She returned to her room in the gate-tower, to crouch over her little fire. A ribbon of ants was streaming along the hearth to a basket that stood beside it. She lifted the lid; inside, they were swarming over a dead snake. It was the last one left from the Thracian sanctuary of Dionysos, her oracle. What had killed it? The rats and mice had been trapped and eaten, but it could have lived on the creeping things. It was only a few years old. She gazed at the moving mass and shivered, then put the basket with its seething heap onto the fire.
The air grew mild, the breezes gentle. It was sailing weather; but the only sails were those of Kassandros’ warships. The ration was down to a handful of meal a day, when Olympias sent envoys to ask for terms.
From the ramparts she saw them go into his tent. Beside her stood her stepdaughter Thessalonike, a legacy from one of Philip’s campaign weddings. Her mother had died when she was born, and Olympias had tolerated her in the palace because she gave herself no airs, and was quiet and civil. She was thirty-five, tall and plain, but carried herself well. She had not dared confess that in Pella she had had an offer from Kassandros; she had come to Pydna letting it be thought it was her life she had feared for. Now, pale and lank-haired, she waited for the envoys, keeping her thoughts to herself.
The envoys came back, their lassitude a little lifted by the hospitality in the tent. Kassandros’ envoy was with them.
He was a man called Deinias, who had done many secret errands for Olympias in the past and been well rewarded. How much had he told Kassandros? He behaved as if those days had never been, insolently bland. Florid, well-fleshed, his very body was an arrogance in that company. He refused a private parley, demanding to speak before the garrison. Having no choice, she met him in the central court where, while they were able, the soldiers used to exercise.
“Kassandros son of Antipatros sends you greetings. If your people give themselves up to him, they will be spared like those who have now surrendered. As for yourself, his terms are that you put yourself in his hands, without any conditions.”
She pulled herself upright, though a twinge reminded her that her back was stiffening. “Tell Kassandros to come with better terms.” A whispering sigh ran through the ranks behind her. “When Eumenes comes, your master will run like a hunted wolf. We will hold out till then.”
He raised his brows in overplayed surprise. “Madam, forgive me. I had forgotten news does not reach you here. Do not set your hopes on a dead man.”
Her vitality seemed to drain, like wine from a cracked jar. She kept her feet but did not answer.
“Eumenes was given up lately to Antigonos. He was sold by the Silver Shields whom he commanded. By the chance of battle, Antigonos seized their baggage train. Their loot of three reigns was in it; also their women and children—one cannot tell how much that weighed with such men. At all events, Antigonos offered it back in exchange for their commander, and they struck the bargain.”
A rustling shudder passed through the brittle ranks. Horror perhaps, the knowledge that nothing was now unthinkable; or, perhaps, temptation.
Her face was parchment-colored. She would have been glad of the stick she used sometimes to get about the rough places of the fort. “You may tell Kassandros we will open the gates without condition, in return for our lives alone.”
Though her head felt icy cold, and a dazzle of darkness was spinning in her eyes, she got to her room and shut the door before she fainted. “Excellent,” said Kassandros when Deinias returned to him. “When the men come out, feed them and recruit any who are worth it. Get a trench dug for the carrion. The old bitch and her household will stay here for the time.”
“And after?” said Deinias with feigned carelessness.
“Then … well. She is still the mother of Alexander, which awes the ignorant. The Macedonians won’t bear her rule again; but, even now … I shall frighten her, and then offer her a ship to escape to Athens. Ships are wrecked every year.”
The dead were shoveled into their trench; the thin, pasty-faced women moved from the fortress into the town house reserved for royal visits. It was roomy and clean; they got out their mirrors, and put them quickly away; girdled their loose clothes round them, and ate cravingly of fruit and curds. The boy picked up quickly. He knew he had survived a memorable siege, and that the Thracian archers, in the secrecy of their guardroom, had made stew from the flesh of corpses. The inner defenses of childhood were making it like a tale to him. Kebes, whose fine physique had lasted him well, did not check this talk; the haunted ones were those who kept silent. All kings of Macedon were heirs to the sword; it was well to know that war was not all flags and trumpets. As man and boy gained strength, they began to exercise again.
It was Roxane who had changed most to the outward eye. She was twenty-six; but in her homeland this was matronhood. Her glass had showed it her, and she had accepted it. Her consequence was now a dowager’s; she saw herself not as the last King’s widow, but as the mother of the next.
Pella had surrendered, on Olympias’ orders, dictated by Kassandros. This done, she sent to ask him if she might now return to her palace rooms. He replied that at present it was not convenient. At Pella he had things to do.
She would sit in a window that looked on the eastward sea, considering the future. She was exiled now from Epiros; but there was still the boy. She was sixty; she might have ten years or more to rear him and see him on his father’s throne.
Kassandros held audience at Pella. The Epirotes made alliance with him; he sent an adviser to direct their King, the young son of Kleopatra. He buried his brother Nikanor, and restored his brother Iollas’ desecrated tomb. Then he asked where were the bodies of the royal pair, so foully murdered. They led him to a corner of the royal burial ground, where in a little brick-lined grave Philip and Eurydike had been laid like peasants. They were hardly to be recognized, by now, as man and woman; but he burned them on a ceremonial pyre, denouncing the outrage of their deaths, and had their bones laid up in precious coffers while a handsome tomb was built for them. He had not forgotten that kings of Macedon were entombed by their successors.
There were many graves around Pella after Olympias’ purge. The withered wreaths still hung upon the stones, tasseled with the mourners’ hair. The kindred still came with tears and offering-baskets. Kassandros made it his business to go among them, commiserating their losses, and asking if time was not ripe for justice on the guilty.
Soon it was announced that the bereaved wished an Assembly called, to accuse Olympias of shedding without trial the blood of Macedonians.
She was sitting with the other women at the evening meal when a messenger was announced. She finished, drank a cup of wine, and then went down to him.
He was a well-spoken man with the accent of the north; a stranger, but there were many after her long absence in the west. He warned her that her trial was to be demanded; then he said, “I am here, you understand, at the instance of Kassandros. He pledged your safety when the siege was raised. Tomorrow at dawn, there will be a ship for you in the harbor.”
“A ship?” It was dusk, the lamps in the hall had not been lit yet. Her cheeks were hollowed with shadow, her eyes dark wells with a faint gleam in the depths. “A ship? What do you mean?”
“Madam, you have good guest-friends in Athens. You have supported their democrats.” (It had been part of her feud with Antipatros.) “You will be well received. Let Assembly try you in absence. No one yet died of that.”
Till now she had spoken quietly; she had not yet lost the lassitude of the siege. But her raised voice was full and rounded. “Does Kassandros think I shall run away from the Macedonians? Would my son have done so?”