The Persian Boy (18 page)

“No, my lord. Our fathers train us for war.”

“And the young men too?”

“Yes, my lord. They fight with their fathers’ tribesmen.”

“So I thought. He is far too fond of the Spartans. But it’s true, I think, that Kyros liked to share his cooks’ best dishes with his friends?”

“Oh, yes, my lord. It has been an honor ever since, from the King’s table.” So this was where he had found it! The man Xenophon must have been in Persia just long enough for that. I was so touched, I nearly cried.

He read me a tale about how his lords chose for Kyros, from the spoils of battle, the loveliest of the noble ladies, who was weeping for her dead lord. But Kyros, who knew he was alive, would not even see her face, but kept her in honor among her own household, and sent the husband word of it. When he came in to surrender and swear loyalty, the King led her out and joined their hands. As Alexander read it me, I knew suddenly that this was what he had planned for Darius and his Queen. It was why he had mourned her fasting. I saw how he had pictured it, just like the book; and thought of the hide-roofed cart with its cushions dripping blood.

He had no harem with him anymore. Before I came, he had settled the Queen Mother at Susa with the young princesses.

A king, the book said somewhere, should not only prove himself better than those he rules; he should cast a kind of spell on them. I said to him, “Let me say that in Persian,” and we smiled at one another.

“You must learn to read Greek,” he said. “It’s a great loss to you, not to read. I will find you a gentle teacher. Not Kallisthenes, he thinks himself too grand.”

For some days we read the book together, and he would ask me if this or that was true. He was so fond of it, I never liked to say that this Greek storyteller, coming from Athens where they had no kings, had dreamed of one and given him the name of Kyros. Where the book was wrong about Persian customs, I always told him, so that he should lose no face before my people. But when he read aloud some precept that had shaped his soul, I always said it had been handed down from Kyros’ mouth in Anshan. There is nothing like giving joy to the one you love.

“I was mistaught as a boy,” he said. “I won’t insult you with what I was told to think about the Persians. The old man, I suppose, is saying the same things still in his school at Athens. It was Kyros who opened my eyes, in this book when I was f?ifteen. The truth is that all men are God’s children. The excellent ones, he makes more his own than the rest; but one can find them anywhere.” He laid his hand on mine.

“Now tell me,” he said, “is it really true that Kyros allied with the Medes to fight the Assyrians, as it says here? Herodotos says, and you were saying, that he beat the Medes in war.”

“He did, my lord. Any Persian will tell you so.”

He read from the book, “He ruled over these nations, even though they did not speak the same tongues as he, nor one nation the same as another’s; yet he was able to spread the awe of him so far that all feared to withstand him; and he could rouse so eager a wish to please him, that they all desired to be guided by his will.”

“That is true,” I said. “And will be again.”

“Yet he never made the Persians overlords of the Medes; he ruled over both as King?”

“Yes, my lord.” As I’d heard it, some of the chief Median lords had joined in revolt against Astyages, because of his cruelty. No doubt they made terms for this, and Kyros kept them like a man of honor. I said, “It is true, Kyros made us all one kingdom.”

“So it should be. He did not make subject peoples; he made a greater empire. He chose men for what each man was in himself, not from hearsay and old wives’ tales . . . Well, I don’t suppose he found it hard to persuade the conquered. To persuade the victors, that’s the thing.”

I was seized with wonder. Why, I thought, he wants to follow Kyros even in this. No, to go before him; for Kyros was pledged, but he is free . . . And I was the first Persian he had told.

It was long since I had remembered my father clearly. Now his face returned to me, blessing my sons to be. Maybe, after all, his words were not empty wind.

Alexander said, “Yes, tell me your thought, what is it?”

I answered, “That the sons of dreams outlive the sons of seed.”

“You are a seer. I have thought so often.”

I did not say, “No, I am just a eunuch making the best of it,” but told him all about the New Year festivals, which Kyros began as a feast of friendship; and how he led the peoples to conquer Babylon, the Medes and Persians vying to show valor before him. Sometimes from eagerness I stumbled in my Greek, and he would say, “Never mind. I understood you.”

All day there was a shine on him; and at night, it was as if I’d come to him Kyros’ boy, instead of Darius’. He fell without grief into smiling sleep; and I said to myself, That’s one thing I’ve done for him that Hephaistion couldn’t.

How, perverse is the heart. Darius had neither offered love nor asked if; yet I had felt it right I should be grateful for all he gave me, a horse, a mirror, a bracelet. Now in my riches I scorched my soul because another came before me; I must have him all.

In all but words, he showed he had more pleasure with me than with anyone before me; he was too generous to belittle it. But the words were never spoken, and I well knew why. That would have violated loyalty.

“Never be importunate,” Oromedon had said to me long ago. “Never, never, never, never. The quickest way to the dusty street outside. Never.” And he, who was always gentle as silk, had given my hair a twitch that made me yelp. “I did that for your sake,” he said, “to make you remember.”

Nobody owns the gods. But there are some they choose to make more their own than the rest. I remembered.

There were times when I could have grasped him in both hands, crying aloud, “Love me best! Say that you love me best! Say that you love me best of all!” But I remembered.

Standing by the wall in the audience room at Zadrakarta, I watched him giving audience to Macedonians. He had these people in without formality, walking about among them.

“You are a musician,” Oromedon had said. “All you need is to know your instrument.” He had simpler ones in mind; this harp had many strings, some never for my sounding. And yet, we had made harmony.

So I was thinking, when a courier came in with a batch of letters from Macedon. The King took them from him, and? sat down with them on the nearest divan he saw, like a common man. He would do these things. I longed to tell him they did him injury.

