Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt

by Alexander at the World's End (lit)

their bare hands (I saw a bee-keeper once capture a wild swarm with nothing but

  an empty honey-jar; he judged the moment just right and swiped the whole swarm

  out of the air and into the jar, and he didn’t get stung). Nothing bad happened

  to me while all this was going on. Afterwards, people said the snake protected

  me, same as bloody always.

  I suppose the attack lasted about the time it takes to bring a basin of water to

  the boil; it seemed longer, while at the same time it was all over in a moment.

  Someone shut and bolted the gate, while others manned the wall. People were

  running or walking, calling out names, screaming, sobbing. Agenor, who didn’t

  know much about medicine but who’d seen his fair share of nasty accidents while

  he was working as a stonemason, was organising people to see to the wounded,

  sorting out the dying from the merely damaged. The basic principles of looking

  after badly injured people are calm and patience; I once watched Agenor piecing

  together a shattered vase that I’d simply have given up on and thrown away. Of

  course, it’s that bit harder to throw away people, but the temptation’s there

  all the same.

  I went over and looked at the body of my son, who was every bit as dead as

  Philip of Macedon (why did I think of that, I wonder, at such a moment? Sure, I

  wasn’t thinking straight; it was like the time I stood up sharply under a low

  beam and gave my head the most almighty crack. For a long time, everything

  seemed to be very slow and far away, and I remember wondering whether I was

  still alive, and being pleasantly surprised to discover that I was).

  They were using the wine to clean out scimitar-wounds. I saw two children

  standing very still, looking down at a dead body. They were just as still as I

  was; then one of them kicked the body, which was almost but not quite dead,

  presumably because it was Scythian — only it wasn’t, it was Budini, and he’d

  died with his axe in his hand, trying to fight the enemies of his people. Made

  no difference really, of course, a kick in the head from a child was neither

  here nor there in his condition, but it was the total lack of expression on the

  boy’s face that lodged in my mind, like the barbed sting of a bee.

  I’d never known Theano go all to pieces before. Hardly surprising, of course;

  but like I said I wasn’t thinking straight. I expected her to be cold and hard,

  to lock her feelings out or shove past them, like a bad-mannered man in the fish

  queue. But she didn’t; she broke up into tears and rages, and I’m ashamed to say

  I left her to get on with it.

  As for myself I was — we have this expression for someone who’s blind drunk,

  ‘feeling no pain’; that was me. It was very much like being drunk, that aimless,

  drifting, out-of-it feeling when you’re using everything you’ve got just to keep

  your balance and not fall over, nothing to spare for anything less immediate. In

  a sense, you’re never more intimately aware of being alive, because all the

  things you usually do without thinking take so much conscious effort. Yes, that

  was me. Feeling no pain. I was completely out of it. I guess the snakes

  protected me.

  Whenever you get really huge disasters, there’s always so much work to be done

  afterwards, so much clearing up and mending, digging graves and covering for the

  people who’ve been injured and can’t milk their own goats; so many strategy

  meetings and heads-of-department meetings — just when we could have used the

  Founders, we had five dead and seven seriously wounded — and who knows what

  else. As an excuse for staying out of the house, they were just what the doctor

  ordered. I really pulled my weight over the next few days.

  Azus, my bodyguard, died on the fourth day after the attack, of blood poisoning.

  I was with him when he died, and all he could talk about was how he’d let me

  down, how he hadn’t done his job, how he should have saved my son’s life. I told

  him not to worry about it, but he didn’t want to listen. He died with tears

  running down his face, trying to think of the Greek word for honour. Oddly

  enough, I couldn’t remember it either.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Kill the bastards,’ they told me. ‘Kill all of them. Every one.’

  ‘Believe me, I’d like to,’ I replied. ‘Nothing would please me more. Now, if

  someone would just suggest a way of going about it that won’t get all the rest

  of us killed—’

  ‘Wrong answer.’ My friend Tyrsenius shook his head. ‘If you say that, some

  hothead’s bound to stand up and say he’s got a plan that’ll bring ‘em to their

  knees by the end of the month, and everybody’ll start cheering and waving their

  arms; and either you’ll have to hand over command to him or take it yourself.

  Either way, it spells dis­aster.’

  ‘And what if it was one of the Illyrians,’ Prodromus the Founder added, ‘and he

  actually took command and he won? We might as well turn over the government of

  the city to them now and be done with it. That’s exactly how Cleon grabbed power

  in Athens during the Great War, when the Spartans were on Sphacteria.’

  That sounded like typical Founder talk to me, but I wasn’t in the mood to play

  political games. ‘All right, then,’ I sighed. ‘So what do you suggest I tell

  them? Anybody?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Tyrsenius, getting in ahead of the others by a com­fortable margin;

  years of practice in business negotiations. ‘They say, Kill the bastards. You

  say, We will. We’re going to. We’re working on it right now. Obviously it’s

  going to be a while before we’re in a position to make our move, but you can

  rest assured that as soon as the moment’s right we’re going to make them pay.

