The Macedonian

by Nicholas Guild

  Macedon, he thought. Occupied by the Athenians, but Macedon nonetheless. He wondered a little why the sight of home failed to move him. He found, on the contrary, that his native land stirred nothing in him but a faint distaste that was indistinguishable from the nausea that had risen in his throat like the smell of decaying flesh. Macedon.

  His purely physical suffering, however, only partially accounted for his bad temper. The fact was he had come to understand his real helplessness. Demosthenes and his party might be prepared to help him become king, but they had no intention of recognizing him as anything except their instrument. They had their own dark purposes, and he was along merely to provide a plausible excuse for this fairly typical specimen of naked Athenian aggression. He had not even been consulted about the route of march.

  Well, they would learn their mistake soon enough. Once he was established in Pella—once Philip was dead and the assembly had made its submission—then Arrhidaios planned to teach the Athenians the folly of having underestimated him. He would make the north so hot for them they would never come back.

  But in the meantime all he wanted was to scramble onto dry, motionless land and to never again be obliged to feel his guts being heaved up into his mouth. Macedon, at least, would be good for that.

  “By the day after tomorrow you will be hearing yourself proclaimed king in Aigai.”

  Arrhidaios started at the nearness of the sound and turned around to see Mantios, nominally his lieutenant but in fact the expedition’s commander, standing almost beside him.

  “I wish I could be there to see it,” Mantios continued, smiling in a way that hinted at an almost pitying contempt.

  “But surely you will be there.”

  Arrhidaios, fighting back a sudden surge of panic, raised his hand as if in a gesture of supplication and then slowly withdrew it.

  “Alas, no.” The Athenian shook his head, still smiling. “It was judged unwise—after all, you do not wish to appear to your subjects as the client of a foreign state. We will remain in Methone.”

  “I cannot be expected to seize Aigai alone,” Arrhidaios replied with some heat. Strangely, it was at that precise moment he noticed that his seasickness had left him.

  “Indeed not, nor will you be. The mercenary force will accompany you, along with your own Macedonians. A few Athenians will be of the company, but you must understand that, for your own sake, we cannot make up a noticeable presence.”

  Mantios paused for a moment, during which he appeared to be studying the coastline as if he expected to find something there.

  “And of course,” he went on, “should it come to that, I and my ships and my companies of soldiers will be in Methone, hardly even a day away. Yet it will not come to that.”

  “You are so sure?”

  “Your brother Philip is conscripting men to rebuild the army that perished with King Perdikkas—there is bound of be discontent. Besides, Aigai is the ancient capital and the old aristocracy feels the loss of prestige. They will rally to you.”

  “And of course they will know that I am supported by Athens.”

  “Of course.”

  “And what of this army that Philip is rebuilding? If you do not believe he will fight, you do not know him.”

  Mantios dismissed the threat with a shrug.

  “Farm boys are not turned into soldiers overnight,” he said with an evenness of tone that betrayed his contempt for the rustic Macedonians. “They are little more than a rabble, I suspect. And you have a core of hardened troops.”

  “Mercenaries.”

  The Athenian shot him an annoyed glance, and then he smiled, as if reminding himself of the folly of losing his temper.

  “By the time Philip even knows you have landed, you will control Aigai and most of the southern plain. The Macedonians have no taste for civil war just now. They will abandon him when they realize your strength. Believe me—he will think himself lucky to escape with his life.”

  Yet there flashed through Arrhidaios’s mind a memory of his brother when they were only boys together, playing at war, fighting with barrel staves in the palace stable. How old had they been? Seven or eight, no more. Arrhidaios had set an ambush, waiting patiently behind an empty oil jar, silent as a mouse as he thought how he would surprise Philip when he climbed down the only ladder from the hayloft. Yet Philip had spotted him through the cracks of the hayloft floor and had jumped—a boy of nine had risked a drop of perhaps fifteen cubits—and had landed directly behind him. Arrhidaios could still remember the surprise when he felt the sting of Philip’s barrel stave against his back. “You haven’t the gift of cunning,” Philip had said, laughing. “But I have.”

