We were going to war, and our prince would have his first command. Summer, in the mountains.

FOUR

The Maedi weren’t the wildest of the Thracians. They wore chitons, some of them, with their fox-skin hats – or badger or squirrel. The Maedi weren’t squeamish about what they killed – or wore.

But they did like Macedonian girls, and they’d come over the mountains in groups of fifty or five hundred – or five. Grab a girl – or pillage a twenty-mile swathe. They were seldom organised, and sometimes we’d find dead men where they had squabbled among themselves. Herodotus said that the Thracians would have conquered the world, if only they’d stopped fighting among themselves. Old Herodotus knew a thing or two.

Ever since the incident with the hetaera, Alexander had kept his distance from me – but promoted me, too, making me the right file leader of the pages.

By this time we had almost two hundred pages – perhaps we had more, but the pages weren’t the huge outfit they became later, under Alexander. A few of us were the scions of the great noble houses, but it’s important to note here that quite a few of my fellow pages were the sons of Philip’s ‘new men’. Philip trusted the new men – after all, they had no power and no place at court except what he gave them, and that meant that, as they would fall if he fell, they could be trusted. The rich men and great magnates of central Macedon were all potential rivals for the king, and their riches and power wouldn’t be changed if the king fell. It’s an old story – Persian kings and Athenian oligarchs often practise the same policy.

But that led to a double standard within the pages, too. We were all supposed to be equals under the prince, and we received stipends and much of our equipment was provided from the armouries so that we would all match and there would be no jealousy. But in truth, Alexander treated the noblemen’s sons very differently from the sons of new men. Alexander believed in breeding. That was the fault of all that Homer, I suspect, and Aristotle didn’t help, the aristocratic old fart.

At any rate, as we packed our war gear and looked to our weapons – for the first time, as a unit that would serve together – Alexander made his preferences plain. I got one troop, and Parmenio’s son Philotas got the other. Better young men, or those who’d already had some commands, like Philip the Red, were passed over.

I took Philip as one of my file leaders and Black Cleitus as the other. They were both older than I, and might have been jealous or sticky, but I had money and a fair amount of goodwill from the hunting camp and I used both. Philip’s father was a senior officer in the foot companions and I bought him a fancy Attic helmet from an Athenian vendor in the agora – first-rate work, it made him look like a hero. In fact, it was a better helmet than his father had.

Cleitus needed everything. One of Alexander’s failings was that the closer you were to him, the lesshe seemed to think about helping you – as if the very power of his proximity would cure financial woes. New friends, favourites and foreigners often got presents, while Cleitus had to look to me or Philotas (who also liked him) to get a new sword and a pair of riding spears better than the royal armouries provided.

And this was really all boyish nonsense. Our armoury provided excellent equipment. But if you know boys, you know that to carry a spear marked with the starburst of the armoury was an admission of poverty. It might be a superb spear – but boys are boys.

Worth noting, too, that boys also left the pages. It was a hard life – the younger pages did the work that slaves did – up all night in front of the prince’s door or the king’s – washing pots, feeding horses, carrying water. We were beaten when we failed – I was only beaten three times in my whole service, but it hurt my pride every time. And we never had enough sleep or enough food. Some boys couldn’t take it, and they left.

Some found other ways to leave. The handsomest of all the boys in my age group was Pausanias of Epirus, and he was as pretty as a girl. When he was sixteen, Philip took him as a lover, and when Philip marched away into the Chersonese, he took Pausanias as a royal companion – the youngest. To be fair, Pausanias was an excellent spearman – but it was his fair looks and his flute-playing ways that got him into the royal companions. He was the first to be promoted out of the pages and into Philip’s service, but hardly the last – after all, the purpose of the Basilikoi Paides was to train future soldiers and administrators.

Alexander was going to command the expedition, but Antipater was doing a great deal of the work, and I was lucky enough to be invited to attend him. I remember it as terrifying – he wasn’t the old monster he later became, but a handsome middle-aged man who’d seen a lot of war and who was Parmenio’s chief rival at court. I received orders to report to his quarters in the palace, and I went, newly shaved, scrubbed like a helmet, with more pimples than scars, as the Macedonians say, except that in my case, I actually had a few scars.

‘Well,’ Antipater said, looking down his long nose at me. His son Cassander was no friend of mine, and he had to know it. And had been passed over for command, serving as a mere file-closer. I was worried about this interview, and my hands shook.

I was in armour – I saluted.

Antipater returned the salute. ‘Well,’ he said again.

He looked at me for a long time. ‘Cage your eyes, damn you,’ he said. ‘If I want to be stared at by a child, I’ll tell you.’

I looked at the floor.

‘How much grain does a donkey eat in a day?’ he asked.

‘Eight pounds a day. More in the mountains.’ These were things I knew.

‘How much grain can you count on getting in the Thracian hills?’ he asked.

‘None, lord,’ I answered.

He scratched his beard. ‘How much for a warhorse?’

‘Twice as much, and as much again on a day he fights,’ I said.

He made a motion with his mouth – when I got to know him better, I knew it was disapproval. ‘Kill chargers with overfeeding,’ he said. ‘Don’t they teach you babies better than that?’

I looked at the floor.

‘How much grain does a man eat a day?’ he asked.

I’d run the pages’ mess for two years. I gave him amounts for boys, men, women . . .

‘You’ll do. You have a head on your shoulders and no mistake. What’s the most important thing about a campsite? Look at me, boy.’

I looked at him again. His face was grim.

‘Water,’ I said. ‘Water, high ground that drains in rain, defensibility, access to firewood, access to forage for horses, in that order.’

Antipater nodded. ‘You remember your lessons,’ he said. ‘I’m not coming on this expedition. So I’m sending Laodon with you, but you – you, young Ptolemy – are going to run the supplies. I’ll send you two of my own slaves, who’ve done this sort of thing before. They’re Greeks – they can do mathematics and they understand how to feed an army. Let me offer you this piece of advice, boy – war runs on scouting and food, not heroism and not fancy armour. Philotas is going to run the scouting and you are going to run the food.’

I nodded, but my annoyance crossed my face. Of course it did – I was seventeen.

‘You think you are a better scout and it’s the more dashing occupation?’ Antipater asked.

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘Then you’re more of a fool than I took you for, and perhaps fit for neither. Yes, it is dashing, but a well-fed army will win a fight even when surprised, whereas brilliant scouting can’t get an unwilling army to cross a stream. Listen, boy. There’s trouble at court – you know it?’ He leaned towards me, and I leaned back. Antipater was scary.

And I never, never talked about court matters with adults – not even my father. I looked at him with my carefully calculated look of bovine placidity. ‘Huh?’ I said.