Diomedes bragged of our cowardice.
Two days later, despite orders to go in groups of at least ten, a gang of Attalus’s retainers caught Orestes and Pyrrhus and Philip the Red. They were stripping Orestes to rape him when Polystratus put an arrow into one of the men, a muleteer, and the would-be rapists ran.
Alexander was exact in describing what he would do to the next man who was caught. ‘I care what happens to you,’ he said carefully. ‘But you must care what happens to us all. They are trying to break us. To make us the butt of humour. Humiliated boys, in a world of men. Do you understand?’ he asked, his voice calm and deadly, and we did. I had seldom heard him sound more like his father.
Our wing in the palace became like a small city under siege, and out in the town, our slaves and our houses burned.
One of the slaves who tasted Alexander’s food died. In agony.
The next day, Alexander took me aside. ‘I want you to strike back,’ he said. ‘I can’t be seen to act in this. I must be seen to be the oppressed party. My father is openly contemptuous of me. So be it. But if we do not strike back, our people will lose heart.’
The next day, I had Philip the Red go to the royal companions’ quarters and ask for bread.
They refused. Some suggestions were made as to what Philip could do to get bread.
Philip lost his temper and told them what he thought of grown men behaving in such a way to their cousins and sons. And the whole mess of the royal companions laughed him out of their barracks.
Then I sent Polystratus to scout. On his return, he reported that every entrance to the palace was watched, and he’d been ‘allowed’ to go out.
Sometimes the best plan is to give your enemies what they expect. That night, while I was on guard, I poured wine for Alexander.
‘It will be tomorrow,’ I told him.
He nodded. ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ he said.
Later, coming off duty, I went to Olympias’s wing and visited Pausanias. The queen was sitting on his couch, singing to him quietly – one of the bear songs of Artemis. I stopped in the doorway. She caught my eye and shook her head, and I retreated.
The queen came out of the room into the corridor and I bowed.
‘He is not ready for visitors,’ she said. ‘Especially not men in armour.’
I wanted to ask her – Is he broken? Ruined? But I could not. She shook her head.
‘He is better. I will restore his wits. Women know more than men about this.’ She smiled, and her smile was terrifying. ‘Oh, if only men could be raped by women – the world would be more just.’
I had to reconsider my views on Alexander’s mother – because her care for Pausanias was genuine. All her women said she was with him every moment of her day. And this for a boy who had been her husband’s lover.
Then she caught my eye. ‘Be careful tomorrow,’ she said.
That sent ice down my spine.
She laughed. ‘Half my maids are missing chitons. I can guess.’ She nodded. ‘And if I can guess, so can Attalus.’
‘Since you know, would my lady condescend to give us some kohl?’ I asked.
Eight of us went out of the palace in the first light, dressed as female slaves, with a pair of carts. We left through the slave entrance and we had the same carts that they used every day to fetch bread. I had Orestes and Pyrrhus and Perdiccas, but not Black Cleitus or Philip the Red or any of the blooded men. Polystratus drove one of the carts, but in the first narrow street, he switched with me, pulled himself from the top of the cart on to the tiled rooftops and ran off into the darkness, no doubt cursed by every man and woman sleeping under the tiles.
Our little procession of carts and slaves rolled up the alleys and into the main market, then along the northern edge of the agora to the great ovens where bread was baked. If they were on to us, they gave no sign.
We loaded the bread. And the baker’s apprentices behaved so oddly that even if I hadn’t already been suspicious, I’d have been suspicious. I didn’t let any of my ‘girls’ get close to the baker’s boys, and I kept my distance and spoke low.
The lead apprentice watched the last round loaves loaded into the carts. ‘Hurry up,’ I said impatiently.
He gave me an insolent stare. ‘Fuck off, maiden.’ He laughed. ‘By the time you walk back to the palace, you’ll walk more like matrons, I wager!’
The other apprentices tittered.
We moved off with a noisy squeal of wheels. The sun was well up, the temples were opening their bronze gates and there were enough people in the streets that I wondered if Attalus would dare come at us, even if he knew who we were.
