Lion of Macedon by David Gemmell
‘A woman brought it. You cannot fault the hospitality here, Parmenion - and it is the finest wine I’ve ever tasted. Have some.’
‘I saw no woman, sire. From where did she come?’
Philip shrugged. ‘The palace is like a maze. Who knows? Come. Drink.’
Parmenion poured a goblet of the King’s wine and tasted it. It was strong, heavy and almost sweet. Just then they heard the chanting, and he put down his wine and wandered to the window. A torch-lit procession was moving from the woods. ‘Your bride is coming, sire,’ said the Spartan. Philip leaned out, his hands gripping the stone sill.
At the front of the procession, dressed like an ancient Minoan princess, was a flame-haired girl of great beauty -her hair tied with golden ribbons, her breasts bared and rouged, her hips clad in swirling silk.
‘By all the gods of Olympus!’ whispered Philip. ‘Is that not a sight on which to feast the soul?’
Parmenion swallowed hard. The girl was the image of Derae: the ,vide-set eyes, the full, sensual mouth. The Spartan stepped back from the window, tearing his eyes from the scene. The procession moved on into the palace, the chanting becoming muffled and distant. Philip poured yet another goblet of wine, draining it at a single swallow.
‘It is almost time, sire,’ said Parmenion. ‘You should prepare.’
‘Yes,’ replied Philip, his voice slurring. ‘Pre... prepare.’ He struggled from his chiton, staggered towards the white cloak and fell on to a couch. ‘Damn!’ he muttered. ‘Legs betrayed me.’ Parmenion ran to him.
‘What is it, sire?’
‘Don’t... don’t know. Help... me up.’ Parmenion pulled the King upright on the couch. ‘I’ll be all right. Get me some water.’
The Spartan heard sounds of footfalls in the corridor outside, and listened as the door of the bedchamber opened. Moving to the hangings between the rooms he drew them tight, then took water to the King. Philip’s eyes were swollen and bleary. ‘They are here, sire,’ whispered Parmenion. ‘You must stir yourself.’ Philip took the water, which spilled to his naked chest. He tried to drink but his head sagged back, the goblet falling from his hand.
Parmenion cursed softly. It was beyond belief. He had watched Philip on many drinking bouts; the man’s capacity for wine or ale was legendary. Never had Parmenion seen him like this. And after only two pitchers of wine? It was inconceivable.
The smell of sweet incense drifted through the hangings and he heard the acolytes withdraw from the chamber. Silently he crept across the room, opening a small gap in the drapes. The room beyond was lit by yellow-flamed lanterns and the naked form of Olympias lay on the broad bed. She was writhing and moaning softly.
Parmenion cursed again and returned to the King.
The hour was upon them.
And Philip lay in a drunken stupor.
Derae slipped from the palace after the torch-lit procession had passed by. Swiftly she made for the hills and the old stone circle half hidden by the trees of the apple orchard. Her spirits were high and she fought to stem the heady sensation of victory.
‘I did it, Tamis,’ she whispered. ‘I stopped him. There will be no Dark God!’
Running down a hillside she saw the darkness of the trees looming. Her spirit eyes caught a flicker of movement in the shadows and she dropped to her knees, waiting, scouring the trees.
There! By the undergrowth to the right.
Derae’s spirit swept into the sky, hovering over the trees. A young woman in black robes was waiting, knife in hand. Derae flew to the left, but another woman crouched there, similarly armed.
Returning to her body Derae retraced her steps up to the hill-top -then made an angling run to the left. She was only a few minutes from the stone circle. Once there, no assassin could follow.
She could hear her pursuers crashing through the undergrowth, shouting to other, unseen, companions.
Suddenly she sensed Aida!
Darkness fell on her like a cloak thrown over her head. She was blind! Panic swept through her as, falling to her hands and knees, she crawled forward. Leaves brushed her face. Her fingers ran over the bush. It was thick and high. Crawling into its centre, she pulled the branches around her, scooping dead leaves and dirt over her robe.
Then her spirit rose again.
Her blindness remained, but now her concentration deepened. Fire blazed from her eyes and the Spell of Darkness gave way.
