Clash of Empires

by Ben Kane

  ‘It’s not as if it was his first chance,’ said Felix. ‘If he had arrived from Rome earlier last year, he could have taken the fight to Philip then.’

  ‘We can worry about that in the spring, eh?’ said Fabius. ‘All that’s important tonight is finding a decent inn.’

  ‘And a whorehouse,’ added Narcissus.

  ‘You’ll need one with a mirror,’ said Antonius. Narcissus was alone among them in owning such a trinket. When he wasn’t polishing his armour and equipment, he was fond of studying his reflection.

  They all fell about, and Narcissus glowered. ‘It’s not my fault if I’m the best looker here,’ he snapped.

  More hilarity ensued.

  ‘You and Felix should have a contest,’ said Antonius. ‘He’s quite the lady’s man when he sets his mind to it. What say you, brothers? First one of the pair to pull a woman tonight wins. We’ll wager a denarius each – and the winner takes all. If neither manages to bed a freeborn Illyrian woman, we spend the money on drink.’ He dug in his purse and held up a silver coin.

  ‘I’m in,’ said Fabius at once.

  ‘And I,’ said Mattheus, the newest addition to their contubernium. Short, gregarious and an excellent runner, he’d been named – as he told everyone – by his insistent Jewish mother. ‘Are you willing, Felix? Narcissus?’

  Felix wasn’t fond of Narcissus. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone except Antonius, for it didn’t do to badmouth one’s comrades, but the man was insufferable. Apart from his obsession with his physical appearance and equipment, he only ever talked about himself. Felix knew where Narcissus was from, his father’s profession, how many siblings he had. He even knew Narcissus’ favourite wine – Caecuban.

  The prick doesn’t know the first thing about me, he thought, because he’s never asked.

  ‘Felix?’ Mattheus’ voice again.

  Still unsure – downing a bellyful of wine held more appeal than the contest – Felix glanced at Narcissus, whose lip curled as if to say, ‘You have no chance.’

  Felix’s temper flared. ‘Five denarii – that’s more than half a month’s pay. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Narcissus?’ asked Antonius gleefully.

  ‘It will be like taking a pastry from a child,’ Narcissus declared.

  The rest of their journey to the town, a gentle stroll along a gravelled road, was taken up with loud discussion about the competition. Antonius backed Felix; so did Mattheus, but Fabius reckoned Narcissus would emerge the victor. Predictably, Narcissus was happy to talk about his previous conquests, which he claimed were many. Felix blocked his ears, and thought about the large prize on offer. A good deal of it would be spent on buying drink for his comrades – that was the nature of wagers made at times like this – but some could be salted away. Since re-enlisting, there had been four paydays, and Felix had been careful to set aside every as he didn’t need. This was a new experience for him – in the war against Hannibal, he had spent his pay within days, on wine and women. Now he had a purpose for depositing his coins with the dour quartermaster. When the war against Macedonia had been won, Felix was determined that there would be no return to penury, no working the fields until his hands bled. He would be a man of substance, and when he caught the eye of a pretty girl, she would smile.

  Two hours later, and Felix had a good feeling in his belly. The still-balmy weather meant the streets of Apollonia were thronged, but he and his comrades had managed to secure a table outside one of the many inns. The streets were crowded with locals and off-duty soldiers. Small children gaped at the legionaries, and were chided by their mothers. Greybeards threw suspicious glances. Women kept their gaze firmly on the ground, or engaged in overloud conversations with their female companions. Dogs moved between the tables, hoping for scraps from the heavy-drinking customers.

  While Antonius, Fabius and Mattheus busied themselves with getting drunk, Felix and Narcissus had cast about for potential targets. Narcissus had thrown his net early, and was trying it on with the inn’s best-looking serving girl, a fine-figured young thing with long brown hair. Tavern girls tended to be either whores or married in Felix’s experience, or immune to customers’ attentions. Unless Narcissus was Eros himself, he was destined to fail.

