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Chapter 25: Spy vs. Spy

Royal Palace, Pella

November 20, 319 BCE

Malcolm Tanada handed the radio message to Cassander, who read the message, then looked at Malcolm with a furious expression on his face. “How did you find out?” he demanded.

“Find out what?” Malcolm asked, shocked at Cassander’s tone.

“How did you find out that Lípos was going to Seuthopolis?”

“Lípos is in Seuthopolis?” Malcolm asked. “Then how did he send you a message?”

“The Abdera radio has been moved to Seuthopolis.” Cassander sat forward in his throne, his hands gripping the armrests like claws. “How did it get there?”

“Got me. It’s been offline the last few days. Technical stuff, not my area.” As soon as he said that, Malcolm realized that Rico must have known what was up or he would have been a lot more worried than he seemed to be.

Rico knew, and didn’t tell him. Rico’s girlfriend . . .  Malcolm looked at Thessalonike, who sat in the throne near Cassander’s. Not on purpose, but as he put what was happening together, he realized that she must know what was going on and he sure as hell didn’t.

Cassander followed his glance, then looked at Thessalonike, who was trying to look as shocked as Malcolm actually was. She almost carried it off. Malcolm was sure that Rico would be fooled, but he wasn’t. And he was pretty sure that Cassander wasn’t either. For a frozen eternity of perhaps three seconds, everyone was staring at Thessalonike. Then Cassander turned back to Malcolm. “My apologies, Mr. Tanada. Would you please try to find out when the radio team left Abdera for Seuthopolis?”

“I can ask, Your Majesty, but I can’t make them answer unless they choose to.”

“I understand, and thank you. But do please ask,” Cassander said in a tone of voice so oily you could lube your car with it.

Cassander waved his hand, and Malcolm happily made his escape.

* * *

On Malcolm’s way back to the radio room, he stopped by police headquarters to talk to Daniel Lang.

“You didn’t know Lípos was headed for Seuthopolis?” Daniel asked, clearly surprised. “I had a drunk in here four days ago telling the sergeant that. He was pissed that they weren’t going to Abdera. I’m surprised that Eumenes figured out what was up in time to get reinforcements to Seuthopolis before Lípos got there.”

“I’m not sure he did. All I know is that the radio team from Abdera is now at Seuthopolis.”

“Well, why don’t we go upstairs and ask Rico about it?”

* * *

Rico and Sophronike were in the radio room. Rico was playing with the computer and Sophronike was reading a printout of something. Daniel Lang looked at Sophronike and considered whether to ask her to leave. Then he remembered that she was Thessalonike’s maid and probably knew more about what was going on than he did. “Rico, how did you find out that Lípos was going to Seuthopolis?”

Rico, suave master spy that he was, immediately looked at Sophronike like they were kids in the process of being caught trying to rob a candy store.

“When did you tell him?” Daniel asked Sophronike.

Sophronike looked at Daniel, then back at Rico and rolled her eyes. Daniel figured Rico was going to hear about this later. Then she told him.

Daniel shook his head, trying to figure it out. He knew that Thessalonike was unhappy with Cassander, but helping Eumenes . . . that didn’t make sense. “Why? You may have gotten Thessalonike killed. Cassander knows, thanks to Malcolm Tanada here. Well, at least suspects.”

“Seuthopolis is a holy place. It’s new, not entirely finished yet, but it is built on the ruins of a previous holy place and sanctified to Sabazios, and Cassander planned to desecrate it.” Then she looked at Daniel. “You have to protect Thessalonike.”

Daniel considered that. “Where is Eumenes’ army?”

Rico turned back to the computer and called up a mapping program. He pointed. “He should be right about there.”

Eumenes’ camp, en route to Seuthopolis

November 20, 319 BCE

The camp was in a valley, and by the time they got set up the sun was sinking below the hills to the west. By now their radio wagon was a thing of practical beauty. The Macedonian craftsmen made a rod in sections that was held upright by a quadruped stand also made in sections for easy set up. Each leg of the stand fit into a corner of the wagon; together, once it was set up, it sent their antenna wire forty feet up into the air. Erica watched as the eight Macedonian soldiers pulled the contraption upright and placed the front legs in the holes in the wagon, then as Tacaran attached the antenna to the connector cable. Then she climbed into the wagon.

