The Macedonian

by Nicholas Guild

  Then, in the evening, when men’s bellies were full and their hearts cheered, he would stand up beside the remains of the fire, its red and yellow light playing across his face so that he seemed not a man at all but a kind of beacon in the darkness and, starting slowly, almost diffidently, commanding attention by the sheer force of his presence, he would begin to speak in the voice of a neighbor and friend.

  “Not half a day’s ride to the west,” he would say, raising his arm to point toward the last faint rays of the setting sun, “there is a cluster of burned-out houses where no one will ever live again. It was a farming village, where the people were poor, and when the Elimoitai could find no plunder they expressed their annoyance by slaughtering the men and carrying the women and children off into bondage. Now grass grows on the threshing floors and the wind blows over the unburied bones of the dead. Girls who had hoped for husbands will wear out their lives in the households of strangers, old women before they are twenty, for by day their labor crushes the soul and by night they are the bed slaves of their parents’ murderers. How they must envy the dead!”

  And a murmur of assent would make its way around the fire, for his words seemed like nothing so much as the language of their own hearts, making them see as for the first time that which they felt they had somehow always known. Men said that to listen to Prince Philip was to hear the voices of the Fates whispering in your ear.

  “All across these hills, there is weeping tonight. There is lamentation and there is hunger, for the Elimoitai are like a plague of locusts that passes over and leaves the ground naked behind them. They plunder and they destroy, yet who are they? Are they not men like us? Are they not our brothers? Are they not Macedonians? Thus, how have they made us fear them? And why?

  “We, the sons of Macedon, seed of the Great God Zeus, are not like other men,” he would go on, like a priest reciting an incantation. “The people of the southern lands are ruled by tyrants or councils of fifty or whatever whim stirs the bowels of the greatest number, but we have been faithful to our kings for as far back in time as the memory of man can reach. And over all the petty kings of the Macedonians the gods have set the House of the Argeadai, the descendants of Herakles, to be our rulers. They have been our glory—and, sometimes, our affliction. For a man is not always wise, nor brave, nor just, nor virtuous, simply because he is a king. A bad king leads his people into shame and ruin, inciting them to make war against their brethren, making of their name a curse. Such a man is Derdas, king of the Elimoitai—a little man, vain, wicked, and foolish.

  “For has it escaped his notice that there is a king in Pella? And does he imagine that the Lord Perdikkas, his master as well as ours, father to all the Macedonians, will suffer in quiet the murder and rape of his subjects? No! I tell you he will not! He will send fire and sword against the despoilers of his realm. He will drive them into the shadowed lands of death, for Perdikkas the king will see his nation avenged!”

  And the village people, who had at last found their voice, would cheer the vision Philip had raised up before their eyes. Wherever he went men begged for the honor of following him into battle so that for every one he chose he had to turn away many more.

  “Do not imagine that to be a soldier is easy,” he would tell the peasant boys who crowded around him. “The training will be hard and battle will be worse. There is no safety in war. You will know suffering and pain, and some of you will find not victory but death. Yet at the sacrifice of your lives you will have purchased the blessing of peace for those who survive you. Your brothers and sisters will live on the land without fear, and they will bless your memory so that you will be as a father to all the generations to come.”

  Thus Philip at last led nearly eight hundred men down from the mountains of the west. He established a camp an hour’s ride from Pella—there seemed little enough point in tempting these village boys with the pleasures of the city—mixed in about a hundred soldiers from the garrison, and set himself to the task of drilling them into an army.

  But an army needs more than drill. It needs to be fed and supplied, and so, on the first morning of his return to Pella, even before he had seen his brother, Philip went to the house where he had been raised to see old Glaukon.

  “I need you,” he said. “I need someone who will see that my soldiers have fresh meat and boots that do not fall apart after a day in the snow. I need to squeeze the last drop from every drachma. Perdikkas has not been wonderfully generous.”

  And Glaukon sat silent beside the hearth, which since his wife’s death was hardly ever lit, listening with his head bowed. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes.

  “Yes, of course,” he answered. “Where would I not follow you, My Prince? But I am the chief steward of the king’s household and his servant. I need his permission.”

  Philip nodded, and in that moment he had the look of one whom even a king refuses at his peril. “I will see to it.”

  Perdikkas did not refuse. Perdikkas, in truth, was becoming a little afraid of his younger brother, for Philip was like one possessed. To watch him drilling his new soldiers was to witness the revelation that comes to a man who has found that which he was born to do.

  And if one did not go out to the plains to watch him with his men, one did not see Philip, for he hardly ever left them. He was up with them before dawn. He ate from their campfires, and when they went on their morning march he was with them—he did not ride his horse; he was down in the ranks, wearing out his sandals with the rest of them. In the afternoons he taught them the use of their weapons, swinging a wooden sword in the practice sessions until he could hardly move his arm. And when they had learned enough to begin forming up into the Theban phalanxes that so astonished his officers—how can men fight all jammed up together like that? they would ask—Philip took his place in the front ranks. And when his soldiers began to understand that he meant to be one of them, to try his life in battle along with all the rest, it gave them heart.