  Something like that,’ he added. ‘There’s absolutely nothing anybody can object

  to there, and you haven’t committed yourself to anything.’

  I shook my head. ‘Sounds to me like I’ve just committed myself to military

  action against the Scythians,’ I said. ‘They’re not fools, you know; that line

  might get them off our backs for a week or so, but they aren’t going to forget

  all about it as soon as there’s something new to talk about. And the longer I

  hang about, the weaker my position’s going to get.’

  Tyrsenius thought for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s try this. It’s an

  old trick, but I’ve never known it fail. You say, Yes, of course we’re going to

  attack, we’re going to attack straight away, just as soon as the rest of the

  alliance are ready, which’ll be any day now. And whoever’s asking the

  question’ll look bewildered and say, Alliance , what alliance? Ah, well, you’ll

  reply, I wasn’t planning on making an announcement on this until it was all

  agreed a hundred per cent, but I’ve been talking with our neighbours in Olbia

  and Odessus; basically the only thing we’ve still got to agree on is the precise

  number of ships they’re going to send. That way, you see,’ Tyrsenius added,

  ‘when time goes on and nothing happens, it’ll be their fault in Olbia and

  Odessus, not ours. And then finally, when you’ve played it along as far as it’ll

  go, you make an announcement that the alliance isn’t ac
tually going to happen,

  because the other guys have pulled out at the very last moment; and by then, of

  course, they’ll be so used to the idea of the alliance that they won’t want to

  take the risk of just us going in alone. And the whole thing’ll blow over, which

  is what we want.’

  Prodromus looked up sharply. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Tyrsenius snapped. ‘We aren’t getting tangled up in any

  war with the Scythians. Why the hell would we want to do a stupid thing like

  that?’

  I closed my eyes for a moment. ‘Tyrsenius,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he replied incredulously. ‘Don’t say you’ve actually been taking

  this nonsense seriously.’

  The very same Tyrsenius who’d demanded, a mere four days earlier, that when we

  took the village (when, mark you, not if), we should burn down all the houses

  and plough up the site, and distribute the land between our citizens. I knew

  where he was coming from then; he was already looking ahead to buying up all

  this extra land cheap, once everyone had realised it’d be completely impractical

  to try to farm a large additional holding a day’s ride from Antolbia, with a

  view to selling it dear to the next wave of settlers he was already planning to

  bring in once the Scythians had been dealt with. It was gold to bronze he had an

  equally sound commercial reason for this latest change of heart, but I really

  wasn’t interested in hearing about it.

  (The very same Tyrsenius who killed four Scythians during the raid, pulling them

  down from their horses and hacking them to death with one of their own

  scimitars; all this in spite of having been shot through the left bicep in the

  first volley of arrows, losing so much blood that when it was all over he passed

  out and nearly died in the night. I, of course, just stood there and did

  nothing, while the sacred snake shielded me in its coils and flicked flying

  arrows away from my head with its tongue.)

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Prodromus was saying mean­while. ‘Euxenus,

  for gods’ sakes, the whole future of the colony’s at stake here. How the hell

  can we be expected to get on with our lives with the threat of something like

  this hanging over us every day till we die? You’ve got to do something and it’d

  better be soon. Two more families are talking about getting on the next ship

  out. Soon there’ll be nobody left here but the Illyrians.’

  He was making me lose my temper. ‘That’s what’s really bugging you, isn’t it?’ I

  said angrily. ‘You’re afraid that unless we true-born Greeks take control of the

  situation, the Illyrians are going to lose patience and go off on their own to

  do something about it; and then you won’t be a Founder any more, just some Greek

  who’s got to work for a living.’

  ‘I resent that,’ Prodromus replied, predictably enough. ‘I think you’d better

  take that back, before—’

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘That’ll do. As it happens, I agree with you, not Tyrsenius. I

  want to kill the bastards, every last one. It’s them or us; there’s no way we

  can live peacefully together after what’s happened, and I wouldn’t want to if

  there was. All I’m saying is, unless we do it right they’re going to massacre

  us.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Prodromus said. ‘Isn’t it?’

  The last part of his remark had been directed at Marsamleptes, who’d been

  sitting there still and quiet as a log, through all Prodromus’ comments about

  the shifty and treacherous Illyrians, without once taking his eyes off the

  sconce on the opposite wall. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Euxenus is right. If we attack, we

  must do it properly.’

  ‘If?’ Prodromus repeated. ‘Don’t you start. It’s bad enough Tyrsenius here wants

  to pretend nothing’s happened. For pity’s sake, Euxenus, just for once take your

  responsibilities seriously and tell him—’

  I held up my hand for silence and, much to my surprise, I got it.

