly. ‘I’m not a flute girl,’ she said.

Diodorus kissed her again. ‘No, you are the best staff officer in this camp. You just come with certain other benefits. I’m off. I may join you later and I may be up all night.’ He glanced around the tent and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve given the boys a rally point – in case of the worst. It’s a stade behind the gully – the gully that’s south of here. Philokles, you should get with Crax and see that you know the spot. May I rely on you to get the hippeis women and children there, if it all goes bad?’

Philokles was eyeing a wine cup. He rubbed his chin. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s a big responsibility.’

‘You’ve handled bigger,’ Diodorus said. He took a purple and dust-coloured Thracian cloak from a slave and swung it on to his shoulders.

‘Go with the gods,’ Philokles said.

Diodorus gave a sketchy salute and went out of the dining tent.

Sappho rolled off her couch. ‘Bed – right now, children. We’ll be up before the cock crows and in sensible clothes for riding.’

Satyrus looked at his sister. ‘We’re good at riding,’ he said.

Melitta looked triumphant. ‘I know it’s wrong to hope we lose!’ she said. ‘But – I’m already stifled. I don’t want to be a good Greek maiden. A kore.’

A few minutes later they were on their sleeping couches, listening to the bustle of a dozen slaves packing all around them. Each of them thought it would be hard to get to sleep, and then they did.