  His cavalry consisted of two hundred riders, most of whom came from noble families but were, like Philip, younger sons, men who had no great inheritances to look forward to, men for whom war held the prospect of advancement. Philip trained them in the tactics he had learned from Pelopidas, adding refinements of his own that took better advantage of the greater size of Macedonian horses and the skills of their riders. He divided them into companies of forty each and drilled the companies together until their separate wills seemed to fuse into one. When the time came they would have to be able to break up enemy formations without breaking ranks themselves, to offer pursuit without splintering. It was hard for them, for Macedonians had never fought like this before.

  And, hardest of all, he taught them that they would have to share pride of place with the infantry, that they were merely one more weapon to be used with the others, and their birth and status earned them nothing. And once, simply to prove to them that he was serious, Philip had a cavalry officer flogged for insulting a foot soldier, and when the man’s back was stripped raw, Philip had the man set upon his horse and himself led horse and rider through the camp for every soldier and officer to see. He never had to repeat the punishment, because the incident found no successor.

  And sometimes, when the men had been worked almost to the breaking point, Philip would give them a day’s rest, have eight or ten oxen roasted for a feast, and then, on the following afternoon, hold games. He himself competed, throwing the javelin and running the longer races—he never entered the horse races, for he said that victory would only prove what everyone already knew, that he was nothing as a rider but that black Alastor was swifter than Pegasos. He only took the laurel once, for a footrace, and on that day the men carried him around the field on their shoulders, for they learned to love him and his triumph had become theirs.

  Once, the day after the first of the winter storms, Perdikkas passed by on his way back from a day’s hunting. Philip’s soldiers only guessed who he was when they saw their commander break ranks, wal
k over to a party of riders, and help one of them down from his horse.

  “They tell me you have performed miracles,” the king said as he and his brother watched a mock engagement between a pair of infantry companies drawn up in phalanxes. “They tell me that your men have grown quite agile in this new style of warfare.”

  “They are not acrobats yet, but at least they don’t fall down in the snow.” Philip kicked up a plume with his foot—it was nearly a span deep on the ground.

  “Where are your boots?” Perdikkas asked, with something like horrified indignation. “You risk frostbite in those sandals.”

  “As long as one keeps moving, the cold is merely uncomfortable. I wear sandals because they are wearing sandals. When we go into the mountains I will give them boots—I want them to think that, compared to this, the campaign is a debauch.”

  He laughed, but Perdikkas did not seem to share in the joke.

  “Then you really mean to take these green troops in Elimeia?”

  “They are not all green. Some of the regular garrison soldiers were with Alexandros in Thessaly. But, yes, I mean to take them into Elimeia. I think I would have a mutiny on my hands if I did not, for they are very keen to fight.”

  Philip looked at his brother through slightly narrowed eyes. There had been no mention of garrison duty in the north since the day he had received the king’s permission to form his new army, but it was in both men’s minds.

  Perdikkas glanced away.

  “Derdas has increased the tempo of his raids along the Haliakmon River,” he said finally. “There are those among the council who believe he means to annex the whole valley.”

  “He already has, brother—after all, he is the one collecting the tribute.”

  “When can you be ready to leave?”

  “After the festival of Xandikos.”

  “You won’t even wait for the spring?”

  “No. We can maneuver in the mountains before the rains turn everything to mud. And Derdas will think twice about committing too much of his cavalry while the ground is still icy. When the spring comes I will write, informing you of our progress—I will write from Aiane.”

  He smiled, but Perdikkas guessed he was in earnest.

  The king turned his attention back to the clashing phalanxes, one of which was breaking through the front lines of the other. Had it been a real battle, this would be the climactic moment.

  “I suppose now we have no choice,” he said.

  “No choice at all.”

  * * *

  It snowed on the festival of Xandikos, and, as happens sometimes in Macedon, the last snow of the season was the worst. Tree limbs broke off with the weight of ice and the wind piled up drifts, sometimes almost to a horse’s belly. And it was a hard snow, stiff and crusted, so that it cut at a man’s legs as he tried to walk through it.

  The next day Philip led his army out of camp, putting the supply wagons in the vanguard that they might clear a path for his foot soldiers. By nightfall they had gone not even a hundred stadioi. The next day there was a thaw, but it was still nearly six days before they reached the base of Mount Bermion.

  “We are now in the territory of the Elimoitai,” Philip told his men. “The border is still a day’s march to the west, but of late Derdas has paid little heed to borders. At any time now we might encounter a large force of his cavalry, so we must put ourselves in such a posture that it does not even cross the enemy’s mind to attack us. Therefore tonight, and every night until we sleep in Aiane, we shall erect ourselves a line of defenses.”

  Under the snow the ground was still frozen, and the soldiers cursed as they dug the trenches and the earthworks. Philip sent out patrols in force. They came back at sunset, white-faced and shaken, for they had found not the enemy but his leavings.