  * * *

  The Athenians had at least provided Arrhidaios with a beautiful horse, a white stallion. It was not as large as the Macedonian horses, but it was impressive enough—a horse a king might ride. With his army he was somewhat less pleased.

  The core was six companies of Corinthian and Theban mercenaries under the command of one Timoleon, a brutal, cynical man whose notion of conversation was to show off his scars and to explain how he had acquired each one. Demosthenes had hired him, offering twice the usual rate, to be paid out of the Macedonian treasury when they had seized Pella, and Demosthenes vouched for his abilities in the field. But mercenaries fight for pay and only a fool, Arrhidaios was quick to remind himself, believes in their loyalty to anything else.

  Another hundred or so men were Macedonian volunteers—exiles, like himself. And like Arrhidaios, they knew that they could expect no mercy in defeat. In that sense, at least, they were dependable, but on the whole they inspired even less confidence than Timoleon and his hirelings.

  Some of them were common criminals, murderers, and thieves, but most were simple malcontents: younger sons, aristocratic and portionless, who had quarreled with their families; rebels by temperament, men who would have quarreled with any regime; ordinary adventurers, out for plunder and perhaps some unspecific revenge. One or two actually seemed half-mad.

  And the quarrels were endless—they were like women. For not quite a month Arrhidaios had been almost constantly in company with these men, and in that time three of them had been killed. One had been stabbed by a jealous lover, another was beaten to death with a stool in a gambling dispute, and the third, only the morning before they left Athens, was found sitting against the barrack wall, strangled with a bowstring that had been pulled so tight around his neck that when it was removed it was found to be crusted with dried blood. Arrhidaios suspected that the murderer’s identity was widely known—doubtless he was with them this very hour—but for reasons as obscure as his end the dead man had not been popular and no one seemed interested in rendering him justice.

  And when they were not fighting among themselves they were bragging of all they would do, the time they would have and the scores they would settle, when it was their foot on someone and everyone’s neck back home. Back home—a phrase that seemed to have no meaning for them except as the scene of some malicious and apparently endless debauch. Each of them expected to be enriched and ennobled by a grateful king, their old comrade in arms, such that there would not have been land and wealth enough in ten Macedons to satisfy them. Oh, a rare flock of courtiers they would make! Arrhidaios had privately decided that, should it come to a battle, he would put his honored countrymen in the front ranks and let Philip wear himself out killing them. As for the survivors, as soon as he felt himself to be sitting firmly on his throne, he would find some pretext for having them all condemned to death. Doubtless, after a month or two of witnessing how they conducted themselves, the nation would be grateful to him for putting down that mob of brigands. It might become the foundation of that real popularity that a king needed if he was to survive.

  Philip, the Athenians assured him, was already widely hated.

  Arrhidaios felt his stomach contract painfully and realized, for the twentieth time since midday hour, that it had been a great mistake to miss breakfast this mor
ning. He had felt himself too excited to eat—after all, by the end of the day he would probably be lodged in the old royal palace, the real seat of the nation, king of Macedon in fact if not yet in name—but he should have forced himself at least to eat a few spoonfuls of porridge. Now, mounted on this beautiful horse, at the head of an army and perhaps no more than an hour or so away from the effortless triumph that would be his occupation of Aigai, he was beginning to experience a certain giddiness. That was all it was, the protest of an empty belly. He must be careful not to confuse it with fear.

  So to distract himself he thought about the road. It was the same road that had taken him into exile—it was on this road that he had first learned what it was to be alone.

  He and Archelaos had traveled together at first, taking horse two hours before dawn and traveling fast in case the Lord Ptolemy had sent search parties after them. They had been exhausted by the time they reached Aigai.

