Murder He Wrote

Where there is Aniruddha Bahal, there is intrigue. An extract from his novel on treachery and deceit in Alexander’s Greece.

Boridas, Zanylos and Dorian now entreated me to leave, as our purpose of depriving the Macedonians of their treasury had been achieved. But I was too engrossed in the ceremony and wanted to watch for as long as I could. So I granted them permission to leave on foot. Before they left, they were to unhitch the horse from the wagon we had left and tie it behind the outhouse, so that even if I had to leave in haste, I could simply run to the horse and race out of Mios’s estate through a gap in the wall at the back. Boridas and Dorian left immediately, but Zanylos would not leave my side as he was more concerned for my safety. 

After some time we saw Antipater return with Alexander on horseback. Alexander was accompanied by ten guards. While Antipater and Alexander went straight to the sacrificial chamber, the guards didn’t enter the compound, preferring to stay outside. The Egyptian priest hadn’t finished his chanting. Though you couldn’t understand the meaning of the words, they flowed, melodious and mesmerising. Alexander and Antipater sat quietly through the chanting till the priest finished and opened his eyes. Seeing Alexander, he bowed towards him and, addressing him in Greek, said: ‘O prince, we do this sacrifice for you to attain glory in the war in Persia and for the Greeks to always be subordinate to Macedonia and for you to have riches beyond your wildest dreams. Lord Antipater has specially called me all the way from Memphis in Egypt to conduct the secret sacrifice to Dionysus and it will reap you all these rewards, for I see that Dionysus is pleased with all that we have done so far. The chanting has awakened him and now we wait for your sword to bleed the three chosen Athenians who were captured by your army at Chaeronea and for whom it should be an honour to die at the feet of Dionysus by the blade of your sword. Complete the sacrifice, great prince, and glory will be yours! Thus the Egyptian priest proclaimed and Alexander, who was partial to Dionysus, listened gravely and replied thus: ‘I seek no glory apart from what I earn myself and I seek no riches apart from what will come naturally. However, I seek a healthy life for my father King Philip and I seek to put Demosthenes at a disadvantage in the Athenian courts, where justice is hard to come by against somebody who goes against the Corinthian treaty and who preaches treason against us and desires us to fail against the Persians. I also seek to capture Seleucus, son of Nicanor, a person so elusive that very few of my men know what he looks like. I seek to know whether he has escaped to Persia and is under the protection of Artaxerxes or remains in Athens. These things I seek to be added as further requests to Dionysus in this sacrifice.’

‘I will do that,’ said the priest and returned to chanting for five minutes. Then he beckoned to Alexander to stand up. The priest’s assistants picked up one of the men to be sacrificed and they untied his legs and held him tightly by his arms. Alexander then took out his sword and the priest told him to make a small, slanting cut on the man’s belly. When he had done that, the priest got up and put his fingers on the man’s belly and started reading the blood for signs that only he could understand. Then he marked a particular spot on the belly and gestured to Alexander to make a thrust there with his sword. As the eyes of the man widened in fear, Alexander thrust the sword into his belly until the tip of the sword penetrated his back and got stuck in the wall beyond. 

Then Alexander pulled the sword out and the blood flowed like a river. The priest took the linen out from the man’s mouth and put his hand in the hole that the sword had made and started looking for signs. The man gasped and said as he died, ‘Prince, I am Dradocotus, son of Minyus. I am your page.’ The life left Dradocotus, but his words were loud enough to be heard above the chanting of the Egyptian priest. Alexander turned pale and the blood left Antipater’s face too. The two guards and Piros stared at each other, frozen in their places. Erineus too stood transfixed, for I think everybody realised that the dead man had spoken the truth.

It was then that Zanylos and I moved in. Zanylos thrust at the two guards with powerful strokes and they died without being able to pull out their swords. My own sword was at Alexander’s throat in no time at all… And I addressed Alexander thus, without removing the cloth from my face: ‘The Macedonian prince lies at the mercy of Seleucus, son of Nicanor. The same Seleucus whom you sought to capture through the aid of Dionysus. Well, Dionysus granted you your wish sooner than you expected and here I am, Prince, with my sword at your throat. Do you have anything to say?’

‘What do you want, you imbecile?’ said Antipater. ‘How dare you interrupt this ceremony? Don’t you know who you address thus?’… Without looking at Antipater, I replied, ‘I address Prince Alexander, son of King Philip, and not you, old fool, who is having his own men killed for personal gain. Believe not this man, Prince, for he enlisted this priest to perform the ceremony to bring harm to you, desiring that the crown of Macedonia be his own.’

‘Liar,’ shouted Antipater. ‘I will have your tongue pulled out for such lies. Your sword scares me not.’ 

‘You can pull my tongue out if you can reach it, old man,’ I told him without looking at him… Addressing Alexander, I said: ‘I ache to settle scores with Polemon, Argus, Zeferino and Menechus, murderers of my parents and my friend Pindar. I have no quarrel with you, Prince of Macedonia, for I grew up a Macedonian, though based in Olympia. But the actions of your men have made me turn away from my own country and now I seek to be an obstacle to you and Macedonia. Be not in fear that I seek to take your life. But remember for the rest of your life that you owe your life to Seleucus, son of Nicanor.’ Then I showed him the ring I wore, which I had bought from a jeweller in Athens—he had told me that it once graced the finger of the Spartan king Leonidas, who had led the three hundred at Thermopylae against Cyrus. 

I added: ‘And remember, Prince, to return the favour if somebody shows you this ring of the Spartan king Leonidas.’… After the brief exchange, Zanylos and I left the sacrificial chamber in haste. We bolted the door and barred it with a javelin from the many hanging as ornamentation on the walls of Mios’s house and then ran to the outhouse, crouching behind bushes to avoid being seen by Alexander’s guards at the gate… When we were one and a half plethrons beyond the wall of Mios’s estate, javelins flew past us, and a few arrows. 

A turn awaited us just half a plethron away and then Alexander’s guards would no longer have been able to see us… But before we could turn the corner, there was another thud and Zanylos’s body shuddered and he gurgled, ‘Alexander got me…’. As I galloped away, I turned around…He was vomiting blood on my tunic. When I stopped some ten minutes later, it was a dead Zanylos that I lowered to the ground.

AlexanderAniruddha BahalGreece