God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great Read online

  Alexander cantered up. I’ve said he wasn’t the best at everything, and he wasn’t, but he was the finest horseman I’ve ever seen – years later, when we rode against the Sakje of the Sea of Grass, I remarked that he was as natural a rider as they. What always amused me is that he took this utterly for granted and would accept no praise for it – never told self-important stories about his riding prowess, never bragged about the horses he’d broken. Horses loved him, and I suspect that’s because he always knew exactly what he wanted.

  Laodon was standing there, naked, wiggling his spear back and forth in the stag’s chest, trying to draw it free where it had lodged against bone. He looked up when he heard Alexander’s hoof beats, and waved a salute.

  Alexander merely pointed at the rump and tines of the great stag galloping for the treeline. A few heartbeats later and the animal would have been gone. But Laodon saw what he had missed, and rage filled his face. He let go his spear haft and walked over to the archers. Words were exchanged, and a man struck to the ground.

  Alexander pursed his lips.

  Laodon came back and shook his head. ‘My apologies, Prince. That beast should never have slipped us.’

  ‘The will of Artemis,’ Alexander said. But the way he said it indicated that he meant the opposite. And Laodon knew it.

  Next day we went out as scouts, all the pages, looking for the boars. I was with Laodon, and we rode from sun-up until high noon through the woods. The day was beautiful, with a golden autumn sun on red leaves and the most amazing, heady scent in the air of fresh-fallen leaves – the perfume of Artemis, Laodon called it.

  I remember that I spent a good deal of time worrying whether he meant to rape me. Just to give you an idea of what Laodon was known for.

  He was an excellent hunter, though, and his eye for the field sign was without error, and while I don’t remember why I was allowed to accompany him, it certainly wasn’t my looks. I was fit – we all were – but you can look at my profile on coins, can’t you? I am not a handsome man, and my friends called me ‘Georgoi’ or ‘Farm Boy’.

  If it was a privilege, it was a scary one. I was on my guard, never within reach of his arms. That’s pretty much how we lived our lives – just so you know.

  Noon came, and I was ravenous. What boy isn’t? We’d been mounted since dawn, and up and down from our mounts, looking at fewmets and tracks and traces and rubs, and then up again – riding down steep hills, up rocky defiles, or over the downed trunks of ancient trees that had stood like towers when Hector fought Achilles.

  We came to a muddy ditch where the trail crossed a stream – the passage of men and animals had worn the end of the trail into the ditch. Laodon dismounted, handed me his reins, and looked into the ditch for a long time.

  ‘A great many men passed this way,’ he said, and scratched his beard. His eyes were alive, of a sudden, and he moved his head slowly around like a hawk does when searching for prey.

  Then he shrugged. ‘I’m getting old, boy, and I see bandits behind every tree. What have you packed us to eat?’

  I had a leather bag full of cheese and bread, and a pottery flask of good Nisean wine. I laid it out for him and stood back – pages don’t eat with knights.

  He nodded curtly, ate some bread, drank some wine and grinned at me.

  ‘That’s good wine, young Ptolemy.’ He drank another sip from his horn cup and nodded.

  I probably flushed with the praise.

  ‘Sit, boy. Eat.’ He indicated the food.

  I guess my fears were obvious. I sat too carefully.

  Laodon laughed. Like lightning, his hand was on the back of my neck, locking me to the ground. ‘If I wanted you,’ he said with a snort, ‘you’d be mine.’ He snickered. ‘Not my type, boy.’ He slapped my rump and picked up his horn cup, which he’d somehow set aside without spilling its contents while he put me on the ground with one hand.

  I was shaken, but I managed to eat anyway. Oh, for a moment of that youth now! Beans make me fart, milk curdles in my stomach and too much wine goes to my head. At fifteen, I could go straight from fear and terror to eating without passing through any intervening stages. I remember how good the cheese was.

  ‘Have some wine, virgin,’ Laodon said, handing me his cup. He got to his feet. ‘I’m going to look around.’

  I sat on a big rock by the stream and drank wine from his horn cup. He was an important man and a famous warrior, and to be allowed to drink from his cup was a compliment. My father loathed him – which, at fifteen, can make a man more appealing.

