He had heard nothing from his brother Perdiccas for two months, so the present fear was hardly new. Perdiccas was three years older than Philip, and therefore closer to the throne. He would be the first to die. So Philip wrote to him constantly, and to his cousins and nieces – asking about the
royal horse herds, enquiring after the health of relatives. When the letters from Perdiccas stopped Philip’s sleepless nights had begun, as he waited for the day of the assassin. Now it was here. They would not kill him while he was in Thebes, he reassured himself, for that would be bad manners. Idly he touched the dagger at his belt. Little use this would be. Though strong, Philip was a mere 14 years old and no match for any but the clumsiest adult warrior. And they would send no one clumsy.
‘What shall I do, Crosi?’ he asked the ghost of the old man. There was no answer, but whispering the name aloud helped ease his tension. He remembered the night of the knives, the old man moving silently into his bedroom with a short sword in his hand. Philip had been ten then. Crosi had led him to a shadowed corner of the room, ordering him to hide behind a couch.
‘What is happening?’ Philip asked.
‘Blood and death,’ replied the old man. ‘But I will protect you, boy. Have no fear.’
Philip had believed him. At ten a child has faith in the fully-grown. Crosi had sat on the couch, sword in hand, and they had waited until the dawn. No one came.
Philip had crouched in the cold, wrapped in a blanket, too frightened to ask the nature of the peril. As the sun cleared the distant Crousian mountains, Crosi had relaxed.
‘Come out, boy,’ he said, taking Philip’s hand and drawing him forth. He put his arms around the prince and hugged him briefly. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘your father died. Ptolemaos now rules in Macedonia.’
‘But . . . Father is so strong! He can’t be dead!’
‘No man can withstand a dagger in the heart, Philip.’
‘Who did it? And why?’
‘These are questions I will not answer, boy. But, for now -I hope – your danger is past.’
. ‘Uncle Ptolemaos will look after me,’ said Philip, but even at ten he saw the angry look in Crosi’s eyes just before the old man stood and turned away. He did not fully understand it then, but now he remembered it clearly. Now he knew the answers, though no one had ever voiced them.
Ptolemaos had killed King Amyntas. Uncle Ptolemaos, who within three months had married Philip’s mother, Eurydice, and buried her a year later beside her murdered husband. Philip’s parents had been cold towards their youngest son, but even so the boy had loved them, worshipping his father and doing all in his power to please him.
The following year had seen Philip’s boyhood washed away in the acid of intrigue and sudden death. Philip’s eldest brother, Alexander, had been found murdered at his summer home in Aigai, killed by unknown assailants. Three adult cousins died mysteriously.
Then had come the Theban demand for hostages, following a short, bitter month of conflict between the Macedonian army and a force led by Pelopidas, the great Theban warrior. The Macedonians had been crushed. Ptolemaos sent twelve hostages – including Philip – to Thebes, and for the first time in months the young prince felt safe.
They had not let Crosi come with him, and the old man had died of a fever last spring. Philip still mourned him, and prayed that his ghost would be allowed to walk alongside him until his own assassination. Then, maybe, together they could journey into the Lands of the Dead.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs jerked Philip’s thoughts to the present. He stood – and found his legs trembling.
A tall warrior, in full armour and white-plumed helm, entered the room. The man was not old, perhaps eighteen, but his eyes were pale and cold.
He bowed. ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I am here to accompany you home, Philip.’
‘Do you bring letters?’ he asked, proud that his voice did not betray his terror.