Stealing Fire (16 page)

I opened my mouth and shut it again, not knowing what to say.

“I've always known he'd marry. He's the King. He has to. It's a king's duty. And the gods bear me witness that I have never wanted his duties to be any heavier than they had to be! But…” He did not take his eyes from the skies, the moonlight illuminating his features like marble.

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.

He shoved his hair back out of his face. “You ever been in love, Lydias?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes,” I said. I looked at him, the unforgiving moonlight showing every line on his face, the stubble on his jaw, the creases in his forehead that no doubt in time would be wrinkles. “But there is no point in being jealous of things we were not meant to have. Better to behave with honor and be worthy of the trust we are given.”

Hephaistion looked at me then. “You're a good man, Lydias.”

“I try to be,” I said honestly.

“Most don't,” he said, his eyes on my face still as though he sought to read something there despite our wandering wits. “Most men just do as they please and don't worry about being worthy of a hero.”

“Most men are less certain that they stand among gods,” I said.

Hephaistion frowned, as though he had suddenly seen something in my face he had not expected, heard some echo that puzzled him. “Alexander?”

“Is not the only one worthy of worship,” I said. I did not know if I would dare, but I was rather suspecting that I would. Fortune favors the bold.

“Who, then?” he asked, a genuine look of confusion on his face.

“Cannot you guess?” I asked, and kissed him.

For a moment he stiffened, confused, and then melted into my arms.

This was not the fumbling of uncertain boys who do not know how to get what they want. He knew what he wanted and exactly how to get it.

I was flying, I was drowning, and when he took me with my hands before me, bent over the parapet, staring down into the moonlit drop, it hurt like a hundred victories.

His hands were around my waist beneath my chiton, working on me, and I could have screamed out his name in my release before his. And yet it was a tenth, a hundredth, of all I could have wanted. I could have wanted this a thousand times.

Instead, shaking, I unbent from the wall and slid down it to sit beside him. He was shaking too, and it took me a moment to realize that he was crying.

I put my hand on his arm, and he took my hand, squeezing it until the bones ground. “Do not be sad,” I whispered. “Please don't be sad!”

Hephaistion closed his eyes then, putting his head against my shoulder though I still rang like a bell from his slightest touch. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I should not have done that, still less to one I would call a friend. Did I hurt you?”

“Not very much,” I said.

He shook his head and sat up, his shoulder against mine. “I am sorry,” he said. “Lydias, I ask your pardon. I am very drunk, and I…”

I looked away from him, my hair falling over my face so that he would not see the tears in my eyes. It was not that I regretted it, not in the least. “We were both very drunk,” I said.

He took a breath, and I leaned back against his arm, feeling his heart racing still. Above, the moon leaned down, cool and implacable.

“Your hair smells like incense,” he said quietly, and laid his cheek against my hair.

“I expect it does,” I said. “From the feast.”

“Yes.” For a long moment there was quiet. I did not want it to end, but simply to rest on him this way, leaning together. I did not want it to ever end.

He took another breath. “I have behaved badly,” Hephaistion said. “It's just that you are beautiful, and I thought that you were offering…”

“I was,” I said, “and you must think nothing of it. What is a moment of release between friends? These things happen.”

So I spoke lightly, not saying what was in my heart, not begging that he should love me, not saying that I had loved him since the day I first saw him, not begging that he should say that I was the one he had waited for all his life. Of course I was not. I had known that always, and I did have my pride.

And yet he said that I was beautiful. Perhaps he believed it.

“So they do,” he said, straightening up, his arm dropping from my shoulders. “Only they do not usually happen to me. Alexander…”

I did not know how he would finish the thought. His lover would be jealous? His king would be angry?

“It is nothing,” I assured him. “We will not speak of it again.”

Hephaistion took a deep breath and pushed the hair back from his face. “Truly?”

“Truly,” I said. “It was only the wine.”

“Of course,” he said, and gave me half a smile. “You are a good friend, Lydias.”

“There is nothing to regret,” I said and met his eyes. “Think of it no more. We will not mention it again.”

And we did not, not once from then until the day he died.

Sometimes, once in a while in the years that followed, I would turn and catch his eyes on me or see an expression cross his face that should not have been there. But we never spoke of it. He was Alexander's.

Still I did not regret it. I never have.

SACRED FIRE

P
tolemy came to see me in the morning. I was sitting up, thanks to Bagoas’ help, eating barley gruel with honey. The opium had worn off somewhat, and my left arm and hand hurt a lot, but my head was clearer and I was hungry.

Ptolemy sat down on the side of the bed. “Don't try to get up,” he said, waving away my attempt to rise. “No need. I'm glad to see you looking better.”

“The hearse?” I asked.

“Is safe,” he said. “I've heard from Glaukos and Bagoas here how you brought it in. I don't have words to commend you highly enough. That was masterful.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again. He did not avoid my eyes and was entirely sincere. “Thank you, sir,” I gulped. “What about my wounded men?”

“They arrived last night,” Ptolemy said. “I sent the infantry to go get them with carts, and they met them halfway. Five men have died from their wounds, and will be burned tonight in all honor. I expect you will want to be there.”

