A Choice of Destinies Read online

  A Choice of Destinies

  A CHOICE OF DESTINIES

  by Melissa Scott, © 1986

  For my friends—D.S., T.G.A., M.M.,

  B.3. E.C., C.T., P.N., J.C., D.R.,

  and, specially, L.A.B.

  A CHOICE OF DESTINIES

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

  portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

  to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1986 by Melissa Scott

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

  book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  260 Fifth Avenue New

  York, N.Y. 10001

  First printing, June 1986

  ISBN: 0-671-65563-9

  Cover art by David Egge

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  TRADE PUBLISHING GROUP

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  THE MACEDONIAN CALENDAR

  MACEDONIAN MONTH

  GREGORIAN MONTH (Approximate)

  Artemisios

  mid-April—mid-May

  Daisios

  mid-May—mid-June

  Panemos

  mid-June—mid-July

  Loios

  mid-July—mid-August

  Gorpiaios

  mid-August—mid-September

  Hyperberetaios

  mid-September—mid-October

  Dios

  mid-October—mid-November

  Apellaios

  mid-November—mid-December

  Audnaios

  mid-December—mid-January

  Peritios

  mid-January—mid-February

  Dystros

  mid-February—mid-March

  Xandikos

  mid-March—mid-April

  Like most ancient calendars, the Macedonian calendar was based on lunar observations, and thus is about ten days short of the solar year; thus the Gregorian months given above can be no more than approximate. To compensate, and keep the Macedonian calendar in line with the seasons, intercalary months were added, a second month of Xandikos in the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, and nineteenth years of the cycle, and an extra Hyperberetaios was observed in the sixteenth year.

  The Macedonian stadion is approximately equal to one-eighth of a Roman mile; 8.7 stadia equals (approximately) one English mile.

  Prologue:

  Alexandria Eschate, winter (Peritios), 1855 imperial (1499 A.D., 2252 Ab Urbe Condita-A.U.C.)

  It was snowing again. Jason of Sestos stared out the window at the swirling flakes obscuring his view of the surrounding hills. It was a depressingly familiar sight after three years in command of the garrison at Alexandria Eschate, and he turned away from the window, sighing his boredom. The Sogdians had been more or less civilized since Philip Alexander’s reign; the Scythians and their Kievan allies had been quiet for nearly fifty years. Still, Alexandria Eschate, Alexandria the Farthest, the last of the eastern cities founded by Alexander III and I, retained its strategic importance, and Jason supposed he should feel flattered to hold such an important command.

  He turned away from the window, glancing around the officers’ mess. The servants had lit a roaring fire in the main fireplace, and a dozen oil lamps gave an added warmth in the dark afternoon. Most of the other garrison officers were present, except for Polemocrates, the junior infantry commander, whose Foot Companions had the watch: there was little for them to do in this weather, except wait for spring. Alexander the Thessalian, one of perhaps a dozen Alexanders in the garrison—the name was, not surprisingly, the most common in the empire—was bent over his daybook, fingers flashing along the beads of his tallyboard as he calculated the month’s accounts. The senior infantry commander, Amyntor son of Alexander, was sprawled in a comfortable chair, feet stretched out to the fire. A book lay open in his lap, but he did not seem to be reading. Jason crossed the room to join him, glad of the excuse for conversation.

  “Not a very interesting text, I see,” he said.

  Amyntor started and looked up, a rueful smile crossing his face. “Very interesting, actually,” he said.

  “Oh?” Jason asked, more to break the monotony than out of real interest.

  “Flavius Arrianus, History of Alexander III/I,” Amyntor answered, displaying the book’s spine.

  Philip Gellius, the garrison’s Roman engineer, looked up from his dice game. “That’s the controversial one, isn’t it?”

  Jason had long ago ceased to be surprised by the variety of the engineer’s interests. Amyntor nodded.

