‘As soon as they see your hat and know that it’s you, they’ll refuse to fight anyway,’ Neoptolemus assured him.
Krateros took off his kausia and slapped the dust off its leather top. ‘Then I’d better make sure that it is visible. It looks to me that he’s placing his Kappadokian cavalry on his right wing; I expect that is where he’ll be then too.’
Neoptolemus shaded his eyes, watching the deployment. ‘In which case I’ll take our left flank, if that’s alright with you; I’ll meet the bastard hand to hand and show him what it means to fight a Molossian.’
‘You do that, Neoptolemus; I’m sure that he’ll be grateful for the lesson. Remember to use the day’s password, Athena and Alexander, to identify friends and foes alike; it could all get rather confusing. I’ll see you after it’s all over.’ It’s a shame that we couldn’t come to terms with Eumenes; I always rather liked him. Krateros replaced his kausia and looked along his line of Companion cavalry, fifteen hundred strong and four ranks deep; bronze helmets and spear-tips glinting in the sun. The finest cavalry in the world and each one a seasoned killer; with me leading them and supported by a phalanx of veteran pikemen, Eumenes’ army won’t have the stomach to stand. With a feeling of deep pride he glanced over to the phalanx whose deployment was nearing completion. Not long now.
With banners flying and cloaks billowing and accompanied by the blaring of many horns, both flanks of the enemy formation erupted with an explosion of horsemen; Kappadokians on the right and mixed Paphlagonians and Thracians opposite Krateros. Eumenes’ sudden attack with both his cavalry wings, before the infantry was set, came as a complete surprise. The clever little bastard; he’s refusing with his centre, therefore keeping his Macedonian troops from knowing that it’s me they’re facing. We’ll have to fight them after all; it really has come down to it. Raising his lance in the air, with great regret he ordered the advance.
Forward they started, at first walking before easing their snorting mounts into the trot, careful to keep formation; thighs gripping sweating flanks, left hands pulling on reins steadying their horses, as they hefted their lances in their right, hearts racing as always on the point of charge. With another bellow, Krateros kicked his stallion into a canter as the mixed cavalry facing them, now just a hundred paces distant, pelted towards them, accelerating into a gallop. It was no more than a couple of heartbeats before Krateros let his mount have its head and he felt the full power of the beast surging beneath him. On they flew, two walls of horseflesh on collision course, as javelins hissed through the air into the lance-armed, shieldless cavalry’s formation without receiving a reply. But it was at the point of impact that the lance showed its quality and the casualties of the javelin volley were negated. Some thrust overarm and some under but all lashed out with their honed tips before the Thracians and Paphlagonians were in range with their shorter spears and swords. Into throats, eyes and chests, razor-sharp points were thrust with precision timing as they flashed by one another, punching men, screaming, back off the saddle to tumble beneath the hooves of comrades behind. With the reflex of a man old in the ways of war, Krateros yanked his lance back, twisting the blade to release it from ribs, as his steed reared, forelegs scraping the air. Leaning forward across the animal’s mane he took the eye of an oncoming horse whose momentum jammed the lance from his grip; an instant later his sword was in his hand, slicing down to open the thigh of a red-bearded Thracian as his cover-men to either side slashed their ways forward. On Krateros pushed, his sword spraying arcs of blood, his mouth snarling with the rage of battle as his stallion snapped and kicked at anything in its way.
And then the press of man and beast became extreme and Krateros could go no further nor could his cover-men quite reach him, desperate as they were, for too far had he strayed. Left and right he slashed, his blade a blur as Thracians closed around him; a spear pierced his hip, his horse reared, a javelin quivering in the beast’s blood-matted shoulder, equine screams shrieking from a red-foaming muzzle. A cut across his forearm severed tendons and the reins dropped from his hand; still he fought, ferocious and fearless, reaping death even as it closed in on him. He howled with pain, arching his back, as iron cut through into his kidney; it was then he saw the sword slicing down towards the leather top of his kausia and for the first and last time he wished for a helmet; as his skull was cloven in a flash of white light he wished no more.
