HE IS SURPRISED at the change in her. Hanno had always thought of her as a little girl; a father always does. It is not a physical change in her so much. She is beautiful again, but then she was always beautiful, even near death; but now there is a light in her again. Not a raging fire, to be sure, but after so long even candlelight will do.
She treats him with formal respect, like the head of his household giving the weekly report. He would hesitate to rebuke her now. Her serenity is intimidating. As they walk in the gardens of the temple her talk is of prophesies and the downfall of the city, which she tells him was foretold by the oracle, and will now happen with or without his army’s intervention.
He doesn’t believe in prophecy, except for political purposes. The oracle only says what they all fear: that they will not be the first to stop Alexander. News of his advance along the coast came months ago.
He is marching west from his new city of Alexandria in Egypt, building a road as he goes. He could have come by sea and landed at Cape Bon, if he had wanted to play the invader. He has constructed a vast fleet of one thousand warships in Cilicia and Phoenicia but instead he is laying a trans-African road.
It seems he comes to colonize, and is taking his time about it.
But all is not well in Alexander’s Empire, his envoys tell him. Antipater has fomented rebellion in Macedon and has found a willing ally in Antigonus the One-Eyed, the satrap of Turkey. Alexander has sent one of his favourites, Kraterus, to deal with it, along with ten thousand of his veterans from Babylon. There are reports of the two armies massing in Tarsus.
Antipater had no choice really; Alexander crucified one of his sons and has imprisoned the other over yet another poison plot. He is glad he is not Macedonian. You dare not eat anything over there unless you pick it fresh off the tree or throttle it and cook it yourself.
It is one thing to be forewarned of Alexander’s intention, it is another to prevent it. He is a vast storm building on the horizon. You cannot stop the weather either.
His spies tell him that it is not the same army that he took against Persia.
There are weaknesses, or perceived ones, at least. He has Scythians and Bactrians in his cavalry, wild tribesmen with tattooed faces and bedecked ponies; his archers are Indians, his lancers are Parthians and Syrians, his light infantry Greeks and green Macedonians, just arrived and never seen a battle. He has another twelve thousand Egyptians and Persians in training with the sarissa, so they tell him. One infantry phalanx is entirely Persian.
For the first time there is discord in Alexander’s army. He will also have to leave perhaps fifteen thousand troops stationed in Babylon with Meleager to guard his rear and enforce his rule there. Hanno estimates he will have perhaps five thousand horse and a little over twenty-five thousand infantry by the time he arrives. He will be heavily outnumbered, of course. But when has that ever troubled him?
Not even half the army remaining are Macedonians. Yet the core of his strength is still there. He has his Agrianian javelineers, wild men who fight with dogs and can take the eye out of a lizard at a hundred paces. Some of them came out here with their grandfathers. He still has his Companion Cavalry, though that too is reinforced with Persians and Syrians. Most telling of all, he still has some veterans with him, fifty- or sixty-year-old veterans who were fighting battles when most of the population here were still suckling at their mothers’ teats. These are the men who will make the difference, hardened by years of campaigning, with iron discipline and versed in weaponry and tactics. They are the best soldiers in the world.
Day by day Alexander gets closer. What frightens Hanno is not the battle but the inevitability of his defeat. Alexander has never lost; he knows it, and his army, who are mostly mercenaries, know it too.
‘You have been charged with the defence of the city,’ the Council have told him. ‘You have superior numbers. He will be exhausted after a long march. This Alexander is not invincible.’
Not invincible. Really? Many think he is. Being invincible has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with attitude and with cunning and with fortune. But what was fortune but the invisible hand of the gods? Hanno suspects that his daughter, privy to the private mumblings of the divine, now knows more about life than he does.
‘We must get you away from here.’
‘My place is here in the service of the goddess. I cannot leave.’
‘It is not a request. It is my express command.’
‘You cannot command me, Father. My only authority now is the goddess herself.’ She speaks quietly and without resentment. She states facts, and the fact of her being so reasonable makes him bridle.
‘What will you do if the city falls and you are made a slave?’
‘Accept it.’
‘A daughter of mine cannot accept such a fate! I order you to leave the city.’
She smiles, which only infuriates him more.
Once she would have defied him, now she slides either side of him, like waves around a rock. He sees now how she has changed. ‘Why should I leave if you are defending the city for us? Do you not believe you can win?’
‘I wish to be assured of your safety in all eventualities.’
Rumours have run all down the coast. They say Alexander has elephants with him that he has trained as warriors. He owns two hundred, his spies say, which seems an impossible number, a certain exaggeration. But he has only brought three score, as the rigours of the desert road across Libya would tax even a camel.
How does a soldier fight an elephant?
The Council have argued among themselves: should they meet him on the plain or prepare for siege? A siege would be better. Alexander will always outwit you on a flat plain.
The Council choose the plain. He suspects they will have boats waiting should the fight go against them. They say the weather is better in Spain at this time of the year.
She says, ‘I will not break my vow to the goddess. I will stay here.’
He approaches her. He has never told this wisp, this fragile wonder, how much he loves her. A sinew jumps in his cheek. He thinks of perhaps arranging an abduction, sending her to Lilybaeum. ‘Do it for me, then.’
It is the first time he has ever asked her for anything.
Her serenity fractures. ‘Father, I cannot. You have your duty. Allow me mine.’
Once, as a child, he found a pup that had been abandoned by its mother. Its eyes had not yet opened and it squirmed warm in his hand. He placed it on a cushion in his room and tried to feed it ass’s milk with a spoon. He had even slept beside it that night, murmuring encouragement. He blew on its face and whispered about the rats they would catch together when he was grown.
In the morning it was dead. That was the way of it. You did your best to love something, but Mara was right, in the end it was the gods who decided.