To The Strongest

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘How do I look the part, Mother?’

  ‘You are an Argead of the Royal house of Macedon; you fear nothing and nobody. You are immovable.’

  Feeling less than immovable, Adea rode next to her mother as they approached the Macedonian cavalry blocking their way; Barzid held their escort back behind them to emphasise that they came in peace and expected no violence.

  Pulling their mounts up just ten paces from the commander of the unit, Cynnane and Adea, with neutral expressions, surveyed the four-deep formation of shieldless, lance-armed cavalry, with long-plumed bronze helms and hardened-leather muscled-cuirasses; their weapons were all lowered, ready to strike.

  ‘Who bars the road to Cynnane, daughter of Philip, the second of that name, of Macedon, and her daughter, Adea?’ Cynnane’s voice was loud and pitched high so that all could hear.

  ‘I do,’ the commander replied, stating the obvious.

  The muttering of surprised voices and curious looks as the men gazed at the two women came as a relief to Adea. They didn’t know who they had been sent to intercept; mother’s announcement has come as a shock to them.

  ‘I meant: what is your name?’

  The commander looked about, sharply, as a few sniggers came from the ranks. ‘Alketas, son of Orontes, and brother to Perdikkas who demands that you go no further.’

  Cynnane lifted her chin and looked down her nose, wrinkled in scorn, at Alketas. ‘I go where I like in the empire of my brother, Alexander.’

  It was the mention of that magical name and the reminder of just how closely related Cynnane was to him that changed the atmosphere completely; Adea now sensed that the men completely agreed with Cynnane’s assertion that she should be allowed to pass unhindered.

  Alketas, too, perceived the swing in the mood and then saw the proof of it as many of his men lifted their lances upright. ‘Perdikkas holds Alexander’s ring and he has commanded, in Alexander’s name, that you go no further and return whence you came.’

  Cynnane shook her head as she dismounted; she walked a few paces along the ranks of cavalry, away from Alketas and drew herself up, taking a deep breath. ‘Men of Macedon, you know who I am, the eldest daughter of Philip; had I been born a man I would be your king, even now. But I was given a woman’s body and accept a woman’s role which is to breed.’ She pointed back to Adea. ‘And this is my daughter, sired upon me by Amyntas, also of the Argead house; her name is Adea and in her veins runs blood almost identical to that of Alexander’s.’ She paused to allow the magnitude of that claim to sink in; the mutterings grew as it did. ‘She has come to put an end to the uncertainty surrounding the succession. She has left her home in the north to travel south to Babylon in order to marry my half-brother, her half-uncle, the new King Philip. Their union will produce a pure Argead heir without the taint of eastern blood. An heir for the whole of the army, the whole of Macedon even, to unite behind; he will be an heir who will avert the possibility of war because he will be the undisputed heir to Alexander’s throne. We come to give you a Macedonian heir and yet you bar our way. What means this, soldiers of Macedon? Why do you try to stop a mission of peace?’ One hand on her hip and one on the hilt of her sword, she stood and cast her gaze along the lines of faces, questioning with her look the motive within each man for such action. Most averted their eyes, either staring at the ground or looking to Alketas to come up with a reason why they were being asked to do something so obviously against the common good of all Macedonians.

  Adea kept her face neutral, smiling within. She’s got them; our captors will become our escorts and Alketas will either accept the fact or die.

  Cynnane began to walk forward, her steps measured and strong. It was as she was about to pass between the muzzles of two horses that their riders moved them aside; behind them their comrades did the same, creating a passage through the formation.

  ‘Close your ranks!’ Alketas roared as Cynnane disappeared between the first two horses. He repeated the order to no effect and, thwarted, yanked his mount to the left to gallop around his command.

  Adea kicked her horse forward and followed her mother through the Macedonians to be greeted with respectful nods and the hints of smiles that softened hardened faces.

  Cynnane had reached the hind legs of the last rank as Alketas drew his horse up in front of her in a skidding cloud of dust; he swung the beast round to face her and lowered his lance so that the tip of it pointed to her heart.