  “Your move, Philip.” Alexander the Lydian, commander of the garrison’s tiny cavalry detachment, leaned across the gaming board to touch the engineer’s arm. The earrings that had given him his second name flashed in the lamplight, and Jason found himself wondering again why the cavalryman had adopted that Lydian custom. He wasn’t really a Lydian, but a citizen of Alexandria-in-Egypt, and God alone knew what obscure races made up his bloodline. Mostly eastern peoples, Jason thought, Persians and Asian Greeks and possibly Egyptians; the Lydian was too darkly pretty to have much western blood.

  Philip tossed the dice and shifted his counters along the board’s curving track, saying, “I read it. What do you think, Amyntor?”

  “It is interesting,” the infantry officer said, “but…”

  “What are you talking about?” the Thessalian asked, pushing aside the tallyboard.

  Amyntor silently held up his book. Philip said, “It’s another history of the great Alexander, only this one says the Greek rebellion was the greatest thing that ever happened to him.”

  The Thessalian snorted, and the Lydian said scornfully, “And how does he figure that?”

  “He says that if Alexander had continued east the way he wanted to, there would’ve been an unstable, shifting frontier somewhere in the middle of India, and that not even Philip Alexander would’ve been able to hold it together. He says the Greek states would’ve rebelled and the end result would’ve been the fall of Alexander’s empire and the rise of Roman power, at least in the West,” Amyntor said.

  “I know a Roman argument when I hear one,” Alexander the Lydian said. He shifted his counters, frowning, and rolled the dice with a muttered invocation. Philip smiled and picked up the dice.

  The Lydian shook his head, pushing the tiny pile of copper coins across the table toward the Roman. “What else does this Arrianus have to say?” There was a note of challenge in his voice and Jason sighed. Like most of the elite Companion Cavalry, who could trace their regimental history directly to Alexander’s own cavalry, the Lydian was more than a little in love with the heroic conqueror. In his eyes, at least, the great Alexander could do no wrong. Jason smiled faintly. It was in part to discourage such romantic notions that the Companions required a year’s service in a provincial garrison before a man could be promoted to squadron leader.

  Amyntor grinned and gave Philip a quick, malicious glance. “He says the Greeks built everything important anyway, that any culture Rome built would’ve been sterile and imitative and barbaric—and he’s Roman himself.”

  Philip shrugged, not letting himself be baited. “If I remember correctly, the word Arrianus used was pragmatic. There’s nothing wrong with a little pragmatism, Amyntor.”

  “Pragmatism couldn’t hold all those people together,” the Lydian began, and Alexander the Thessalian said, “This doesn’t sound much like history to me.”

  Philip nodded. “I thought that myself.”


  The Lydian said slowly, “I don’t know. Why not speculate? This sort of negative history—or whatever you want to call it—might give some insight into what actually did happen, help you isolate what the important factors were.”

  “You can’t test any of these things,” the Thessalian said impatiently. “The past only happens once.”

  Jason sighed again, closing his ears to the rising argument, now diverted into all too familiar territory. Philip and the Thessalian would gang up on Alexander the Lydian—as they always did—argue him to mulish silence, and then would probably spend the rest of the night arguing the finer points of philosophy. There was one thing, though, he thought, glancing again at the snow that swirled ever more thickly outside the windows: if Alexander had gone into India, he might not have had to put a garrison in this godforsaken spot.

  A Choice of Destinies

  Chapter 1:

  Bactra, winter (Peritios), 29 imperial (328 B.C., 426 A.U.C.)

  It was a quiet night, so still that the soldiers standing watch on the city wall could hear the faint shrilling of flutes from the house taken over by their own brigade’s commander. A few, shivering even under the layers of sheepskin and wool, glanced enviously toward the sound, then up at the sky, judging the waning hours of their watch. One, pausing to warm his hands at a brazier, mumbled the watchword to the man who held the next section of wall. Getting the proper response, he jerked his head toward the inner city and added, “What wouldn’t I give to be down there.”

