From the Shipka Pass to Pellium and down to Thebes, no enemy wanted to face Macedon in the field, ever again. And the smoke rising from the yawning basements of Thebes warned potential rebels of the consequences of foolishness.

Tribute flowed from the ‘allies’. Everyone in the empire paid their taxes that winter.

As the leaves reddened on the trees, we rode back to Pella. The last morning, Alexander was nearly giddy with excitement at returning victorious, and I suggested we put on our best armour and ride our best horses and make a fine show, and he laughed and agreed.

We spent the morning preparing. Veterans among the pezhetaeroi mounted their horsehair plumes, or their ostrich feathers. I’d gone back to the same smith in Athens and got another helmet – this one covered in gold. He’d delivered it with ill grace – but he’d done a magnificent job, and my helmet had a distinctive shape, with a brim over the eyes and a forged iron crest over the bronze bowl, and a tall ruff of horsehair. It was the kind of helmet men called ‘Attic’. It had less face protection, but I could hear and see and, most importantly, it was magnificent, and every man who could see it would know where I was. And the iron crest meant I would never be killed by a blow to the head.

Tirseas of Athens. Best armourer of his day. Hated Macedonians.

We put all our best on – clean chitons, full armour, polished by the slaves with ash and tallow. Swords shining, spears sparkling. Shaved. We were wearing a fortune in armour – brilliant horsehair plumes, Aegyptian ostrich feathers, solid-gold eagles’ wings, panther skins, leopard skins, bronze armour polished like the disc of the sun and decorated in silver and gold, tin-plated bronze buckles and solid-silver buckles in our horse tack, crimson leather strapping on every mount, tall Persian bloodstock horses with pale coats and dark legs and faces. Alexander was the richest and the best-armoured – unlike his father, he looked like a god. No one could doubt that he was in command.

At noon, the Hetaeroi entered Pella, and the crowds cheered us, I suppose, but what I remember is riding with the somatophylakes into the courtyard of the palace. Olympias was there, of course – best pass over her – and even the slaves were cheering us.

When we reined up in the courtyard, there was a moment – no longer than the thickness of a hair, so to speak – when none of us moved. We sat on our horses and looked around.

I looked up, to where I could see the marble rail of the exedra, and the double arch of the window of Alexander’s childhood nursery. I thought I saw a pair of small heads there, and I wondered if, despite Heraclitus, I could put my toe back in the same part of the river. If I could reach across time to those boys – if they were right there.

Those boys being us – me and Cleitus and Alexander. And tell them – some day, we will do it. We will be heroes. Fear nothing. We will win. We will do what Philip did.

But better. And the best was yet to come.

PART III

Asia

FIFTEEN

Pella, 335 BC

We had no money.

Of course, that’s not true. The sale of all the Thebans, plus the loot from Thrace and Illyria, paid the crown of Macedon a little less than eight hundred talents of gold, which didn’t quite cover the arrears of pay to the army. Philip had died leaving the crown five hundred talents of gold in debt – in fact, like many an unlucky son, we had new creditors appearing every day, and Philip probably left Alexander more like a thousand talents in debt. A thousand talents. In gold. Remember that the King of Kings tried to buy Athens for three hundred talents . . .

We’d been home from our year of miracles for three days when I saw Alexander throw one of the worst temper tantrums of his life. It was horrible. It started badly and grew steadily worse.

I had the duty. There was a rumour – one of Thaïs’s sources – that Darius had put out money to arrange Alexander’ s murder, and the Hetaeroi were on high alert. In fact, I had Ochrid – now a freeman – tasting the king’s food because we’d been away from Pella a year and none of us trusted anyone in the palace.

So I was in armour, and I had just walked the corridors of the palace with Seleucus and Nearchus as my lieutenants, checking every post. I had almost sixty men on duty, and two more shifts ready to take over in turn. Alexander had just promoted almost a hundred men to the Hetaeroi – some from the Prodromoi, some from the grooms and some from other units, or straight from civilian life. They were a mixed bag. Perdiccas and I had shared them out like boys choosing sides for a game of hockey.

Of course we played hockey in Macedon. Do you think we’re barbarians?

Hah! Don’t answer that.

At any rate, putting my recruits into their places, making sure that every new man was on duty with a reliable oldster – it used up half my evening, and I was late to the great hall.

Olympias was there. I missed what had transpired, but I gathered from witnesses that Alexander had taken her to task for her wholesale massacre of young Cleopatra’s relatives, and she had told him to get more realistic about his approach to imperial politics.

As I entered, Olympias had just lain down on a couch – something Macedonian women most emphatically did not do, back then. ‘At any rate,’ she drawled, ‘you need their money, dear. You have none.’

‘Money is easy,’ Alexander said, and snapped his fingers. ‘I’ll act, and the money will come.’

Antipater shook his head. ‘We’ve reached a stable point,’ he said. ‘With the money from your last campaigns, which is just enough to pay most of your father’s debts. Disband the army, and we’re home free.’

You have to imagine the scene – forty senior officers and noblemen – Laodon and Erygius, Cleitus, Perdiccas, Hephaestion, of course – all the inner circle, dressed in their best, but relaxed, lying about the place drinking too much. We’d gone a year without a break, and the atmosphere was . . . festive. Even dangerous. Slave girls walked carefully, or bow-legged. Boys too.

Olympias downed her wine. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Disband the army, call Parmenio home where you can keep an eye on him, and we’ll be fine.’ She smiled demurely. ‘I’m sure we can live safe and happy, after that.’

Alexander stood up. Hephaestion knew him best and caught at his hand, but Alexander was too fast. His cup crashed to the floor a hand’s breadth from his mother’s head. ‘I am going to Asia!’ he shrieked. ‘I am not disbanding my army. I am not releasing one man.’ He was shaking. ‘I care nothingfor the cost. My men will march without airif I march.’

Uh-oh. I knew that the pezhetaeroi had been home three days and they were already muttering about back pay, land grants, new clothes, sandals – all the things soldiers require.

Antipater had been away from the king too long, and had forgotten how to manage him. He took on a pompous tone. ‘Eventually, we can consider Asia, lord. But for now, we have to be realistic.’

Alexander stopped shrieking. He turned on Antipater, and his hands were shaking. ‘Listen, you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t care if I have to have my mother murder every aristocrat in Macedon so that I can seize their estates. I am marching on Asia at the head of a magnificent army – all the allies – the crusade to avenge Xerxes.’ He walked carefully over to Antipater. ‘Do – you – understand?’

Antipater was shaken. We all were. Alexander had been on the edge of this sort of explosion before, but he didn’t actually cross a certain line.

Right then, he had his hidden dagger in his hand, and I thought he was going to kill Antipater. So did Antipater.

Olympias got to her feet – she came up to Alexander’s shoulder, or a little more – and took his hand. ‘There, there, my love,’ she said cautiously but firmly. She took the dagger from him and put her wine cup in its place.