Erica Mirzadeh pulled up the computer, fired up the radio set, and set it searching for active radio sources. She got Rico Gica at Pella and Alice Blevins at Seuthopolis.

Shouting back and forth as Tacaran used a crank to shift the antenna, she got and recorded signal max vectors for each station. Then she had Tacaran adjust the antenna for both. Between the vectors and terrain features from Google Maps, she placed them. They were a bit east and well north of Pella, but actually a bit west of Amphipolis now, having had to go around the mountains. But they were behind Lípos.

Once she had their position she pulled up the messages and got the emails from Seuthopolis and Pella, as well as Carthage and every place else relayed through Pella. Like the internet back in the world, as long as you had an active link, your message could be retransmitted to anywhere.

“Let’s see,” Erica muttered as she worked. “A request for our location from Seuthopolis.” She would let Eumenes decide about that. “And another one from Pella.” That was from Rico Gica, who was mapping their progress just for himself. She sent him the new cords. There were also private messages for a merchant who was accompanying the army and several of the soldiers. The standard request for weather information, wind speed, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure. She fed that in, then pulled up the weather program. It was a perfectly fine program, but there were less than fifty weather stations on this side of the Atlantic. It could predict the weather, but the level of confidence was not much better than Sergeant Kopra’s game leg. Still, it was better than nothing.

The printer, a dot matrix job using lampblack and oil for its ink, clattered as the messages came out. And it took a while.

About half an hour later she collected up the sheets of papyrus. She shut down and disconnected the antenna. It was raining and though the weather prediction program didn’t predict lightning, she didn’t want to take the chance.

* * *

Eumenes read the decoded message from Seuthopolis, then handed it to Eurydice.

“Well, at least the radio made it,” Eurydice said as Eumenes started reading the next message, also from Seuthopolis, then started to smile. “Someone in Seuthopolis is clever.” He passed it over.

Eurydice read it, then looked at him. “Do you think the imitation rockets will work?”

He shrugged. “They might. For that matter, just the presence of the ship people might give Lípos pause. But it doesn’t really change anything. Seuthes doesn’t have the force to defeat Lípos in the field, not by himself. We still need to proceed to Seuthopolis.”

He turned to Erica. “Please see that our position is sent to Seuthopolis and that goes for every stop we make until we get there. And let us know as soon as Seuthes reaches his capital.”

Erica Mirzadeh nodded and left.

Seuthopolis

November 21, 319 BCE

The afternoon sun was getting close to the hilltops when the lookout on the south tower saw a flash from near the edge of the valley. He looked again and saw more flashes. It was a signal mirror. He noted the flashes with a charcoal stick and soon enough he got confirmation it was Seuthes. He would be here, at least at the walls, by midmorning tomorrow. Grinning, the guard turned toward the army to the northwest and made a rude gesture, then shouted for a runner.

Lípos’ army camp, one mile northwest of Seuthopolis

November 21, 319 BCE

Lípos got the news not from the guard’s rude gesture, but from his scouts. He turned to his commanders. Each of whom had their own opinion about what to do now, but all of whom—even those who had yesterday been insisting that he not attack—blamed him for failing to attack before Seuthes and his cavalry got here.

They were about evenly divided between “attack now” and “retreat.”

The deciding factor was the rockets. He had seen them with his own eyes. They were real. They were there. And he noted that his one commander who had been with Lysimachus at the Bosphorus insisted that an attack against rockets was suicide and was firmly in the retreat camp.

Lípos gave the orders to break camp in the morning and move away from Seuthopolis. All the while wondering what Cassander would say when he brought his army home with its tail firmly between its legs, and without a battle.

Cassander’s private chambers, Royal Palace, Pella

November 22, 319 BCE

The sun shone dimly through the translucent shutters. They were made from animal intestine on wood frames, painted with tree sap. But they let some of the light in and did a decent job of keeping the cold out. It gave the room a dim feel that Cassander fought with two of the ship people–designed oil lamps with blown-glass chimneys.

Cassander sat in a chair on a platform, the two lamps behind him and a table in front. Across the table and a step down stood the spy, Kallipos.