“Of course,” I said.

“But it does not look like we are going to lose you, which is something,” Ptolemy said, scratching his head. “Though the doctor tells me you will not be fighting for half a year.”

I took a breath. “So long?”

“That long to heal entirely. He said the splints should stay on two months, and then you will have to regain the use of it. You won't be able to fight until you can manage a horse left-handed again.”

I blew the breath out. I knew that, of course. With one good hand I could either ride or use a sword, but not both.

“So it is as well,” Ptolemy said, “that Perdiccas cannot come tomorrow. He will require months to assemble an overwhelming army.” He nodded as I looked up. “Perdiccas cannot afford to lose the King's body, not if he intends to lay claim to all of the Persian Empire. He will come in person, in force, with all the might of Asia at his disposal.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again, putting the bowl of gruel down among the bedclothes. “You knew this would happen if I were successful.”

“That it would be a challenge to him? Yes.” Ptolemy's brown eyes were grave. “How not? But what other decision is there? If it is between Perdiccas and Antipatros, the Regent in Macedon, I have no choice. Perdiccas is allied with Olympias.”

“Because of that old rumor that you might be Phillip's son? Olympias would still put stock in that?” I could scarcely believe that would be true, but it might be that Olympias truly believed that Ptolemy was Alexander's half brother who sought to claim his empire.

Ptolemy looked for an instant as though he intended to say something, and I felt Bagoas stiffen at my back. Then he spread his hands. “Who knows what Olympias thinks? But I have known Antipatros from boyhood on, and an alliance with him is much more palatable than anything else. He has agreed to send me his daughter, Eurydice, as my wife. And thanks to you we have Alexander. If we can defeat Perdiccas in the field, I think he will come to terms rather than press it.”

“And those terms would be?”

“That Persia stays out of Egypt.”

I wondered if he remembered what Isis had offered him, or if that had really happened. Perhaps I would have asked him if we had seen the same things, if those things were real, had Bagoas not been in the room. Perhaps he would have done the same.

A glance passed between us. I thought he did remember.

“And leaves you as satrap,” I said.

“Until Alexander's son comes of age,” Ptolemy said.

“If he does,” I said.

Ptolemy nodded. Whether or not he had shared that vision in the desert, the essentials were the same. He would not usurp what was Alexander's son's, but he would guard Egypt as the gods of Egypt themselves wanted. And would he free the King, who even now was still bound to his body by the sacred rites of Egyptian kingship? “And what of the King?”

Ptolemy stretched. “There's a barge being built here. When it's completed we'll take the hearse aboard and take him south to Memphis by river. That will be much easier than overland.”

“Safer too,” I said with a sigh of relief. I knew nothing of boats. The barge would not be my problem, and I had had quite enough of dragging the hearse.

“Indeed. You've seen the state of the fortifications in Alexandria. If we took him there it would be an easy matter for warships to enter the harbor and take him back by sea.” Ptolemy shook his head. “The King cannot come to Alexandria until the city walls are complete and we have some kind of fortification on the breakwater.”

Bagoas stirred, and Ptolemy looked at him. “I am assuming you will want to escort the King to Memphis and stay with him until his place in Alexandria is ready.”

“Yes,” Bagoas said gravely.

“And you will come to Memphis as well,” Ptolemy said to me. “By the time the barge is ready you'll be able to travel.”

“Of course,” I said.

I might as well go to Memphis. I would not be able to command my Ile in Pelousion for months yet, and it would be better to have something to occupy my mind rather than standing about the fortress watching other men do what I could not.

Thus I came to Memphis once again, this time on a regal barge painted in gold and scarlet. The hearse sat amidships, its gilded Victories shining in the sun, while the massive barge was rowed upriver.

We did not go fast, hardly even at a walking pace, and people from every city and town came out to watch it pass, waving palm fronds and singing. I did not know, yet, that it was how they used to salute their own dead pharaohs before the Persians came, that it was how they saluted Osiris himself at his own festival.

At Memphis the hearse disembarked, and there was a delay of a day as it was determined that the hearse was wider than the city gates. With the gates themselves taken off their hinges it could just squeeze through the opening. I helped with that, familiar as I was with the way the hearse moved, standing beside it and shouting to the drivers as it passed through, less than a hand's width on each side, trying not to scrape it on the stones. Very, very slowly we got it in. At last the stoop slid through, and the men who were detailed to return the massive bronze-clad gates to their hinges ran out, ready with pulleys to lift them back into place.

Slowly, down the widest avenue in the city where we had paraded as liberators all those years ago, the hearse made its way to the Temple of the Apis bull, which was both holy and had wide doors and a fairly open sanctuary within, without too many intermediate columns. If, like most Greek temples, the façade had been supported by columns, we should never be able to get the sarcophagus between them without bringing the roof down. Instead, it was more open and the columns more widely spaced, a grander scale in keeping with the god it is holy to.

