Fire From Heaven (21 page)

It must be done correctly, not turned into an escapade. He had gone to Antipatros, his father’s Regent in Macedon, and asked him to come too. He was a King’s man of unshaken loyalty; he read the lie of the land with satisfaction, which he was not fool enough to show. He was here now on the quay; the reception was an official one; and here was the philosopher.

He was a lean smallish man, not ill-proportioned, who yet gave at first sight the effect of being all head. His whole person was commanded by his wide bulging brow, a vessel stretched by its contents. Small piercing eyes were busy recording, without prejudgement or error, just what they saw. The mouth was closed in a line precise as a definition. He had a short neat beard; his thinning hair looked as if its roots had been forced apart by the growth of the massive brain.

A second glance revealed him to be dressed with some care and with the elegance of Ionia, wearing one or two good rings. Athenians thought him rather foppish; in Macedon, he looked tasteful and free from harsh austerity. Alexander offered him a hand to mount the gangplank, and tried the effect of a smile. When the man returned it, it could be seen that smiling was what he would do best; he would not often be caught with his head back laughing. But he did look like a man who would answer questions.

Beauty, thought the philosopher; the gift of god. And it moved with mind; in that house there was someone living. This enterprise was no such forlorn hope as poor Plato’s trips to Syracuse. He must take care that Speusippos had the news.

Presentations went forward, the Prince performing them with address. A groom led up a mount for the philosopher, offering a leg-up, Persian style. This seen to, the boy turned round; a taller boy moved forward, his hand on the head-stall of a magnificent black charger with a white blaze. All through the formalities, Aristotle had been aware of the creature fretting; he was surprised therefore to see the youth release it. It trotted straight to the Prince, and muzzled the air behind his ear. He stroked it, murmuring something. With neatness and dignity, the horse sank its crupper on its haunches, waited while he mounted, and at his finger-touch straightened up. There was a moment in which the boys and the beast seemed like initiates who have exchanged in secret a word of power.

The philosopher swept aside this ?fantasy. Nature had no mysteries, only facts not yet correctly observed and analysed. Proceed from this sound first principle, and one would never miss one’s way.

Ê

The spring of Mieza was sacred to the Nymphs. Its waters had been led into an old stone fountain-house, where they tinkled hollowly; but the ferny pool below had been carved by the falling stream itself, swirling between the rocks. Its brown surface caught the sun; it was a pleasant place to bathe in.

Runnels and conduits threaded about the gardens, glittering streamlets sprang out in jets, or tumbled in little falls. Bay and myrtle and rowan grew there; in rough grass beyond the tended orchard, old gnarled apple-trees and crabs still bloomed in spring. Fine green turf had been laid where the scrub had been cleared away; from the pink-washed house, paths and rough steps meandered, circling some rock with its small wiry mountain flowers, or crossing a wooden bridge, or widening round a stone seat with a view. In summer, the woods beyond were a tangle of huge wild roses, the gift of the Nymphs to Midas; the night dews were full of their briery scent.

The boys would ride out at cocklight, to go hunting before the day’s school began. They would set up their nets in the coverts, and get their buck or their hare. Under the trees the smells were dank and mossy; on the open slopes, spicy with crushed herbs. At sun-up there would be smells of wood-smoke and roasting meat, horse-sweat on leather, dog-smells as the hounds came coaxing up for scraps. But if the quarry was rare or strange, they would go fasting home and save it for dissection. Aristotle had learned this skill from his father; it was the Asklepiad heritage. Even insects, they found, he did not disdain. Most of what they brought in he knew already; but now and then he would say sharply, ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ then get out his notes with their fine pen-drawings, and be in good humour for the day.

Alexander and Hephaistion were the youngest boys. The philosopher had made it clear that he wanted no children under his feet, however great their fathers. Many youths and older boys who had been friends of the Prince’s childhood were now grown men. None of those chosen refused the invitation to join the School. It established them as Companions of the Prince, a privilege which might lead anywhere.

Antipatros, after waiting some time in vain, put forward to the King the claims of his son Kassandros. Alexander, to whom Philip had given this news before he left, had not taken it well. ‘I don’t like him, Father. And he doesn’t like me, so why does he want to come?’

