To The Strongest - A Hellenistic Resurgence AAR

[Eludio]

Prelude
​

Do you know much of Alexander, my fair prince? Iskandar, I know your people call him. Do they curse his name, I wonder? Hate him as the destroyer of their great empire? Or has enough time passed that the Persian people are finally allowed to love our Great King? It matters little, I suppose. The warrior in you will surely respect the conqueror, even though you might not love the man. For of the many great kingdoms that have risen in the West and East, his was the greatest. He was King, Hegemon, Padishah, and Pharaoh. And above all he was Alexander, for no title bears more honour.

Yes, oh prince, it was Alexander that first brought my people to this land, when he himself stepped into this very hall, so many centuries ago. Perhaps you have heard the tale, or perhaps not, but in this room is where he first set eyes upon Roxana and fell in love. Alexander rode west, where he wept upon realising that even he might not conquer the entire world, Roxana rode east, to live as queen in Babylon, but the Rock of Ariamazes was not left emptied. We have remained, and still we remain.

Some of the mountain villages look to us for protection, and we are glad to provide it, be they former Hellenes or native Sogdians. For centuries we have kept our vigil, our shields never broken, our Rock never taken. I scoff at your servant’s threats of violence, for how can a man do what centuries couldn’t? But we needn’t be enemies, great prince. We have seen the breath of your armies, have admired the steel of their arms, and though we fear them not, we respect them. Your realm is strong, oh Persian prince, and through that, perhaps, you might claim our allegiance as Alexander’s true successor.

You think I jest, or attempt to flatter you, but I speak the truth. For the King left not the reins of his empire to his son, oh no, nor to any one man. On his death bed, Alexander willed his Kingdom to the only worthy successor. He willed the throne… “to the Strongest!”



Author's notes: I was working on a Hellenistic Renaissance submod for a friend (to be a counterpart for the vanilla Roman Renaissance decisions), and was looking for a quick play to test out the localisations. I'd wanted to try a game in Bactria and, one thing leading to another, ended up delving into the curious history of the Hellenistic kingdoms of the furthest East, in modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and on the Indian borders, including some far-fetched ideas about their legacies. As the game continued, I found myself focused less on testing my mod, and more on the narrative that had evolved well beyond my initial plans. So, after some time away from AAR writing, I saw it as the right occasion to jump back in.

For Alice's Return to AARLand, I'll be using HIP (with all of its components) as well as my own submod for it. Our tale begins in 936 - the Iron Century Bookmark - in the court of the Hellenikos (custom culture for my submod), Buddhist countess of Badakhshan. The actual Sogdian Rock (or Rock of Ariamazes), was probably on the other side of the Pamir mountain range, in the region of "proper" Sogdiana, but I hope that my readers will pardon me this liberty, which I believe will be the first of several (second, if you count the Hellenistic ruler).​

 

[Eludio]

One Thousand and One Persian Nights​

“Their keep, father, looks as if though one with the mountain itself, and I swear that if the Yunan had not led us there themselves, we would never have chanced upon it. But if from the outside it looks carved out of rock, it is only to better hide the treasures it protects. The walls are covered in marbles and silks such as I’ve only seen in Samarkand’s markets, and a strong incense floated through the air, though I know not where they would have purchased it, so removed they seemed from the rest of the world. If it were not for the amir Mohtaji standing next to me, I would have believed that I too had left this world for one of fables.”

“Fables indeed, my lord, which the young prince maybe appreciated more than this aged commander,” the Mohtaji amir, lord Abu Bakr, intervened, interrupting prince Nuh’s – perhaps exceedingly – passionate narration. The prince stared daggers at him, but Nasr, Sultan of the Samanid dynasty, gestured his councillor to continue. Nasr bore his son great love but would trust the opinions of the amir far more than the young boy’s, especially when it came to matters of armies and castles.
​

​

“I will admit to the might of the fortress, and the so-called Yunan did show good tactics on the battlefield. They held together, like a rock on which the Turkic riders smashed themselves like a tide,” the Mohtaji amir admitted. “But I would not think them so different from the many other barbarians that dwell like mountain goats on the peaks of the Pamir. My scouts are wont to find such tribes from time to time, with curious customs and looks, but they are of little consequence.”

“I disagree, father, I think them of much consequence,” young prince Nuh insisted, his voice now loud enough to echo on the painted walls of his father’s rooms. “I have had the chance to speak with their princess when I was invited to their hall, and she has told me their story. These are indeed Yunan, Greeks from the time of great Iskandar and, surely, they know many secrets that would bring us great benefit!”

Amir Mohtaji grinned as he exchanged a quick glance with his lord, for what else can an adult do when a child tells them a wild tale? “As I said, lord Nasr: fables. Told by a beautiful woman to a smart but very young prince.”
​

​

Before Nuh could protest further, the sultan raised a hand: “If truly it is as you say, my son, should we not conquer these Yunan with steel? Avenge our ancestors, and then force their secrets from subjugated mouths? Take their princess captive and send their warriors to serve with our Ghulam?”

The sultan hid his smile behind a half-closed fist, pretending to rest his chin, as young Nuh stammered a series of excuses, certain as he was that he had just made a great mistake in reporting the Greek princess’ story. Nasr could not help but see the justice in amir Abu Bakr’s comments, though he could neither bring himself to judge the boy too harshly. When he felt that the young prince had made enough of a fool of himself, he once again raised a hand to silence his son.
​

​

“Or perhaps, is it the princess herself that you find of much consequence, and not the secrets of her people?” the sultan asked coyly, barking with laughter as his son turned to a shade of red hitherto unseen in the great palace. But he loved his son dearly and could not bring himself to be mean: “I will not bear my armies against your Yunan princess’ keep, and if she truly has offered to swear her fealty, I will not refuse to receive jizya from these people. Nor will I forbid you to amuse yourself with this woman, for I am too wise to believe it would accomplish anything. But know this, my son: I will not have you bring an infidel to my palace, and neither will I accept you losing your way and forgetting your duties.”

The smile of amusement had left Nasr’s face completely, his last words being spoken with deadly seriousness. And he knew that they had struck true, because the redness of embarrassment had similarly abandoned Nuh, leaving the young prince as pale as well-washed linen. The boy nodded, and they spoke no more of magical princesses, Sogdian Rocks, and Iskandar, Amir Mohtaji continuing his report on the state of his Amirate by moving to southern affairs, to the Saffarids and Zaydi Buyids, whose armies worried the sultan much more than a curious but ultimately insignificant tribe of Sogdians in the Pamir.
​

The Persianate Dynasties of the Iranian Intermezzo​

​

The Rock of Ariamazes, for such was the name with which the princess Aphrodisia had introduced her castle to him, somewhat reminded prince Nuh of the Ark of Bukhara, in which his father held court. The two fortresses could not differ more in the shape of their walls, the nature which surrounded them, or the fact that one rested in the centre of an important city, whilst the other sat amidst the snowy peaks of the Pamir. And yet the Rock reminded Nuh of his home because, much like the Ark, Aphrodisia’s castle was a sumptuous palace hidden beneath the coarse shell of a military fortress.

Once, he’d been awed by the idea of such a mythical palace in such a remote corner of the world. Now, as he lazed on the princess’s vaunted Chinese cushions, tracing the outline of Aphrodisia’s lower back whilst listening to a story about King Demetrios and his discovery of the enlightened Buddha, he could not imagine a world where such a place did not exist. A world in which she was not a part of his life. A world where he would not occasionally run away from his guardian’s lesson to take solace in the princess’s arms.
​

​

Amir Mohtaji kept voicing his disapproval of Nuh’s dalliance with the “infidel witch” whenever he spoke to his ward, but as the months passed it became more of a custom than an actual complaint. In truth, Nuh knew that the amir was just as fascinated by the hellenes as he was, although the prince’s own interest might have been more personal than his guardian’s. Still, the princess Aphrodisia had managed to win over even the sour amir, Mohtaji’s scepticism of the infidels melting away just as the Turkic raids did. The gift of a bronze warrior’s panoply also assisted in softening his opinion, of course.

No, Nuh could in truth no longer fathom a world in which he hadn’t met the Hellenes of the Sogdian Rock, a world in which he hadn’t found this small corner of earthly paradise. Soon, he knew, he would have to go back to Bukhara and rule at his father’s side until the day came when he would have to succeed him. But even then, he looked forward to the idea of always having a small magical corner in his kingdom, where he could run away to and forget of the rest of the world for a while. One small, wondrous corner, removed from everything and everyone. How could the Amir Mohtaji ever have felt threatened by such a thing, prince Nuh wondered?
​

​

Author's notes: used to do these on my other AARs, so why not keep with tradition? This chapter is pretty much a Prologue Part 2, but given how little the "official" prologue said, I don't think anyone will mind. Aphrodisia is the first character to have my custom culture, for gameplay purposes it is simply a reskinned Greek culture, removing most christian and/or Romano-Byzantine influences from the names and titles. In the submod, it's supposed to be a fabricated culture, much like the Roman culture in game is born when an Emperor actively tries to recreate a defunct culture, but as far as the AAR goes its simply an undiluted Hellenistic culture.

As for real history, as far as I can tell the Samanids were at this point styling themselves either still Amirs or Shahs, depending on who they were interacting with. I'll go with CK2's titulature, however, just to avoid any confusion.

 

[Eludio]

The Weight in One’s Heart​

The air of the mausoleum felt heavy, heavier than water. And hot as well, as if some fiery djinn were standing vigil with the last of the mourners. Nuh almost wished that it were so. Then, at least, he could have asked the creature to leave, and have been well withing his rights. But there was no djinn to blame, the incense sticks had long burned out, and the air was cool as befitted a Sogdian autumn.

No, Nuh thought, it was not the air that was heavy, but his heart. For there, beside the tomb of blessed Ismail, beside the greatest men of his line, now rested Nasr, Emir of Khorasan and Sogdiana, heir to legacy of the Sasanian Shahs and protector of the Caliphate’s furthest borders. And a beloved father, for little else mattered as much to Nuh.

​

That, however, might be a lie. Nuh had loved his father, Nuh was grieving his father and Nuh would miss his father. But now he had to be his father. He was now Nuh, Sultan of the Samanid dynasty and Emir of the Eastern Province, and that responsibility weighed upon him as much as grief itself. He had been preparing for this moment since the day of his birth, and yet he now felt wholly unprepared to take up the mantle of his ancestors. In a single, terrible, night, he had been thrust into the circle of the world’s most powerful men. And, somehow, Nuh took no joy in his newfound power.

The Amir Mohtaji, his onetime mentor – or rather, Abu Bakr Mohammad, his faithful vassal – had done his best to reassure the young sultan: first, by reminding him of all the lessons that he had so easily and so skilfully learned, and second, by telling him of his own father’s youth when he had ascended to his throne. Nuh was but twenty, Nasr had been half his age, Abu Bakr had told him, and yet had grown into one of the finest rulers the lands had ever seen. The comparison managed only to further Nuh’s uncertainty, and as for the great lessons, all he could remember was how much he missed the Sogdian Rock and its princess.

​

It had been six long months since last he’d seen her. Six months in which he had to be son and heir, and could not afford to be Nuh. Even on his death bed, sultan Nasr had refused to have the Yunan pagan at court. Once, Nuh would have perhaps even preferred it this way: the secrecy of it all, the nigh unreal aspect of their meetings, the magic of the ancient fortress. And yet, loneliness trumped any desire for mysticism, and he once again wished that a djinn were mourning along side him. Then he could rub his ring, and the magical being would transport him to Aphrodisia’s embrace.

Perhaps, a djinn truly was in the crowd. Perhaps the Greatest had seen it fit to console his worthy servant, or perhaps one of Aphrodisia’s people’s curious spirit gods had willed it so. Or perhaps, mortal men can do great acts when inspired by love, and so need but a god’s inspiration, and not its intervention. Whatever the case may be, like a beam of sunlight to break the fog that shaded Nuh’s mind, she walked into the mausoleum just as he rose to leave it. She was veiled like a woman of Baghdad, robed like a merchant from the furthest east, but Aphrodisia’s beauty could not be kept a secret, especially from her lover’s eyes.

For a brief moment, Nuh felt afeared. Of his father’s ire at his order being ignored, of the disappointment in the man’s eyes. And then, finally, he felt a sultan in earnest, because his will now triumphed, and he took her hand in his, and they walked together into the sun. He spoke no words, and she dared not break the silence, but he could see Aphrodisia’s smile beneath her veil, and was sure that she could see his eyes, red with imprisoned tears, shine with the light of happiness.

​

Nuh’s Ghulam soldiers kept prying eyes and sympathetic smiles alike away from their sultan, wise in the knowledge that either was equally undesirable, and so the lord of the Eastern Province and his eastern princess of western birth were allowed a bubble of peace and secrecy as they walked the streets of Bukhara. In a way, this moving intimacy was as magical as the princess’ secret retreat in the mountains, as if though a mystical force kept the world at bay so that they could talk in peace.

At first, they spoke no words, content to bask in each other’s presence, until Nuh could wait no longer, and had to voice his disbelief. “How?” he simply asked. Aphrodisia smiled, her coy, wily smile, the one that she usually reserved for him when telling him her ancient legends. The one that had blessed her face as she’d told him of Alexander’s two fathers, or of the magic that had preserved the King’s body. Things he could not understand, and yet loved listening to, as long as they came from her lips.

“Thanks to you, my fair prince, we are not so removed from the world any longer,” she said, almost with a laugh, before growing dour. “We have heard of the great Nasr’s fall, and, against my better judgement, I could not bring myself to leave you alone. Fortunately, your grim Amir has not kept me locked into a castle, and I have enough influence with the silk merchants that they would not refuse me passage, as you can see,” she smiled again, gesturing at her curious vestments.

Nuh almost laughed himself, though the shadow had not yet lifted enough from his heart. Amir Mohtaji had told him that the princess Aphrodisia’s men, Yunani and Sogdian Buddhists alike, had begun to patrol the roads of the Bactrian valley, almost as far as Balkh, which they called Bactra. Sultan Nasr, in his last months, had disapproved of the fact, but neither his Amir nor his son had shared his concerns, this one out of love for and blind faith in the princess, that one having learned to appreciate the peace that this brought to the rebellious eastern reaches.

“You are weary, my love,” she squoze his hand tighter as she spoke the words. “It is a heavy burden you now carry, that much I can see. You carry now the burden of kings. The burden of Alexander’s legacy, whose tale first brought us together. But take heart, my Great king, for you will not be alone as you carry this burden.”

Aphrodisia stopped as she spoke the words and, as she still held his hand, made Nuh stop with her. He would have resisted, had he not been so distraught. He though he well knew what she was about to ask him, the offer she was about to make. And he well knew that he could not assent to it, even now. He was a fool. The princess made no offer, asked nothing, but took his hand into her robe, onto her stomach.

And then, the world stopped for Nuh, Sultan of the Samanid dynasty and Emir of the Eastern province. Grief and suffering were dispelled, worries about the eastern raiders and the southern enemies disappeared. So did any words that Nuh might have wished to speak. As he looked down at his hand, he felt it: a small foot, kicking with all its might against its father’s hand. He raised his gaze to meet hers, and she smiled, not the coy smile of the storyteller but one of pure joy. As a tear finally made its way from Nuh’s tired eyes, they laughed together, and the air was suddenly no longer heavy.

​

Author's Notes: quick historical note, the RNGods saw it fit to kill Nasr in 943, the same year his historical counterpart died, although my guy died of Typhus, whilst the real one died of Tuberculosis (according to the wisdom of Wikipedia, at least). Almost ten years have passed since game start, but little has changed in Iran as far as borders go. We'll get more into that next time.

 

[Eludio]

Cleopatra of Alexandria​

Spring, the ancients said, is the time when the goddess Persephone, queen of the Underworld, comes back to the world of the living. The joy in her mother, grain-gifting Demeter, is great and together, mother and daughter, they spread beauty and wealth throughout the mortal world. Even at the feet of the Pamir, on the very roof of said world, in a place isolated from everything and everyone, Persephone’s return is heralded by emerald grasses and bright flowers.

The valley of Bactria. Aphrodisia’s kingdom. It was a curious feeling. She had once dreamt of glorious conquest, of bloody war and the noble restoration of her people. She had felt cursed with the knowledge that it would never have been possible. The Hellenes of the Pamir were few and far between, she was a woman, and one with no training in the skill of arms, and her small fortress was surrounded by mighty kingdoms and empires. She had dreamt of being a reborn Alexander, and instead felt like a modern Hippolyta: her people proud, her nobility great, but ultimately doomed to fall into oblivion as stronger men forged a new world.

And yet no fall had happened. No oblivion had taken her. Not through the strength of arms, but through her wiles and beauty she had assured peace and prosperity for her people. Not in a single great conquest, but slowly and methodically their influence had spread from the Rock into the lower Bactrian valley. In Bactra itself, which the Persians called Balkh, she had been acknowledged as an Amira of the Sultanate. From the city of Kabul in the South, to the borders of ancient Sogdiana in the North, she ruled, like a Satrap to the ancient Emperors.

The Emirate of Bactra in the year 954​

She had even wept during the Amir Mohtaji’s illness, and grieved after his death. In the end, the man had felt like an old friend, having been more of a reluctant ally than a rival. And part of her hated him for it. Because she had dreamt of bloody conquest, of noble strife. And so found her own ascendence underwhelming. It is a great man, he who can conquer without raising a sword, that much she had been told, and yet she would have wanted to at least hold one.

“Admiring your realm, my Lady?” Aphrodisia turned to see that Theophilos, formerly just a friend of her father’s, now a Lord in a valley of the Kush, had snuck up behind her, silent as a cat as he walked out into her balcony. She hugged the older man, the closest thing to kin that she had.

“Admiring the beauties of spring!” she replied, offering him a seat and a cup of eastern tea.

“The gifts of Demeter,” added the man, smiling a curious smile which Aphrodisia did not recognise on him. “Indeed, it is a fair valley that my princess has conquered for us.”

She had to laugh. “Conquered? Nay, Theo, I would say was gifted. Iskandariya, my lovely Nuh calls it, as he comes here to dream himself in the shoes of the Great King. If there was ever any conquest, it was the conquest of the man, not of the land.”

“Just as Aphrodite, your namesake, conquered Ares. Your late father chose your name, you know? He would certainly approve of peace and love triumphing over hate and strife.”

Aphrodisia simply smiled, her pride near offended, rather than soothed, by the comparison. As if though, even in her greatest achievement, she had somehow been outshined by an ancient goddess. She simply sipped her tea, silently, until the silence was too heavy to bear.

“In any case,” Theophilos continued kindly, aware that he had somehow made a false step, “I have to admit I am not only here in a visit of pleasure, though it always is a joy to see you.”

“Flatterer!” she laughed, much to the older man’s own amusement, before gesturing him to continue. He was curiously cautious in his speech.

“Whilst the King Nuh has shown great nobility in keeping the other Islamic warlords from threatening our people, I am afraid that some of his own men are a bit less… open minded, with regards to the presence of what they deem unbelievers in their lands and markets.” Theophilos quickly stared towards the valley, coughed, and continued: “Specifically, I have received complaints from some of our merchants. They were apparently cast out of the market in Samarkand, had their goods seized and their stalls burned.”

​

“That is outrageous! You are certain of this?” Aphrodisia found she had raised her voice. “Be sure, my dear Theo, that I will speak to the Sultan about this. I was assured that our people would be free in their worship, and I will have that respected. To think that Nuh had even assured me that there would be a place for a place or worship in Bukhara.”

“Ah, princess…” Theophilos smiled, almost apologetically. “I would not imply that the lord Nuh has somehow turned back on his word, but I am afraid that he has contented himself with the idea that our people, Hellene and Pashto and Soghdi alike, worship solely the Great Buddha’s teachings.”

Aphrodisia, herself content in that idea, raised a quizzical eyebrow. “These merchants, those that brought the petition to my ears, were from one of the mountain villages,” Theophilos explained. “Hellenes through and through, and they kept the older gods. It seems that the propitiation of Hermes during an exchange is what caused the ire of the guards.”

​

The Amira was left dumbfounded. She’d learned the myths, of course, she knew the gods of her ancestors, and as a child had even assumed that all of those myths and all of those gods were real. But it had been years since she’d last heard someone offer prayer to them, and she’d certainly never seen a merchant ask for a god’s favour during a trade. To Aphrodisia, the gods of her ancestors were a thing of the past, much like the ancestors themselves.

