God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

EIGHT

We passed most of the winter in Epirus, at a court so barbarous that Pella seemed like Athens, and suddenly Olympias seemed a great deal less alien than before. She was a child of this world at the edge of chaos.

I tell this out of order, but I remember once when she came to visit us – she had her own court at Epirus, and as a princess of the blood she had the sort of loyalty there that she probably missed at home – men who would die for her. At any rate, Alexander had his own rooms, and we were having – that is, I was throwing – an Athenian-style symposium. We were lying on couches, and the subject of the debate was love, and I was thinking of Thaïs – not that I loved her, but that she was worthy of love.

Alexander smiled at Hephaestion. ‘I love Hephaestion, because he is me, and I am he,’ he said.

Truth to tell, we groaned aloud then threw things at him. Which was a good sign, because it meant we were starting to heal. Going into exile is like losing a battle, or taking a beating, or failing, or losing a loved one. It hurts, and the hurt can last a long time.

At any rate, we were lying on our couches philosophising, and she swept in without warning. So perfect was her intelligence net – it always was – that she got past our sentries with all her women – she knew when the guards changed, and when the sentries were lax, and when men went off for a quick fumble – perhaps with one of her maids.

The women entered first – a dozen of them, in beautiful wools, and their arrival froze our talk. Her arrival – her beauty, even her perfume – trapped us like bars of adamantine. No one moved.

She stood in the middle of the room – in fact, in my memory, she is always at the centre of the room – and she looked around slowly. When her eyes met mine, she smiled.

‘Son of Lagus,’ she said warmly. ‘You do my son good service.’

Lovely words, but they chilled me to the bone. And despite that, as I’ve said before, I desired her.

She went and sat on Alexander’s couch. ‘You are safe here,’ she said.

He grimaced.

She slapped his side. ‘Don’t play your foolish boys’ Athenian games with me,’ she said. ‘This is Epirus, not Athens, and I can go where I want. Don’t pretend that I cannot.’

Alexander was not happier for that.

She smiled at him, a little motherly superiority etched between her brows. ‘You so want to be men. But you are boys. It was well done, getting here, but now you need me. We will raise an army, and Philip will see reason. You will see. And everything will be as it was.’

Alexander looked at his mother, and for once he told her the truth. ‘I do not want it as it was.’

She laughed. But her laugh got no echo.

‘He will relent. As he gets older, it is harder and harder for him to see—’

‘I will kill him, if I must,’ Alexander said.

And she met his eye, and something passed between them. And she smiled. ‘If it comes to that,’ she said.

And he grinned, like a grateful son.

She ruled Epirus. Not exactly ruled, but she did as she liked there, and we saw clearly what she came from, and what had made her so sure of herself, so like a goddess come to earth – I mean one of the less human, more vengeful sorts of goddesses.

Beyond Epirus, men wore skins and tattoos, and no one knew the rule of law. At the ‘court’ of Epirus, most of the warriors had never heard of Aristotle. Or Plato. Or the Iliad. There were men like rhapsodes, and they sang songs – endless tales of the borders, where one man killed another in a litany of violence. I admit that the Iliad can sound that way, but it is the Iliad. These songs were long and dull and had no story beyond the blood, the infidelity of women, the perfidiousness of the cowardly, the greatness of the men of pure blood – come to think of it, this does sound like the Iliad, but the difference is that the Iliad is beautiful and powerful and these were dull. And monotonous.

There were Keltoi at Epirus – tribal barbarians from the north and west, with red hair, tattoos and superb swords and metalwork, and tall tales – better tales than the Epirote singers sang, about gods in chariots and beautiful women. One of the Keltoi mercenaries there made up a song that slighted Olympias, and she had him killed.

Remarkably, the other Keltoi took no offence.

It was there, at the ‘court’ of Epirus, that my lifelong love of writing really started. I had very little to do – for the first time in my life. We organised the companions and the grooms into a rotation of watches on the prince – but with fifty men at arms and a hundred grooms, we each only had a watch every ten days.

I took them out for drills every day. That gave the day structure. I had learned some very fancy riding tricks in Athens – team tricks, the way the Athenian Hippeis did them for the religious festivals – and I taught them to the royal companions. And I put all my fighters on to the grooms and trained them hard, too.

