The Macedonian

by Nicholas Guild

  “No one ever had to set a trap for the king of the Macedonians. He arranges his own disasters. Believe me, if he wishes to destroy himself, there is nothing anyone can do about it, least of all you.”

  Lachios threw his arm across Philip’s shoulders in a gesture that was almost pitying.

  “My own suggestion is that we get very drunk tonight.”

  “I think that is an excellent idea.”

  33

  The melting snow made a misery of life. Nothing stayed dry, and on some mornings one awoke to find that the water that had seeped into one’s boots all day yesterday had now congealed into a sheet of ice. Here and there one saw a few cases of frostbite, but the misery was out of all proportion to the danger of a few blackened toes. And now the food was showing signs of rot. Conditions were so bad that the soldiers had stopped grumbling. A sullen silence had fallen over Perdikkas’s army, but he knew without being told that they blamed him for their suffering.

  He had thought to make a lightning dash north while the ground was still hard, following the route Philip had outlined in his letters, and to sweep down on the Illyrians in their winter quarters. And the plan might have worked if it hadn’t been betrayed by an early thaw that turned the roads to slush. Now, in the lake valleys west of the Pisoderi Pass, the very faces of the stones were covered with running water that trickled down from the surrounding mountains. The army’s advance had slowed almost to nothing as they labored with every step to pull themselves free from the clinging mud. If at the end their labors were crowned with victory and the whole of old Bardylis’s empire were yielded up to them for the taking, it would be but a poor compensation for all they had been obliged to endure.

  And this morning, just before dawn, it had started to rain.

  Perdikkas was awakened by the sound it made beating against the walls of his leather tent. The drops were the size of grapes and exploded with a loud pop the instant they hit something. He looked outside and saw how the cooking fires hissed and smoked under the downpour—it seemed unlikely that the soldiers’ dispositions would be improved by a cold, rain-drenched breakfast.

  They were camped by the side of a huge lake that did not even appear on any of the maps. One could stand on its shore and look across almost to the horizon, with only the mountains as a faint, misty presence on the far side. Now, with the gray rain pelting its surface, it appeared to boil and steam like a cauldron. It was a ghastly landscape, fit only for the purging of men’s sins.

  An officer came running up—less eager, one suspected, to receive commands than to have a moment in out of the wet—and saluted the king from beneath the safety of his tent flap.

  “Give them half an hour and then issue the order to prepare to march,” Perdikkas told him. “If this is going to keep up all day, we might as well be soaked through moving as standing still.”

  As the man hurried away, Perdikkas watched with disgust as the heavy, steel-colored clouds moved across the sky. This was merely a shower—in another hour it might be a torrent. He was not looking forward to a day on horseback, with the rain dripping inside his breastplate so that the woolen tunic underneath became a sodden, itching horror. It was impossible to keep dry in such weather. One might as well not even bother with a cloak, which, in any case, soon got so heavy with water that it felt as if it were made of lead.

  Today his men would struggle through a sea of mud, and by nightfall, when they sat down on the wet ground for a dismal, cold supper, they would count themselves lucky if they had covered as much distance as would do for a two-hour walk in fine weather. Be he a cook’s helper or a king, every soldier’s life was a wretched business.

  By noon the rain was coming down so hard that at fifty paces the sound of a man’s voice was drowned by it. Perdikkas had to keep wiping the water out of his eyebrows in order to see, but it made hardly any difference, since the entire Illyrian army could have been closer to him than he was to his standard-bearer without running the risk of his noticing them. The rain simply enveloped one, shrinking the appreciable down almost to nothing.

  A rider, whom Perdikkas recognized as a man named Elpenor, master of the watch, an officer old enough to have fought under King Amyntas and who had stood high in favor with Alexandros, came up beside him, splashing mud so wildly that Perdikkas’s own horse shied away.

  “Beg to report, Lord. The scouts are beginning to report an enemy presence farther up the valley, possibly an advance patrol.”

  “Has anyone actually seen an Illyrian?”

  “No, Lord, but they have found fresh horse droppings not an hour from here, and they say they sense something…”

  “Sense something?” The king of all the Macedonians permitted himself a brief, mirthless laugh. “Anyone can ride a horse, and the Illyrians have no reason to believe a hostile army is within ten days’ ride of here—would you be out looking for a phantom enemy in this weather? This rain plays tricks on a man. The scouts are probably starting at shadows.”

  Elpenor frowned and clutched at his reins as if struggling to keep his horse under control.

  “Lord, these are good men—experienced men. When they say they believe the enemy may be nearby, I think one is obliged to take their reports seriously.”

  Perdikkas sighed wearily. “Very well, then. What would you suggest?”

  “I would suggest, Lord, that we begin sending out reconnaissance in force. If the Illyrians know we are here, and catch us strung out on the road, it will go very badly for us.”

  “You have my leave to double the patrols. Let them spread their nets as wide as they like.”

  But at the end of two more days, during which it never stopped raining, the scouts could not report any contact with the enemy.

  “I told you it was all shadows,” Perdikkas said, favoring Elpenor with a nod at a council of senior officers held in the king’s tent. It was crowded and the smell of damp wool and unwashed bodies was oppressive, but at least they didn’t have to shout to make themselves heard over the constant clattering of the rain.