But she had once dreamt of glorious conquest and proud battle. “It matters little, they are my people and they are to be protected,” she claimed, regaining her composure. “I shall speak to Nuh, and ensure that such a thing never happens again. You can tell you petitioners that they have indeed been heard.”

Theophilos thanked her, bowing deeply in the eastern manner. Deep in thought as she was, Aphrodisia did not see the smile of satisfaction on the older man’s lips.

“Hera, Goddess of mothers, mother of Gods, help me now, I beseech you!”

Aphrodisia had been taught to pray for peace and serenity, to pray as a way to clear her mind and strengthen her resolve, to overcome desires and sufferings. But as she felt the blood warm between her thighs, as her own screams echoed through the valley, she needed neither peace, nor a clear mind. She needed help.

The midwives had told her that the first pregnancy is always the hardest, that the second birth would come easier, and that girls were less of a burden than boys. They had lied. Himerios had had so peaceful a birth she’d almost feared the boy stillborn. Cleopatra was clawing her way out of her mother’s body with the fury of a wild animal.

As the child finally screamed her first cry, Aphrodisia felt her head go blank. All around her, the sounds grew distant, and her eyes were slowly filled by blinding white light, and nothing else. They had not lied, she thought, it is peaceful indeed.

Luckily, however, she had not prayed for paradise, or peace. She had prayed for help.

​

Author's notes: it had to happen sooner or later, it turns out the AI is smart enough that it happened sooner. Since CK2 is quite terrible at mimicking religious syncretism (can't really blame it, since it originally was supposed to be centred on the Crusades), I had originally cheated in some Hellenic characters in Aphrodisia's court. Some had Hellenic as their religion, some as their secret religion, to try and mimic both people who had rejected Buddhist proselytism under the Greco-Bactrian kings, and those that worshipped both.

The count of Rasht, whose name presently eludes me, founded a religious sect (I had given him a few temples in the hopes that he would get a sufficient piety boost, which worked) and Theophilos Eumenid decided to invite his own liege. Lucky for him, that liege was me, and I was hoping for this to happen eventually. On the historical side of things, I have no idea what the religious balances in Bactria were before the Arabic conquest. The article I linked in my first post speaks of present day "lost greeks" who still worship the Olympian Pantheon, but that sounds more like neo-paganism/revisionism than a continued form of worship, and the article itself is more fluff than an accurate source.

In other news, Aphrodisia has expanded quite nicely under the protection of her lover, and baby Cleo is born!

 

[Eludio]

The Pariah at the Court of the Shah​

Shah. Nuh almost laughed at the word, though Amir Mohtaji certainly meant it as flattery. Tahir Mohtaji, lesser son of a lesser son of a great man, failed rebel where his ancestor had been the most faithful of servant, and now a failure also at flattery. Still, he’d tried, and Nuh had rewarded him with a damp cell instead of the headsman’s axe. Such was the mercy of the Shah. As Tahir was escorted out, Nuh allowed himself a chuckle.

​

That was what she had called him as well. His Yunani princess, back when she had been his. Now, perhaps, he though himself as such as well. The Buyid Sultans of the Parsa province, who maybe alone could rival his claim, now offered him tribute. The honour of Shah did not seem like a feverish dream anymore. Now, however, she called him nothing at all.

Nuh had not seen her since the disagreement about her second daughter. The Amir Mohtaji, the second one, Tahir’s uncle, had taken on the duty of escorting the young Himerios to a from his father’s court, and Nuh had had no further reason to visit the mystical Rock of Ariamazes. Still, sometimes he wondered about the woman who he had loved so deeply, and sometimes even about that daughter who he had not had the courage to acknowledge.

And then, still lost in thought, Nuh found himself once more believing in magic, for there she was. He forced himself to blink. Once, twice, and yet she was still there. Standing hidden in a corner of the Ark’s throne room, lightly veiled and yet immediately recognisable. Aphrodisia.

​

She was speaking to a courtier, or perhaps one of the lesser lords. His empire grew so fast that Nuh often found himself not recognising his own governors. They were whispering, and Nuh felt the call of a painful feeling. His pride would have called it curiosity, but he knew himself jealous. Him, to whom men bowed as they would not bow even for the Caliph, was jealous. Of a little nameless lord.

Nuh did not even try to go through the rest of his audiences. He had enough conscience of himself to know that he would not be able to calm his heart. He gestured to his Vizir and dismissed the other courtiers. Throughout it all, keeping his gaze on her, trying to ensure that she would not sneak away. Aphrodisia did not offer him a single glance.

He felt like a fool, sneaking to the sides of his own hall, running towards a lover that had spurned him. But he did, nonetheless. He sneaked, and he ran, until finally he was with her. The nameless lord saw his liege approach and, wordlessly, bowed out of the hall. Before Aphrodisia could do the same, Nuh planted himself in front of her, placing a hand on her arm in what he hoped could be a tender gesture.

Evidently, it was not, as she shook it off like a filly shakes off a fly. “My lord,” she hailed him coolly, her gaze still fleeing his. Sadness followed rage which had followed humiliation, and the Sultan found himself swallowing words of apology. “How?” he asked, as he once had, almost twenty years before, when she had magically appeared to console him after the loss of his father.

He let himself believe that she too had thought back to that sweeter time when her magically azure eyes quickly darted to meet his. That hope was quickly bashed by a grimace. “Very easily,” she answered, her voice almost cruel in its calmness. “I might be just a foreign barbarian, but few things are ever refused to the mother of the Sultan’s only known child.”

Again the feelings washed over Nuh like a wave, and again sadness triumphed. “I wish…” he began, only to notice that he was staring at his own feet. He took her hand instead, their stares finally meeting. “I wish things had been different between us.” She said nothing, and so he found himself filling the silence, afraid that she would otherwise turn away: “I swear, oh princess, that the choices I made, I made them bound by my duties. Not through my own volition, that much I can assure you.”

Aphrodisia’s features once more contracted into a grimace, though Nuh saw this as a moment of confusion rather than distaste. And indeed: “I too, have wished things were different,” she said, her beautiful eyes stuck on his chest. Thus Nuh, as men everywhere are wont to do, misinterpreted. He tried to draw her closer, only to be stopped by Aphrodisia’s arm stretching between them. As she pushed the Sultan away, the grimace turned to steel. “But it is too late for that, I’m afraid.”

Nuh stammered some words, as weak in the face of the woman he still loved as he was strong in the face of an enemy army. “She tried to have me killed,” Aphrodisia stopped him. “Your darling wife. One of them, at least. Did you know?”

​

The Sultan grew silent. Of course he knew. He had, to his shame, not even dreamt of stopping the conspiracy. “Are you here to take revenge?” was the only thing he found himself asking. In truth, he did not know which answer he hoped to hear, or what he would do if she told him yes.

“On little Mahdokht?” Aphrodisia laughed, a crueller laugh than the one Nuh remembered from their days of bliss, though she seemed genuinely amused. “No, no, my dear Great king,” she said with a somewhat coquettish smile. “Your wife is but a child, thrust into the game of the great lords. In my lands, when a child misbehaves, it is the parent that is held accountable. One cannot bear the child itself any ill-will.” She smiled and bowed, excusing herself as a general requested the Sultan’s attention, much to Nuh’s chagrin.

​

“The best tea in the world, from the Emperor of Qin’s very plantations!” Sultan Nuh felt incredibly cheated, disproportionately annoyed by how bad he found the beverage. He forced himself to finish another cup, hoping that it might be a question of acquired taste, but found the second none the more enjoyable than the first. Not only was it bitter beyond any reason, but it left him with a curious itch in the back of his throat, that no amount of coughing could rid him of.

“Jamshed!” Nuh bellowed, calling for his steward. “Be mindful never to purchase this swill again. To call it tea is an offence to the real drink.” He found himself coughing again, still unable to get rid of the itch.

“Is the tea disagreeing with my lord?” a voice, certainly not Jamshed’s, called from behind him. Before he could turn around, Nuh was bent over by another fit of coughing. “That is quite sad! With the stress of these last days, and this dreadful heat, tea might do my lord good.” Every breath became heavier, as if that voice were draining the very air around the sultan.

“We would not want my lord’s poor old heart to give out, would we?” Nuh finally turned towards the speaker, and as a fit of sharp pain pierced his lungs, he understood. He would have cursed the traitor, a minor courtier he’d rarely seen before, but Nuh still could not remember his name. He never had a chance to.

​

Had the sultan looked out from his window again, he would have seen that, certainly by a stroke of pure luck, his would be heir was just crossing Bukhara’s gates, headed for the Ark with a royal escort. Hellenic spearmen with shining shields, Sogdian archers mounted on splendid horses, even a pair of elephants with their Indian mahouts. And, amidst them all, rode Himerios, son of Nuh, prince and now King of Samanid Khorasan. To his right was Cleopatra, sister much beloved, and to his left Alkaios, brother-in-law and Amir of Kabul.

As for Aphrodisia, Amira of the Eastern provinces, and mother to the new Shah, she had not entered the city. The princess of the Rock had remained in the encampment where, for two days, Himerios had awaited the signal to march into Bukhara. In her mind, however, she was back amidst the peaks of the Pamir, her heart light and young, and her lover’s hand soft on her naked back. A single tear touched the ground, in that tent outside Bukhara, but many more were shed.

​

Author's notes: the King is dead, long live the King! Stress, they called it. Actually, scratch that: it was stress. Three plots against him, all of which Aphrodisia supported with her impressive 21 Intrigue, and Nuh of the Samanid Dynasty had the gall to die of severe stress. Which is not entirely surprising, given that he had suffered rebellion after heartbreak after rebellion, but I chose to ignore that for the sake of this story.

 

[Eludio]

The Eastern Alexander​

“It seems to me, mother dear, that your seeress was once again wrong, and that it is out of friendship for her that you are making up all sorts of excuses,” Himerios smiled, his annoyance at his mother’s newfound esotericism only partially a jest. “Need I remind you of the ill omens she had divined when Seljuk Khan raided our northern borders? Hardly your witch’s reborn Alexander. Believe me, from what I’ve seen of the Seric Emperor, we should not expect any divine gift from the East anytime soon.”

​

Aphrodisia waved him away, apparently more interested in the dish of fruit in front of her, than in continuing the argument with her son. The fruit of the dragon, they were called in distant China, curious foodstuffs comprising most of what Himerios had managed to acquire on his travels to the Imperial City in the East. Hardly the great favour he had hoped for, but his mother had seemed to appreciate the gift.

The King had chosen to cross the mountains, instead of taking the northern road, so as to spend a few months in the Rock before returning to Bukhara. Queen Eudokia had brought their daughters, that they could meet their baby cousins, princess Cleopatra and her husband Alkaios having also made the journey. There was an amusing sentimentality to the whole endeavour, in returning to the home of their infancy. But Himerios had sworn he would not become his father and strove as best he could to keep his family close. Thus, the line of Amyntor allowed themselves to enjoy leisure, for a brief moment no longer the lords of Eastern Persia, but merely loving kin.

And yet, familial bliss or no, Himerios knew his mother would not give up an argument so easily, just as he knew that Aphrodisia’s interest in fruit was merely a play for time. “Still,” the woman began, while her son silently congratulated himself for his far-sightedness, “had we not feared the invader as a new Alexander, we might not have prepared adequately. Perhaps it was a warning rather than a foretelling. He was a reborn Alexander, but you, my son, were far greater than Darius!”

“Seljuk Khan died failing to cross a river. You had me read enough tales about the Great King when I was a child for me to consider that a very un-Alexandrian thing to do,” Himerios replied and even Cleopatra, who usually had great respect for her mother’s passions and superstitions, let herself chortle. Aphrodisia feigned exasperation to hide her very real annoyance, and muttered something about the misinterpretation of auguries not necessarily disproving them.

Before the argument could further contort itself, the tasting of Eastern delicacies was interrupted by a child’s shrieking scream coming from the nearby stone pavilion where, in her capacity as both tutor and physician, the very seeress that Himerios had so derided was caring for the princes and princesses. Immediately, both Aphrodisia’s Hellenic guards and the King’s own Ghulam soldiers rushed to protect their masters, but Himerios had already thrown himself into a mad run, the father’s worry outweighing the King’s cautiousness.

Armed with a dining knife and a tablecloth, Himerios barged into the pavilion fearing the worst. Behind him came one of the Ghulam, armed as such, and Alkaios, who had had the insight to borrow a soldier’s blade. The irruption was greeted by more screaming, followed by a cacophony of cries as both little Timothea and Isokrates, Cleopatra’s eldest son, broke into frightened tears. The witch Glaphyra, apparently oblivious to the appearance of her lords, immediately began shushing, calling the children into her arms and hugging them tight to calm them down.

“What in the blazes happened here!?” Himerios bellowed, undermining Glaphyra’s efforts at pacifying the children. The seeress shushed him as well, gesturing the newcomers to keep calm while she handed the – still crying – princes off to a wet nurse. Had Himerios not nurtured a profound dislike for the woman, he might almost have respected the way in which she handled her charges, stopping further soldiers from entering the children’s pavilion with the authority and composure of an expert general.

It was with a smile on her face that Glaphyra called Himerios and Alkaios towards Alkaios the Younger’s bedding, next to which sat another wetnurse, muttering prayers in a state of utter shock. Immediately, the elder Alkaios cried out, though Himerios did not immediately understand why, too focused was he on the child itself. The little Alkaios must have been one, perhaps two years old. And yet, surrounded by commotion and crying, the little boy stood perfectly still, looking around with an air of something akin to curiosity that appeared almost ravenous. Aphrodisia the Younger, Himerios’ second daughter, had also been a curious child ever since birth, but there was something different in little Alkaios’ demeanour.

It took the elder Alkaios grabbing his son into his arms for Himerios to realise that the child had not been alone on his bed. Where a moment before the King’s nephew had sat peacefully, the reddish, dappled form of a saw-scaled viper lay, contrasting brightly with the candid linen of the boy’s sheets. Still brandishing his knife, Himerios moved to stab the animal, only for the seeress, Glaphyra, to stop his arm. Dismissing the act as one of caution and worry, he tried to move past her, but the witch would not budge.

​

“Look!” she exclaimed simply, pointing at the snake. One moment of pause was all that was needed, one moment of calm instead of fear, and Himerios realised that the snake was on its back, perfectly immobile. In all his years, he’d seen many serpents lying still, waiting to pounce on an unwary pray. Never once had he seen one lying on its back, however. The creature was, quite certainly, dead.

“What kind of a deranged prank was this supposed to be!?” princess Cleopatra exclaimed, having made her way through the ranks of guards that now cluttered the pavilion’s entrances. Her fury paused but a second, enough for her to deposit a kiss on little Alkaios’ forehead, and then her eyes were once again spewing flame on the onlookers, be they children or nurses alike.

“It was no prank, my princess,” Glaphyra said, her demeanour as calm as that of her young charge. “I know not how the snake snuck into your son’s crib, but it was quite alive when it did. I saw it too late, but your little Alkaios risked no harm! He strangled the beast himself, like child Heracles!”

The declaration, delivered in such a matter-of-fact way that it seemed to accept no doubt, made mutes out of the great lords and lady of the house of Amyntor. The silence was finally broken by their matron, the elder Aphrodisia, who had entered the room behind her daughter and now raised her hands to the sky, letting out a wail that was more beastly than human. “Oh, what a prodigious child!” she then yelled, as her children turned to her in shock. “And what a prodigious sign! Surely, this is a portent! An omen, that our house will triumph against the human snakes that wish us ill! Is it not so, dear Glaphyra?”

The seeress merely smiled. For his part, Himerios thought that the only sign he saw was that the children should be left in better care, but he said nothing. As his kin crowded around the miracled child, the King stood back, unable to shake a strange feeling of dread that had creeped under his skin. As he locked eyes with little Alkaios, he could have sworn that the boy was glaring at him.

​

Author's notes: oh court physicians, how easily you lend yourself to mysterious characters! As for Glaphyra's prophecies (the genuinity of which I will let the reader decide) the first one was called "I've played campaigns in the area before" and the second "I had better hopes for Himerios' kowtow". Seljuk declared his invation of Khorasan in 966 (as he is wont to do), and Aphrodisia had stocked up on precious Silk Road money to pay for mercs, preparing for an epic clash. Instead, Seljuk unceremoniously died in the first battle against Himerios' forces, in what I can only assume was a battlefield duel in Antiokheia Margiane, having barely entered the Kingdom. He got "Queen Mother Aphrodisia of Sogdiane supported Basileus Himerios of Sogdiane in war against his enemies" in the Chronicle, for his efforts

As for the kowtow, it amounted to next to nothing in game, much as in the story, but it did get me this cute letter, which inspired me to write the scene, and add "family loving secret softie" to Himerios' characterisation. That, and I didn't feel like writing a battle scene just yet
​

 

[Eludio]

Into the Camp of the Achaeans, from a Silver Bow​

Once again, the defenders of Gorgan unleashed a volley towards the King’s camp. Once again, their arrows fell some hundred paces shy of the furthest tents. Himerios shook his head. Soon, he knew, Alkaios the Elder would order their men to – once again – fire stones on the rebels’ walls. And, once again, they would refuse to surrender. The bhikkhu Nikephoros often said that there could be great joy in repetition because it is one of the paths to serenity. Clearly, the man had never gone to war. There was nothing joyous nor serene in a siege.

And of course, inevitably, Alkaios gave the order, stones flew, and no flag of surrender was raised. Himerios sighed. There were many worlds yet left to conquer, Indian kings and emperors to bring to heel. And then the push East, towards the Caliphal lands and Ctesiphon and the ruins of Babylon of old. All that would have to wait, however, as the would-be conqueror was instead forced to sit in Gorgan’s outskirts, waiting and waiting until Shahrokh Shahro’s men would finally surrender the fortress. The future King of all of Persia, stalled by petty religious disagreements.

​

“Cheer up, I come bearing news!” Alkaios, titan of a man though he was, had managed to sneak up on Himerios, and had unceremoniously slapped the nape of his King’s neck with two scrolls of papyrus, evidently his vaunted news. “And get out of the sun, you’re developing a rash,” he added, now staring fixedly at the back of Himerios’s head.

The King merely pulled up his cloak. “You were saying, what news?”

“Right, to business,” grumbled Alkaios, not without the hint of a smile. He well knew of his brother-in-law’s distress, but had long ceased worrying about him, and now found the man’s restlessness almost amusing. “Two missives, perhaps equally important. One, from the West, another, written by your mother’s lovely hand.”

“Don’t keep me guessing, will you?”

“Good news on both sides. That is the short of it.” Alkaios beamed from ear to ear, for though he was wise enough to know that Himerios could have guessed as much, he was also glad to see the reassurance soothe the stress out of the King’s brow. “The Caliph is busy fighting against the heresiarch that took over Upper Mesopotamia and won’t be offering any assistance to Shahro’s little uprising. As for the Buyids, they have offered reassurance of their loyalty, though they have not yet sent this year’s tribute for fear that it might fall into rebel hands.”

The Persian States under the Hegemony of Himerios of Bukhara​

​

“A sensible decision. If it’s an honest one. And the news from the East?”

“Even better, if I dare say so. Eudokia and the children are safe, they’ll probably be playing with Isokrates and little Alkaios as we speak. The Lady Aphrodisia also writes that the muster is complete in Bactra, and that with the favour of the War Gods they will be able to relieve the siege of Bukhara within the week. This was three days ago.”

Alkaios realised he had miss spoken, Himerios could tell as much from his brother-in-law’s expression, and but a few days before the King would have calmly let a few words fly by peacefully. But if repetition was not the way to enlightened serenity, neither was it the path to calm. “I will assume,” Himerios began, pacing every syllable, “that you were merely zealous in quoting my mother’s words.”