‘Why do you suppose? Philotas is going.’

‘Philotas is one of my friends.’

‘Yes, I said your friends should go, and as you know I have not refused one of them. But I did not promise to let in no one else. How can I admit Parmenion’s son, and reject Antipatros’? If you’re on bad terms, now’s the time to mend it. It will be of use to me. And it is an art that kings must learn.’

Kassandros was a youth with bright-red hair, and a bluish-white skin patched with dark freckles; thickly built, and fond of exacting servility from anyone he could frighten. He thought Alexander an insufferable young show-off, spoiling for a good set-down, but protected by his rank and the ring of toadies it brought him.

Kassandros had not wanted to go to Mieza. Not long before, he had been beaten up by Philotas, to whom he had said something ill-advised, unaware that Philotas’ chief concern just then was to get accepted in Alexander’s set. No exploit of Philotas’ was likely to lose in the telling. Kassandros found himself cut by Ptolemy and Harpalos; Hephaistion looked at him like a leashed dog at a cat; Alexander ignored him, but was charming in his presence to anyone he was known to dislike. Had they ever been friends it could have been righted; Alexander was fond of reconciliations, and, to refuse one, had to be very angry indeed. As it was, casual dislike had become hostility. Kassandros would see them all rot, before he came fawning? to that vain little whelp, who, in the proper course of nature, ought to be learning a wholesome respect for him.

He had pleaded in vain to his father that he could not learn philosophy; that it was known to turn men’s brains; that he wanted only to be a soldier. He dared not confess that he was disliked by Alexander and his friends; he would have had a belting for letting it happen. Antipatros valued his own career and was ambitious for his son’s. As it was, he fixed Kassandros with a fierce blue eye, whose bristling brows had once been as red as his, and said, ‘Behave yourself there. And be careful with Alexander.’

Kassandros said dismissively, ‘He’s only a little boy.’

‘Don’t make yourself out a bigger fool than you were born. Four or five years between you, it’s nothing once you’re men. Now pay heed to what I tell you. That boy has his father’s wits about him; and if he doesn’t turn out as bad to cross as his mother, then I’m an Ethiop. Don’t cross him. The sophist is paid to do it. You I’m sending to improve yourself, not to make enemies. If you stir up brawls there, I’ll tan your hide.’

So Kassandros went to Mieza, where he was homesick, bored, lonely and resentful. Alexander was civil to him, because his father had said it was the art of kings, and because he had more serious things to think about.

The philosopher had turned out not only willing, but eager to answer questions. Unlike Timanthes, he would do this first, and only afterwards explain the value of system. The exposition, however, when it came was always rigorous. He was a man who hated loose ends and cloudy edges.

Mieza faced east; the tall rooms with their faded frescoes were sun-drenched all morning, and cool from noontime on. They worked indoors when they needed to write or draw or study specimens; when they discoursed or were lectured to, they walked the gardens. They talked of ethics and politics, the nature of pleasure and of justice; of the soul, virtue, friendship and love. They considered the causes of things. Everything must be traced to its cause; and there could be no science without demonstration.

Soon a whole room was full of specimens: pressed flowers and plants, seedlings in pots; birds’ eggs with their embryos preserved in clear honey; decoctions of medicinal herbs. Aristotle’s trained slave worked there all day. At night they observed the heavens; the stars were stuff more divine than any other thing man’s eye could reach, a fifth element not to be found on earth. They noted winds and mists and the aspect of the clouds, and learned to prognosticate storms. They reflected light from polished bronze, and measured the angles of refraction.

For Hephaistion, it was a new life. Alexander was his own in the sight of everyone. His place was recognized even by the philosopher.

The school discussed friendship often. It is, they learned, one of the things man can least afford to lack; necessary to the good life, and beautiful in itself. Between friends is no need of justice, for neither wrong nor inequality can exist. He described the degrees of friendship, up from the self-seeking to the pure, when good is willed to the friend for the friend’s own sake. Friendship is perfect when virtuous men love the good in one another; for virtue gives more delight than beauty, and is untouched by time.