  The other man, a grizzled, bearded veteran of King Philip’s day, laughed softly, so as not to attract the attention of their file-leader. He fumbled under the folds of his cloaks and brought out a wineskin. “Here, have a swallow of this.”

  The younger man, newly arrived from Macedon, drank gratefully. It was so cold that he could barely taste the alcohol. He shivered and moved closer to the brazier.

  “You don’t want to be down there,” the veteran went on. Glancing over his shoulder for the file-leader, he cradled his fifteen-foot sarissa against his shoulder and tipped a cooled brick out of the folds of his cloak into the brazier. A second stone was heating among the coals, and he retrieved it cautiously, wrapping his hand in several layers of cloaks. The younger man stared enviously, and did not hide his smile when the other burned his fingers.

  “They don’t have a brazier,” the veteran said, hand in his mouth. “Or wine. And the officers’re right there. You’re better off up here, boy.” He snapped his unburned fingers for the wineskin, which the other reluctantly returned, and turned away, shouldering his sarissa.

  The younger man stared after him for a moment, then turned back to his own stretch of wall, wrapping his thick cloak even more tightly around his body. Even without a brazier, he thought, he would be warmer inside. He glanced over his shoulder, across the roofs of the low-lying, foreign buildings, toward the sounds, then turned resolutely away, looking east across the invisible hills. Nothing moved there, nor was any resistance expected from the Bactrian and Sogdian tribesmen after the victories of autumn and early winter. Remembering that campaign, the young man smiled. Those had been his first battles, and he had done well; with the gods’ favor, he would do still better in the spring, especially if they went east as rumor said they would. The real veterans, the ones who had been with Alexander since the army crossed into Asia, were grumbling about that already—and let them, he thought. It was time for younger men to make their mark. The thought was almost as warming as the wine; he moved along the wall wrapped in its comfort, dreaming of glory.

  It was warmer in the brigade commander’s quarters, but not by much. Guests and host alike wore their heaviest tunics and kept their cloaks handy. Even the flute-girls were clothed, though they made great play with their heavy draperies. Craterus son of Alexander, brigade commander of the Foot Companions and the night’s host, had ordered the dining couches drawn close around the hall’s archaic central fire-pit. Slaves tended the leaping flames, but, though Craterus’s face and shoulders were warm enough, his feet were icy in their sheepskin wrappings. He sat up abruptly, swinging his feet toward the fire, and shouted for more wine. A flute-girl smiled invitingly at him, and Craterus beckoned to her, pulling her close as much for her body heat as for her other charms.

  The party, which had begun at sunset, was winding down at last. Coenus, the commander of the senior brigade of the Foot Companions, lay half asleep on his couch, staring into the fire. He roused himself with a start and shouted, “Craterus, good night to you. It’s time we ancients were in bed.”

  That raised a sleepy laugh: Coenus was the oldest man present, with sons serving in his own brigade, but he was no ancient. It was his men, with Craterus’s, who had borne the brunt of the winter’s fighting. Coenus himself had been in the thick of it, and had the fresh scars to prove it.

  “The night’s still young, Coenus,” the king protested, propping himself up on both elbows. He lay with his feet to the fire, his face in shadow, but everyone could hear the laughter in his voice.

  “That’s as may be,” Coenus retorted, with dignity, “but I’m not.” He hauled himself to his feet—like all the guests, he had been drinking since sunset—and made his way to the door, weaving only slightly. Conversation resumed, but sluggishly, and Craterus, watching with a host’s eyes, sighed his regret. The party would end very soon now. Even as he thought this, he saw Hephaestion, commander of the Companion Cavalry, yawn openly. Craterus, who disliked the cavalry commander intensely, scowled at him, but to his surprise it was another of the Foot Companion’s brigadiers who spoke next.

