Alexander (Vol. 2) (17 page)

‘This is my plan: the first thing is that we will not let them near us with their war engines – powerful and effective machines designed specifically for King Philip by the best Greek engineers. Then we will use his own tactics against him: the Macedonian prevented our fleet from taking on supplies of food and water by taking control of all moorings along the coast and we will do exactly the same thing, preventing him from unloading the machines from his ships anywhere near our city. We will send divisions of cavalry and assault troops to every bay which is less than thirty stadia from Halicarnassus.

‘Furthermore, the only point where he can hope to attack us is the north-eastern sector of our walls. We will dig a trench there – forty feet long and eighteen feet wide – so that even if he should succeed in landing his machines, he will not be able to move them up to the city walls.

‘That is all I have to say for now. Make sure that work begins tomorrow at dawn, and it must continue day and night without interruption.’

Everyone agreed with the plan, which indeed seemed infallible, and gradually they left the chamber and disappeared along the city roads, white under the light of the full moon. Only the two Athenians – Thrasybulus and Ephialtes – remained behind.

‘Do you have anything to say to me?’ asked Memnon.

‘Yes,’ replied Thrasybulus. ‘Ephialtes and I would like to know to what extent we can count on you and your men.’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ said Memnon.

‘What we mean is,’ said Ephialtes, a large man at least six feet tall and as massive as Hercules himself, ‘that we are motivated by a hatred for the Macedonians who have humiliated our homeland and have forced us to accept shameful peace conditions. We have become mercenaries because it was the only way to fight our enemy without damaging our city. But you? What drives you to do this? Who can guarantee that you will remain faithful to the cause even when it is no longer convenient for you? Ultimately you are a . . .’

‘Professional mercenary?’ Memnon interrupted him. ‘Yes, it is so. Just as my men are, one and all. The most abundant commodity on the market today is mercenary swords. You claim that your hatred is a guarantee. Should I believe that? I have often seen fear prevail over hatred, and it could easily happen to you too.

‘I have no homeland other than my honour and my word, and you must trust that. Nothing is more important for me, together with my family.’

‘Is it true that the Great King has invited your wife and your sons to Susa? And if this is true, does it not perhaps mean that not even he trusts you and he has taken your family hostage?’

Memnon looked at him with an ice-cold gaze. ‘To defeat Alexander I need blind loyalty and obedience from you. If you put my word in doubt then I do not want you. Go now, I release you from your bond. Go now, while there is still time.’

The two Athenian generals seemed to confer simply by exchanging a look, and then Ephialtes spoke. ‘We only wanted to know if what they say about you is true. Now we know. You may depend on us, to the bitter end.’

They walked out and Memnon was left standing alone in the great chamber.

A
LEXANDER
,
AFTER CONSULTING
his officers, left the camp outside the walls of Miletus as Nearchus’s men were taking the siege machines apart before loading them on to the ships and transport barges anchored just offshore. They had decided that once this operation was completed, the admiral would round the Cape of Miletus to look for a suitable mooring as close as possible to Halicarnassus. With him he had two Athenian captains who were in charge of the two small battle fleets of triremes.

The beach was bustling with soldiers and resounded with shouts and noises of all sorts – hammer blows, calls, rhythmic chanting from the crews as they hauled the disassembled pieces on board.

The King took a last look at what remained of the allied fleet and at the city standing peaceful now on its promontory, before giving the signal to set off. Ahead of him opened up a gentle valley nestling between the olive-covered foothills of Mount Latmus to the north and Mount Grios to the south. Down below was the dusty, winding road that led towards the city of Mylasa.

It was a hot, fine day; the silver of the olive trees shone from the hillsides, while in the poppy-covered fields white-coloured cranes rooted along the streams searching for frogs and young fish. As Alexander’s army passed, a moment’s curiosity caused the birds to lift their heads and their long beaks and then they calmly set to rooting once more.

‘Do you believe the story of the cranes and the pygmies?’ Leonnatus asked Callisthenes as they rode alongside each other.

‘Well . . . Homer mentions it and Homer is felt to be a reliable source,’ replied Callisthenes, without seeming too sure of the matter.

‘That’s true . . . I remember old Leonidas’s lessons when he spoke of the continuous battles between the cranes, who kept trying to carry off the pygmies’ babies in their beaks, and the pygmies, who kept trying to break all the cranes’ eggs. I think these are just children’s tales, but if Alexander really intends to go as far as the edge of the Persian empire then we may well get to see the land of the pygmies.’

‘Perhaps,’ replied Callisthenes, shrugging his shoulders, ‘but if I were you I wouldn’t count on it. These are nothing more than folk tales. Apparently if one travels up the Nile one really does meet black-skinned dwarfs, but I doubt very much that they are no taller than my forearm, which is what their name means, and that they use their axes to cut grain. Stories become altered and deformed with the passage of time and as they pass from mouth to mouth. For example, if I were to start saying that cranes take pygmy babies to carry them off to couples who cannot have children then I will have added an imaginative new detail to a story that is already very imaginative, but there would still be a certain verisimilitude to it. Don’t you think so?’

Leonnatus was a bit puzzled. He turned round to check his mules, which were loaded down with heavy sacks.

‘What have you got in there?’ asked Callisthenes.

‘Sand.’

‘Sand?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘I use it for training for wrestling. We might just find ourselves on rocky terrain up ahead and if I don’t have my sand then I can’t train properly.’

Callisthenes shook his head and dug his heels into his mule. Some time later he was overtaken by Seleucus, galloping on towards the head of the column. He drew rein alongside Alexander and pointed to something on the crest of Mount Latmus.

