Fire From Heaven (47 page)

‘I thought,’ she said sobbing, ‘if he’s not a bad manÉI can take MelissaÉ at least I would get away. But with herthere in the house, and after thisÉ! I wish I were dead, I wish I were dead.’

Her dishevelled hair fell against his mouth, he could taste it damp and salt. Looking past her, he saw behind a laurel-bush a glimpse of scarlet, and freed an arm to beckon. The girl Melissa came out flinching. But, he thought, she could have overheard nothing she would not soon have been told. He said to Kleopatra, ‘Yes, I’ll see Mother. I’ll go now.’

He put his sister into the dark outstretched hands with their pink palms. Looking back on his way to the furnace he ?was bound for, he saw the slave-girl seated on the rim of the porphyry fountain, bending over the head of the princess crouched by her lap.

Ê

News of the betrothal spread quickly. Hephaistion considered what Alexander would think of it, and guessed right. He did not appear at supper; he was said to be with the Queen. Hephaistion, waiting in his room, had fallen asleep on the bed before the sound of the latch aroused him.

Alexander came in. His eyes looked hollow, but full of a feverish exaltation. He walked over, put out his hand and touched Hephaistion, as a man might touch a sacred object for luck or a good omen, while deeply concerned with something else. Hephaistion looked, and was silent.

‘She has told me,’ said Alexander.

Hephaistion did not ask, ‘What is it now?’ He knew.

‘She has told me at last.’ He looked deeply at, and through Hephaistion, including him in his solitude. ‘She made the conjuration, and asked the god’s leave to tell me. He had always signed against it. That I never knew before.’

Hephaistion sitting on the edge of the bed, unmoving, watched Alexander with all his being. He had perceived that his being was all he had to give. Men must not be spoken to on their way up from the shades, or they might sink back again for ever. This was well known.

With the verge of consciousness, Alexander was aware of the quiet body, the face made beautiful by its intentness, the still dark-grey eyes, their whites lit by the lamp. He gave a deep sigh, and rubbed his hand across his brow.

‘I was present,’ he said, ‘at the conjuration. For a long time the god did not speak, either yes or no. Then he spoke, in the form of the fire and in the -’

Suddenly he seemed aware of Hephaistion as a presence separate from his own. He sat down by him, and laid a hand on his knee. ‘He gave me leave to hear, if I vowed not to disclose it. It is the same with all the Mysteries. Anything of mine I would share with you, but this belongs to the god.’

No, to the witch, thought Hephaistion; that condition was made for me. But he took Alexander’s hand in both of his, and pressed it reassuringly. It felt dry and warm; it rested between his in trust, but sought no consolation.

‘You must obey the god, then,’ said Hephaistion; and thought, not for the first time, nor for the last, Who knows? Aristotle himself never denied that such things have been; he would not be so impious. If it was ever possible, it must be so still. But it is a great burden for the mortal part to carry. He clasped more tightly the hand he held. ‘Only tell me this, whether you are satisfied.’

‘Yes.’ He nodded at the shadows beyond the lamp. ‘Yes, I am satisfied.’

Suddenly his face was drained and drawn; his cheeks seemed to sink in as one looked, and his hand grew chilly. He began to shiver. Hephaistion had seen the same thing after battle, when men’s wounds got cold. This needs the same remedy, he thought. ‘Have you any wine in here?’

Alexander shook his head. He withdrew his hand to hide its tremor, and began to walk about.

Hephaistion said, ‘We both need a drink. I do. I left supper early. Come and drink with Polemon. His wife’s had a boy at last. He was looking for you in Hall. He’s always been loyal.’

This was true. That night, being happy, he grieved to see the Prince look so worn down by his troubles, and kept his cup well filled. He did grow gay, even noisy; it was a party of friends; most had fought in the charge at Chaironeia. In the end, Hephaistion just got him up to bed on his feet, and he slept on till mid-morning. About noon, Hephaistion went to see how he was getting on. He was reading at his table, with a pitcher of cold water by him.

‘What book is it?’ asked Hephaistion leaning over his shoulder; he had been reading so quietly one could hardly make out the words.

He put the book quickly aside. ‘Herodotos. Customs of the Persians. One should understand the kind of man one is going to fight.’

The ends of the scroll, curling up together, had met at the place where he had read.Ê A? little while after, when he was out of the room, Hephaistion rolled it open.

