Alexander's Legacy: To The Strongest Page 13

  Perdikkas wiped the sweat from his brow, brought on as much by the muggy Babylonian late-summer as by the huge expense that seemed to spiral even more out of control every time he visited the throne-room where the catafalque was being constructed next to Alexander’s mummified body. ‘I’ve told you that you’ll have everything you need.’

  ‘It’s one thing to say that, Perdikkas; however, it’s quite another thing to ensure it.’ He gestured around the vast chamber with its throne at the further end; here and there was a hunched figure bent over a work table. ‘What do you see?’ He waited a few moments whilst Perdikkas looked, trying, but failing, to work out just what he was meant to be seeing. ‘Hardly anything. If you want the funeral cortège to set out for Macedon by the end of next year, then this room has to be full of craftsmen, and the materials for them to work on; and it all has to be here in the next few days and even then I would say it is more likely to be ready in the spring of the year after.’

  Perdikkas looked around the room and then back down at the plans. Why has everything got to be so difficult? How did Alexander manage to organise everything?

  ‘Delegate, Perdikkas,’ Seleukos said as if reading his mind. ‘No one can do everything – not even Alexander – delegate. Arrhidaeus here needs craftsmen; they’re not just going to come to you so send people out to get them and bring them here, by force if necessary. And do it now, don’t wait, never wait unless there is good reason to.’

  ‘But what about the expense? Since Harpalus absconded to Athens with eight hundred talents rather than face Alexander’s wrath for his dishonesty, gold and silver are in short supply.’

  Seleukos looked at his commander with astonishment; intense dark eyes peered from either side of a thin but prominent nose that bisected an angular face that could have been the model for many an ancient hero’s bust, just as his body could have been a model for a statue of Heracles. ‘This is the most extensive empire the world has ever seen and you complain about gold and silver being in short supply? Harpalus took a fraction of the wealth so don’t use him as an excuse. Give me the word and I’ll go out today and bring back enough gold, silver and jewels for Arrhidaeus to complete his work twice over.’

  Perdikkas was, as always, impressed by the intensity of the man; his whole energy and the full force of his huge frame was ever invested in all he did. It had been that quality which Alexander had recognised in him that had persuaded him to first make him the commander of the newly formed Elephant squadron. ‘Where will you get it all from?’

  ‘Why, here of course. There are scores of temples in the city that contain the wealth of ages. It all belongs to Alexander so I shall take it for his carriage.’ He pointed to the base of the vehicle slowly taking shape. ‘This has to be the most magnificent thing ever built, Perdikkas; it’s for Alexander. Whoever builds it and takes Alexander home to be interred at Argead, possesses his legacy. Macedonian kings have always gained legitimacy by burying their predecessors – even if they assassinated them. If you want that for Philip and Roxanna’s boy, if it is a boy and we’ll know very soon now, then you won’t get it by standing around wondering how to achieve it. Action, Perdikkas, action. It’s the same as on the battlefield, except you have more time to think about things. Now, do you want me to go or not?’

  ‘Of course I do. Get going.’

  ‘And the craftsmen?’ Arrhidaeus asked.

  ‘Yes. Seleukos,’ Perdikkas called after him. ‘And the craftsmen; get them whilst you’re about it.’

  Seleukos looked back over his shoulder, shaking his head. ‘Delegation, Perdikkas, is about choosing the right man for each task; I know nothing of tradesmen.’

  As Seleukos’ footsteps faded, Perdikkas turned back to Arrhidaeus. ‘You know what sort of men you want, you go and find them; I want this room full in two days’ time.’

