‘He couldn’t have carried them off, my dear. He lacked my innate majesty. Wait till you see the new cloak they are making in the palace sewing-room. I designed it. It’s got the world and all the planets on it, like this one; but sewn in gold thread round jewelled centres. Darius in all his glory never had anything so grand. But then by the time it is finished I shall be a greater king than Darius.’
‘You won’t be King of the Macedonians,’ Phila replied. ‘That’s what we have come to tell you. Oh, I know all about your great army with which you will conquer the world if you can raise the money to pay your soldiers. But that army depends on the Macedonians, as you have told me time and again. If your subjects revolt you will be nothing more than a captain of mercenaries. And they will revolt, unless you mend your ways.’
‘What’s their grievance?’ he asked.
‘They don’t like your clothes and they don’t like your conduct. They are used to kings in armour, not to a Saviour God got up as a Chaldean astrologer. They want a king who does justice on the spot, as soon as he has heard the complaint. Do you realise how close to death you were a month ago, when they gave you all those petitions?’
‘It was harmless fun,’ said Demetrius impenitently, ‘and it has abated the petition nuisance once and for all.’
He chuckled at the memory. Last month he had left his palace on foot, wearing his royal robes and double diadem but without a bodyguard. He had gone out from a sense of duty, to see how his subjects were getting on. When an old woman ran up to him with a petition he received it graciously, tucking it into the bosom of his robe for later study.
Then they all came crowding round him with their petitions. Every one of his subjects seemed to have suffered some wrong which only the King could redress. He glanced at one of them before he put it away with others. A man complained that his neighbour had impounded a stray cow. Really! There were good laws in the kingdom, and passably honest judges to enforce them. No one would steal his neighbour’s cow, a cow known to all the village; daring thieves might drive cattle over a pass from the next valley, but that was not what the fellow complained of. Suddenly Demetrius lost his temper.
Here was the greatest soldier of his day, the mighty conqueror, the Sea-King, the Besieger of Cities, revered as god on earth by the wise and cultured Athenians. He was revolving wise plans to unite the civilised world, end war, bring back the Golden Age. The plans were intricate, and the making of them hard work. Meanwhile his subjects, who grudged him the comforts due to his exalted rank, harried him to decide questions of petty trespass because they were too mean to pay a fee to the court usher. He would teach them a lesson.
He continued down the street, smiling affably. From the cheering crowd which followed him men stepped forward continually to hand him more petitions. It was the first time he had been seen in public for many days, and they were delighted to see him. Presently he reached a bridge over a deep ravine. With a smile of extra benevolence he halted, threw the petitions over the parapet, and without another word walked back to his palace through the muttering throng. It had been a perilous moment, but amusing.
So that was what Phila considered wrong. He would quickly silence her.
‘Have patience, my dear,’ he said gently. ‘I had intended to march at the equinox; now I shall start within ten days. On campaign I don’t wear these trappings, or exact any respect above that due to an ordinary general commanding. In the field I shall live like a Macedonian King, and when I have conquered all Asia the Macedonians will be proud of me.’
‘They will be proud of you, if you bring it off. Though what they want more than anything else is peace,’ answered Phila. ‘Will your army follow when you march to conquest? Pantauchus is worried about it. Go on, Pantauchus. Tell the King what you told me.’
The general blushed, looking down his nose. ‘The soldiers are in a bad mood, Poliorcetes,’ he said with a nervous cough. ‘They complain, like the peasants, that they never see you, and, like the peasants, they are tired of war. I know that when Pyrrhus attacked last year you were too sick to lead us. But they say you stayed in your palace because you couldn’t be bothered to defend your people. The older men want to go home and see their families, the young heroes think they will win more glory in the Epirot army. In their present state of mind they are not to be trusted in the presence of the enemy.’
That stung, more deeply than any of Phila’s reproaches. But Demetrius more or less kept his temper, apart from a dig at Pantauchus himself.
