Seleucus crossed gazes with the older Macedonian. Finally Prepalaus shrugged. ‘On your head be it,’ he said. ‘But listen, King of Babylon, you are going head to head with Antigonus One-Eye at even odds. I would rather we were trying something – a feigned retreat, a night march, a fight in the rain. Anything. None of us have ever beaten him. Eh? And your plan is to accept whatever he does and then attack.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘That’s how you win a sword fight,’ he said. ‘Or pankration.’
‘Oh,’ Prepalaus smiled grimly. ‘And you are an expert?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Antiochus laughed. ‘You sure you’re not a Macedonian?’ he asked.
They poured libations, first to Zeus Soter, and then to Athena, and then to Alexander.
‘Gentlemen,’ Seleucus said, ‘I wish that Tyche may stand by one shoulder of every man while Athena guards the other with Nike at her side, and the Eagle of Zeus over all.’
Even Prepalaus smiled.
‘Go with the gods. Let’s get formed. If we form well, that’s more than half the battle.’
Lysimachos saluted and went to his staff, standing apart, and started issuing orders. Prepalaus had his son with him – he sent the younger man running to the Macedonian camp.
Antiochus clapped Satyrus on the back. ‘Don’t let the old bastard get to you,’ he said.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘I thought that it would be Lysimachos refusing to play the tune. I worried that someone would play traitor. I didn’t expect Cassander’s general to be an old fool.’
Seleucus shook his head. ‘He’s no fool, King of the North. And I expect he’ll be steady enough when the bronze is in the air. And all his griping tells me that he’s planning to fight. If he stood silently, accepting my orders …’ He said no more, but he didn’t have to.
They all dreaded treason, even now.
Antigonus had slept poorly, and he swore in answer to his son’s greeting.
‘The so-called allies are forming,’ he said.
Antigonus stood still, a slave helping him drink pomegranate juice while two more slaves armed him. He had a heavy horseman’s thorax of solid bronze.
‘I don’t want this thing,’ he said. ‘I’m going on foot with the phalanx. If those bastards don’t see me there, they won’t stand their ground.’
Demetrios motioned to the slaves. ‘Wear scale, then, or leather.’
‘Are you a complete fool?’ Antigonus asked one of the slaves pettishly, and struck the boy so that he fell. He didn’t whimper.
‘I feel like shit,’ Antigonus said. ‘Something in my guts. Have any dreams?’
Demetrios shook his head. ‘Not really.’
‘I did – I dreamed about a lot of good lads from Pella who’ve died following me around.’ The old man shrugged, his shoulders free of the heavy armour. ‘Something light – that’s the way,’ he said to the same slave he’d just hit.
They had a thorax of white leather and heavy linen, carefully quilted.
‘That’s what I want,’ said the old man. ‘And greaves.’
‘You aren’t going in the front rank?’ Demetrios asked.
‘I’m the fucking king,’ Antigonus said. ‘What kind of king hides from a fight he started himself ? Eh? I taught you better than that. When kings hide from their own fights then the world will have gone to Hades.’
Demetrios hugged his father, quite spontaneously. ‘Let’s win this thing, and rule the world,’ he said.
Antigonus grinned. ‘You are a good boy,’ he said gruffly, his voice thick. ‘By the gods …’ He slapped Demetrios’s back.
Together, they walked to the door of the pavilion. The arming slaves were just getting a pair of sarissas so that the king could have his choice of weapons. The saurauter of the nearest was on the carpet as the slave took it down from the loops on the side of the tent, and it was on the old man’s blind side. The saurauter caught his ankle, and he fell flat in the door of his tent, the wind knocked out of him, his left wrist pressed right back against his body. He shrieked with pain, and every head turned for a stade to see their king lying on his face.
Demetrios hurried to his side, and got him quickly to his feet, and men cheered, but many of them turned aside to mutter to their mates.
‘Superstitious ninnies,’ Antigonus growled. ‘My wrist hurts like—’ He glared at a man who was staring at him. ‘What’s the matter with you? Never seen a man as ugly as me?’
The man stammered and retreated into his friends, and Demetrios laughed.
