Memnon (40 page)

“Ah,” Memnon said, “but the true test for us will come later. Parmenion is a mere preamble, a rehearsal for the carnage that is Philip.”

“Surely Philip will not be so foolish as to continue his plans for an invasion, not after we have sent his famed general back to Europe with a bloodied nose?”

Memnon smiled. He held out his hand and helped Pharnabazus to his feet. “That, too, is but a preamble. Come, we’ve much left to do besides taking care of the wounded and the dead. We will camp here, tonight. Anything of any use we’ll take back with us tomorrow. Send out the scouts. I want to know precisely where Parmenion is. I’ll have Patron set sentries and guards for the prisoners—how ironic would it be if we fell victim to our own ruse, eh?”

Memnon’s men worked well into the night securing the Macedonian camp. Men fed from captured stores while bonfires of
sarissa
shafts provided enough light for Greek armorers to harvest every scrap of bronze and iron. Sweeter smelling cressets flared around the surgeons’ tents on the edge of camp, nearest the Skamandros. Cleaned up, though still armored, Memnon went among the pallets of wounded, talking to men of both sides. His own soldiers he hailed by name, asking after their wounds and listening as they recounted their deeds that day; among the Macedonians, he introduced himself and tried to allay their fears, asking their names and their fathers’ names in return. Many of them recognized him from his exile at Pella.

Memnon saw one familiar face in particular among the Macedonian wounded. The Rhodian crouched. “Koinos, isn’t it?” he asked. The red-bearded man nodded. Blood welled from a cut in his side; another in his scalp left his hair matted and filthy. “It’s been many years since the road to Mieza, but I’ve not forgotten your patience with my nephew. Is there anything I can do for you, my friend?”

“My lord,” Koinos croaked, tears in his eyes. He rose on his elbow. “I beg your mercy. Kill me and have done, for I’d rather be dead than any man’s thrall.”

Memnon, though, summoned one of his Greek surgeons. “Get this man cleaned up. You need fear neither death nor slavery, Koinos,” he said. “I give you my word. You and your men will be my guests until terms can be arranged with Parmenion. Failing that, I will send you back to Pella myself. All of you.”

Koinos sighed his thanks and sank back onto his pallet.

Damastes and Omares were among the wounded, as well. For Damastes, the surgeons held out little hope. His helmet had been split open by an axe-wielding highlander, the skull beneath shattered. Memnon sat at his side, clasping his limp hand and whispering reassurances in his ear. Omares’ prognosis was much better, though the
sarissa
wound to his left thigh would keep him bedridden for a month or more.

“I’ll send you off to Assos,” Memnon said, smiling. “Let a few courtesans nurse you back to health.”

“Praise Zeus! Better make it two months,” Omares replied. His grin became a grimace. A surgeon worked over his leg, stitching and cauterizing. “Wish your Egyptian was here. This one has a ham-handed touch.”

“Ah, Barsine won’t let Khafre out of her sight.” In truth, he wished Khafre were here, too. Perhaps he could do something for poor Damastes. But, he’d sent the Egyptian to Ephesus with Barsine and the children to keep them well out of harm’s way. Memnon smiled. “You told me once that each of your wounds reminded you of something. What will this one remind you of?”

Sweat glistened on Omares’ scarred forehead. “That I’m slower than I used to be.”

An hour later, Pharnabazus found him still at Omares side. The older man slept fitfully; Memnon studied the dancing flame of a lamp. The Persian’s light touch on his shoulder roused him. “A messenger delivered this.” Pharnabazus held a scrap of parchment, torn from a corner of a map, rolled up, and tied with a leather thong.

Memnon slipped it out and unrolled it, holding it closer to the light. There was no mistaking the blocky Greek letters … or the location the map fragment depicted.

“What is it?”

“A message from Parmenion,” Memnon replied. “He wants to talk.”

 

N
EAR
S
IGEUM, ON THE WINDSWEPT
D
ARDANIAN
P
LAIN, A TUMULUS OF
rock and scrub brush overlooked the choppy waters of the Aegean Sea. The sandy strand below had known the tread of giants, for here, in the old days, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and of the Achaeans, beached his fleet and unleashed the fury of the Greeks on the citadel of Troy. That ancient city, now little more than a sleepy village, lay four miles inland, across the Skamandros and near its confluence with the Simois River.

Memnon approached the tumulus from the south, riding alone along the ridge that formed a natural bastion between the plain and the coast. No guards shadowed him; he had even forbid Pharnabazus from following.

“It could be a trap, Uncle! You cannot trust him!”

A beaten man could, indeed, be desperate enough to attempt an ambush, but Memnon did not have that sense about this meeting. Parmenion wanted something—something specific. So Memnon rode alone, his interest, and his instincts, piqued.

From the base of the tumulus a goat trail wound up to its flat summit. Memnon dismounted, wary. The Rhodian wore his full panoply—a muscled cuirass of silver-inlaid bronze, a kilt of studded leather, bronze greaves etched with images of snarling Gorgon heads, and sandals of thick ox hide. The gold-chased sheath of his cavalry saber hung from a plain leather baldric, and the bronze face of his bowl-shaped shield bore a Persian eagle device, cobaltetched and lapis-inlaid. Memnon’s Corinthian helmet, its tall horsehair crest dyed Egyptian-blue, sat cocked atop his forehead.

He tied his horse’s reins to a bush and ascended the trail, his hand on his sword hilt, ears straining to catch any sound that might betray an ambush. Above the booming wind and the distant crash and hiss of breakers, though, the Rhodian heard nothing out of the ordinary.