  But Elpenor shook his head, looking very grave.

  “Lord, these mountains are full of little hidden valleys that could hold an army of ten thousand men. This is the Illyrians’ home ground, not ours—they will know how to keep themselves concealed.”

  “Yet they would be sending out patrols of their own, looking for us as hard as we are looking for them,” replied Toxaechmes, a young officer, handsome and agreeable, who had served with Perdikkas at Amphipolis and stood high in his master’s favor. “Large numbers of horsemen cannot range across the countryside without leaving a trace.”

  Elpenor managed a tight smile, as if at the interruption of a child. “When the ground is as wet as it is now it will not hold a hoofprint for more than an hour.

  “My point, Lord,” he went on, turning to Perdikkas, “is that we simply do not know if the Illyrians are tracking us. It is perfectly possible they may be and it seems obvious to me, therefore, we must act on the assumption that they are. Otherwise we risk disaster.”

  Perdikkas raised his eyes.

  “I think the rain is abating,” he remarked as if there were no other topic of discussion. For a moment they all listened in silence as it drummed against the roof of the tent. “Yes, I am quite sure it is not so heavy as it was even a quarter of an hour ago. Perhaps now we will be in for a few days of fine weather.”

  “Then we should make the most of the opportunity,” Toxaechmes said, seeming very pleased with this happy thought. Several others nodded their approval. “In ten days, with a little luck, we can be over the mountains and into northern Molossis.”

  “This is not the time to be thinking of a quick dash over the mountains,” Elpenor snapped angrily. “The men are exhausted, unfit for either battle or a forced march across bad terrain. We should find ourselves some good defensive position so that we can dig in and look about us a little.”

  It was not a popular speech, and particularly not with he to whom it was principally
directed. Perdikkas showed his displeasure in the expression of disdainful surprise that crossed his face—he looked almost as if Elpenor’s rebuke had been directed at him.

  “The men,” he began, with telling emphasis, “will be all the better for getting away from these infernal, swampy lakes. After what we have endured here, the mountains will seem like a stroll through an apple orchard. I see no reason to sit here in the mud waiting to be attacked by an enemy who is probably asleep in a nice dry barrack somewhere in Molossis, without a thought that there could be a Macedonian any closer than the garrison at Edessa.”

  He looked around at the other officers present, who looked first at him and then at the smiling, bland face of Toxaechmes, which expressed his complete agreement with every syllable the king had uttered, and then one after the other they muttered their assent.

  As the meeting was breaking up, Perdikkas gave a discreet signal to Toxaechmes that he should remain behind. For a long time the two men sat in silence, sharing a jar of wine that somehow had taken on the taste of rainwater.

  “I want you to take over command of reconnaissance from Elpenor,” the king said at last. “Perhaps I should have rotated him to other duties before this, since it is a post bound after a time to tell on any man. He is beginning to see Illyrians in his dreams, I should fancy, and I would not be surprised if his excessive apprehensiveness is communicating itself to the men under him. You may wish to replace some of them.”

  “It shall be as you see fit, Lord.”

  * * *

  And the rain did abate. For three days the clouds overhead were the color of tarnished iron, as if pregnant with some great storm, but they did not make good on their threat. The ground dried a little, and everyone felt better for a few hot meals. The scouts, now under Toxaechmes’ command, reported no sign of the enemy.

  Perdikkas found that his disposition was improving with the weather. He was beginning once more to feel quite positive about this campaign, the way he had felt when he and Euphraeos had been planning it back in Pella. In a few more days they would be in the mountains, and once on the other side they would fall on the Illyrians like a bolt of lightning out of a summer sky. It would work—they would achieve complete surprise.

  And he had been right to leave Philip out of his calculations. He did not need Philip. After all, Arybbas was still in southern Molossis and still in command of perhaps as many as fifteen hundred men, not sufficient to allow him to engage the enemy but enough to harry them. Once the Macedonians had achieved a few victories, however, Arybbas was certain to rally his forces and attack the Illyrians from the rear. He would do quite as well as Philip.

  And how Philip would grieve over the success of this campaign—for Perdikkas had quite convinced himself that his brother’s principal motive in proposing a two-pronged attack had been fear of losing his share of the glory. Philip was no doubt quite vain of his reputation as a commander, but, where the Elimoitai and the Eordoi were little more than hill tribes, the Illyrians were, after all, the Illyrians. A victory over them would put all of Philip’s exploits quite properly in the shade.

  So it was with a good deal of pleasure that the king of the Macedonians considered his future as he led his army across this vast and inhospitable landscape, densely pockmarked with lakes and swamps. Perhaps at last his fortunes were beginning to change.

  The third day put the lakes behind them. The mountains were no more than two days away and did not look very formidable. Perdikkas sent out an advance party to look for a convenient pass. He would keep his soldiers on the march as long as the ground remained level and then give them a rest until the scouts returned.

  On the morning of the fourth day the rains started in again, at first no more than a light drizzle but persistent. By evening it was a steady downpour, as enclosing as a dense fog. On the fifth day a horse returned to camp without its rider.

