Tyrant: Storm of Arrows (27 page)

Hephaestion’s place rested on his relationship with the king. Keen observers, and the military court that surrounded the king of Macedon was full of such men, noted that whenever commands - fighting commands - were handed out, even the besotted Alexander passed over his friend for Philotas.

So despite two days of whispering throughout the camp, Philotas stood at ease in front of his king. ‘I’ve heard a lot of talk,’ Philotas said. ‘Am I accused of something, your majesty?’

‘You are accused of aiding in a plot to kill the king,’ Hephaestion said.

Alexander remained mute.

Philotas continued to look at the king. ‘Crap,’ he said. ‘I’m utterly loyal and everyone knows it.’

‘The plotters have betrayed you,’ Hephaestion said.

‘I don’t give a cunt hair for what your torturers dragged out of some peasant,’ Philotas said.

‘Why didn’t you come to me with Cebalinus’s accusation?’ Alexander asked. His voice sounded tired.

Philotas nodded sharply. ‘I knew this was what we were on about. Look, Alexander,’ Philotas, as a noble and a Companion, had the right to address the king familiarly, ‘you know what a bitchy fool Cebalinus can be. Like any boy-lover,’ and here Philotas smiled at Hephaestion in obvious mockery, ‘he gets all womanish and he gossips. So he heard something while he was being buggered. I heard him out. It sounded like crap. I ignored it.’

‘It wasn’t crap,’ Alexander said. ‘We have full confessions.’

‘If I was wrong,’ Philotas said, his tone conveying that he thought the whole thing a set up, ‘then I make my most profound apology. Your majesty must believe that I would never allow a plot against him to go forward. On the other hand . . .’ Here he paused, because he realized that his arguments were about to cross on to forbidden ground.
If I reported every plot against you, we wouldn’t have an army
didn’t seem like a good thing to say.

‘You seem to be comfortable with treason yourself,’ Hephaestion spat.

‘This is a lot of crap,’ Philotas said. He was losing patience. It was too
stupid
an accusation to be taken seriously.

‘You say in private that you saved the king at Arbela. That you and your father have won every battle - that the king is not competent to lead an army.’

For the first time, Philotas was alarmed and it showed. He raised his chin. Thinking quickly, he decided on utter honesty. ‘I may have boasted foolishly, when drunk.’ He tried to win a smile from the king. ‘It’s been known to happen with soldiers.’ When no smile was forthcoming, Philotas widened his eyes. ‘You can’t be serious. I’ll apologize to the army if you require it, your majesty - but drunken boasting is
not treason
.’

‘Your father has been plotting against me for years,’ Alexander said, suddenly. He sounded shrewish.

‘What?’ Philotas said. He was now alarmed. ‘No he hasn’t. Ares’ balls, Alexander, you wouldn’t even be king if it weren’t for my father!’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he saw that Hephaestion had played him like a lyre. He glared at the favourite. Hephaestion glared back.

‘Traitor,’ he spat.

Philotas stood tall. ‘Prove it, minion!’

Hephaestion turned to Alexander. ‘He’ll confess under torture.’

‘You can’t torture me!’ Philotas spat. ‘I’m the commander of the Companions! On the bones of Achilles, the best of the Achaeans, I swear I am no traitor! And you’ll never prove it before the assembly!’ He stood there, tall and handsome, the very image of the dashing officer.

But the assembly thought differently, two days later, when he was brought before them toothless, with much of his face gone. He looked like a traitor with his hands broken. Hephaestion said that he had confessed his own guilt, and the king said the same. No one could understand Philotas when he spoke.

They executed him.

‘Now I can clean house,’ Alexander said to Hephaestion. It was a private council, with only a few men - Eumenes and Kleisthenes and Hephaestion.

‘You have to kill Parmenion,’ Hephaestion urged. ‘When he hears—’

‘Yes, Patrocles!’ Alexander ruffled his bronze hair. ‘I know. The father must go, now that the son is proved a traitor.’

Even Kleisthenes, a sophist and a professional propagandist, was cut to the bone to hear the king call Philotas a traitor in private. The king had convinced himself - a dangerous precedent.

Eumenes the Cardian kept his face composed. ‘Spitamenes has accepted our suggestions about negotiation,’ he said. Eumenes had learned not to use words that the king might take to mean that the Macedonians were suing for peace with a rebel satrap. The truth was that Spitamenes, with the remnants of Bessus’s Persian army and the support of the Massagetae and the Dahae, was slowing up their conquest of the north to an unpalatable degree.

