God of War by Christian Cameron

Author:Christian Cameron [Cameron, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409132691
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2012-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

The morning after the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander was already master of western Asia.

We took their camp with our scouts after the battle. The Agrianians had superb discipline – remarkable, really, considering their origins – and were probably the only unit in the army that could be trusted not to loot the camp. We rode in the next morning, and discovered that we were masters of thousands of slaves (mostly very attractive women collected from all over the empire), tents, baggage animals (including camels) and a fair amount of gold. Enough gold to pay the troops, anyway.

Polystratus did well for himself, because Alectus and he were friends. Don’t imagine that the Agrianians were stupid – just careful, and only their closest friends got first pick of the loot. My share was a beautiful ear-dagger from Aegypt, fine steel and gold and ivory – I have it still – and a new sword in the Persian manner with fine green stone grips. It was beautiful to look at. The dagger was superb and a fine fighting weapon – the sword was pretty and broke in my hand, as I’ll no doubt tell you later. There’s a lesson there, if you like. A parable of some sort.

But the best prizes I received were horses, and a wreath of laurel. Polystratus – always my right arm, especially when it came to practical matters – got the horses of a number of Persian nobles. I was young enough to pretend they were the men I’d put down, but really, I think Polystratus simply rode around the battlefield before the last arrow flew and started collecting horses. I got two Nisean mares and a stallion, as well as a dozen lesser horses – lesser, but as good as Poseidon.

Well, that’s a lie. As good as Poseidon to look at. Heh – Poseidon. Loved that horse. He was smart like a dog. Horses are dumb – you must know that. But one horse in a hundred thousand is some sort of horse genius.

Its nothing to do with this story, but I put the stallion to the mares the next day and then sent them home with a pair of slaves – Keltoi men, expert with horses – and one of Polystratus’s grooms, and they made it all the way to Heron after a dozen adventures, and became the prize of my stud – both threw colts, and suddenly I had a Nisean stud. In many ways, those three horses made me more money than all the gold captured at Granicus. I still ride horses bred from Poseidon, the three Niseans and Ajax, the brute I took on Parnassus.

The Nisean stallion had a mark on his forehead like a trident. And he and Poseidon got along – a great rarity among stallions.

And Heron freed the two slaves for their honest service, and they wandered back to our army and joined the mercenary cavalry, and they ended up serving under your father for years. Andronicus and Antigonus!

Small world, really.

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