  ‘That’s the other thing I want to talk to you about: I don’t think we should build it in here. For a start—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear another word, Arrhidaeus,’ Perdikkas snapped, cutting him off. ‘It’s right and proper that the catafalque should be built here, in Alexander’s presence. Now, get on with it and get it done.’ Feeling far better with himself than at any time since he had crushed Meleagros, Perdikkas followed Seleukos from the room, pleased that he had managed to assert his authority in a way that he felt befitted the heir to Alexander; for, since his erstwhile comrades had departed for their satrapies, Perdikkas had felt his authority slipping. It was not so much that his commands were being ignored, it was more that he had very few people of consequence to issue commands to. Yes, he had written to Antigonos to order him to help Eumenes subdue Kappadokia; and he had written to Ptolemy forbidding him to expand his satrapy west into Cyrenaica. As well as that, he had written to Krateros commanding him to send the fleet he had commandeered to Tyros so that he, Perdikkas, could take it under his control. But as yet he had not received a response from any of his letters. He looked down at the ring on his forefinger as he strode along the corridor. I will not be ignored; they may now be satraps in their own rights, but that was a necessity just to keep the peace. I have the overall command.

  With that line repeating itself in his head he burst out into the heat of the palace courtyard full of purpose; he would delegate, as Seleukos had suggested. He would make a good peace-time ruler so that soon all would come to see him as the one true heir to Alexander. And then I can get rid of the idiot king and have plenty of time to think about how to deal with the eastern whelp, if it’s a boy. It should be birthed any day now; pray gods the brat’s a girl so I can drown the little bitch without anyone caring too much.

  With this pleasant thought, he walked past the Hypaspists, now under Kassandros’ command, working at their weapons training. The thrusts and parries, the shield-moves and sidesteps all took him back to his training as a young page of Philip’s in the days when Macedon was but a European power. How far it had come and how far he had come; he, Perdikkas, now the de facto ruler of the greatest empire the world had seen. Indeed, it could be argued that he was the most powerful man in the world.

  It was with a feeling of great self-importance that he opened the door to his study, in his private apartments, to find his secretary waiting for him, standing by the open window to the courtyard, with a scroll case.

  ‘It’s from Antigonos,’ the man said, handing Perdikkas the case.

  ‘Thank you, Phocus.’ They write to me for advice, Perdikkas thought, taking a seat at his desk and breaking the seal of the case, his sense of well-being growing. No doubt he wants to have my views on how best he can subdue Kappadokia with Eumenes. He unrolled the scroll; within a moment his smile had faded and he stared in astonishment at the only two words written upon it. He closed his eyes and then looked again to see if he had been mistaken. He had not; there, before his very eyes, was Antigonos’ answer to his command to help Eumenes subdue Kappadokia. Just two words: My arse.

  ‘My arse! My…arse?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Phocus said, his confusion apparent.

  Perdikkas scrumpled the scroll in his fist and waved it in his secretary’s face. ‘Where’s the messenger who brought this?’

  ‘I…er…I don’t know, sir. He left.’

  ‘Left? What do you mean, left?’

  ‘Well, gone, sir. He went. He…er…delivered the letter and then went straight to the stables to change horses and then left.’

  ‘Didn’t he say that he would wait for a reply? All messengers do.’ Perdikkas looked at the screwed-up message, his eyes widened in anger. ‘They do unless they are warned by the sender that the contents of the letter might cause serious offence and they would be better off being absent when it is read.’ He slammed his fist down on the desk; anger flooding into the space left by his punctured self-importance and shattered sense of well-being. ‘How long ago did this arrive?’

  ‘An hour or so, sir.’

  ‘Get my brother here; at once!’ Throwing the letter after the qu
ickly retreating secretary, Perdikkas again thumped his desk, seething with anger, before holding his head in both hands. ‘My arse’? Antigonos dares reply to my direct order to subdue Kappadokia, something that Alexander had charged him to do ten years ago, something he has patently failed to accomplish, with ‘my arse’? His fingers clutched at his hair as the real significance of those two words hit him. This means war. If not, then I might as well kill myself now. With just two words the old bastard has broken Alexander’s empire and everything that I tried to preserve. He could have screamed for the stupidity of it but instead kicked his chair onto its back, poured a healthy bowl of wine and downed it. I’ll see the old goat taking a well-deserved seat on a stake for this and then he’ll have the right to say ‘my arse’. As another bowl of wine disappeared down his gullet, the door to his study opened and Alketas stepped in. ‘Don’t sit down, Brother. Turn straight around, get a troop of cavalry and chase the messenger from Antigonos; he’s about an hour ahead of you. The stables will be able to give you a description of him.’

  ‘You want him back?’

