I was, for once, unhurt. I looked around at our men, and then I looked down into the square – I’d once again stormed a house to get into its tower for the view.
Batis had about four thousand men still prepared to fight, facing twice that. And he had little food and no water.
The herald was terrified. We were the evil enemy he’d heard so much about, and he wasn’t a real herald but some Persian nobleman’s son – proud, brave and polite.
I shrugged. ‘Tell the noble Batis that he will have to surrender without terms. I have him either way.’
The boy gulped. ‘I . . . I was charg-ged t-to say th-that—’
‘I won’t eat you, lad. Say your piece.’ Someone brought me a bunch of grapes and I started devouring them.
‘We will fight to the end-d if y-you won’t promise us our f-freedom.’ He stood straight. ‘W-we won’t be slaves!’ he said suddenly.
Alexander had enslaved all the Greeks after Granicus. All those he didn’t massacre. I nodded. ‘That’s up to the king, lad.’
Batis, after some deliberation, decided on the better course, and surrendered. I marched his men out of the city immediately, lest he change his mind – out of the main gate and down on to the plain, surrounded by Macedonians.
Batis led his men in surrender. He was a mighty figure and a noble one, unbowed by defeat. And what a defeat! Two months, toe to toe with our entire army. I found it difficult to hate him, now that he was walking behind me. He was canny, but not mean-spirited. He released to me all of our wounded that he’d captured – he hadn’t cut their hands off, he hadn’t blinded them. He’d seen to it they had doctors. He’d actually saved twenty of my own men – men I loved and valued.
We marched out on to the plain of Gaza, and Hephaestion came with the king.
Amyntas, who was expert at currying favour, had brought some sample plunder out of the town. It was a rich town, and my troops were going through it with ruthless efficiency even as we accepted Batis’s surrender. But Amyntas found the prize – a royal chariot, possibly even one kept for Darius, sheathed in gold. He found a team to draw it, too. He led it down on to the plain, rather than driving it. And he presented it to Alexander when the king emerged from his tent.
Alexander embraced him carefully – his shoulder must have hurt like fire – and mounted the chariot. With a strange team, in front of twenty thousand men, he drove the chariot effortlessly across the sand to where Batis waited.
Batis stood as straight as an old tree. Other Persians fell on their faces. Batis looked at his conqueror with neither fear nor fawning.
Alexander stopped the chariot. Two files of hypaspitoi joined him.
He looked at me. ‘What terms, my friend?’ he asked.
That didn’t sound good. ‘No terms,’ I said. ‘But I would ask for their lives.’
Alexander nodded curtly. Now he turned and looked at Batis. ‘Say something,’ he said.
Batis locked his eyes with the king’s. He was a head taller.
He crossed his arms and stood negligently.
Alexander walked up to him. ‘I can order your garrison massacred – or sold into slavery. You are not a soldier of Darius, Batis – you are a rebel against me. You understand that? Darius is no longer King of Asia.’
Alexander was angry. His spit flew into the Persian’s face.
Batis didn’t even seem to blink.
‘I have summoned this town to surrender five times,’ Alexander said in a loud, clear voice. ‘And I was mocked each time.’
No one moved. Batis allowed himself the smallest smile of contempt.
Alexander made a motion with his hand, and the hypaspitoi seized Batis and threw him to the ground.
‘Strip him,’ Alexander said. He took a spear from another hypaspist – a dory, twice the height of a man – and snapped it in two in the middle.
Batis remained silent. Two hypaspists pinned him while a third cut his clothing off with a sharp sword. He bled. He began to struggle and Alectus slammed his fist into the Persian’s temple. Batis thrashed and Alectus hit him again.
‘When you resist, you waste my time,’ Alexander said. He took half the broken spear – the half with the head attached – and walked over to Batis. He thrust the spear into Batis’s leg, near the foot – I thought he was just prodding him, but then he leaned his weight on it, and Batis grunted, the cords in his neck showing like ropes as he struggled not to scream. He was a brave man.
Alexander punched the spearhead out through the other side of the leg at the ankle, and thrust again, against the whole weight of Batis’s thrashing leg, with superhuman strength, and his blow was sure. He penetrated the other ankle, at the back near the heel.
Batis moaned and gave a strangled cry.
Alexander looked up from his task. ‘You read about Achilles doing this,’ he said, conversationally. ‘But you have to wonder what it’s like to do it – and now I know.’ He kicked Batis’s near ankle and pulled the spear shaft through so that the spear penetrated
A slave held a towel while the king wiped his hands. Hypaspitoi tied the spear shaft to the back of the chariot.
The king looked at what they’d done and shook his head. ‘You need knots
He smiled at Amyntas. ‘My thanks for the chariot. A godsent opportunity.’
Batis coughed and choked – a very brave man struggling not to scream, knowing that when the first one came out, he’d never stop until he died.
In every life there are things for which we do not forgive ourselves. I cannot forgive myself for not stepping forward and putting my spear into Batis. He deserved a hero’s death.
Alexander smiled at Batis. ‘You wanted to be Hector. And now, you are!’
He cracked a whip and the horses moved, and Batis screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
Alexander drove up and down until the Persian was dead. Then he stopped the chariot in front of us, stepped down and nodded to Hephaestion and Parmenio, who stood as stunned as I was. The army was cheering him.
He didn’t look at me. He beckoned to Parmenio.
I knew what he was going to do. I watched, unable to make myself act, with revulsion and a certain weariness, the way I used to watch when he would go out of his way to make Philip his father unhappy, or to embarrass Aristotle.
‘Kill them all,’ Alexander said, waving his hand at the town. ‘It’s time they learned not to waste my time.’
Parmenio glanced at the garrison. ‘All?’ he asked.
Alexander made a face. ‘No, keep all the eunuchs with two left feet alive. Yes. All! Everyone!’
And then he turned and walked across the sand, surrounded by hypaspitoi. Back to his tents. And left us to the blood, and the killing.
TWENTY-SEVEN
In the aftermath of the capture of Tyre, I heard a great deal of ugly grumbling from the friends – the inner circle – about the last year. The murder of Batis shocked us all. The manner of it – the bloody-handed tyranny of it – shocked the aristocrats and the army’s leaders.
For the first time, I heard it suggested openly that the king was insane.
I didn’t think he was insane – if he had ever been sane by the standards of normal men, he still was. But the enormous wound he’d taken and the drugs Philip must have put into him to keep him on his feet – by Apollo’s bow, I
