Fire From Heaven (4 page)

Three chairs had been placed; only two bearded men were sitting. The youth with them, an aide, stood behind the senior envoy’s chair. He had long silky blue-black hair, a skin of ivory, a face both haughty and delicate, and dark brilliant eyes. His elders being in talk, he was the first to see the boy standing in the doorway, and flashed at him a charming smile.

‘May you live,’ he said walking in. ‘I am Alexander son of Philip.’

Both bearded heads came round. After a moment both men rose, and invoked the sun to shine on him. The chamberlain, retaining his self-command, pronounced their names.

‘Please sit down. Refresh yourselves, you must be tired after your journey.’ He had often heard this stock phrase. He became aware they were waiting for him to sit first, the first time this had happened to him. He clambered into a chair which had been put ready for the King. His sandal-tip did not reach the floor; the chamberlain beckoned a slave to get a foot-stool.

‘I have come to entertain you, because my father is out reviewing the army.” We expect him back about noon. It depends on the Foot Companions, whether they get close-and-open order right. They may be better today. They have been working very hard at it.’

The envoys, chosen for their fluent Greek, leaned forward. Both were somewhat unsure with the broad patois of Macedon, its Doric vowels and blunt consonants; but the child’s voice was very clear. ‘Is this your son?’ he asked.

The senior envoy answered, demurely, that he was the son of a friend, and presented him. The youth, with a deep bow, declined again to sit, but smiled. For a moment they lit up at one another. The envoys exchanged delighted glances. It was all charming; the pretty grey-eyed prince, the little kingdom, the provincial naivety. The King drilled the troops himself! It was as if the child had boasted that the King cooked his own dinner.

‘You don’t eat your cakes. I will have one too.’ He took a small bite; he did not want his mouth full. What he knew of etiquette did not stretch to small-talk during meals. He came straight to business,

‘Menapis and Artabazos will be glad they’re pardoned. They often talk about home. I don’t think they’ll ever rebel again. You can tell King Ochos.’

The senior envoy had followed most of this in spite of the uncouth tongue. He smiled into his black moustaches, and said he would not fail to do so.

‘And what about General Memnon? Is he pardoned too? We thought he might be, after his brother Mentor won the war in Egypt.’

The envoy’s eyes blinked a moment. Mentor the Rhodian, he said presently, was a worthy mercenary, and no doubt the Great King was grateful.

‘Memnon’s married to Artabazos’ sister. Do you know how many children they have now? Twenty-one! All alive! They keep having twins. Eleven boys and ten girls. I only have one sister. But I think that is enough.’

Both envoys bowed. They were informed of the King’s domestic discords.

‘Memnon speaks Macedonian. He told me how he lost his battle.’

‘My prince,’ smiled the elder envoy, ‘you should study war from victors.’

Alexander looked at him thoughtfully. His father always took trouble to find out where losers had gone wrong. Memnon had cheated a friend of his over a horse-deal; he would not have minded telling how he lost his battle; but he smelled patronage. If the youth had asked, it would have been different.

The chamberlain sent off the slaves, lingering himself for the rescue which would surely soon be needed. The boy bit sparingly at his cake, going over in his mind his most important questions; there might not be time for all. ‘How many men has the Great King in his army?’

Both envoys heard this aright; both smiled. The truth could do only good; he could be trusted, no doubt, to remember most of it.

‘Beyond number,’ said the elder. ‘Like the sands of the sea, or the stars on a moonless night.’ They told him of the Median and the Persian bowmen, the cavalry on the great horses of Nisaia; and the troops of the outer empire, Kissians and Hyrkanians, Assyrians with plaited bronze helmets and iron-spiked maces, Parthians with bow and scimitar; Ethiopians in leopard and lion skins who painted their faces red and white for battle and shot arrows tipped with stone; the Arab camel corps; the Bactrians; and so on as far as India. He listened round-eyed, like any child hearing marvels, till the tale was over.

‘And they all have to fight when the Great King sends for them?’

‘Every one, upon pain of death.’

‘How long does it take them to come?’

There was a sudden pause. It was a century since Xerxes’ expedition; they themselves did not know the answer. They said the King ruled over vast dominions and men of many tongues. From India, say, to the coast it might be a year’s journey. But there were troops wherever he might need them.

‘Do have some more wine. Is there a road all the way to India?’