‘Perhaps it’s you, not me, that they won’t follow against Pyrrhus,’ he said with a smile. ‘Are they influenced by a memory of the last time you met him? It’s heroic to challenge the enemy leader to single combat, but the hero can look pretty silly after the enemy leader has finished with him. Pyrrhus may or may not have spared your life deliberately. But the fact remains that you were carried away in a hurdle while Pyrrhus was counting the five thousand prisoners you left in his hands. Pyrrhus has never chased me, nor drawn my blood.’
‘Any soldier may be wounded in battle, as you were wounded before the walls of Thebes,’ Pantauchus replied sharply. ‘Pyrrhus beat me that day, but in the end I got him out of Macedonia. When I fight a war it ends in peace. The troops complain that all your victories never bring peace any nearer.’
‘That’s a legitimate score. At Thebes I was silly, as you were silly when you challenged Pyrrhus. We’ve both got scars to show for it, scars we shall carry to the grave. Well, I have granted you the private audience you sought. Your advice is valuable, and I shall heed it. But for twenty years I have been planning this war, and at last my plans are complete. Come to me again in three months’ time and tell me whether you consider me worthy to be King of the Macedonians.’
Standing beside his father young Antigonus stared at the Acropolis. Since they looked from inland they could not see Athene’s brazen shield, but otherwise the sharp white buildings, clear- cut against the yellow heat-haze, looked much as they had looked when Demetrius first say them nineteen years ago. They were too far off to make out details, but they knew that the gates were shut.
‘I hope, sir, that I did right to withdraw the garrison,’ the young man said respectfully. ‘They are first-class troops, paid up to date and thoroughly loyal. Shut up in the Acropolis they would be wasted, unless you intend to sack the city. You won’t want to do that, I know. They will be a valuable stiffening to the field army.’
‘You did quite right, of course. Though the army in Hellas is pretty steady, not like those flighty Macedonian pikemen. I wish I knew what to do next. Athens won’t fight, either for me or against me. I can’t sack the place - that would be a crime against Hellas. Anyway, I might not get in, if Ptolemy’s men help them to hold the walls. I must just wait for Pyrrhus. We shall arrange something. No one wants a battle up and down the streets of Athens, of all places.’
‘The fleet should have kept Ptolemy out of Piraeus,’ Antigonus continued. ‘There’s no point in holding Athens with Piraeus in enemy hands. My plans assumed that we controlled the sea. Are the sailors wavering in their loyalty like the Macedonians?’
‘The fleet is sound, but the sea is a big place. Ptolemy’s admiral slipped through, but he dare not meet us in battle. You and I are still the Sea-Kings. It’s just Piraeus that has gone.’
‘Are you, sir, still Captain General of Hellas? Or do we fight King Pyrrhus for the title?’
‘We may have to fight him, but I hope to make some arrangement. He’s on his way here.’
‘Now, sir? At the head of his army, or just with an escort? I had better order a general stand-to, in case there is dirty work at the meeting.’
‘No, my boy, you can trust Pyrrhus. He’s too gallant a soldier to try murder. Once we were friends. After Ipsus he helped me to get away. I shall be glad to see him again.’
An hour later King Pyrrhus rode into camp, accompanied by half a dozen orderlies and secretaries. Demetrius felt a glow of pride. Once he might have killed a guest,
in most excusable circumstances. But real soldiers, men who passed their lives in the field, still trusted in his honour. When next he saw Phila he would tell her.
Pyrrhus had made up his mind, and he was in a hurry. He came straight to the point.
‘We shall leave Athens out of it. Since the Athenians are too tired to fight they may play their silly word-games while soldiers divide the world. I don’t want the Acropolis, so long as you don’t have it. Ptolemy can lock up troops there if he wants to. Athens doesn’t matter anymore.’
‘A hard saying, though at the moment it’s true,’ answered Demetrius. ‘One day I suppose you and I must fight it out, to see who the better man is. But we need not fight in the middle of Athens, and wreck that Parthenon they are so proud of.’
‘I’ve just seen it. A pleasant building, but as a fortress the Acropolis isn’t in the same class as Acrocorinth. No room for a big garrison and only the one spring. It’s never safe to depend on a single spring, even though old grandmothers assure you that it has never failed. It may be good enough for Ptolemy’s admiral, but it isn’t good enough for me.’