  I was wondering whether his permission went as far as a second cup of wine when a hand came over my mouth and I was dragged off the rock.

  ‘Don’t make a noise, virgin,’ Laodon said. ‘There’s an Illyrian raiding party on the other side of the ridge. Can you find your way back to camp without me?’ His hand came off my mouth.

  ‘Yes, lord,’ I said.

  ‘You are absolutely positive? No horse shit?’ He turned my head. ‘Swear by Zeus?’

  ‘By Zeus, god of kings, and my ancestor Herakles,’ I said.

  ‘Good boy. Go! Warn the prince!’ he said. He helped me mount to save time. ‘Never take lunch by a stream,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You can’t hear anything.’

  ‘Are they after us?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged and slapped my horse on the rump, and Poseidon sprang forward.

  Almost immediately I faced a quandary. I was not lying – I knew how to get back to camp. But we’d come a great half-circle north and west around the high hill, and the only way back to camp that I knew for certain was to cast all the way back. Or I could cut the circle and ride north and east. Camp had to lie that way – across the shoulder of the high hill, maybe eight stades or a little more. But if I missed the ridge and the clearing – by Artemis, I’d go for ever and never find another man or horse.

  I didn’t have a weapon, either. I had an eating knife – not really a useful instrument for killing, although you’d never know it from the number of men I’ve seen put down with eating utensils – but neither spear nor lance nor sword.

  I headed across the circle, east by north.

  The nerves didn’t start until I was over the shoulder of the hill. I’d convinced myself that when I rode over the shoulder, I’d see the meadow, at least from the top. But I couldn’t, and all I could see were trees – red, orange, evergreen, stretching in an endless parade to the north and west.

  I reined in. Poseidon was edgy, and he fidgeted under me on the knife-edge ridge. I thought about it for as long as a man takes to run the stade – a good man – and then I turned Poseidon north and climbed higher on the ridge.

  By the time I’d ridden for a hundred heartbeats, the awful truth was clear – I wasn’t on the right ridge. We’d come farther around the mountain than I thought. I wasn’t quite lost – but I didn’t know what angle to cast on to make it to camp.

  I considered going back to Laodon. He might mock me, he might club me to the ground, but at least he’d set me on the right trail.

  I kept Poseidon going up the ridge, dodging trees and cursing under my breath every so often. Fearing that I was going to be the death of my prince, because I was lost in the woods. That’s a worse fear than battle sickness or fear of a girl’s parents – fear of failing others. The worst. Better to die alone than to fail others.

  Up and up. The ridge was quite steep now. The trees were thinning, and for the first time I could see for a few stades. I had to dismount and lead Poseidon across a rocky slope at the base of a high rock cliff – old volcanic rock like rotten cheese. Poseidon picked his way across the scree like a veteran, and I looked until my eyes burned for something I might recognise.

  Of course, we put out our fires as soon as the day dawned. So there was no smoke.

  But midway across the cliff face, I realised what I was seeing. Out of sight over the next ridge was something that drew a lot of carrion birds.

  Dead deer, that’s what was drawing t
he crows.

  I felt my heart start to pound. My hands grew cold. I made my feet go faster. Poseidon stumbled and I tried to haul him along the scree by force – never a good move with a horse. The horse always wins a contest of strength – my first riding master taught me that. But I was afraid. I made mistakes.

  I think that the difference between great warriors and dead warriors is that the great ones survive their first mistakes.

  I got across the scree and started down the second ridge. I could no longer see the carrion birds, but they were loud and raucous and I could hear them and I rode for them. I cantered where on any other day I’d have walked. I pictured in my mind all the pages butchered or sold as slaves, Alexander as a hostage. Because I’d failed.

  Down the ridge – now I was committed because it’s easier to ride down a steep slope than to come back up, and once Poseidon got into the vale below, I wasn’t sure we’d get back up this high. I cursed under my breath, prayed, and got a lot of branches in the face. Then we came out of the trees.