The king drank some more wine. ‘When Parmenion is dead, the areas to my rear will be secure,’ he said. ‘I’ll have all the time I need to conquer the rest of the world. I don’t need Spitamenes. Tell him to fuck off.’

Hephaestion laughed aloud.

Eumenes, who had laboured all winter to get negotiations on the table, took a deep breath. ‘Spitamenes is interested in religious issues, your majesty. He does not desire to be King of Kings.’ He got the bit between his teeth and spoke the truth. ‘As long as he has the Scythian tribes, he can cross the Jaxartes at will. We cannot follow him there.’

Alexander turned his head and his mad, white-rimmed eyes bored into Eumenes’ head. ‘There is nowhere my army cannot go,’ he said.

Eumenes flicked his eyes to Hephaestion, hoping that the indulgent man would remember his own self-interest.

Hephaestion swirled the wine in his cup and then leaned forward. ‘If we campaign across the Jaxartes, we’ll lose a whole campaign season from India.’

He ought to have been an actor, Eumenes thought. He wiped his brow.

Alexander threw himself back on his couch. ‘Fine. Even Achilles listened when Phoenix spoke. But I want an Amazon - better yet, a dozen. Tell Spitamenes to get me a dozen Amazons.’

This was the type of demand that could unseat a negotiation in a moment, but Eumenes knew his master’s voice. He nodded.

‘Yes, majesty,’ he said.

And Kleisthenes shuddered.

T
he first flowers bloomed through the last snow in Hyrkania, and the winds coming across the Kaspian were still cold enough for Hyperboreans and strong enough to discourage even the keenest bow-men.

Kineas felt fat. He’d eaten too well and exercised too little, although they’d built a gymnasium and used it, too. He’d never been so cold in his life as in the dead of winter in Hyrkania, when the snow hit like hard-blown sand and the wolves howled every night. And too often his exercise consisted of climbing the steep hill to the citadel, where the queen entertained him with stories in Greek and Persian, the questionable antics of her slaves and the sensuous pleasure of her heated floors and luxurious baths, as well as the more intellectual pleasures of scrolls and singers and poetry.

After Therapon had presented her with too many coloured versions of Kineas’s law court, she asked with a smile to come down the hill and see one - and to see his camp. He had no way to refuse her and so the next day her cavalcade wound its way down from the citadel, a dozen local gentlemen on horseback with some of her guards in hastily polished bronze. She wore a fur-lined cloak over a richly embroidered Scythian jacket and wool trousers tucked into small boots, with a tall Median cap and a veil that covered her eyes without disguising them.

And a sword.

The ground was frozen hard and Kineas’s men put on a display on horse and foot. The Olbian cavalry threw javelins, the prodromoi shot their bows, and the hoplites marched and counter-marched and demonstrated a change of front in the Spartan fashion, to her beaming approval. They shot arrows at targets and she insisted on having a turn, shooting competently, although Kineas allowed himself to note that Srayanka would have filled the targets with arrows while riding at a gallop.

She looked into the wine shops and the brothels of the camp’s marketplace. ‘Am I supplying all the women for your army, Kineas?’ she asked.

Kineas looked away. ‘We brought a few of our own,’ he said.

‘Yes, and a hetaira to manage them,’ Banugul said. She laughed. ‘So well organized. Do the men stand in line waiting their turn when they can’t get Hyrkanian farm girls? Or go without?’ Then she began to recite:

As she spoke, she deepened her voice because it was the male chorus part in
Lysistrata
, and they all laughed with her.

Therapon glanced at Philokles. ‘Perhaps they have no need of women, my lady.’

‘If that were the case,’ she said with a twinkle, ‘“Then why do they hide those lances, that stick out under their tunics?”’ Her wicked paraphrase of Aristophanes made them all laugh again.

Philokles stepped closer to the queen. Looking up at her, he declaimed, ‘“She did it all, the harlot, she - with her atrocious harlotry.”’

Therapon whirled, his face red, but Banugul reached down from her horse and took the Spartan’s hand. ‘I love a man of education,’ she said. ‘You are Philokles the Sophist?’