Alkaios ignored the lifeline that was being mercifully offered to him. “Brother,” he tried to argue, “if you would simply…”

​

“I will do nothing, Alkaios. One thing, I have asked of your clique. One!” Himerios rose as his voice did, his cloak falling from his shoulder to reveal a rash that climbed steadily towards his face. “Half of my Islamic subjects are up in arms that I chose to follow the example of the Enlightened one rather than blindly pray to an absent deity, I needn’t have the other half war upon me because my kin are pagan polytheists. I have stood for tolerance, I have turned many a blind eye, only asking for discretion and yet…”

Himerios did not finish his thought. The same arm he’d lifted accusingly was suddenly needed to sustain him as the breath fled from his chest. Immediately, Alkaios forgot all arguments, rushing to help a friend in need. As he helped the King up, Alkaios could not help but stare, for what he’d believed a single burn on a bent neck that had been left to the sun’s mercy was revealed to be but one of many sores and rashes that crept well beneath Himerios’ tunic.

​

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” the King protested, his voice somehow both harsher and weaker at the same time. “Thank you, brother, I’m fine. It is as you’ve said, too much time in the sun. Now please, forgive my words, and let us not argue. Walk with me to my tent, and let us share a drink, and forget of all this ugliness.”

Alkaios tried to return his brother-in-law’s smile, forced though it might have been, but he could feel it contort into a grimace on his own face. Somehow, both men though, neither shade nor drink would be of any help.

​

Author's notes: poor Himerios can't catch a break. Shahrokh Shahro's rebellion was the third, and largest, from the King's muslim vassals, tensions certainly exacerbated by the fact that half of the King's family are known apostates. I've tried to coalesce Himerios' "Sympathy for Pagans" with the fact that he arrested his own mother - twice! - with his anger at the polytheists' lack in discretion, though I've felt like giving Nikephoros a shout out for all the trouble he's been causing Lady Aphrodisia.

In international news, the near entirety of Eran is either a vassal of a tributary of Himerios', the Caliph is struggling to hold onto Iraq against the Shia al-Hamani kingdom to his north, and Jurchen China is succumbing to a great famine

 

[Eludio]

Two and Thirty and Two Again​

“The air feels heavy.” She had always hated the phrase. There was nothing lighter than air. Heat could be suffocating, worry and sadness might drag one to the ground, but the air? The air was merely a stage, a blameless messenger. The proverbial scapegoat for men unwilling to acknowledge what they perceived as weakness. In that, she had always respected Nuh. It took strength to admit one’s weakness. A strength Aphrodisia now found herself lacking, as she could not help but nod to the platitude.

“Leave us.” The words fled Aphrodisia’s mouth as if though she had fought to hold them, the sweet voice of a singer now a rasping growl. As if though one body, the servants and generals and medics obeyed. Only Glaphyra remained behind, her friendly hand a meagre consolation on Aphrodisia’s shoulder, but a single glance from her mistress sufficed for her to follow suit. Finally alone, the rest of Aphrodisia’s strength gave out, and she threw herself on her son’s bedside, her tears lost into the woolly covers.

She barely felt Himerios’s fingers stroking her hair, so light was the touch, and again Aphrodisia’s strength failed her, pride forcing her to wait until no more tears were streaming from her eyes before she allowed herself to look at her child. For a child he still was, to her, and she felt the need to be strong for him. Not that a few moments burying her face into a sick man’s bedsheets could hide the pain she felt, and as she raised her gaze to meet her son’s, her eyes were still redder than a wounded animal’s.

Of the two, it seemed, Himerios was the strongest, smiling placidly beneath his boils as he continued caressing his ageing mother’s head. The trembling of his hand betrayed the lie in his calm demeanour, though the bhikku would certainly say that the body’s suffering need not poison the mind. Aphrodisia took that trembling hand into her own, no longer hiding her tears as she kissed it softly.

“Two years,” Himerios spoke at last, his voice feeble but not broken. “Two years older than King Alexander ever got to be. Two years of rebellion and war, two years during which I’ve had a wonderful son, two more years as…” The words stifled in his throat, but before Aphrodisia could beg her son to save his strength, Himerios continued: “If I believed in your gods, I would not know whether to curse them for this prank or to thank them for this gift. Did they cruelly beguile me with dreams of conquest, only to kill me as I was prepared to march? Or did they bless me with a little more time, so that I might leave my son a Kingdom worthy of the name?”

Aphrodisia had no answers. She herself had prayed, and cursed, and begged, and questioned, and now had no words left to speak. Glaphyra might have had a ready solution, a reason for all sadness and grief, but in her heart Aphrodisia knew that neither she nor Himerios would have wanted to hear it.

“And as for my son,” Himerios began, his voice somehow stronger and sterner, as if though it were now the untouchable King, not the ailing man, that was speaking. “I would beg of you two things, in the name of the love between mother and son, that no quarrel between us has ever managed to weaken.” Aphrodisia nodded, again kissing his hand, allowing her child to smile once more.

“Firstly, I would ask that you support Philandros, both with your wise council and through the strength of your phalanxes, though I doubt not that you would have done so anyway.” Perhaps without thinking, he squoze her hand tightly. “But secondly, and I know that you will consider this a mistake, I beg of you: let Eudokia raise my child as she will, teaching him our shared beliefs and our values. Wait, let me speak, please. I know, I know what you would tell me. You’d introduce my son to your gods for his own good. And maybe they truly would help him and bless his reign. But this Kingdom needs peace. He will need peace. And I, too, would rather have peace in my last moments. Please.”

Aphrodisia said nothing, her eyes once again lost to tears, but at last she nodded, and Himerios let out a sigh of relief. His last.

Aphrodisia let her veil fly off freely into the wind, as she walked the steps to the temple of Aphrodite, in the valley of Jerm in Badakhshan, beneath the shadow of her Sogdian Rock. It seemed fitting, she thought. She herself could not tell when she had abandoned the secrecy of hidden shrines for the reverence of restored temples. Somehow, the more she aged, the less she saw the need to put on any façade, and the less she found the patience for it. Monk Nikephoros, preceptor to the little King, still insulted her people by calling them cultists, but there was little he or anyone would do against the polytheists of Bactria.

Besides, Aphrodisia had spent most of her life putting on faces, lying to Nuh’s courtiers, playing a part for her son’s beloved monks. Once, she had even enjoyed it. Enjoyed the knowledge that they would never guess her true thoughts. Now? She yearned for truth. As she finally reached the colonnade of the Goddess of Love’s temple, she felt a weight slowly lifting from her shoulders. A weight that had bent her and buried her for years now, and was now growing lighter, as if thought blessed Aphrodite herself had reached down to aid her.

In front of the naos’s heavy metal doors, Aphrodisia took a moment to breath, more calmly and more freely than she had in years. In front of the Goddess’ holy chambers she was laid bare, unable and unwilling to hide her thoughts, her fears, her hopes. She prayed silently, mouthing the words lowly so that only a divine ear might hear, her thoughts flying to a myriad different people. To Nuh, whom she had once loved, to the elder Mohtaji, whom she had feared, to Eudokia, now Queen mother as she had once been, to Isocrates and Herais and bright little Alkaios, who would be playing in the Rock, half an hour’s walk away.

And finally, she thought of herself. Of the many things she’d prayed for in her years. Of the many blessings she’d been given. Of the happiness and of the sadness and of the challenges and of how she’d overcome them. At long last, she spoke one last prayer. At long last, she prayed for peace.

She fell to her knees as she prayed, and as she rose, bare in the eyes of the Goddess and in the eyes of all the Gods, she felt her prayer had been granted. The weight had been lifted, and she’d been given peace. It was with a young woman’s smile that she stepped through the heavy doors of polished bronze, honest and happy and beautiful as befitted one carrying her name, the marble cooling her feet as she entered the temple’s most sacred room.

Her body, older than its years and tired and filled with pain, did not follow her. It remained, kneeling, in front of those doors, a young woman’s smile printed on its wizened lips.

​

Author's notes: for half a decade Aphrodisia held onto her oath of guidance and protection, until she could hold on no longer. Himerios had fallen to his passions, Gonorrhea being the last of a series of lover's diseases, Aphrodisia fell to her lack of passion for life. I hope this image poor chapter will not bore, but I had more words than I had pictures.

 

[Eludio]

A Child Most Blessed​

Nasr had kept court in his majles, never making much ceremony of it. “A humble duty, for a humble servant of the Khalifa,” he would say. Nuh had begun to listen to complaints in a wider hall, allowing for courtiers to listen in as he doled out justice, and Himerios his son had added a high-backed divan to the hall, sitting further away from his councillors. The Lady Aphrodisia, during her regency, had seen it fit to replace the low divan with a Rhomean folding chair, imported from the West through the Silk Road. She had claimed, lying, that at her age she would find it too hard to sit so close to the floor, unlike the strong men she had the honour of having as councillors. Even at sixty, the false smile she could drape on her face still had men eating from her hands, and nobody spoke a word in protest.

Slightly less unanimous was the approval of the commissioning of a gilded throne, where the child-king Philandros would sit and observe his future court. Still, Aphrodisia had argued that her grandson the King could not be upstaged and had to have a grander seat than her. And given that she was forced to sit on a chair, the child should have a throne. And so, slowly but steadily, with the complicity of queen-mother Eudokia and an excuse for each of her actions, the regent had begun to transform the Samanid fortress in Bukhara into a palace fit for the last Hellenistic king in the world. For five long years, Aphrodisia had ruled as regent in Bukhara, and she’d left the Ark much changed from how she’d found it. None had dared attempt to undo her acts.

And so, he sat enthroned in the Ark’s largest hall. The King of Bactria and Sogdiana. Dangling his feet, as they could only barely reach the floor. Somehow, the little Philandros looked less dignified at seven, garbed in silken robes and golden jewels, than he had at two, when the Princess Aphrodisia had first placed him upon that seat, to look on silently as she ruled in his name. Perhaps it was that the curiosity in the toddler’s eyes had been replaced with the bored broodiness of the spoiled child. Perhaps Philandros had simply begun to show that he’d inherited none of the beauty of the Amyntids, and now looked lanky and awkward in ceremonial dresses he’d already overgrown. Or perhaps the fault lay in the eye of the beholder, as Alkaios no longer saw a magical child destined for greatness, but merely his unimpressive baby cousin, less magical than a bowl of porridge. Perhaps less so, as oats rarely found their way to his table.

“Pay attention!”, Alkaios would have wanted to shout out, as the child-king stared off into an empty corner, his face the very depiction of boredom. In the few hours Alkaios and his brother Isokrates had been allowed to listen into the court proceedings, an envoy had come from the West with news that the Kings of Armenia had gone to war with the Shiite Heresiarch in Upper Mesopotamia, the newest Emir Mohtaji had brought news of his victories against the Turcoman horselords, and an emissary of the Shah Buyi had informed them that the Caliph Al-Mustarshid was marching into Africa to attempt and regain some semblance of power.

A cautious king would have been feared these conflicts, and what they meant for his own realm. A bold one might have rejoiced, painting in his mind the picture of a weakened West, ripe for conquest and subjugation. Alkaios would never know what type of king his cousin would grow up to be, since Philandros simply did not listen at all, clearly far more interested by his own boredom. What was the point, Alkaios wondered, of having the boy sit there at all, if all he ever did was share a few remarks with the monk, Nikephoros, with most of these being a variation of “I would like to leave”?

“All this war. I hope it will not come to our home,” said Isokrates next to him, and so Alkaios thought he knew exactly what kind of man he’d grow up to be. Yet the younger brother smiled for, unlike their cousin, Isokrates had been listening attentively, just as curious as he about what happened outside of their sturdy walls.

​

Only then, having turned towards his elder brother, did Alkaios notice the seeress. She’d grown much older and greyer, since last he’d seen her, what had to be almost a year before. The enchantress had disappeared after his grandmother’s death and now, seeing her again, Alkaios realised that he had missed her, so happy was he to see her again. It was a curious feeling. One he did not know that he’d felt before. She was looking at him, beckoned, and he followed, asking no soul for permission nor telling Isokrates.

He reconsidered his certainty about her age, so quick was the enchantress in her moves, leaving Alkaios struggling to follow her. At last, after fearing that his child’s legs had failed him and he’d lost her, Alkaios stumbled into a small room, its walls bare and coarse as if though it had been dug inside an older structure. There the seeress stood, tall and proud and powerful, and age indeed seemed to have vanished from her body. The grey in her hair seemed to have turned silver, her back was as straight as a warrior’s and her single eye shone bright like a star.

​

“Glaphyra!” exclaimed Alkaios, but the seeress raised a finger to her lips and he fell silent, obedient as a pup. She gestured towards a small fissure in the coarse stone walls and, upon realising there were voices coming from the crack, Alkaios was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. At first he tried spying something of what was going on in the adjacent room but soon realised it was impossible, and instead flattened his ear to the small hole, trying to listen in as much as he could.

“Were we to act now,” Alkaios heard, in a very heavily accented version of the koine, “we would be traitors. And we would fail. The Mohtajids are yet powerful, more than you seem to think.”

“My phalanxes could take those treacherous…” Alkaios was taken aback and did not hear the end of that thought, having recognised his own father’s voice in the speaker. He gawked at Glaphyra, but she merely nodded and pointed her chin back towards the fissure.

“And it may come to that yet,” the accented voice was now saying. “But please, lord Alkaios, let me try to solve this matter with a little more finesse. We may be outnumbered in the council rooms, but poison cares not for politics.”

There was a moment of silence, during which Alkaios the Younger imagined his father pacing the room, a caged tiger, as he often would when forced to recognise someone else’s truth. “Hazarasp and the Mohtajid cousins?” Alkaios the Elder finally asked.

“To kill all three would be too risky,” the accented voice answered. “Hazarasp first. Once the pretender is dealt with, we shall see what the reaction will be from the Mohtajids. They may very well fall back in line out of fear.”

Alkaios the Elder spoke no more, and a few moments later Alkaios the Younger felt Glaphyra’s hand on his shoulder. He could do little but stare at her, silent, as his mind was bothered by thoughts and could not fathom words.

“Do you understand, little prince?” she asked, once she was certain that the other room were empty. “Your cousin is in a dangerous place. His Samanid kin and his Viziers scheme against him. Your father and his faithful advisors scheme for him. And he understands none of it. If one day you are to be King, you must learn to understand the minds of men, learn to turn them to your favour. I will teach you, for one is never too young to learn.”

“But Glaphyra,” Alkaios said, unsure of his own words even as he spoke them, “I am not meant to be King. I never was.”

The seeress smiled, and it seemed as if though, her lips curling, lines vanished from her face instead of deepening: “Oh golden prince. You will always be meant to be King.”

​

Author's notes: cat's out of the bag on who succeeded Aphrodisia, game wise, as Duke of Bactria! This chapter was supposed to be following Alkaios the Elder, as he navigated his nephew's court, but my description of Philandros ended up sounding meaner than I wanted, and I thought an adult would never be so spiteful towards his best friend's son. Instead, we get to listen in on court intrigue throught the year of a child! On a separate note, I regret not editing Alkaios the Younger's name into something else, as it's getting more than a little confusing to keep track of who's speaking as I write.

As for the court intrigue itself, as soon as Philandros stepped on the throne, a faction popped up to install Hazarasp instead, with the Mohtaji councillors ready to jump on the barricades, having feigned conversion to Buddhism and quite preferring the Muslim Samanid claimant to the boy king. Glaphyra, meanwhile, is playing her own game, having been selected by the RNGods as the "mentor figure" in the event chain.

 

[Eludio]

In the Hall of the Mountain King​

“Alkaios, son of Theophilos, of the House of Eumenes, Tiger of the East! I am honoured by your presence! But truly, an armed escort is unnecessary. As you can see, I ride with my own men, and the road from Balkh to Badakhshan is not yet so dangerous as to frighten a hundred armed and armoured riders. But come, dismiss your slaves, and join us, that we may ride together.”

“No, Kashayar, I fear you are mistaken,” Alkaios the Elder answered. Even as he spoke, he was counting the Samanid horsemen, counting how many were in armour, how many had bows in hand. He spoke slowly, pausing between every word, as if the Persian tongue came difficult to his lips, while the pikemen of the Bactrian phalanx formed behind him. “The only thing unnecessary are your honeyed words. Call me a fool if you wish, but I shall not trade lies with you. The way to the Rock is barred to servants of the usurper Hazarasp, and it shall remain barred. Turn back, Kashayar, you cannot pass.”

​

The Samanid commander’s eyes narrowed to two slits, but he stopped two of his followers from springing forwards, so zealous were they in avenging the insult to their master. “I shall forgive your boorishness. We know you men of the mountains to be less civilised than us,” the man said, his tone all but forgiving. “Which is why the noble Hazarasp, Shah of Khorasan, Sultan of Bukhara, and usurper of nothing-at-all, wishes his precious cousin, the prince Philandros, to be returned to his guardianship. That he may be educated in the ways of the cultured people and raised in the hall of his fathers.”

“Since still you find it wise to lie, I shall be the one to call you fool,” Alkaios seethed, seemingly suddenly far more comfortable in the Iranic speech, now that the wall of bronze and steel had formed behind him. “Once I have told you already, and now I repeat it: the way is barred to you, Kashayar, you cannot pass. Philandros is safe with his kin, Philandros shall remain with his kin, and your treacherous master shall have no say in this. Look at the spears gleaming behind me and listen very clearly: you cannot pass.”

As he passed through the stone gateway leading into the Rock’s inner courtyard, Philandros could not help but feel very small. But a few months earlier, he’d been king. The King. The strongest lord in all of what had once been Persia, doted upon by servants, priests and warriors alike. Now, he was but a child. A small defenceless child in a hall that, despite what his aunt and mother might promise him, was not his own. After the death of his grandmother, whose face Philandros could barely remember, there had been no Amir or Amira in Bactriane. Alkaios the Elder commanded the armies and the authority that these brought him, and his two sons were together lords over the valley of Bactria, but ever since the death of Lady Aphrodisia there had been no true governor of that province. These were simply the lands of the House of Amyntor, and the Amyntids needed no other authority.

​

And yet, amidst the children that dwelled in the Rock of Ariamazes, there was a King. Crowned in a mane of golden locks, enthroned on the lowest branch of an ancient birch, having for sceptre the broken bottom of a spear’s staff, he ruled over that small grassy courtyard with greater dignity that Philandros had had, ruling over the greater part of Persia.

“Cousin!” the little King shouted, beaming from ear to ear. He climbed down from his “throne” and rushed to embrace Philandros, who could not help but smile himself. All those years he had spent in preparation for his ascension, Philandros had spent virtually alone. He knew his kin, but he’d never truly gotten to know them. The courtly factions had fought over his time, leaving little of the boy for those that could have been his friends, and so he had grown used to being alone. Now, as Alkaios the Younger, king of the littlest kingdom, held him in a tight embrace, he thought that losing a crown was not the worst of fates.

​

Had Philandros been but a few years more cynical, or a little less taken by his cousin’s warmth, he might have thought other things. He might have thought it curious, that a boy who had shunned him his entire life, now treated him like the brother that he was. He might have thought it strange, how the other children, Eumenid cousins and the sons of Aphrodisia’s Hellenic arms men, stood silently around them, truly more akin to courtiers than friends. He might have even spared a thought for the grey haired woman that watched over the whole scene from behind the birch, like Nikephoros had watched over court days from behind Philandros’s throne.

But Philandros was neither cynical, nor cold. He was an eleven year old child who had just lost his home and life and wealth, and he was far too happy in Alkaios’s embrace to think about anything else.

​

Author's notes: a slightly shorter chapter than usual, summer keeping me further away from my computer than I'm used to, though perhaps more eventful than the last two put together. My assassination plot Alkaios the Elder's conspiracty with Spymaster Pashang failed miserably, and before I could try again Hazarasp had succeeded Philandros to the throne of Sogdiana (though curiously not through faction request, but inheriting the title because of a successful revolt against Phil). As soon as he joined my court, the relations between Phil and cousin Alkaios jumped up some twenty points, hence the idea for this chapter.

As for Alkaios the Elder's dispute with commander Khashayar (an otherwise minor character, who was just conveniently there when I needed a name), it never happened, though Hazarasp has of course asked to educate both Alkaios the Younger and little Philandros at different points.​

​

 

[Eludio]

He was King...​

The drills of the Bactrian army had always been a wondrous sight, so much so that farmers dropped their ploughs and merchants abandoned their stalls to catch a glimpse, and only some of these did so under orders from the Shah Hazarasp’s spy master. Under the regent Aphrodisia, the so-called Phalanx had been comprised of a handful of the koine-speaking farmers that dwelled at the feet of the Pamir, their mythical appearance being much more important than their weight in a battle, but when the time came for Alkaios the Elder to defend his children’s inheritance, he found it necessary to expand the force into a proper army. So long as they spoke a few words in Greek, all were allowed to join the force, be they Sogdian or Pashto, Pamirian Buddhists or Arian Zoroastrians.

