Memnon

by Oden, Scott

  “Has he asked for anything?” Memnon said.

  Pharnabazus shook his head. “He stands just out of bowshot and calls your name. I have forbid the men from taking potshots at him until after you have heard what he has to say. Ephialtes thinks we should reward the archer who can skewer him first.”

  “Ephialtes is a fool,” the Rhodian spat.

  “You will get no argument from me on that score.”

  Atop the wall, the sight of Memnon upright and walking, albeit with a limp, bolstered his men’s morale. They cheered as he joined his commanders at the Horn. Amyntas and Ephialtes muttered together, laughing at some jest they deigned not share with Orontobates. The satrap stood apart, his face set in the scowl that was fast becoming his signature expression.

  “What goes?” Memnon snapped.

  “He refuses to say,” Orontobates said, gesturing to the figure of the herald. “He will speak only to you.”

  Memnon walked past his men and stood alone.

  The herald, an older Macedonian wearing a simple tunic, stood under a flag of truce on the far side of the slain Pezhetairoi. Grim-faced, he bellowed, “Memnon the Rhodian, son of Timocrates! Come forth!”

  “Speak,” Memnon shouted. “I am here.”

  “My lord, Alexander, son of Philip, King of the Macedonians, and Captain-General of the Greeks, would speak with you. He gives you the honor of choosing the time and place, saying only that you come alone and unarmed and he will do likewise.”

  “I smell a trap.” Memnon heard Ephialtes grunt. He ignored the Athenian, pondered Alexander’s offer.

  “What say you, my lord?” the herald shouted.

  “My compliments to your king. Tell Alexander I will meet with him in one hour on the crest of that hill, there.” Memnon pointed to the hill his men had skirted during last night’s raid. An old olive tree grew from its low summit. The herald turned, surveyed the site, and nodded.

  “So be it. Yonder hilltop in one hour.” The herald turned and retraced his steps to the Macedonian camp.

  Pharnabazus walked over to where Memnon stood. “What do you think Alexander wants?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” The Rhodian shrugged. Sweat beaded his forehead; he shifted his frame, putting all of his weight on his uninjured side.

  “This is madness, Uncle!” Pharnabazus hissed, pitching his voice low so the others couldn’t eavesdrop. “You cannot sit a horse right now, and there is little chance you can walk to that hill without aid!”

  “So what?” Memnon said. “We call the herald back and have him ask Alexander to meet me elsewhere? Perhaps he’d like to sit under the battlements and enjoy our archers’ scrutiny? He’s no fool, Pharnabazus, and neither am I. So do me a favor, nephew—save your opinion for another day and find me a chariot!”

  MEMNON BREATHED THE HOT, DUSTY AIR KICKED UP BY THE HOOVES OF HIS chestnut gelding as the chariot, an antique rig of tarnished bronze and wormeaten wood, rattled over the rough ground. Already, he could see the stallion Boukephalos cropping the sparse grass near the base of the hill. At the crest, under the boughs of the olive tree, Alexander’s armor glinted in the sun.

  The Rhodian slewed to a halt and gingerly dismounted, his hip a swollen mass of raw and lacerated flesh, hot against his leather kilt. He tethered the gelding to a myrtle shrub; limping, he ascended the rise to the crest of the hill.

  Unarmed, possessing not even a belt knife, Memnon nonetheless wore his full panoply—ox-hide sandals, greaves, kilt of bronze-studded leather, and his silver-inlaid cuirass. He removed his helmet and carried it in the crook of his left arm. In a pinch he could use it as a bludgeon, though he did not expect treachery from Alexander. Such behavior ran contrary to the young king’s nature.

  Reaching the summit, he sensed the power of Alexander’s unrelenting gaze. The king watched him; in return, he studied his adversary, whom he had not seen since that summer at Mieza. Alexander had grown over the years, though not by much. He stood a full head shorter than the Rhodian but the muscular lines of his physique made up for his less-than-impressive height. Clean-shaven and with thick hair like dark gold hanging to his shoulders, Alexander’s features were finer than those of his father, his skin flushed by sun and wind. In his eyes, Memnon could discern that mysterious daimon he had often warned Pharnabazus about, the spirit of a true leader.