A scaled hand lanced for her face, talons sinking deep into her spirit flesh. The pain was agonizing, but her own hand came up to grip the reptilian wrist. Flames burned along the length of the arm, sweeping down over the demon and enveloping him in fire.
In an instant Derae was armoured in breastplate and greaves of white silver, a Spartan helm on her head, and in her hand a sword of blinding starlight.
‘Where are you, Aida?’ she called. ‘Face me if you dare!’
‘I dare, child,’ came the whispering sound of Aida’s voice and Derae spun to see the dark-cloaked woman hovering nearby. Aida smiled. ‘Foolish girl to come here in the flesh. Even now the sharp knives are closing in on your hiding-place. Fly to it, Derae!’
‘I have beaten you,’ Derae shouted. ‘It does not matter if I die.’
‘And how have you beaten me, child? I am still here.’
‘There will be no Dark Birth,’ answered Derae, glancing down to where the acolytes were searching the undergrowth, moving ever closer to her hidden body. She did not want to die and fought to contain her fear.
Aida’s laughter cut through her like a cold knife. ‘You think a child - even a talented child - can thwart the powers of Kadmilos?’ She raised her arms. Black snakes fountained from her finger-tips, hissing through the night air to cover Derae in a writhing mass, their fangs glittering in the moonlight.
Ignoring the pain, Derae closed her eyes. The snakes changed colour, shifting from black to red, their shapes twisting into tiny circles, until they fell from her as rose-petals, drifting down to the ground.
‘You cannot harm me,’ said Derae softly. ‘Whereas...’
A dazzling sphere of light blazed up around Aida, trapping her at its centre. Derae fled for her body just as an acolyte discovered it.
The knife-blade swept down but Derae’s hand grabbed the wrist. Rolling to her knees, the priestess lashed her fist into the woman’s face, hurling her back. Then she was up and sprinting for the stone circle.
Behind her the pursuers screamed their hatred. Derae ran on. A hurled knife flashed by her head as she leapt over a fallen stone column. Turning in the centre of the circle she raised her arms. The world shimmered. As the Gateway closed around her, she heard Aida’s voice whisper in her mind.
‘There will be another time, my dove!’
Olympias lay on the silk-covered bed, her body floating on a sea of pleasure, her skin tingling, her mind exploding with colours. She licked her lips, running her fingers over her breasts and belly, aware of an almost painful desire.
‘Philip!’ she called. The room was spinning, the drugs in her system approaching the height of their powers. She had danced at the fire, felt the touch and caress of a score of acolytes, their lips soft and sweet with wine. The secrets of the Third Mystery had come to her with the music of the night, the breeze from the distant, holy peak of Korifi Fengari. She would give birth to a god-king, a man of awesome talents. His name would echo throughout history, his deeds remaining unequalled as long as the stars hung in the sky. ‘Philip!’
Even in her drugged state she could feel the passing of time - sense that the mystical hour was almost spent. She rolled to her side.
The curtains parted.
There he stood, naked but for his cloak and the ram-horned helm of Kadmilos. He strode towards her and she opened her arms. For a moment he stood and gazed at her body, then harshly he entered her. She screamed, her hands pulling at his back, the metal mask of the helm cold against her face.
Her fingers moved up to touch the metal, stroking the black horns.
In the lantern light Philip’s green eyes seemed -impossibly - to have changed to blue.
The Temple, Summer, 357 BC
Derae awoke just before noon. Throwing back the sheet, she moved to the window, her heart light. She had seen Parmenion and she had destroyed the plans of Aida. Today she would leave the temple and journey to Macedonia, there to await Parmenion’s return.
She knew now that he still loved her, and they would at least have many years to enjoy together. She felt young again, full of life and laughter.
It had been so easy to drug Philip’s wine. All the years of fear had been so unnecessary.
The sun was warm on her face - but at her back she felt the blast of cold air and turned swiftly. A shadow was growing on the wall by the door, swelling like a winged demon. Derae prepared herself for the attack, but it did not come, the shadows swirling into a cloak around the spirit form of Aida.