The smiths of Baktra had worked nights to outfit this force, having been given precise instructions regarding the lengths of pikes and the size of shields, and very imprecise ones regarding “traditional Macedonian panoplies” – by which some meant scaled cuirasses, others linen corselets, and other still chain armour in the fashion of the later Seleucid soldiers. Others still, having no idea what a traditional Macedonian panoply would look like, wrought lamellar cuirasses in the Sasanian style, but made them sleeveless, because they were not being paid enough to use that much metal. Some even made the trip to the Rock of Ariamazes, though instead of imitating the soldiers there, they chose to copy the statues that decorated the halls, so that there was a group of former Pashto farmers that now looked ready to hold the Hot Gates alongside King Leonidas and his Spartans.

Having received its, all but uniform, equipment, the colourful army then had to be trained into fighting shape, taught more Ionian – enough, at least, that it might understand the orders it was given, and lastly drilled in the tactics of the great generals of old. Whether or not new generals were successfully in their drilling of the troops, Lu-ling could not tell. Or rather, she could tell that they were not, but also knew that nobody would heed her word. It was just as well, as the spectacle was enjoyable nonetheless, if perhaps not as effective on a battlefield.

Yet there was something different happening, on that cool January’s morning. You could always count on one of the levied pikemen to drop his weapon at the most inopportune moment, causing a ruckus that displaced a whole wing. There were always, between the mounted Hellene knights, those that abandoned their position to go heckle the Iranian footmen, calling them names or mocking their accents. Even between the commanders, there was always some strife, be it about seniority, the current formation of the troops, or the decision on whom to place the blame for a mistake or another.

But not that day. The generals were silent, the knights respectful, the footmen stood in perfect order. Even the mismatched kits of the soldiers now shone in a different light. Standing proud and tall, their helms bright in the wintery sun, those men were no longer a thousand odd strong rabble in clashing dress. They were still a many-faced army, but were now animated by the same spirit, as Lu-ling’s father used to say.

In the case of the Bactrian army, however, that spirit had a name and a face. A handsome face, crowned by a mane of golden curls, brightened by two eyes as clear as the skies, graced with a smile that sang of divine bliss. It was that spirit that united the men of Badakhshan and Kabul, of the peaks of Pamir and the valley of Bactra, as it rode between them on its throne of sinew and horsehair, kin to the golden horse of King Alexander. The Bactrian army parted in front of him like waves facing a ship’s keel. The cynic in Lu-ling wondered how much time had been wasted to choreograph the ceremony. The little girl in her merely enjoyed the spectacle.

The golden-curled spirit finally stopped, so far amidst the soldiers that Lu-ling could barely spy him amidst the wall of spears, and dismounted. He joined his kin beneath a great golden disc, upon which the sun emblem of the Hellenes shone as if though it were a real star, taken from the sky. There the spirit spoke with mortal voice, the voice of Alkaios of the line of Amyntor, and though Lu-ling was too far to hear the words, buried as they were beneath the ruckus of an army that pretended to be still, she felt their weight in the young King’s gaze.

Those words were answered by the other King of Bactria, whom Lu-ling had once known as her friend Isokrates, and the King of Sogdiana, the little exile, Philandros son of Himerios. Though these voices too, Lu-ling could not grasp. But she saw the three embrace, and knew enough of the ways of the Hellenes to guess that they must have completed some ceremony for the benefit of the troops. An oath of friendship, or of allegiance, like their ancient Kings of myth. The three mounted as one, and the men once again parted before them like a curtain, yet this time they drew wider, for after the three kings marched their knights and retinues.

And then, before the cynic in Lu-ling could once again voice her concerns, the curtain itself moved. The sea now followed in the ship’s wake, as a thousand and a thousand more feet followed the hooves of their masters’ horses, their steps thundering on the Bactrian soil as if sounding just as many war drums. For this was no pretty choreography, no artful ceremony to sate a princeling’s pride. This was the dance of Ares, one whose steps the men of Bactria had been practicing for years and were now ready to unleash upon the world.

Had she still stood upon the steps of the Goddess’ temple, the Lady Aphrodisia would have had but to turn and she would have seen, far off into the valley, the shadow of eight thousand men marching down from the mountains, the light shining off eight thousand mismatched and fearsome helms. She, who had once dreamt of glorious conquest, might have even smiled, gladdened by the sight of her children’s children standing beneath banners of war. She, who in the end had strived for peace, might have even shed a tear, saddened by the sight of her children’s children standing beneath banners of war.

But she stood on those steps no longer. She had last walked the path up to the temple six years earlier and had never walked back. No, Aphrodisia could not turn and watch the armies of Bactria march towards Bukhara, accompanied by the cheers of Enyo and Phobos and Deimos as they preceded their master’s arrival. On that cool January morning, no eyes were watchful, in the temple of the divine Cyprian. None, safe those of the goddess herself, carved in marble though they were, and they did stare into the valley. The kings, the knights, the soldiers and their spears, divine Aphrodite saw it all. And as the golden Alkaios led his men to war, unbeknownst to him, the lowly daughter of a lowly eastern exile prepared to follow. Because, high above the mountains, divine Aphrodite saw it all.

​

Author's Notes: it took me quite a while to figure out how I could write another chapter on courtly intrigue, concerning the factionalism that led to Bactria (and various other Amirates of the Samanid Kingdom) claiming independence. Alkaios was no longer the child I could use as a silent onlooker. Alkaios the Elder had all but proclaimed his indepence from Hazarasp in the last chapter. And the dissolution of great Kingdoms is seldomly contained in a few words on parchement, whatever CK2's mechanics may seem to believe. So, instead, I chose to skip that part altogether, and give young Lu-ling a voice of her own! Down the line, I believe she will have far more to say.

 

[Eludio]

By a River's Stream​

All along the eastern bank, the Sogdian Shah’s forces massed, like so many well-armed ants, graciously crowding but one spot, so that the boot had no doubt as to where it should land. They looked almost fierce: servants of the Caliph, Buddhist mountain-men, even exiled mercenaries from the furthest East. They beat their shields and stomped their feet. They heckled and jeered, shouting insults and provocations, challenging their enemy’s pride. As if though it were not obvious that they were shaking in their boots, trying to lead the Conqueror’s into the Murghab’s water, hoping that the river might save them from a fate that had already been written. Praying to whichever god they held dear, that water might do what their steel never could.

Because the Sogdians feared him as Eastern Alexander, that much the King well knew, they knew him to be the Strongest. They knew that no man nor man-made blade could hurt him. No spear could lame his horse, no arrow could pierce his coat. And no shield could halt his fury. They knew him to be their doom, and so they prayed, for what else can mortals do when faced with the wrath of one who is above men? But no prayer would avail them, no god would come to save them, and even the waters of the Murghab had abandoned them, the river nearly halved by draught.

He smiled, the Eastern Alexander, gently kicking his horse’s flanks to spur the animal on. He would show no fear, neither of the river nor of the warriors defending it, for why should he? His destiny was to be the greatest of Kings, and a true King does not cower behind a wall of his men’s steel. His horse tried to shy away, perhaps scared by a reflection on an enemy shield, or perhaps wiser than its master, but he kicked harder, leading the creature into a canter and into the river, as ten thousand riders followed, teeming with anticipation. The Conqueror smiled, cruelly smiled as he saw the first of the Sogdians take a step back in fear. And then he fell, his mount having stumbled on a smooth rock, soaked by the Murghab’s splashes.

“This has to be the ford where Seljuk died,” Philandros exclaimed, gesturing towards the remains of an old trophy. It had been all but picked clean, leaving little more than a wooden cross and a few rusted arms, but Philandros knew it had once been adorned with the armour of the would-be Turkish conqueror and his retinue. He had not yet been born, on the day of that victory, but his uncles had described the khan’s fall at length. His Samanid kin had called it an act of providence, Alkaios the Elder a blessing from the Gods. Philandros liked to think it a natural consequence of the barbarian’s hubris, for no man can dream himself greater than nature itself.

“I will be sure to take care in my crossing, then,” Alkaios jested, dismounting to go make an offering at the trophy’s site. Philandros could not help but smile, as his cousin tempered his own arrogance with that single pious gesture. He even felt the need to bow his own head, though he seldomly offered praised to the many Gods of his ancestors, but did not follow in his cousin’s footsteps, waiting patiently until Alkaios came back to the horses.

​

“Are you certain you will not need my men in the West?” Philandros asked as the two rode back to camp with their escort, though in truth he would have wanted to ask: “Could I not come with you, cousin?”. For years, during his exile, Philandros had desired nothing more than to return to Bukhara, yet now he dreaded the though, great battles in the West suddenly far more desirable than his old rooms in the Ark. Or perhaps he simply did not want to leave his place at his cousin’s side.

“Oh, I will surely need them,” Alkaios smiled. “And even more will I need your trusted presence with me, in those hostile lands,” he added, as if though reading his cousin’s thoughts, and Philandros felt his small chest swelling with pride. “But you are needed elsewhere. The men of Bukhara need to see you walk their streets, need to know that you are their King. And besides,” and here Alkaios began laughing at his own, yet untold joke, “we cannot both risk crossing the Margiana at once. It has a history of killing great men!”

And Philandros laughed along, in equal parts flattered and disconcerted by his cousin dragging him up atop his golden pedestal. Suddenly, the thought of returning to the Ark did not seem as terrible. It was a dreary duty, but there was no dishonour in it. It had to be done, the East had to be secured, and only he could do so. He felt special, for the first time in quite some time, and as Alkaios peered from his horse to pat him on the back, he knew that the feeling had nothing to do with the promise of a throne. Still, he smiled.

Riding back towards Bukhara meant riding through the fields of each battle that they had fought against Hazarasp’s forces. “They” being the Bactrian forces, of course, as Philandros himself had seen little fighting. Oh, he’d gladly picked up a shield when the Samanid forces had attacked their encampment in on the banks of the Oxus. He’d even killed a man. But they had been five hundred men against five and forty hundred: having managed to strike down one man did not seem much of an accomplishment, rather the least that was required. Still, they had held on long enough for Leonidas’ forces to reach the other bank of the river and route Hazarasp’s men, and after the battle all the great commanders had covered him in praise. But that had been the first and last time Philandros had voluntarily stood in the front lines of a battle.

Philandros had not felt as if though he’d deserved any of it and, even now, crossing the Oxus on the path towards Bukhara, he felt as if though he had done something wrong. He was all but hanging his head when he felt heard Alkaios’s voice behind him: “The site of your first kill, am I right? Are you all right, boy?”

“Yes, uncle, I had not thought much about it,” Philandros lied, as Alkaios the Elder rode up to his side. The man said nothing, but he placed a hand on his nephew’s shoulder, and squoze tightly, attempting in his awkward way to show his affection. Philandros had to smile, and suddenly found himself feeling lighter, and speaking more freely: “Though perhaps I just feel as if though I have not done much. I fought in the phalanx. I killed a man. That’s what you all keep telling me. But I just remember being scared, seeing little, and feeling something push back when I stabbed blindly into the dark.”

​

Alkaios the Elder grimaced, keeping to his silence, and for Philandros knew that he should not have spoken. He had feared letting his uncle down, feared shaming himself in front of him and the other great warriors, and in a moment of confidence he had done just that. Then Alkaios laughed, his warm, hearty laugh, and those dark thoughts fled Phil’s mind like serpents before a flame.

“Bless your heart, Phil! You should be less hard on yourself!” Alkaios laughed again, the comforting hand he’d placed on his nephew’s shoulder lifting, to give the boy a bearish pat on the back. “Do not listen to those that boast of great feats of arms. Most of them are liars. The first time I’d ever fought in battle, I ended up on my ass, my helmet half caved in and with a headache that lasted a month. And I could see everything.” To that, Philandros smiled, much to his uncle’s satisfaction. “You’re a fine warrior, Phil. One day, you’ll be a fine leader of men too. Have patience. Your father was the finest captain I’ve ever met, but he got there through many bruises and underwhelming stories. Not every battle will be a Trojan duel. Certainly, nobody’s first battle.”

Philandros could do nothing but mouth his thanks, to which the elder Alkaios answered with another pat, before spurring his horse onwards towards the ford, still smiling. Phil took another moment to himself before following his uncle. Meanwhile, the Oxus kept flowing placidly, utterly undisturbed by the armoured feet and burdened hooves crossing its waters, completely uncaring of the young prince doubts, merely hoping that no more bodies would poison its bed.

​

Author's Notes: as could be expected, the Bactrians pretty much wiped the floor with poor Hazarasp's forces. By the time I reached Antiochia in Margiana (where Seljuk had died some 25 years earlier) the Samanid's had some thousand odd men left. I'll get a map in on the next chapter, but Alkaios wasn't the only lord in the Independence faction, and his exceptional military score did the rest. The Child of Destiny Invasions are on one Kingdom at a time, so while Philandros reclaims his throne in Bukhara (Kingdom of Sogdiana), Alkaios secures the castles on the Caspian Sea (Hyrkania), whereas the invasion itself was for Khorasan. Of course, Phil isn't allowed anywhere near a command tent, Olympian Champions like Leonidas here overshadowing him by far, but I like to imagine he fought in the army nonetheless.

As for the 500 against 4500 men battle, let's just say Paradox didn't much care for balance when they made this event chain, and I do not mind at all:
​

​

 

[Eludio]

The House of Amyntor​

Master Sun wrote “In War, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns”. It thus appeared clear to Lu-ling that, in the Grecian world of the House of Amyntor, the words of Master Sun carried very little weight. Admittedly, Master Sun never specified how lengthy a lengthy campaign was, but as for victory, there could be no doubt as to whether or not that had been achieved. And yet, Alkaios kept pushing West, his colourful phalanx in tow, as proud in their untraditional Macedonian panoplies now as they had been those three long years before, when first the Amyntid kings had led them from Bactra. No, Master Sun offered no number, but three years seemed a long time to be at war, and far longer a time to be on the march. This much Lu-ling knew for certain, having followed in every single step.

Little more than a month had passed since the elder Alkaios had ridden back East with the Bactrian levy, to place his nephew on the Sogdian throne, and there had been no great battles since. Fortresses were surrendered without a fight, Samanid loyalists fled at the first sight of Amyntid banners, and already the lords of the Khorasan came to pay tribute to their Bactrian conqueror. And yet, Alkaios was not satisfied, saying that he could not be certain of peace until the lords of Daylam, which he called Hyrkania, also renounced their allegiance to the usurper Hazarasp. But neither that would be enough, as he already made plans on the Samanid holdouts in the northern Sogdian reaches and on the border with the southern Buyid Kingdom. This too, Lu-ling knew for certain, as Alkaios would often speak of it, at night, when he could not fall asleep.

It happened more and more often. “Troubled by too many great plans,” Lu-ling would joke at first, and that would usually manage to distract him. Now, she often found herself sleeping alone, while Alkaios toiled over maps and reports well into the night. What had been a charming fault in his otherwise seemingly perfect exterior had now begun to worry Lu-ling, as she could no longer pretend not to notice the deep circles that perennially adorned the King’s eyes, or the feverish shivers that would occasionally trouble him during a day of riding.

“Please, mistress Glaphyra, speak to him,” Lu-ling finally found the will to ask, all but in tears, rousing the seeress from her reading. Her bid was answered by shocked silence as Glaphyra’s single grey eye fixed upon her, as if though unable to understand Lu-ling’s emotional outburst. “You are like a mother to him, and he will listen to you. He does not sleep, he barely eats, I do not wish to see him kill himself in this endeavour. Please, convince him to rest, for the love that I know you bear him.”

“More of a grandmother, than a mother, perhaps…” Glaphyra began with a faked smile, but her attempt at levity was interrupted. “Please…” Lu-ling sobbed, much to the grey-haired councillor’s concertation. “I won’t pretend not to know what you are on about,” the seeress answered, growing stern and serious. “But what would you have me do? Bid he abandon his destiny and go back to some pampered bed, like a good little boy? Your golden prince is fated to conquer the world, girl, and if you do bear him any true love you will support him, not conspire to have him put down his arms.”

Lu-ling could do nothing but gasp, the seeress’s scathing words as far from what she had expected to hear as is possible. “I have done nothing but support him,” she complained, tears now rolling freely down her cheeks as fear, sadness and sheer anger at the elderly councillor’s judgment struggled for control over her mind. “But this is not about conquest. Alkaios is out of balance. He constantly doubts his own plans, he is becoming fearful of every possible threat. He is out of balance, and I come to you not to conspire, but because I know not how else to help him. I have tried. And I feel that I have only failed. If you will not…”

Her words were silenced by a single one of Glaphyra’s fingers, or perhaps by the magnificent change that her face had gone through, her eye now bright and her lips curled into a far more honest smile. “My, you do have spirit after all,” she said, and continued before Lu-ling could once more voice her umbrage. “I shall not apologise for my doubts, and I still might not have chosen you, but in these matters I will not dare doubt the goddess of love’s actions. Perhaps there is some truth to what you say, and Alkaios is, as you put it, out of balance. I shall go talk to him.”

Lu-ling was left speechless, uncertain as to what she should do, Glaphyra’s one eye still fixed upon her face. Suddenly, the archaic smile that adorned the seeress’s face faltered, her lower lip trembling as she spoke her next words. “And thank you, Yueh. I’m glad you will be with him, when… I’m glad you found each other,” she finished, her face turning far warmer, and somehow more mortal, as she bid Lu-ling farewell.

​

“Do you want to know the truth, Glaphyra? No, I do not want this war to end. It is a terrible thing to say, but it is the truth. Look at me now! I am the conquering hero, the liberator that defeated the cruel usurper. The men have followed me from Bactria to the Caspian Sea, and still, they cheer my name whenever I walk amongst them. Once this war finishes, then what? On the field of battle, I am like a god, and the men worship me as such. When peacetime comes, what will I be? The junior of two Kings of Bactria, a vassal to my cousin in all but name. I have conquered the Khorasan, I have conquered Aria, but I have no right to them. And perhaps Philandros will even grant me some lands from which to receive horses and rent. But how could that ever compare to this? How could any amount of wealth, any crown, compare to the feeling of being a hero? How can I go back to living amongst men, when I have fought amongst the gods?”

And then Alkaios bowed his head and cried, cried every tear that he had in his body and hating each of them as it fell upon the unruly stack of maps that covered his desk. He cried because he had finally given voice to all his doubts, all his fears, all his feelings of insecurity. He cried because he was a boy of eighteen, and he had not slept a full night’s sleep in over a month. He hated every tear as an embodiment of the weakness that he felt in his heart, and yet could not stop them from flowing. Glaphyra did not try, standing silently in front of her pupil until his eyes finally dried, having cried all that they could, if not all that they wanted.

​

“Tell me, Alkaios who shares his father’s name, how did the line of Amyntor come to be in Bactria?” Alkaios answered the seeress’s question only with a look of disbelief, unable to understand whether she was mocking him, ignoring him, or had merely gone mad. As he voiced no satisfactory answer, Glaphyra continued: “I have read Ptolemy’s chronicles. I have read Callisthenes’s. I have even read the roman’s, Arrian’s, research. And yet I recall no mention of Hephaestion’s siblings, much less any of them serving the Bactrian satrap. For that is the Amyntor from whom you claim descent, is he not?”

“Surely you must know this?” Alkaios wiped away his tears, the need to cry having suddenly left his body.

“And yet I am asking.”

The two locked stares for a few long seconds, a few long seconds in which Glaphyra’s single grey eye held Alkaios’s gaze with complete ease. Finally he conceded: “There were no siblings,” Alkaios said, reciting words he’d been taught long before. “None that mattered, anyway. The way my mother tells it, we are descended from Hephaestion himself.” He paused, but as Glaphyra made no move, broke the embarrassment of silence by continuing the tale he’d been told. “When the great Alexander died, Roxana killed his two Achaemenid wives, Stateira and Parysatis, so that no pretender could seek legitimacy through their hands. It is said that she also murdered Drypteis, Stateira’s sister, but that was not the case.