  “You’re wounded,” Alexander said suddenly, lines creasing his high forehead. He took two quick steps to Memnon’s side and offered him an arm to lean upon. The king wore a lineothorax crusted with gold ornaments and reinforced with plates of iron, the center boss protecting his chest wrought in the snarling visage of a lion.

  “It’s nothing,” Memnon said. “A scratch only.”

  “I can fetch my physician, should you require him. He’s a good man, an Acarnanian called Philip.” Alexander ushered him to the shade of the olive tree, where Memnon leaned against the wiry bole, relieving the pressure on his hip.

  “As I said, it’s barely a scratch.” Memnon’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Alexander. He could still perceive the inquisitive boy underneath the trappings of war, a discovery he found oddly comforting. “You’re looking well, Alexander. The mantle of kingship agrees with you, it seems.”

  “It is a responsibility I savor,” Alexander replied. He returned Memnon’s frank stare. “You’ve done well for yourself, also. Most commanders who suffer a resounding defeat such as what befell you at the Granicus are put aside rather than elevated. Darius must put great stock in your skills.”

  Memnon smiled, though the gesture didn’t extend to his eyes. Those remained slitted and cold. “The Granicus wasn’t my battle; its failure belongs solely on the shoulders of the satraps. Men you conveniently killed, as I recall, thus relieving the Great King of the burden of their executions—a burden he would have likely handed to me. I don’t thank you for it, though. I lost too many good men. Friends and kin.”

  Alexander’s face clouded. “It’s true that a son of Artabazus died that day?”

  “It’s true,” Memnon said, exhaling. “Hydarnes. You probably don’t remember him. He was only a toddler during our stay at your father’s court.” The Rhodian’s voice hardened. “One of your Agrianians slew him.”

  The young king nodded. “Cophen spoke frequently of his brothers, which intrigued me. I have only one, a half-brother, Arrhidaeus, and he is a simpleton through no fault of his own. A defect of his birth, or so my mother claims. I am sorry for the loss of your nephew, Memnon, and to Artabazus for the loss of his son. War is a harsh master, as you well know. Is Cophen with you in Halicarnassus?”

  However genuine, Alexander’s condolences left the Rhodian apathetic toward the young king and immune to his mystery. “No,” he said. “I sent him back to his father. The dichotomy of friendship to you and duty to the Great King caused him much consternation. Removing him from the path of possible temptation seemed the wisest course.”

  “A pity. I would’ve liked to have seen him again.”

  Memnon’s patience ebbed. “Did you call this meeting simply to reminisce, Alexander, or do you plan to use our meager shared history as a way of convincing me to transfer my allegiance?”

  “Parmenion assured me such an effort would be in vain,” the young king said, coldness creeping into his voice. “You’ve made your decision and I respect your sense of loyalty, misguided though it may be. No, Rhodian, I’m here because I wished to ask a favor of you, man to man: allow my troops the chance to recover their slain brothers and cousins from the shadow of the city walls. In return, I’ll have the dead you left in the field last night brought to the gates.”

  “You ask for a truce?”

  “Do not read too much into this, Memnon.” Alexander’s eyes flashed. “Call it a truce if you like, but understand it is a pause only, an exchange between friends.”

  Memnon straightened, ignoring the agony of his hip. “I will grant your request because it’s the right thing to do, not because of some imagined bond we shar
e. We’ve never been friends, Alexander. You’re the son of a man who offered my family safe haven, nothing more. Is the balance of today enough of a pause to recover the dead and see to their funerals?”

  “It’s more than enough time.” Alexander’s thin nostrils flared; Memnon sensed a wave of anger flowing off him. The young king was not accustomed to having his friendship rebuffed, and the idea of if stung his pride worse than the loss of his siege machines. Though his face remained impassive, inwardly Memnon cackled with glee.

  “So be it. Farewell, King of Macedon.” Memnon inclined his head.

  “Rhodian,” Alexander said, rage bringing a touch of pallor to his cheeks. “When my men breach the walls of Halicarnassus—and they will breach them!—I will treat you no different from any of my enemies. Do you understand?”

  “If your men breach the walls,” Memnon said, turning away. “I would expect nothing less.”

  UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES OF MEMNON’S ARCHERS, THE MACEDONIANSgathered the bodies of their slain Pezhetairoi; afterward, they carted the Persian dead to the Tripylon and left them, twenty-two in all. Memnon ordered the gate opened and the cart brought inside—though not before his men searched it thoroughly, making sure the dead were their own and not enemy soldiers masquerading as such. Treachery might not have been in Alexander’s arsenal but it was surely in Parmenion’s; the Rhodian was no Priam, to be gulled by a wily Odysseus.

  Though a truce existed, preparations for the resumption of fighting never slackened. Outside the wall crews cleared away the wreckage of charred siege machinery, repairing damaged katapeltoi, and restocking ammunition caches. Inside the wall, workmen demolished buildings behind the site chosen by the Macedonian king for his breach; then they used the rubble to reinforce existing defenses. Soldiers looked to their weapons, restringing bows and honing blades, casting lead into fresh sling bullets, and replacing dented shield faces with new bronze. Night fell, and funeral pyres blazed in both camps.

  “Prepare yourself,” Memnon said to Pharnabazus. His nephew had brought him a platter of roasted fowl, bread, and cheese, with a jug of strong Thasian wine to wash it down, and lingered about until the surgeon finished changing the dressings on his hip. Now Memnon lay on a divan, his weight on his good side. “Tomorrow marks the beginning of the real siege.”

  “Worse than the other battles we have endured, Uncle?” the Persian said. “I find that difficult to believe.”

  Memnon sniffed the wine, his eyes closed. “It will be,” he replied, “the most horrific battle you’ve ever seen.”

  The Rhodian’s prediction came true. At dawn Alexander’s wrath exploded against the walls of Halicarnassus; his anger and frustration funneled down to his men, and they fought like animals, eager to prove their quality to the young king. The katapeltoi were brought closer, inside Persian missile range, where they could send heavier stones against the battlements, stones that smashed embrasures and the men behind them. Arrows streaked through the sky in both directions, wounding as many men as they killed. Screams and curses drifted in the dust-thickened air.

  On the ground, soldiers filled the moat at a breakneck pace, reinforcing the top layers of earth with split logs snaked down from the hills; already sappers, engineers whose specialty lay in assaulting wall foundations, could cross the moat under their huge hide shields and begin work. The sounds of picks and hammers echoed through the heavy masonry. To counter, Memnon ordered incendiaries lit and dropped from the parapet. The pottery jars shattered, raining burning bitumen down on the sappers’ heads. Their shrieks replaced the staccato rap of tools.

  By dusk, when a salpinx called an end to the day’s fighting, the battlements of the Horn resembled a slaughterhouse—bodies riven or split asunder, spackled with blood, naked bone gleaming through torn armor and flesh. Pharnabazus, his face hidden beneath a ghoulish veneer of dust and gore, swayed on his feet and might have fallen had Memnon not been there to offer him a shoulder to lean upon. “Merciful gods,” the Persian whispered, his voice raw from the constant effort needed to shout orders over the din. “Why … Why was this so different from the first day?”

  “Because their resolve has changed,” the Rhodian said. He limped with Pharnabazus over to a pile of broken stone and sat. “In that first clash, Alexander sought to learn our limits. How far could he push us before we pushed back? Now, he doesn’t care how far he pushes. All that matters is the wall—ripping it down if you’re Macedonian, preserving it if you’re Persian. You’re accustomed to field battles, infantry and cavalry, where there’s ebb and flow, movement and countermovement, charge and retreat. Not so in a siege. The wall is immobile until it falls, and so are we.” He gestured out over the fifteen-foot-wide battlements, the dead mercifully cloaked in the shadows of twilight. “We stand. No charge, no retreat. We face the fury of their missiles, and we either live or we die, as the Fates will it. But we do not move. If we do, Alexander will gain a foothold before we’re ready for him.”

  “In the name of all the gods,” Pharnabazus said, his face grim in the deepening darkness. “When will we be ready for him?”

  But Memnon did not answer.

