Episode 03: Regicide at the Carousel

 

A Great Argead Saga ALEXEIN, Alexander the Great
Volume I: Telesias: The War Dance
By Makāula Nakae

Episode 03: Regicide at the Carousel

The atmosphere within the Grand Hall was a dense, magnificent tapestry woven from sensory opulence and suffocating dread. The dynastic festival had ascended to its absolute, dazzling zenith. Torches blazed along the stone pillars with a ferocious illumination, casting an amber and golden glare across the luxurious, heavy wool robes of the lowland aristocracy and the brilliant, polished bronze panoply of the Royal Guards. The heavy, savory perfume of roasting meats, the musk of unwatered vintage wines, and exotic aromatic oils imported from distant lands mingled with the sharp, saline sweat of the carousing multitude. This pageantry was no passive indulgence; it was a meticulously engineered political theater designed to project absolute religious piety, unyielding military muscle, and the total legitimacy of the Argead dynasty to the cosmos. And it was precisely this theatrical apparatus that whoever wished to eliminate this young king intended to exploit with clinical, merciless utility.

Tonight, the absolute focal point anchoring the gaze of all present was the Telesias—the ancient war dance. The rhythmic, subterranean thunder of stamping feet, the sharp, violent collision of mock weapons, and guttural chants rising from the deep throats of the warriors saturated the great hall, elevating the memory of Macedonia’s fierce martial heritage into a primal ritual. The dance functioned as a rigorous training of the physical frame, an absolute projection of raw vitality, and a symbolic reenactment of the legendary battles that had permanently anchored the sovereignty of the Argead line.

But outside the high stone walls of Pella, the horizon was a ring of fire, and the illusion of imperial grandeur fractured at the borders. Macedonia was trapped in a perpetual crisis of insolvency, its treasury drained dry by the immense cost of maintaining a standing vanguard and the endless subsidies required to placate the bottomless, predatory avarice of the upcountry barons. To the west, the mountain ridges groaned under the shadow of the Illyrians; to the north, the Paeonian hill-tribes stirred with an ominous, unpredictable volatility. Most terrifying of all was the civilized titan of the Greek south—Thebes. The Boeotian superpower cast an immense, suffocating shadow over Macedonian domestic policy, aggressively moving its iron phalanxes northward to enforce its will. The kingdom was a cornered beast, surrounded by existential threats, yet inside the hall, the nobility drank as if the walls would stand forever.

The internal rot was no less lethal. The three surviving sons of the late King Amyntas III and Queen Eurydice were locked in a silent cold war with their own bloodline. Because Eurydice carried the regional blood of an Illyrian princess, her sons were viewed with deep, xenophobic suspicion by the traditionalists. Looming in the shadows of the estate lands were Alexander’s three half-brothers—Archelaus, Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. Born to Amyntas’s secondary queen, Gygaea, who hailed from the unblemished bedrock of pure Macedonian nobility, these three princes existed as a pristine reserve lineage. They were a highly convenient instrument, waiting to be paraded by any aristocratic faction scheming to destabilize the current regime.

The air inside the great hall hummed with a fierce, intoxicating vitality. Around the massive stone hearths, Macedonian barons threw back their heads in roaring laughter, slamming their heavy wooden flagons onto grease-stained oak tables as fresh amphorae of dark, unwatered wine were hoisted onto their shoulders. Serving girls darted through the pressing throngs, carrying platters piled high with glistening wild boar, roasted venison encrusted with mountain herbs, and flatbreads dripping with golden honey. In the center of the room, young noblemen linked arms with the daughters of the lowland aristocracy, their cheeks flushed with wine and firelight as they whirled through the opening steps of the celebration. The sheer weight of the sound—the clinking of heavy silver jewelry, the scraping of iron-shod boots, and the dense, vibrant murmur of hundreds of voices drowning out the freezing autumn wind outside—created an absolute illusion of safety. For this one night, the kingdom was unified, drunk on victory, and utterly alive.