  Felix decided his best bet would be with one of the women working in the shops beside the inn. Pretending to stretch his legs, and keeping an eye out for Matho – this situation was just when he might meet his old centurion – he wandered up and down the street. He spotted two pretty girls working inside a baker’s, but was put off by their burly father, who glowered at Felix in a ‘I know what you’re about’ kind of way. A thick-waisted woman outside her vegetable shop gave him a bold look, but he passed on by. Beating Narcissus wasn’t everything – there had to be desire too.

  Felix next spotted an attractive woman with braided hair sweeping between the amphorae on display outside a wine shop. Young enough still to be single, she didn’t see him approach.

  ‘You have some good vintages,’ he said, studying the prices detailed on the wall.

  She jumped.

  ‘My apologies,’ said Felix. Seeing her blank face, he said, ‘Do you speak Latin?’

  ‘Some.’ Her eyes were dark blue, her nose snubbed in an attractive way. ‘You scared me.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He raised his hands in a placating gesture. ‘You have nothing to fear.’

  The beginnings of a smile. ‘You’re a Roman legionary. Mother says I shouldn’t speak to any of you. That you all want only one thing.’

  ‘That’s harsh,’ said Felix, thinking, her mother has the truth of it, and feeling a little embarrassed.

  A voice spoke in Illyrian, and a middle-aged woman emerged from the shop. Her pleasant face hardened at the sight of Felix. ‘You want to buy wine?’ Her Latin was strongly accented but good.

  ‘I . . . perhaps.’ Felix’s eyes flickered to the girl.

  ‘Or are you troubling my daughter? The latter, I think.’ Folding her arms, she advanced on Felix.

  He backed away a step. ‘We were talking, nothing more.’

  A contemptuous phhhh. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? Young men are the same now as they were when I was a girl. Either buy some wine, or be on your way.’

  ‘I’ll head back to my comrades.’ Felix put on his winning smile, delivering it first to the mother, who scowled, and then her daughter, who blushed a little. Deciding that he and Narcissus had been set an impossible task, and that valuable drinking time was being wasted, he strode off without a backward glance.

  As he got back, Narcissus was on the receiving end of plenty of jibes.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Felix.

  ‘The serving girl was having none of his sweet talk,’ said Mattheus, grinning.

  Felix winked at Narcissus. ‘Are you sure you weren’t exaggerating your previous conquests?’

  ‘You don’t seem to have succeeded either,’ muttered Narcissus, burying his nose in his cup.

  ‘Anything to report?’ Antonius asked his brother.

  ‘The young women of Apollonia are well guarded,’ said Felix with a rueful shake of his head.

  ‘You’re not giving up?’ Mattheus glanced from Felix to Narcissus and back.

  Felix poured himself a large measure of wine. ‘Let’s just get pissed.’

  ‘We can always visit a whorehouse later,’ said Narcissus.

  ‘If you can still get it up by then,’ retorted Mattheus, holding out a stiff forefinger and letting it droop.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ snarled Narcissus.

  ‘Settle down, the pair of you. Five denarii will last us all night, and more.’ Antonius slapped a pair of dice on the table. Made from sheep tail-bones, they went everywhere with him. ‘Who’s for a game?’ he demanded.

  ‘Wake up.’ A hand was shaking Felix’s shoulder.

  Deep in a pleasant dream about the girl from the wine shop rather than the usual nightmare about Ingenuus, he ignored it.

  A slap to the back of his head.
‘Stir yourself, brother. We’re going home.’

  Felix came to, his face planted sideways on rough timber. His mouth was dry, his tongue furry. He sat up, swaying. Darkness blanketed the street. The shops were shut, and the crowds of earlier had vanished. Antonius was standing over him – he looked almost as drunk as Felix felt. Mattheus and Fabius were both under the table, snoring. Felix looked around.

  ‘Where’s Narcissus?’

  ‘Gone for a piss.’

  ‘Let’s get another drink.’ Felix could hear himself slurring the words.

  Antonius made an obscene gesture towards the tavern. ‘The innkeeper’s shutting up shop. ’S time to go.’