  ‘When we attack — shut up, both of you, or you might miss something important —

  when we attack, we’re going to do it properly. Now, so far I haven’t heard any

  suggestions as to how we should go about this that make any kind of sense at

  all. Until I see a plan of action that’s got a better than seventy-five per cent

  chance of success, we aren’t going anywhere, because if you think things are bad

  now, you wait and see what they’ll be like if we attack and get well and truly

  beaten. That really would be the end, and I’ve come too far to take chances like

  that just because you Founders want to be the first in line in the fish queue.’

  The homely image was intended to annoy him, and it did; nothing put Prodromus’

  back up more than the thought that he wasn’t being taken seriously. That said,

  he was one of the brighter Founders, and I much preferred dealing with him than,

  say, Perdiccas— (Whose brains I’d seen on the steps of the market hall; four

  days later, there was still a brown stain. When we buried him we tried to fit

  the top of his skull back on, but the scalp had shrunk. We had to bind it on

  with a strip of cloth in the end; he went into the ground looking like an old

  woman with her shawl pulled up over her ears.)

  ‘All right,’ Prodromus said. ‘I’ll take that as a definite commitment to action,

  and I’ll tell the rest of them that I’ve heard your proposals for action and I’m

  prepared to go along with them. But I warn you, if I find you’re playing for

  time and you don’t really have any intention of carrying the war to the enemy, I

  promise you there’ll be trouble.’

  I rubbed my eyes; four days with very little sleep. ‘I’ll take that as

  agreement,’ I said. ‘Not that I’m all that fussed whether you agree or not. Now

  then, Marsamleptes; how about some basic facts? What sort of army can we put

  together?’

  He thought for a long time before answering. ‘We are strong in heavy infantry,’

  he replied, speaking slowly as ever, ‘very weak in everything else. My people

  can mostly shoot well with the bow, but they will want to fight with the spear.

  The Budini are fine archers, but there are so few of them. We have no cavalry.

  If we mean to fight, we must lead to their strength and find a way of overcoming

  it.’

  ‘I see,’ I replied. ‘And their strengths are?’

  ‘Cavalry,’ he replied. ‘Cavalry and archers. I cannot tell how a battle between

  horse-archers and heavy infantry would be, because I have never seen one, but I

  think the horse-archers would win if they were well led.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Tyrsenius interrupted. ‘Look at Leonidas at Thermopylae . Or

  the Greeks at Plataea . Or Xenophon—’

  I frowned. Of course, none of the examples he’d quoted had involved

  horse-archers fighting against heavy infantry. ‘Marsamleptes,’ I said. ‘If you

  had to fight such a battle, how would you go about it?’

  Once again, long pause for thought. ‘Tyrsenius talks about the battle at Plataea

  ,’ he said. ‘When the Persians shot at the Greeks, the Greeks knelt down behind

  their shields and made themselves small, and the Persians grew impatient and
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  attacked them with the spear. That was a mistake on their part.’ He looked up at

  the roof. ‘Maybe the Scythians would make a mistake too. I doubt it, having seen

  them. It would be hard to attack them in this way, of course.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,, Tyrsenius chimed in. ‘Think of the Carthaginians at Himera.’

  That reference was so obscure I didn’t even bother considering it. ‘You want to

  make them attack us, I take it,’ I said.

  ‘Which they will not do,’ Marsamleptes went on, ‘unless they make another

  mistake. There are more of us. Why would they choose to attack a larger army?’

  ‘I can see your point,’ I conceded. ‘You’d better go away and think about it

  some more. Prodromus, I want you to calm your people down as much as you can.

  Tyrsenius’ idea about sending for help to Olbia’s a good one. Tyrsenius, I want

  you to write to your friends in Olbia, just in case they might be prepared to

  help us. I know, they haven’t got any quarrel with their neighbours, but you

  might play up the idea that once they’ve got rid of one Greek colony, they might

  like the idea of getting rid of them all. And you might make enquiries about

  mercenaries; light infantry, archers, maybe even some experi­enced Thracian

  cavalry if there’s any at a loose end.’

  Tyrsenius shook his head. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘Anybody who’s any good will

  have gone with Alexander. You should see what he’s paying.’

  That’s right, I’d forgotten; Alexander had set out with his army to conquer the

  world.

  You know all about it, of course, Phryzeutzis, you were brought up on it. When

  you were little, your daddy told you stories about the great warrior who founded

  this city. Later on, you listened to the recital of the official history on

  Founder’s Day, the day when all the children get given an apple and a

  honey-cake, to bribe them to be good citizens when they grow up. I’ll bet you

  can name the great battles, in places you’ve never been to, in countries you

  can’t imagine; when you were a child, I expect you recreated them in places you

  knew, so that the stream that runs down off the mountain became the Granicus,

  and the brook through the town meadow became the Issus . You staged the siege of

  Tyre here in the city; it must have been a tight fit, all those hundreds of