The story of the Apis bull has been told by many travelers, but it is unique to Egypt, and therefore worth repeating. In Egypt it is believed that the gods often take some mortal form to walk the earth and to participate in the pleasures and pains of their creation. Sometimes those forms may be human forms, and they may join their mortal avatars as they will, but sometimes they are not human. And why should they be? Are animals less worthy of the gods’ attention than the rest of their creation?

Thus the gods may sometimes take animal form, according to their nature. Ptah, who we thought was perhaps like Hermes, often takes the form of an ibis or some other bird, so that he can fly over great distances on his mighty wings and know all there is in the world. Bastet takes the form of one of her own sacred cats, because cats can go anywhere and may go into any house, hearing all that people say and comforting those in need, especially children and women in childbirth.

Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld, chooses the form of a black bull. Now and again there is a bull calf born somewhere in the Black Land who, by his sacred markings, is known to be the current avatar, Apis. When he is found there is great rejoicing, and he and the cow his mother are taken with all ceremony to Memphis, to the temple where he shall live out his life in ease and gladness, with all of every good thing there is on this earth. After all, when the people of the Black Land are visited by a god, should they not show him every honor and welcome him with the best things they have? He has fresh grass and grain, a choice pasture under the blue of heaven, and the best cows in all the Black Land to keep him company and eventually bear his calves. The calves of the Serapeum are the best of their breed, strong and fair and gentle, and much improvement has been made in the stock of the Black Land this way. His mother is with him, and they dwell in comfort all their lives.

When the Apis bull dies, he is mourned seventy days, just like the king, and his mummified body is laid to rest in the communal tomb beneath the Serapeum, accompanied by the wailing of flutes and the lamentations of women. After he has lain there seventy days, a hunt goes out from Memphis, seeking a perfect bull calf, black and sturdy, with the same white markings on his nose. Somewhere among his people Apis has been reborn.

When the Persians conquered Egypt they killed the Apis bull as a symbol of their overlordship. This was one of the things that earned them the hatred of the people.

Of course it was not the only temple in Memphis, nor even the greatest. Memphis was an ancient city, already two thousand years old, and there were temples upon temples twined together, with houses and buildings clinging to their outer walls where they might have stood for five hundred years. Some of the temples themselves were so old that one entered them by going down short flights of stairs because the street level was much higher than it had been when they were first built.

Ptolemy did not stay in Memphis but a few days after the ceremony. He went back to Pelousion, the better to be in contact by land and sea with all that happened. Perdiccas would respond, and the sooner we knew what he was doing the better.

Which left me at loose ends. Never, not since my boyhood before my mother died, had I been without duties. Now I had none, other than the general order from Ptolemy to “rest and get better.” How did one do that? I wondered.

I had no duties and nothing to worry about. I had a room provided in the palace Cleomenes had used, and my meals together with the small garrison or with the governor's staff. I had my pay, and nothing I particularly needed to spend it on. There was nothing to concern myself with, other than fretting over my wrist and hand and wondering how they were healing beneath the bandages and splints.

It was an odd feeling, having nothing to do and no time by which it must be done. The first few days I woke at first light in a panic, certain that I had missed grooming the horses or leading one out when it was needed, or that I had missed assembly and my Ile must be standing waiting for me.

But of course they weren't. The day stretched before me entirely empty.

I took to wandering the city, buying breakfast for a copper coin in the marketplace, and eating it walking along the walls and seeing the view. I walked all around the city this way in a few days, making a circuit of the walls and looking at the river.

After that I hired a man to take me down the river a little way to the great pyramids, for they are rightly called one of the wonders of the world. Tall as mountains, they looked as though they were capped with electrum, but my guide assured me that it was only polished stone. He told me some story about how they had been built long ago by the god Horus to commemorate his victory over a giant scorpion, or perhaps it was a scorpion man who was king, or a king named Scorpion, but I did not think the story was worth very much. There would be better stories from better sources than men paid to make them up for credulous travelers.

I went then to the temples, or at least to such parts of them as the curious might penetrate, the outer courtyards and galleries, rather than the sanctuaries of the gods. Some of them were almost like small towns, with refectories and dormitories for the priests, gardens and bathing pools and everything they might require. For a small donation one could walk in the gardens, which I found peaceful.

The twentieth day after I came to Memphis I found myself in one of the courtyards of the Temple of Thoth. It was one of the smaller ones, with worn carvings on the walls that surrounded it, their colors faded and in need of repainting. How long did it take to fade like that in the stark sun of the Black Land? A hundred years? Two hundred? And surely the carvings were older still. A rectangular pool stood in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by tall date palms and other things, while a weeping peach tree dipped its leaves almost in the water. There was a bench under it in the shade, and I sat there and closed my eyes.

I listened to the buzzing of the bees and wasps drawn to the almost ripe peaches, to the very faint lapping of the water against the sides of the pool. The sounds of the city seemed far away. I could hear the pulsing of my heart, smell the peaches and the water, feel the cool stone against my legs. This is what eternity feels like, I thought. For a moment the world stood still.

Beneath the beat of my heart, I could hear it, could feel it—the pulse of the Black Land, the ancient tide of energy and strength in this place, like the tugging of a current far out to sea.