Seated at the long tables flanking the royal line, foreign dignitaries watched the display with varying shades of hidden intent. An Athenian diplomatic envoy nursed his watered wine, calculating the price of Macedonian shipbuilding timber, while a stony-faced Theban observer sent by Pelopidas watched the phalangites' mock maneuvers with the cold, critical eye of an occupying master. In the darker alcoves, a cloaked Spartan agent whispered hurried promises of an anti-Theban alliance to disgruntled barons, completely ignored by a rowdy cluster of Thracian and Illyrian chieftains who tore into roasted meats with heavy daggers, silently weighing whether the young king's grand display was a true shield or merely a paper fortress.

Yet, despite the numerous geostrategic distortions eroding his youth, King Alexander II let loose a deep, resonant laugh the instant a highly agile dancer executed a flawless, sophisticated maneuver across the floor. Beside him, his betrothed, Arsinoe, clapped her hands in delighted applause, her radiant smile mirroring the King's joy like a perfect glass. They were engaged, bound by the hopeful threads of political promise, but not yet married. Neither of them possessed the slightest inkling of the horror that would unfold during this joyous festival—a spectacle explicitly engineered to demonstrate Macedonian militaristic greatness and project absolute power, convincing every soul in this roaring hall that the new King of Macedon was steering the empire toward golden days. Within the crowded theater of this public space, their eyes met for a solitary fraction of a second—a warm, profoundly private alignment blooming through a brief fracture in the rigid protocols of statecraft.

Stationed on a lower tier of the dais, away from the warmth of the king’s laughter, was the King's seventeen-year-old brother, Perdiccas. His physical frame had already begun to assume the dense, heavy musculature unique to a seasoned warrior. He stood rigid beside Antigonus, a white-haired veteran commander whose face was a roadmap of scars earned from surviving generations of dynastic bloodshed. Perdiccas scrutinized the spectacle with an unblinking gaze; from the secondary perspective of a prince permanently buried within his brother's shadow, he was systematically absorbing the merciless mechanics of the play known as sovereign power into his very marrow.

Ptolemy of Aloros sat adjacent to the royal line, his countenance remarkably composed, clear, and seemingly at ease amidst the revelry. To the casual observer, he was merely a loyal pillar of the state; his bottomless, predatory ambition remained flawlessly cloaked behind his recent marriage to Eurynoe. Through this blood covenant, Ptolemy had transformed himself into an official brother-in-law to the princes, weaving his entity deep into the fatal core of the Argead dynasty. Nearby, Queen Eurydice remained the absolute, unyielding junction of power. A scion of the strategically vital highlands of Lyncestis, her presence alone was the only anchor holding the fragile peace between the lowland court and the volatile mountain cantons. She watched the dancers with a sovereign's pride, entirely unaware of the knife edge upon which her family stood.

Farther down the hall, engulfed in the merry atmosphere, the senior generals—the Elder Attalus, Parmenion, and Antipater—maintained a deceptive, relaxed posture. Their heavy wool mantles were unpinned and thrown back over their benches, their silver cups filled to the brim with dark wine as they lightly watched the revelry, genuinely laughing at the physical antics of the court jester who fell over his own robes before them. Their hard-won military vigilance was softened by the shared warmth of the fire and the communal joy of the festival, their eyes drifting lazily over the crowd of celebrating captains, completely unmindful of the hidden pieces shifting on the board.

But beneath the layer of shared wine and roaring music, a chilling, invisible grid of coordination was locking into place. The tension in the hall was no longer a question of if a blade would slide into the dark, but whose hand would drive it.

In the heavily curtained alcoves just behind the heavy oak tables, several minor lowland nobles leaned their heads together over their shallow bronze drinking bowls, their eyes nervously darting toward the royal dais.

"I heard a rumor," one whispered, his voice buried beneath the thrum of the flutes. "Alexander will purge the factions aligned against him once the campaign season fully closes. They say Ptolemy is at the very top of the executioner's list."