He went on to value friendship far above the shifting sands of Eros. One or two of the young men argued this. Hephaistion, who was not very quick at shaping his thoughts into words, usually found that someone else got in before him. He preferred this to making a fool of himself. Kassandros, for one thing, would count it as a score against Alexander.

Hephaistion was quickly growing possessive. Everything led him that way: his nature, the integrity of his love and his own sense of it; the tenet of the philosopher that for each man there was only one perfect friend; the certainty of his unspoiled instincts that Alexander’s loyalty matched his own; and their acknowledged status. Aristotle was a man to proceed from fact?s. He had seen at once the attachment already fixed for good or ill; one of real affection, not of incontinence or flattery. It should not be opposed, but moulded in its innocence. (Had some wise man only done as much for the fatherÉ!) When therefore he spoke of friendship, he let his eyes fall kindly on the two handsome boys unfailingly side by side. In the stolen intimacies of Pella, Hephaistion had only had eyes for Alexander; now he saw refracted, as clearly as in the optics class, the fact that they made a very goodlooking pair.

There was nothing to do with Alexander of which he was not proud; this included his rank, for he could not be imagined without it. Had he lost it, Hephaistion would have followed him to exile, prison or death; this knowledge gave self-respect to his pride. He was never jealous over Alexander, since he never doubted him; but he was jealous of his own standing, and liked to have it recognized.

Kassandros at least was well aware of it. Hephaistion, who had eyes for him in the back of his head, knew that though Kassandros wanted neither of them, he hated in both their closeness, their trust, their beauty. He hated Alexander because with Antipatros’ soldiers he came before Antipatros’ son; because he had won his belt at twelve, because Oxhead sat down for him. Hephaistion he hated for not being after Alexander in hope of gain. All this Hephaistion knew, and mirrored back his deadly knowledge to Kassandros, whose self-esteem craved assurance that he hated Alexander for his faults alone.

Most hateful of all was his going to Aristotle for private lessons in statecraft. Indeed, Hephaistion offered Kassandros’ envy to cheer Alexander up, when he complained that he found the lessons boring.

‘I thought they’d be the best. He knows Ionia and Athens and Chalkidike, and even Persia a little. I want to know what men are like there, their customs, how they behave. What he wants, is to fit me out with answers beforehand to everything. What would I do if this happened, or that? I’d see when it happened, I said; happenings are made by men, one would need to know them. He thought I was being obstinate.’

‘ The King might let you drop it?’

‘No. I’ve a right to it. Besides, disagreeing makes one think. I know what’s wrong. He thinks it’s an inexact science, but still a kind of science. Put a ram to a ewe and you get a lamb each time, even if not identical; heat snow and it melts. That’s science. Your demonstrations should be repeatable. Well, say in war, now; even if one could repeat all other conditions, which is impossible, one could still not repeat surprise. Nor the weather. Nor the mood the men are in. Armies and cities, they’re all made up of men. Being a kingÉ being a king is like music.’

He paused, and frowned. Hephaistion said, ‘Has he been asking you again to play?’

‘”With mere listening, half the ethical effect is lost.’”

‘When he’s not as wise as a god, he’s as silly as some old hen-wife.’

‘I told him I’d learned the ethical effect by an experiment, but it was not repeatable. I suppose he took the hint.’

The matter was indeed never raised again. Ptolemy, who did not deal in hints, had taken the philosopher aside and explained the facts.

The young man had borne without rancour the rise of Hephaistion’s star. Had the new friend been adult, a clash would have been certain; but Ptolemy’s fraternal role remained untrespassed on. Though still unmarried, he was several times a father, with a sense of duty to his scattered offspring; into this feeling, his friendship for Alexander began to merge. The world of passionate adolescent friendship was unknown country to him; he had been entranced by girls since puberty. He had lost nothing to Hephaistion; except that he no longer came first of all. This being not the least of human losses, he was inclined not to take Hephaistion more seriously than he had to. No doubt they would soon grow out of it. But meantime, Alexander should get the boy to be less quarrelsome. One could see the two of them never fell out, one soul? in two bodies as the sophist put it; but Hephaistion on his own could be pugnaciously assertive.