It took time to dispose of this. In the doorway people were elbowing to listen, the news having spread.

‘What’s King Ochos like in battle? Is he brave?’

‘Like a lion,’ said the envoys both together.

‘Which wing of the cavalry does he lead?’

The mere awe of him-The envoys became evasive. The boy took a larger bite of cake. He knew one must not be rude to guests, so he changed the subject. ‘If the soldiers come from Arabia and India and Hyrkania, and can’t speak Persian, how does he talk to them?’

‘Talk to them? The King?’ It was touching, the little strategist a child again. ‘Why, the satraps of their provinces choose officers who speak their tongues.’

Alexander tilted his head a little, and creased his brows. ‘Soldiers like to be talked to before a battle. They like you to know their names.’

‘I am sure,’ said the second envoy charmingly, ‘they like you to know them.’ The Great King, he added, conversed only with his friends.

‘My father converses with those at supper.’

The envoys murmured something, not daring to catch each other’s eyes. The barbarity of the Macedonian court was famous. The royal symposiums, it was said, were more like the feasts of mountain bandits snowed-up with their spoils, than the banquets of a ruler. A Milesian Greek, who swore to having witnessed it, had told them King Philip thought nothing of stepping down from his couch to lead the line of dancers. Once, during an argument carried on in shouts across the room, he had shied a pomegranate at a general’s head. The Greek, with the effrontery of that race of liars, had gone on to claim that the general had replied with a hunk of bread, and was still alive, in fact still a general. But if one believed no more than half, the least said the best.

Alexander for his part had been wrestling with a problem. A tale he disbelieved, and wished to check, had been told by Menapis. An exile might want to make the Great King look foolish. But these people would inform on him, and he would be crucified when he got home. It was wicked to betray a guest-friend.

‘A boy here told me,’ he therefore said, ‘that when people greet the Great King they have to lie flat down on the ground. But I told him he was silly.’

‘The exiles could have told you, my prince, the wisdom of that homage. Our master rules not only many peoples, but many kings. Though we call them satraps, some are kings by blood, whose forbears once ruled for themselves, till they were brought into the empire. So he must be raised as far above other kings as they above their subjects. Under-kings must feel no more shame to fall down before him than before the gods. If he seemed less than this, his rule would soon pass away.’

The boy had listened and understood. He answered courteously, ‘Well, here we don’t fall down before the gods. So you need not do it to my father. He’s not used to it; he won’t mind.’

The envoys clutched at their gravity. The? thought of prostrating themselves before this barbaric chief, whose ancestor had been Xerxes’ vassal (and a treacherous one at that) was too grotesque to offend.

The chamberlain, seeing it was high time, came forward; bowed to the child, who he thought deserved it, and invented a summons which could be explained away outside. Sliding down from the throne, Alexander bade good-bye to each, remembering all their names. ‘I am sorry I can’t come back here. I have to go to the manoeuvres. Some of the Foot Companions are friends of mine. The sarissa is a very good weapon in a solid front, my father says; the thing is to make it mobile. So he’ll go on till they get it right. I hope you won’t have long to wait. Please ask for anything you want.’

Turning beyond the doorway, he saw the beautiful eyes of the youth still fixed on him, and paused to wave good-bye. The envoys, chattering together in excited Persian, were too busy to see their exchange of smiles.

Ê

Later that day, he was in the Palace garden teaching his dog to fetch things, among the carved urns from Ephesos whose rare flowers died in the bitter winters of Macedon unless they were brought indoors. From the painted stoa above, his father walked down towards him.

He called the dog to heel. Side by side they waited, prick-eared and wary. His father sat down on a marble bench, and beckoned towards the side of his seeing eye. The blind eye had healed now; only a white patch on the iris showed where the arrow had gone in. It had been a spent one, to which he owed his life.

‘Come here, come here,’ he said, grinning and showing strong white teeth with a gap in them. ‘Come tell me what they said to you. You set them some hard questions, I hear. Tell me the answers. How many troops has Ochos, if he’s put to it?’

He spoke in Macedonian. As a rule he spoke Greek to his son, for the good of his education. His tongue freed by this, the boy began to talk; of the Ten Thousand Immortals, of archers and javelineers and axemen; how cavalry chargers would bolt from the smell of camels; and how kings in India rode on black hairless beasts, so huge they could carry towers upon their backs. Here he cocked his eye at his father, not wanting to seem gullible. Philip nodded. ‘Yes, elephants. They are vouched for by men I have found honest in other ways. Go on; all this is very useful.’

