Dusk was falling as they came near. From within the walls rose the smell of cook-fires and the distant bleat of goats. Just out of arrow-shot was the camp of the Macedonians, a workmanlike shantytown of hide tents, lean-tos roughly thatched with reeds from the Hebros River, and propped upturned carts. Drawn geometric and black against the sunset sky stood a sixty-foot wooden siege tower; its guards, shielded by thick ox-hide housing against missiles from the ramparts, were cooking supper within its base. In the cavalry lines, the horses whinnied at their pickets. The platforms had been set up for the catapults; the great engines seemed to crouch like dragons about to spring, their timber necks extended, their massive bolt-firing bows outspread from their sides like wings. The outlying scrub stank of ordure; the nearer air smelled of wood-smoke, grilling fish, and the unwashed bodies of many men and women. The camp-followers were busy with supper; here and there one of their incidental children chirped or wailed. Someone was playing a lyre in need of tuning.
A little hamlet of huts, its people fled to the fort or mountains, had been cleaned out for the officers. The headman’s place, two stone rooms and a lean-to, housed the King. They saw his lamp at some distance.
Alexander moved into the lead, lest Kleitos take it on himself to deliver him like a child. His eyes and nose and ears took in the presence of war, the difference from barracks or home camp. When they reached the house, Philip’s square shape darkened the doorway. Father and son embraced, and viewed each other in the light of the watch-fire. “You’re taller,” said the King.
Alexander nodded. “My mother,” he said for the escort’s ears, “sends you greeting and hopes you are in good health.” There was a loaded pause; he went on quickly, “I’ve brought you a sack of apples from Mieza. They’re good this year.”
Philip’s face warmed; Mieza apples were famous. He clapped his son on the shoulder, greeted his companions, directed Philotas to his father’s lodging, and said, “Well, come in, come in and eat.”
Joined presently by Parmenion, they ate at a trestle, waited on by the royal squires, youths in their mid-teens whose fathers’ rank entitled them to learn manners and warfare by acting as body-servants to the King. The sweet golden apples were brought in a silver dish. Two lamps stood on bronze standards. The King’s weapons and armor leaned in a corner. An ancient smell of humanity sweated out from the walls.
“Only a day later,” said Philip, “and we might have lodged you inside.” He gestured with his apple-core at the fort.
Alexander leaned forward across the table. The long ride had sunburned him; the clear color glowed in his cheeks, his hair and eyes caught the lamplight brilliantly; he was like kindling caught with the spark.
“When do we attack?”
Philip grinned across at Parmenion. “What can one do with such a boy?”
They were to go in just before dawn.
After supper, the officers came in for briefing. They were to approach the fort in darkness; then flame-arrows were to be shot at the brushwood in the walls, the catapults and siege tower would open covering fire to clear the ramparts while scaling-ladders were set up. Meantime the ram, slung in its mighty cradle, would be swung against the gates, the siege tower would thrust out its drawbridge; the assault would begin.
It was an old story to the officers, only small details imposed by the site were new. “Good,” Philip said. “Time for a little sleep, then.”
The squires had brought in a second bed to the room behind. Alexander’s eyes had followed it for a moment. Just before bedtime, when he had honed his weapons, he went out to find Hephaistion, to tell him he had arranged they should be posted together for the assault, and to explain that he himself had to share his father’s lodging. For some reason he had not thought to expect it.
When he got back, his father had just stripped, and was handing a squire his chiton. Alexander checked a moment in the doorway, then entered, saying something to seem at ease. He could not, indeed, account for the deep distaste and shame the sight of his father gave him. As far as he could remember, he had never seen him naked before.
By sunup the fort had fallen. A pure, clear golden light came lifting from behind the hills that hid the Hellespont. A fresh breeze blew from the sea. Over the fort hung the acrid smells of smoke and smolder, the stink of blood and entrails and grimy sweat.
The ladders, solid structures of undressed pine which would take two men abreast, still leaned against the fire-stained walls, with here and there a broken rung where the rush had overloaded one. Before the burst splintered gates hung the ram in its hide-roofed cradle; the gangway from the siege tower lolled on the ramparts like a great tongue.
Inside, the Thracian men who survived were being fettered for their march to the slave market at Amphipolis; the clink sounded musical, at a little distance. An example, Philip thought, might encourage the Kypselans to surrender when their turn came. All round the huts and hovels that clung like swallows’ mud nests to the inside of the walls, the soldiers were on the hunt for women.
The King stood, with Parmenion and a couple of runners by whom he was sending orders, up on the ramparts; solid, workmanlike, relaxed, like an able farmer who has plowed a big field and got it sown before the rain. Once or twice, when a shriek rose shrilling to hurt the ears, Alexander looked towards him; but he went on talking to Parmenion, undisturbed. The men had fought well, and deserved what meager spoils the place could offer. Doriskos should have surrendered; then no one would have been hurt.
Alexander and Hephaistion were by themselves in the gatehouse, talking about the battle. It was a small stone room, containing besides themselves a dead Thracian, a slab carved with the name and styles of Xerxes, King of Kings; some rough wooden stools; half a loaf of black bread; and, by itself, a man’s forefinger with a black broken nail. Hephaistion had kicked it aside; it was a trifle to what they had seen already.
He had won his sword belt. One man he had killed for certain, dead on the spot; Alexander thought it might well be three.
Alexander had taken no trophies, nor counted his men. As soon as they were on the walls, the officer who led their party had been hurled down. Alexander, giving no one else time to think, had shouted that they must take the gatehouse, whence missiles were being showered on the ram below. The appointed second-in-command, an untried man, had wavered, and in that moment had lost his men to Alexander’s certainty; they were already running after him, clambering, scrambling, stabbing and thrusting along Xerxes’ old ragged masonry, with its wild blue-stained defenders and clefts of crackling fire. The entry to the gatehouse was narrow; there had been a minute, after Alexander had hurled himself inside, when the following press had jammed in it, and he had been fighting alone.
He stood now with the blood and dust of combat on him, looking down on the other face of war. But, Hephaistion thought, he was not really seeing it. He talked quite clearly, remembered every detail where for Hephaistion things were already flowing together like a dream. For him it was fading; Alexander was living in it still. Its aura hung about him; he was in a mode of being he did not want to leave, as men linger on in a place where they saw a vision.
He had a sword-cut across his forearm. Hephaistion had stopped the bleeding with a strip of his kilt. He looked out at the pale clean sea, saying, “Let’s go down and bathe, to wash off the muck.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “I ought to see Peithon first. He put out his shield to cover me when two of them were at me, and that man with the forked beard caught him under it. But for you he’d have been killed outright.” He took off his helmet (they were both armed, at short notice, from the common stock of the Pella armory) and ran his hand through his damp hair.