‘No one can say you aren’t yourself, this morning,’ he said.
Antigonus walked towards the open-sided pavilion where he issued his orders. ‘I’m not myself,’ he said. ‘If Seleucus offered me a three-years truce, I’d take it. I never thought they’d pull together an army that big.’
Demetrios shook his head. ‘It is no bigger than ours. And you are the greatest general of the age.’
Antigonus made a face. ‘My arse,’ he said. ‘The greatest general of the age likes to have a healthy advantage in men and elephants.’ He shook his head. ‘But I have a few tricks, it’s true.’
All the Macedonian officers rose to their feet as Antigonus entered. They saluted. Antigonus nodded curtly.
‘Let’s keep this simple,’ he said. ‘Form as you are camped – just as you are camped. Form the phalanx twenty deep – we’ll still be the same length of line as their line, and that much more solid.’
‘We could overlap their ends …’ said Philip cautiously.
‘When you are the fucking lord of Asia, you can order your phalanx any way you like, Philip,’ Antigonus said.
‘Someone’s touchy this morning,’ Philip said, and the old man smiled.
‘I am,’ he agreed. ‘So don’t make me cross. Lakshaphur, take all the elephants and string them across the centre as we discussed last night. Five horse lengths between every beast should do it. The beasts will crush their barbarians and their psiloi in the centre and then – I hope – scare the crap out of their phalanx. Some of their men can’t be worth a fart … after all, we have all the old veterans.’
Philip raised an eyebrow.
‘Demetrios, you will have the right-flank cavalry. Philip, you will have the left.’ Both men nodded. ‘At my signal, the elephants go forward. Drum beats and bugles, eh?’
Lakshaphur, one of the last of the Indians who had taken service with Alexander twenty-five years before, gave a curt nod.
‘And then,’ Antigonus said with finality, ‘Philip will take all but the levies from the left and ride behind the phalanx to the right. All the cavalry – one big attack into their left. Shatter their cavalry and pour into the weakest part of their phalanx before they can recover.’
‘It leaves our left naked,’ Philip said.
Antigonus smiled. ‘Are you the only one with the balls to argue with me?’ he asked.
‘Balls?’ Philip shrugged. ‘Wives do it all the time,’ he said, and everyone laughed.
Antigonus nodded. ‘I know the danger. So I’m putting the foot companions and the remaining Argyraspids there. And besides,’ he said. ‘We know we’re going right. They won’t expect it – who attacks the enemy’s shielded flank? And they won’t know. I’ll wager a talent of silver to a single turtle that Seleucus has his useless son or Lysimachos there, with orders to hang back.’ He laughed. ‘If they hang back an hour, we have them. Demetrios will blow through their cavalry, turn their flank, and the thing is done.’
‘I will,’ Demetrios said. He was proud – delighted – to be given the position of honour and maximum responsibility. He was playing Alexander while his father played Philip. The difference was, his father loved him. ‘I will cut through them like a hot pin cuts wax.’
Antigonus beamed with pride. ‘See that you do, boy,’ he said. ‘It’s all o
n you.’
Demetrios was busy for two hours, arranging the right-flank cavalry to his own satisfaction, riding back and forth along the line, watching as the rightmost files of his father’s elite phalanx formed, adjusting and adjusting again. He decided in the end for brute force over surprise. He arranged his best squadrons in wedges all along his front, with the best armoured men at the points of the wedges; eight deep triangles of his finest heavy cavalry, and the rest – the Lydian levies, reliable men but not well drilled, and the Mysians and the Phrygians – in compact rectangles, six deep, angled off to the right to cover his flank, and a long screen of barbarians – the Thracians of Asia minor – as a screen. The Lydians and Phrygians left wide gaps between squadrons – where Philip would insert his lancers.
The enemy was forming, too. Immediately opposite, he saw the blue cloaks form. They were good troops, and they formed so quickly that their grey-beard commander ordered them to dismount, and they stood with their reins in their hands.
Demetrios wished to order the same, but he wasn’t sure it was a practical idea. Any delay in mounting would disorder the whole front.