  ‘You shall not pass,’ the Macedonian commander said, his eyes fixed with determination.

  ‘I go where I want, Alketas,’ Cynnane said, walking forward.

  ‘Go back, I warn you.’

  ‘And I warn you, Alketas, let the sister of Alexander pass.’ She continued to advance until the tip of the lance pressed against her chest, just beneath her left breast; she continued, pushing at the weapon so that a little blossom of blood appeared on her tunic.

  ‘Halt! I command you,’ Alketas screamed, desperation in his voice, pushing the lance against her.

  And still Cynnane kept straining forward, even as the honed tip slipped between her ribs; on she pushed and harder still did Alketas resist as Adea looked on in horror.

  She’s prepared to sacrifice herself for me. ‘Mother, no! Stop!’

  But her cries fell on deaf ears as Cynnane raised her eyes to Alketas and jerked herself forward again, grimacing with the pain of iron slicing through flesh and muscle. Alketas looked down at her, horrified at what she was doing, but kept his arm braced, nonetheless. His men had all turned in their saddles and were staring aghast at the confrontation.

  Another push and the lance blade was half in; it was past the point of no return and Cynnane sensed that; she grabbed the haft with both hands. ‘Alketas, let…me…pass!’ Her arm muscles tensed and, holding the lance firm, she drove her body onward so that the iron exploded her heart; its final beat spraying blood through the wound onto the shaft. Her whole frame juddered, the muscles in her legs rigid. With a guttural cough, gore slopped from her mouth as, again, her body spasmed.

  Adea screamed as Alketas, terror written across his face, released the lance as if it had suddenly become red-hot. Down Cynnane fell as her legs buckled beneath her, slumping onto her side, the lance protruding from her chest as her tunic reddened.

  Adea leapt from her horse; Alketas looked at the corpse in horror as a deep growl rose from his men.

  Kneeling, Adea took her mother’s head in her hands and turned her face towards her. She met with a glazed and vacant stare. ‘Mother! Mother!’ She broke into a series of wretched sobs, each more racked than the last, before kissing Cynnane’s cheek and putting her mouth next to her ear. ‘Mother, you swore that you would always be there for me.’

  But Cynnane did not hear her whisper.

  Adea looked up at Alketas; hatred in her tear-clogged eyes. ‘You’ve killed her; you killed my mother.’

  Alketas gasped and looked up at his men as they rode towards him, encircling him and Adea, still cradling her mother’s head. ‘Get back into your ranks!’ But the command was ignored as lances now fell to point at his throat. ‘Get back into your ranks!’ But still they advanced towards their trapped commander.

  It was at that moment when Adea realised, through her grief, that to take full advantage of the sacrifice her mother had made, she needed to act like a queen and not a distraught girl. She rose to her feet, raising her hands above her head in an appeal for quiet. Now is my chance to secure my position and get myself a Macedonian bodyguard at the same time.

  The men stilled their horses and looked at the teenage girl with her dead mother at her feet.

  Adea pointed at Alketas, her nerves about speaking to a crowd forgotten. ‘This man has murdered the sister of Alexander; the woman who gave me life. I can feel your anger; my own is strong within me. However, we must not give in to our feelings but, rather, we must act to honour her memory. To murder Alketas is to stoop to his level.’ Adea paused, her heart beating swift as mixed emotio
ns, grief, anger, hatred and excitement swirled around her. Taking a deep breath, she continued: ‘Let it be Alketas who takes my mother’s body before the army in Babylon and explain why he killed her; let it be him who asks for their forgiveness as they wail for the loss of Alexander’s sister. Seize him and bind him but do him no harm. Build my mother a catafalque and we will lead it to Babylon with Alketas tied to its rear so he has to stare at the body of the woman of the royal Argead House of Macedon whose life he took. And you, brave men of Macedon, may guard me against any other attempt to turn me from my purpose of providing you with a full-blooded heir to Alexander’s legacy.’

  It was with vigour that they cheered her as Alketas was pulled from his horse, protesting his kinship to Perdikkas, and bound and gagged. And it was in the fellowship of brothers that they welcomed Barzid and his men and together they converted one of the Macedonian’s supply-wagons into a catafalque and lay Cynnane’s body in it.