We took a different route back to the palace – farther west, through the wealthier neighbourhoods where the nobility had their town houses. They were big houses, two or three storeys, with tile roofs and balconies and exedra – Athens boasted thousands of such houses, and Pella had about two hundred.
We passed within two blocks of Attalus’s compound. Our strategy was to hide in plain sight, and baffle ambush by passing too close to Attalus for him to dare attack us.
Actually, that wasn’t our strategy at all. That was our apparent strategy.
In a street lined with high walls, the squealing wheel gave way, and our convoy had to stop.
Eight slave girls and a broken-down cart full of bread.
We worked on the wheel as slowly as real slave girls. The sun rose, and as far as I was concerned, our enemies had proved themselves too incompetent to live. I was just at the point of moving on – the wheel was fine – when Orestes froze at my side.
‘Now what have we here?’ Diomedes swaggered. He was on horseback. ‘Palace slaves?’ He laughed. ‘If you aren’t girls now, sweetings, you will be soon.’
He had a dozen retainers. Not Thracians, but men sworn to his family. When I looked back, there were at least as many at the other end of the block.
Far more than I had counted on.
Orestes made a pretty girl. He bowed deeply. ‘Lord, if you and your men would favour us . . .?’
He indicated the wretched wheel.
Diomedes rode in, laughing, and his fist knocked Orestes to the ground.
I wanted him, so I ran forward, bare legs flashing, almost under his horse’s hooves.
It is amazing how a woman’s dress blinds a man, even when the man suspects that he’s dealing with other men. Diomedes should never have let me in so close. On the other hand, he was too stupid to live.
I didn’t throw myself on poor Orestes, who had a broken jaw.
I sliced Diomedes’ horse from forelegs to penis with a very sharp knife and kept going under, grabbed one dangling foot and pulled him from the dying horse’s back.
One of his men was awake, and close at his master’s side. He cut at me, and I never saw the blow.
It fell on the shoulder of my scale corselet. We were all in armour, under our dresses.
I screamed something – the blow hurt, the opening of a bloom in spring exploding colour into the world, except faster, because it fell right on my wound of two days before. But the scales held, and my scream had the desired effect.
All my boys had swords, and they turned on anyone near at hand.
Our surprise was far from complete – Diomedes’ men must have expected it, because they were trying to keep their distance. Spears were thrown, and we were about to have a vicious street fight. A fight wherein my side was young, inexperienced and had no missile weapons.
Diomedes got his feet under him, and rage overcame any attempt at sense.
He drew, whirled his chlamys over his arm and came at me.
‘You seem to like the mud,’ I said. I got my woman’s chiton over my head in one pull – I’d practised – and around my arm. It was fine Aegyptian linen, and somewhere in the palace the owner was going to be none too happy with me.
They were two to one against us, and yet they hung back. That was human nature – they were freemen and thugs against nobles, and they feared b
oth our superior training and the consequences even if they triumphed. I wanted to curse them. I wanted them to come in. But no plan is ever perfect.
As it was, the half-dozen who came at us from the north had no real notion of fighting mounted, and my pages were able to overcome them with simple adolescent ferocity.
I was aware of none of this, except as a distant set of blows and howls, because for all his failings, Diomedes was fast and mean and bigger than me. He was large enough that most of my superior skills were negated.
He hacked overhanded at me, and I had to step quickly to avoid getting my chlamys arm broken. His reach was the same as mine.
I needed to get inside his reach.
I crouched in my guard, flashed a glance behind me to see how the pages were doing – I was worried, by then – and Diomedes took advantage of my distraction to strike.
He went for a grapple. He was big, but he was not trained the way I had been trained. The moment he was in range, I punched my xiphos pommel into his teeth, passed my left foot over my right and threw my left hand into the needle’s eye between his sword-arm elbow and armpit. My weight slammed into him as I got my arm up – the gods were with me, and by pure sweet chance my little finger went deep into his nostril and he stumbled – and I had him.
