To The Strongest by Robert Fabbri

Author:Robert Fabbri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

ANTIPATROS, THE REGENT

‘THE BRIDGES ARE all ready,’ Magas said as Antipatros inspected the work-party in the agora at Lamia. ‘Two hundred of them as you requested, sir.’

Antipatros surveyed the piles of ten-paces-wide, two-paces-long flat wooden constructions piled in tens down the centre of the agora. Gone were the market stalls for they had all been commandeered to build what Antipatros believed to be the key to extracting his army from the siege: the means to bridge the siege-lines. Indeed, most of the wood in the city had been stripped to build the bridges: doors and window shutters had been ripped away, there was hardly a piece of furniture worth its name left and almost all the inhabitants now slept and ate – if they ate at all – on the floor. Even roofs had been dismantled for their valuable beams and wood considered insufficiently strong for construction had been burnt to keep the ravages of a Thessalian winter at bay.

But now, soon after the equinox, the weather had improved and each day Antipatros knew that the time for escape was nigh, for surely the roads were passable once more. ‘Very good, Magas; now all we need is for Leonnatus to appear.’

‘It had better be soon; I had reports of the first townsfolk dying of starvation yesterday.’

Antipatros rubbed his shrunken belly. Once they start to go, the rate speeds up remarkably. ‘How many yesterday?’

‘Three.’

‘And today?’

‘Five.’

Tomorrow will be eight and by the end of the month we’ll be on fifty or more a day and then the men will start dropping too. Hunger had gnawed his insides for many days now but it had been for his men that Antipatros had been concerned, not himself; in the situation that he had found himself there was nothing that he, personally, could do for if they were to break out it would be through the strength of his men – as many of them as possible. And so he and his officers had reduced their rations to a level less than the ordinary soldier. The townsfolk received no rations whatsoever anymore but were too weak by now to rise up in rebellion against the besieged garrison who had confiscated all the foodstuffs they could find. Already there were more than dark rumours of murder and cannibalism; Antipatros had been confronted with the evidence.

‘Have all the bridges moved to the North Gate, Magas,’ Antipatros said, pushing from his mind the image of a roasted human thigh with slices already carved; the two men who had been caught attempting to sell it for a small fortune had been crucified in the agora. The remaining portions of the body, however, had not been found and Antipatros rather suspected they would never be; someone had made himself rich. ‘We’ll break out in that direction and head for rough country when the time comes; my guess is that they will expect us to take the East Gate and so follow the road, but I won’t give their Thessalian cavalry the pleasure.

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