Storm of arrows

23

‘ m I surrounded by fools?’ Alexander asked the assembled officers. Silence.

‘This country is not subdued,’ Alexander said carefully. ‘We are at war with every rock and tree. There is no room for weakness or doubt, or slovenly soldiering.’

The Macedonian officers were red with fury and embarrassment. The cadre of Persian and Sogdian officers who were present deepened their humiliation.

Alexander had little time for Panhellenism, but it had its uses. ‘Two thousand Hellenes died at the hands of barbarians. They were not even outnumbered. They were merely careless.’

Craterus, a Companion officer, and Ptolemy, the youngest of the phalanx commanders, exchanged glances. Alexander watched them. They looked as if they might voice some dissent. He was prepared to crush them. But after one exchanged glance, they subsided.

Alexander raised an arm. ‘If you gentlemen will turn your attention to the stream bed…’

Just to the north, a tributary ran down out of the Sogdian hills into the Jaxartes. The stream bed was nearly dry with mid-summer, and forage parties had cleared every stick of burnable brush and every leaf of green forage, so that the stream bed looked like an open mine. Packed into the gully were six thousand blank-eyed prisoners leashed by short ropes to stakes driven deep into the sandy soil. Lining the sides of the gully were soldiers — some Macedonian veterans, and some of the more recent Sogdian recruits. The Sogdians, most of them, were related to the men in the gully.

Alexander gave a sign and all the men, Macedonian and Bactrian, set to work in the mass slaughter of six thousand prisoners. For the most part, the victims waited fatalistically, although here and there men struggled, either panicked into a last resistance or too stubborn to go down without a fight. Their executioners approached with dripping swords and dispatched them. Those who struggled took the longest to die, and those who bowed their heads to the blade went fast.

Alexander watched for as long as it took a thousand men to die.

‘I don’t want any more mistakes,’ he said. ‘Nor do I wish to see any softness.’ The evening air stank of blood, as if the army was butchering oxen for meat. ‘You will all watch until these rebels are dead. Then you may dismiss.’

He turned on his heel and walked away, followed by Hephaestion and Craterus. Neither man walked with his accustomed swagger.

Alexander turned before he had gone ten steps. ‘Eumenes!’ he called, and the lone Greek on his command staff came quickly.

In his tent, he snapped his fingers for wine.

‘I worry that we are teaching the rebels not to surrender,’ Eumenes said.

Alexander sat heavily on his couch and swirled the wine in his cup. ‘I worry about the same thing, but I had to make an example.’

‘For Spitamenes?’ Hephaestion asked, and Alexander shook his head while he narrowed his eyes.

‘No,’ he said. ‘For this Scythian queen, Zarina. And for my own Macedonians.’ He turned to Eumenes. ‘You have all the survivors from Pharnuches’ column isolated?’

‘Yes, majesty.’ Eumenes could feel the lion’s rage from across the room, like the heat from a bonfire.

‘I considered having them executed with the rebels,’ Alexander said. ‘But that seemed to send the wrong message. I’m still thinking about it. Tell them from me that if I hear a word of this disaster from the army, I will have one man in every file killed. If I hear more, I’ll kill them all.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Understand me?’ he said after a moment. ‘I command it.’ He looked at Eumenes. ‘And we lost our Amazons. Spitamenes must be having quite a laugh at us.’

Eumenes avoided his eyes. ‘I do not think it was Spitamenes who ambushed Pharnuches.’

Hephaestion spluttered on his wine. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Don’t be foolish. I interrogated some of the survivors myself.’

Eumenes was tired to death of Hephaestion, so he wasn’t as careful as he ought to have been. ‘Really? And did any of them mention the enemy had Greek cavalry?’

‘What’s this?’ Alexander asked, his voice harsh as an executioner’s sword.

Hephaestion shrugged. ‘Diomedes, the surviving Companion, said he fought a Greek. I think the man’s deranged.’

Eumenes shook his head. Hephaestion glared at him. Eumenes ignored the favourite and looked at the king. ‘Diomedes says that the whole thing was a rescue of the Amazons, and it was done by Dahae and Greeks.’ Daring, he added, ‘I asked Kleisthenes to help me with the questioning. He thinks that the best-armoured of the enemy cavalry were Sauromatae, who we haven’t encountered before.’

‘By my father’s thunder,’ Alexander cursed. ‘The king of the Sauromatae sits in my camp and eats my food and his warriors serve Spitamenes! Send for Pharasmenes!’ To Eumenes he said, ‘I curse the loss of the Amazons. They were something a man could hold in his hand. Some visible proof of our conquests, like elephants. Something to show.’

Hephaestion flushed.

Alexander gave a half-smile. ‘I want them back. Or replaced with others as fine. If I have to take the army across the Jaxartes, I will.’

‘Not, I think, the best use of our assets,’ Eumenes murmured.

‘You are not indispensable, Greek. I command here. I have crushed the rebels and retaken all our forts.’ Alexander looked off into the distance. ‘When I break this Queen Zarina, there will be Amazons for every man in the army.’

Eumenes knew the storm was coming. He raised his head and met it square on. ‘You will find it almost impossible to raise more mercenaries, ’ he said.

‘Greek soldiers are like snow in the mountains,’ Alexander said contemptuously.

Eumenes wouldn’t back down. ‘Every satrap is raising an army. The lesson of Parmenion has not been lost. And we are a long way from Greece, majesty. We don’t pay the most, and we kill them like cattle. A thousand with Pharnuches, two thousand in the Jaxartes forts — and those are just our most recent losses.’

‘The Thessalians are on the verge of mutiny,’ Craterus put in. ‘Thankless bastards.’ Bitterly, he said, ‘And young Ptolemy says the phalanxes aren’t much better.’

Eumenes looked around. ‘Thankless? They were our very best cavalry. ’

‘But they loved Parmenion better than they loved me,’ Alexander said. ‘Best to send them home.’

‘And replace them with what?’ Craterus said. ‘More Persians?’

‘Bactrians. Sogdians. These are not soft-handed Persians. These are men of war, like our Macedonians. Mountain men, like us.’ Alexander used much the same voice he would use in gentling a child.

Craterus raised his voice. ‘Ares’ balls, Alexander! Don’t fool yourself. They’re fucking Persians! Orientals! They’re counting the hours until they stab us all in our sleep!’

Eumenes fought back a smile. Craterus was speaking his lines as if they had been written for him, and he, not Eumenes, would now suffer the wrath of the king.

But Alexander surprised them all by remaining calm. ‘I understand your concern, Craterus — and yours, Eumenes. But I must have cavalry for this war, and to leave the Sogdians unemployed would be to invite them to join my enemies.’ He put his leg up. He’d received an arrow through the leg — a clean wound, but it kept weeping pus and yesterday a bone fragment had emerged. It made the king feel mortal and fallible.

Eumenes exhaled slowly. ‘May we at least secure Marakanda behind us before we cross the Jaxartes?’ he asked.

Alexander nodded. ‘I’ll take a flying column myself.’ He glanced at Hephaestion, seemed on the edge of saying something and then shook his head. ‘No, it will have to be me — another disaster like the one on the Oxus and the whole fabric will start to unweave. I’ll be gone two weeks. Spitamenes hasn’t the stomach to make a stand — he’ll break the siege. If I am fast enough, I’ll catch him. If not, I’ll come back and we’ll try to wrong-foot the barbarians and have a go at the Massagetae.’ He gave them a smile that was meant to be reassuring. ‘She’ll have Amazons.’