But you can only do so much drill. And I lacked the experience to know that I should have kept them all busy all the time. I had enough trouble keeping myself entertained.

I rode, wrestled – in a town so barbaric that they didn’t have a gymnasium or a palaestra, which is funny – when you think of what Pyrrhus has built there now! But at the time, it was hard to train, hard to keep weight off.

At any rate, I started to write. The first thing I wrote was about the Keltoi – what they wore, what they carried, and their marvellous stories. They had beautiful women with them – back-talking, witty, marvellous women with bright hair, slanted eyes and a boldness seldom seen in Macedon. They weren’t available – I tried – but they flirted as if they were.

Men who didn’t understand found themselves matching swords with the Keltoi men. I understood, because in this way the Keltoi were like Athenians. Subtler, but not weaker.

And I wrote about the mountains, which, despite the lack of culture, were breathtakingly beautiful and full of game.

One of my favourite memories came from that winter.

After a snow, the royal huntsman – who was himself of royal birth and carried the portentous name of the hero himself, Lord Achilles – took us on a bear hunt. I had never been out for bear. I’d seen the fur, seen the animal once or twice, but until then I’d never seen one stand on its back feet and rip dogs to pieces.

It was in a thicket at the edge of a clearing in a high oak forest, well up the mountainside, and that bear had a better eye for terrain than most Greek generals. His flanks were covered by ravines and he had an escape route out the back of the thicket and into the deep trees, and our dogs, loyal and well trained, made hopeless leaps at the monster and died, so that that roar of the baying pack became quieter and quieter. The dogs could reach the bear only two at a time.

Old Achilles leaned on his spear. ‘Well, boys?’ he said. I was there with Alexander and half of his court in exile, and for a moment it occurred to me that this was some deep Macedonian intrigue to kill the prince.

Alexander raised an eyebrow. And winked at me.

‘You and Hephaestion up the ravines,’ he said. ‘Horn-call when you are within a spear-cast of the bear. Philip and Nearchus and I will go right up the hill into him. All we need is a few seconds – thrown spears will do it if you hit him.’

That was our plan.

I spent half an hour climbing the ravine. You try climbing wet rocks in a scale thorax and smooth-soled boots. With a pair of spears and a sword.

I’d still be there if not for Polystratus, who followed me, or led me, barefoot – handing me up my spears, and pushing my arse when I couldn’t find a handhold.

An hour, and the sun was going down and most of the dogs were dead, or beaten. I got up the last big rock, and I could smell the bear, and I could see why the old monster was still there.

One of the first dogs had got through the bear’s guard and mangled a paw – a back paw. The bear was bleeding out, and couldn’t run.

He was a giant, and he was noble, like some barbaric war chief clad in fur, with a ring of his dead enemies around his feet.

I put my horn to my lips and blew.

The bear turned and looked at me. Out shot a paw – if I hadn’t been in armour I’d have died, and even as it was, scales flew as if the bear was a cook in Athens and I was a new-caught fish. I still have the scars – three claws went right through the scales and cut me.

I was taken completely by surprise. I thought that the old bear was at bay – exhausted and done for.

There’s a laugh. And a lesson.

Polystratus put his shoulder into my back and held me against the bear. That may sound like a poor decision, but it was a two-hundred-foot fall to the rocks below.

I got my sword into the bear – two-handed. Polystratus was shouting – I mostly remember the bear’s teeth snapping at my helmet and the hot, stinking breath. The bear reared back, and then stepped away.

I managed to keep my feet, although there was a lot of blood coming out of me. But the bear grew a spear – Hephaestion, somewhere beyond my tunnelling vision, had made a fine throw. The bear turned towards him, and Polystratus threw – another good throw, and the head buried itself to the shaft, and dust flew from the monster’s hide.

I didn’t have the strength to throw mine – not hard enough to penetrate its hide – so I knelt and angled my spear at the bear. The bear swiped at the spearhead – I dipped the head and stabbed – and Alexander was there, and Black Cleitus, and Philip, their spears went into the beast, and then Alexander went right in between the claws with his sword – fore cut, back cut to the throat and the beast was dead.

Achilles himself was in at the kill, spear in the beast.

He nodded at us.

‘That was well done,’ he said. He measured the bear and pronounced us to be mighty.