EUMENES, THE SLY
‘EUMENES! EUMENES, YOU little shit! Come here.’
Through the heaving melee the cry thundered; Neoptolemus! Eumenes, blood covering his right arm, kicked his horse in the direction whence the shout came; crunching a blow down onto a blade thrusting towards him, parrying it, he punched his weighted fist into the owner’s face, flattening nasal cartilage, wanting only to finish the thing between himself and Neoptolemus, one way or the other.
But in his heart he knew that he would win for he had been shown how by Alexander himself. He had awoken from a dream in which two Alexanders, each with his own phalanx, had been pitted against each other; one had the support of Demeter and one had Athena as his patron. It had been the Demeter Alexander who had emerged victorious and the goddess had woven her champion a crown from stalks of grain. Learning from spies that Krateros had chosen Athena and Alexander as his password that day had convinced Eumenes that he would win; thus with the password Demeter and Alexander and stalks of grain tied around the wrists of his men, he had launched his attack taking care to place Paphlagonians and Thracians opposite Krateros and telling his army that Neoptolemus’ co-commander was a barbarian warlord with the outlandish name of Pigres. By the simple expedient of holding back his Macedonian centre and attacking only with Asian and Thracian troops, he had ensured his army had fought for him for they had not seen Krateros in his kausia.
And so he feared not going hand to hand with the physically stronger Neoptolemus; indeed, he relished the prospect. If I kill the bastard with my bare hands his miserable life might finally prove to have some purpose to it. With a backhanded slash, he opened the face of a Macedonian lancer and pushed past him as he fell; there, ahead of Eumenes, was Neoptolemus, teeth bared and bellowing challenges. With no pause for reflection, Eumenes kicked his horse towards him, his hatred rising through him. As a cry of grief went up from Krateros’ army as the news spread from its right flank, through the phalanx, that their beloved general was on his way to the Ferryman, Eumenes and Neoptolemus hurtled together.
It was with equal rage that they crashed into each other, swords ringing on the first contact. Pain shot up Eumenes’ arm as the force of the blow jolted him back; blades locked, they grabbed at each other with their left hands, fighting for purchase, pulling at one another’s helmets as their bodies strained and their horses bit and butted. With tension tautening his muscles to rigid stone, Eumenes heaved back, pulling Neoptolemus towards him and then, passing the point of no return, fell from the saddle with his foe thumping down on top of him, their helms rolling free. The contents of his lungs exploded from him but Eumenes kept his grip on Neoptolemus’ tunic and his own sword, as the two men rolled together along the ground; all other duels around them stopped for men on both sides realised that the issue was about to be settled without the need for their lives to be spent.
Teeth ripped into Eumenes’ neck; he rammed his knee up into the groin and they loosened their grip. Neoptolemus grunted with searing pain. Squirming, lithe like an eel, Eumenes flipped himself up, stabbing down into the back of Neoptolemus’ calf. With a scream, Neoptolemus tried but failed to stand; slashing at Eumenes as he circled, looking for the kill, Neoptolemus remained on his knees, his head a hand-span lower than Eumenes’ own, and yet his prowess with the sword remained prodigious. Twice he lunged forward and twice he drew blood to the arms, Eumenes dancing away at the last moment. A third time he came, a rictus snarl of loathing on a muddied and bloodied face, his sword flashing at Eumenes’ thigh, slicing it open as Eumenes dived forward, knocking Neoptolemus back to crunch down on t
op of him, cracking his fist, sword still gripped, into his face and splintering teeth. Inchoate with hatred and blind now to all else, Eumenes crunched his fist down, again and again, spraying blood before focusing on his sword, remembering it. It was almost with a smile of disbelief that he jammed the point under the neck-rim of Neoptolemus’ breastplate as he spluttered and gurgled through a ruined mouth. On he pushed his blade as Neoptolemus convulsed, his eyes wide, staring in shock at Eumenes. ‘Killed by a Greek, Neoptolemus; a little Greek at that; what will people say?’ A final thrust; Neoptolemus spewed a gobbet of blood and Eumenes collapsed, hyperventilating, onto his stricken body. A silence grew around him as men on both sides stared down at the dead Molossian bested by an ex-secretary; all now realised that the battle was over for there was no cause left to fight.