He watched under his hand as the day grew hotter and the sun climbed. He was facing Antiochus, he was sure – the enemy commander had a grey Nisean, not a Macedonian horse at all. And he was young. Demetrios was glad – glad because he had no doubts of his ability to take Antiochus. But he looked for Satyrus, especially among the blue cloaks – they were his men, but he and his silver helmet were nowhere to be seen.
Demetrios was unconcerned. He would find Satyrus, and overcome him – man to man. At the culmination of the day. That was the way of these things, and this was his day.
He rode to his father’s side when he was sure of his arrangements.
‘Don’t you have some cavalry to command?’ his father said, by way of greeting.
‘All ready,’ Demetrios said. He and his father embraced. ‘I have Antiochus,’ he added.
‘Aye, and Philip has Lysimachos.’ Antigonus was leaning on his spear. ‘I’m eighty years old, and I’m too fucking old to carry a spear all day, so let’s get this over with.’ But he grinned. ‘I think – I think we’ve got them,’ he said carefully, avoiding a claim of outright hubris.
Both armies formed at roughly the same speed, although senior officers on both sides could get a useful idea of the quality of their immediate opponents by the speed and manner of their forming. Antigonus sent a messenger to Philip to ask if he was ready, and both father and son watched a particularly inept phalanx form near the walled farm on the end of the enemy line.
‘I can’t wait to tear into them!’ Demetrios said. Individual men straggled into ill-formed lines, some actually dragging their pikes behind them. They looked already beaten.
‘As soon as Philip is ready,’ Antigonus said. His elephants and the enemy elephants were only two stades apart now, and they and the clouds of skirmishers – also a line ten stades long – were raising dust. In an hour, the two sides would be invisible to each other, unless they started forward.
But of course, they all knew that.
‘Go with the gods,’ Antigonus said to his son. He paused. ‘I think this will be the largest battle the world has ever seen.’
‘How wonderful,’ Demetrios said, delighted.
They embraced again, and Demetrios rode away.
By the farm, Apollodorus and Nikephorus and a dozen taxiarchs harangued their men as they wandered aimlessly through the fields and ambled into a deeply flawed line.
‘Look like militia!’ Nikephorus said for the fiftieth time, catching yet another file whose idea of slouching was to march more slowly.
Apollodorus thought that the men dragging their spears behind them were over-acting, but the charade seemed to put the whole phalanx in tearing high spirits, whatever effect it had on the enemy. There are few things a soldier likes better than the feeling that he is putting some cleverness over on the enemy – and the effort distracted the men from the chaos to come.
In fact, Apollodorus had planted a line of ash stakes to mark the real front, and another to mark the deeply bowed front that amateurs would make. He’d spent the morning on them, and he was quite pleased with the effect. His marines looked particularly vulnerable at the edge of the farmyard – a loose string of men, too far apart for support, and with the rear files already edging back over the crest of the low ridge behind them.
There was no missing that the enemy cavalry was coming, and coming hard. They had eight great wedges pointed at Diodorus and Antiochus, and Apollodorus had his doubts about the quality of the Seleucid satrapal levies. Since they were the leftmost part of the army – the last to advance, and only when the whole echeloned line had formed – he sent servants back to camp to have the marine women and slaves bring up javelins and bows. And he sent another runner forward into the dust cloud to order his marine archers out of the psiloi line.
Nikephorus narrowed his eyes. ‘We don’t have the authority,’ he said. But he watched the enemy cavalry squadrons and nodded. ‘But … I agree.’
Satyrus rode up from the reserve, almost a stade behind the phalanx, where his charger and his riding horse were equally offended by the big squadron of elephants. Indeed, the Olbians, serving as his bodyguard, had trouble all morning, and Eumenes had coaxed one of the Indian mahouts into bringing a single elephant out of the formation so that he could lead his horses around the beast – one at a time, blindfolded, and then with full sight, the riders standing at their heads and murmuring to them. It was a Sakje trick – the Scythians had long experience of elephants – and the horses had calmed considerably by the time Eumenes was done and thanking the mahout.