Alexander watched the bear die. ‘He was noble,’ the prince said. ‘We were many – he stood against us all, like one of the heroes of old.’

Then he turned to me. ‘But you went toe to toe with him alone,’ he said. Polystratus was stripping my thorax to get at my wounds.

I was on my back. ‘And he bested me. Polystratus did all the work.’

Alexander shook his head. ‘Isn’t this your ivory-hilted sword stuck in him to the hilt?’ he said.

My vision was tunnelling tighter and tighter. There was so much blood . . .

It was full spring when I regained consciousness, and it was warm in the sun. I had had dreams – dreams of Nike where she called on me to avenge her, and dreams of Thaïs that were rather different, and dreams of Alexander and monsters.

A great deal had happened since the bear hunt.

A bear’s claws are filthy, and my wounds – really no worse than what a man might take sparring in armour – became infected. The deadly archer shot me full of arrows, and I was sick for a month, raving, out of my head.

I was still weak, but awake and alive in the sun, when we crossed the muddy passes – the highest were still full of snow – to Agriania in Illyria, a place so barbaric that Epirus seemed civilised. But the king here – Longarus – was a guest friend of Alexander’s, and despite the defeat we’d inflicted on him, or perhaps because of it, he hosted us.

I get ahead of myself, though.

On the road there – a road I remember as colder than anything I’d ever experienced, I guess because of my illness and wounds – Alexander filled me in on a winter of news.

Cleopatra was pregnant. Very pregnant. Had obviously been pregnant when married. And Philip had won the agreement of the League of Corinth – the new league of Greek allies – to the sacred war with Persia. He’d made them swear to support Philip and his heirs.

In Asia, the King of Kings was dead – murdered by his vizier, Bagoaz. Arses, the new King of Kings, was Bagoaz’s puppet, and Persia looked like a ripe fruit ready to fall into Philip’s mouth.

Philip had spent the winter training the army, and moving the heavy baggage and much of the artillery train to the Chersonese.

The troops were on the verge of mutiny because they were unpaid. This was hardly news, but took on a different meaning when we were exiles.

My money was almost gone. I’d fed my people for the winter and put armour on all the grooms, and that was the limit of my purse. And there was nothing from Heron. Easy to see evil in that, but the passes were mostly closed with weather and Attalus was absolute master in Macedon when Philip was in Corinth.

Antipater lay low, but he was our source for most of these events. His letters came in with the first caravan. No letters for me, and no money, but news for Alexander. He counselled patience, and reminded Alexander that he was the only adult contender for the throne and that, despite the loud talk at the wedding feast, there was no official word. None of us was outlawed.

But I learned from Hephaestion that we’d left Epirus because Attalus had threatened war if we weren’t handed over.

Attalus meant to finish the job himself, it appeared.

The royal fortress in Agriania was built entirely of logs, and everyone wore furs and no one could read. I got a hint of how Athenians must feel at Pella – my first night, I slept in the great hall and listened to men having sex with women – noisily – while two other men gutted each other drunkenly with knives. No worse than Pella, in some ways – but worse, somehow. I didn’t sleep – I was still touched with fever, and the two sets of noises combined to give me a hideous nightmare. And Nike came to me again and demanded that I avenge her murder.

But spring came and, with it, some hope, as she always brings. First, a letter from Heron, with several gold bars. And news of Attalus – who at least appeared to have accepted Heron as the lord of my former estates.

Attalus was not having an easy time, as the highland kingdoms were on the edge of rebellion and he was trying to tax them anyway. He sent troops, and there was fighting. And men – highlanders – came and joined us in Illyria, and made us feel less cut off from home. Before the midsummer solstice, a major religious festival even in the barbaric north, Laodon and Erygius came up the passes and laughed at the furs and the meals of meat alone. They’d been sent away from the army. Indeed, all of Alexander’s friends were in exile – the actors, the philosophers, even men who’d been paid by Philip to be his war tutors. The two Lesbians brought life and light with them.

And brought me a letter from Athens. Two letters, really – one inside the other. The bigger was from Kineas, who wrote me a passionate letter decrying the perfidy of Philip and asking of news of Alexander. As Kineas was the first Athenian to write – almost the first foreigner – his place in Alexander’s estimation climbed like the sun.

