Eurydike stood as if bound to the execution post. Gladly she would have been dispersed in air. Everywhere, repeated as the joke was relished, she heard, “Eurydike will tell me what to do.” Encouraged by his reception, Philip was still speaking. “When I’m King, I shall always ride an elephant.”
Behind him, Peithon and Arybbas looked complacently at each other.
Something in the laughter began to give Philip doubts. It reminded him of the dreadful wedding night. He remembered the magic phrase, “Thank you for your loyalty”; but they did not cheer, only laughed louder. Should he run away, would he be caught? He turned on Eurydike a face of panic appeal.
At first she moved like an automaton, carried by her pride. She gave the smug guardians a single look of scorn. Without a glance at the buzzing crowd below, she went on to Philip and took him by the hand. With ineffable relief and trust he turned to her. “Was the speech right?” he said.
Holding up her head, for a moment she faced the crowd before she answered him. “Yes, Philip. But it is finished now. Come, we can sit down.”
She led him to the benches by the wall, where once the satrap and his guests had sat with their wine to await the huntsman’s call.
The Assembly continued without them.
It was involved and fretful. The factions had collapsed into absurdity. A few hundred voices urged Peithon and Arybbas to resume their charge, meeting a vigorous refusal. Seleukos in turn declined. While lesser names were being tossed about, a courier rode in. He announced that Antipatios with his army was crossing the Orontes, and would arrive within two days.
Peithon, giving out this news, reminded the men that ever since Perdikkas’ death both the Kings had been on their way to Macedon, where they belonged. Who, then, was more fitted than the Regent to be their guardian, now Krateros was dead? Sullenly they settled for this solution, since no one had a better one.
Quietly, during the debate, Eurydike had led her husband away. Over their midday meal he repeated his speech to Konon, who praised it and avoided meeting her eyes.
She hardly heard them. Beaten to her knees, faced with surrender, she felt her blood remembering its sources. The shade of Alexander taunted her; he, at sixteen, had held Macedon as Regent, and fought a victorious war. The fire of her ambition smoldered still under its embers. Why had she been humbled? Not for reaching too high, but too low. I was mocked, she thought, because I did not dare enough. From now on, I will claim my rights for myself.
At evening, when the sun sank over Asia and the first smoke rose, she put on her man’s tunic, called for her horse, and rode out among the watch-fires.
Two days later, riding ahead of the Regent and his army, Antigonos One-Eye reached the camp at Triparadisos.
He was the man who had escaped to; Macedon to reveal Perdikkas’ plot. Alexander had made him Satrap of Phrygia; the grateful Regent had appointed him Commander-in-Chief of all the troops in Asia. He was now on the way to take up his new command.
He rode a Persian “great horse,” being so tall that no Greek horse could carry him far. But for his eye-patch—he had lost the eye winning Phrygia for Alexander—he was still a handsome man. His even handsomer young son Demetrios, who went with him everywhere, worshipped him. Riding side by side, they made an impressive pair.
With the small column of his entourage, he entered the woodland fringes of the park. Soon, cocking his ear, he motioned his train to halt.
“What is it, Father? Is it a battle?” The boy’s eyes kindled. He was fifteen, and had never yet fought in war.
“No,” said his father, listening. “It’s a brawl. Or mutiny. High time I came, by the sound. Forward.” To his son he said, “What’s Peithon about? He did well enough under Alexander. Never think you know a man whom you’ve only seen acting under orders. Well, he’s a stopgap here. We’ll see.”
The prospect did not displease him … His own ambitions were great.
Eurydike had rallied to her cause about four-fifths of the army. At the head of her troops, she had appeared before the generals’ lodge, announced with the royal fanfare, demanding, this time, joint rule for Philip and herself.
The three generals gazed down with revulsion, not unmixed with fear, at the mob below. It looked worse than mutinous; it looked anarchic. Eurydike herself was half aware of this. Her training in weaponry had not included military drill, and she had not considered in advance that her following would be more manageable, as well as more impressive, if she drew it up in some kind of formation. A year ago, the junior officers (the seniors had held aloof) would have managed for her; but much had happened in a year, and most of it bad for discipline. So now an armed rabble followed her; men shouldered each other to get in front, and hurled insults at the generals.
It was as boos and jeers were drowning Peithon’s voice that Antigonos and his suite had come into earshot.
After his first distant glimpse, he sent Demetrios to scout ahead; it was good training for the boy. He cantered gaily into the trees, coming back to report that there was a horde of men gathered in front of what looked like headquarters, but no one to speak of at the back.
Meantime, Eurydike felt, behind her, the mass begin to seethe. She must lead them on, now, or somehow hold them back. Inherited instinct told her she would not lead them long. They would surge past her and lynch the generals. After that, her frail authority would be swept away.
“Herald, blow halt!” She faced them with lifted arms; they swayed restlessly, but came no further. She turned again to confront the generals.
The verandah was empty.
During the uproar of the last few minutes, the generals had learned that their new commander-in-chief had arrived in camp. He was in the lodge behind them.
The room inside, with its dark wood and little windows, had an air of dangerous gloom, in which, peering, they made out the towering form of Antigonos, seated in the satrap’s chair; glaring at them, like a Cyclops, with his single eye. The young Demetrios, a splinter of light picking out his dazzling profile, stood like a fierce attendant spirit behind him.
Antigonos said nothing. He pierced them with his eye, and waited.
As he heard out their lamentable tale, his face changed slowly from grimness to sheer incredulity. After a disturbing pause, he said, “How old is this girl?”
Shouting against the impatient roar from outside, Seleukos told him.
Antigonos swiveled his head to sweep them with his eye, ending at Peithon. “Thundering Zeus!” he said. “Are you soldiers or pedagogues? Not even pedagogues, by God! Stay here.” He strode out on the verandah.
The apparition from nowhere of this huge, formidable and famous man, instead of the expected victims, startled the crowd into almost total silence. Eurydike, who had no idea who he was, stared at him blankly. Philip, whom she had forgotten, began, “That’s Antigonos. He …”
He was drowned by a boom from Antigonos’ great chest. Soldiers in the front, despite themselves, straightened up and made vain shuffling efforts to dress their line.
“Stand back there, you sons of fifty fathers!” Antigonos roared. “Get back, Hades and the Furies take you! What do you think you are, a horde of naked savages? Stand up and let me look at you. Soldiers, are you? I’ve seen better soldiers robbing caravans. Macedonians, are you? Alexander wouldn’t know you. Your own mothers wouldn’t know you, not if they could help. If you want to hold Assembly, you’d better look like Macedonians, before some real ones come here and see you. That will be this afternoon. Then you can hold Assembly, if the rest agree. Clean yourselves up, curse you, you stink like goats.”