God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

TWENTY-ONE

The king spent three more days in bed while the Great King of Persia sat on the far side of his mountains and held exercises for his army, and then Alexander marched north against hill tribes that threatened his communications – subjects of the Great King who were waging a very successful guerrilla war against our supplies.

He was as weak as a new colt, and on the second day of that small campaign, I saw him fall off a horse for the one and only time in his life. But he laughed and got back in the saddle, and the tribesmen saw their villages burned, gathered their flocks and retreated north of the Taurus mountains – unbeaten, but less of a threat to us. The last two thousand of my troops marched along the coast road from the west, with Asander and Queen Ada at their head, and Alexander decreed three days of games at Tarsus. He sat with Ada throughout the games, and she smiled a great deal. On the last day, he distributed prizes, money and crowns. Ada presented him with a magnificent chariot, with four beautiful white horses and harness-work all solid gold, and he embraced her in public, something he had never done. He told me later it was the finest present of his life, and he loved driving it.

I was astounded to find that I received a gold crown as reward for my victories in Caria. Asander received one, as well. I had the right to wear the crown on any public occasion. It was the highest award a Macedonian could receive. Parmenio had three, but Philotas, for example, had none.

And – perhaps the joy of my life – he gave me a phalanx of my own, ostensibly Macedonian, although more than half of my two thousand men were Isokles and his Athenians whom I had captured. Craterus, who I thought disliked me, embraced me on the platform, and Perdiccas thumped my back.

Local commands could come and go, but in Macedon a phalanx command was for ever. My phalanx would bear my name. I could only be displaced by death or treason.

Old Parmenio took both my hands, the bastard, and embraced me. ‘You deserve it, boy. Now you are good enough to have a command.’

The temptation to put my fist in his eye almost spoiled the occasion. But it didn’t. I don’t have Alexander’s need for praise, but it is pleasant, and the unforced admiration of my peers – the men I’d marched and fought with for eight years already – was a heady wine, and I drank it Scythian-style.

Thaïs lay next to me that night, stroking my crown of gilded oak leaves. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked.

‘Glory!’ I said.

She shook her head.

I laughed. ‘You, my love, killed Memnon. You stormed the Cilician Gates. It’s really your crown.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Will you remember that when my belly is round and my breasts are flat and I have wrinkles?’ she asked.

I sat back and appeared to consider. I took a long time about it, until she gave a little shriek and rammed her thumbs expertly into my armpits. Much later, she told me that she was pregnant again.

It may not have been the greatest day of my life, but it has few rivals.