  “We must part here,” Archelaos had said, whispering to him in the darkness of the room where they had slept that night in a tavern by the western gate. “They are looking for the two of us, so in the morning I will ride west and you south. We can meet again in Athens.”

  Arrhidaios would never forget how afraid he had felt, how the sound of his brother’s voice, as disembodied as if he were already a restless shade, had filled him with dread.

  So the next morning he had set out alone, on this road. And they had never met in Athens because Archelaos had died in Corinth—Arrhidaios didn’t even know where he was buried.

  A rider, from one of their forward patrols, was coming toward them over the crest of the hill they were approaching. He was traveling fast and Timoleon, who had taken his position in the column just behind the future king, cantered a little ahead to meet him.

  When he rode back his face was set and expressionless.

  “The gates at Aigai are closed,” he said when he had drawn his horse up to Arrhidaios’s so that the two men’s knees were almost touching. “It would seem they have had warning of our approach.”

  It meant nothing, Arrhidaios told himself. The garrison commander, informed that an army of some three or four hundred men was on its way up the coast road, would very naturally withdraw inside his walls. After all, it might be anyone.

  “Possibly they have spies in Methone,” Timoleon went on. “I have not noticed any scouts. In fact, it is a little surprising that we have met hardly a soul along the road.”

  “They would close the gates even if they knew who it was. They will want to be in a position to make us bargain for their support.”

  “Doubtless that is the explanation.”

  Yet somehow Timoleon did not look as if he quite believed it.

  When they reached the crest of the hill they could see where the road turned inland and, perhaps an hour distant, they could see Aigai, looking as shut up as a merchant’s money chest.

  “We will know soon enough,” Timoleon said.

  It was the middle of the afternoon before they were in hailing distance of the walls, and still no emissary had come out to meet them. But it was not until they were close enough to make out the faces of the men standing on the rampart that Arrhidaios began to feel hope dying in his breast.

  I know him, he whispered in his soul, looking up at a man standing with his arms crossed. He was in the middle of life, red-faced and fierce looking, and he wore a soldier’s cloak. He was the garrison commander. I know him—he was in the royal guard at Pella when I was a child.

  “Epikles!” he shouted. “Epikles! Do you not know me?”

  For a moment there was only silence.

  “I know you,” came the reply at last. “You are Prince Arrhidaios. You slipped away like a thief and now you have returned leading an army. What do you want?”

  “Come down, Epikles, for some things are better explained in private. I guarantee your safety.”

  “My soldiers guarantee my safety, Prince. I will ask you but once more—what do you want?”

  “There is nothing for it but to answer, Lord,” Timoleon murmured, his mouth almost touching Arrhidaios’s ear. “If you were ever eloquent in your life, this is the moment.”

  Yes, this was the moment. And Arrhidaios felt his heart emptying like a cracked jug.

  “I would bring you freedom, Epikles!” he shouted, conscious of a certain hollowness in his voice. “I would guarantee every decent man’s liberty. I would rid you of—”

  “Of what, Prince? Of what would you rid us with a rabble of foreign mercenaries at your back? Or of whom?”

  It could have been excitement, it could have been anger, but the old soldier’s face seemed to darken from moment to moment, as if he were holding his breath.

  “Speak, Prince—from whom would you save us?”

  “I would save you from tyranny, I would—”

  “Oh, then it is from Philip that you would save us—that is it. You would do us the kindness to rule over us in his place.”

  Epikles looked around at the officers who surrounded him, as if taking a silent count.

  “Then you needn’t trouble yourself, Prince. We have taken his measure and we have taken yours, and we prefer the king we have.”

  From the wall was a little ripple of appreciative laughter at this—Arrhidaios could even hear a faint echo of it behind him. In that moment he knew that Demosthenes had tricked him, that he would never be king of Macedon, that he would never be anything, ever again. His humiliation boiled in him like molten iron.