He laughed, obviously flattered. ‘I am Philokles the Spartan, my lady. I can’t remember being called a sophist, except by Kineas here.’

She beamed. ‘If you can call me a harlot, I can call you a sophist.’

‘I will be more careful of my epigrams,’ Philokles said, clearly stung.

She blew him a kiss. ‘Why do you not come and visit my court, Spartan? All the others come - save Diodorus here, who has ceased to visit me. But you never come.’

‘Sophistry takes all my time,’ Philokles said, gravely.

Diodorus went so red that he turned away, and even Kineas had to stifle a guffaw, while Banugul blushed a little, but she didn’t flinch. ‘Implying that harlotry takes all my time?’

‘I said nothing of the sort,’ Philokles said, drawling the words.

‘Pederasty, more like,’ said Therapon quietly, but his voice carried.

Kineas stepped between them. ‘Philokles, the lady is not a target for your wit.’

‘I can protect myself, Kineas,’ Banugul said. ‘By all the gods, I see now what I missed by staying in my citadel. And I see now why Kineas can parry any little wit I may employ if this is his daily sparring.’

‘More than sparring,’ Therapon said broadly. ‘Perhaps they entertain each other exclusively.’ He leered.

Philokles seemed to ignore the Thessalian’s jibes until later, when the Olbians were showing the queen and her entourage around their log-built gymnasium. Philokles had the queen’s arm and her ear, and he spoke of Greek wrestling and of
pankration
, their unarmed combat sport, until she clapped her hands.

‘I would love to see that,’ she said. ‘I have read so much about it.’

Philokles smiled, and the warrior that lurked under the skin of the philosopher came to the surface. ‘I would be pleased to show you, my lady,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your Therapon would be delighted to fight me chest to chest.’

Therapon was not the kind of man to refuse a challenge, and he stripped. ‘I’m not likely to let you behind me,’ he mocked. ‘I know what naked Greeks do.’

‘We fight naked,’ Philokles said to the queen, by way of apology.

‘My harlotry extends to male nudity,’ Banugul replied.

Philokles dropped his heavy cloak and pulled his wool chiton over his head, exposing the body of a statue. Therapon was heavier and had the start of a gut, although his arms were longer and immensely strong. Kineas tried to catch his friend’s eye.

Banugul put a hand on Philokles’ naked shoulder. ‘I would take it amiss if you hurt my captain,’ she said. Her nails brushed Philokles’ chest as she withdrew her hand. Her smile was a private one, for Philokles alone, and Kineas was appalled to find within himself a tingle of jealousy at their intimacy.

Then the two men were circling on the sand, bent low, intent. They circled long enough for the queen to grow bored and smile self-consciously at her host, when suddenly some shift in posture or intent brought the two contestants together, arms locked high, feet well back as they heaved against each other’s strength. Muscles stood out in strain and, despite the cold, a sheen of sweat covered both men.

Banugul leaned forward, her hands on her hips. Kineas watched her as she watched the contestants.

Philokles changed his weight suddenly, as if surrendering to the Thessalian’s embrace, but he got his body turned as he stepped in. One arm moved and he struck the Thessalian in the head with his forearm and suddenly Therapon was on his back and Philokles landed on him, driving the air from his lungs.

‘He does that to me all the time,’ Kineas said ruefully.

Banugul turned to him, eyes alight with mischief. ‘The things I could imply,’ she said. But she reached out a hand to his chest and shook her head. ‘I am too crude for words. I mean no hurt.’

It was the first time she had touched him. The warmth of her palm on his chest seemed to light a small fire there. She withdrew the hand while he was still surprised by its presence.

Philokles swung to his feet and offered Therapon his hand, but the other man didn’t take it. Instead, he stood brushing sand off his sweat, glowering. Philokles held his eyes. ‘Another throw?’ he asked.

‘Perhaps another time,’ the Thessalian said, and reached for his chiton. Kineas disliked the look the Thessalian gave his friend. It boded ill.

The queen’s tour started a new round of visits between camp and citadel, and the new ties between them did not make Kineas entirely happy. The first thing that annoyed him was Darius, whose skill with the bow and willingness to learn had endeared him to the Olbians. Kineas was becoming used to seeing his officers in the corridors of the citadel from time to time - Banugul had made it clear that they were welcome. But Kineas saw Darius too often, almost every day, and Kineas worried, both for the Persian boy and for his loyalties.