“Drypteis had just given birth to Hephaestion’s posthumous twins, and Roxana was struck by pity and spared them. She had the Persian princess spirited away to the Sogdian Rock that had been her kin’s, that Hephaestion’s twins might one day be companions to her own son Alexander. Cassander saw that that would never happen, but nobody bothered with Drypteis once the funeral games had begun. Of the twins, Arrhidaeus died in infancy, but Alcetas survived, and from Alcetas our line descends.”

Glaphyra nodded, as if though she were once again his teacher and he had just correctly recited a passage from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. “So, you are of the blood of Hephaestion. And who, pray tell, was Hephaestion?” she then asked, still with the tone of a master questioning a pupil. Before Alkaios could voice his irritation by asking whether he was being mocked, Glaphyra brow furrowed, and the words died in his throat.

“Surely, there is a reason for this exercise?”

“Is that what Alexander told the Queen Sysigambis?”

Finally, Alkaios understood. “He said,” the King whispered, his voice choking. “He said,” he repeated louder, the corners of his lips curling into a tentative smile, “of Hephaestion, that he too, was Alexander.”

Glaphyra rose and drew close to Alkaios, her one eye staring deep into his soul, her brow still furrowed in seeming anger. “If that is the case, Alkaios whose father shares his name, stop playing at being a hero and go be one. You are but a King of Bactria, that is true, you have no right to anything.

“But much like your ancestor, you too are Alexander.”

​

Author's notes: I had promised a map in this chapter, but scrolling through the saves I noticed that Alkaios had gained and then lost the Stressed trait whilst fighting Hazarasp, and the idea for this chapter came up. A look at mortal man beneath the shining hero, and a chance for me to offer a version of the tale of the House of Amyntor. Whether it is a truthful one, or just an elaborate tale that Aphrodisia or Glaphyra or an Amyntid ancestor told an impressionable child, I will let the reader decide.​

 

[Eludio]

Hegemon…​

A thousand banners danced amidst the skies of Margiana. Blue like the night sky, purple like the robes of kings, red like the blood that had been spilled, embroidered in gold and silver and bronze and all the precious colours that shine beneath the sun. Like Arabic dancers they swirled in the wind, a spectacle for all to behold. Beauty, victory, power, all contained within a few coloured banners. And yet, to Philandros, King of Sogdiane, those banners did naught but remind him of similar standards, that had flown near four years before, in the fields before Bactra, as ten thousand men had readied their arms for war.

And yet, where those banners had brought joy and pride into the young king’s chest, these brought only conflict. Because for all the majesty those precious pieces of cloth had, they could not hide torn down doors, where soldiers had burst through to rape and pillage. Nor fill the empty streets, cover roofless homes, heal burnt down fields, nor even shield Philandros from the angry stares of the merchants that had once relied on Antiochia in Margiana’s caravanserai, back when it had been simply Merv.

That they flew on a conquered city, that they represented victory, did little to change the fact that those were banners of war, and Philandros knew, somehow, that they were not about to be folded back up. Still, as he rode through the city’s deserted streets, Phil could not help but enjoy the cheers that the soldiers in Greek dress shouted at him. He knew it to be empty flattery, but basked in it, nonetheless.

“They love us, Phil!” Isokrates said with a smile as he waved back to a group of men, the two kings having ridden together from the East. For once, Philandros held his tongue, though he very much doubted that the soldiers truly cared for them, much less loved them. For what were they, two glorified administrators, compared to him? The shining lord, whose only throne was a golden steed, whose only crown was a knight’s helmet. Phil could already see him, standing beneath the gates of Merv’s garrison, one hand on a hip as the other fell on his hip, unconsciously – or perhaps very consciously – emulating the statues of ancient heroes.

Alkaios spoke no words as they approached, merely beaming like a child while he personally held their horses, caressing the creatures calmly after his kin had dismounted, before handing them off to a Persian page. Only then did they go to hug them, and they were no longer the conquerors of the Samanid empire, but once again children inside the Rock’s carpeted halls. Sadly, the moment lasted but that, and as they stepped into the great tent that occupied the garrison’s courtyard – Alkaios having taken no rooms in his newly conquered castle – the child left their company, as the Daimon once more took over the Bactrian King’s body.

“All of Hazarasp’s governors have forsaken him,” Alkaios began, as soon as he had stepped into the tent. He took some papers from his table and waved them around, as if though that act confirmed his words. “Only old Sina keeps to the usurper’s side, and I am certain that will not last. Khosrau has refused us tribute, however, and shall have to be dealt with. Only then will we be free to face the Buyi armies and march on Persia.”

​

He then trailed off into a review of equipment, supply lines, marching orders, and muster points for the new Iranic levies. To his credit, Alkaios was not one to blindly issue orders without first having considered every finest detail, having planned what appeared to be months if not years of maneuvers in advance. A quick glance towards Isocrates, however, was enough for Phil to take comfort in the fact that he was not the only one in the dark about Alkaios’s decision to march into Persis. If the prospect were not so unnerving, Philandros might have been proud of his foresight with the war standards.

“Brother…” Isokrates began halfheartedly, only to have to repeat himself as Alkaios kept on listing oases where the armies might resupply on the campaign South. “Brother!” only a risen voice managed to take the brother in question from his imaginary marches. “We never talked about marching into Persia!” Isokrates nearly shouted. Then, something happened that Philandros had never witnessed before. Or perhaps simply never noticed. For as soon as Alkaios turned his blue-grey gaze onto his brother, the eldest balked as if though struck by an arrow. “So soon,” he added, as if though to soften his words. “Would it not be best if we gave the men some time to rest, perhaps focus on placating the lords of Khorasan?”

Alkaios wore the very face of shock. “But that’s what you’re here for!” he blurted out, as if though involuntarily. Philandros kept silent, embarrassed as he had never been, though he himself was not sure why. Then, in the blink of an eye, Alkaios regained his composure, closing his mouth and softening his gaze. “None has your skill with words, Isokrates, who better to bring Hazarasp’s former servants into our fold. And you are right that the men deserve rest, and they shall have it. I need but a token guard to dispossess Khosrau of his fortress, and in the meanwhile our armies will recuperate and prepare for the journey South!”

Persianate Kingdoms in 905 C.E. in the wake of the Samanid defeat at the hands of Alkaios Amyntid​

Neither Isokrates nor Philandros spoke a word, even though Alkaios’s eyes kept swaying from one to the other, a broad smile on his face as if though trying to recapture that whimsical air that they had breathed but moments before. “Come now, brother, do not tell me that you think we should lay down our arms? Farzad is a child, prisoner in his own court! We should strike soon, while the enemy is weakest,” he said, still smiling. Isokrates stammered something, but before he could speak any further Alkaios stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Your namesake was the one that spurred King Philip to lead the Greeks against Persia, would you now be the one to have the last free Greeks make peace with it?” he asked with a laugh.

To that, to those honeyed words and that friendly grasp and that innocent laugh, Isokrates could answer only with a smile himself. For he had know his brother for twenty and one years, and yet to know him did not mean being able to deny him. Philandros knew as much, for he recognised words, grasp and laugh, having been on their receiving end time and time again, both during their childhood and on campaign. Though he had never seen Alkaios attempt to enthral his own brother.

“Fine, Alkai,” Isokrates conceded. “I will trust in your judgement. You are wiser than I in matters of war. Though you could have warned us. Philip told the Greeks before he made himself their hegemon,” and to that jest Alkaios simply beamed, offering no excuses or justifications, only the warmest smile on this earth.

If Philandros had any reservations, they melted under that warmth, and he smilingly followed his cousins as they went to meet with the war council.

​

Author's notes: another chapter which grew in the writing! Originally, it was centred on Phil's reservations about leaving Hazarasp his fortresses while the army moved on, and would have included one or two other scenes with Glaphyra and the war council. Once I added in Isokrates, he would not stay a silent observer, an it derailed my whole plan. And so, the three cousins find themselves in a similar position to that they had held in that throne room of Bukhara, some ten years prior: Alkaios wanting war against a weakened enemy, Isokrates advocating for caution and peace, and Philandros occupied with other matters - though this time not complaining about boredom.

As for in game events: Hazarasp has been defeated, Khorasan is in Amyntid hands, and so is a large chunk of Sogdiana. Some interesting developments are also ongoing in the West, but we'll get there when (and if) the Amyntids do. Not shown on the Map: the "Buyid and Ziyarid Dynasties" are actually two different realms, the Buyid Kingdom of Persia and the Ziyarid Duchy of Scattered-Random-Counties-they-snatched-up, but since the Ziyarid are tributaries of the Buyids, I preferred to group them together.

 

[Eludio]

Gynaikeion​

“Oh, prince of India, touch not my flesh! Oh, prince of India, pursue not my virtue! Oh, prince of India, you so mighty and fierce, oh, prince of India risk not the goddess’s wrath! Oh please, oh please, my great prince of India! Oh, prince of India, be gallant with me!”

“Oh, poet of Bactria, what were you drinking?” Zenais asked, mockingly parroting the would-be Anthia’s singing. Despite her best efforts to hide her opinions on the play, Lu-ling cracked, and was unable to hold back a chuckle. Seeing this, like any child who has found her audience, Zenais beamed from ear to ear of satisfaction, and continued on: “Oh, poet of Bactria, what rubbish is this? Oh, poet of Bactria, you so shi…”

“Oh, will you give it a rest? It’s not that bad,” Eudokia, her sister, interrupted her, though Lu-ling could tell that she regretted her words immediately, as the actress threw herself in a surprisingly shrill proclamation of her love for Habrocomes. Zenais positively glowed, her smile stretching so wide that she seemed less a Sogdian princess, and more like one of the laughing monkeys that Chinese merchants would sometimes peddle.

​

“Oh, I would rather they gave it a rest instead,” the Lady Cleopatra blurted out, much to everyone’s surprise. They turned and stared at her, Lu-ling overcoming her usual embarrassment, Eudokia with a look of utter betrayal painted on her face, and Zenais seeming as if though ready to burst from happiness. “Auntie!” she laughingly exclaimed, and only then did the Queen mother realise that she had, in fact, spoken aloud, turning as red as a sun-dried brick.

“Oh, no need to look at me that way!” she finally scoffed as her kinswomen chortled. She sat a row above her nieces and daughters, and now took advantage of that height to look down on them with her best scowl. “Theatre is supposed to be a sublime art. It is a sacred matter, that should bring honour to Apollo and the Muse. This drivel has no place here. I say, if Phaedra truly wanted to adapt such a moralistic little trifle, he could at least have chosen a better cast of actors. It is disgraceful!”

“Oh of course, auntie, we understand and believe you,” little Zenais grinned, a far worse actress than those on stage. “You were complaining in the name of the Sun god, not in your own. No, no, you are most certainly not simply as bored out of your mind as we are!” she suddenly raised her voice, for the amusement of her younger cousins, the embarrassment of the older ones, and the utter mortification of her mother and aunt.

“Oh, I say, Zena!” Eudokia the Elder exclaimed, cuffing her daughter on the head. “It’s a rare enough occasion that we can all enjoy an evening together, there is no need to ruin it with your jokes. And besides, we are Phaedra’s patrons. It does not befit us to be her harshest critics as well. I will not pretend to adore all of her… innovations, but I am certain we are simply not used to this type of theatre. The important is that the locals enjoy them.”

​

“Oh, what great people we are! That we care so much about the peasantry as to risk for them the wrath of the Lord Apollo!” Zenais gibed, though with so sweet a stare in her wide green eyes, that Cleopatra herself could do naught but laugh. Even Lu-ling joined in the mirth, her laughter only partially held back by the feeling that she was an outsider sitting in a world that was not hers.

“Oh!” she groaned as her unborn child, as though reading her mind, had decided to remind her just how hers the Grecian world of the Amyntids now was. Remind her in the most painful way it knew, shaking her entire body as it stretched inside of her. Lu-ling placed a hand on her stomach, trying to ignore her pain as she fixed her gaze on the play. Perhaps feeling challenged, the child once again pushed on her stomach, and she cried out in pain.

​

“Oh, my dear!” Cleopatra jumped down beside her, skipping over the theatre’s stone seats with the grace of one accustomed to far more than kneeling in prayer. “Steady your breath, child, there you go… give her some space! There you are, there you are… my dear girl, you do look weak. I apologise, we should not have gone out today.” Lu-ling tried to put on a brave face, but the Queen mother waved her off: “I will have a palanquin called, and then we’ll return to the Ark, that you might get some rest.”

“Oh, I can help! You’ll want someone to help you walk, won’t you Lu?” Zenais asked, the spark in her fractious stare ruining an otherwise perfect mask of altruistic helpfulness. Cleopatra sat her back down with a gentle nudge and, flashing her most coquettish smile, declined the offer: “Nonsense, dear,” she said, “we have servants for these tasks. And besides, does the Enlightened One not say one grows nobler by suffering through great pains? We would not steal you away from your sacred endeavour!” Cleopatra gestured towards the stage. Despite her pain, Lu-ling managed a laugh.

“Oh…”

“Oooh…” Lu-ling moaned, having woken to find her brow shrouded by a thin layer of sweat. She looked around, fearing herself blinded, only to realise that the candle on her nightstand had simply gone out. Stumbling in the dark, she reached for the same covers she had discarded in her sleep, warm cage that they were, and dabbed her pasty brow. The small movement, alone, was enough to upset her precarious comfort, and a cramp grabbed her stomach. “Ooooh…” she groaned once more.

“No, my dear, let us not start with the ‘ohs’!” came a voice from the darkness. Lu-ling would have been startled, but she lacked the strength for it, and so she simply squinted into the shadows, her sleepy gaze trying to pierce the cover of dark and give a face to that voice. Glaphyra eased her task by stepping forwards into the single ray of moonlight that yet pierced both cloud and curtain, a statue’s smile adorning her youthful face. It was Glaphyra, and yet it was not, though Lu could not quite place what was amiss.

“Your eyes!” she finally exclaimed, as the mist of tiredness cleared from her mind, and she noticed the moonlight shining off of two bright silver discs, the right as open and radiant as the left. “You have two eyes!”

“My, you are observant tonight!” Glaphyra quipped, though her scoff soon turned into an unusually nurturing smile. The seeress moved to Lu-ling’s bedside and went as if though to sit, but for a moment hesitated. Finally, she stooped and kissed the younger woman’s forehead, before sitting down beside her. “It is not a gesture I do lightly, but I felt as if though you might have need of it,” the seeress said, and Lu could only answer her smile, as a sense of calm swept over her.

“I do not understand…” she started, but the two-eyed Glaphyra shushed her. “I do not believe you can, even if you needed to,” the seeress answered. “Just know I wanted to see you. And her,” she added, caressing Lu-ling’s pregnant belly. The expecting mother said nothing, but her lips stretched into a smile, and she closed her eyes, happy and peaceful as the baby inside her also seemed to grow calm. She felt the seeress’s lips fall on her skin once again, this time kissing her belly, and whisper a word. And then she fell into a deep slumber and could remember no more.

As Lu-ling awoke the following morning, she could still feel Glaphyra’s weight at the foot of her bed, and found herself smiling, the seeress’s presence somehow just as reassuring as it was unexpected. For a moment, the memories of that night felt as if though they had happened mere moments before, and yet slowly they began to grow hazy, like those of a dream, a few clear isles in a sea of arcane obscurity. As the image of two silvery eyes, bright as those of a hunting bird, suddenly appeared in her mind, she opened her own two eyelids, only slightly at first, perhaps to spy without being spied. Though it was not the seeress’s silvery figure that welcomed her back into the world of the waking, but one of ragged gold.

Alkaios did not hear her stir, remaining silent as he stared into an empty corner of Lu-ling’s room. She could not see his face, buried as it was beneath a mane of golden curls, but knew him immediately, with pleasurable surprise. She sat up, taking his hand in hers, and only then did he rouse from his reverie. Surprise turned to shock as their gazes met, the golden mane parting to reveal two red and tired eyes, lakes from which two salty streams made their way onto patches of unshaved scruff. They stared silently at each other for a second, then his lip faltered, and he broke into sobs. Still sleepy, half still lost in some world of dreams, she held him, and let him cry all his tears on her shoulder, her lips never leaving his brow. Somehow, even though Alkaios spoke no words, she knew with absolute certainty what had happened.

​

As Lu awoke in full, so did her child, and she could not hold back a gasp as it moved within her belly. Alkaios immediately jumped up, gasping for air himself as a hundred different emotions raced behind his eyes, in the beat of a second. Finally, he settled on guilt, breaking down in a series of sorries and apologies that Lu so rarely saw adorning her lover’s lips. She hushed him with a kiss, drawing him to her breast and caressing his head calmly, until the man’s sorries once more turned into sobs, and finally into silence.

“She came to me,” Lu-ling said, the words escaping her mouth before she could judge them. “She came to me last… well, before…” Alkaios raised his face towards hers, his expression a perfect mix of surprise and craving. Craving for more, more words, more memories of his late mentor. And so, Lu acquiesced: “she told me we are to have a girl. And she’s going to be healthy. I know, because she also suggested a name. And it was a name for one with a bright future.” Alkaios rose, speechless, and there was a new spark behind his tears. And Lu-ling smiled, reassured that her handmaidens had spoken only foolishness, when they had claimed the King would be praying for a boy. “She kissed her through my belly and spoke the name Alexandra.”

Like the recollections of a dream, the night’s details slowly fled Lu-ling’s memories: the silvery eyes, the heat and sweat, Glaphyra’s barb and the kindness of her smile. But the warmth and the name had remained, and as the memories vanished like fog, Lu did not truly care whether or not it had been a dream. She was there now, and so was he, and they smiled, and they shared a kiss.

“Alexandra…” Alkaios whispered, and new tears of joy washed away the sorrowful ones.

​

Author's notes: Oh, I've had my fun with this one. Oh, I hope it was not too distracting. Oh, I swear it started off as a coincidence. Oh, I might have gotten carried away! Oh, well...

All joking aside, I'd started this chapter off with the idea that we would get some second-hand information of the war against the northern Afrighid Shahdom from our female cast, and that both play and chapter would end up being interrupted by Alkaios's victorious return. Reading through my notes, however, I noticed a grand total of zero mentions of said war (which was even simpler than Alkaios had predicted in the last chapter). There were, however, far more important - if more peaceful - events to be discussed: Glaphyra's death, the pregnancy, and Queen Mother Cleopatra addressing empty nest syndrome by taking charge of a temple (I can only assume Alkaios the Elder purchased a sports car and is dating a 20 year old). Thus, the play was interrupted by unborn Alexandra instead, and the chapter became more focused on the women themselves, and less on whatever war their husbands and betrothed are waging.

As for Cleopatra's new role as a priestess (I refuse to call her a Vestal, given that it is both a Roman clergy position, and would require her to be a virgin - a fact made somewhat difficult by her being a mother of four), it will have some relevance later, but for now simply means that Alkaios the Elder and her are no longer married in game. Though, if Philip of Macedon's love life is anywhere near exemplary, divorcing an older wife and remarrying for either political or child bearing purposes was not rare in the Hellenistic world. Greek priests were not necessarily vowed to celibacy, but it all works out in the end.

Speaking of Greece and exemplary things, this play was anything but. I will admit that my inspiration for it was a recent outing at the Opera, not any Greek theatrical re-enactment. Greek thetre did not include women, and the subject of the "scene" was a piece of the Ephesian Tale, itself a (much maligned by my Greek professor) 2nd or 3rd century novella. As Cleopatra herself says: a moralistic little trifle, relevant only because of how much of it reached our present day. But my Bactrian outcasts did not remain untouched by history for 1200 years, and the Dowager Queen Eudokia certainly seems like the type of character who would offer her patronage to innovators.​

 

[Eludio]

The Land of Wolves​

It felt like walking upon a cloud. At every step, Alkaios’s naked feet sunk ever so slightly into the Caspian sands, until slowly these hardened, ever so slightly, into the softest flooring that he’d ever had the pleasure of stepping on. And then, ever so suddenly, the sands softened again, as the sea foam climbed through Alkaios’s toes and splashed upon his shins, refreshing and welcome in the last warm days of summer. He smiled as the sun’s rays warmed his face and, not thinking twice, tossed that most regal of tunics, heavily embroidered in gold thread, unceremoniously into the sands, and jumped into the waters.