The spy was a small man and Cassander didn’t like him, but he was reliable. “I have it from a serving woman who works for the ship people,” said Kallipos. “Lípos has retreated from Seuthopolis without ever drawing his sword. Seuthes has his army in the city and will leave at least a thousand horse and real rockets there when he leaves to pursue Lípos.”

“Real rockets?”

“The ones that scared Lípos away were fakes. Just painted wood.”

There was, Cassander was sure, a sneer under that calm recital. But he needed this man. It had taken months for the agent in the ship people’s kitchen to learn enough of their barbarous tongue to be of any use. In a way, this news was worse than Lípos’ defeat would have been. He had been frightened away. Macedonians would put up with a lot, but not cowardice.

Cassander hadn’t heard of the game of chess before The Event, but now he played it regularly, and he was quite good. He was a man who saw the board several moves ahead. And the next move on this board was clear.

Lípos would retreat ahead of Seuthes until he ran into Eumenes’ army, then either surrender or be defeated in battle.

All of Cassander’s credibility with the Macedonian nobility would be destroyed by Lípos’ ignominious defeat.

And he would be deposed.

It would take several more days, perhaps even weeks. But he wouldn’t be both king and alive by the end of the year.

He had to escape, but to where? Ptolemy was out. He would give Cassander to Eumenes without any hesitation. He doubted that he could reach Antigonus One-eye, or any of the eastern satraps. And even if he could, none of them would shelter him.

Nowhere in Alexander’s empire was safe for him now.

Carthage was possible, but he didn’t trust the slimy bastards. They would sell him to the queens and Olympias would have him flayed alive.

Rome . . . maybe. It wasn’t much now but in a few hundred years . . . And maybe earlier. With enough silver, he could buy a seat in the senate, or at least a tribuneship. Marry a Roman noble’s daughter, build a new life. But Romans had silly rules about only having one wife.

Thessalonike would have to go. But not now. Not until his son was born. Then he would have her killed and his son brought to Rome later. For now, all he would take was the treasury.

Cassander looked up from his brooding and considered the spy. An Athenian, and not of good family. Reasonably educated, but of the lowest classes. A man with few opportunities. “Kallipos, I need you to quietly start collecting gear for a long trip. A wagon . . . No, a ship. And food, clothing for you and for me. There will be several chests I will be bringing.”

The little Greek got a calculating look in his eyes, and Cassander almost called the guards to have him killed. But he could trust Kallipos as much as he could trust anyone. “Go now.”

Kallipos left.

Pella, police headquarters

November 23, 319 BCE

Pella is one long-running Spy vs. Spy cartoon, Daniel Lang thought as he read the report by one of his confidential informants—spies—while he sat in the lamplit room. The lamp was semi-modern and proof of international trade. The design was from Wikipedia, the wick from Egypt, the copper body made right here in Pella, the glass chimney from Carthage and the kerosene from the oil fields at Trinidad. That was, in a way, what the report was about. The ship people didn’t introduce international trade to this world. Trade was here long before The Event. But the ship people added greatly to the product list and provided more trustworthy forms of currency. What Daniel was reading about was a silver coin smuggling operation. Cassander wanted his tariffs, and money from merchants here in Pella was finding its way to Amphipolis, where it was picked up by the Reliance and became ship people dollars that could be used from Tyre to Trinidad, to buy things like the glass chimney on his lamp.

He continued reading the CI’s report.


A little after sunset yesterday, Cassander opened the door to the strong room and came out with a large heavy case.


Now, why would Cassander be stealing from his own strong room? Daniel wondered. The only reason he knew about it was because Daniel’s beat cops had lots of CIs, most of them slaves. There were more slaves in Pella than free people. Most craftsmen were slaves, and most households had at least a couple of slaves. Many of the slaves were quite loyal to their masters, but a lot weren’t. And while slaves couldn’t buy their freedom without their owner’s consent, it was legal for them to buy it if they could put together the money. So in a place as big as the palace, it was a safe bet that at least a few would sell information on their master’s actions.


He made three more trips to the strong room. Each time he carried away a heavy leather case.


Daniel still didn’t know why, but it was pretty clear that Cassander was raiding the treasury. Whether that was legal, Daniel wasn’t sure. But doing it by the dark of night didn’t suggest it was aboveboard.

