mouth of the Danube, although we found some Amphilopolans who had traded there. But it was a brilliant outflanking move. If it worked. The ships would leave well before the army marched. If the army marched.
One night, I lay in some straw between Cleitus and the king. We were passing a gourd full of wine. Outside, the wind howled. Alectus had just informed the king that we’d lost a little over a hundred men to exposure and the arrows of the Lord of Contagion that month.
I was keeping the Military Journal, by then – in effect, I coordinated everyone’s military reporting, and that had become my major job. Antipater did it for Philip, and he taught me – but I added to the job. I went around to all the regiments and appointed a record-keeping officer – sometimes with the help of the commander, and sometimes in spite of him. Perdiccas called my officers the ‘king’s spies’. The thing was, the king needed to know the truth. Bluster didn’t cut it when you needed a return of effective soldiers, or when we needed to know how many horses and how many riders were available for a particular mission, or which horses needed new tack before the army could march.
And at the same time, the king was paying – with League funds – for a gradual re-armouring of the whole Macedonian army. And that cost money, but it also required endless lists, inventories, record-keeping, tracking inventory . . .
It was all glory and arete, let me tell you.
At any rate, that’s why I was lying wrapped in my cloak in a pile of straw in a freezing-cold barn in northern Macedon, snuggled between the commander of the king’s bodyguard and the king himself, listening to Alectus tell us his figures on sick and injured, with every word sending plumes of mist rising from his mouth. It was
Alexander dismissed him with a cup of hot wine and rolled over. ‘As soon as the passes are clear,’ he said dreamily.
‘Why don’t we go now?’ I asked. ‘I mean, as soon as I can put together a logistics head of food and fodder.’
Alexander laughed. ‘Because that trick will only work once, and I want to save it for a tougher opponent.’
Sometimes, he was scary.
But later, when Alectus was obviously still awake, I turned towards him.
‘What did you learn at Delphi?’ I asked him.
He laughed. ‘I learned that I will live a few years yet, and the king is going to be a god.’ He laughed again.
The passes cleared. Before they cleared, I had all the grain in north-west Macedon gathered in fifty new-built stone granaries that cost a fortune to build and required men to keep roaring fires going all day and all night to keep the ground soft and let the mortar harden without freezing.
All in a day’s work.
We marched from Amphilopolis, headed north, and we moved fast. We had preset camps with supplies waiting at every halt. We flew.
At Neopolis we joined up with our baggage train, and I was reunited with Thais, who was fresh and pink- cheeked and looked like a maiden. Most of the army’s wives and sweethearts – and prostitutes and sex toys – came to Neopolis and marched with us. We crossed the Nestus and marched all the way to Philipopolis. The Thracians were conspicuous by their absence.
Thais shared my tent and my cloak. Her field household was now reduced to three – her steward, Anonius, from Italy, a Thracian, Strako and a Libyan woman, Bella, a big, attractive black woman who drew the stares of half the army wherever she went. However, she seemed capable of taking care of herself.
The Thracian came and went, foraging and visiting. I warned Thais that he would desert, and she laughed.
‘Give me a little credit,’ she said. ‘I have a chain on him.’
The worm of jealousy gnawed at me. It must have showed.
She laughed in my face. ‘I don’t fuck slaves,’ she said, and walked out of my tent.
I hope I don’t make her sound like a harridan. She was not. But we had a spat every day – that’s how we were. She wanted to know every aspect of my business, and I wanted her to respect my privacy, and I didn’t see any need for her to know the inner workings of the Military Journal or the Hetaeroi.
Plenty of things to fight about. Making up was good, too.
Strako kept with us. That impressed me. After two weeks in enemy country, I rolled over, pinned her with a leg and said, ‘OK, I have to know. Why’s he loyal?’
She wasn’t angry – I never knew, with her. She laughed. ‘Well – since you’re keeping me so
Um. So soft. So beautiful. So funny, so warm.
So hard.
She also received as many letters as the king. I know that to be true, because I sometimes functioned as the Military Secretary, in those days. I certainly saw most of the king’s correspondence, and I saw all the messengers that came in from Pella – one a day, and sometimes two. She had at least two a day. Some were slaves, some were free, and once, her messenger was a Priest of Apollo.
Two more days, and we were at the Shipka Pass. And the wild Thracians were there – in huge numbers. They had thousands of warriors and more armed slaves, and they had a wagon lager of four wheeled carts lining the top of the pass, where it was about two stades wide.
The Prodromoi brought us word.
We rode forward and looked.
‘Impregnable,’ Hephaestion said. From his years of military experience.
But he was right. It was impregnable. Several of Philip’s campaigns had ended right here.
We made camp.
Just as the light was failing – it was late spring, and the days were getting long – Strako came into my tent. I hadn’t seen him in a day. He frowned at me and motioned at Thais.
Thais was under some cloaks, trying to get warm. She got up, and Strako began to talk while she put on boots.
‘He says the wagons aren’t for defence,’ Thais said.
‘How do you know about the wagons?’ I asked.
‘Strako was just up there. In their camp. Listen, love. Tell the king they plan to roll the wagons on you when you attack. And then charge you. They are hoping you’ll bring up artillery to shell the wagons. It is a ruse within a ruse.’ Thais listened to the man.
‘You speak Thracian?’ I asked.
‘It was a long winter,’ Thais insisted.
I heard the report to the end. And looked at my lover.
‘I can’t expect to be taken to Asia for my good looks,’ she said. ‘I have friends in every city, and the Pythia made me more friends. But there are other tricks – that anyone in politics knows. That anyone who has read Thucydides knows.’
I had heard of Thucydides, but I hadn’t read him. I made a mental note to rectify this.
‘We can trust this report?’ I asked.
‘Or I’m a complete fool,’ she said.
I took it to the king.
Cleitus woke me in the dark. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We’re going to attack. Get up.’
I was up like a shot. I knew Alexander – I knew we were going to attack.
I went for Polystratus and found Bella curled in his cloak. He was mightily embarrassed to be awakened.
‘It’s not what you think, lord,’ he said. ‘We were cold.’
I nodded. What do you say?
We armed each other in the light of a single lamp. It was cold.
Alexander was waiting for us by a huge fire near his pavilion.
‘We’ve drilled all winter at opening gaps in the ranks,’ he said. ‘We’ll win this one on simple discipline. It will