"Oh, really?" his companion murmured, taking a long pull of wine to steady his nerves. "Poor princess Eurynoe... she was just married to him. Her bed will be cold before the winter snows melt."

"There is another rumor," a third baron injected, leaning in so close his breath brushed the others' ears. "Ptolemy isn't waiting to be slaughtered. He is plotting to murder King Alexander tonight."

The first noble recoiled slightly, his face pale. "Why? Because he wants to survive before Alexander can strike him down? Is it truly a matter of live or die?"

"Does the Macedonian throne always end up in this type of theatrical treachery?" the second grumbled, shaking his head bitterly. "But what is the point of Ptolemy killing the king? Just to survive? To kill his own wife's brother? His own brother-in-law? It defies the gods."

"In Pella, the only gods are iron and survival," the third whispered grimly, turning his gaze back to the floor. "A brother-in-law's blood washes away just as easily as a rival’s."

"Either Ptolemy strikes down the young king to survive this night, or he falls in the morning—but even then, a dead monarch changes nothing on the board," the second noble muttered, his lips brushing the rim of his bronze bowl. "The royal house is completely fractured, torn apart from within, and I heard the treasury itself is nearly bankrupt. All of this pageantry, this entire theatrical spectacle, is nothing but a mask carved from smoke. Ptolemy must feel the absolute necessity of it; he must wish the king dead, or resolve to kill the boy himself, simply to save his own skin and the kingdom at the exact same time."

Every faction in the room was calculating the terminal trajectory of the crown, and the air was thick with these competing conspiracies. The great hall was no longer a sanctuary of celebration; it was a psychological chessboard where every major power broker was mentally executing the king before a single blow had even landed.

Standing perfectly still within the deep velvet shadows of the royal dais, Ptolemy of Aloros kept his hand flat against his chest, feeling the steady, frantic thrumming of his own heart. His eyes remained fixed on the back of Alexander II’s exposed neck. The prose has been sharpened to heighten his clinical panic, while beautifully structuring his fatalistic realization that he will be blamed for the murder regardless—making his decision an absolute matter of "kill or be killed."

He knows about the purge, Ptolemy’s mind hissed in a cold, clinical panic. The rumors from Thessaly are true—the boy intends to take my head the moment the winter snows set in. If he lives past tonight, I am a corpse by dawn. But if he disappears... if he is removed from the equation before the music stops, the regency falls to me by default. Eurynoe will weep for her brother, yes, but she will rule beside a regent, and the new boy-king will be her younger brother, Perdiccas. A perfect puppet on my strings.

It is a brutal, yet perfectly logical problem of pure biological survival.

Should I kill him, or allow myself to be killed by him? The equation answers itself.

In the end, I am the only mind capable of carrying this fractured, near-bankrupt kingdom—of stabilizing the borders and rebuilding the state from scratch as regent for a boy still too young to wear a crown. The choice of who strikes the blow is entirely irrelevant. I am no fool; I know that the exact micro second Alexander falls, every faction in this hall will instantly look at me. The Queen Mother will weaponize her grief to brand me the architect of this treason. Even my own wife, Eurynoe, will analyze my face for the rest of our days, calculating whether I butchered her brother. I have stood at this critical, terrifying threshold for months, and I have mapped every variable. If the narrative dictates that the brand of regicide is already mine before the steel even cuts, then I will wear it as a shield. It is not a trap; it is an inevitability. If I am to be damned by history anyway, I will ensure it is history I write. I must strike the Argead vanguard first, preempting their stroke before they can send my soul down to the black gates of Hades.

Down on the lower benches, the young Attalus sat with his jaw clenched, his knuckles white as he tightly gripped his bronze drinking bowl. He didn't look at the king with fear, but with a burning, volatile contempt.

Look at him laughing while the world burns, the young nobleman thought, his gaze cutting from the king to the heavy gold coins lining Ptolemy’s side-tables. The boy is a reckless child playing at empire. His southern madness has invited the iron heel of Thebes straight to our borders. If Alexander dies tonight—whether by an assassin’s blade or a sudden, convenient failure of his guard—Macedonia can finally stabilize. Ptolemy has the upcountry gold to pay the standing spears. My uncle sits there clinging to ancient, dead loyalties, but I see the future. A dead king is a small price to pay to save the kingdom from a teenage fool.