Daniel wrote out a note describing what the report said, then went upstairs to visit Rico Gica and Sophronike.

Royal Palace, Pella

Around midnight, November 23, 319 BCE

Sophronike handed Daniel’s note to Thessalonike, who opened it and took it over to a lamp to read. Her face paled.

“He plans to abandon us! Me and our child. He will steal the silver from the strong room and run, if he hasn’t already. I have to find out how much he has taken.”

She dressed quickly, used the chamber pot and waddled out of the room, motioning Sophronike to silence.

Sohpronike didn’t wait more than a few minutes before she left at almost a run. She couldn’t gainsay her mistress, but was afraid of what might happen if Thessalonike were to run into a guard. Daniel Lang would protect them all with his ship people magic.

Royal Palace, Pella

Around midnight, November 24, 319 BCE

Thessalonike moved through the halls of the palace as silent as a ghost. It was part of her training. She carried no light, and felt her way using the occasional dim lamps left burning overnight. It was a slow way to travel, but what was needed here was stealth, not speed.

Finally, after almost an hour, she reached the strong room. The bar was locked in place by a bronze lock of ship people design but made in Egypt. She, however, knew the three-letter combination. Cassander thought he was so smart. ICP wasn’t that hard to figure out. Iollas, Cassander, and Plistarch, Antipater’s three eldest sons, of whom only Cassander still lived.

Carefully, more by touch than sight, she rotated the three wheels into the proper position and removed the lock. Then, as quietly as she could, she shifted the heavy bar and pulled open the door. It didn’t squeak at all.

Once in the room, she found the lamp that was located next to the door and tried to light it using a flint and steel. The flint and steel struck and produced sparks, but the angle was wrong and the wick didn’t catch. She tried again and again. Sparks all around the wick and no flame. The flashes from the sparks had dazzled her night sight painfully, but she persisted. It was almost two minutes later that she finally got the small wick on the Aladdin-style lamp to catch. It gave her dim light in the dark room, and first she pulled the door closed. Then she went to a shelf on the right.

Her dower was stored in those chests. She opened the first. It was empty. Then the next. Again empty.

Macedonia had more money than a man could carry, but much of it was in forms other than coins. The money in this room was to cover day-to-day expenses, and when needed to do things like pay the army. That was still an enormous amount of money, but Cassander, over the last couple of nights, had managed to make quite a dent in it.

She heard a noise and turned to see the door opening.

* * *

Cassander saw the lock missing from the bar and the bar pulled to the open position and knew he had not left it so. He readied the bronze copy of the cap-and-ball pistol that he now always carried. The caps were stolen and very hard to come by so he had very little practice with the thing. Gun in one hand, he pulled open the door.

There she was. The little harpy who loved only the gods, not her husband. Disloyal. He was surrounded by disloyalty. He pointed the pistol at her, mostly just to hold her there while he called the guards. But she didn’t freeze into immobility. She pulled a dagger from her belt. He fired. The report was loud and the room was filled with smoke. When he could see again, she was on the floor with a hole in her shoulder and blood everywhere. For a moment he thought he’d killed her. Then she started to get up.

* * *

Daniel Lang was already in the hall leading to the strong room when he heard the shot. He ran, followed by Demos and Sophronike. Surprisingly, Demos was turning into something approaching a good cop. He had fewer of the bad habits than the older city guards and didn’t need the graft that was an ingrained part of their income. The door was half opened, and their running footsteps must have alerted the perp. He turned and Daniel saw the bronze copy of a ship person pistol in Cassander’s hand. Daniel stopped and drew his own pistol.

The bronze gun came around and Daniel was looking down the shaking barrel. He brought his own gun up as Cassander pulled the trigger. The bullet whistled by his head and he was blinded by the smoke. Daniel fired blind and fired again. Cassander fired again. Daniel fired a third time, and barely over the ringing in his ears heard a body hit the floor. As the smoke cleared, he moved forward to see Cassander. One of his shots had hit the man in the right chest and turned him half around. Another hit him in the side of the head, and the .45 caliber bullet propelled by a black powder charge shattered the weak part of the skull just above and in front of the ear. Cassander was dead before he hit the ground.