He saw Stratokles first, and rode over to the Athenian. Herakles was pale under his helmet, but he was smiling, and laughing at something Lucius had just said in his ear. Stratokles had his helmet under his arm.
‘I hate waiting,’ he said. ‘And I hate not being in control.’ He frowned.
Satyrus shrugged. ‘At least you have a thousand men to command,’ he said. ‘I’m a well-dressed trooper under Eumenes, a man who was leading cavalry when my father was alive.’
‘Trade you,’ Stratokles said.
To the left of Stratokles, Nikephorus and Apollodorus shared a canteen.
‘Ares!’ Satyrus said. ‘When are you going to form line?’ As the paymaster, he was outraged to see his troops straggling over a stade of ground. Some of Apollodorus’s marines were snoring away on the porch of the enclosed farmyard.
Both men smiled. ‘Got ya,’ Apollodorus said. He explained, and Satyrus rode away happier – except for his sight of the wedges of Demetrios’s cavalry gathered like storm clouds on the horizon on a harvest day.
He rode all the way to the left, to where Diodorus sat under a tree with a slave holding his horse.
‘We are in for a storm,’ Diodorus said. He pointed across the plain at the wedges. ‘When you go back to Seleucus, tell him that Antiochus and I can’t hold all that for very long.’
‘Apollodorus has filled the farmyard with archers,’ Satyrus said, pointing to the farm that was the linchpin between the infantry and the left-flank cavalry.
Diodorus nodded. ‘That,’ he said, ‘may save a lot of us. Listen, Satyrus,’ he said, wiping the sweat off his brow, ‘Sappho has the baggage train. She’s already moving.’
‘What?’ Satyrus said.
Diodorus nodded. ‘I don’t trust Antiochus’s satrapal troops – I trust Darius, but the rest are sheep. And some of the mercenaries … anyway, it is a precaution that I’ve taken for years. Send all your followers and Phoibos and your people to her – she’s to wait back at Akroinus.’
‘That’s a parasang!’ Satyrus exclaimed. ‘Thirty stades!’ He looked around. Crax had Diodorus’s reserve – a hundred troopers in heavy armour, with scale armour on their big Nisean horses like Persian nobles or Sarmatian
s. Indeed, Satyrus could see both in the ranks. He was standing with his horse, and he winked.
Andronicus was lying in the shade of the tree. Satyrus hadn’t seen him. But he raised his head. ‘If this army breaks up, we want our girls out of reach of the bastards,’ the Gaul said.
‘Tell Nikephorus to be ready to form an orb,’ Diodorus said. Satyrus embraced him, and Crax, and Andronicus, and a dozen other men, and then saluted the hipparch.
‘Your father would be proud of you,’ Diodorus said. ‘You’re a king.’
Satyrus smiled at the compliment. ‘I feel useless,’ he said.
Then he rode down the line to Nikephoros, and told him to be ready to form an orb.
Melitta didn’t question the placement of her Sakje – they were on the left of the right-flank cavalry, and so they were pressed close between the Macedonian phalanx and the Getae nobles to their right. Her people would have been better off in the open plains to the far right, but Lysimachos hadn’t trusted them – or her – and had sent his Companions there, instead.
The enemy had sent crack troops into their own left – Melitta watched files of pikemen come up and countermarch to reform their line, a complex manoeuvre carried out with contemptuous efficiency. She munched an apple quietly, gave the core to her horse, and nodded to herself.
Her knights were in full armour – a wedge of gold at her back. They were standing dismounted, and behind them stood another block of horses with a handful of warriors holding their heads. No Sakje noble went into battle without a remount ready to hand. Her skirmishers were to their rear. They could accomplish nothing in a head-on fight. So she kept them where they would live. And as her men – and women – had the best armour of all the cavalry on the right, it was possible that their placement was the best, after all. But she longed for open ground and room to manoeuvre.
And she felt, rather than saw, something wrong with the enemy dispositions. There was too much movement – that was the best she could describe it. She wished she had her brother to talk to – he had a much more intellectual approach to war than she did. Or Coenus.
Tyrant: Force of Kings Page 44