Across the hall, leaning against a stone pillar, his uncle, the Elder Attalus, nursed his unmixed wine with a heavy, sorrowful silence. Beneath his scarred brow, his eyes were ancient and dangerous.

Across the hall, leaning against a stone pillar, his uncle, the Elder Attalus, nursed his unmixed wine. Minute by minute, the dark Thessalian vintage was loosening his joints, melting his usual grim composure into a warm, blood-warmed enthusiasm for whatever destiny the night held. Beneath his scarred brow, his eyes danced with a dangerous, alcohol-fueled clarity.

The boy’s father, Amyntas, spent thirty long years bleeding into the dirt just to keep this damn throne upright! the Old Guard patriarch calculated, his inner thoughts heavy with a fierce, pragmatic betrayal. And now this young pup risks everything for foreign glory in Thessaly? Let the wheel turn! If Alexander falls in battle, or if a rogue dagger takes him in the dark tonight like the coming of the First Shadow—whatever happens, happens! The ancient lowland infantry interests will be protected at all costs. I won't draw the steel myself—sacrilege is for sniveling parasites like Ptolemy—but if someone else cleans the board tonight, by the gods, I won't lift a single spear to stop them! Let them fight for it! A crown must be heavy enough to hold the borders. If this little king is too light, the gods will allow him to be swept away, and we will toast the man who takes it!

At the foreign diplomatic tables, the calculation took on a cold, imperial scale. Ismenias, the stony-faced Theban observer sent by Pelopidas, watched the rhythmic stomp of the Telesias war dance without a single trace of emotion. His hand remained casually resting on his heavy leather belt.

This boy is a wild hound that refuses to recognize his master, Ismenias thought, his mind tracking the strategic geometry of the room with venomous precision. Thebes cannot allow a rogue Macedonian monarch to threaten our northern perimeter or ally with Athens. I see right through these theatrical escapades. He orchestrates this frantic enthusiasm hoping to make us believe his kingship is flourishing, yet the crown is practically bankrupt! What is he thinking? Is this his desperate, final political maneuver? If so, it is the perfect opportunity to watch Macedonia completely corrode from within. If Alexander is assassinated tonight, Pella will collapse into an immediate, bloody civil war. Perfect. A fractured Macedonia is a weak Macedonia. Let Ptolemy and the upcountry barons butcher each other for the scepter; while they bleed, Pelopidas will march our heavy columns across the Axios and dictate the terms of our hegemony over their smoking ruins.

In the darkest, most secluded alcove of the hall, Gylippus, the cloaked Spartan agent, watched the Theban observer with a desperate, feverish hatred. His whispers to the disgruntled barons around him grew more frantic by the second.

Thebes must not secure the north, Gylippus calculated, his fingers twitching beneath his dark mantle. If Alexander II disappears, the anti-Theban alliance we've been building with Pella dies with him. We need this young king alive and aggressive, an iron thorn in Pelopidas's side. If there is a plot against his life tonight, we must find the assassin before he strikes. But if it is already too late... if the daggers are already moving, we must pivot instantly. We must ensure the next man on that throne inherits a blood feud with Boeotia, or Sparta is truly doomed.

And at the lowest tables, tearing into raw, roasted venison with a heavy hunting dagger, sat Glaukias, a heavily tattooed Illyrian chieftain representing King Bardylis. He didn't care about Greek diplomacy or palace politics; he watched the rhythm of the royal guards with the clinical focus of a wolf measuring a sheepfold.

The lowland fortress is soft, Glaukias thought, a savage smile touching his lips as he chewed. The young king has marched his best spears south into Thessaly, leaving Pella guarded by boys and old men. Whether he dies by poison, by steel, or by the hand of his own brother-in-law tonight, it matters not. The moment the central palace government fractures, the signal fires will be lit in the high passes. King Bardylis’s heavy-shield infantry squares will roll down from the mountains like a landslide, and we will rewrite the borders in Argead blood.