And folded inside his letter was a small twist of paper for me. It said, ‘Son of Lagus, preserve yourself. Athena, goddess of wisdom, be with you, and Tyche.’ It was unsigned, but had a tiny picture of an owl and a smiling face.

Thaïs.

I have it right here, in this amulet around my neck. Don’t imagine that I was dreaming quietly of her, that summer, and living like an ascetic. Slave girls were plentiful and cheap, and willing enough, and pretty enough. But the sight of her writing sent a thrill through me, and the happiness stayed with me for days.

The letter from Kineas came just before midsummer, and lifted Alexander’s mood. We had quite a little court by then, and we drilled – Laodon knew more cavalry drills than I ever did and he took over, and I let him. We read the Iliad together, and Alexander married an Illyrian girl – oh, I know, it’s not in the official papers because he repudiated it later, but he needed the alliance just then, and it got us money and food and bought time. Anyway, she came with warriors, and we started teaching them some of our ways. I commanded them later – as you’ll hear.

Philip the Red said that teaching Illyrians to be better warriors would prove to be an error. A wise man, Philip.

And we put on plays. Laodon had some scrolls of Menander and one of old Aeschylus – truly, I think it was the first theatre ever performed in Illyria. On the festival of Dionysus, the ‘Court in Exile’ put on The Persians. The Illyrians sat silent through most of it, but applauded wildly for the fight scene we put in – lots of sword-clashing, and Alexander cutting me (dressed as a Persian) down at the height of our ‘Battle of Marathon’. Not in Aeschylus’s original, of course. But we did some rewriting.

And then, before the Illyrian harvest could come in, word came from Philip inviting Alexander back to Pella.

Cleopatra had given birth.

To a daughter.

Sometimes, the gods must laugh. All Attalus’s careful planning, overturned by the chance of the womb. He begged Philip to wait – to spend another winter at Pella.

Philip would have none of it. He’d wasted a year, waiting for his son to be born. Possibly he’d seen the child’s birth as the will of the gods. He had the allies in line, the Greeks were quiet or downright willing, the omens for an attack on Persia were favourable. And Philip, like many men whose hair begins to thin, could hear the furies at his back. At any rate, he sent an ambassador to Illyria with his request, and that ambassador was old Antipater, and he would never have taken Alexander to a trap.

I’ve said before that Philip was a forgiving man. He often forgave enemies that other men would have killed – in this, he was truly great. As I’ve said before – once men were beaten and acknowledged him master – he was very forgiving.

I think that he assumed his son was cut from the same cloth.

We rode down the same passes we’d climbed in early spring. I was still so skinny that my armour didn’t fit, and my boots didn’t close correctly and my arms were more like sticks than like the arms of an athlete.

Alexander looked out over the first plains of Macedon. ‘I will be king,’ he said.

I nodded, or said something reassuring.

He looked at me and raised his eyebrow. ‘Listen to me, Odysseus. I need your wily ways and your sharp sword. He will do it again. When I’ve been home a week, or a month, he will remember that I am the better man and it will gall him again. He cannot abide my excellence.’ He looked at Laodon; the Lesbian man was preparing to leave us. He was still an exile, and he was going over the border to Thessaly with his retainers and some of my gold bars. ‘And he cannot abide the excellence of my friends,’ Alexander continued.

And you cannot stop showing it to him, I thought, but didn’t say.

‘We’ll guard you,’ I said.

Alexander shook his head. ‘No. The time for defending is over. I mean to have him dead, before he kills me.’

I can’t pretend I was even shocked. I’d had the same thought ever since we left him lying there unconscious. Patricide? Regicide? Listen, lad – when you are in the thick of a fight, there’s no morality – just kill or be killed. We had two choices – ride away and be exiles for ever, or put the king in the ground as soon as we could.

No other choice, really.

‘I’m with you,’ I said.

Alexander reached over and shook my hand. ‘Knew you would be,’ he said. ‘When I’m king—’

I laughed. ‘When you are king, you’ll need to buy off all your enemies,’ I said. ‘I’m the Lord of Ichnai and Allante. I don’t need rewards. I’m your man.’

So we rode down the passes into Macedon, and as we rode, we quietly plotted to murder the king.