  It took a few moments to kick Mattheus and Fabius awake, and longer to find Narcissus, who had collapsed in an alleyway, cock in hand, and fallen asleep. Eventually, however, they had gathered. Draining the last drops from their cups, and the jug, they weaved off down the street. The darkness wasn’t total: some premises still had torches burning outside, illuminating their way. Mattheus began to sing a popular ditty, out of tune. Narcissus tried to join in, but couldn’t remember more than the first word or two of each line and so gave up in disgust. Spying another tavern, Felix made a beeline for the door. He had just reached the threshold when Antonius pulled him away.

  ‘C’mon. Bed.’

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ protested Felix.

  ‘Your head’s going to be sore enough in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Don’t give Pullo an excuse to put you on latrine duties.’

  Antonius’ advice sank in. They wouldn’t have to fight tomorrow, nor even parade, but Pullo required his men to be functioning. Grumbling under his breath, Felix turned, and collided with someone exiting the tavern.

  ‘Look where you’re going,’ Felix growled.

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ said the legionary.

  The pair glared at each other in the orange-red torchlight. A fresh pink scar ran from the corner of the man’s eye to his chin. Recognition tickled Felix’s drink-fuddled brain. The same was happening to the hastatus. His face twisted with rage.

  ‘It’s you!’

  Felix planted his hands on the hastatus’ chest and shoved, sending him stumbling backwards into the tavern. ‘Antonius!’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Trouble.’

  Keeping their faces towards the inn, Felix and Antonius joined their comrades.

  ‘Like to tell me what’s going on?’ demanded Mattheus as the hastatus and three of his friends spilled onto the street. Black Stubble was one, but Felix didn’t recognise the others. All four advanced, murder in their eyes.

  ‘Who are these arseholes?’ hissed Antonius.

  ‘They’re the ones who were raping the girl in Antipatreia,’ said Felix.

  ‘That’s quite a mark you left on him.’ Narcissus’ tone was acid. He didn’t back away, however. Nor did the rest.

  A comrade was a comrade, no matter what, thought Felix.

  ‘I knew we’d meet again,’ said the scar-faced hastatus. ‘It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘Raped any children since?’ Felix hawked a gob of phlegm, which landed close to his enemy’s feet.

  ‘No, but I will again, gods willing.’ The hastatus leered. ‘Where’s the whore you took from us?’

  ‘Screw you.’ Revulsion filled Felix, but he could no more stop such atrocities than he could pluck the moon from the night sky. He hoped the girl was safe from harm – the morning after the sack of Antipatreia, he’d given her food for a few days and sent her to find the kin she said lived in a village nearby.

  The hastatus had his dagger out. ‘You’re going to pay for what you did to me.’

  ‘Think again, cocksucker,’ said Felix. ‘It’s five against four.’

  ‘Four men against five yellow-livers,’ sneered the hastatus, but his friends didn’t look so sure.

  He was still leering when Felix snatched a jug from a table and hurled it. Catching the hastatus in the side of the head, it dropped him in a sprawl of limbs on the ground. Felix bared his teeth. ‘Five against three, maggots. Still keen?’

  Black Stubble waved his two comrades back. ‘We know you, whoreson, and now we know your mates. Best sleep with one eye open from now on.’

  Felix flung another jug at him; Black Stubble ducked, and the vessel shattered off the tavern wall. The noise brought the doormen outside, and with menacing waves of their clubs, they ordered the legionaries to be gone.

  Felix and his comrades headed down the street. Hauling the semi-conscious scar-faced man, the hastati went in the opposite direction. Both groups shouted abuse until they were out of sight of each other.

  ‘Bastards,’ growled Fabius. ‘We should have beaten the shit out of them.’

  ‘Not worth it,’ said Felix. ‘If an officer had come along, we’d have been in the shit. Or someone might have been stabbed. Then there would be an official enquiry, and gods knows what else.’

  ‘You should have left well alone in Antipatreia,’ said Antonius.

  ‘Don’t start with me,’ snapped Felix, aware that his brother was right.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Pella, Macedon, late autumn 199 BC

  Demetrios eyed the sky as he and his comrades from the file joined the crowd which was spilling from the northern gate. It was overcast, and looked to stay that way; there was no promise of rain either. That suited him. The year was coming to a close, but when the sun was out, its heat was still considerable. When it came to the hoplitodromos, the prestigious race in armour, Demetrios would need every advantage on offer to have any chance of winning.

