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

I made a face. ‘Why?’

Veteran nodded. ‘Exactly. Why? I may be fucking dead in a few days, if soldier-boy-the-war-god gets a hair up his arse and marches us to Hyperborea. Why can’t I sit and look at her tits? They’re fine, and she won’t come to no harm from me.’

The middle-aged soldier just glowered. Finally he said, ‘What’re you reading?’

I had to smile. ‘Xenophon. On hunting.’

Veteran roared. ‘You’re a fuckin’ officer. Look, lad – that’s a girl . For a tenth of the cost of that scroll – a hundredth – you can have what she offers. Feel alive.’

Middle-age shook his head. ‘The scroll gives him something for ever. That girl will be gone in the morning.’

‘At her age? She’ll be gone in ten minutes – off to another garliceater, eh? Moving from sausage to sausage?’ He laughed at his own witticism. ‘Who cares? When I sit and think—’

‘You fall asleep, old man,’ said Middle-age.

‘Yeah?’ Veteran shot back. ‘Who put the fucking Syrian in the dust when somebody was on his back at Gaza? Eh?’ The older man got up, and just for a moment he wasn’t a drunk fuck – he was a vicious predator with thin limbs and a grizzled beard, and eyes that burned with malice.

Then he subsided. But the other two had flinched.

He tossed a gold stater on to the table and laughed. ‘I’m all blather, boys. Don’t let me piss on your evening.’ His eyes flicked over to me, and I realised he wasn’t as drunk as he let on.

The serving girl came, her eyes drawn by the gold. When her hand reached out for it, Veteran pinned it to the table with his own, and pulled her on to his lap and neatly tucked his tongue inside her throat. She put her arms around his neck.

He came up spluttering and laughing, and gave her the coin. She skipped away, and he shook his head.

‘Where did it go?’ he asked. ‘A gold daric – where’d she put it? Eh? I ask you, gentlemen. I gave her a gold coin, and she made it disappear .’ He laughed, drank off his wine and got to his feet, and I realised that I’d been wrong again – he could barely walk. ‘Well, friends, I’m off to find it. If she hid it where I think.’ He leered. Looked at me. ‘You’re Ptolemy, I think.’

I nodded.

He nodded back. ‘King’s friend?’

I nodded again.

‘Tell him from me he can suck my dick if he thinks I’m doing any more forced marches in the desert for fuck all. Eh? That’s Amyntas son of Philip, phylarch of the third company of the taxeis of Craterus.’ He winked. ‘You think I’m kidding, eh?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I think you’re serious.’

‘You’re not bad, for an officer.’ He was swaying, and the girl, who, when bought, apparently stayed bought, had come back and caught his hand. He clasped hers. ‘He’s made us do some bad shit, eh?’ he said suddenly. ‘Storming a town’s one thing – right? Officer? Whatever you do in a town that refuses to surrender – that’s between you and the gods, eh?’

He spat.

‘But what we did at Gaza . . .’ He looked at the girl. ‘I killed one just like you, honey.’

The other two were taking his arms. I thought he might cry. But he didn’t. He grinned. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘Let me go.’

‘Let him go,’ I said.

The girl pulled his hand, and he laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh, but neither was it the laugh of a broken man.

‘Let him go,’ I said again.

He came back at me. ‘Give me a hug, eh, officer boy?’ he said.

I stood up, because I thought he was serious, and he was. He put his arms around me. ‘What’s it about, eh?’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I just want to know what the fuck it’s about, eh?’

Then he pushed himself away. ‘Sorry. I’m drunk. You smell good, officer. But not as good as my little friend here, who’s waited. Aphrodite, she stayed!’

He smiled at all of us, but most of all at her, and took her away into the dark.

Middle-age shook his head.

‘He’s saved my life ten times,’ he said. ‘Please – don’t report him.’

I sat back down. ‘Relax!’ I said. I caught the attention of another girl, whose breasts, to be frank, were not up to the standard of the first. ‘A krater of wine,’ I said. And then made gestures. Finally I showed her a large silver coin, and she bit it and smiled and ran off, showing her flanks very nicely.

A day’s wages for me . Wine for three.

Bad wine. But I poured for the two of them, as if they were guests in my house, and we drank.

‘He’s a great man, really,’ Middle-age said. ‘But he needs to go home.’

I shot my mouth off, too. ‘He can’t go home,’ I said. ‘Unless you want him to die as a bandit in the mountains. It would be like caging a wild boar.’

Middle-age nodded. ‘That’s what war has made him. It’s all he knows. All I’ll know, soon, too.’ He drank.

‘All they do is complain,’ the farm boy added. ‘It’s glorious serving the king. My pater served Philip and he was in two battles . I’ve already been in two great sieges and a battle.’ He shook his head. ‘Who gives a shit if we kill a bunch of barbarians?’

Middle-age shrugged. ‘You will, boy. Or you won’t. We have both kinds in the phalanx. Except that if you don’t give a shit about them, like enough in time you won’t care about anyone. Not even yourself. And then – you’ll die.’

‘You’re just old and burned out,’ Youth said.

‘Talk to me in twenty more fights, boy.’ Middle-age looked at me. He was half my age again – but I’d been fighting a long time. ‘If you live that long.’

Youth took a big drink, anger written on his face.

And fear.

I bought another round. I seldom thought much about my longevity, or my future. Despite Aristotle and Heron, I lived from day to day.

Some day, I would be King of Aegypt.

That hit me again, and I sat there drinking, my scroll forgotten.

Veteran came back, his girl in tow, and perched her on his knee and drank my wine. He was mellow now, and the girl ran her hands idly over his chest.

He looked at me and laughed. ‘Good hug,’ he said.

I pointed at the girl. ‘She does have the best tits in here,’ I agreed.

He laughed and laughed, and he was still laughing when Marsyas came in. He had Cleomenes and Philip the Red with him, and Kineas and Diodorus, and we embraced as comrades do, and then my three companions tried to escape.

‘They’re good companions,’ I said. ‘Let’s stay and drink with them.’

Marsyas, it proved, knew all of them, and their names – Amyntas son of Philip (one of a dozen I know) and Dion, and Charmides. Marsyas was a poet, and a drinker, and a rogue, and he knew everyone. And we sat and drank, and watched the girls.

That was Memphis.

I worried myself sick about the sacrifice. When it came, it was sacred, but my nerves fell away as if the god touched me, and perhaps he did.

The bull stood, undrugged, in the middle courtyard of the great temple, tethered to a ring but otherwise unconstrained. I had met him three times, so he would know my smell, and I walked up to him, and the crowd of priests and royal advisers and Alexander’s entourage – and Anaximenes, of course – knelt. All except Alexander, who stood just behind me, the only man standing.

The bull saw only me. He moved his head, and I walked very slowly up to him. Dignity has this added benefit – movement with dignity is an excellent practice for calming an animal, whether a horse or a bull.

When I was at his head, I drew the sword I had brought, purified by the priests and fresh from a night on Osiris’s altar, wiped clean to perfection with a cloth provided by the priestess of Hathor and smelling very strongly of Thaïs.