  “Someone has had an accident,” Toxaechmes declared.

  “Nevertheless, put out a few extra patrols and see if they can make contact with the advance party. It will do no harm to see what happened.”

  Perdikkas did not anticipate any real danger. And at the very least he would hear something of how the terrain through the mountains looked.

  He did not order any earthworks dug for that night’s campsite. Special fortifications seemed unnecessary and, in any case, the men were exhausted.

  The attack came just before dawn.

  When the alarm trumpets woke him up, Perdikkas wasn’t sure he hadn’t been dreaming. The first thing he was aware of was that he could no longer hear the rain on the walls of his tent.

  No, it wasn’t a dream. He could hear the trumpets now, and the sounds of shouting. Just then the tent flap was thrust aside, almost as if someone had hit it at a run, and an officer came inside.

  “Lord, the Illyrians are massing!” he shouted excitedly.

  Perdikkas picked up his sword. His breastplate and greaves were lying beside his bed, but he never even glanced at them. There was no time.

  Outside, in that last, darkest hour before the dawn that now might never come, the king had no difficulty knowing from which direction the threat was aimed—he had only to follow the shouting. At the northwest edge of the defensive perimeter, surrounded by a knot of soldiers, he found one of the watch riders lying on a blanket, his hand clutched to his left side as blood oozed thickly between his fingers. One of the camp physicians was crouched behind him, cradling his head and shoulders in his arms. The man was obviously dying.

  “We ran into their advance columns not a quarter of an hour from here,” the man said as Perdikkas knelt beside him. “It was an accident on both sides, Lord—we just collided with them at the edge of a stand of trees. I got a javelin in the belly, but I managed to break away and ride back. Did any of the others make it?”

  Perdikkas raised his eyes to look at the faces of the men standing about, but one by one they shook their heads.

  “How many were there?” he asked.

  The man let his head roll back, as if the question overwhelmed him. “No way to tell, Lord, not in that darkness. It seemed like a large force, though—it wasn’t a patrol. As soon as they knew we had seen them they went for us. I think they didn’t want anyone getting away to report back.”

  “Well, you have done that,” Perdikkas said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. “It may be that you have saved us all.”

  But even as he regained his feet, he knew that no one would be saved. Elpenor had been right—the main Illyrian force was massing out there in the night, preparing to attack. His men were exhausted, in no condition to fight, there were no defenses prepared, and the enemy would probably be upon them within a quarter of an hour. Perdikkas needed no one to show him how utterly he had blundered.

  The Illyrians were notorious for their cruelty to prisoners. He had led an army of four thousand men into the mountains to be butchered by savages. It would be the inevitable conclusion of all his great hopes and plans, of a piece with his whole career. Everything he began ended badly. His failure, both as soldier and as king, was now revealed to him as absolute.

  May you die under the eyes of strangers. May your reign end in destruction.

  It was all coming to pass—he could see that now. His mother’s curse had come full circle, to encompass the end both of his life and his ambitions.

  If this, then, was to be his extinction, Perdikkas was determined that at least he would not be found wanting in the courage to face it. At least it was in his power to spare himself the final indignity of a coward’s death.

  “Order the men to defensive stations!” he shouted, his voice, perhaps for the first time, carrying the authority of assured command. “Light all the fires—burn the wagons if need be. Let us prepare a proper welcome for our visitors.”

  34

  It was some time before the outside world heard that King Perdikkas, together with four thousand of his soldiers, had been massacred by the Illyrians. There had been few survivo
rs, and the handful who had escaped were many days finding their way through hostile territory and then back to Edessa to tell their story.

  When the garrison commander there realized the scope of the disaster, he immediately sent a dispatch rider to Aiane—not to Pella, not to the capital, where the king’s heir was still an infant and there was no one to take command and control the inevitable panic, but to Aiane. In this crisis, he reasoned, there was but one man left to whom the Macedonians would give their allegiance, whose age and bloodline qualified to rule. Pella could wait. It was all up to Philip now.

  “I would not be he for worlds,” the commander confided to his secretary. “The nation is a lamb compassed round by wolves. Whichever way she turns, one must fall upon her back and when they all join in for the kill she will be torn to bloody tatters. I would not be king of Macedon at this hour.”

  The king of Elimeia was having dinner with his officers when he received the news. The chamberlain came in to tell him there was a courier from Edessa waiting. Philip rose from the table and left without a word. He received the courier in his study, alone.

  He knew the instant he saw the man’s face that the news was bad. The courier saluted and handed him a scroll bearing the garrison commander’s seal.

  “Do you know what this contains?” Philip asked him.

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Then say nothing of it to anyone. You are doubtless tired and hungry—my chamberlain will see to you.”

  He waited until he was alone before he broke the seal.

  It is to Philip’s credit that his first emotion was simple grief. His brother Perdikkas was dead. Four thousand of the king’s soldiers were dead with him. Philip did not think what this might mean for himself, not at first. He simply held his head in his hands and wept.

  Then, after a time, he remembered who he was and sent for Lachios and Korous, his two most trusted lieutenants.