The Macedonian cavalry pulled back, retreating to the line of their phalanx.
After a brief rest, Eumenes fumbled with the straps of Neoptolemus’ cuirass, claiming the victor’s right of stripping the armour from the vanquished; he knelt over him, one knee to either side of his chest as his shaking fingers worked the stiff leather. A jerk and a sharp pain, Eumenes stiffened and felt blood spurt on the inside of his thigh. A ghost of a sneer played on Neoptolemus’ face, his eyes cracked open and, with a sigh the light faded from them.
Looking down, Eumenes saw his sword remained in the fist of his now-dead adversary, its length bloodied; he put his hands between his legs; the wound to his groin was not deep but it bled. But there was still one thing that he needed to do before he could have it and his other wounds attended to. He had respect to earn.
Weariness flooding through him and fighting the desire to close his eyes and sleep there and then, Eumenes struggled to his feet, pulling the breastplate free and, placing a foot on Neoptolemus’ still chest, pulled out his sword. ‘Get me my horse and come with me, Barzid. Leave your men here just to make sure that there isn’t another assault.’ He looked up at the Companion cavalry rallying six or seven hundred paces distant. ‘Although I don’t think they have the heart for it if Krateros really is dead. We’ll go to find out.’
The ride across the frontage of the two phalanxes, facing each other fifteen hundred paces apart, was a sombre affair for all had now heard the rumour that Krateros, the darling of the Macedonian army for many years now, had fallen in a civil conflict. All eyes were on Eumenes as he cantered along the line, gesturing to either side to stay apart. ‘We will not attack if you stay where you are.’
A sadness welled up within Eumenes as the reality of civil war stared him in the face as he looked down at the broken head of Krateros; blood and brain oozed from the gash splitting his face in two. His kausia lay in two halves to either side. Eumenes knelt by Krateros’ side and took his cold hand in both of his. ‘This should never have happened,’ he muttered before looking up at Krateros’ Companion cavalry. ‘Things should never have been allowed to get so far.’
‘And yet here he lies dead,’ their commander said, bitterness in his voice.
Eumenes placed Krateros’ hands across his breast and then stood. ‘Then let us ensure that we lose no more of our comrades. Join me; our combined strength will be more than a match for Antipatros. With Perdikkas in the south and us in the north, we can surround him and force him to come to terms. This could be the last battle between Alexander’s generals, if you would make it so.’
The commander looked dubious.
Now I shall need all my powers of persuasion. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Xennias.’
‘Well, Xennias, here’s the deal I’ll offer you: I can’t stop your cavalry from leaving if they want to, I haven’t got the men to chase them. However, if you chose to stay you would be welcome in my ranks; but if you choose to fight then we shall have a bloody day of it and you will come out worse.’ He pointed to the huge block of twenty thousand infantry, still unengaged. ‘The phalanx, however, I cannot hope to defeat; but I can surround them and prevent them from getting food and water and force them into an unfavourable surrender. Go to them on my behalf, Xennias, and offer them amnesty if they take their oaths to me and then together we shall bury our dead.’
The pyres blazed bright as the sun touched the western hills; more than three hundred of them burnt, but none as tall as the central one for upon it the last remains of Alexander’s greatest general were consumed and all who beheld it, and had served with him, wept and wondered how his death had been allowed to come to pass.
‘I’ll send an honour-guard back to Macedon with his ashes,’ Eumenes said to Xennias as the fires died down. ‘Let Phila inter him there.’
Xennias wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘I would very much like to lead it, sir.’
Eumenes looked sidelong at him. ‘Would you? And where would you go afterwards?’
Xennias had no hesitation. ‘I shall come back here and serve you; you have shown yourself to be an honourable and brave man; a man worth following, even—’
‘For a Greek?’