  “Craterus, I’ll follow the example of my elders.” Perdiccas ran a hand through his sandy hair, dislodging a garland of wilted greenery, and rose with the assistance of a willing flute-girl. He favored the company with a cheerful leer, and staggered off toward the house he had commandeered.

  Hephaestion, sitting on the end of a couch at the king’s right hand, returned Craterus’s scowl—he disliked the brigadier nearly as much as Craterus disliked him—and glanced sidelong at the king, wishing he would leave.

  Alexander grinned back at him, knowing perfectly well what his friend wanted. He himself was not quite sober, but most of the others were very drunk; the pleasant conversations were long dead. It was time to leave, though he could cheerfully have talked the night away. He sat up, reaching for his cloak, and said, “Craterus, I’ll leave you also.”

  Hephaestion gave an almost soundless sigh and stood easily, wrapping his cloak securely around his body. “And I.”

  Craterus rose, too, staggering a little as the wine hit him. He shouted for a slave to bring torches and walked with the others into the cold courtyard. It was very quiet; so quiet that the king’s voice seemed to echo endlessly as he said his good nights. Craterus, cloakless, could feel the frost in the air, but stayed outside until he saw the king’s party enter the tiny gatehouse. Then he turned back to the warmth of the hall.

  The five men on duty at the gate had a small brazier going just inside the gatehouse, but it did little good. Their breath steamed in the still air, and Hephaestion, shivering, drew his cloak even more tightly around his shoulders. The king did not seem to notice the cold. He greeted the guards cheerfully by name, but was surprised when their answers came too slowly. “What’s the trouble, Aeropus?”

  The half-file-leader grimaced. “It’s her, sire.” He jerked his head at what seemed to be a pile of rags next to the brazier. Alexander glanced curiously at it, and the rags stirred, unfolding. Hephaestion took the torch from the slave and held it close. A woman crouched against the gatehouse wall, wrapped in layers of shawls and blankets against the cold. Her hair was streaked with grey, but her face was young and wild, and her eyes were mad. Like the eyes of a frightened horse, they showed the whites all around the iris. One of the guards whispered a charm against witchcraft as she rose to her feet, clutching blankets about her.

  Aeropus went on nervously, “She said she had to talk to you, had a seeing for yo
u, but she wouldn’t let us take a message, or bring her in to you. She said she’d wait, you’d come.”

  “I’m here, mother,” Alexander said, gently. “What was it you wanted?” The woman was shaking despite the layers of clothing; Alexander loosened his own cloak and swung it around her shoulders.

  “Alexander,” Hephaestion said, half a warning, half a plea for care. There had already been two attempts to kill the king; it was only too easy to picture this half-mad female as some plotter’s agent. The king ignored him.

  “What is it, mother?” he asked again, tightening his cloak around the woman. As he did so, she caught his hands in hers. Alexander stood patiently, waiting, as her shaking eased. He could smell the oil she wore in her hair, and, beneath its sweetness, the sour scent of her unwashed body.

  “I’m sent, King Alexander,” the woman said at last. “The god sends me. He tells me this is a chancy time, a bad time, this night and the days to come. Especially this night—it’s a night to stay with friends, King Alexander, your luck’s with them this time.”

  “What will happen?” Alexander asked. “Why is it a bad time?”

  The woman shook her head wildly. “The god doesn’t tell me. But he tells me it’s chancy, balanced on the sword’s point between one fate and another, and it’s a night for friends, King Alexander.”

  Alexander nodded slowly, convinced in spite of himself by the absolute certainty in her voice. He had heard that certainty before, at Siwah and at Delphi, and trusted it. “Thank you for the warning, mother. I’ll heed the god. Now, come back inside with me, and get warm. I want to give you a present.”

  “No!” The woman jerked her hands away. “No, I may not, not until it’s over. Then I may, and I will ask, but not till then.” She shrugged off the king’s cloak and said, “Tonight and the days ahead, King Alexander. The god warns you.” Then she was gone, darting out of the gatehouse like a startled deer.