‘What do you want here?’ Derae asked.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ said Aida. ‘Without your help, and that of your miserable predecessor, my dreams could not have been fulfilled.’ The hooded woman laughed, the sound chilling. ‘You can walk the paths of the past and the future. Walk them now - and weep, my dove!’
In an instant she was gone.
Derae sat back on the bed and closed her eyes, flying once more to the palace on Samothrace, feeling her way back through the hours. She saw herself bringing the wine to Philip, pouring him a drink, watching him drain it. She saw her flight, and her battle with Aida.
Then with a sense of dread she returned to the palace, watching Parmenion’s attempts to rouse the King. She cried out when she saw the Spartan stand up and remove his clothes, donning the helm and cloak of the Chaos Spirit.
‘Oh, sweet Heaven!’ she whispered as he embraced the naked girl.
Derae fled the scene, opening her eyes back at the temple.
‘Without your help... my dreams could not have been fulfilled.’
She saw it all now, the arrogance and the stupidity.
Tamis had seen the vision of the Dark Birth and then the face of Parmenion. Believing him to be a human sword she could wield against the forces of darkness, Tamis had entered his life - moulding his future, forcing him along a path of bitterness and hatred. She had created in him the perfect warrior, the perfect killer of men...
The perfect human father for the Dark God.
Anger flared in Derae. The years of dedication, of healing; the years of hopes and dreams. All for nothing!
Now there would be no life with Parmenion, no journey to love in Macedonia.
She gazed out of the window, over the rolling hills and meadows and the cloud-shrouded mountains, seeing again the visions of bloodshed and horror that had haunted her for decades. Annies marching across bloody battlefields, widows and orphans, ruined cities, fallen empires. Sometimes the Dark God had been Greek, at other times Persian - a chief from Parthia, a young prince from the tribes to the far north. Once he had even been black, leading his troops from the lush jungles far to the south of Egypt. These myriad futures no longer existed in the same form. Derae allowed the Oceans of Time to lift and carry her into distant tomorrows, and there she saw a young man with golden hair, his face beautiful, his armour bright with the glow of gold.
In every future the armies of Macedon were marching, their long spears stained with blood.
She studied the golden figure through hundreds of possible - even probable - futures. All were the same - the Dark God triumphant, becoming immortal, a creature of blood and fire, the human flesh burning away, the full evil of the Horned One sitting on the thrones of the world. Despite her despair Derae searched on, finding at last a glimmer of hope like the fading spark of a winter fire.
The child had been conceived at the last stroke of the Unholy Hour, giving him at least a spark of humanity. The Dark God would be powerful within him, but at that moment Derae decided to spend her life fanning that spark, seeking to feed the human spirit within the devil who was to be.
‘At the last you were right, Tamis,’ she said sadly. ‘We cannot fight them with their own weapons. There can never be victory there.’ And like the old priestess before her, Derae prayed for guidance.
And she saw, as Tamis had seen, one man standing beside the Dark God, a strong man - a good man.
Parmenion - the Lion of Macedon.
Lake Prespa, Midwinter, 356 BC
Phaedra closed her eyes, seeking to locate the source of the danger. Around her the sounds were all reassuring - the steady, slow, almost rhythmic hoofbeats of the royal guard, the rolling of the brass-rimmed wagon wheels over the shifting shale and scree, conversation and laughter from the soldiers on either side of the heavily-curtained carriage.
But somewhere deep within her Phaedra could hear the screams of the dying, while scenes of blood and violence flashed across her mind. Yet she could not pin them down. She opened her pale blue eyes and gazed across the carriage cabin to where Olympias lay on pillows of down-filled silk. The princess was asleep. Phaedra longed to reach over to her. Anger flared briefly, but the seeress swiftly quelled it. Olympias was beautiful, but that beauty was now marred by her marriage to the barbarian from Pella, ruined by the babe swelling her belly to twice its size. She tore her gaze from the sleeping face.
‘I don’t love you any more,’ she whispered, hoping that by speaking the lie she could make it true. It was a vain hope.