‘That wasn’t what I was going to say but yes, even for a Greek.’
‘Thank you for the compliment.’ Eumenes scratched at the bandages around his thigh; the bleeding at least had stopped. ‘And what about them?’ he asked, gesturing to Krateros’ erstwhile phalanx watching their general burn, having pledged their allegiance to Eumenes. ‘Do you think they will still be with me by the time you get back?’
Xennias shook his head. ‘I think they will be off, back to Antipatros, the first chance they get.’
‘And I’ll be too weak to stop them. I’m afraid you’re right.’ So, despite winning two victories here in the north, my letter to Perdikkas will tell him of the two armies that have slipped past me. He looked back at the pyres. How many more of those will we see before we can all unite behind the kings and Perdikkas? Or should I, perhaps, reassess my loyalty and wait to see what happens in the south; what if the eventual winner is not Perdikkas?
PERDIKKAS,
THE HALF-CHOSEN
PERDIKKAS HELD HIS head in his hands as the eleventh syntagma in a row voted to acquit Ptolemy. How did I allow myself to be forced into this farce? But he knew the answer and it lay in the rights of the soldiery of Macedon: the closer they had come to the Pelusiac Nile, the easternmost branch of the Nile Delta, on the Egyptian border, the more they had questioned the necessity of this war. It had been Peithon, newly arrived from the east with his army complete with elephants, who had advised him to hold the assembly and try Ptolemy for rebellion before the combined armies. What he had not counted upon were the spies in his camp who had let Ptolemy, waiting for him across the river, know of the trial and therefore send advocates in his defence; as he had not yet been found guilty there was nothing Perdikkas could do to stop them speaking. Seated on a dais with the two kings, one wriggling in the arms of his mother and the other holding a toy elephant and gazing in drooling rapture at his wife, Perdikkas had struggled with the impulse to summarily execute Ptolemy’s defenders.
Speaking with silken, forked-tongues, they had argued that Ptolemy was no more than a pious man doing a religious duty and to try to reverse his deed would be to go against the gods of Egypt, Babylon and Macedon itself.
And then another syntagma followed by another pronounced in Ptolemy’s favour and Perdikkas’ authority waned as his misery waxed.
‘Why let these peasants have an opinion?’ Roxanna hissed from behind her veil. ‘They don’t need tongues to fight, cut them out.’
Perdikkas ignored the comment, wishing that woman would keep to her quarters rather than insisting that she be present every time her son had to preside over a meeting; but there was nothing he could do to stop her as Philip had become so reliant upon Adea, or Queen Eurydike, that he refused to go anywhere without her. Both women had to be treated the same or there would be no peace.
‘Let me speak to them,’ Adea insisted, ‘they have always listened to me.’
‘This is an army assembly,’ Perdikkas snapped, ‘not a wa
sherwoman’s convention. I’ll never make the mistake of allowing you to address troops again.’ Women! They’ll be the first two I deal with once I have Alexander and Kleopatra safe in the north.
‘This is going to cost you a lot of money,’ Seleukos said as yet two more units voted to acquit Ptolemy. ‘Cash up front and the promise of a larger share of the plunder of the richest land in the world might just get them across the river. Once they’re across, well…’
Perdikkas groaned as Polemon, with apology in his voice, announced his men’s votes for Ptolemy. Seleukos is right; money will have to be the answer. It normally is.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Peithon said, coming up to the dais, his brow furrowed in confusion as the final unit of his army voted for Ptolemy’s acquittal. ‘I thought they would be loyal to Alexander.’
Perdikkas turned on him, pleased to have an outlet for his anger. ‘And I thought that you would be loyal to me and yet what did you do? Tried to steal an army, that’s what! And with what in mind, eh? No, Peithon, you are the living proof that no one can be trusted and that no one’s loyalty is guaranteed.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I, which is more than can be said for Peucestas. Helping Eudamus, the satrap of India, with a rebellion in the east, bollocks, I would have heard of it.’
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