‘That’s Tavi!’ Satyrus cried, and began waving like mad.
The India-man, now looking like a brown Achilles in a purple chiton and a scale corslet with alternating rows of gold and silver scales, raised his prod – itself a weapon – and saluted them. Behind him, a pair of Macedonians with long sarissas waved at the children.
On their street, the fourth troop of Diodorus’s mercenaries – all the men who had had a night watch or other duties – were collecting and mounting, and as the elephants passed every man sprang to hold his horse’s head. Their horses stamped and fidgeted until the last elephant walked slowly past.
Then Crax vaulted into the saddle and bellowed for the troop to mount. He looked down through the swirling dust at the twins. ‘Stay safe,’ he said. ‘If it all goes to shit, rally behind the gully. Right?’
Satyrus nodded, and Crax gave a salute with his fist and the troop swung into line on the road, moving slowly at first, then faster, until they vanished into the rising cloud of dust. Every trooper saluted the twins as they rode past, and many of the Keltoi reached out and touched Melitta for luck.
‘I want to watch the battle!’ Satyrus said to Philokles.
‘Me too!’ Melitta said.
Philokles shook his head. ‘Of course,’ he said. He pointed at the bluff from where they had first seen the camp. He and Theron collected horses, and the four of them mounted.
‘Where are you going?’ Sappho asked. She was dressed in Persian trousers and a Sakje jacket, and her hair hung in braids.
‘Please, Aunt, we want to see the battle!’ Melitta said. ‘Philokles will go up on the bluff with us.’
Sappho considered for a moment. ‘I’m sending a slave with you. Targis! Go with Master Philokles and the children. Bring me word if anything untoward should happen.’ She walked aside with Philokles. They spoke in low voices for a minute, and then Sappho was in Philokles’ arms, weeping. Satyrus saw it, but he wasn’t sure he’d really seen it, because a moment later she was issuing orders, the only sign of her tears a certain redness around her eyes. Philokles came back to them.
‘Targis?’ Philokles said politely. He was always polite to slaves. ‘Come with us, please.’
Targis was a pale blond man with long legs. He looked like a runner. He nodded to his mistress and followed the group.
‘I wonder what happened to Philip and Draco,’ Satyrus asked.
Philokles raised an eyebrow. ‘I doubt they could come to any harm,’ he said.
‘I miss them,’ Satyrus said.
‘You’re starting to see that there’s a world beyond yourself,’ Philokles said.
They rode up the bluff at a trot, with Targis running hard behind them. The blond man ran easily, his arms pumping away. Theron admired his form. ‘He’s trained in a gymnasium,’ Theron said.
When they stopped, Theron waved at the slave. ‘You were an athlete?’ he asked.
The slave averted his eyes. ‘I was not born a slave,’ he said.
‘No one is born a slave,’ Melitta said. ‘Men make each other slaves.’
Philokles glanced at the girl. ‘You show signs of real wisdom, girl! Where did you learn such things?’
Melitta blushed. ‘From you, master,’ she said.
‘Bah!’ Philokles said. ‘I’ve never said anything as well put.’
Satyrus barely heard them. His attention was already fixed on the broad stretch of flat plain to the north and west, where both armies were forming, and he ignored the movement of men and horses on the bluff to focus on the armies beneath his feet.
At the bottom of the broad salt plain of the valley, there were skirmishers, psiloi and peltastai. None of them were visible as individuals, but the movement of so many men, even spread well apart, raised a salt dust that looked like dandelion fluff.
Behind the screen of his skirmishers, Eumenes’ army was about half-formed, with the phalanx in the centre ready for action, their spears erect and the points glittering in the sun above the dust. The right-flank cavalry – where Diodorus had his command, subordinate to Philip, a Macedonian – were almost formed, and Satyrus could see that there were prodromoi – the scouts – well out on the flank and armoured cavalry closer in to the phalanx.
On the left, however, closest to the camp, there was nothing short of chaos. A heavy curtain of sand rose high in the air, hiding Eumenes’ best cavalry and his peltastai, who were forming to cover the flank of the phalanx where it would pass the rough ground of the valley floor, where heavy brush and an olive orchard interrupted the flat fields.
Across the valley, Antigonus One-Eye formed his best cavalry on his right, facing Eumenes’ best cavalry, and they were already formed. His centre was wrecked, the phalanx in disarray and his left was in flux, lost in obscuring clouds. His far left – the part of his army that faced Diodorus – was reacting to the very visible fact that Diodorus’s flank extended farther than his opponent’s, and they were vulnerable.
Nothing seemed to happen quickly. At this distance they couldn’t see individuals, and they couldn’t hear anything but a vague roar, like a distant stream running over rocks.
‘Why do they wait for each other to form?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Surely the first to form has a clear advantage?’
‘Not a bad question, for a pup,’ a harsh voice barked. Just to their right, almost unnoticed in their excitement at the panorama of war, a cavalcade had mounted the bluff. A swarthy man in a silvered breastplate and a matching helmet rode over. ‘Neither commander will attack until he’s sure of his own dispositions, and the longer we keep our men in line, the more shit we’ll think of to fix. It can go on all day. War is nothing but a contest of mistakes, boy. The fewer you make, the more likely you are to win. I’ve failed to get my right wing in line, and I don’t have my peltastai where I wanted them. And my opponent has fucked up the disposition of his elephants – he committed them to the line. Now’s he’s seen the error of his ways – I suspect his son had something to do with it.’
‘Eumenes,’ Philokles said. He was on his feet. Philokles gave a salute in the Spartan fashion.
‘By all the gods, a Spartan. You have the better of me, sir.’ Eumenes extended an arm, leaning down from the saddle.
Philokles took his hand and clasped it. ‘Philokles – a friend of your strategos Diodorus, and of Kineas, whom you fought in Bactria. These are his children.’
Eumenes grimaced. ‘You could put them in with Herakles. We could start a nursery for orphans of great generals!’ He looked down at them, imperious in purple and silver. ‘What do you think, boy?’
‘I think that you’re hiding your elephants in that dust cloud,’ Melitta said. ‘And you’re going to break the enemy in the centre.’
‘I think Uncle Diodorus’s flank extends well beyond his opponent’s,’ Satyrus piped up. ‘And they’re already scared.’
‘Not bad,’ Eumenes said, looking like a man who had all day to discuss his tactics with children. ‘Not bad at all. But here’s the question, boys and girls. He has more cavalry than I do. Yet – his battle line is shorter. Where is the rest of the cavalry? That is what I rode up here to see.’
Satyrus and Melitta exchanged a glance.
Eumenes went on, speaking mostly to himself. ‘Battles happen because both generals think that they are in a superior position, and one of them is always wrong,’ he said. ‘Or because one of them is desperate. I’m not desperate. My phalanx is better and I have more elephants. One-Eye has more cavalry. It is his only advantage, beside the fact that he’s a Macedonian and I’m a Greek.’ He took a linen towel from his satchel and wiped his brow. ‘So where the fuck is it?’ he went on. ‘If he’s sent it out on the flanks – well, I may have crushed his centre before they arrive. No dust cloud. I guess they could be coming behind that range of hills to the west, but that’s twenty stades.’