We are sisters again, no more than that, thought Phaedra. Their love was now as dead as the blooms of summer. The seeress sighed, remembering their first meeting three years ago. Two fourteen-year-old girls in the
King’s palace; Phaedra shy and yet blessed - cursed? - with the gift of Seeing, and Olympias, gregarious and joy-filled, her body already sleek, her skin glowing with health, her face beautiful beyond imagining.
Phaedra felt comfortable with the princess, for she had never been able to see her life, nor read the secrets hidden in the dark corridors of her mind. Olympias made her feel ordinary, and that was a gift beyond price.
No one understood the loneliness of Seeing. Every touch brought visions. A kind, handsome man stoops to kiss your hand, but you see the lecher, the dominator, the possessor. A woman smiles, pats your arm, and you feel her hatred at your youth. All the cobwebs of the human soul laid bare to your all-seeing eyes. Phaedra shivered.
With Olympias it was so different. No visions, no unpleasantness. Just love, first as sisters, then...
The carriage lurched as the huge wheels rolled over a stone. Phaedra pulled back a curtain and stared out of the window. To the left was the glittering Lake Prespa, beyond it the rearing Pindos mountains separating Macedonia and Illyria.
Olympias yawned and stretched. Running her fingers through her flame-red hair, she sat up and smiled at Phaedra. ‘Where are we?’
‘Soon we will reach the plain,’ answered Phaedra. ‘There we will be met by the King’s escort.’
‘I am hot and thirsty,’ Olympias complained, ‘and this awful wagon is making me feel sick.’
Phaedra stood, opening the flap on the roof of the cabin and calling out to the driver. He hauled on the reins and Olympias stepped down into the sunlight. Immediately the Epirite captain of the guard dismounted, bringing a waterskin and filling a silver cup. Olympias smiled. ‘Thank you, Herkon, you are most kind.’
Phaedra watched the young man blush. She did not need to touch him to know his thoughts. Stepping down alongside Olympias the vision struck her again, this time with awesome power. She saw horsemen thundering down the slopes, the wagon overturned, Herkon dead, his throat slashed open...
She screamed and fainted.
She awoke to see a man bending over her dabbing at her face with a water-soaked cloth. ‘They are coming,’ she whispered.
‘Who is coming? What ar
The air was suddenly filled with the thunder of hoof-beats. For a moment only, Phaedra thought the vision had returned, but then Herkon lunged to his feet, his cavalry sabre hissing from its scabbard.
From the slopes of the mountains came hundreds of riders, bright cloaks streaming behind them like rainbow banners.
‘Illyrians!’ shouted Herkon, running for his horse. The fifty soldiers of Epirus drew their weapons - then the attackers were upon them. Olympias ran to where Phaedra lay, dragging the girl back under the wagon. Dust rose in choking clouds. Olympias covered her mouth with a linen kerchief and the two women huddled together, listening to the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying. A horse reared close to the wagon, the rider falling head-first to the ground, his face striking the wheel.
It was Herkon, his throat open, his dead eyes gazing at Olympias who turned away her head.
The battle seemed to rage for hours, but at last the dust began to settle. Shapes could be seen, men moving among the wounded Epirites and killing them with sharp daggers. Olympias drew a slender knife from the hidden sheath high on her thigh, and waited. Phaedra closed her eyes, unable to bear the terror any longer.
‘Look what we have here!’ called a warrior, squatting down to look under the wagon. Dropping to his knees he crawled towards the women, his hand reaching out. Olympias plunged the knife into his eye and he dropped without a sound, his head pinning the dagger firmly in the socket. Olympias struggled in vain to free it. But then a group of warriors took hold of the wagon, overturning it. Olympias rose, her green eyes angry, her chin held high.
‘You will die for this,’ she promised them.
‘No one will die,’ said a tall handsome warrior with blond hair and braided forked beard. ‘But Philip of Macedon will pay a fine price to get you back. If you are kind to me, princess, it may be that your short stay with us will be pleasant.’
Olympias’ eyes swept the group, her contempt apparent. Then she glanced beyond them to the eastern hills. A line of riders appeared, and at their centre rode a warrior on a huge grey horse. The man wore armour of gleaming bronze and a helm with a white horsehair plume.