* * *

Daniel didn’t wait. He reached down, grabbed Cassander’s pistol from the floor and ran to the strong room, to see Thessalonike trying to sit up, tears coming from her eyes, but not a peep out of her. “Stay where you are,” Daniel said to her. “Let me check it. Demos, where’s the emergency kit?” All Daniel’s cops carried emergency kits. They contained bandages and a small vial of wood alcohol. He’d started by using grain alcohols, but that didn’t last more than a few days before it was drunk.

Demos handed him the kit. Daniel pulled it open, hauled out the vial of alcohol and poured it on to the wound.

Thessalonike still didn’t scream, but she apparently bit her lip. A little blood started seeping from her mouth. Daniel put a pressure bandage on the wound and tied it in place with twine.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, it was only his reloaded pistol and Thessalonike’s insistence that kept Cassander’s personal guards from trying to kill him. They were not happy that the new regent to the as-yet-unborn king of Macedonia was a young woman. This was complicated by the fact that said child might be a girl.

The politics of Macedonia had been reeling since the death of Philip II, Alexander the Great’s father. Every time they got some nice, comfortable reactionary on the throne, he got himself killed. The last two times, Antipater and Cassander, indirectly by women. Roxane and Eurydice for Antipater, and Thessalonike for Cassander. Clearly, it was all due to the curse of Olympias and the ship people.

On the other hand, Macedonian kings getting killed was hardly a new phenomenon. Kingship in the here and now was not a safe occupation.

There, in the hallway in front of the relocked strong room, the nobles of Macedonia tried to work out what to do while looking at the bandaged and still-living Thessalonike and the very much still-armed Daniel Lang. He was backed up by Demos, who at least was one of their own.

Somewhere in the explanation for what had happened, the fact that Cassander was in the process of looting the treasury got out. Then the fact that neither Daniel nor Thessalonike knew where the money was. At that point, a lot of the nobles scattered to go find the treasure, leaving only a few to determine who would be the new government.

* * *

Finally a litter arrived and Thessalonike was carried off to rest. Daniel retreated to police headquarters.

Radio section, Pella

2:00 A.M., November 24, 319 BCE

“Get up, Ricardo Gica! Get up now!” Sara was shaking Rico. He sat up, bleary and confused, but Sara would not be denied. In only a few minutes, Rico, still in his underwear and a robe, found himself in the radio room, firing up the system in spite of the fact that it was raining again.

Sara handed him a stack of messages. “Send these. Send them now.”

All of the messages were marked “most urgent.” There were two to the Queen of the Sea, one to Olympias, and one to Alexander IV in care of Roxane; two to Eumenes’ army, one for Philip III in care of Eurydice and one for delivery to Philip Lípos, commander of the army of Macedonia in Thrace. That one to be delivered only if there was a positive response from Roxane and Eurydice. All of the letters were in clear, but also in Macedonian Greek. There was also a general announcement, again to be released only if the messages to the queens regent got a positive response.

Rico’s curiosity got the better of him and he ran the messages to the queens through the translation app.

After explaining the events of the evening in the messages, Thessalonike made a proposal:


While I know that my nephew Alexander IV has the best blood claim on the throne of Macedonia, that throne has never passed strictly by blood. Alexander the Great received it, not Philip, then Philip and Alexander shared it, all by acclamation of the nobility of Macedonia in the form of the army. On that basis and because the child beneath my breast is here in Macedonia, I request that Philip III and Alexander IV yield to me, not the crown of the empire of Alexander, only the crown of Macedonia, which is now a part of that empire, but no longer its whole.


This was weird. Rico knew that there were irregularities in the way Alexander the Great got the crown, and even more when Philip III and Alexander IV got it. But this made it sound like that was standard. And how could Roxane and Eurydice be queens regent of the empire and not Macedonia? He wondered what Lípos would say about that. For that matter, he wondered what Ptolemy, Antigonus One-eye, and the rest of the satraps and kings of the empire would say.

Queen of the Sea, off Amphipolis

November 24, 319 BCE

The phone in Roxane’s cabin rang and Dag reached over and grabbed it. “Yes, I’m up. I’ll be there in twenty,” he mumbled sleepily.

“What?” came over the phone. “Her Majesty has an urgent message.”

“Huh? What time is it?”