  “You will deliver the city and its garrison over to me, Epikles, or I will take it!” he shouted. “I will hang you from the main gate. I will leave you for the dogs to eat!”

  “It will not be my carcass upon whom the dogs will feast, Prince, for if I am any judge, Philip is already on the march.”

  Epikles drew his sword and threw it so that it flew glittering through the air until it fell in the dust, close enough to Arrhidaios to make his horse start.

  “I do you this final courtesy, Prince, for I was a soldier in your father’s service before you were born and I honor the House of the Argeadai. Take my sword and retire to some private place to fall upon it. I offer you a quiet death, with still a shred of dignity to it. The king your brother is unlikely to show you so much mercy.”

  Arrhidaios, full of fury, was about to scream back his defiance when Timoleon reached across to grab him by the cloak, almost yanking him off his horse.

  “You imbecile, be still,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “The city cannot be taken, not even by four thousand men, not in a day or two. Can’t you see the game is lost?”

  As quickly as it had come, Arrhidaios’s rage left him, to be replaced by a terrible, quaking fear. This man, who only an hour ago had referred to him as a king, now reviled him. Imbecile—Timoleon could use that word to him. Then truly he was utterly deserted.

  “My brother will not have a large force.” He heard the tremor in his own voice. It was a miracle he was able to speak at all. “We can defeat him…”

  “Defeat him yourself, for I have heard it said that your brother is no sucking lamb. Do you imagine we will risk all for your sake? I am taking my men back to Methone—you can come if you like, or you can conquer King Philip by yourself.”

  Thus, without a blow struck, Arrhidaios’s campaign to make himself lord of Macedon came to its end. What would become of him? Perhaps one of the Macedonians would think to sneak into his tent tonight and cut his throat. Perhaps his head would be presented to Philip as a peace offering. Or perhaps—and this was the worst—he would live out his life, would grow to old age, forgotten except as a kind of jest.

  Someone caught the bridle of his horse and led him away. He had to listen to common soldiers cursing him, jeering at him for a fool and worse. They would not be paid now, and they blamed him. His mind was numb. He had become as nothing.

  He did not know how long he continued thus before he was roused by the shouts of alarm all around him. He had only to turn his
head to see the reason. To the north, across the flat countryside, he could see the dust raised by a long column of horsemen.

  “Well, you shall have your wish after all,” Timoleon growled. “We can’t outrun him, so we shall have to make a fight of it.”

  He leaned forward a little over his horse’s neck, shading his eyes to get a better look.

  “Say a prayer, Prince, for your brother the king will be upon us within the hour.”

  40

  “The Athenians have decided to gamble that by taking the first bite they will be able to tear off the biggest piece,” Philip had said when the news reached him that several companies of men had been landed at Methone. “They will march toward Aigai.”

  His officers exchanged glances.

  “They must know they cannot succeed until they have engaged and defeated you,” Korous very sensibly pointed out. “If I were the Athenian commander, I would strike straight north with my forces intact and threaten Pella—that would be most likely to draw you into a fight.”

  “That is what I would do too, but Arrhidaios will need to have himself proclaimed king and Aigai is the old capital. His first thought will be to seize it.”

  “Your brother is in this?”

  “Oh, yes,” Philip answered, nodding slowly. “The Athenians are great respecters of appearances and they will wish to present themselves as liberators. They will expect the garrison to be impressed by a show of strength and throw their support to Arrhidaios—after all, it is not so unreasonable.”

  “Then we must intercept them before they reach Aigai. We are in the field already and it is less than a day’s march. We can be there waiting for them. I will give the order to break camp.”

  But Philip put a restraining hand on his shoulder as Lachios rose to go.

  “We will not leave before tomorrow morning. I want the Athenians to see for themselves that I command the loyalty of my subjects. And if I do not, then perhaps I deserve to be overthrown.”

  He smiled in an odd way, as if making his brother’s treason his own, and with a gesture of his hand indicated that he wished to be alone.