became, but a handsome middle-aged man who’d seen a lot of war and who was Parmenio’s chief rival at court. I received orders to report to his quarters in the palace, and I went, newly shaved, scrubbed like a helmet, with more pimples than scars, as the Macedonians say, except that in my case, I actually had a few scars.
‘Well,’ Antipater said, looking down his long nose at me. His son Cassander was no friend of mine, and he had to know it. And had been passed over for command, serving as a mere file-closer. I was worried about this interview, and my hands shook.
I was in armour – I saluted.
Antipater returned the salute. ‘Well,’ he said again.
He looked at me for a long time. ‘Cage your eyes, damn you,’ he said. ‘If I want to be stared at by a child, I’ll tell you.’
I looked at the floor.
‘How much grain does a donkey eat in a day?’ he asked.
‘Eight pounds a day. More in the mountains.’ These were things I knew.
‘How much grain can you count on getting in the Thracian hills?’ he asked.
‘None, lord,’ I answered.
He scratched his beard. ‘How much for a warhorse?’
‘Twice as much, and as much again on a day he fights,’ I said.
He made a motion with his mouth – when I got to know him better, I knew it was disapproval. ‘Kill chargers with overfeeding,’ he said. ‘Don’t they teach you babies better than that?’
I looked at the floor.
‘How much grain does a man eat a day?’ he asked.
I’d run the pages’ mess for two years. I gave him amounts for boys, men, women . . .
‘You’ll do. You have a head on your shoulders and no mistake. What’s the most important thing about a campsite? Look at me, boy.’
I looked at him again. His face was grim.
‘Water,’ I said. ‘Water, high ground that drains in rain, defensibility, access to firewood, access to forage for horses, in that order.’
Antipater nodded. ‘You remember your lessons,’ he said. ‘I’m not coming on this expedition. So I’m sending Laodon with you, but you – you, young Ptolemy – are going to run the supplies. I’ll send you two of my own slaves, who’ve done this sort of thing before. They’re Greeks – they can do mathematics and they understand how to feed an army. Let me offer you this piece of advice, boy – war runs on scouting and food, not heroism and not fancy armour. Philotas is going to run the scouting and you are going to run the food.’
I nodded, but my annoyance crossed my face. Of course it did – I was seventeen.
‘You think you are a better scout and it’s the more dashing occupation?’ Antipater asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘Then you’re more of a fool than I took you for, and perhaps fit for neither. Yes, it is dashing, but a well-fed army will win a fight even when surprised, whereas brilliant scouting can’t get an unwilling army to cross a stream. Listen, boy. There’s trouble at court – you know it?’ He leaned towards me, and I leaned back. Antipater was scary.
And I never, never talked about court matters with adults – not even my father. I looked at him with my carefully calculated look of bovine placidity. ‘Huh?’ I said.
‘My son says you are dull.’
I shrugged. Looked at the ground.
‘Very well,’ he dismissed me.
I was still shaking when Philotas and Cleitus found me. They put a cup of wine into me, and thus emboldened, I collected my two new slaves – Antipater actually gave them to me. Myndas was the older and handsomer, and Nichomachus was younger and thin, too tall, with a dreadful wispy beard and pimples worse than mine.
‘Zeus, they look like shit,’ Philotas said. ‘Hey – who are you two and why is Antipater giving you away?’
They both looked at the ground, shrugged and shuffled, like slaves. Nonetheless, it was obvious to me that Myndas had been a free man once. And that Nichomachus never had.
‘I gather both of you can do mathematics?’ I said.
More shuffling.
But Myndas produced an abacus, and proceeded to rattle off some remarkable maths problems, muttering under his breath. Philotas, who liked cruel games, shot problems at him faster and faster – absurd problems, obscene problems.
‘If every soldier fucks his shield-bearer twice a day,’ Philotas said in his nasty, sing-song voice, ‘and if he needs a spoonful of olive oil to get it done each time, and if there’s two thousand footsloggers in the army, how much olive oil does the army need every day?’
Myndas didn’t raise his eyes. ‘How big a spoon, master?’ he asked.
‘Whatever you use yourself,’ Philotas answered, and Cleitus guffawed.
Adolescent humour. With boys, it is the humour of the stronger vented on the weaker, and nothing is weaker than a slave.
But they were my slaves, and I’d never owned a man besides my shield-bearer, so I shook my head.
‘Very funny. Myndas, don’t mind him – he can’t help himself. Some day he’ll get laid and stop talking about it.’ I grinned at Philotas to take out the sting, and got punched – hard – in the shoulder.
But he laid off Myndas. It’s important that your slaves see you as someone who can protect them, and since I was to command a troop, I needed Philotas to see that I had limits and would protect my own.
All fun and games, in the pages.
I needed horses, and so did Cleitus. My pater’s factor was in town with orders to give me anything I wanted – my pater was a distant man, but he did his best to equip me. So I spent his money on two more chargers to support Poseidon, and I gave my two old chargers to Cleitus. I put my two slaves on mules. I went out to Polystratus’s farm and offered him silver to march with me. He was a Thracian himself.
He looked at his wife, his new daughter and his farm – a few acres of weeds and some oats. A hard existence.
‘Double that,’ he said. ‘I need some money.’
‘That’s the pay of a royal companion!’ I said.
Polystratus shrugged. ‘I don’t have to go,’ he said. ‘My wife needs me, and my daughter. I could be starting on a son.’ He looked at her and she smiled, blushed, looked at the ground.
Of course I paid him. I gave him a mina of silver down, and then followed him around while he packed his kit, gave his wife a third of the money and then marched up the hill to the headman. I stood as witness while he used his advance of pay to triple his landownership and to pay the headman’s own sons to till the new land for him while he was absent.
Polystratus was not a typical Thracian.
We rode back together, and I bought him a pair of horses. It was all Pater’s money – what did I care? I got him a good leather spola and a nice helmet with heavy cheekpieces. He had his own spears and sword, and he spent his own money on a donkey. And by evening, he had a pais – a slave boy to carry his gear and do his work.
I had to laugh. But I did so where Polystratus couldn’t see me.
That evening, I found that Myndas was sitting in the courtyard of the barracks, and Nichomachus was writing his sums on wax and saying them back. Since I was the mess-master of the pages, I knew the numbers they were doing like I knew my name, so I stopped and stood with them. They didn’t make mistakes, but in a few moments I surprised them by knowing how to multiply one hundred and ninety-eight pages by six mythemnoi of grain.
This was the first of many generational differences between Philip’s men and Alexander’s men. They hadn’t had Aristotle. They’d learned enough maths to buy a slave to do the work, but I could work Pythagoras’s solutions to geometry in my head. And so could Cassander and so could Philotas and so could Cleitus, on and on.
Myndas kept his eyes down. ‘You . . . can you use this, lord?’ he asked, rattling his abacus.
‘Yes, if I had a mind to,’ I admitted. ‘But I can do most of the numbers in my head – especially any maths to do with the pages and feeding them.’ I slapped him on the back. ‘Has the prince set the army yet? I’ve been gone