  “A village, little more than an hour from here,” the captain reported. “We counted over fifty corpses lying in the snow. Old men, women, even children—they seem to have killed everyone. The place stinks of blood.”

  That night one of the soldiers, a man born in that same village, went mad with grief and threw himself on his sword.

  The next day one of the patrols reported contact with the enemy. Philip had given orders to avoid offering battle, but there was a brief skirmish and two men were killed.

  “Were any of the Elimoitai killed?”

  “One of them dropped from his horse, Prince. If he was dead or wounded, we could not tell.”

  “I hope he was merely drunk and returns to his king with a bruised backside and tales of how we ran like rabbits. I want Derdas to feel confident. Let his patrols come in close enough to count our numbers.”

  Nine days after leaving Pella, Philip’s soldiers made camp within sight of Aiane. They had seen enemy horsemen watching him, sometimes riding in close enough to shout insults, but there was no more fighting. That afternoon they were left unmolested as they dug their earthworks.

  That evening, with only Glaukon for company, Philip took a walk around the perimeter.

  “I am frightened,” Glaukon said. He sounded so astonished by the fact that Philip had to smile.

  “Don’t be. Tomorrow is time enough for fear—they will not attack before then. They will not attack at all until we come out.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I can think Derdas’s thoughts for him. He sees we are a small force and he wants a great victory, in broad day and under the very walls of his city. Thus he is fool enough to let me choose the time and place to offer battle.”

  “Feel the wind. Has it turned colder, or am I just getting old?” Glaukon pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

  Philip, who was not even wearing a cloak, dug his sandaled foot into the earth turned soft and pulpy by the melting snow.

  “It has turned colder,” he said with evident satisfaction. “Perhaps, if the gods love us, there will be another snowfall before morning—anything to make it harder for Derdas’s cavalry.”

  He laughed aloud. It was a sound that Glaukon found colder even than the wind.

  “I have never been in battle,” he said. “I have passed my whole life in the king’s household, and I have never seen war.”

  “Neither have I.” Philip made a gesture that seemed to take in the whole sweep of the horizon. “Neither have any of us—probably neither has Derdas.”

  “Yet you are not afraid.”

  “No.”

  Was he as surprised as he sounded? Glaukon began to realize how little he knew of this strange man whom he had raised and loved as his own son.

  “No, I am not afraid.” Philip went on. “Tomorrow, if I discover that I have led you all here to die, perhaps then I will learn to be afraid.”

  26

  The gods did not oblige with a snowfall, but by dawn there was a frost that turned the ground rock hard and, in places, as slick as ice. The sky was full of iron-gray clouds. This high up in the mountains the sun could break through at any moment, or there might be a storm that would last for days. Philip was not disposed to waste his opportunity.

  At first light he sent runners through the camp: everyone had exactly half an hour to present themselves in battle dress. Men who knew they might be dead by noon ate a cold breakfast and put a final edge on their swords. They exchanged silent glances. No one wanted to speak of his fear, and there was nothing else to say.

  The infantry marshaled beyond their own ramparts, four great phalanxes in depth. The cavalry was nowhere to be seen—it had its orders already.

  Just as the sun rose over the walls of Aiane, Philip rode out of camp on his black demon of a stallion. No one was surprised, since the nobility of Macedon had always fought their wars from the back of a horse. As he spoke he crossed back and forth before the two great wings of his army, keeping the reins tight to hold Alastor to a walk.

  “The Elimoitai expect to kill you today,” he said. “They are many and we are few, and they imagine they will ride over us so that we flatten out under their h
orses’ hooves like wheat in a field. They expect you to break and run because that is what their infantry would do. If they are right, then you will die here on this ice-covered ground. The very blood from your wounds will freeze, and when your corpses thaw out the crows will grow fat on your rotten flesh. That is the fate of the defeated, to lie unburied until their bones are picked clean.

  “But you will not break. Your lines will hold, and when you run it will be toward the enemy and not away from him. You will remember everything you have learned over the past months. You will keep good order, because that is your only safety. And if the Elimoitai cavalry is foolish enough to charge you, they will shatter like a beer jar hurled against a stone.

  “Let the men to your right and left protect you while you protect them. Keep your ranks tight, and do not be ashamed to be afraid. A little fear is good, for it sharpens the mind—a man would have to be a fool not to be afraid on the morning of his first battle—but drive panic from your hearts, for if you panic you will surely die.

  “And now it is time for me to dismount.” He reached down and stroked the great stallion along his shining neck. “Alastor, as you know, is braver than any six men and he longs to trample down our enemies, but it is not to be. When this battle is won, I will ride him through the gates of Aiane to take her surrender in the name of King Perdikkas, but until then I will fight on the ground with you. I will command from the inside corner of the left phalanx, and when I shout an order you will all pick up the cry. We will fight as one man with one voice and one will and a thousand hearts, and thus shall we grind Derdas as under a millstone and thus shall our massacred innocents be avenged!”