Immediately, his whole body shivered, as the cool saltiness of the seawater replaced the warm embrace of the morning sun, but it was nothing compared to the mountain rivers in which Alkaios had been taught to swim, and it took him but a few slow strokes to warm up. He swam and swam, until Philandros, waiting on the shore, seemed no larger than his thumb. And then he just lay there, his muscled massaged by the calm coming and going of the waves, his hair fanning out into the waters like the rays of a bright star, the sting of salt on his freshly shaven face almost pleasurable, comforting testament to the fact that he had, in fact, reached the salted seas. As Alkaios let himself drift back towards the shore, gaze lost towards the Sky King’s cloudless realm, his mind felt empty of all preoccupations, perhaps for the first time since he could claim to have a mind at all.

Somewhere, at the far end of the horizon, beyond the walls of enemy Nur, on the slopes of the Alborz mountains, wolves were howling. Wolves in grey coats, wolves in black coats, and wolves in the coats of Persian soldiers. For this was Hyrkania, and it was their land. And yet, floating peacefully on the waters of the Caspian Sea, Alkaios could hear no howling, no pounding of armoured feet or clangour of spears beating shields. He could only hear the rustling of the waves and the murmuring of the winds, and he knew peace.

​

As Alkaios stepped out of the waters, Philandros averted his eyes, though he himself knew not if out of prudery or a curious mix of shame and envy. His cousin had stepped onto the shore a boy, anxious and ecstatic to dip his toes in a sea for the first time. Now, childish glee having been drowned in the Hyrkanian sea, Alkaios once more looked the part of the god, all but glowing as the sun gleamed off the droplets that still clung to his perfect athlete’s body. Had Aphrodite stepped out of the waves not as the world’s fairest immortal woman, but as its most handsome hero-born man, the two might not have looked all that dissimilar.

Seeing his cousin coming out of the sea, strong and happy and glowing, Philandros almost thought about stepping into the waters himself, as if though that could have made him too a godlike creature. Almost. But when Alkaios and Isorkates had been learning to swim in the ice-cold rivers that ran through the heights of the Bactrian valleys, Philandros had been sitting beside the Ark’s pools, too shallow to offer anything but a refreshing splash. By the time he’d been with his cousins, as they bathed in the shadow of the Pamir, he far preferred to stand on the shores, safe from any savage current that might attempt to steal him. And just so now, as King of Sogdiane, he stood patiently on the sands as his cousin allowed himself a moment of fun. Once, Philandros had been sure that he wanted back his rightful throne. Now, he began to wonder if he had not, in fact, wanted to be more like Alkaios. In that aspect, the throne of Sogdiane had helped him little.

“It seems there are no more Mardians to steal from this Alexander, eh cousin?” Alkaios quipped as he mounted his golden coated horse, still nude if not for a towel that he’d wrapped around himself like an ancient’s himation. Philandros merely smiled, climbing atop his own Stergos, and yet felt something akin to a shiver on the nape of his neck at hearing Alkaios refer to himself as Alexander. He knew not why: he himself had compared his cousin to the Great King, time and time again. Isokrates would joke that he had been far luckier in matters of intellect than Arrhidaeos, and the seeress Glaphyra had never hidden her visions of an Eastern Alexander. But Alkaios had always greeted such similes with the meekest of smiles, never condemning them but always making sure never to encourage them. It seemed, now, that he no longer held such reservations.

Still, Philandros said nothing, blaming the shiver on a gust of wind, and silently joined his cousin on the road towards the fortress of Nur. They rode unchallenged through the city’s streets, greeted only by the weary looks of Tabari fishermen and the occasional cheer of a Bactrian soldier, leaving a brothel or tavern only to find himself faced with the King’s mounted companions. Even as they turned towards the fortress – which the locals still called Suldeh, honouring the name that the city had carried before the arrival of the Caliphs – and found themselves under the shadow of its walls, no challenging scream roared to meet them. And the walls of Suldeh cast a very short shadow, the citadel being as worthy of the name of fortress as the meagre dune beneath it deserved the name of hill. Gorgan, in the East, had shown a menacing figure when Alkaios had conquered it from Hazarasp’s loyalists. Amol, in the South, would prove a mightier challenge still. But Suldeh? The ancient citadel deserved to be studied by scholars, rather than defended by soldiers, its crumbling walls a testament to the endurance of Achaemenid mortar, rather than the foresight of the region’s Buyid governor.

The man himself, however, could at least be admired for his sense of bravery, having reached the fort of Nur upon first news of the Bactrian army’s approach, and having never attempted to flee since. And now he welcomed the royal companions, standing proudly atop his gatehouse, better defended by the steel of his riveted mail than by the rotted ramparts on which he rested his hands. In many ways, the governor looked like his fortress: both were short, aged, and draped with Arabian silks that they had clearly not been born in. For, much like the Achaemenid stones jutted beneath the calligraphed standards that betrayed the fort’s Buyid loyalty, the governor’s splinted mail, gilded and shining and worn atop the finest shimmering green cloths though it may have been, did little to hide his features. And those were the eastern features of a grizzled steppe-lord, bald if not for a scar that adorned his head like the rim of a hat, with small, dark, deep-set eyes, barely visible between a deep furrowed brow and tall, wide cheekbones. One of the late Seljuk’s former Bagoi, Alkaios had claimed, and Philandros could do naught but smile at his cousin’s tall tale. There were enough Tourcoman mercenaries in the Bactrian army to form their own kingdom, and the Buyid force was no different.

“Halt there Yunani, halt if you come to speak, or prepare for death,” spoke one of the Buyid soldiers, in a Persian so heavily accented that Philandros strained to understand most of his words. “And if you come to speak, know that it is my master, the lord Sunqur, defender of these northern coasts, that will hear your words!”

“We know of the lord Sunqur,” Alkaios claimed with a smile, relying on one of his own Turkmen for translation. Whether it be that bold lie or the knowledge that he could omit none of the Bactrian King’s words that shocked Sunqur’s own translator, Philandros could not tell. But he read in his cousin’s face just how much Alkaios had enjoyed the little victory and allowed himself a smile. And this is but the beginning, he though, stroking his moustaches.

The steppe-lord himself, however, looked neither flattered nor surprised, taking with both hands the opportunity to be rid of his half-Persian intermediary and addressing the Bactrian King directly. “If you know of me, he says,” the Bactrian Ghulam hurried to translate, “you’ll know I do am not a child that cries and runs to his mother’s side. Do not hope for me to surrender these lands without a fight. And do not hope to win fights against me.” The Tourcoman stared at his master sheepishly, almost as if fearing to be punished for the enemy lord’s words. He was Philandros’s elder, by more than some years, yet he looked like a cowering boy. Philandros could have hugged him, though he kept himself to – what he hoped would be – an encouraging smile. Alkaios had certainly picked his actors well, unwitting though they may have been.

The King of Bactria himself spared no looks for his Tourcoman, staring straight at the would-be Bagos with that smug, archaic smile that so well fit his features. “Oh, my lord Sunqur, you speak brave words,” Alkaios said, his gaze unflinching and his lips still curled. “Only, I wonder, of which lands do you speak? Hint you perhaps at those hills, where my men hunt for their dinners, fearing no harm but that from a wolf’s bite? At that fair little harbour, where my ships land in all safety, laden with weapons for my armies and letters from my faraway kin? At the market towns where my soldiers buy baubles for their lovers, or at the rural brothels where they whore away their gold? Or do you mean, perchance, those golden beaches, whose sands still cling to my naked toes and whose waters still dampen my hair?”

“These lands are not yours to surrender, Sunqur of the small fortress,” Alkaios decreed, his statuesque smile transforming into a wolfish grin, “for they are already mine! And if you did fight for them, then I can only pray that all of Persia’s warriors are as bold and fierce as you, for my men could then walk gaily into Aspadana’s gates and freely pick their favourite from amidst your Shah’s treasures. I do know much of you, Sunqur. I will tell you more: I know much of the castle you are in, of the men that stand at your back, of the lands you claim to guard. Which is why I do not fear you.”

Still, the Turkic steppe-lord’s face betrayed no emotion, no rage or humiliation. He merely took a step towards the edge of the battlements, perhaps to better stare down his enemies, though it almost seemed as if though he were being pushed by the Hyrkanian soldiers that now crowded behind him. “You speak brave words yourself!” Sunqur answered back, both translators voicing his thoughts in a chorus of accented Persian. “But since you know so many things, also know this: this last castle I have not surrendered, be it the last piece of land I have. Until I draw breath, never will I surrender it. And when ten thousand Persian warriors, that you so mock, will be tearing down your men’s shields, I will sally from these here gates and plunge a blade into your shoulders, like a hammer beating on the anvil of ten thousand brave faithful men!”

Alkaios let the silence rest for just a few moments, cocking his head in the most patronising of ways as the Hyrkanian Persians crowded behind their bold commander. “Until you draw breath,” he replied in Greek, the laconicism for nobody but himself and his cousin. Philandros had but to nod, and finally fear broke through the Turkic commander’s stony façade, as his translator’s blood sprayed upon that shining gilded coat. Before he could turn to face them, three daggers bit into the back of his armour. One managed to push through the rings, just enough to take the breath out of the man. The cornered Hyrkanian men, having been made to remember their former loyalties to King Himerios and the line of Saman, took no chances. Before he could gasp another sip of air, they threw the Bagos from the battlements, his skull opening right beneath the rim of that disfiguring scar as it hit the ground.

​

Author's notes: a moment of silence for the Bagos (or Bag, or Bay, or perhaps even Bey, depending on your linguistic preference) Sunqur, another completely made up character in the ranks of the enemy army. I have been, and will probably stay, away from my Gaming PC, so I had no way to access my saves and check which lord ruled which barony. It also means that my next chapters will probably be rather devoid of images, but I do hope you will all bear with me. Not that it would change much, perhaps, since the Shah Buyi ruled most of Hyrkania directly, having usurped it when one of the Eumenid cousins inherited the duchy. It's a complex story, I might go more into depth about it later. Or perhaps not.

But in any case, it suffices to say that the region I call Hyrkania (perhaps the Land of Wolves, depending on whose translation you believe), comprises most of the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, and is its own Kingdom in game. The Kingdom of Dahistan, separate from the Kingdom of Parsa for which Alkaios has declared his conquest. Of course, the would-be Bactrian Alexander knows nothing of game mechanics, but given that his Kingdom now touches the shores of Gorgan, it would be unwise to leave an open flank in the North and move his whole army directly onto Aspadana (known to the Persians as Isfahan) now would it?

And, given the proliferation of Turkic mercenaries and slave soldiers amongst the armies of the Eastern Islamic Iranians, who is to say that there was not a man called Sunqur amongst them, who defended a fortress in the name of his Shah?

 

[Eludio]

The Land of Kings​

The sands of the Kavir stung like a thousand unseeable insects, as the northern winds carried them from the Dunes of the Jinn and into the foothills of the Lion mountains in the heart of Persia. Uncountable desert soldiers, awoken by the land itself to stand against the foreign army that dared cross into uncrossable lands. Like an acrobat walking on a tightrope, the Bactrian column crawled through that small sliver of land between Aria’s two great deserts, where patches of grass still dared to grow, and water might even occasionally be found. As victorious conqueror, headed for home, Alexander had dared cross the Gedrosian desert, and lost a third of his men, some ten thousand strong. As a lowly general, headed for battle, Pyrrhos could risk no such loss.

Thus, he bore the sting of the desert sands, confident in the fact that if he kept to his path, they could do nothing more. Confident in the wisdom of his Khorasani guides, who spoke to him in the most broken of Greeks, and yet had braved these deserts since they were children, back when Pyrrhos had been playing at war, in a goatherd’s village on the slopes of the Pamir. But most of all, confident in his King’s own confidence. Confident in Alkaios’s promise, that no Persian army would come their way, distracted as they were by the King’s campaigning in Hyrkania. Looking back to his column, his colourful column of Bactrian Phalangites, Turkic Ghilman and Aryan levies, looking at them as they dragged their feet and struggled beneath the weights of their armaments and water gourds, covered in sand and sunburns, Pyrrhos grasped at that confidence like a beggar grasping at a rich man’s skirts.

Seeing his wandering gaze, one of the marching Hellenes broke from the column, catching up to Pyrrhos’s horse with surprising ease, as if though neither the weight of his steel-faced shield nor the whipping winds or the jagged and desolate terrain had any power on his step. At the feat, the tired faces of the Phalangites lit up, and some even dared a cheer. Red faced, head wrapped in a turban to avoid sunstroke, his black beard hidden beneath layers of sand, Leonidas turned with a skip and answered with a laugh, for the glee of the walking men. Pyrrhos too found himself cheering, smiling like a happy child at such a simple, and yet heroic, demonstration. Just then, a gust of northern wind blew sand into his mouth.

The wind kept blowing south. Towards Persis, Aspadana, and the Shah’s armies. It had accompanied Alkaios’s retinues ever since they’d crossed the Alborz range, following the Amardos’s bed as it cut a gap through the mountains. Nur, Amol, Rasht… one after the other, all the fortress cities of Hyrkania had yielded to the advancing Bactrian army. Turcoman Ghilman had been bribed with rich bounties, Zoroastrian Medes offered freedom from the Shah’s infidel tax, and even some of the Islamised Persians had surrendered willingly, believing Alkaios to be the one to reach the East and West of the Earth. For many others, the promise of peaceful resolution had been more than enough.

And then there were those who had resisted. The citadel of Fuman, whom the Bactrians had been forced to take by storm. The city of Caspin, whose defiance had been rewarded with merciless sacking. And the many nameless soldiers who had fled rather than surrender, had chosen the desperate run towards the south, towards their lord. Towards their Shah, towards him to whom they held allegiance. And so, they had retreated, too proud for surrender but too cowardly for martyrdom. Or perhaps simply too wise. Now, these men fled no longer. In sight of the last houses of Rhagai, beneath the last shades of the Alborz peaks, they stood fast. Shoulder to shoulder, armed in steel and bronze and cloth. Finally, fighting beneath the bright green standard of the Buyid Shah of Aspadana, charging fearlessly against the Bactrian phalanx.

Alkaios could not stop himself from admiring them. The armies of Persia. Not the Persia of the Great Kings, but still the Persia of Ecbatana, Susa, Persepolis. Alkaios could also not stop himself from smiling. The wind itself had carried him south. The Gods were granting him pitched battle, with the King of Persis. In a land of rocky hillocks and uneven sands, the Shah Farzad had chosen to do battle upon a freshly harvested barley field. Demeter’s gift had been received, and now that field was granted to Ares, and by him to the Bactrian phalanx. Flat, even, soft enough for feet and pikes to plant themselves comfortably, yet hard enough for them not to flounder. Indeed, the Shah had chosen a battlefield worthy of ancient heroes. A sad thing then, that it would be his last.

There were three thousand Bactrians on that field, against twice their number. They should have stood their ground. Let the enemy come to them. Their wall of pikes might not withstand enemy darts like the ancient Macedonian phalanxes were wont to do, but they could have held out. Exchanged fire. Then shown their worth by steadying as a wall of shields against the Persian charge. Instead, the wall moved. As one, the Bactrian pikemen – colourful in their patchwork armour, and yet somehow uniform and majestic – began their advance, closing the gap with Shah Farzad’s levied forces. On either side they were flanked by the heavier infantry – equally mismatched in a mix of lamellar plates and Grecian thoraxes, and yet identical behind their wide metal-faced shields – and the archers – dismounted children of the steps, Bactrian cattle hands too young to carry the pike, even some nobler Persians who saw in the bow a more elegant weapon. And on either side came the javelin carrying riders, the Ghulam born in the saddle, and Alkaios with his own companion cavalry, armed in scale and bronze and heavy lances.

Farzad’s generals had not expected an advance. There was no reason to. What madman surrenders the advantage of defence when he is outnumbered? The Persian bowmen fired a volley. Then another. Five hundred arrows rained upon the Bactrian force, and then five hundred more. A pair of falangites fell, and a single Ghulam had to slow his ride, his horse wounded and bucking. The Bactrian archers answered back, firing as they move onwards, perfect as they had been in their drill. And the two lines grew closer, the first pikes not half a stade from the Persian bows. These stood between the anvil and the hammer, and turned without order, seeking refuge behind their own infantry, like rabbits running for their holes when the hunting dog approaches. Aptly, Alkaios barked an order, taking away all chances the rabbit had to escape. Like a single wave, the two cavalry wings leapt forwards, Alkaios guiding his knights into the fleeing mass of archers, while the mounted archers on the left wing moved beyond the enemy line to harass the Persian infantry.

Alkaios almost laughed: he’d ridden at the front of the rhombus, stabbing left and right with his spear as his knights cut a swathe through the enemy archers, and with the corner of his eye he saw the Shah’s cavalry move to intercept them. But the Persian horse had moved too late, their line had spread too far in an attempt to encircle the Bactrians, and the phalangites had advanced too quickly. The crème of the Median cavalry now found itself at the mercy of the Bactrian pikes, stuck between two walls of shields, Alkaios’s riders having galloped through the archer force, sparing many a man but ensuring that, as the two lines closed together, they were well out of harm’s way.

The King did not bother turning to see how many of the Buyid knights had managed to flee to safety, perhaps trampling their own men to save their hides. His rhombus was now on the Persian left, unguarded as the flanking cavalry gave chase to the Bactrian horse archers. No, Alkaios had no need to look back. His men knew their drills, knew their way with arms. The phalanx was now a professional force, one to be reckoned with. He kept his eyes forwards, to the rear of the Persian line, where Shah Farzad stood on his barded pearly white horse, besides his lieutenants and servants and baggage train. They were too far away to trade stares, but Alkaios knew they were watching each other. He smiled, once more stirring his trotting horse into a gallop.

Some of the companions had traded their lances for javelins and were now raining death upon the Persian from their backs, but this too Alkaios had no need to watch. But a few hundred feet kept him from the Shah’s retinue. They’d seen the Bactrians, and were now struggling with the baggage train, unwilling to leave the fineries and treasures and delicacies behind to be captured. Shah Farzad was shouting something, swirling his sword as he himself swirled on his horse. Perhaps to leave the gold and save themselves. Though more likely ordering his knights to make a stand. He was a foolish boy.

A hundred feet. Five strides. Three. Splinters rained freely atop the Shah’s retinue, as Alkaios broke his lance deep into a Median knight’s breast. His gold coated Turkmene was unbothered by neither blood nor wood – a warhorse to his very core – and ignored the fallen knight’s steed, using his speed to knock a Persian gelding back, unhorsing its rider and giving Alkaios the time to grasp his sword. All around him, the galloping Bactrians crashed into the indecisive Buyid retinue, like a wave crashing against a bank of sand. The first grains of sand were washed away, yet the rest of the bank compressed, as horse and horseman found themselves shoulder to shoulder, hacking and biting at each other with animal fury, in a savage, mounted version of the Othismos that the footmen lived from behind a shield.

And still, Alkaios only had eyes for the Shah. This was his Issus, and like Alexander had stared down Darius, he now stared down Farzad. He raised his blade – a heavy sabre, crafted in the Turkic manner, albeit a palm shorter so as to somewhat resemble the blades of the ancients – and brought it down upon Farzad’s bodyguard, biting into the mail mask and breaking the man’s nose, throwing him from the saddle. The Shah attempted a swing, but his fine scimitar was easily knocked away by Alkaios’s heavier blade, and Farzad made no attempt to maintain a grasp on it, letting it fly into the melee. He simply stared at the Bactrian king, as if though paralysed by fear, whilst Alkaios strained across the fallen bodyguard’s horse to grasp at the Shah’s bridle.

His Issus would be a far greater triumph. He had hold of the Persian Shah. He had taken him prisoner. Alkaios all but howled in glee, grinning like a savage wolf. And then, from beneath the gilded rim of his helm, he stared into Farzad’s eyes. He saw no Darius, no brave but doomed philosopher king. He did not see the Shah of Persia. He saw but a boy, one who’d likely wet himself at the mere sight of the Bactrian charge. And he could not help but feel a pang of disgust. This is all too easy, he though, his smile turning into a frown.

“It is a pity,” Pantherion repeated, for what had perhaps been the tenth time that night, “that the Buyi boy has managed to flee.” He let out a chuckle, delighted at the alliteration his broken lip had brought on between the name and the word. “And yet, I cannot feel all that sad!” the chiliarch beamed, revealing a broken tooth to accompany the lip, which he promptly hid behind a golden plate from the Shah’s baggage, on which he was thus staking his claim.