‘You have just been in Athens, and come out again?’ asked Demetrius, surprised. ‘They sent an old philosopher to ask me to keep out. Why did they invite you inside, I wonder?’
‘Because I had never been there, and they thought a sight of it would incline me to mercy,’ Pyrrhus answered with a shrug. ‘I told them they were fools. I could have taken it over if I had wished. But I would rather make peace here and fight in some more interesting place than Attica. I couldn’t resist one word of advice as I left, though you know that advice on civilian affairs isn’t much in my line. I told them never again to allow a king inside their walls. A king can’t look at a fine building without seeing it as a fortress. If they want to stay out of the wars they must keep kings at a safe distance. They were most impressed by my remark, and said they would carve it up in marble.’
‘The Athenians know how to flatter,’ said Demetrius. ‘But your advice was sound. That’s agreed then, that we both keep out of Athens? Now the next thing to decide is how we separate our armies. At the moment they are so close that a battle might start by accident. I want to go back to Macedonia, and I suppose you want to go back to Epirus. Shall we both start for home tomorrow?’
‘Not both of us tomorrow,’ Pyrrhus objected. ‘If we do that we will collide somewhere in Boeotia, and we want to keep the war away from Hellas. Will you start first, or shall I? My men have their baggage still packed. Are yours ready to move?'
‘Are they, Antigonus?’
‘I could do with a couple of days to gather in detachments, though if need be I could get the main body moving by sunrise.’
‘Right, then I’ll go first. I shall push on until we are clear of Thebes, which gives you an empty road to Thessaly. You start two days after I am gone. There’s no truce, mind, but with care we shan’t meet until we are well up north. Does that suit you, Demetrius? Then it’s agreed. No, I won’t stay for dinner, not even for a drink. I must get out my route-tables before dark. Good-bye. Demetrius. Good-bye, Prince Antigonus. I wish you both the worst of luck when next we meet.’
He clapped his hands for his horse.
‘So that’s how kings make agreement with their enemies,’ said Antigonus in an awed voice. ‘No oaths sworn, nothing in writing, no hostages exchanged. Just his promise and yours. And he rode into our camp without a bodyguard! ’
‘That’s how Pyrrhus and Demetrius make agreements,’ said his father. ‘We have known one another a long time. Don’t treat it as a precedent. From Ptolemy I would want plenty of hostages, and I wouldn’t trust Lysimachus if he offered to deliver his aged grandparents chained into my hands.’
The sentry on the north gate of Cassandreia was jumpy. Queer rumours had drifted down from the mainland of Macedonia, and then a few days ago Queen Phila had ridden in with her servants and a very small escort. Yes, ridden in. The Queen was an old lady, the daughter of that Antipater who had served old King Philip in the distant past, the golden age of peace and plenty which was now the theme of traditional songs; but she had come in astride a cobby little Thessalian pony, her skirts bunched round her knees. Her maids had ridden pillion behind veteran troopers but Queen Phila managed her own horse, sitting as firm and straight as a young man. They didn’t make ladies like that nowadays. There were baggage-mules with the Queen, laden with the tall jars in which silver money was packed; the garrison of Cassandreia could be sure of their pay next month. But the baggage-mules kept up a canter, urged on by light horsemen. When the Queen of the Macedonians rode at such a pace an experienced soldier looked up the road for the vanguard of the pursuers.
It had been announced that King Demetrius was about to give battle to the invaders, and would drive them back from his kingdom; but official announcements of that kind were addressed to civilians, not to soldiers. The sentry continued to stare north, where the road from the mainland curved out of sight behind a shoulder of mountain.
Presently he saw what he had been expecting, a party of horsemen riding hard for the town. About a hundred, coming at a brisk canter. They must be foragers from a hostile army, Epirots or Thracians, pushing on to plunder unravaged country before their comrades could reach it. Strangers to the peninsula, they would not know that they had come so close to a walled and garrisoned city.
If he gave the alarm immediately the standing picket might get out into the suburbs in time to keep the foragers at a distance. The grapes were nearly ripe, and it would be sad if the vineyards were burned right up to the walls on the first day of what might be a long siege. Then he looked again, and instead called the guard commander. These men rode straight along the road, making openly for the gate. They must be Macedonians, sure of a friendly reception.