Blended seamlessly among the mid-ranking captains of the lowland cavalry sat Karanos, a hard-eyed veteran whose cloak bore the faded crest of the western border-guards. Officially, he was here to toast the new regime; secretly, he was the primary operative inside the palace walls for Pausanias the Pretender, the exiled Argead claimant currently gathering mercenaries beyond the northern frontier. Karanos didn't touch his wine bowl; his eyes tracked the rhythmic, thundering geometry of the Telesias dancers with a terrifyingly serious, mechanical focus, calculating the exact timing required to overthrow the throne.

The boy king dances on the edge of a cliff, Karanos calculated, his eyes shifting from the king’s unpinned guard to the specific placement of the hall’s rear exits. He thinks this theatrical display proves his supremacy, but it only exposes his vulnerabilities. Look at the alignment of the royal shield-bearers—they are too deep in the center, leaving the flanks of the dais completely open. If Alexander dies tonight, the shockwave will rip Pella’s military command right down the middle. That is our window. The exact moment the succession fractures, my riders will breach the northern gates. My master, Pausanias, is already waiting in the foothills with three thousand Illyrian spears. We don't need to strike the blow ourselves; we just need Ptolemy or the upcountry barons to create the vacuum, and then we march in to clean the board. The throne will belong to its true master before the blood on this floor even turns cold.

Within the deepest, most shadowed alcove near the rear service portals, completely detached from the drunken revelry of the Greeks, sat Arsames, a soft-spoken envoy who officially carried the title of a silk merchant from Sardis. Beneath his meticulously tailored, embroidered robes, he was a high-ranking operative of the Great King’s eyes and ears—the Achaemenid intelligence network. He swirled a gold phiale of unwatered Persian wine, his dark eyes calmly registering every micro-movement on the palace floor.

These western barbarians boast of their individual kingdoms, completely blind to the fact that their small worlds are entirely governed by our gold, Arsames calculated with an elegant, patient contempt. The Great King’s strategy is simple: Greece must remain a permanently fractured house. If this fierce young Alexander II survives to unite Macedonia and forge a permanent alliance with Thessaly or Athens, he becomes a dangerous wild card on the western fringe of the Empire. But if he is assassinated tonight... if Ptolemy or the upcountry barons butcher him, Pella will drown in a decade of internal bloodletting. Thebes will scramble to control the chaos, Athens will panic, and the satraps of Asia Minor can sleep without the threat of a unified western invasion. My solitary duty tonight is to watch. If the daggers move, I will ensure the chaos spreads. If the king survives, I will quietly funnel the next shipment of Persian darics to Pausanias the Pretender. Either way, Pella will bleed, and Susa will remain secure.

The trap was a multi-layered maze, a suffocating circle of predators closing in from every corner of the room. Each faction sat perfectly poised, waiting for the perfect, split-second microsecond of vulnerability.

The instant the music of the Telesias ascended to its frantic, borderline-mad crescendo, the eagle-eyed Alexander II laughed aloud, raising his high silver cup to toast his celebrating captains. He sat at the very heart of the heat and the noise, entirely consumed by the triumph of the night. He had not the slightest inkling that directly behind his unpinned flank, standing perfectly still within the shifting shadows of the royal dais, the hidden serpent had already fixed his eyes upon the musicians' gallery, waiting for the final, fatal beat of the war dance to strike.

To be continued.

🎬 Watch the Cinematic Video Trailer

Listen to the Full Saga Now!

🎧 Bookmark Volume I: Telesias Playlis

🎧 Bookmark Volume I: Divine Oracle Playlist

🔔 SUBSCRIBE to follow the rise of the Argead Dynasty

👍 THUMBS UP to help push our vanguard through the algorithm's gauntlet.

💬 COMMENT BELOW!