  So it was that Adea, now accompanied by three hundred and twenty mounted warriors, led her mother’s body towards Babylon with Alketas stumbling along behind the wagon, a constant target for jibes and phlegm. And as they passed the great catafalque of Alexander, heading in the opposite direction, Adea offered up a prayer for the dead siblings and asked that her union be fruitful with the new King Philip.

  ROXANNA,

  THE WILD CAT

  IT WAS A warm feeling that grew in her belly as Roxanna heard the furore break loose in the Palace. Wails of grief pierced the night and many running footsteps echoed off the high walls and ceilings of the corridors. In fact, Roxanna was feeling better than she had since the deaths of her two Persian rivals as the moment of her triumph neared.

  It had taken a lot of planning and not a few purses of gold in bribes to secure the method and access but eventually she had been ready. To find a poison that could evade the detection of a food-taster had been the first problem as the tasteless ones tended to cause instant symptoms and a speedy death. Eventually she had come up with a potion that would work slowly if applied over three days consecutively.

  But administering the dose at three different meals had proved difficult; eventually she had one of her women seduce and coerce a slave in the victim’s apartments and the deed was done. Today was the night of the third day and the slave already lay dead in a shallow grave, throat cut, so he would never be able to reveal who had murdered Philip, the third of that name.

  It was with a smile on her lips that Roxanna imagined the agony that the idiot king would be in, as sweet music tinkled within her room failing to mask the uproar without.

  Now there would be nothing but the bastard Heracles, the discharge of that bitch Barsine, in the way of her son, Alexander, and he would be easy to get to. I’ll have that bitch too, whilst I’m about it.

  That was also a pleasant thought and Roxanna’s smile broadened and her feeling of pleasure intensified. She had left the bastard for last, fearing that, had she poisoned him before Philip, Perdikkas would have immediately suspected her of aiming for the king next and would, therefore, have made the security arrangements around the drooling fool even more stringent. One more killing and all her rivals would be out of the way and there would be nothing to stop her taking power through her son who was now a boisterous toddler of two years and four months. Of course she would have to wait patiently as the little beast grew up and, of course, she would have to endure the insolence of Perdikkas as he continued to refuse to acknowledge her position as Alexander’s queen and therefore the singular most important person in the world after her son – now that Philip was in his death throes, that was.

  Taking a peach from the bowl on the table before her, she guessed that he would die sometime in the mid-afternoon in two days’ time, provided that the physicians did not guess what was killing him, and only then in the very unlikely event that one of them knew the antidote would Philip’s life be saved.

  No, he’s as good as dead and I can sleep peacefully tonight.

  The crash of doors kicked open startled Roxanna; her peach, one bite missing, dropped to the floor and the musicians in the corner of the room squeaked to a halt.

  Perdikkas stormed towards her saying nothing; his expression spoke his thoughts eloquently enough. Seleukos and Aristonous surged into the room behind him, swords drawn.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Roxanna hissed. ‘How dare you barge into my rooms like that? A queen is never intruded upon.’

  ‘A queen can go fuck herself,’ Perdikkas said through clenched teeth as he grabbed her arm and hauled her from the couch. ‘But before she does, she will administer the antidote to whatever it was that she managed to give Philip.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking—’

  The sharp slap across her cheek cut off her protestations.

  ‘Don’t play me for a fool, Roxanna. Philip has been poisoned and I know you to be a poisoner and you have the most to gain by his death – at least you thought you did.’ He turned to Seleukos and Aristonous. ‘Grab the boy and take him to my rooms.’ With an unpleasant grin he slapped Roxanna across the face again. ‘That’s to clear your head so that you understand exactly what it is I’m threatening you with. You will make sure that Philip survives and is in no worse a state than the sorry one he already finds himself in. If you do this, I might, just might, not tell the army about the attempt on his life and who was responsible for it. If you don’t save him, the army will be informed that the tragic disease that carried off the elder king also, alas, spread through the palace and took the younger king as well and in her grief his poor mother, the kind and beautiful Roxanna, hung herself; and to prove it I will display the rope marks around your corpse’s neck. Now, do you fully understand me?’

  ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘I can and I am,’ Perdikkas replied as the screeching, writhing form of Alexander, the third of that name, was carried out of his bed chamber by Aristonous as Seleukos beat back a gaggle of women with the flat of his sword, laying a couple out cold on the floor.

  Roxanna screamed at the sight and then spat in Perdikkas’ face. ‘If I refuse you and you kill my son and me you’ll be left without a king. Ha! I have you there.’

  Perdikkas tightened his grip around the slender arm and wiped the spittle from his face. ‘Wrong, bitch; I would still have Heracles; a bastard maybe, but Alexander’s bastard.’

  Heracles! Perhaps I should have killed him first. I’ll know for next time.

  ‘Or, perhaps, I’ll decide that I do not need a male relative of Alexander’s. Who knows? One thing is for sure and that is you and your son are both dead if Philip dies. So which is it to be, Roxanna? Hurry with your decision because I’ve lost my patience and would be very happy to string you up here and now.’

  Roxanna let her body relax in a show of surrender. ‘Take me to him, but first I need to get the antidote.’

  The phial, opaque turquoise, sheened with the soft glow of lamplight, shook in Roxanna’s hand as she held it close to the dying king’s mouth; Philip groaned with his eyes closed. That she should be forced into undoing all her good work, the life of her son being used to coerce her, was intolerable; Perdikkas was intolerable; her situation was intolerable; was she not queen after all? And yet here she was, saving the life of a drooling fool for whom death was too good.

  She pulled the phial away and heard a child’s whimper come from behind her; she turned to see Perdikkas standing with his hand gripped around her son’s neck, his knuckles white. Too young to understand what was going on, Alexander had still sensed the tension of the situation and realised that he was in a degree of personal danger; tears streamed down his face and he looked around for the comfort of one of his absent nurses.

  ‘Do it!’ Perdikkas ordered.

  Roxanna held the phial to him. ‘You do it.’

  Perdikkas squeezed Alexander’s neck even tighter by way of reply.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ Tychon, Philip’s personal physician and full-time companion, cried in desp
eration, both his hands holding those of his charge.

  Roxanna hissed at the Greek. There’s no choice. Next time I’ll plan it better and get Perdikkas at the same time. Resigned, she pressed the phial against slack lips and, with care, tipped the contents into the king’s mouth.

  Philip spluttered but the liquid stayed in; he swallowed.

  ‘How long will it take?’ Perdikkas asked, walking over to the bed and peering down at the king.

  ‘I have to give him the antidote on three consecutive days.’

  ‘Three days!’

  ‘Yes, that’s how I administered the poison.’ Roxanna anticipated the next question. ‘No, the slave that did it is dead; I wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave an accomplice alive, would I?’

  Perdikkas grunted. ‘Then this is where you stay, Roxanna; you stay until Philip is well.’

  ‘You can’t make me.’

  Perdikkas looked down at her. ‘When will you get it into your head that I can do anything I like with you? You’re nothing to me. You stay here; there’ll be an armed guard on the door. I’ll take the boy with me to ensure your continued interest in the treatment.’

  Roxanna’s nose smarted from the continual inhalation of air infested with the stench of urine rising from Philip’s bed. The shutters on the windows remained closed against the mid-afternoon heat raging in the courtyard beyond. She looked down at her erstwhile victim and it was with a mixture of relief and rage that she watched Philip’s eyes flicker open an hour after she had administered the final dose. They looked around and then fixed on Tychon, who had not left his side for the last three days of the treatment.

  ‘Tychon,’ Philip said, his voice weak, ‘will I be well now?’

  To Roxanna’s amazement, Tychon had tears in his eyes. ‘Yes, master, you will be well now. All will be well now.’

  How can anyone care so about such a piss-stinking monstrosity? Not wanting to witness more of this stomach-turning display, Roxanna got to her feet as Perdikkas barged through the door.