Alkaios chuckled, showing no interest in Farzad’s treasures, but raised a cup in toast: “Darius too,” he said, “had escaped at Issus. And we know how much good that did him.” The officers cheered, truly glad, as one by one each picked their trophy from the Shah’s luxuries. They were feasting in the Buyid kingling’s silken pavilion, a marked improvement over the simpler command tent that Alkaios and Philandros had shared as they’d marched through Hyrkania. They were feasting in Farzad’s pavilion, on Farzad’s dates and prunes and spiced delicacies, drinking from Farzad’s cups and sitting on Farzad’s chairs and cushions.

The boy King must have expected to celebrate a great victory, Philandros thought, as he stared at the pile of gold that slowly diminished in front of his eyes. He had taken nothing for himself, in part following Alkaios’s example and in part truly believing that there were men, outside of the Shah’s conquered pavilion, who better deserved that Persian gold. Once it had become clear that the Shah was out of their grasp, Alkaios’s companions have swirled back towards the enemy infantry, falling upon it like a hammer against the phalanx’s anvil. Philandros had been glad. It had been a glorious victory, and they’d saved the anvil from many deep cracks.

And yet, as Alkaios once more toasted to “their own, riverless, Issus”, Phil could not help but recall his cousin’s duel with Farzad, and how Alkaios’s hand had so unfortunately slipped from the boy King’s reigns. Could not help but wonder whether they could have been toasting not a victory, but the victory, and a swift end to this Persian war.

​

Author's notes: "Buyi" and "boy" might work in English, but I was forced to break poor Pantherios's lip to make them alliterate in Koine Greek!

Once again, I must apologise for a picture-deficient chapter, but real life events still keep me away from my own luxuries, including my dear gaming computer (which I cherish far beyond any golden plate!). This time, however, I was given a full cast by the game, and have not had to pull any Turkic warlords from my magician's hat. Pantherios - whom I made chiliarch of the Phalangite infantry and who commands one of the flanks in whichever army Alkaios is leading, Pyrrhos and Leonidas are all actual characters, members of the Hellenic warrior lodge, and will continue appearing for a while yet. Pyrrhos and Leonidas (whom I believe I had already name-dropped in a previous character) have in fact already appeared in portrait form. I will reveal not where, though I will say that there is a reason that these two specifically have been charged with leading the full force of the Bactrian levy, and it did not only depend on their martial scores.

And the two are, indeed, also moving into Persis, through the treacherous desert heart of the Iranian plateau, having waited until the entirety of the Bactrian levy had assembled inside their borders. And Alkaios did, indeed, sacrifice his defensive bonuses when he crossed through the Alborz to face the (numerically superior but still completely doomed) Persian forced led by the boy Shah himself. As for following the course of the Amardus river, that also indeed happened, though it was a happy mix of "have to push all the way West to take all the Hyrkanian counties" and "crossing mountain provinces takes too long".

Which brought us to the first battle scene of this AAR! Much like the great Macedonian Kings, Philip and Alexander, Alkaios favours the "hammer and anvil" method of war making, letting the enemy tire itself against an unassailable phalanx before pouncing on them from the back. Or at least, I like to imagine that he does. In truth, with the one unit of cavalry retinue and the few hundred riders from the Caucasian levies, I do not know how effective such a tactic would be. Still, the phalanx holds in both game and story, allowing Alkaios to ride around swinging his sword (which I imagine looking like a shorter and fatter kilij, not a yataghan, more similar to a kopis though that later weapon may be) freely.

And then came Issus! And both mine and Alkaios's further step into hubris. Call it an act of mercy, call it a man still in love with making war, call it a player with an Invasion CB and a lot of provinces outside of the Kingdom's scope left to conquer. But Alkaios did, in fact, have the Persian Shah in the palm of his hand. And instead of leveraging that capture to win the war, chose instead to take a ransom in the form of Farzad's baggage train (which oddly amounted to precisely 250 gold).

 

[Eludio]

The Land of Strife​

As Alkaios’s gaze crossed his, Philandros pretended to adjust the leather chinstrap of his helmet. Not that it needed any adjusting, of course, but he pretended anyway. He smiled meekly at his cousin, pretending to share an ounce of the man’s enthusiasm. He had never been any good at lying or pretending, but it did not matter. That day, Alkaios was in a world of his own, and Phil would have gambled that he though all men as confident in victory as he was. He would also have bet that, perhaps for the first time, none of the Bactrian men were confident of anything, except perhaps that they would soon meet their gods.

In truth, Philandros had been toying with the leather cord. Unconsciously at first, his attention wholly taken by the forest of Persian spears that hid the southern tip of the vale of Igharayn. Somewhere, across that valley, behind a wall of painted Daylamite shields, Aspadana stood defiant. Philandros knew as much. Three days of marching, if Ptolemy’s geographies were to be believed. Perhaps less, if the march was rightly motivated by dreams of the troves of golden treasures that the Buyid Shahs had amassed in their conquest of southern Persia. Phil knew all of these things. And yet, somehow, the city had seemed that much closer beyond the mountains of Hyrkania, as he’d walked with Alkaios on the sands of the Caspian shore.

Now, having abandoned the helmet’s cord, Phil forced himself to try and look past the enemy force. To no avail. Damn our luck, he thought, and damn theirs. The valley they were standing in, that tight, rocky, miserable pass, sloped ever so slightly towards the Persian army, an affluent rivulet of the Qom River seemingly mocking the Bactrian Phalanx as it made its way towards their feet. Now, having abandoned the helmet’s cord, Philandros played around with his lance, digging a pit next to his horse’s hooves, trying his best not to think about the sad fact that they were two thousand men standing against twenty, and that their enemy sat on higher ground.

“Look, my brothers!” Alkaios said, his face suddenly grave, jerking Phil from his reveries. He had not noticed Pantherios and Iason approach yet could see in their faces that they shared little of Alkaios’s optimism. “Look at the Persian horde!” he shouted, his voice carrying through the cavalry wing, loud enough that even some of the phalangites turned their attention to him. “Look at them and be afraid! I for one, am truly scared! How could we not fear them? They outnumber us ten to one! And look at how mighty their arms!”

Pantherios looked horrified. Iason appeared merely confused. Philandros focused his gaze onto the Persian levy, trying not to ask himself how fast his horse could carry him, if he galloped back towards the northern country. In truth, he saw none of that might of arms that Alkaios was describing. “Oh, perhaps I might be wrong. Perhaps they are not all armed with iron mail,” his cousin said, as if though answering to his thoughts. “Perhaps some of them carry cracked and aged shields. Perhaps some of the Medes are even lacking helmets. Perhaps some of their slingers carry children’s toys instead of weapons of war, and perhaps some of their horsemen ride lamed mules. But still, I say you should be afraid of them, for can you not see that these are the best men to ever walk through the gates of Persepolis? Can you not see, even from afar, the brawn of their arm and the bright, martial minds behind their eyes?”

Finally, Phil understood what his cousin was trying to accomplish. Despite himself, he could not help but flash a timid smile, seeing the ragged state of the Persian levy, the wizened elders and the bony farmers in whose hands the Buyid lords had thrust spears and dagger. Even the warriors of Shah Farzad’s retinue, those lucky ones who had survived the battle outside Rhagai, seemed somehow less fearsome than they had looked in that barley field. The shine of their armour buried beneath dust and sand, their eyes tired after many nights spent in flight.

“Oh, perhaps I might be wrong once more. Perhaps we have already killed and looted the best of their men. Perhaps those Persian heroes have already gone to meet your spears, and now only their cowardly spawn remain!” Alkaios was now shouting, with all the air he had in his lungs. “And still, I say fear them! For look at that mass of spears and shields! Their arrows could block out the sun! When have Hellenes ever faced such a mighty Persian force, thusly outnumbered?”

Amongst the mounted companions, others had begun to catch up to their King’s game. “The Hot Gates!” someone bellowed from their ranks, “Marathon!” someone else picked up the cry, “Gaugamela!” and suddenly a list of all of the great battles of the Persian Wars rose from the Bactrian ranks, all of Alexander’s victories against Darius. Even further into the phalangite line, where the King’s voice could not possibly carry, men were calling the names of the Macedonian triumphs, believing it a war cry to frighten the Buyid enemy. Alkaios beamed, like he would smile back in the halls of the Sogdian Rock, whenever an elder tutor conceded some point he had made.

“Aye, perhaps I was truly wrong! Perhaps this would not be the first time that mighty Greeks have fought a Persian host many times their number. Perhaps our ancestors, who came East with great Alexander, would look at this fight and believe it a trifle. Perhaps I was overcautious, when I recommended you fear this Median rabble. Perhaps you are right! Perhaps we should not waste time cowering! Perhaps it is them that should fear us! What say you to that, brothers? What say you to that, men!?”

If there were words coming from the Bactrian files, Phil could not tell. Countless yesses – and noes, for not all men had well grasped the question – and “fear us”, all burst out together, in a single roar. Some men kept shouting the names of battles, others had turned to listing Greek heroes, others yet attempted to earn the honour of being the worst aoidoi to ever grace the Iliad’s verses. In the end, Philandros thought, as he stilled himself for battle and checked on his chinstrap for the last time, the words matter little: the Persians would not understand them anyway.

“What are they doing!? What in God’s name are they doing!? Dwarf, DWARF! You said they would surrender! What are they doing!?”

The dwarf in question, who much preferred to be addressed as Lord Justanì, or Mashad, or really anything but “dwarf”, withheld a sigh. “I must have misspoken, my liege,” he lied through his teeth. “What I meant was that, faced with your great host, had you offered the easterners peace, they would have accepted.” Perhaps before they’d started with this demonic shouting, he concluded to himself.

“Peace? With those barbarians? Well, then I am glad that you’d misspoken so crassly,” the Shah said, attempting a fake laugh. “The Samanid pagans owe me for their countless humiliations, I will have no peace with them. What Shah would I be if I let savage mountain men ravage my lands freely?”

Mashad opened his mouth, himself not perfectly certain of what he was about to say, but was interrupted by Lord Ziyàri: “You are most correct, my lord,” the elderly spahbad said, sharing a meek smile with the boy King, “but be not angry with Lord Justanì. It is a pious thing, to offer leniency to a defeated foe. I praise you, Mashad, for being a good Muslim. But you lack the knowledge that I and the Shah share about the Easterlings. You see in them God’s creatures, but they are the worst of disbelievers. War-like pagans, who worship the sky god of the steppe Turks, and commit untold violence in his name. You had long left your lands when they arrived in the north, but throughout Tabaristan they sacked, cruel creatures that they are, and conspired with evil forces to bring the plight into our kingdom. We have now their king cornered, and must bring onto him God’s righteous fury, as the Prophet himself brought down fury against the idolaters that sought to stifle his message.”

​

Again, Lord Ziyàri smiled that meek and pacifying grin, further veiling the harshness of his foes. Mashad could not help but think how well that expression fit the man’s features, giving him the air of a kindly grandfather, even as he spurred their lord to battle and to the complete annihilation of the enemy’s host. Even once this matter with the Easterlings had been settled, Mashad knew, Lord Ziyàri’s voice would be a dangerous one at the Shah’s court. And one much louder than his own, even as it spoke in hushed tones.

“The gall of him!” Farzad roared, the proudest of kittens, as the heavily outnumbered Bactrian King rushed forwards with his knights and some Turkic mounted archers. No, whatever the Shah or Lord Ziyàri said, whatever gods they might have in common, the Samanid Bactrians were nothing like their Turkic Ghilman. Nor, in truth, were they very much like the old Samanids at all, with their curious garbs and crested helmets. And yet, Farzad’s commanders seemed not to notice this, keeping their archers well in front of the infantry line, a perfect defence against horse archers, and yet mere fodder for the Bactrian King’s lances. Nor did anyone notice the lone horseman, bloodied and panting, that made his way towards the pass, bringing with him proof that Ptolemy had not lied when claiming that three days of marching were sufficient to reach Aspadana.

Alkaios’s own lance broke deep into the Persian commander’s chest before the man could unleash another volley on the Bactrian cavalry. Some of the Buyid archers dropped their bows for swords, yet they could do naught but swing at air, as the Bactrian wedge turned back towards their infantry line. Twice now, Alkaios had tried to goad Farzad’s generals into chasing after him. Twice Philandros had followed his cousin, first in a skirmish with the Persian cavalrymen, and then against their archers. Twice they had been left to retreat unbothered. The third charge was no different. And again, returning towards the wall of shining phalangites, Alkaios waved his spear and cheered, as if though the route of a few dozen riders and the blood of a rabble of bowmen were some great victory. Deep down, Phil knew, his cousin was seething.

Alkaios dared not cross the stream, shallow though it may have been, that now separated the Persian army in two, knowing full well that any hindrance would leave the mounted companions vulnerable to encirclement by the enemy’s Turcomans. And so they kept charging the enemy’s right flank, up and down that same barely sloping hill, trying to trick him into attacking. Though perhaps trick was too strong a word, as a more prudent man might have sought a way to retreat. Philandros had surely thought about it, about whether the phalanx could reach the walls of Rashkan, perhaps by mounting some infantry or leaving their loot behind. Yet Alkaios remained certain that he could yet steal a victory, certain that he could be the Leonidas to these Iranic Hot Gates, certain that his Thermopylae would not suffer from Phocian timidity.

And so, after some of the companions had changed horses, having kept fresh spares for a new charge in the manner of the ancient Scyths, they once more charged against the Persian army, for yet another round of fruitless harassment. Philandros winced, despite himself, as they closed the gap with Farzad’s archer, having now learned to expect the whizzing of arrows and the whining of wounded horses that accompanied it. And yet this time, no horse cried out in pain. No rider cursed the laming of his mount. No dart sought to blind the King of Sogdiane. No, this time the Persian archers opened their ranks, and through their columns streamed the might of the Buyid army, twenty thousand men armed with spear and sword, having finally risen to the Bactrian challenge.

Phil could almost picture his cousin smiling, beneath the rim of that gilded helmet of his. He, however, could not feel any joy, as the sight of the Persian infantry streaming down the mountain pass like a river in flood, was made all the more terrible by the image of Farzad’s last cataphracts charging straight for their wedge. The mounted companions had been training since childhood, each men one with his horse, and one with his unit. Yet even that could not make Gods out of men and, despite Alkaios’s prodding, the wedge did not turn quickly enough to avoid battle with the Persian knights.

Philandros sought Farzad amidst the enemy, half hoping that Alkaios could once again take the boy and save their lives, but could not see the child Shah. Instead, a burly Turkic Ghulam broke through the line of lances and spurred his mount into Phil’s gelding, crushing his leg between the two animals. He managed to get his blade out of its sheathe and into the slave-soldier’s throat, but at that moment another of the Persian riders swung his scimitar at him.

Philandros cursed, as his helmet flew off and the Median blade dug into his forehead. The bloody chinstrap, he had the time to think before falling from his saddle. He felt an arm swing around his waist, and knew himself taken, though he could not set his eyes on his captor. As his vision blurred, Phil's head fell back, and he stared straight into the Iranian sun, that golden light overwhelming his senses. The sounds and screams of the battle seemed to fade, until finally he heard something like a great roar blowing across the valley, as if though all of the western winds had flown into a mighty horn. And then, he could hear nothing.

​

Author's notes: and thus continues this new Greco-Persian war, probably somewhere near present day Qom, in one of the many rocky passes that dot northern Iran. In truth, given that the Qom river flows West to East and (sort of) North to South, it makes very little sense for one of its affluents to be flowing towards the Bactrians (who are coming towards Isfahan form the North-West) but I'll chalk that up to Phil not being as geographically savvy as he believes himself to be. In any case, for once Alkaios is on the defensive, having a river-crossing, his exceptional military acumen, and the tight mountain pass favouring him. Against him, twenty odd thousand men and the fact that, between open battles and garrisoning surrendered towns, his phalanx now numbers around fifteen hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry, with some horse archers peppered in between.

A recent weekend back home has allowed me to finally give a face to the child Shah, Farzad, and his tributary, the lord Bisutun. Mashad himself is, also, an in game character, though I did not have any screenshots of him at this point in his life. Originally the "Persian" part of the chapter was supposed to be longer, but it sort of ruined the flow of things. Much like a certain British Superspy, however, MASHAD JUSTANI WILL RETURN! On an almost related note, I apologise to any Iranian readers for my complete butchery of the accents and declensions of the names, but my keyboard sadly only goes so far.

Finally, I'd like to close this off by thanking @RustyHunter and @filcat for nominating To The Strongest for this trimester's ACAs. I've been busy like a bee these past few weeks, and still haven't had a chance to pop in with my own nominations, but it was a real pleasure to see that bell icon pop up. Thank you both for your support, I hope these next chapters will continue to live up to expectations!​

​

 

[Eludio]

The Land of Heroes​

As if though all of the eastern winds had flown into a single mighty horn, as if though the earth itself had let out a mighty shout, the sound trumpeted throughout the valley, announcing doom and terror for all to hear. Mashad cursed, loudly. As soon as the messenger from Isfahan had relayed his news, Farzad had ordered the bulk of his army to charge, hoping to capture the Bactrian King before he could retreat behind the spiked wall of bronze shields that was his army. Leaving him, the Lord Dwarf, in command of the reserve troops. In any other occasion, it would have been an honour. But now, sitting deep in his pony’s misshapen saddle, it felt like everything but. Sitting, defenceless, unable to outpace the lamest of rounceys, as the terrible cry grew louder and louder.

Finally, it came onto that low rise and into the mouth of the gorge, that wall of bronze and steel and flesh. Mashad had not the time to count them, but he knew that ten thousand men formed that wall. Ten thousand Eastern barbarians, certainly tired from the march, thirty thousand thousands of the king’s cubits from their home. Such a wall, Mashad might not have had reason to fear. And yet, as that wall covered the horizon, Mashad felt his heart leap to his throat. Because the wall had towers. Great towers covered in iron plates and crested by wooden crenelations. Great towers armed in ivory, that bellowed their call across the rocky pass. Lord Justanì knew of such towers, knew how they trampled armies and sent seasoned warhorses in a crazed panic. And, armed with such knowledge, Lord Justanì could do naught but be afraid.

​

“Ashok, once your four mahouts are through the first enemy line, keep driving forwards. Pyrrhos will follow you with the reserve cavalry wing, while we’ll keep the gap open to ensure you are not encircled. Do not look back, do not bother with us, go for the King. The companions’ horses are used to your elephants, the Persian knights’ won’t be. You understand me Ashok? Your mere presence might save the King! Good. Good, indeed. Good man, off with you now!”

“Leonidas contemplates the Hot Gates?” Pyrrhos joked. The man in question did not return the smile, having turned his full attention to the battle line after dismissing the commander of the mahouts. He thought he saw King Alkaios his leopard pelted saddle, amidst a sea of Persian cataphracts, though from this distance he could not be sure.

“Leonidas contemplates the Hot Gates?” Pyrrhos repeated, this time grasping his companion’s arm as he spoke. Leonidas almost jumped at the touch, as if though woken from a deep slumber by a sudden fall. “This time it’s the Persians who are surrounded, brother, it’s their turn to die to the last man!”

Still, the older man stared at him in something akin to disbelief, as if though unable to grasp the meaning of Pyrrhos’s words. “Aye,” he finally said, though it seems he himself knew not what he was answering to, “you head the reserve cavalry. Stay behind our line, then follow the elephants when they create a breach. Rush straight for the royal companions, they are in need of relief.” He then turned away with no further word, and Pyrrhos saw that nothing could get to the man now. He thought about making one last jest, but knew it would serve no purpose, so bit his tongue and went to mount his stallion.

​

Even in the face of the charging monsters, Farzad knew he’d kept his lordly countenance. As a child, he’d seen the great Atyiubiyan elephants that the Caliph kept penned in, in shining Baghdad. Compared to those, the Bactrian beasts seemed but cubs, small and weak and lacking in the caged yet majestic dignity of the Caliph’s pets. Each carried but a pair of warriors, and the young Shah had no doubt that his Turkish slave-soldiers would make short work of the creatures. Sadly, for young Farzad, his horse had never travelled to Baghdad, had never been shown the Caliphs treasures as an honoured guest. And so, seeing a mountain of muscle and steel stampeding towards him, the proud Persian mount bucked and reared, throwing Farzad from his saddle and fleeing into the mountains.