‘They say people who greet the Great King have to lie down on their faces. I told them they need not do it to you. I was afraid someone might laugh at them.’

His father’s head went back. He gave a great belly-laugh and slapped his knee.

‘They didn’t do it?’ asked the boy.

‘No, but they had your leave. Always make virtue of necessity and see you’re thanked for it. Well, they were lucky to get off better from you than Xerxes’ envoys did from your namesake, in the hall at Aigai.’ He settled himself at ease. The boy stirred restlessly, disturbing the dog, which had its nose on his instep.

‘When Xerxes bridged the Hellespont and brought his hosts to eat up Greece, he sent envoys first to all the peoples, demanding earth and water. A handful of earth for the land, a flask of water for the rivers; it was the homage of surrender. Our land stood clear in his way southward; we should be at his back when he went on; he wanted to make sure of us. So he sent us seven envoys. It was when the first Amyntas was King.’

Alexander would have liked to ask if this Amyntas was his great-grandfather or what; but nobody would tell one straight about the ancestors, any later than the heroes and the gods. Perdikkas, his father’s elder brother, had been killed in battle, leaving a baby son. But the Macedonians had wanted someone who could fight off the Illyrians and rule the kingdom; so they had asked his father to be King instead. Further back than this, he was always told he would know when he was older.

‘In those days, there was no Palace here at Pella; only the castle up at Aigai. We held on then with our teeth and nails. The western chiefs, the Orestids and Lynkestids, thought ?themselves kings; Illyrians, Paionians, Thracians crossed the border every month to take slaves and drive off cattle. But all those were children beside the Persians. Amyntas had prepared no defences, as far as I could learn. By the time the envoys came, the Paionians, who might have been sought as allies, had been overrun. So he gave up, and did homage for his own land. You know what a satrap is?’

The dog started erect and looked about it fiercely. The boy patted it down.

‘Amyntas’ son was called Alexandros. He would be about fourteen or fifteen; he had his own Guard already. Amyntas feasted the envoys in the hall of Aigai, and he was there.’

‘Then he had killed his boar?’

‘How do I know? It was a state banquet, so he was there.’

The boy knew Aigai almost as well as Pella. All the old shrines of the gods, where the great festivals were held, were up at Aigai; and the royal tombs of the ancestors, the ancient grave-mounds kept clear of trees, with their cavelike doorways, their massive doors of worked bronze and marble. It was said that when a King of Macedon was buried away from Aigai, the line would die. When the summer grew hot at Pella, they would go up there for the cool. The streams never dried there, coming down from their ferny mountain glens, cold from the upper snows; tumbling down all over the bluff, by the houses, through the castle court, till they joined together and plunged sheer down in the great fall which curtained the sacred cave. The castle was old, thick and strong, not like the fine columned Palace; the great hall had a round hearth, and a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. When men shouted there at the feasts, the sound would echo. He pictured Persians with curled beards and spangled hats, picking their way over the rough floor.

‘There was drinking. Maybe the envoys were used to weaker wine; maybe they felt free to do as they liked, having got what they came for without trouble. One of them asked where the royal ladies were, saying it was the custom in Persia for them to attend the feasts.’

‘Do Persian ladies stay on for the drinking?’

‘It was a barefaced lie, not even meant to deceive; pure insolence. Persian ladies are closer kept than ours.’

‘Did our men fight?’

‘No, Amyntas sent for the women. Those of Paionia were already slaves in Asia, because their men had defied Xerxes. In justice to him, I don’t think he could have done better than they. He had no army, as we would understand it. The Companions from his own demesne; and the tribal levies, whom their lords would train if and how they chose, and would not bring at all if they did not choose. He had not taken Mount Pangaios with the gold-mines. I did that. Gold, my boy, gold is the mother of armies. I pay my men round the year, war or no war, and they fight for me, under my officers. Down south, they turn them off in the slack times, and the hired men find work where they can. So they fight only for their own strolling generals, who are often good in their way, but still just hirelings themselves. In Macedon, I am the general. And that, my son, is why the Great King’s envoys don’t come asking for earth and water now.’