When Demetrius trotted his weary horse through the gate he found a full guard drawn up to salute him.
He began giving orders as he reined in his horse. ‘Shut the gates. Man the watch towers. Double the guard on the ration store. No ship may leave harbour. Send out a patrol to close all the taverns. Proclaim in the market-place that Cassandreia is in a state of siege. Warn the Queen that I am coming. Then guide me to the palace, for I don’t know this city. Is there a town council? Tell them that in an hour I shall inspect the civic militia in the market-place, and assign them their posts on the wall. Oh, and see to the horses of my escort. The troopers have ridden a long way and are excused all duties until parade tomorrow.’
Already he as feeling better. He was a man of action, a competent soldier who could rap out necessary orders in the most pressing emergency. He would need all the assurance he could muster to help him through his coming interview with Phila.
She was waiting for him in the doorway of Cassander’s vulgar palace, a palace that was a blot on Macedonia, though now it was too late to tear it down. Her hair was twisted in a plain knot and she wore no ornaments; but she was not actually in mourning.
‘Where’s your army, my lord?’ she cried as she hurried to meet him. ‘Surely not all killed? Do they follow after you?’
‘Mostly with Pyrrhus, though some are with Lysimachus,’ he answered shortly. ‘I don’t think anyone was killed. It was done in a thoroughly friendly spirit.’
‘Oh,’ said Phila, halting in mid stride, with one foot in the air. It made her look foolish, especially as she had turned quite white from brow to throat. ‘I see,’ she went on, ‘there’s no army. - You must be worn out after your ride. Come and bathe. Then dinner will be ready, and you can tell me the news as you eat. Do you want me to say anything to the town council?’
‘I ordered them to parade in an hour, but we can postpone it. I must talk to you in private. I need your advice.’
When he was bathed and lying on a soft couch, Demetrius felt a little better, though not much. He was too exhausted to eat, but wine helped. Meanwhile Phila sat opposite him, her hands on her lap, waiting for him to speak.
‘The trusty phalanx of Macedoni
a! ’ he burst out. ‘The backbone of Alexander’s army! Honest peasant pikemen uncorrupted by city politics! So much more dependable than flighty Hellenes, aren’t they? Everyone says so. Well, they chose a king, and now they have unchosen him. You know very well, Phila that I didn’t canvass for the throne. I didn’t bribe, or conspire, or send out agents to speak in praise of my virtues. When they elected me seven years ago I was as surprised as you were.’
‘No, you didn’t plot for the throne,’ she said quietly, her hands still folded. ‘All you did was to murder your guest, my nephew. I felt that no good would come of it.’
‘That old story! It was him or me. Pantauchus explained it at the time.’
‘Where is Pantauchus? I hope no misfortune has come to him?’
‘He’s with Pyrrhus, of course, like the other rats. With Pyrrhus, the man who bowled him over and then spared his life because he wasn’t worth killing. These Macedonians have no shame!’
‘Please tell me everything just as it happened. You keep on beginning at the end.’
It all came tumbling out, in a rush of grievances and excuses.
‘Lysimachus advanced from the east, while Pyrrhus threatened from the west. All the handbooks are agreed on what should be done in a situation of that kind. I marched out to crush the weaker foe, Lysimachus, before they could unite. He wouldn’t give battle. Instead he tried to bribe my men to join him. A few did in fact desert to him, and the others seemed to be thinking it over. But what made me break off the campaign was that Pyrrhus was getting on too well. So I turned west. I thought my soldiers would fight loyally against Pyrrhus, a foreigner who was ravaging their country; even if they were fairly friendly with Lysimachus, a fellow-Macedonian who had served the mighty Alexander. Not a bit of it. Pyrrhus wouldn’t fight, and in the meantime my men were going over to him by the hundred. At last Pantauchus came to me, to say that he and my guard were about to change sides. So I got away before they could arrest me. I’m ashamed of my Macedonian blood. The beastly traitors!’
Elephants and Castles Page 26