É the transgressor’s services shall always be set against his misdeeds; only if the second are found the greater, shall the wronged party go on to punishment.

The Persians hold that no one ever yet killed his own father or mother. They are sure that if every such case were fully searched, it would be found out that the child was either a changeling, or born of adultery; for it is inconceivable, they say, that the true father should die by the hands of his child.

Hephaistion let the scroll spring back over the writing. For some time he stood looking out of the window, with his temple pressed against its frame, till Alexander, returning, smiled at the print of the carved laurel-leaves stamped into his flesh.

The troops drilled for the war. Hephaistion, long eager for it to begin, now almost craved for it. Philip’s threats had angered more than frightened him; like any hostage, he was worth more alive than dead, and the Great King’s soldiers would kill him much more readily; yet here it was as if they were all being driven down the funnel of a narrowing gorge, a torrent rushing below them; war beckoned like open country, freedom, escape.

After half a month, an envoy came from Pixodoros of Karia. His daughter, he disclosed, had most unhappily fallen into a wasting sickness. It was no small part of his grief that, besides her expected loss, he must renounce the distinguished honour of a union with the royal house of Macedon. A spy, who arrived by the same ship, reported that Pixodoros had sent the new Great King, Darius, pledges of firm allegiance, and betrothed the girl to one of his most loyal satraps.

Next morning, sitting at the desk of Archelaos, with Alexander standing straight-backed before it, Philip gave this news without any comment, and looked up, waiting.

‘Yes,’ said Alexander evenly. ‘It has turned out badly. But remember, sir, Pixodoros was content with me. It was not my choice to withdraw.’

Philip frowned; yet he had felt something like relief. The boy had been too quiet just lately. This impudence was more like him, except for its restraint. One had always learned from his anger. ‘Are you trying to excuse yourself, even now?’

‘No, sir. I just say what we both know is true.’

He had still not raised his voice. Philip, his first fury spent and the bad news long expected, did not shout back. In Macedon, insult was a killing matter, but plain speaking the subject’s right. He had taken it from simple men, even from women. Once, when after a long day in the judgement-seat he had told some old crone he had no time left to hear her case, she had called out, ‘Then leave off being King!’ and he had stayed to hear it. Now too he listened; it was his business; he was the King. It should have been more; but he put his grief behind him, almost before he knew it for what it was.

‘I forbade the match for good reasons which you know.’ He had kept the best to himself; Arridaios would have been his tool, Alexander could have been dangerous. Karia was powerful. ‘Blame your mother,’ he said. ‘She led you into this folly.’

‘Can she be blamed?’ Alexander still spoke with calm; there was a kind of searching in his eyes. ‘You have acknowledged children by other women. And Eurydike is in her eighth month now. Isn’t that so?’

‘That is so.’ The grey eyes were fastened on his face. Appeal in them might have softened him. He had been at trouble enough to train this man for kingship; if he himself fell in the coming war, what other heir could there be? Again he studied the face before him, so unconceding, and so unlike his own. Attalos, a Macedonian of a stock already old when the royal line was still in Argos, had told him country tales about the Bacchic revels, customs brought in from Thrace, which the women kept secret. In the orgy, they themselves did not remember what they had done; what came of it they blamed on the god, in a human form or a snake’s; but somewhere a mortal man was laughing. That is a foreig?n face, thought Philip; then remembered it, flushed and brilliant, coming down from the black horse into his arms. Divided in himself and angry at it, he thought, He is here to be reprimanded; how dare he try to corner me? Let him take what he is given and be thankful, when I choose to give. What more does he deserve?

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘if I have given you competitors for the kingdom, so much the better for you. Show your quality, earn your inheritance yourself.’

Alexander gazed at him with a piercing, an almost painful concentration. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then that is what I must do.’

‘Very well,’ Philip reached for his papers, dismissively.

‘Sir. Whom are you sending to Asia, in command of the advance force?’

Philip looked up. ‘Parmenion and Attalos,’ he said curtly. ‘If I don’t send you where I cannot keep an eye on you, you have yourself to thank. And your mother. That is all. You have leave to go.’

Ê

In their fort on the Lynx Hills the three Lynkestids, the sons of Airopos, stood on their brown stone ramparts. It was an open place, safe from eavesdroppers. They had left their guest downstairs, having heard what he had to say, but given no answer yet. Around them stretched a great sky of white towering clouds, fringed with mountains. It was late spring; on the bare peaks above the forests, only the deepest gullies showed veins of snow.