  There was the wall of hurdles – the deer trap. Slaves around the carcasses. I put my head down, clenched my knees and put my heels into Poseidon’s flanks, and we were off, canter and gallop and a desperate sliding stumble down another slope of loose rock above the camp, and men were looking at me.

  ‘The prince!’ I demanded as I reined in.

  Philip the Red, one of the oldster pages, shook his head. ‘Alexander is off with Erigyus,’ Philip said. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Illyrians!’ I said. ‘A raiding party. Laodon sent me to warn the camp.’

  Philip was a year older than me, a right bastard to the younger pages, an obsequious lickspittle to the older men. He looked around desperately.

  There wasn’t a free adult male in camp. There were ten or twelve pages and fifty slaves and some flute girls.

  Some men have it. Some men don’t.

  ‘Right,’ Philip said. I swear his face changed. He looked at me. ‘The prince went north. Go and warn him.’ He looked around again and saw Black Cleitus. ‘Arm the pages, Cleitus! Right now! And get every slave a bow!’

  Simple orders. Obvious stuff, you say. But Philip the Red made the grade, right there. Even if he had beaten me to a pulp once.

  I had a body slave – a sort of dog-of-all-work, a gift from my pater to go with my new horse – that I called Polystratus. He was older, a Thracian, and I tolerated him and he wasn’t all that fond of me. But as I turned Poseidon to head north, he was at my side with a spear and a bow. He put the spear in my hand.

  Philip the Red wasn’t the only one making the grade.

  Polystratus ran with my horse. It’s something city people don’t know – a horse isn’t that much faster than a man, especially over broken ground. The longer the two go on, the more even the race becomes. Over the course of a day, a man and a horse will about break even, except that over ten days, that man on the horse wins, because the man on foot is too tired.

  Polystratus and I went north, over a low ridge. It was all very well for bloody Philip to tell me to find the prince, but I really had no idea how to go about it.

  Polystratus did. He picked two more Thracian slaves as we went – men hauling deer carcasses into the clearing, big tattooed men with knives.

  He looked up at me. ‘We follow water,’ he said. Shrugged. That was his plan – to follow the stream that fed the next meadow. It made sense – animals need water, and it was probably what Alexander had done. But he’d done it seven hours ago.

  ‘Listen, boys,’ I said, leaning down. ‘I’ll free all three of you if we live and find the prince. Got that?’

  Grins all around. One Greek word every slave knows – Eleuthera. Freedom.

  ‘I’m going north of the stream. Polystratus stays on the stream. You two – spread out a stade – south of the stream and another stade farther south. And run. When you have to stop to breathe – shout!’ I looked under my hand into the sun to the west – saw riders on the crest of the distant ridge. ‘Tell the prince that there are Illyrian raiders to the north and the west. Philip the Red is organising a defence in the camp. Got it? Now go, by Hermes!’

  They grunted – Thracians make Macedonians look very civilised indeed – and ran off, all together at first, and then separating by degrees as they crossed the marshy meadow.

  I went due north, avoiding the meadow altogether. The first time Polystratus stopped to draw breath and shout, I heard him, and that put heart into me. Then I was back on the low mountain, riding through enormous tumbled rocks and that startling perfume of mighty Artemis, up and up again. I called and called.

  After an hour I crossed a stream and realised that I was lost. The ridge had plateaued – in another marsh, and how marshes grow at the top of steep ridges is a bafflement to me still. I had to dismount to get Poseidon around the marsh, and then there was another hill to my left, and I was completely lost. Was this Polystratus’s stream? Or another stream?

  I stopped at the edge of the meadow, remounted and turned Poseidon to look at the sun, and only that turn saved me.

  I heard the buzz of the sling-stone. I knew it for what it was, but the information took far too long to percolate through my head. Then I put my head down and galloped for the treeline.

  I crashed into the trees and looked back, and there were three men in skins – they looked like animals. Fur caps, fur leggings, furs worn as cloaks. Behind them were two men on horses – little ponies, really.

  I remember saying fuck quite a few times.

  One of the mounted men gave a whoop, and then both of them were flying across the meadow.