“2:27 a.m. local. Now, will you get Her Nibs up? Cassander is dead. Shot by Daniel Lang.”

Dag shook Roxane awake. “Babe, emergency. Wake up,” he said before the meaning of the words had quite penetrated. “I think you might have just won the war.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, in a conference room with Marie Easley, Olympias, Lars Floden, and Amanda Miller representing New America, Roxane read the message. She then looked at her mother-in-law, half-wondering how Olympias managed to get to this meeting. Then she saw the message in Olympias’ hand. “Well?” she asked.

“I think you should do it,” Olympias said. “Thessalonike makes a number of good points. The nobility of Macedonia itself wasn’t all that fond of my son. Most of those who loved him followed him on his campaigns. Those left will never trust you, or my grandson, for he is only half Macedonian. They might allow Eurydice’s child”—Olympias couldn’t keep the sneer completely out of her voice, but she tried—“should she ever manage to have one, and if they believe that Philip is actually the father. But Thessalonike’s child will carry the blood of Philip II and Antipater.”

Marie Easley spoke up. “Don’t discount that the basis to your claims over Alexander’s empire all start with Alexander the Great as king of Macedonia. If you give that up, what supports the rest of it?”

It was a good point, but so was Olympias’, Roxane thought.

Then Amanda Miller spoke. “Don’t forget the constitution. It established that Alexander and Philip were the co-rulers of the United Satrapies and States of the Empire, as well as the kings of Macedonia. Besides, if you don’t go along with this, won’t Lípos keep fighting?”

“He might well, even if you do,” Marie said. “If Cassander had any legitimacy at all, Lípos is at least as good an heir as Thessalonike’s child. In fact, that’s a big part of what concerns me about this. It legitimizes Cassander after the fact. Won’t it invite others to repeat his rebellion?”

Roxane considered. The only other real threat at the moment was Antigonus One-eye in Babylon, and the sooner Eumenes’ army was free to deal with that, the better. Besides, Roxane would really prefer not to have to kill any more people than she already had. “Tell her I approve, but only if she can bring Lípos to heel. She must send him orders to stand down.”

Olympias held out another message. “This is to Lípos, should you and Eurydice agree.” The message was an order from Thessalonike as regent to Cassander’s child to stand down his army and place himself and his army under Eumenes’ orders.

“Very well,” Roxane agreed. “But we need to word this right. Not as an abdication. As a grant. We give Macedonia to our vassal, Thessalonike and her child, as a kingdom within our empire.”

Olympias laughed. “Now all we need to do is get Eurydice to agree to it.”

Eumenes’ field headquarters, Western Thrace

Sunrise, November 25, 319 BCE

Tacaran Bayot reconnected the antenna array to the radio and shouted to Erica Mirzadeh, “Ready! Fire it up!” Then he climbed down. The morning was cloudy, but thankfully not raining. But his boots squished in the mud as he walked around to the back of the wagon. He climbed up onto the running board and scraped his boots before climbing in.

Erica Mirzadeh already had the system up and was getting something. At first Tacaran thought that it was the morning weather report, but then he saw Erica’s face. “What is it?”

“Cassander is dead. Don’t get comfortable, Tacaran. You’re going to be taking messages as soon as I get the printer going.”

* * *

“Good plan,” Philip III said, looking at the tent post. “The Macedonians will accept it and we can live on the Queen.”

“But we give up our home, our kingdom.” Eurydice sounded more like a teenage girl than she ever had in Tacaran’s hearing.

Eumenes looked back and forth between Eurydice and Philip, and Tacaran was almost sure he was hiding a smile. “No. You’re simply granting a part of your empire in fief to a king of your choosing. Precedents work both ways. If you can grant it, you could someday revoke the grant, should it be needed. But if the nobles gathered in Pella do it without you, you have no say.”

It took a while, but eventually Eurydice agreed. A rider carrying the message and a flag of truce was sent searching for Lípos’ army.

Lípos’ camp, Western Thrace

Late afternoon, November 26, 319 BCE

Philip Lípos sat in his tent with the afternoon sun breaking through the clouds to shine on the muddy ground and turn the sky purple and crimson. It was an afternoon both beautiful and ugly. Cassander was dead. The printed message from the ship people said so. He wasn’t supposed to be dead. He was supposed to send Philip to Aetolia in a few years, where Philip would win two major battles and be remembered as a great general, great enough to still be remembered two thousand years later.