‘Say what you like, both of you,’ said the eldest, Alexandros, ‘but I don’t trust it. What if this comes from the old fox himself, to test us? Or to trap us, have you thought of that?’

‘Why should he?’ asked the second brother, Heromenes. ‘And why now?’

‘Where are your wits? He is taking his army into Asia, and you ask why now.’

‘Well,’ said the youngest, Arrabaios, ‘that’s enough for him surely, without stirring up the west? No, if it had been that, it would have come two years ago, when he was planning to march south.’

‘As he says’ - Heromenes jerked his head towards the stairway - ‘now’s the time. Once Philip’s set out, he will have his hostage for us.’ He looked at Alexandros, whose feudal duty it was to lead their tribal levies in the King’s war.

He stared back resentfully; already before this, he had been thinking that once his back was turned, the others would ride out on some mad foray that would cost him his head. ‘I tell you I don’t trust it. We don’t know this man.’

‘Still,’ argued Heromenes, ‘we do know those who’ve vouched for him.’

‘Maybe. But those he claims to speak for - they’ve put their name to nothing.’

‘The Athenian has,’ said Arrabaios. ‘If you two have forgotten how to read your Greek, you can take my word for it.’

‘His name!’ said Alexandros, snorting like a horse. ‘What was it worth to the Thebans? He puts me in mind of my wife’s little dog, who starts the big ones fighting, and does nothing himself but yap.’

Heromenes, who had extravagant tastes as such things went on the border, said, ‘He’s sent a sweetener.’

‘Birdlime. We must send it back. You should learn to judge a horse, then you’d not owe the copers. Don’t you value our heads at more than a bag of Persian darics? The real price, the worth of the risk, that’s not his to give.’

‘That we could take for ourselves,’ said Heromenes resentfully, ‘with Philip out of the way. What ails you, man; are you head of the clan, or our big sister? We’re offered our father’s kingdom back, and all you can do is cluck like some wet-nurse when the child starts walking.’

‘She keeps it from breaking its head. Who says we could do it? An Athenian who ran like a goat at the smell of blood. Darius; a usurper barely settled on his throne, who has enough on his hands without a war. Do you think they care for us? And more, do you think theyknow whom we’d have to deal with, in Philip’s room? Of course not; they think he’s a spoiled little prince given credit for other men’s victories. The Athenian’s forever saying it in speeches. But we know. We’ve seen the lad at work. Sixteen he was then, with a head on him like thirty; and that’s three years gone?. It’s not a month since I was at Pella; and I tell you, disgrace or not, put him in the field and the men will follow him anywhere. That you can take from me. Can we fight the royal army? You know the answer. So, is he in the business, as this man says, or not? That’s the only question. These Athenians, they’d sell their mothers to the stews if the price was right. Everything hangs on the lad, and we’ve no proof.’

Heromenes tweaked a bit of broom from its roots between the stones, and switched it moodily. Alexandros frowned at the eastern hills.

‘Two things I don’t like,’ he went on. ‘First, he has bosom friends in exile, some no further than Epiros. We could have met in the mountains and no one the wiser; we’d all know then where we were. Why send this go-between, a man I’ve never seen about him, why trust the man with his head? And the other thing I mislike is that he promises too much. You’ve met him. Think.’

‘We should think first,’ said Arrabaios, ‘whether he’s one who could do it. Not all men could. I think he could. And he’s at a pass when he might.’

‘And if he’s a bastard as they say,’ urged Heromenes, ‘then it’s a dangerous business, but not blood-cursed. I think he could and would.’

‘I still say it doesn’t smell of him,’ said Alexandros. Absently he scratched a louse out of his head, and rubbed it between thumb and finger. ‘Now, if it were his damÉ’

‘Dam or whelp, you can be sure they’re in it together,’ Heromenes said.

‘We don’t know that. What we do know is, the new wife’s with child again. And they say Philip’s giving his daughter as a sop to the Epirote King, so that he’ll stomach the witch being packed off. So, think which of them can’t afford to wait. Alexander can. Philip’s seed tends to girls, as everyone knows. Even if Eurydike throws a boy, let the King say what he likes while he lives, but if he dies, the Macedonians won’t accept an heir under fighting age; he should know that. But Olympias, now, that’s another matter. She can’t wait. Scratch into this deep enough, and I’ll stake my best horse you’ll find her hand in it.’