Reaching the summit of the mound he found Parmenion, fully armed and armored, awaiting him. The Macedonian’s cuirass was of dull bronze, etched not for decoration but from use, as were his plain greaves. His sword hung at his left hip, and he leaned on a short cavalryman’s spear. Sunlight gleamed from its honed iron blade. Neither man moved or spoke.

Wind whistled through the rocks, ruffling Memnon’s helmet crest. “Do we talk,” he shouted at length, “or do we settle this like Hector and Achilles?”

Parmenion drove his spear butt-first into the thin soil, stripped off his sword and placed it on the ground. Memnon did the same, leaning his shield against a rock with his helmet and saber. Both men straightened and walked to the center of the tumulus.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Parmenion said. He looked haggard in the bright sunlight; a man pushed to the edge of exhaustion then asked to take one step beyond. “I didn’t think you’d trust me.”

Memnon smiled. “I don’t. But, we were friends, once, and I came to show you that I bear you no ill will.”

“You have some of my men.”

“And they will be well cared for, I promise you. My surgeons have treated your wounded same as mine.”

“What of my dead?”

“We burned them,” Memnon said. “I will have their bones sent to your camp. The men I hold prisoner, however, I cannot return to you until Macedonia leaves Asian soil. I have no wish to fight these same soldiers next month, or a year from now.”

“Philip won’t like that,” Parmenion said.

Memnon’s nostrils flared. “Then let Philip come and ask me for their release himself.”

“He’ll come soon enough,” Parmenion said, baring yellowed teeth in a snarl of defiance. “Why do you prostitute yourself for a foreign despot when a king of Philip’s caliber would be honored to have you in his confidence? Do you not see that your slavish manner is not in your people’s best interest?”

“On this ground.” Memnon scuffed at the soil. “You serve the foreign despot, not I! My people are not Macedonian, they are Asian Greeks and I serve them admirably!”

“Persia is unworthy of your best efforts, Rhodian, and you know it! Join us! You’ll lose nothing, but think of what you’ll gain! Imagine it, Memnon! A kingdom of your own stretching from the Straits in the east to the Halys River in the west, and from the Cilician coast in the south to the shores of the Euxine in the north—all the lands and cities therein yours to rule as you see fit.”

“Under Philip’s aegis, of course. By Macedonia’s leave.”

“Of course.”

“And you say I’ll lose nothing, Parmenion? What about my honor? I’ve sworn to defend my liege and master, the Great King, His Majesty Darius the Third. How could Philip trust me with a battalion, much less an entire kingdom, if I were to betray Darius to him? What would keep me from betraying Philip to some other warlord in exchange for even more land?”

Parmenion scowled. “It’s not a slight to your honor to betray a barbarian. Indeed, Philip believes such perfidy should be rewarded.”

“I’m sure he does,” Memnon said. “Unless the perfidy is directed against him. How magnanimous would he be then, I wonder?”

“You’re intractable, Rhodian.” Parmenion shook his head.

“My father used to say much the same thing.”

“That’s your answer? You would die for this Darius, for this man you barely know?”

“I would.”

“Why?”

Memnon, though, only smiled. He made to turn away, but stopped. “One last thing. It pleases me to let you keep your bridgehead at Abydus. Stray too far inland, though, and I will drown you in the Straits. Have we an understanding?”

Parmenion gave a short bark of laughter. “It pleases you to have an army at your door?”

“Army?” Memnon said. “A lofty name for a few bruised and beaten battalions. Yes, it pleases me. When Philip tires of scrapping with the dogs of Hellas and wishes a real fight, tell him I will be here, waiting.”

“The years have made you arrogant, Rhodian,” Parmenion said.

“Not arrogant,” Memnon replied, walking off. “Honest.”

 

T
RUE TO HIS WORD
, M
EMNON RETURNED THE BONES OF THE
M
ACEDONIAN
dead to Parmenion at Abydus, along with the names of men captured and a list of the wounded. He rebuffed any attempt to ransom the prisoners, though, much to Ephialtes’ chagrin.

“We could make a fortune off them, Memnon!”

“We
would make nothing,” the Rhodian said. He sat in an old folding campaign chair of sweat-stained wood and yellowed ivory, reading a dispatch from his man in Lampsacus, warning him of a growing pro-Macedonian faction in that city. “Such monies would go into the Great King’s coffers and
we
would be left facing men we’d beaten before, men doubly inspired to regain both their honor and their family’s wealth.”

Ephialtes leaned closer. “The Great King wouldn’t have to know …”

“I would know.” Memnon dismissed the Athenian with a wave. Behind him, Pharnabazus watched the hulking Greek depart, a look of disgust on his face.

“You were right, Uncle. His people own nothing of their former glory. They have become a city of panderers and demagogues.”

“But they might yet have their uses,” Memnon replied, returning his attention to the dispatch.

The days grew long and tedious, the monotony broken by small skirmishes, clashes between patrols and foragers. Parmenion lacked the strength to stage a full-scale assault, and in the high summer heat, inactivity wore on his soldiers’ nerves; to subvert them, Memnon sent the Macedonians a gift—a shipload of Thasian wine.

“That should keep them occupied long enough for me to slip away to Ephesus,” the Rhodian said. “I leave you in charge, Pharnabazus. Send word to me should anything change.”

Traveling by horseback and ship, Memnon arrived unannounced at his estate in the hills overlooking Ephesus a week later, knocking at the front door like a common visitor.

The older man who opened the door was one of his household
kardakes,
Phraates by name, a brawny old lion clad in a simple blue tunic, a sheathed sword at his side. Memnon smiled and caught his arm before he could exclaim. “Greetings, my friend,” the Rhodian said, his voice low. “Quickly, fetch your mistress! Do not tell her what it’s about!”