It was all the ship people’s fault. How had history found out about the hoof and the poison it held? No one knew of the plot to kill Alexander the Great. No one but his father, his brothers, and him. Well, and the Cabeiri assassin who made the poison. It wasn’t as if they’d had any choice. The maniac Alexander was going to have Antipater executed. They all knew it. What were they supposed to do? Let Alexander kill their father and disgrace their family? No! It was an entirely justified act of family self-defense.

But now everyone knew, or at least suspected. And Philip was personally sure that Olympias knew, which meant he was a dead man if he didn’t manage to kill her first. But she was on the Queen of the Sea, which meant she was safe.

Safe. On the Queen of the Sea! Could that be a way out? If Philip couldn’t get at her on the Queen of the Sea, she couldn’t get at him either. He felt himself smile for the first time since he opened the message. To sit on the deck of the Queen of the Sea and look at the old harridan and know she couldn’t get at him. Even better to have her know that she couldn’t get at him.

That just left the question of how to arrange it. He would need money. Living on the Queen of the Sea wasn’t cheap. He needed to make sure he had full control over the army. Because his plan was to, in effect, sell the army to Eurydice for enough money to live his life on the Queen of the Sea.

He called in his officers.

* * *

The next morning, the messenger left. He didn’t have nearly as far to go. Eumenes’ army had not stopped to wait.

Eumenes’ army, on the march

Late afternoon, November 27, 319 BCE

Eumenes was riding near the vanguard when he saw the messenger approaching at a trot. Eumenes waved, and the messenger brought his mount to the gallop. A few moments later the man pulled up and lifted the pouch over his shoulder to hand it to Eumenes. “He said you would need to discuss his counterproposal with Queen Roxane.”

Eumenes felt his eyebrows lift. But he nodded and turned to an adjutant. “Have the radio wagon, Eurydice, Philip and their guards pull out of the march and set up. The rest of the army will proceed to tonight’s camp. We’ll catch up there.”

* * *

Eumenes waited to open the pouch until they were all there. The contents of the pouch were really quite close to what they wanted. Lípos would not surrender. Instead, he would turn over command of his army to Eumenes and the legitimate government, keeping both armies intact. In exchange, he wanted enough money to live out the rest of his life on the Queen of the Sea. It could be in the form of a job, or however they wanted to do it to make themselves look good, but it had to be guaranteed. Then Eumenes laughed as he read the line:


I want Lars Floden’s confirmation that I will be allowed to stay safe on the Queen and that my passage is fully paid.


“Well, Cassander’s little brother inherited at least some of Cassander’s intelligence.” Eumenes continued reading. Once he finished, he waited while Eurydice read the message, then handed it to Philip, who glanced at it and handed it back, then went back to looking at a branch he was examining. Eumenes suppressed a slight shudder. Philip often did that. It didn’t mean he hadn’t read the message. No, he read and memorized it at a glance. He could quote it now, or a year from now.

“Well?” Eumenes asked Eurydice. “What do you think?”

Eurydice said, “Philip?”

Philip, still looking at the branch, said, “Olympias.”

Now, what the hell did that mean? Eumenes wondered.

“What about Olympias?” Eurydice asked patiently.

“He’s afraid of Olympias,” Philip said.

“And well he should be.” Eurydice nodded. “Did he kill Alexander?”

“Don’t know. Ask after he’s on the Queen,” Philip said.

“So you think we should take the deal?” Eumenes asked.

Philip only gave a minimal shrug, his eyes never leaving the branch. Eumenes looked at Eurydice.

She looked back. “What I want to do is catch him in a pincer, use our army and Seuthes’ to crush him like the bug he is, and terrify the Macedonian nobility for the next five generations.” She sighed deeply. “But what we should do is take the deal, move the army to the coast, ship them to Oea, and march them to Babylon. One-eye is the last of the truly powerful traitors.”

214–216 12th Street, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad

Late afternoon, November 27, 319 BCE

The brass bell tinkled as the front door of the shop opened. Stella Matthews looked up and smiled as Lisa Hammonds came in with her baby in a carry bag. Lisa looked around and Stella followed her eyes.