  ‘Not all of him; just his head.’

  ‘Very well, Brother; I won’t ask why.’

  Perdikkas waved his younger sibling away without replying and reached, once more, for the wine. Bowl replenished, he stood at the window, breathing deeply. Looking out at the Hypaspists drilling as Alketas walked with admirable urgency across the flagstones in the direction of the stables, his footsteps drowned by the exertions of the soldiers, Perdikkas felt his heartbeat lessen as he calmed. He won’t let me down; out of all of them Alketas is the only one I can trust, with the exception, perhaps, of Aristonous who seems to want nothing from me. Whereas Eumenes, Seleukos and Kassandros…well, they would all put ambition before empire and I’d do well to remember that in the coming months and years.

  The cry pierced the air, cutting through the training of the Hypaspists, and drawing all training in the courtyard to a sudden end. Again it shrilled around the high walls of the palace as all who heard it turned to try to identify its source. But to Perdikkas its origin was obvious; he threw down his unfinished bowl to shatter on the floor and strode from the room, his heartbeat regaining pace.

  ‘Kassandros,’ he shouted as he came out into the courtyard. ‘Bring a dozen men and come with me.’ Without waiting for a reply, Perdikkas headed towards the apartments of the woman who could either complicate or simplify matters: Roxanna.

  ‘The queen is indisposed,’ a eunuch’s soft voice announced in response to Perdikkas beating on the door to Roxanna’s suite.

  Perdikkas gave the door a mighty kick as Kassandros arrived with twelve Hypaspists, fully armed and sweating from training. ‘I know she is indisposed, half-man; she is giving birth. And if you ever refer to her as the queen again I’ll cut off any other extremities that you’ve been left with. Now, open the door or I’ll have it beaten down and the whole household executed before the bitch has whelped.’

  ‘I’ve also always found that being polite is a complete waste of time,’ Kassandros observed as the door swung open with obvious reluctance and he followed Perdikkas through.

  With a kick, Perdikkas floored the portly eunuch as he tried to bar his way into the main chamber; screams continued to issue at regular intervals from a room to the left as slave-girls and eunuchs cowered in the corners at the sight of armed men bursting into their sheltered domain. ‘Is that where she is, half-man?’ Perdikkas demanded, pointing at a double door.

  The eunuch, eyes wide with fear and sweat seeping from his bald pate, nodded in dumb affirmation.

  With another kick to the prostrate half-man, Perdikkas headed straight for the source of the screams and opened the doors.

  There was a flurry of midwives, exacerbating Roxanna’s birthing screams, as they howled their protests that such a feminine event should be gate-crashed by men – armed men at that.

  Roxanna turned her head towards the intruders, her hair lank and clinging to her brow, her chest heaving with effort. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Where is it?’ Perdikkas did not wait for a reply but began an immediate search of the room as Roxanna once again succumbed to the agony of contractions. ‘Have your men search the whole place, Kassandros.’

  ‘What for?’

  But Perdikkas did not need to specify his quarry as he pulled a curtain aside to reveal a woman nursing a baby. ‘For this.’ He grabbed it and turned to Roxanna. ‘You dishonest little bitch.’

  Roxanna screamed again but this time it was at the sight of Perdikkas holding out a naked new-born boy-child.

  ‘Your insurance against the wrong result?’ Perdikkas asked, waving the now-bleating babe in Roxanna’s face. ‘Would you do anything to keep your power? Even try to place a low-born base bastard on the throne, would you?’

  Roxanna shrieked again, this time it was a mixture of intense pain and intense rage; she tried to claw at Perdikkas’ eyes but, her body heaving with contractions, managed only to scratch the soft newborn flesh of the babe’s chest. Perdikkas withdrew the mewling infant beyond her range as Roxanna gnashed her teeth and shook her head in frustration and pain; midwives continued to busy themselves down at the other end.

  Perdikkas looked at the squirming little life in his hands and started for the open window.

  ‘Nooo!’ a woman’s voice yelled over the chaos.

