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

‘Really?’ he asked. ‘I feel like a buffoon. I talk too much, and she must think I’m a boy.’ He looked at me. ‘She’s so . . . mature. Almost godlike in her wisdom – when those eyes fall on me, I’m afraid I’ll babble.’

There was a gentle tap at the tent door, or rather the poles to support the door, and in came four slaves, all Hyrkanians, carrying two bronze kettles. They bowed very deeply, lifted the lids and the oldest man proclaimed, in a sing-song voice –

‘The queen sends these, the best food of her table, to her young friend. Eat, and be joyful!’

He bowed again, and withdrew.

Alexander needed no second urging. He ate.

I ate too. It was stewed antelope with raisins – delicious – and with wonderful bread.

We ate well, and I had our slaves take the cauldrons around the duty Hetaeroi as well – there was food for forty.

Thaïs met with the queen, using a pair of slaves as interpreters, and in two hours they hammered out an agreement. Ada became Alexander’s vassal, but more, she adopted him as her son.

Thaïs smiled. ‘She wanted to marry him,’ she said. ‘I knew she would. And he’d have done it.’

‘Zeus, god of kings,’ I muttered. ‘A forty-year-old barbarian queen? Blood everywhere. Civil war.’

‘Adoption seemed better,’ Thaïs said.

That night, we celebrated with a feast, and Alexander gave her two hundred men from the hypaspists to help her take the citadel after he marched away. She turned and kissed him.

We had sword dances, and Queen Ada danced the Pyricche with some of her soldiers. She danced very well.

Alexander drank far too much. I tried to stop him – he was drinking unwatered wine at the speed I was drinking it with three waters.

Finally I took the cup from him. Ada was gazing into his eyes and laughing. Wine made her far more feminine.

Alexander turned and looked up at me, and Ada rolled away and went decorously down off the dais – I assume off to piss. It was quite a party.

‘Give me my wine cup, Ptolemy!’ Alexander commanded, and then he giggled.

‘Planning to take her to your bed?’ I asked.

He blushed. Here’s how fierce his blush was – even in firelight, you could see it.

‘You can get drunk, or you can get laid,’ I said. ‘But you will almost never get drunk and do a good job of getting laid.’

Alexander shook his head. ‘So vulgar. Wine . . . has truth in it! Makes me happy. Please give me my wine.’

‘Let’s dance!’ Ada said, returning.

Some of the men were none too happy to see women at a dinner – Philotas, for example – and he spat. ‘The King of Macedon does not dance!’ he said.

Alexander would not have danced, otherwise. But he got up – barely able to walk.

‘I will dance,’ he said.

Then nothing would do for him but he must dance the Pyricche, and in his own equipment. So Ochrid was sent for his harness and spears, and then Ada admitted, coyly, that she had her own harness – gods, it was all I could do not to giggle and retch at the same time.

Philotas got up. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself with this old hag,’ he said. And stumbled off to bed. Macedonians had a habit of speaking their minds, especially when drunk.

But the musicians struck up the Pyricche, and although the Macedonian version was very different – and far more practical – Ada learned it as fast as I can describe the movements to you. She was imitating the king by the third cycle of the dance – leaping, ducking, menacing with her spear, hiding behind her shield – which was itself full-sized.

I was impressed. Even Thaïs was impressed. Ada could dance, and she had the kind of mind that perfectly controlled her body.

‘Is she a woman-lover?’ I asked.

‘How would I know?’ Thaïs said – with the slightest downturn of her lips. Indicating that this was none of my business.

Ada stamped, turned, clashed her spear on the king’s shield – and launched into doing the dance in opposition, the way I’d have done it if I was dancing with the king, so that instead of two dancers in perfect unison, now she thrust when he ducked, parried when he thrust, leaped in the air when his spear whirled low.

He was drunk, and she was untrained, and they were magnificent. They were so good that the musicians began to play faster.

Alexander seemed to grow with the music – he began to stretch himself. He was a superb warrior, and he knew the dance intimately, and now he began to embellish every movement with subtle additions – the sort of things that old Cleitus used to encourage us to do, to help us remember what the Pyricche was for – to make us better fighters. So Alexander began to make his cuts steeper and more dangerous – rolled his hips to snap his shield forward.

Ada copied him, and added a sinuous martial element of her own.

I only ever saw one other woman who struck me as being a real warrior – a fighter, the way I am. Perhaps there would be more if women weren’t so busy making babies, but Ada was the real thing, and she was breathtaking to watch.

I was afraid one of them would be killed. They were competing, now, to strike harder and faster, and the music was flying . Everyone was clapping. Sweat was pouring off them both, and their spears left trails of fire in the air. Remember that he had taken a cut to the head that bit into his skull at Granicus, and that we’d been marching for days.

I walked over to the musicians, my heart in my mouth, and made a spear-point with my fingers. The flautist nodded sharply.

They played through the tune once more at speed.

The pipes whirled, and they played more slowly, and then more slowly, the tide of the music rising to compensate for the decreased speed, and both the dancers drew back together; both cocked their spears back, together . . .

And as the music ended, they fell together, giggling, in a clash of armour. Thaïs took my hand. ‘Come,’ she said.

I followed her, and we caught the king and Ada, still leaning on each other, and we led them to the tower’s guest chambers. Slaves had taken the king’s clothes when he put his armour on, and they lay on a cedar chest.

I got his thorax off while he laughed, and his greaves, and I towelled him myself as if I were his slave. He ruffled my hair.

‘That was pretty good, wasn’t it?’ he said.

I hate being cast as a sycophant. On the other hand, it had been . . . magnificent. Almost unearthly. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ I said. Then I thought – Athena sent me the words – be generous. It was magnificent . ‘It was magnificent,’ I said.

‘What I love best about your praise,’ the king said, ‘is how unwillingly you give it.’

He had new bruises where his thorax bit into the top of his pectoral muscles.

A voice at the door said, ‘Wine for the king.’

I turned to find Thaïs, handing me wine. ‘Come!’ she said. ‘Leave him!’

So I handed him the wine. ‘I’m sure you can dress yourself,’ I said.

Thaïs reached through the door and pulled at my arm, and I fled, but not before I’d seen Ada come in the other door of the chamber, naked. Alexander had stopped noticing me, by then.

‘You are a wicked, wicked matchmaker,’ I muttered to Thaïs.

She laughed. ‘He’s not going to marry her – so what’s the harm?’ She laughed. ‘Wine makes men randy – even the King of Macedon.’

‘Even Ptolemy,’ I said, catching her against a wall hanging. I loved the feel of her naked hips under her chitons – there was something about lifting her skirts that always made me wild, even when I could have her naked. I was hard in a deep breath, and we were as busy as the king and the queen in another.