Arm up, elbow locked, turned into the ground.
The simplest control hold in pankration, and I had him kneeling at my feet, my sword at his cheek.
His retainers froze.
And that’s when Polystratus and Philip the Red appeared over the walls on either side of the alley with a dozen more men, all armed with bows.
‘Lay down your arms,’ Philip shouted.
One of Diomedes’ thugs turned to run and Polystratus shot him dead.
They dropped their swords and clubs with a series of clatters and a soft thwop as the weapons went into the mud.
Diomedes grunted, and I put more pressure on his arm and he gave a little scream. I had his right arm just at the edge of dislocation. As it was, his arm would hurt for a week.
I didn’t hesitate to hurt him. In fact, I dragged Diomedes the length of the agora by his right arm, ruthlessly dislocating the shoulder.
To tell the truth, there was nothing ruthless about it. I enjoyed it. He screamed quite a bit.
The retainers were stripped naked and tied together by Philip’s men. In what we might call ‘revealing postures’. If this makes you feel queasy, try to remember that these were the men who had raped our friend.
My sword made a bloody little furrow in Diomedes’ cheek. I remember that best of all – the blood running down his cheek as he begged me to let him go.
I didn’t. I dragged him into the agora and up to the rostrum where merchants announced their wares and sometimes men accused other men of using false weights or selling bad horses.
In the middle of the agora, surrounded by Athenian merchants and Thessalian horse dealers, I stopped. It was possible that Attalus had grown powerful enough to kill me in broad daylight with fifty witnesses, but I doubted it.
I waited. Diomedes screamed. I thought of Pausanias, lying on a couch in the queen’s chambers, his face to the wall, and I twisted the bastard’s dislocated shoulder again. And again.
‘This man who is screaming like a woman dishonoured my friend,’ I shouted from the rostrum. ‘His name is Diomedes. He is the nephew of the king’s friend Attalus, and he is a faithless coward, a whore and a hermaphrodite. Aren’t you, Diomedes?’
And I rotated his shoulder, and he screamed.
Shall I leave the rest out?
But that’s how it was, in Macedon.
Eventually, the royal companions came, ‘rescued’ Diomedes and arrested me. That was the dangerous part – being walked to the palace, I wondered whether they’d let me be killed. But they were serious men, in armour, and Diomedes was a wreck of excrement and fear. He couldn’t even speak.
I was dragged before Philip, dirty, disarmed and with my hands tied behind me like a thief. Diomedes was, after all, the royal favourite.
Philip was sitting on an ivory stool, playing with his dogs. As I came in, he scratched his beard and growled, and for a moment he looked like one of his mastiffs.
‘Ptolemy,’ he grumbled. He looked deeply unhappy. ‘What the fuck have you been doing?’
I bowed. ‘Lord,’ I said, ‘Attalus is planning to murder us – the older pages. Diomedes tried to trap me in the streets. I fought back.’
Philip spat. ‘Attalus – Lord Attalus, the Commander of Asia – is plotting to murder some boys?’ He shook his head angrily.
I shrugged. ‘Do you know that he ordered Pausanias raped? By fifty men? By slaves?’ I asked.
‘I am your king, boy. You do not question me. I question you.’ Philip picked up a cup of wine, poured a libation on the floor like a farmer and drank the rest off. ‘Yes, I have heard that there was some matter involving Pausanias. But the boy always exaggerates everything.’
I shook my head and pointed towards the queen’s wing of the palace. ‘Go and see him,’ I said. ‘In this, he need say nothing. Just look at him and see if I exaggerate.’
Philip turned his head away. ‘Ptolemy,’ he began. Cleared his throat. ‘This is more complicated than you can imagine, boy.’
I raised my head and met him eye to eye. ‘Lord, your friend Attalus is trying to kill my friends – or rape them with slaves.’
‘I will deal with men who break my laws!’ Philip said. ‘You cannot take the law into your own hands!’