The young Shah screamed, not out of pain but out of fear, as all around him his cataphracts struggled to contain their horses, and hooves stomped all around his head. His knights had surrounded him after he’d struck down the king of the Bactrians, or perhaps his brother or a prince of that line, to protect him from the easterners’ vengeful fury. And now, they threatened to be his death. For a moment, Farzad felt anger. They cannot even control their horses, he though, entirely blind to the irony.

Finally, he stumbled to his feet, only to be picked up by the nape of his overcoat and hoisted onto a saddle, in front of one of his Ghilman. He struggled, for a moment thinking himself captured, and the Turkic rider was caught in a four-way struggle between himself, a panicked horse, the panicked Shah, and the pike of a Bactrian elephant rider. Finally, the Ghulam managed to dart away from the horseback melee, apparently unscathed by the bleeding gash the Bactrian had left in his shoulder, and unceremoniously struck his boy Lord on the helmet until Farzad came to his senses.

Having ceased his struggling, Farzad began his moaning, complaining that the Ghulam was riding towards the reserves and not towards the main army, now locked in a shield push against the smaller of the Bactrian forces. The Turk stammered something about corridor, dwarf and flee and Farzad guessed he meant to retreat towards Lord Justanì’s position. “I will not run in the moment of victory! The field is ours!” Farzad kept shouting, seeing very little of the field except the hooves of his saviour’s mount, hanging as he was like a sack on the animal’s shoulders. Still, he could hear men cheering his name, and knew that to be the sound of glory.

And yet, as the Ghulam would not obey him, Farzad took the matter into his own hands: still hanging sideways in front of the saddle, he managed to grasp the horse’s bridle and pull down, with all his strength. The creature neighed, in pain, and swerved right, following the boy’s tugging. The Turkic rider had not expected such a move. How could he have? Farzad managed to turn his head and look at the man, the sweet smile of victory over his lips, but was met only with a stare of sheer terror. That fear lasted a moment, before the steel tipped shaft of a Bactrian lance tore the Ghulam’s face from his head, and the shoulder of a golden stallion smashed into his horse, throwing the boy Shah into the dirt once more.

“FARZAAAD,” he still heard the cry, only to realise that it was not a cheer but a challenge. He coughed, trying to bring air back into his lungs, and would have wept in terror, had his eyes not already been filled with tears from the pain. Through them, he saw the figure of the great demon, white and gold in his armour of linen and metal, shouting his name from behind the fallen Ghulam’s horse. The Bactrian king had cast off his lance, rearing his blonde stallion as he swung his blade through the air, and this time he knew he could expect no mercy.

Stumbling on the dirt, still covered in his saviour’s blood, Farzad managed to find his legs, and started running, despite the pain and despite his fear, a savage instinct having taken over him. His ribs felt as if though each one had been broken, his left ankle ached with every step, and the crimson taste of copper was ever present in his mouth. Yet he kept running. Running to the Lord Dwarf, to dear Mashad, to his father’s kin. He kept running, for he could do nothing else, praying to the God above that one of Lord Justanì’s riders could reach him before the demon-king of the Bactrians did.

And then, as he felt the hoofbeats grow closer behind him, Farzad managed to look up. And saw no five thousand Arab soldiers. No Persians in shining mail or Turkic slaves in masked helmets. Only a line of painted shields, the colourful vestments of a dozen nations hidden behind that charging wall, and he knew that Mashad had either died or fled. From amidst a group of Eastern soldiers, more heroic and proud than the rest of their army, from amidst those carrying the great bronze shields, that old Hazarasp had learned to fear, a man stepped forward, open-helmeted and darkly bearded. Farzad had barely time to see the dart come to the man’s hand, before it was buried deep into his chest, right where his mail had slipped after the fall.

“Farzad!” he heard his named being called one last time, as he collapsed to the ground, tears streaming freely down his child-like face, as the blood flowed openly from his heart.

“Oh, would that you had been awake to see it! I swear, there were moments of aristeia worthy of rivalling those of the great poems! When we thought you fallen, Achaeus fought off three Persian knights one-armed, to keep you from their grasping hands. I could just imagine great Ajax smiling upon him, proud to see a worthy successor in the ranks of today’s Greeks! And if he was Ajax to your Patroclus, I thought myself Achilles, chasing down that coward Farzad for the length of the entire field. And Leonidas! I would begrudge him stealing the honour rightfully mine, but how could I? He was magnificent! When he threw his spear, you could have cast his body and made of it a statue of the Kronid lord launching his lighting bolt! And the way Farzad fell, you would have thought he’d indeed been struck by a God…”

Phil smiled meekly, only half-listening to Alkaios as his cousin recounted the events of the battle. Or rather, as he attempted to fit as much Iliadic simile as he could in a single day of fighting. The charge of the elephants, the flight of the Persian reserves, the capture or death of their entire army… Alkaios had apparently tired of Alexander’s myth, grown bored of his dreams of fighting the Persians, and now painted over them with the brush of Epic. In truth, Phil would not have minded. But his mind was busy with thoughts far more real. Had his cousin asked about it, Philandros would have blamed his distraction on the dose of laudanum that the Afghan healer had administered him. Yet, somehow, he did not think Alkaios would ask nor notice.

“What day is it? How much have I lost?” he finally interrupted the would-be aoidos, realising that he’d not yet been told anything about his own convalescence. As often happened when someone interfered with his soliloquies, Alkaios appeared for a moment completely lost, like a child just awoken. At that sight, Phil could not hold in a chuckle.

“Oh, but a few days,” his cousin answered, perhaps not realising how little that meant, or perhaps slightly annoyed at the change of topic. “And it is ten in the morning, on the 24th of the Month of Pisces, if you want to know,” he then clarified exceedingly.

“Why do you ask?” Alkaios asked, eyes narrowing like a cat’s, as he saw that his cousin showed no reaction.

“Oh, simple curiosity,” Phil lied, resting his head back on the soft down pillows taken from the late Shah’s baggage. If I left now, I could be safely back in Bukhara before Zena’s twenty third birthday, he though, finding in that knowledge some meagre consolation.

​

Author's notes: they say it is never wrong to end on a strong note, and perhaps I should have closed this chapter with Farzad's demise. If this were a book, I might have done that. Though if this were a book, I would have had the chance to write that last exchange between cousins as a sweet little epilogue. A short set of lines in a far lighter tone, to reassure any who might care that Phil did, in fact, survive his previous ordeal, with but a wound and a great regret of ever coming West to show for it. But an epilogue it would be, of sorts. The end of the Persian war, both as far as the conquest of the de-jure kingdom is concerned, and this part of the story. Certainly, the Ziyarids will still be a thorn in the side for a few months yet (tributaries not being conquerable in the same war and all that), and this "Persia" is far too little for Alkaios's Alexandrine ambitions, but his Kingdom is established, and the next chapter will mark the start of something else.

Back to the present, however: the Bactrians have elephants! You can't imagine my joy when I found out that one of the provinces Alkaios (the Elder this time) conquered from one of the Rajas had not only culture-converted, but had also War Elephant pens built. I doubt they were as effective in-game as I depicted them in this scene, but war elephants played a decent part in the Diadochi wars, and I saw it fitting that this Last Successor (the alternate name I had in mind for this AAR) of mine would have gotten his hands on a herd. Indeed, war elephants were famous for their ability to cause panic in the ranks of cavalry by scaring horses (and can you blame the horses?), and though they were not "ancient tanks", I can't imagine that western Iranian troops in the 900s would have ever seen any, much less been trained to fight them.

As for the rest of the Bactrian army, the Bactrian Greeks are still in an (ever smaller) minority, though one of the provinces has gotten conquest culture (can't remember if it was Bactra or the one next to it). Alkaios leads his picked "phalangites", pikemen in the Macedonian faction, Leonidas probably has a core of hoplite-like foot companions, and some of the mounted companions shared a playground with the Amyntids, but the Turkic Ghilman and local Iranian levies (armoured in whatever fashion might be available) still comprise most of the force.

On a final, mostly unrelated note, the "Month of Pisces" is the most Greek translation I could find of the lunar February-March month of the Babylonian calendar, adapted by the Seleucid Empire and thus most of Alexander's former Satrapies in the East. I could have gone with a variation of the Hindu calendar, the Iranian Hijiri calendar, or perhaps made my own, but in truth I quite like the idea of all of these traditions being inherited and warped by so distant a people. I'd bet if someone asked Alkaios, he'd say the Seleucid calendar was a Greek invention. As for the year, it is the year 1312 of the Seleucid Era (or "After the Year of Alexander"), which my fellow westerners might better recognise as the year 1000 A.D., and the battle occurred on the 5th of March.

 

[Eludio]

An Act Most Vile​

A mother’s eyes see all, her own mama had once told her. In the nine long and yet far too short years since Alexandra’s birth, Lu had learned just how much truth there was in those words. The slightest trembling in the lip, as a word struggled to escape. The darting eyes, two bright emeralds dancing, as the mind wondered whether or not the mouth should act. The impatient tapping of feet on the rug-covered bottom of their carriage. All of this, her motherly eyes saw, and before Alexandra could truly decide which words she was about to say, Lu-Ling was ready to answer her: “It will be a while yet, but we’re in view of the city.” She chuckled silently as her daughter huffed and puffed with the habitual theatricality that only children possess.

​

Zenais was not as silent, laughing loudly at Alexandra’s reaction. “Oh, dear cousin! What did your mother tell you, that has gotten you so riled up?” she asked, in Greek, her expression as exaggerate as little Alexandra’s, a child’s heart barely hidden inside a grown woman’s breast. The two launched into one of their habitual excited chats, where an outsider would doubt whether it was the adult humouring the child, or vice-versa. Eudokia the Younger looked on with none of her one-time annoyance, and even with a bit of longing in her eye, as her own babe rode in a separate carriage, considered yet too young to stay in the company of the ladies of the family.

What say they about greener grasses? Even as Eudokia though of her babe, riding with the nursemaids in the children’s carriage, Lu-Ling found herself nostalgic about those earlier years. Alkaios had never begrudged her not giving him a son, as she’d seen too many other men do, but sometimes she herself wished for one. Or for another daughter. Or, perhaps, just for a bit more time with an Alexandra that was not yet old enough to ride with the ladies. With the pudgy child that would run across the streets of Bactra, bolder than her father was when leading armies, heeding neither her mother’s cautioning words nor her guardsmen’s desperate begging. What a brat she was, Lu thought, and what an old woman I must be becoming, already growing nostalgic of the times of yesterday. She almost laughed at her own thought, holding back a tear. Instead, she interrupted her daughter’s conversation with Zenais by hugging Alexandra tightly.

“Mamaaa,” she complained, but Lu said nothing, and kept holding her tight, burying her face in the child’s walnut-coloured curls. Zena squealed with glee, Eudokia let out an “aww”, and finally Alexandra returned the hug, unsure of what had brought it but happy, nonetheless. And then the arrows came.

Had he been born with an artist’s attitude, Seleukos might have felt the desire to capture such a scene. Caliph Al-Qadir’s envoy, turbaned in green and gold, looked like an actor on a stage, waving his arms wildly at each phrase, miserably attempting to hide his discomfort under his febrile gesturing. Seleukos would have compared the man to a bird, not for his jewelled robes dragging on the sandstone pavement like the peacock’s tail, but for the jerking movements of the man’s head, that accompanied every slight noise in the hall. Truly, the man might have been garbed like a peacock, but he moved as if though one surrounded by lions, well aware that his wonderful plumage would in no way help him should the hunters decide to pounce.

And in front of him, seated on the gilded chair that used to be the throne of the Ziyarid espabedoi, sat the king of their pride. Where the Caliphal envoy skittered around wearing all the colours of the rainbow, King Alkaios sat like a statue from ages past, all colours taken from it by the passing of the centuries. Immobile and marble-white, more regal in his candid vestments than the envoy could hope to be in all his silks, crowned only by the golden curls of his own hair. The King of Persia, looking no more lavish than a temple priest, calmly listening to the soliloquies of the most gilded servant this world had ever seen. Had he been born with an artist’s attitude, Seleukos might have felt the desire to capture such a scene.

​

Instead, he’d been born with the attitude of a politician, and so was far more interested in the words spoken than in what surrounded them. Which, in and of itself, was quite the challenge, given that the exchange was supposedly conducted in Persian, but it seemed as if though the king and the Western emissary were speaking wholly separate languages, so different were their accents and dialects.

“Perhaps my words fail to make you understand the importance of my lord’s offer, peace and blessings be upon him. Accept the Giver of Peace into your heart, accept conversion, and my lord the Caliph will acknowledge your rule. All of these lands, that you have conquered by force, shall be entrusted to you by good faith. The world shall be your cradle, Earthly King, the Umma that now fears you as an enemy shall pray for you as its protector. My lord too, has come to his throne through a tortuous road, and yet now rules in the mercy of God. He condemns not your ascent to power if that power is brought to the service of the Highest, merciful and compassionate is he. Accept my lord’s offer, and he shall grant you leave to spread the word of our Prophet, peace and the blessings of God be upon him, to the very corners of the world.”

Seleukos noticed the slightest twitch in the corner of the King’s lip. To any other man, it would have seen a sign of amusement, betraying that the King was playing with the Arabic priest. But Seleukos had taken Alkaios’s lectures to heart and knew that another type of game was afoot. Somehow, unbeknownst to all, including himself, the Caliph’s emissary had spoken a word that he shouldn’t have. Had betrayed himself in a way only Alkaios had felt and only Alkaios could use. Was it the remark on the Caliph’s humble origins? Seleukos wondered. The suggestion to spread the faith through holy war?

“Or perhaps, amir Unayn, this modest hall in which I have received you failed to make you understand the extent of my power,” Alkaios said, his face perfectly calm, that twitch of a lip gone from it and replaced with a smile of beatitude. “You shall have to pardon me, it is but the latest palace to fall into my hands. Were you to travel further East, you would see the mightier halls from which my brothers rule the very borders of the civilised world. You would see Serican lords, on their way to barter for our horses, more precious to them than gold. You would see Indian elephants, given freely as a tribute to my power. Then, perhaps, you would understand why I feel no need for the grace of a mortal man, when the immortals themselves have so bountifully blessed my rule. My kin already have leave to reach the corners of the World, and unlike your Lord’s, my path has been all but tortuous. Wherever I go, Kings abandon their crowns. Ask Mashad, who so briefly was Shah, ask Bisutun, who left Ecbatana in shame. Ask them, whether the favour of your Caliph aided them.”

Whether the envoy understood all of the King’s words, Seleukos could hardly tell, but he had to admire the man’s resolve, as Unayn immediately returned the verbal sparring. “Then perhaps, oh King, let us speak not of conquest, which you so clearly have mastered, but of peace,” he said, once more grandiose in his gesturing as he twirled to gaze upon Alkaios’s court before turning back to the King. “For even were you indeed destined to conquer the world, what then? Would your rule then be one of war eternal, strife unending? Would it not be best to have peace, and love, and kinship between all people? And you,” he now moved towards a random group of Greek soldiers, probably not realising none of them spoke Persian, “would you not rather be welcomed as saviours, than have to bleed and die for the moniker of monster?”

While the Caliphal envoy continued his tirade, apparently now having turned his proselytism away from the King and towards the people, a messenger ran in through one of the back doors and rushed to Alkaios’s side. He whispered but a few words, and Seleukos heard none of them, but he saw the blood drain from his lord’s cheeks and fury rise into his chest.

“Liar!” Alkaios bellowed in Greek, all countenance lost, as he jumped from the throne. The gilded chair toppled to the floor, so violent had been the King’s rise. “Liar!” he repeated, rushing the Arabic emissary, and grabbing his by the neck. “You speak of peace and love! You speak of kinship!” The man tried to free himself, but Alkaios had been wrestling since childhood, and did not let go of his grasp. Unayn stammered something, but his words were silenced by a quick jab that sent him tripping into his robes and toppling to the ground.

“While we were bandying words with this traitor, speaking of love and peace…” Alkaios’s began in Greek to the Companions that had rushed at his side. “Their assassins were ambushing my family’s caravan,” the King’s voice broke. Seleukos made a step forward as it seemed that Alkaios would stumble, but the King stood right back up. “Who amongst you,” he said, his tone turning cold and cruel, “would lend me their blade, that I may get some justice for my wounds?”

They all drew their swords, but Athanasios was fastest, and it was with his kopis in hand that Alkaios stood over Unayn, his knee heavy on the man’s chest as his left grabbed the emissary’s hair through the turban. The Arabic envoy spoke not one word of Greek, but he could understand the language of a naked blade and, to his credit, did not loose himself into begging. “You are mad!” he instead yelled, “infidel though you may be, you must hold holy the life of a messenger. Eternal torment will be your curse if you kill me here!”

“Oh, friend,” Alkaios answered, seething with rage, “there are horrors to suffer in this life as well…”

Phil stood silently, feeling hollow and distant as he stood before his sisters’ bodies. All the tears that he had had in his body, he had cried them traveling. Grief and anger, even remorse, had left with the tears, and now all that remained was emptiness. The emptiness that came with the knowledge that he would never again hear Zena’s childlike laugh, nor share a cup of spice wine with Euridike as she told him tall tales of her time across the Indus. He just stared at their bodies and felt numb, for he had already felt all that a mortal man can feel.

“Phil…” the voice called from behind him, little more than a whisper. Yet he would have recognised that accent everywhere. As he turned towards Lu-Ling, he himself knew not how, Philandros managed to summon a smile, sad though it may have been. She only stared at him, a shadow in a dimly lit doorway, unsure of what to say or do.

“I was glad to hear you and Alexandra had made it out safely,” he said, once he’d understood what worried her. She nodded, her words buried along with a wail, deep inside her throat, and silently went to hug him. Phil held her tight, having last spoken to the woman perhaps two years back, and yet oh so thankful for that closeness.

“Kia saved her, you know?” she said into his shoulder. Phil had not known. “She’d already been struck, but she threw herself in front of Xandra, before those bastards could shoot my baby.” Philandros smiled, this time truly glad, and felt again like crying, the void in his heart being filled with the most beautiful sadness.

“She was always a fighter, even though she hid it well. I am happy that her last moments were heroic. That is how she should be remembered. I hope that the monks are right, and that the good she did in life might bring her peace in death. She deserves it.”

At those words, Lu-Ling pushed him away, so that they were face to face, and through a wall of tears he saw the fire in her eyes. “And may they both be at peace, knowing that we shall bring their killers to justice in this life. Alkaios has promised me that he will have no rest until the bastard Caliph has paid for his treachery.”

Phil stared back into her flaming eyes, his own soul calm and sad, and though he tried, he could find no consolation in his cousin’s promise.

​

Author's Notes: and we're back! I took advantage of the time-skip to get a little time-skip of my own. Originally I had envisioned a chapter between these ones, showing the last throes of the former Buyid loyalists, and something of Mashad's acclamation as Shah and his (short but not so short - he stood for three years) rule. I have already addressed in other comments why I chose not to do this, and have skipped to after the conquest of Ecbatana (itself not an insignificant place as far as Alexandrine history goes). Alkaios (or rather, the three Amyntid Kings) finds himself master of most of Persia.

It is in this symbolic city that our Act Most Vile occurs, allegedly on the orders of the Caliph in Bagdad. Of course, that is not how things work in CK2, but the true conspirators were never found (except in the save files...) and so I was allowed a bit of artistic license. As to whether things are more complicated in the fictional world than they first appear? Perhaps. I will not say more until there is something to actually say.

As for our poor Caliphal envoy, in his coloured robes and turbans, he was not actually the "preacher in the service of" the Caliph Al-Qadir that attempted to spread his religion into Hellenistic lands. But, alas, I don't have a save of the event, the man happened to be the Caliphal court chaplain, and actually died at some point. Besides, the clothes on his portrait fit the image I had in mind, so why not? Of course, there was no offer of suzerainty from the Caliph, only the usual proselytising shpiel, but given the similar accord historically reached between the Caliphate in Bagdad and the Seljuk Shahs, I did not think it too much of a stretch.

Certainly more has happened that I forgot to put in these notes, but I look forwards to revealing things that skipped my mind in the comments as usual!

P.S.: if you haven't, consider heading over to the ACAs! Only eight days left to cast your votes (preferably for me ), and @Nikolai can't fill all the ballots on his own!