Funeral Games

PART VII
THE CONTEST
26
312 BC

S tratokles had plenty of time to be disgusted with himself.

T he worst of it was that he had been wrong. He, the great political philosopher, had backed the wrong horse as surely as Demosthenes had with Alexander. It wasn’t that Demetrios the Golden was incompetent. He was ruthless and he had strokes of brilliance, and his will was strong. It was simply that he was too young and too inflexible to command an army. His own brilliance and beauty clouded his judgment. He assumed himself to be a child of the gods and behaved accordingly. And even when events proved him wrong, he couldn’t be seen to change his mind.

Stratokles watched as the golden boy’s strategy unravelled, and he shook his head quietly. He didn’t need spies to tell him how badly their cavalry was losing the foraging war – he saw the wounded, the empty saddles, the disgust of the Saka and Mede nobles.

On the other hand, his networks – his carefully paid webs of informers and messengers – hung together, and he had at least two reports a day on the treason of Ptolemy’s Macedonians. The Foot Companions – the elite of Ptolemy’s army – would change sides as soon as the fighting started. The deal was done. When they changed sides, every Macedonian on the field would know who the winner was – and the golden boy would owe his throne to a wily Athenian and his web of informers.

‘If he was a wrestler,’ Stratokles commented to his one-time kidnap victim, ‘Demetrios would be at the edge of the sand, with one foot on the line, down two falls to one.’

‘Hmm,’ Amastris said. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

‘I thought more highly of the boy and his father than either deserves,’ Stratokles answered. Having begun on a path of scrupulous honesty, he didn’t deviate. ‘It might be said that I erred.’

Amastris nodded. ‘Except?’

Stratokles spread his palms. ‘Ah, despoina, there are some things even you are not yet ready to hear. You have other loyalties. Let us say that I have the means to save the golden boy from his folly.’

‘And thus render him deeper in your debt than would have been the case if he had been as competent as you imagined him to be.’ Amastris settled on to her cushions and smiled at him. She had no problems looking at his face.

‘You are a superb student,’ he said, and she glowed at his praise.

Stratokles had always devised plans in layers, so that when one layer failed, he had a reserve – sometimes two or three. He looked at his new student of statecraft, and he thought lovingly of his new reserve.

In Demetrios’s camp palace – a set of tents as big as Xerxes’ captured tents in Athens – he had a young hostage. A glowering, handsome boy who claimed to have had Alexander himself for a father. Herakles.

In Macedon, Herakles was a rumour. Now that Stratokles had laid eyes on him, it was hard not to plot. Difficult to keep himself from imagining what he could accomplish for Athens – for the world – if he had Alexander’s heir and this brilliant girl.

He looked at her again and knew that she was not for him. But neither was the satrapy of Phrygia. Suddenly it seemed like a limited ambition – a wasted life. He didn’t need to be lord of a rich province. Instead, he could stand behind the throne of the earth, the trusted advisor, the hands – gentle hands – on the reins of state. Athens would be the richest city in the world, and he would have a statue in bronze on the Acropolis.

‘You have seen the man that calls himself Herakles?’ Stratokles said to his student.

She allowed herself a smile. ‘Yes.’

‘He is the son of Alexander. He may well prove to be the most important player on this board.’ Stratokles stroked his beard.

‘He’s younger than my Satyrus, and has no experience of anything but being a hostage.’ Amastris waved for a cup of wine.

‘His experience is not the issue,’ Stratokles said. ‘His blood is the issue.’

‘Ahh!’ she replied.

‘A child of yours by him – Alexander’s grandson – could guarantee the future of Heraklea for ever,’ Stratokles said carefully.

She didn’t blush. Instead, she smiled demurely and shook her head. ‘Or make my city a target for every adventurer with an army,’ she said. ‘And my child. And me.’

‘Ahh!’ Stratokles responded, and they both laughed.

Nonetheless, he sent for his Lucius, and gave him some exacting instructions.

So – while Stratokles had plenty of time to be disgusted with himself, he was not. He was too busy plotting.