  The siege progressed in earnest. Day after bloody day Alexander chipped at the city’s defenses. His men completed the road over the moat, making it wide enough to allow the two undamaged towers to be rolled up against the wall simultaneously. The third tower stood a hundred yards to the rear; all three wooden Titans bristled with archers, their massed volleys sweeping Persians from the Horn’s battlements. Protected by the hulking structures, the two battering rams—iron-tipped logs suspended from chains—crashed against the wall, a relentless rhythm driven by sheer muscle.

  Memnon strode the battlements, his pain consumed by white-hot anger. His men fed off him. His rage stoked theirs, provoking acts of breathless valor. Men broke cover to hurl incendiaries at the arrow slits in the siege tower walls, splashing the men inside with combustibles even as they were cut down by enemy missiles; in their wake, Persian archers sent tow bolts, arrows wrapped with a length of smoldering twine, through the slits. Flames exploded from the heart of the tower, doing more damage to the soldiers inside than to the green wood around them. Cheering defenders drowned out the Macedonians’ screams.

  Later in the day, a detachment of marines from the fleet, protected by hoplite shields, rushed the towers, casting grapnels at their tops. The iron hooks dug into the wood. Men hauled on the ropes. Timbers creaked and snapped. Before the tower could be overturned, though, an axe-wielding Macedonian severed the ropes; his triumph was short-lived—Persian arrows sent him plummeting to his death.

  Still, the rams hammered the walls, and they did not stop until the salpinx sounded their recall. Under a hail of darts and shafts, Alexander’s soldiers drew the siege machines back from Halicarnassus, across the earthworks bridging the moat, and into their nightly positions closer to the camp.

  That evening, Memnon used the respite to convene his officers. They met on the acropolis, on a terrace overlooking the unfinished Mausoleum. A loggia of carved and painted cedar provided a sliver of shade against the setting sun. Each man came straight from the walls. Still caked in the grime of battle, they shucked their armor at the edge of the terrace. Servants met them with basins of cool water and scented towels, with fresh tunics and deep cups of fragrant wine, and escorted them to a ring of divans.

  Memnon wasn’t the only wounded man among them. Amyntas, his forehead and one eye swathed in bandages, groaned as he sat; Orontobates, too. The satrap had lost a finger and hamstrung himself leaping out of the path of a katapeltes stone. Pharnabazus nursed bruised ribs from where rock shards dented his cuirass, and even Ephialtes, with his Heraklean vitality, drank his wine in exhausted silence. Autophradates, alone, bore not the slightest scratch, his post on the water being farthest from combat. Thymondas and Patron arrived last, both men caked in sweat and dust. Patron limped from an arrow wound in his thigh, while Thymondas still bled from a wicked gash in his shoulder. A dart had mis
sed impaling him by a matter of inches. He sat and pressed a wad of linen to the laceration.

  “So?” Memnon said. The others looked up.

  Patron shook his head. “Another day, maybe two, and that wall is coming down.”

  “Can we reinforce it?”

  “Perhaps,” Patron said, “but what’s the use? Once the core of the wall is down we could put all the rubble in Halicarnassus into that breach and it wouldn’t be enough to stop the rams.”

  “We need to burn those gods-be-damned towers,” Ephialtes muttered.

  “How?” Pharnabazus said. “Alexander’s on guard against another night sortie.”

  “Do it during the day,” the Athenian said.

  Amyntas coughed and spat. “Hera’s tits, man! They’ve got us outnumbered. We go scotching off outside the walls in broad daylight and they’ll hand us our own arses, well-buggered at that.”

  “Get rid of the gods-be-damned towers!” Ephialtes lapsed into silence.

  “What are our casualties, Thymondas?”

  The soldier winced as he applied pressure to his shoulder. “We’ve lost close to four hundred men in the last few days. Twice that number in wounded and a goodly part of those will never fight again. Those stone throwers … a pox on their inventors! And a pox on the man who had the idea of launching a single rock any halfway agile man could dodge, causing it to impact against an embrasure where it splits into a dozen pieces, each one a crude spearhead!” Wood creaked as Thymondas leaned back on the divan. “It’s the most dishonorable manner of fighting I’ve ever seen!”

  “It’s only dishonorable because we didn’t think of it first,” Patron said. He studied Memnon as he sat in silence, his brow creased in thought. “Well, lad?”