  The annual festival to celebrate Zeus’ role as wind-roarer and storm-bringer was in full flow, bringing business in the bustling city to a standstill. As they did every year, plays, feasts and athletic contests took place almost every day for a month. Most important deity in the pantheon throughout Greece, Zeus was particularly revered in Macedon. His mood would determine the number and severity of storms that would batter the region through the long, dark winter. Along with thousands of soldiers, each delighted that the fighting was over until the spring, Demetrios had been at the ceremony marking the beginning of Zeus’ festival.

  A grand affair celebrated outside the city walls, it had seen scores of fine bulls die under the priests’ blades. Not one had protested its death, favourable omens that had lifted the cheering to the cloud-filled skies. Men said since that Macedon’s Greek enemies, such as Aitolia, might also pray to the wind-roarer, but would every sacrificial beast of theirs go to the god so willingly? They would not – it was rare indeed to hear no bellows of protest when the blood was sheeting to the ground, and heads were rolling – which meant that Zeus favoured Macedon not just over Rome, but over Aitolia too.

  Wine laid on by Philip that first day had made the celebrations memorable. The young women of Pella, missing their menfolk during the summer campaign, had been most . . . welcoming, thought Demetrios with a little smile. His luck hadn’t been quite as good since, but nor had it been bad. No more a lowly docks labourer who slept on the street, he was a phalangist – a man worthy of admiration. Nor was it just the fair sex who showed respect. Shopkeepers and the proprietors of taverns, even well-to-do merchants, would nod as he and his comrades strode through the streets. Demetrios gave silent thanks, first to Zeus (not to show disrespect), then to Hermes and Ares for the change in his fortunes.

  It was pleasant to mix with civilians, to forget army life for a time. Demetrios was reminded of the festivals he’d attended as a boy. The same sights were on offer here. Small children played tag through the throng, their garlands often falling to the ground unnoticed. Their mothers cackled and eyed the groups of well-muscled soldiers and farmers who would take part in the races. Priests and their acolytes observed a dignified silence. An exception were those from far-off Dodona: bearded, and famous for their unwashed feet, they were still haughtier than most noblemen. Snaggle-toothed ancients muttered
and nodded, remembering the long-distant days when they had competed against one another. Paunchy, self-important nobles and merchants talked in loud voices about the events they had paid for, and the prizes on offer.

  The stadium came into sight not long after. Built by Alexander’s father, it stood to the north of the city. A magnificent structure of marble and brick, it accommodated ten thousand people. Demetrios had never competed in it, and the idea of so many spectators was terrifying. His older comrades seemed excited too, in particular Philippos, who was flexing his biceps with every stride.

  The hoplitodromos was one of the hardest races. Demetrios’ older comrades thought him mad to enter it. As might have been expected, Empedokles’ had been the loudest voice of contempt. The veterans didn’t know that since their return from the summer campaign, Demetrios had been training in the nearby hills at every opportunity. That didn’t mean he would win anything, of course, he thought.

  It was as if Kimon had sensed his doubt. ‘Look,’ he said as they entered the area reserved for athletes, under the banks of seating. A large doorway led to changing rooms, baths and the boxing and wrestling squares. ‘Cretans. Those are the ones to beat.’

  Demetrios stared. Short, lithe and all seemingly carved from the same stone, the Cretans were archers in the king’s army. Their athletic prowess had been clear at Ottolobus, when they had kept up with the Companions’ horses.

  ‘Think you can beat them?’ Philippos’ eyes were dancing.

  Demetrios stuck out his chin. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ Philippos gave him a friendly clout, which was like being hit with a plank of wood. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  Wishing Philippos luck, Demetrios and the rest went to watch the initial heats for his race, which were about to begin. The first was between youths who had just finished their warrior training. A contest bursting with young pride, it was conducted at breakneck speed.

  ‘They’re running as if this was an Olympic final,’ said Kimon. ‘Fools. They’ll have less wind come the next race.’

  The second heat was between phalangists. Demetrios observed with great interest. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked as it finished, the winner two spear lengths ahead of his nearest competitor.