Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

They were.

Poseidon ran on. He was magnificent – like a god himself. I overtook man after man, and these their vaunted best horsemen – and they would either beg for quarter, or make a cut at me with a sword or a spear, and I’d ride them down. One man, I remember well, I caught, and all I had to do was grab a fistful of his chiton and pull on Poseidon’s reins – Poseidon checked, and I pulled him right over his horse’s rump. I left him for slower men to take, and rode on.

Most of their horses foundered all together – ten or twelve in a bunch, the poor animals blowing blood out of their noses where their hearts, shattered by too long a run, had forced it.

They might have run into the woods on Parnassus and avoided me easily enough, but they stood like deer caught in torches and surrendered.

But one man rode on, and I stayed with him. He had the best horse. He was only a blur ahead, and we were riding in moonlight, and Poseidon had been moving for twelve hours, and I became afraid for him. I was not galloping, or even cantering – in fact, I moved at a walk and then a trot, and I got down as frequently as I dared to give him a rest.

I needn’t have worried. He was like a horse of the gods, and as we climbed Parnassus, he seemed to become more powerful, larger, faster . . .

I caught my foe at the top of the pass. He turned his horse, raised his sword and charged me.

I wanted his horse. Poseidon felt my weight shift, and he danced a little to the left, and the darkness betrayed us, and we were down – just like that – and a branch hit me on the head as I fell.

I came to and had no idea how much time had passed.

But I had a vast feeling of fear – of impending danger.

Poseidon gave a scream – not a neigh, but a long, loud call.

I got a foot under me, tripped over a root behind me and fell back so fast that the sword meant to cut me missed entirely. The will of the gods – no doing of mine. I fell backwards into the gully that caught the run-off from the narrow track, and hit my head again, and the earth trembled as in an earthquake.

On the other hand, the pain helped steady me, and I could see my enemy against the moon. He cursed.

I tried to get to my feet. The point of my hip felt as if I’d taken a spear or an arrow. It would support my weight, but I wasn’t going to execute any brilliant throws from pankration.

I started to climb the gully. I could hear Poseidon, and I aimed my climb at him. He had both my spare javelins, and I assumed that with a javelin in hand I could stand off my attacker.

He moved along the top of the gully and laughed grimly. I could hear his horse – breathing like an ironsmith’s bellows. He had his sword in his hand.

‘Come up, lackey of the tyrant, and I’ll gut you,’ he said.

I didn’t bother talking.

He came right to the top of the gully.

I whistled.

Poseidon kicked him, and he gave a cry and fell, clutching his thigh. I took his sword and cut his throat.

Glorious, eh?

He had a magnificent horse – a bay I called Ajax. Big as an elephant. His sons are still in my stable – mixed with Poseidon’s sons.

But both my horses were done in, and I had to walk back to camp, limping all the way.

As soon as I was back, Alexander sent for me, congratulated me and ordered me to Athens with a small escort of cavalry.

‘Take Thaïs,’ he said. ‘The city likes you, and loves her. I don’t care what you do – see to it that Demosthenes cannot raise an army to break my siege.’

Alexander was never bloodthirsty. Far from it – in his mind of wheels and gears, everyone and everything had a purpose and he could never see why people wasted time on anything so inefficient as hate.

And he said outright that if we had to lay siege to Athens, we’d never conquer Asia. ‘Athens could take us six months,’ he said. ‘Thebes I can surround. Athens – we’d need to go home and build a fleet, contest the seas with Lycurgus – at least a year wasted. Perhaps the whole war wasted.’ He shook his head and drank more wine. ‘I hate fighting Greeks. I’m beginning to hate Greeks .’ He looked into his wine cup.

‘Macedonians are better?’ I asked.

‘Amyntas is dead,’ he said. ‘There will be no more trouble in Macedon.’

I shrugged. ‘Unless Parmenio or Antipater decides to take the throne himself.’

Alexander smiled. ‘If I die. Not until. Or am defeated repeatedly in the field.’ His smile widened. ‘Which is never going to happen. I’m invincible.’

I took my grooms under Polystratus. Thaïs and I had an abbreviated reunion. She did not want to go to Athens.

‘I do not want to be treated as a traitor,’ she said.

‘You have a unique opportunity to save lives in Athens,’ I said.

She hit me. It was the only time she ever struck me, but she did it with venom. She meant to hurt me.

She loved Athens.

But she went.

I went with a letter from Alexander demanding that ten leading men of Athens be surrendered to the judgement of the hegemon. I don’t think Alexander meant to execute them – well, to tell you the truth, I doubt that Demosthenes would have survived an hour, but there were so many of us out for his blood . . .

Charmeides and Lycurgus were courageous, if wily, opponents. And they’d have made wonderful hostages. You need to remember the origin of the Hetaeroi – originally, the Hetaeroi and the pages were the sons of captured enemy chiefs and princes – hostages for their father’s good behaviour. It was a Macedonian custom to take prisoners and integrate them into our service – and reward them so richly that they became part of us. Charmeides would have done better with us, but he took ship and fled to Darius. Lycurgus lay low. Demosthenes doubtless pissed on his chiton in terror and hid in a basement.

Thaïs was cursed wherever she went. Her house had graffiti scrawled across the beautiful façade, and men yelled obscenities at her in the street.

But Phokion and Eumeles, Diodorus and Kineas and a thousand men like them stood with us, and the Assembly refused to vote for Demosthenes’ resolution to send an army to support Thebes.

I’m not sure I helped by being in Athens – in fact, I was hit with a stone on my first day and had little to say for a week – but Thaïs did. Despite her fears and her anger, she was unmoved by the catcalls and the vulgarity. She opened her house and held court – and men came.

And she told them what would happen if Macedon stormed Athens. And she drew them pictures of our siege machines. Athens had a few on the walls. She told them what Alexander had at Thebes.

But her most impressive speech was about Persia.

‘Just because Thebes – our ancient enemy – is choosing to waste herself against Macedon,’ she said, ‘must we? Thebes bragged – I heard them – that they were once again allies of the Mede. Is that who we are? Demosthenes has taken money from the Great King – would Miltiades approve? What about Pericles? Socrates? Plato? Did Athenians die at Marathon so that we could be slaves of Persia? Allies of Thebes?’ She shrugged. ‘Thebes is not in revolt against the tyrant of Macedon – Thebes has reverted to her truest self, and turned her back on Greece.’

Nice speech. I give it here in full, because I feel she might have been another Pericles, had she been born with a penis and not a vagina.

Her words, in Phokion’s mouth – and that was a matter for bitter mirth in itself, because Phokion and Eumeles hated her – and Demosthenes’ faction was wrecked.

The Athenians voted to send a delegation of ten men to Alexander to crave forgiveness. They sent Phokion to lead it, and Kineas with a squadron of elite Hippeis as an escort.