I shrugged. ‘If I had not ambushed Diomedes, his men would have killed me on the spot. Or worse.’
Philip gazed at a tapestry on the wall – the Rape of Europa, of all things.
I was not making any headway, and it occurred to me – for the first time, I think – that Philip could not actually accept what I was saying, because to accept it would have been to give up on a number of his cherished notions of how his court should function. Of his own power. Of his need to dispossess Alexander, although I’m not sure he ever admitted that to himself.
In fact, when you are a royal page, you are so deep in the court intrigue that it is like the blood in your body. And here, suddenly, I had to face the reality that the king himself didn’t really know what was going on.
‘Does my son plot to kill me?’ Philip asked, suddenly.
‘No,’ I said, although my heart beat so loudly that I was afraid the king would hear it in my chest.
‘Attalus says he has a plot – with that bitch his mother. Tell it to me, and I will see that you are protected and favoured.’ Philip was showing his old iron – telling me to my face that he knew that something was up.
I remember that, because up until then, I had tried to be loyal to Alexander and loyal to the old king, as well.
But in that moment, I had to choose.
I was smart enough to stay in my role – as an angry youth. I forced a sneer. ‘I’m sorry you think I look like the sort of man who informs on his friends,’ I said.
Philip grabbed my hands. ‘Look, you idiot – if Alexander tries for me and fails I’ll have to kill him. If he kills me, he’ll never manage to rule – he’s too weak, too womanish, too easily swayed. Someone like Attalus will drag him down. Tell him from me – I need the balance. So does he. Let it be as it is now.’ He released me.
I shrugged. ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said. ‘No idea what he’ll say.’
‘Does he know his own limitations?’ Philip asked the ceiling. ‘If I die, the whole thing is gone – Athens wins, and Macedon is a memory. None of the nobles will follow Alexander. He’s too . . . arrogant. Ignorant. Young.’
Philip saw his son only through a veil of his own failings. Very human, but surprising from the man who was King of Macedon. Philip couldn’t let himself imagine that Alexander could do without him.
Alexander couldn’t imagine that his father could conquer Asia without him.
I stood silent and judged them. On behalf of Macedon.
‘You will make a public apology to Diomedes at the wedding.’ He pointed at the door.
I bowed. ‘What wedding, lord?’
Philip laughed. ‘I am marrying young Cleopatra to my cousin, Alexander of Epiros. Olympias will be removed from the succession and I’ll be shot of her for ever.’ He smiled and poured more wine. ‘I’m inviting all of Greece, boy. Athens will be empty.’
I said nothing. Cleopatra was Attalus’s niece, remember. Not the same Cleopatra as Alexander’s sister, due to be married to Alexander of Epiros at Aegae. Pay attention, boy – it’s not my fault they were all inbred and had the same names.
‘And this time next year, I’ll cross into Asia. You could be with me, Ptolemy. I saw what you did at Chaeronea. You can lead. Men will follow you, despite that ugly mug you’ve got.’
Philip poured another libation. Drank more.
‘It’s like riding an unbroken horse,’ he said, after he had allowed himself a sip. ‘Sooner or later I’m going to slip and get thrown.’ He frowned. I wasn’t sure he knew I was there. ‘And then it all comes down. Fuck them all.’
I got out of the room as fast as I could.
I was one of the first at court to know of the wedding, but in a few days it was the only topic. The court was to be moved to the ancient, sacred capital at Aegae. The theatre had been rebuilt, there were two new temples and everything shone with marble, polished bronze and new gilt.
Philip was going to sponsor a set of festivities lasting fifteen days, to overawe Greece with his civilised power as much as his armies dominated their thoughts of war and violence. He had hired the best playwrights and the best poets, the best rhapsodes, the best musicians.
I’m telling this out of order, because it’s all jumbled up in my mind. I beat the living shit out of Diomedes and then, a week or so later, we rode north for Aegae and in that time, a great many things changed.
Cleopatra – the king’s fourth wife – gave birth to a son. A healthy son. Philip was openly delighted.
God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great Page 26
