Paul Doherty: A Murder in Thebes

“If the Thebans begin to move,” he declared, “tell me.”

Once inside his tent Alexander let the flap fall and sighed, his shoulders sagging. He took off the leather corselet, threw it on the ground, and slumped down onto a camp stool.

“What’s the matter?”

Alexander looked up startled. Two figures sat on cushions at the far end of the tent. Alexander peered through the gloom; one of the figures moved: a woman, rather tall and wiry with a clever pointed face, her oiled hair bound with a fillet. She picked up a cushion, came and knelt beside Alexander.

“What’s the matter?” She put a hand on his knee, her fingers pressing the leather kilt. “Alexander, are you ill?”

The king raised his head and grinned at Miriam.

“I had forgotten I had invited you here. . I am sorry, Simeon.” He gestured at the man still squatting on the cushions. “Come closer.”

The man joined his sister. Alexander stared at them. The two Israelites, Miriam and Simeon Bartimaeus, childhood companions who had joined him in the groves of Midas where his father, Philip, had sent him to be educated by the foppish, brilliant Aristotle. Simeon was slightly shorter than his sister, more closed-faced. Miriam, if she hadn’t look so sharp, would have been pretty, with her large, lustrous eyes and slender nose, but that determined mouth would put many a man off. She showed a steely determination; this reminded Alexander of his mother, Olympias, now busy ruling in Pella and slaughtering any opposition. He sighed and ruffled his hair.

“I thought I was alone. My men are tired, exhausted, and now we face a crack infantry that, at a moment’s notice, can scuttle behind thickset walls.” He grasped Miriam’s hand and squeezed it. “Tell me again, Miriam, how this happened! Read the draft of that proclamation I am going to issue.”

Miriam leaned back on her heels, head slightly to one side. Alexander was gray with exhaustion. Like all of them, he had hardly bathed or changed. They had been campaigning in the mountains of Thessaly, mandating that the savage tribes accept Alexander’s rule. News had come, seeping through like a breeze in the forest, rumors from Greece, that a revolt in the Macedonian capital of Pella against Alexander’s mother had been successful. That Alexander himself had been killed, his Macedonian army annihilated. That the League of Corinth, that confederation of Greek cities forced by Alexander to accept his lordship, were plotting revolt, taking gold from the Persian King Darius. Alexander raised his head.

“What are you waiting for, Miriam?”

“If you win the battle,” she answered tartly, “there’ll be no need for a proclamation. All of Greece will know that you are still alive, that you are king and that you are ever victorious.”

Alexander stared at this sharp-spoken young woman. “And if we lose the battle?”

Miriam smiled slightly, “Proclamations will be the last thing on our minds.”

Alexander threw his head back and laughed.

“Some wine,” he murmured. “Three cups, two-thirds water.” Simeon got up, filled the goblets, and brought them back on a tray. The king took one and handed it to Miriam. He waited until Simeon sat down and took his and then toasted them quietly.

“Father has been dead twelve months,” he murmured. “I have troops in Persia and I have taught the Thessalians a lesson they’ll never forget. Now I return to find trouble in my own garden.”

“It’s only Thebes,” Simeon murmured.

“It’s only Thebes,” Alexander mimicked. He jabbed a finger at the entrance to the tent. “Out there, my dear Simeon, throng the delegates from every city in Greece. In their wallets jingle the golden darics of Persia; Thebes’ revolt is serious. It’s thrown off my rule, killed my officers.” Alexander’s face grew hard. “That’s what I wanted to see you about. It’s blockaded my garrison in the fortress of the Cadmea. Now they shout defiance from the walls. If I don’t teach the Thebans a lesson, then by this time next week Athens, Corinth, Argos, will all be in revolt, the fires of rebellion breaking out all over Greece.”

“Thebes will be defeated,” Miriam declared.

Alexander shook his fist and stared above their heads as if talking to someone else.

“I’ll not leave one stone upon another,” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes half closed. “I’ll teach Greece a lesson it will never forget.” He blinked and lowered his fist. “Simeon, you’ve sent my orders out to the commanders?”

“If the city is taken,” Simeon repeated Alexander’s stark commands, “every house is to be leveled and plunder taken; fighting men will be killed, women, children, and the aged taken to the slave pens. Only the house of Pindar the poet will be spared.”

“And the temples?” Alexander asked. “You told them about the temples?”

“You know I did,” Simeon replied crossly. “No temple is to be entered, no priest or priestess violated!”

“Especially?”

“Especially,” Simeon continued, “the small shrine of Oedipus in the Archon quarter.”

“Why is that?” Miriam asked.

“It is a very small and ancient temple,” Alexander explained. “It stands in its own olive groves. Father took me there once on a visit to Thebes; it is built out of white marble in a sea of quiet greenness.” Alexander closed his eyes. “The path up to it is a dusty chalk. I remember holding father’s hand. You turn a corner and the shrine’s there: white columns, crumbling steps leading up to a porticoed entrance. The doors are of Lebanese wood reinforced with brass studs. Inside there is a small vestibule; the walls are white and there is a black marble floor. Yes, yes.” Alexander’s face was like a boy’s flushed with excitement. “On the right is a small shrine to the god Apollo. Yes.” Alexander opened his eyes. “And on the left. . ” His eyes were bright. Miriam felt a pang: Alexander was going back to his childhood, when the father he’d adored deigned to show him some love and affection. Cunning, one-eyed Philip with his lame leg and his gruff manner that was interspersed by moments of brilliant charm. Philip could treat an individual as if he or she were the only person in the world. Great Philip, Warrior King, cruelly slain by one of his own bodyguards.

“To the left,” Alexander continued, “is a statue of Oedipus. He was King of Thebes.” He explained, “ Oedipus can mean lame foot. As a child Oedipus was abandoned by his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta. He was raised by shepherds.” He waved his hands. “You know the story from Sophocles’ three brilliant plays. Oedipus grew to manhood. He later killed his own father, married his own mother, and the gods turned against him.” Alexander paused as he picked at the leather kilt, studying one of the brass embossments that had worked loose.

Miriam held her breath. She knew the story, the legend of Oedipus. In many ways it might also be the story of Alexander. People accused Alexander of having had a hand in his father’s murder, and they maintained that the relationship between Alexander and his mother, Olympias, bordered on the unnatural. Both were blasphemous lies. Alexander had been innocent of Philip’s death. Miriam knew the full truth behind it. And as for Olympias, no one was more wary of his mother than Alexander. Privately he called her Medea, deeply concerned as he was by her lust for blood, her practice of secret rites, and her constant demands that her authority and status be enhanced.

“You were talking about the shrine?” Simeon broke in.

“Yes yes, so I was.” Alexander picked up his wine goblet and swirled it round. Despite the water, it looked like blood. He sipped at it. It was coarse and bitter. He had finished his own wine stores weeks ago and now he was drinking the same coarse Posca as his soldiers.