This was strange. Stella herself was noticing the changes. The front room of the shop was a place of black-fabric-covered shelves with glasses and vases, lens blanks, bottles, including baby bottles, and glass-bead jewelry. It was a bit of a shock to see the place as Lisa must see it.

It had been so gradual. Here an addition, there a change. New fabric covers on the wood shelves. It happened a bit at a time, but now she was in an elegant little shop full of glasswares that sold for good prices. She was still in debt, but her debt was shrinking. After three changes of employees, Carthalo now had an apprentice who looked like he was going to stick around and learn the trade.

“You were right, Lisa,” Stella said. “Glass was the way to go.”

“I’m glad it worked out.” Lisa smiled. “But there were a lot of things you could have done that would be producing by now.”

Stella nodded agreement. 12th Street was full of shops making all sorts of things. All of them in small amounts, but many of them of quite good quality. “So what brings you all the way out here?”

Lisa lived on 4th Street, in a townhouse that was a bit bigger than Stella’s double, and which had the indoor plumbing that Stella still didn’t have. The main lines were in, but it was being installed a bit at a time as workers could be spared from other projects.

“Baby bottles and gossip,” Lisa said. “Did you read about the Macedonian treasury going missing?”

“Yes, I read all about it. Why? Do you have anything new?”

“Just a rumor. Daniel Lang told Jane Carruthers, who told Congresswoman Davis, that a ship sailed out of Pella the morning that Cassander was killed, and at least two ships have gone after it. Who knows? They know how to cross the Atlantic now. We may see it here.” Lisa grinned and Stella laughed. Then they talked baby bottles and latex nipples, and the various options that Lisa had, from breast pump to goat and cow milk. Soy milk was not a possibility, because the soybean was still local to the far east: China, Japan, and Korea. At least according to Wikipedia. No one had made the trip to be sure yet.

Argos, Mediterranean Sea

November 27, 319 BCE

Kallipos leaned over the railing and launched his lunch. It was no great loss. The meal was rye porridge with a little bit of fish. And too long in the pot by half.

Down in the hold were several amphorae of good red wine and in those amphorae below the wine were gold and silver coins. It was Kallipos’ idea. Something that would appear fairly valuable, but not so valuable as the true ingredients were.

Then Cassander got himself killed, and Kallipos had to run, and run now. He went to the ship, boarded with a chest of silver, and paid the captain half the silver to carry him and the other half of the silver and the wine to Port Berry on Formentera Island.

The captain knew what Kallipos was doing. The moment he set foot in Port Berry, he was, by treaty with the ship people, free. In Port Berry.

It was such a good plan, Kallipos thought, then heaved again. But there was nothing left to come up. He just hadn’t counted on the storm. Slowly, hand by hand on the railing, he made his way back to the stern, where the captain and the steersman were guiding the Argos through the ten-foot seas.

“Where are we?” he asked, only to have the question swallowed up by the pounding rain.

The captain looked at him and shook his head.

* * *

Captain Barta of the Argos, a Sicilian merchant skipper, cursed his luck. He never should have picked up this Jonah. The term he used wasn’t “Jonah.” It was a Carthaginian word having to do with a Carthaginian legend that was closer to Jason and the Argonauts than anything biblical. But the meaning was just the same. A bad-luck charm that brings a ship to disaster just because the gods are angry with him.

Barta waved the Jonah away, and tried to figure where they were. The winds were blowing almost due west and in spite of the fact that he had shortened sail, they were moving swiftly and had been for the last twenty hours. He shook his head. For all he knew, he was about to run aground on Formentera Island. Or maybe the Pillars of Hercules.

He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t even see the bow for the rain. There was a creaking and a grinding, and Barta looked at the main mast in horror as it bent in the wind. Then it snapped and he prayed to Neptune that it broke in time.

It hadn’t.

In the bilge, two planks, already split from the strain of the mast, opened farther and the western Mediterranean Sea poured in. The Argos was fully loaded before the leak and it went down.

It took it almost an hour, plenty of time for the lifeboat to be lowered and the crew to get off. They even took Kallipos.

It was three days later when they reached the coast of what would someday be Spain.


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