Christian Cameron - Funeral Games

‘Stratokles!’ Coenus called.

Melitta put an arrow on her bow.

The Athenian actually smiled. He lowered his sword. ‘Gods, my luck has held! Listen! I surrender!’ His grin broadened. ‘A man of honour, in all this rout!’

Coenus slowed his mount to a walk and his men moved to surround the Athenian’s companions. ‘Drop your sword,’ Coenus said.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘Let’s have an understanding,’ he said, exchanging a look with one of his companions. ‘I have someone very valuable here. And I know things – things very important to your Ptolemy. Understand?’

‘I understand you killed my mother,’ Melitta shouted.

Stratokles turned his head. ‘Like fuck I did, honey. One of Eumeles’ guardsmen did that – after she cut off my nose.’ He shook his head, annoyed. ‘Nothing personal about it, girl. Just politics.’ Stratokles whispered something to his captive and she squirmed. ‘Give me a safe conduct and I’ll give you the girl,’ he said.

Melitta found that it wasn’t that hard, even after a long day, to keep her bow at full draw, but Amastris’s movements were spoiling her aim. ‘Look at me, Stratokles,’ she said.

He didn’t look at her. He touched his booted heels to his horse’s sides, and the mare backed up. ‘I don’t think you’ll shoot through the tyrant’s daughter to get me,’ he said. To Coenus, he added, ‘I’m perfectly willing to surrender, just not to be murdered.’

‘No need to surrender,’ Lucius said in his low voice from behind them. ‘Sorry I’m late, boss.’

‘I have your life in my hand, Stratokles,’ Melitta said.

Lucius had a blade at Hama’s throat. ‘Lady, look around you. I have ten men to your six.’ He shook his head. ‘And you can’t keep that arrow drawn all night.’

Coenus laughed grimly. ‘You don’t know her. Stratokles, call off your dog and I’ll call off mine.’

Stratokles nodded. ‘Done. Amastris is going with you. Lucius, did you get the other one?’

Lucius grunted. ‘Of course.’

Stratokles laughed. Around them, there was fighting, and the sound of a camel screaming filled the night. ‘Time we all went our separate ways.’

Coenus glared at Melitta. ‘Put up!’ he said.

‘He killed my mother!’ Melitta said. ‘I want him dead. You are all fools if you think that my life is worth my oath and my revenge. I don’t mind dying!’

Coenus’s arm touched hers and she lowered her arrow. She saw Stratokles motion at his man, and the big Italian let his sword fall away from Hama’s throat.

Stratokles tipped the princess on to the sand. ‘See? I keep my part of the bargain,’ he said. He bowed from the saddle. ‘Princess? I hope we meet again.’

Amastris picked herself up. ‘I’ve learned a great deal from you, sir,’ she said.

Stratokles laughed. ‘I won’t even charge you for it.’

Stratokles turned his horse, nimbler now with just one rider, and rode for it. His men followed him.

Melitta shook her head. ‘You have a lot to answer for,’ she said to Coenus.

Coenus shrugged. ‘You’ll thank me yet,’ he said.

One of Lucius’s men spat as they slowed. There was no pursuit.

‘All that loot and nothing to show for it,’ he complained.

Stratokles was tired, but the encounter in the sand had filled him with fire and he laughed again. ‘Nothing?’ he asked. ‘We have Alexander’s son.’ He pointed at the huddled figure of Herakles, bundled in Lucius’s arms.

Men whistled softly.

Stratokles led the way up the coast, riding like a conqueror.

‘I rather liked him,’ Amastris said.

Melitta didn’t answer. With Coenus and Hama, she and her escort trotted across the battlefield at the edge of night. There were beasts out already – vultures and worse creatures feasted on the dead. Melitta saw elephants being herded by frightened men, and hordes of Macedonian prisoners – thousands of captured pikemen from the shattered centre. She rode past them.

‘What are you thinking?’ Amastris asked.

Melitta said nothing, only pressed her charger harder. She had a feeling Moira was lying heavily on her. That feeling pressed harder the faster she rode, until she saw a circle of men standing in the last light. They were the only men on the battlefield who were not looting, except for some slaves already busy burying the dead.

They parted for her horse, and there was her brother.

Alive. She breathed in and out.

Philokles.

‘He’s dead,’ Satyrus said. He looked old, even in the ruddy light of the burning town. ‘He said goodbye to you.’

Melitta fell into her brother’s arms.

‘Xeno asked for you, but you weren’t here,’ Satyrus said.

‘Amastris needed to be rescued. I – failed to kill Stratokles.’ It was like telling Sappho how she had spent her day. Satyrus’s expression was wrong.

Behind her, Coenus choked and gave a great cry.

‘No!’ Melitta said. But she didn’t need to look at the cloak-wrapped body next to Philokles to know who it was. Xenophon’s death was stamped on her brother’s face for ever – the death of his youth. She could see it with the same inevitability that she could see that she carried the dead boy’s child.

‘We never-’ Satyrus said, and then he turned his face away. ‘It’s not about me,’ he said bitterly.

‘What are you all doing?’ Amastris asked. ‘Satyrus? Is that you?’

Satyrus stepped away from his sister and took his love in his arms. ‘Amastris!’ he said.

Amastris kissed him and looked around. ‘I’m sorry for them,’ Amastris said softly. ‘But Ptolemy won, love. You won.’

‘Not tonight,’ Satyrus said. He looked up at the sound of hoof beats, and saw the Exiles coming with a baggage train of loot and captured slaves. And then Diodorus was there, and Leon, and other men who loved Philokles and Xenophon.

T he army of Aegypt gathered its heroic dead for return to Aegypt. Ptolemy collected his looters and his army and thrust north, scattering Demetrios but failing to catch him, and came back to Gaza rich in loot and plunder and leaving Palestine a flaming disaster behind him.

Satyrus and Melitta, like most of the survivors of the battle, spent a day unable to move, and then were pressed into duties – burying the dead. Hauling food.

There were never enough slaves, after a battle. And the danger of renewed conflict was, at first, very real. Demetrios saved most of his cavalry. His patrols began to prowl the shore north of Gaza.

Weeks passed. Ptolemy took his cavalry on a deep raid into Palestine, and cities opened their gates to him. Diodorus rode at his side, and the loot was legendary. But finally, Ptolemy turned for home, and the Phalanx of Aegypt led the march, fourteen hundred veterans. When they entered Alexandria, they sang the Paean, and the crowds cheered them as they cheered no other troops, and Namastis embraced Diokles and Amyntas and Satyrus and Abraham when they were dismissed as if they were all brothers.

And fathers and mothers wept for the dead.

But the war, and the world, marched on.

Alexander’s funeral games had cost a few thousand more lives. But there was still no shortage of contestants.

A week after they returned to Alexandria, Leon sent Satyrus to the slave market with twenty talents of pure gold and Diokles and Abraham as his lieutenants. ‘Buy the best of the Macedonian prisoners,’ Leon said.

‘What for?’ Melitta asked. Everything made her grumpy now – Sappho’s displeasure and Coenus’s too-careful attention.

‘They’ll be the core of our infantry,’ Leon said. ‘Next summer. When we sail for the Euxine.’