“Your skill was useless for Hephaestion. He did not benefit from your great knowledge.” The words formed, but he found them hard to speak. Finally, he summoned his courage and said, more to himself than his victim, “He died.”
The time last fall at Ecbatana was to be one of great spectacle—a festival in honor of Dionysius with athletics, music, and three thousand actors and artists, newly arrived from Greece, to entertain the troops. The drinking and merriment should have continued for weeks, but the revelry ended when Hephaestion fell sick.
“I told him not to eat,” Glaucias said. “But he ignored me. He ate fowl and drank wine. I told him not to.”
“And where were you?” He did not wait for an answer. “At the theater. Watching a performance. While my Hephaestion lay dying.”
But Alexander had been in the stadium viewing a race and that guilt amplified his anger.
“The fever, my king. You know its force. It comes quickly and overpowers. No food. You cannot have food. We knew that from last time. Refraining would have provided the time needed for the draught to arrive.”
“You should have been there,” he screamed, and he saw that his troops heard him. He calmed and said in a near whisper, “The draught should have been available.”
He noticed a restlessness among his men. He needed to regain control. What had Aristotle said? A king speaks only through deeds. Which was why he’d broken with tradition and ordered Hephaestion’s body embalmed. Following more of Homer’s prose, as Achilles had done for his fallen Patroclus, he’d commanded the manes and tails of all horses to be severed. He forbade the playing of any musical instrument and sent emissaries to the oracle of Ammon for guidance on how best to remember his beloved. Then, to alleviate his grief, he fell upon the Cossaeans and put the entire nation to the sword—his offering to the evaporating shade of his beloved Hephaestion.
Anger had ruled him.
And still did.
He swung the sword through the air and stopped it close to Glaucias’ bearded face. “The fever has again taken me,” he whispered.
“Then, my king, you will need me. I can help.”
“As you helped Hephaestion?”
He could still see, from three days ago, Hephaestion’s funeral pyre. Five stories high, a furlong square at its base, decorated with gilded eagles, ships’ prows, lions, bulls, and centaurs. Envoys had come from throughout the Mediterranean world to watch it burn.
And all because of this man’s incompetence.
He whirled the sword behind the physician. “I won’t require your help.”
“No. Please,” Glaucias screamed.
Alexander sawed the tight strands of rope with the sharp blade. Each stroke seemed to purge his rage. He plunged the edge into the bundle. Strands released with pops, like bones breaking. One more blow and the sword bit through the remaining restraints. The two palms, freed from their hold, rushed skyward, one left, the other right, Glaucias tied in between.
The man shrieked as his body momentarily stopped the trees’ retreat, then his arms ripped from their sockets and his chest exploded in a cascade of crimson.
Palm branches rattled like falling water, and the trunks groaned from their journey back upright.
Glaucias’ body thudded to the wet earth, his arms and part of his chest dangling in the branches. Quiet returned as the trees again stood straight. No soldier uttered a sound.
Alexander faced his men and shrieked, “Alalalalai.”
His men repeated the Macedonian war chant, their cries rumbling across the damp plain and echoing off the fortifications of Babylon. People watching from atop the city walls screamed back. He waited until the sound quieted, then called out, “Never forget him.”
He knew they would wonder if he meant Hephaestion or the hapless soul who’d just paid the price of disappointing his king.
But it did not matter.
Not anymore.
He planted the sword into the wet earth and retreated to his horse. What he’d said to the physician was true. The fever was once again upon him.
And he welcomed it.
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
PART ONE
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
ONE
COPENHAGEN , DENMARK
SATURDAY, APRIL 18 , THE PRESENT
11:55 P.M.
THE SMELL ROUSED COTTON MALONE TO CONSCIOUSNESS. SHARP, acrid, with a hint of sulfur. And something else. Sweet and sickening. Like death.
He opened his eyes.
He lay prone on the floor, arms extended, palms to the hardwood, which he immediately noticed was sticky.
What happened?
He’d attended the April gathering of the Danish Antiquarian Booksellers Society a few blocks west of his bookshop, near the gaiety of Tivoli. He liked the monthly meetings and this one had been no exception. A few drinks, some friends, and lots of book chatter. Tomorrow morning he’d agreed to meet Cassiopeia Vitt. Her call yesterday to arrange the meeting had surprised him. He’d not heard from her since Christmas, when she’d spent a few days in Copenhagen. He’d been cruising back home on his bicycle, enjoying the comfortable spring night, when he’d decided to check out the unusual meeting location she’d chosen, the Museum of Greco-Roman Culture—a preparatory habit from his former profession. Cassiopeia rarely did anything on impulse, so a little advance preparation wasn’t a bad idea.
He’d found the address, which faced the Frederiksholms canal, and noticed a half-open door to the pitch-dark building—a door that should normally be closed and alarmed. He’d parked his bike. The least he could do was close the door and phone the police when he returned home.
But the last thing he remembered was grasping the doorknob.
He was now inside the museum.
In the ambient light that filtered in through two plate-glass windows, he saw a space decorated in typical Danish style—a sleek mixture of steel, wood, glass, and aluminum. The right side of his head throbbed and he caressed a tender knot.