  I kept going through the trees. I could easily outdistance their little ponies on flat ground, but in these woods they’d have the edge.

  I remember thinking, quite reasonably, just as Aristotle taught us, that I had to kill them. I couldn’t chance losing a race. And I couldn’t chance leading them to the prince.

  I was over the crest of the ridge with the marsh at the top, now, and going down a shallow slope. Off to the right, I saw one of the downed giant trees.

  I rode for it, staking everything on gaining its cover before they saw me.

  This giant had fallen recently – in the last hundred years – and the great ball of its roots was open to the sky like a natural cage, all the dirt washed away. I rode in among the roots.

  Poseidon stopped, and his breath came in great loud snorts. I could just see my back trail. I gripped my short spear at mid-haft and waited. And waited.

  When they came, they were loud and fast. But they had cast far to the west of my line – possibly because they were not fools, but Illyrians – and they passed a quarter of a stade from my ambush, robbing me of any surprise. So I let them pass. There was nothing else I could do, really, except charge them and die.

  But I did follow them, moving from cover to cover on horseback the way we were taught, both hunting and scouting. Since the penalty for failure was almost always a heavy beating, doing it with the risk of losing one’s life wasn’t so bad.

  The big downed trees were my salvation – that and my excellent horse, which never snorted and never lost his edge. We ranged along with them, half a stade distant, and went north and west. After half an hour, we crossed the track Laodon and I had used in the morning, and I knew where I was. I wasn’t sure quite what I was doing – but I had passed from prey to predator, and I was scouting, or so I thought.

  The sun was well down in the sky when they came to a cross-track, and one of them dismounted to look at the ground. He frowned, and then he grew a spear in his back and flopped full length on the ground.

  His partner whirled his pony.

  Laodon was empty-handed, but he came straight at the man on his smaller horse. He took the man’s sword cut on his forearm – I winced, even as I pressed my knees into Poseidon’s sides – and his right hand grabbed the headstall and ripped the Illyrian’s bridle right off his horse’s head.

  The Illyrian’s horse bolted. He threw
his arms around the horse’s neck.

  I put my spear into him as he went by. He probably never knew I was there until he fell from his horse. He hit the ground heavily and screamed – oh, such a scream as I hope never to hear again. And then he screamed again.

  I’d never killed a man, and I’d lost my spear in the shock of the successful stroke, and Poseidon did not want to go near the writhing thing on the ground, covered in leaf mould and blood, bellowing and shrieking.

  ‘Finish him!’ Laodon shouted. ‘Or we’ll have all his friends on us!’

  I had an eating knife.

  I slid from my horse and my knees were so weak I slumped to the ground, and I had to stab him three or four times. Maybe more. I really don’t remember. What I remember is the silence and the blood all around me. And Poseidon, glaring at me from one wild eye, very unhappy.

  My victim’s bowels relaxed into the sloppy, smelly embrace of death. His mouth fell open and his eyes were open too. I thought he was dead, but I threw up all over him to make sure.

  Laodon came and retrieved my spear. He wiped it clean, then took my knife out of the dead man’s neck, wiped it clean and finally pulled the man’s sword belt over his head. He had a long Keltoi sword.

  Laodon tossed it to me. ‘Wipe your face, lad,’ he said.

  I wiped it with my chlamys. I didn’t have anything else. I got some of the blood off my hands and arms, but it stuck in my arm hair.

  ‘I have to know, boy – did you make camp?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m . . . I’m looking for the prince. Those two found me – I slipped them.’ It sounded foolish. ‘I was following them.’

  Laodon nodded. ‘Well done. If the prince is alive.’

  We collected the dead men’s ponies and headed south.

  I had a sword.

  Polystratus hadn’t found the prince. He found us, instead, coming down yet another ridge. Laodon sent him off on a new angle, and sent me back to camp, headed almost due south.

  I found Hephaestion, less than two stades from camp and blissfully unaware that the world had gone to shit. Let me take a moment to say that Hephaestion and I were never close friends. He was Alexander’s favourite – his best friend, almost from birth. Alexander’s partiality blinded him to Hephaestion’s many failings. That’s the nicest way I can put it.