  Perdikkas looked down at the flagstones, two storeys below and then turned towards the shout. Across the bed, in which Roxanna writhed, the infant’s mother stood, her hands extended towards him, her eyes pleading. Perdikkas turned to Kassandros, who shrugged, and then back to the open window. How would Alexander punish this attempted deception? He looked back at the innocent life in his hands and his anger began to ebb. It was Roxanna who forced the woman to give away her child; not the woman herself. That’s how Alexander would have reasoned. Roxanna would have killed them both had the babe not been required. With this certainty in his mind, Perdikkas beckoned the woman over to him as a new and even more intense scream issued from the birthing-bed.

  She rushed across the room and grabbed her child, cradling it in her arms as if she thought she would never do so again. ‘Have one of your men get her out of here,’ Perdikkas ordered Kassandros, ‘and have her taken to my suite; I’ll decide what to do with her later. Just keep her safe from this wild-cat.’ Perdikkas looked down at Roxanna, now breathing deep, steady breaths between contractions; her eyes smouldered with unsheathed hatred. He moved to the foot of the bed so as to have a good view between her legs. ‘This is where I stay, Roxanna, and you had better hope for your sake and that of your child that you would not have needed to foist the changeling upon us because you won’t see out the day if it’s a bitch.’ He turned to one of the midwives. ‘Bring me a chair.’ He sat and watched as the dilation grew. Gods, I hope it’s a girl and I could be rid of this murderous easterner. I give her Stateira and Parysatis and this is how she was willing to repay me.

  ‘What about my men,’ Kassandros asked, standing at Perdikkas’ shoulder.

  ‘Hmm?’ Perdikkas shook his head, as much to get rid of his vengeful thoughts as to dispel the images of birth happening not four paces from where he sat. ‘Oh, dismiss them; but you wait here with me as a second witness, one that your father will believe.’

  With a curt nod Kassandros did as ordered before returning to his place next to Perdikkas as the crown of a head appeared between bloody lips.

  With a growl of bestial proportions Roxanna’s body heaved and tensed as women encouraged her and swarmed around with warm, wet towels. Perdikkas looked at the growing protrusion that was shaping into a baby’s head and grimaced in disgust. But I’m not going to shirk my responsibility to Alexander, however disgusting it is. He looked up at Kassandros, his normally pale face was white as a funeral shroud. Another set of wrenching groans accompanied by the birdlike encouragement of the woman ended in a howl that was almost a call to the gods, such was its volume. With a gargantuan effort of muscles
that Perdikkas did not know existed, Roxanna’s body forced the child’s shoulders from it; and then, with a shudder, it expelled the rest in a slithering, slimey shot.

  Perdikkas leapt to his feet and pushed his way through the crowd as a midwife gathered up the bloodied mess and another went to deal with the umbilical cord. ‘Show me its sex,’ Perdikkas demanded.

  The cord was cut and the babe held upside down by its ankles; a couple of stout spanks on his buttocks provoked Alexander, the fourth of that name, into a gasp for breath and then into full, newborn mewling.

  ‘A boy!’ the women shrilled, ‘a boy.’

  And, with a sinking heart, Perdikkas could see that it was so. He looked over to Roxanna, who smiled in triumph. ‘You are a lucky little bitch.’ With that he stalked from the room with Kassandros close on his heels.

  ‘That has just made life very difficult,’ Perdikkas said as he and Kassandros left the suite, the eunuch on the door keeping a goodly distance from Perdikkas’ foot. ‘Now we really do have two kings and both of them nothing but figureheads. Two kings and two regents; that is not a recipe for stability.’

  ‘Then marry one of my half-sisters,’ Kassandros suggested, quite surprising Perdikkas.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Write to my father and ask to marry one of my half-sisters. That would make you his son-in-law and me your brother-in-law. The two regents tied in marriage like that would be a step towards the stability that we, you, need.’

  Perdikkas looked at the lanky man strutting beside him like some sort of avian error and reassessed him. ‘Yes, Kassandros, you’re right; that would be a good political move for the whole empire.’ It would also isolate Antigonos; with me to his south and Antipatros to his north, we could crush him between us. His brow furrowed as he contemplated the plan. Provided Ptolemy to my south is no threat to me. ‘Come with me and we’ll compose the letter together, stressing the mutual benefit to such a match.’