At dawn I’m called back. It’s the same captain, alone this time. “All right,” he says. “It’s a cover story.”
He meets my eyes, as if to communicate that I’m special; he’s going to clue me in on the true noise.
“Headquarters believes it vital that no word of these atrocities reach the army’s ears.”
“Why not?”
“Twelve hundred Bactrians and Sogdians surrendered to us yesterday. Alexander wants to integrate them into the corps. These hundreds will bring in hundreds more. But if our fellows learn of what happened…”
I get it.
“This is about peace,” says the captain. “It’s about ending this bung-fucked war!”
I ask him about the post the Bactrians sent to our king. “Don’t the troops know from that?”
“That message was buried the instant it showed up. The only ones who know about it are the officers in this compound and a couple of your mates whom we told when we brought them in.”
On a side table sits a steaming pot of lentils and chicken. There’s wine and barley mooch. The captain asks if I’ve eaten. I’m not hungry, I say.
“What line are you defending, Corporal? By Zeus, why won’t you sign?”
I know I’m being mulish. What difference does one lousy ink-scratch make in the scheme of things?
“Listen to me, son. This order comes straight from Alexander. Don’t you love your king?”
I do.
But I won’t sign.
“Do you understand how important this is? We’re talking about men’s lives! If peace can be made this winter, we save an entire spring campaign.”
I understand.
“Do you imagine,” the captain asks, “that Command will let one pigheaded corporal stand in the way of shortening this war?”
“Are you threatening me, sir?”
“I’m begging you, man.”
45
I spend the morning frozen in the supply tent.
I understand Command’s predicament. I understand its solution. The phony report will be sent home to Macedon; it will be accepted without hesitation. Headquarters will publish it here throughout the army. No one who has signed it can then call it false. The Bactrians and Sogdians will be enrolled in the corps; they will bring in their cousins and brothers. It’s sound strategy. If I were a staff officer, I’d contrive it too.
But I still won’t sign.
One of the guards set over me is an Arcadian mercenary. Pole-mon is his name, a good fellow; I know him from the city-building at Kandahar. He sneaks me some stew and half a jar of wine. “What’s the bone?” he asks. Why am I being so stubborn?
I tell him about Lucas, how the truth meant everything to him.
“Mate, you don’t know how deep you’re in it. These fuckers aren’t dogging around.”
Yes, I say. “I’m sure they’ve got a story made up about me too.”
“Damn right they have. And I’ll sign it. We all will.”
Exhaustion has shattered me, but I can’t sleep. In my mind I see Lucas’s eyes. I can’t let him down. I steel myself for the worst that can be thrown at me. I will not prove false to my friend.
By midmorning the camp is boiling with action. Spitamenes’ trail has been picked up. Orders are being issued. Alexander’s brigades will push off by noon. Our company will rejoin its division. Everyone but me.
This is the keenest torture yet. I cannot be left behind!
I am kicked out of the supply tent, so its contents can be broken down into mule-loads for the march out. Back in the first tent, I can hear my mates outside, rigging up. I can’t stand it. New guards are posted over me. I’m supposed to sit and say nothing, but my jailers let up when Flag and Stephanos, mounted to move out, rein outside.
“Sign,” says Flag, with a look that communicates, “It’s all rubbish anyway.” Stephanos taps his skull, meaning don’t be such a hardhead.
I am taken away again. This time to the king’s precinct. Another tent, bigger, with compartments. I stew through midday. Where is my horse? Has she been taken care of? The portal opens; the captain from yesterday enters. This time he has a staff colonel with him. The colonel says he’s through pissing around. He slaps the document down and commands me to sign it.
I will not.
“Hell take you!” The colonel pounds the table. “Do you want to make me a murderer?”
I hold at attention.
“You are a disgrace! You discredit the Corps!” And he stalks out.
The captain still hasn’t spoken. He motions me to sit. He does too. He pours a cup for me from a pitcher. “It’s only water.”
I take it. The captain smiles. “Your brother Philip is somewhere out on the steppe. Otherwise we’d have him here, too, to reason with you.” He regards me. “But you wouldn’t listen to him either, would you?”
He takes a different document from a case and slides it toward me. “This is your rag sheet.” The record of my debts. The captain gives me a moment to scan it. It’s every tick I owe the army, for my horse, advances, allowances. The roll must run forty lines. “We’ll tear it up.” Next: my enlistment contract. “I’ll knock twelve months off.”
The captain meets my eye with a look that says, “Let’s cut through the crap.”
“You’re promoted to sergeant. You’ve earned a Bronze Lion; I see no reason not to make it a Silver. The award comes with two years’ pay. Bonuses on top, plus your oikos allowance. We’ll get your girl up to Nautaca. Make the winter a little warmer.”
He indicates the original report.
“You don’t have to sign. Just give me your word you won’t contradict its contents, verbally or in written communication.”
He’s very good. But each word renders me more furious. In my mind I see Lucas’s charred remains, being dragged in the dirt behind some Bactrian yaboo.
“You might as well kill me, sir, and get it over with.”
The colonel sighs. “By Zeus, you’re a hard knot.”
He stands. I’m waiting for the guards to come in and seize me. The portal rustles. I hear a step from the adjacent chamber. Light enters. A man follows.
It is Alexander.
46
The captain springs to his feet. I brace at rigid attention. The king comes all the way in. He entreats our pardon for entering unannounced. He has overheard our words from outside; he could not help himself. “Stand easy, Corporal.”
Alexander comes round front, where I can see him.
Our lord wears a plain winter cloak with no breastplate and no insignia save a single Gold Lion as a shoulder clasp. “The brigades move out in an hour. Forgive me if I don’t have much time.”
I am struck by how worn he looks. The contrast to his youthfulness, when we replacements first saw him two years ago, is overwhelming. He is only twenty-eight. Up close he looks forty. His skin is abraded to leather by sun and wind. His honey-colored hair holds streaks of silver. He dismisses the captain but does not sit himself, nor indicate that I may.
“I know what it means to lose a friend,” he says, “and in such a ghastly manner. I respect your courage in defying an order that seems to you unjust, and I understand that promise of reward offends your sense of honor.”
The chamber is close, no bigger than an eight-man tent, with nothing in it but a table, three chairs, and a stand for maps and charts.
“But you must understand what is at stake. We have a chance now to end this war, a chance that will not endure. Hours count. Amnesty must be extended to our Bactrian and Sogdian captives as quickly as possible, so it looks like a gesture of spirit and generosity, not a calculated act of politics.”
I am pierced to the heart by this token of our lord to address, as he would a commander of stature, a soldier of such mean rank.
“This is what war is,” says Alexander. “Glory has fled. One searches in vain for honor. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of. Even victory, as Aeschylus says, in whose august glow all felonies are effaced, is not the same in this war. What remains? To prevent the needless waste of lives. Too many good men have perished without cause. More will join them if we don’t make this peace now.”