'Oh, yes!' snorted Mothac. 'I can see that, I am not a complete dullard. But who acquires these lands? It is the King, or Attalus. Last month three Pelagonian timber merchants were stripped of their wealth, their lands, their houses. They appealed to the King; but before the appeal could be heard they were mysteriously slain — along with their families.'
'That's enough, Mothac!'
'Indeed it is,' replied the Theban. 'So, I ask again, what does he want?'
'I cannot answer you; I do not believe Philip himself could answer you. But think on it, my friend. An army needs to be fed. The soldiers require payment. Philip's treasuries are not over full; therefore he must give his soldiers victories and plunder. But there is sense to it. A nation is strong only while it is growing. After that the decay begins. Why does this disturb you?
You saw Sparta and Athens struggling for supremacy, you watched as Thebes battled to rule Greece.
What difference now?'
'None whatever,' Mothac agreed, 'save that I am older, and I hope wiser. This is a land of great riches. If fanned with care, Macedonia could feed all of Greece. But now the farmers are being lured to Pella for fighting wages, and war-horses are being bred before cattle and sheep. All I see ahead is war and death. Not because the realm is in danger — merely to satisfy the glory quest of a barbarian King. You do not need to tell me what he desires. He will attempt to conquer Greece. I will see Thebes once more besieged. He will make slaves of us all.'
The Theban put down his wine cup and pushed himself wearily to his feet.
'He is not as dark as you believe,' countered Parmenion.
Mothac smiled. 'Try not to see him as a reflection of yourself, Parmenion. You are a good man, but you are his sword-blade. Good night, my friend. Tomorrow we shall speak of more pleasant things.'
Leaden clouds hung like a pall of smoke over Pella, distant thunder rumbling angrily in the sky as Olympias carefully made her way to the seat beneath the corner oak in the southern garden. She moved slowly, right hand supporting her belly, often stopping to stretch her back.
Her days with Philip were unsettling, alternating between the comfort of touching and sharing and the agonies of stormy rows when his face would redden and his green eyes blaze with anger.
Were I still slim I would win him over, she told herself. And I will be slender again. It was irksome that her graceful walk had become more of a waddle and that she could no longer embrace her husband, moving in close, arousing him. For in the ability to arouse lay power. Without it Olympias felt lost, insecure.
There were cushions on the long seat beneath the oak, and she stretched herself out, feeling the relief from the deep ache at the base of her spine. Every morning for months, it seemed, she had vomited — every night her stomach heaving, leaving her mouth tasting of bile.
But these last few days had been the worst. Her dreams were troubled and she could hear her baby crying,as if from a great distance. And, with the dawn, she would awake believing him dead in her belly.
She had tried to seek comfort in the company of Phaedra, but her friend was often missing from the palace — spending hours, days it seemed, in the company of Parmenion. It perplexed Olympias, knowing how strongly her companion loathed the touch of Man.
The rain began, gentle at first, then stronger, splashing to the stone pathway and bending the blooms of the garden. Here beneath the towering oak Olympias felt safe; the branches above her were thick and shielding, almost impenetrable.
Parmenion ran along the stone pathway towards his home, saw her and changed direction. Ducking under the outermost branches, he approached her and bowed.
'Not a safe place, my lady. Lightning may be drawn here. Let me cover you with my cloak and see you to your quarters.'
'Not yet, general. Sit a while,' she 'said, smiling up at him. Shaking his head he chuckled and sat down, stretching out his long legs and brushing raindrops from his shoulders and arms.
'Curious creatures, are women,' he remarked. 'You have beautiful rooms, warm and dry, yet you sit here in the cold and the wet.'
'There is a kind of peace here, do you not find?' she countered. 'All around us the storm, yet here we are safe and dry.'
The thunder came again, closer now, lightning forking the sky.
'The appearance of safety,' Parmenion replied, 'is not quite the same as being safe. You look sad,' he said suddenly, instinctively reaching out and taking her hand. She smiled then, holding back the tears with an effort of will.
'I am not really sad,' she lied. 'It is just… I am a stranger in a foreign land. I have no friends, my body has become lumpy and ugly, and I cannot find the right words to please Philip.
But I will, when our son is born.'
He nodded. 'The babe concerns you. Philip tells me you have dreams of its death. But I spoke to Bernios yesterday; he says you are strong and the child grows as it should. He is a good man and a fine surgeon. He would not lie to me.'
The thunder was now overhead, the wind screaming through the oak and shaking it violently.
Parmenion helped the Queen to her feet, covering her head and shoulders with his cloak, and together they returned to the palace.
Leading her to her rooms Parmenion turned to leave, but Olympias cried out and started to fall.
The Spartan leapt to her side, catching her by the arms and half carrying her to a couch.
Her hand seized the breast of his tunic. 'He's gone!' she screamed. 'My son! He's gone!'
'Calm yourself, lady,' urged Parmenion, stroking her hair.
'Oh, sweet mother Hera,' she moaned. 'He's dead!'
The Spartan moved swiftly into the outer rooms, sending in the Queen's three hand-maidens to comfort her, then ordered a messenger to fetch Bernios.
Within the hour the surgeon arrived, giving the Queen a sleeping draught before reporting back to Philip. The King sat in his throne-room with Parmenion standing beside him.
'There is no cause for concern,' the bald surgeon assured Philip. 'The child is strong, his heartbeat discernible. I do not know why the Queen should think him dead. But she is young and given, perhaps, to foolish fears.'
'She has never struck me as being easily frightened,' offered Parmenion. 'When the raiders attacked her, she killed one of them and faced down the rest.'
'I agree with the surgeon,' said Philip. 'She is like a spirited horse — fast, powerful, but highly-strung. How soon will she give birth?'
'No more than five days, sire, perhaps sooner,' the surgeon told him.
'She will be better then,' said the King, 'once the child is suckling at her breast.' Dismissing the surgeon, Philip turned to Parmenion. The Spartan was holding hard to the high back of the King's chair, his face ghostly pale and blood streaming from his nose and ears.
'Parmenion!' shouted Philip, rising and reaching out to his general. The Spartan tried to answer, but all that came from his mouth was a broken groan. Pitching forward into the King's arms, Parmenion felt a rolling sea of pain engulf his head.
Then he was falling. .
. . and the Pit beckoned.
Derae's spirit hovered above Parmenion's bed, feeling the unseen presence of Aristotle beside her.
'Now is the moment of greatest peril,' his voice whispered in her soul.
Derae did not answer. Beside the bed sat Mothac and Bernios, both men silent, unmoving. Parmenion was barely breathing. The seeress flowed her spirit into the dying man, avoiding his memories and holding to the central spark of his life, feeling the panic within the core as the growth reached out its dark tendrils in his brain. It had been an easy matter to block the power of the sylphium, but even Derae was amazed at the speed with which the cancer spread. Most growths, she knew, were obscene and ugly imitations of life, yet still they created their own blood supply — feeding from it, ensuring their own existence for as long as the host body would tolerate them. Not so this cancer: it multiplied with bewildering speed, spreading far beyond its own core. Unable to feed itself its longest tendrils merely rotted, corrupting the fatty tissues of the brain. Then another tendril would spring up, following the same pattern.