‘Have you seen that up there?’

The King looked up in the direction Seleucus indicated.

‘What is it?’

‘I have sent a pair of scouts on ahead to take a look – it’s an old lady; she has been following us, together with her entourage, since this morning.’

‘By Zeus! I could have expected anything of this land, except to be followed at a distance by some elderly lady.’

‘Perhaps she’s out hunting for something!’ laughed Lysimachus, who was riding nearby and had heard everything.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ replied Seleucus. ‘What shall we do, Alexander?’

‘She certainly presents no danger to us. If she needs us, she will make the first approach. I don’t think there’s any reason to worry.’

They continued at a walk, protected by groups of horseback reconnaissance troops who cleared the way, until they reached a large open space just where the valley began to open up like a funnel in the direction of the city.

The signal to halt was given and the shieldsmen pitched canvas coverings to provide some shade for the King and his commanders.

Alexander leant on an elm tree and drank water from a flask. It was a very hot day now.

‘We have visitors,’ said Seleucus.

The King turned towards the hill and saw a man on foot approaching the camp. He was leading a white mule by the halter. Sitting on the animal was an elegantly dressed woman who was quite old despite her finery. Behind came another servant carrying a parasol, while a third chased away the flies with a horse-mane brush.

Bringing up the tail of the procession was a meagre division of not at all aggressive-looking soldiers, and at the very end an entourage of carts of various sizes together with beasts of burden.

When the caravan was about half a stadium away, it came to a halt. One of the men from the escort came forward to the place where Alexander was resting in the shade of the elm tree and asked to be taken to him.

‘O Great King, my Lady, Ada, Queen of Caria, asks for an audience with you.’

Alexander nodded to Leptine to tidy up his cloak and his hair and to arrange his diadem, then he replied, ‘Your Lady is most welcome whenever she wishes.’

‘Even now?’ asked the foreigner in Greek with a marked oriental accent.

‘Even now. We have very little to offer, but we would be most honoured if she should care to sit at our table.’

Eumenes, understanding the nature of the situation, immediately gave orders for them to pitch at least the roof of the royal pavilion, so that the guests might sit in some shade. He had tables and chairs arranged so very quickly that as they saw the Queen approaching everything was ready.

A footman knelt on all fours and the great dame came down from her mule using his back as a step. She then approached Alexander, who welcomed her with demonstrations of profound respect.

‘Welcome, great Lady,’ he said in his most refined Greek. ‘Do you speak my tongue?’

‘I most certainly do,’ replied the female dignitary, who was now being offered a carved wooden throne that had been unloaded from one of the carriages of her entourage. ‘May I sit down?’

‘Please do,’ said the King as he invited her to sit with a gesture and he sat in his turn, surrounded by his companions. ‘These here before you are my friends, closer to me than brothers, and all members of my personal guard – Hephaestion, Seleucus, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Craterus, Leonnatus, Lysimachus, Philotas. This one here by my side, the one who looks most warlike,’ and at this he couldn’t help but give a half smile, ‘is my secretary general, Eumenes of Cardia.’

‘Hail, Secretary General.’ The elderly woman greeted Eumenes with a gracious bow of her head.

Alexander studied her carefully: she was between fifty and sixty years old, closer to sixty. Her hair was not dyed and she made no attempt to hide the grey around her temples, but she must have been a woman of considerable charm once. Her woollen dress, Carian with a pattern of squares, each one embroidered with a scene from mythology, clung to her, revealing a figure that just a few years previously must have made her extremely attractive.

Her eyes were a fine amber colour, bright and serene, highlighted with delicate make-up, her nose straight, her cheekbones prominent, all of which granted her an expression of great dignity. Her hair was gathered into a bun, on top of which was a light golden crown decorated with lapis lazuli and turquoise, but both her clothing and her deportment carried something melancholic and in some way antiquated, as if her life no longer made any sense to her.

The pleasantries and the introductions took some considerable time. Alexander noticed that Eumenes was scribbling something on a sheet which he then placed on the table before him. Out of the corner of his eye Alexander read:

No sooner had he read those few lines than the woman sitting before him began her speech: ‘I am Ada, Queen of Caria, and I now live an isolated life in my fortress at Alinda. I am sure that my brother would chase me from there if he had the strength to do so. Life and destiny have failed to grant me any children and I am now approaching my old age with a certain amount of sadness in my heart, but above all else I am pained by the treatment I have received from the last and most wicked of my brothers, Pixodarus.’

‘But how did you know all this?’ whispered Alexander to Eumenes who was sitting next to him.

‘It’s my job to know these things,’ his secretary general replied. ‘And then, if you remember, haven’t I already got you out of trouble with these people once before?’

Alexander indeed remembered his father’s fury on the day he had ruined all prospect of marriage between his stepbrother Arrhidaeaus and Pixodarus’s daughter, and he smiled to himself, reflecting on the bizarre nature of fate – this lady, whose appearance and demeanour were so particular, a complete stranger to him, could have been a relative.

‘May I ask you to sit at our humble table?’

Ada graciously bowed her head once more. ‘I thank you and I accept with great pleasure. Nevertheless, being aware of the nature of army cooking, I have taken the liberty of bringing something from home which I hope you might appreciate.’

She clapped her hands and her servants brought loaves of warm bread from the carriages, cakes with raisins, tarts, puff pastries made with honey, rolls filled with beaten egg, flour, mulled wine and many other delicacies.