As he turned the letters over, Hephaistion strolled across, and sat down beside him. I gasped aloud; this passed all other effronteries. But Alexander just gave him some of the rolls to hold.

They were not very far away from me. I heard Alexander, as he picked up the thickest letter, say, “From Mother,” and give a sigh.

“Read it first and get it over,” Hephaistion said.

Though I hated him, I could see how Darius’ ladies had done him royal honors in their grief’s confusion. By our Persian canons, I suppose he was the more beautiful; taller, with features regular to perfection. When his face was still, it was grave almost to sadness. His hair was a shining bronze, though much coarser than mine.

Meantime, Alexander had opened Queen Olympias’ letter. And Hephaistion, leaning easily on his shoulder, was reading it with him.

Through my own bitterness, I perceived this had shocked even the Macedonians. Their murmurs reached me. “Who does he think he is?” “Well, we all know that. But he need not shout it.”

One of those veterans who stood out by their beards and their uncouth manners said, “If he can read it, why can’t all of us hear?” He spoke aloud.

Alexander looked up. He did not call his guards to arrest the man. He did not even rebuke him. He just drew off his signet ring, turned to Hephaistion smiling, and laid on his lips the royal seal. They both returned to the letter.

I could always move smoothly, even if blind with tears. No one noticed me going. I ran to the stables, and rode off out of town, along by the sea-swamps, where clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart. As I turned for home, my black thoughts settled, like crows upon a gibbet. I cannot bear my life while this man lives. He will have to die.

Walking my horse through sandy scrub, I thought it over. As boys they were vowed together, and while this man is faithful, Alexander feels himself bound. He will acknowledge him before all the world, though he loves me best in his heart, and my heart is scalding in fire. No! For Hephaistion, only one thing will do. I am going to kill him.

Tomorrow, then, I will go to the beggars’ market and buy old clothes. Somewhere out here I will change, and hide my own clothes in the sand. I will wrap my head in a clout to hide my beardless face, and go to the little streets under the wall. I shall find a druggist there who will ask no questions. It cannot be long before I have the chance to get at his wine or food.

In the stables I called a groom to my lathered horse, and went back to the audience room, to look at him and think, You will soon be dead.

Quiet by the wall, I went over my plan. I would buy the poison; so far, good. Would it be in a phial, or a bag? I would keep it-where? In my clothes? Round my neck? How long would I have to hide it?

As my hot blood cooled, I began to think of a thousand mischances that could discover me, before I could use the drug; milling over these little things, till like a lightning-flash I saw the great one. If I were found with poison, who would ever doubt it was for the King? I had been brought to him by a man who had killed one king already.

So, then, Nabarzanes would be dragged from his home, and crucified beside me. I would be long remembered; the Persian boy, Darius’ whore who fooled the great Alexander. So he too would remember me. Rather than that, I myself would take the poison, though it turned my entrails to shriveling fire.

The Macedonians had had their audience. It was Persians now. Their presence reminded me whose son I was. What had been in my mind? To murder a faithful man, because he was in my way. So had King Arses’ brothers been faithful, and in the way. So had my father.

Next time I saw Hephaistion near the King, I said in myself, Well, I could kill you if I chose; you are lucky I will not stoop to it. I was young enough for this to m?ake me feel better; too young, and too full of my own troubles, to think of his.

What he had had, would never again be anyone’s. His claim was honored; how could he ask for more? Well, he might have asked that his beloved should not become a lover, or have from a dark-eyed Persian boy what he’d never been thought to need. Maybe, since their youth, desire had faded (if so, I could guess whose had faded first); but the love was there, public as marriage. Lying alone in those nights at Zadrakarta, Hephaistion could not have slept at ease. I should have seen in his arrogance with the letter a plea for a proof of love. Alexander had seen; and given it in the face of everyone.

That night, between grief and guilt, I lost my sense of harmony, was strained and silly, and tried a trick I had learned at Susa, the kind of thing he had never guessed I knew. I felt my blunder. I feared disgust, not reckoning on his innocence. He exclaimed, “Don’t tell me you did that with Darius!” and laughed so much he nearly fell out of bed. I was so put out, I hid my face and would not look at him. “What is it?” he asked. I said, “I have displeased you. I will go.” He pulled me back. “Don’t sulk at me. What is it?” Then his voice altered, and he said, “Do you miss Darius still?”

He was jealous; yes, even he! I flung myself on him, embracing him with a fury more like war than love. He was some time calming me down, before we could begin. Even then I was still strung up, and at the end felt pain, almost like early days. Though I kept quiet, I suppose he felt some difference. I lay silent, doing nothing to divert his sadness. It was he who said, “Come, tell.”

I answered, “I love you too much, that’s all.”

He drew me over, and ran my hair softly between his fingers. “Never too much,” he said. “Too much is not enough.” In sleep he did not toss himself free of me as he sometimes did; he let me stay in his side all night.

Next morning, as I got up, he said, “How is your dancing?” I told him I was practicing every day. “Good. Today we are giving out the list of contests for the victory games. There will be one for dancers.”

I turned a cartwheel across the room, and a back-somersault after.

He laughed, then said seriously, “One thing you must know; I never direct the judges. It’s bound to make bad feeling. At the games at Tyre, I’d have given anything to see Thettalos crowned. For me, no tragedian touches him; he has been my envoy too, and done me very good service. But they chose Athenodoros, and I had to put up with it. So I can only say, win for me.”

“If it kills me,” I said, doing a handstand.

“Oh, hush.” He made the Greeks’ sign against bad luck.

Later he gave me a fistful of gold for my costumes, and sent me the best flautist in Zadrakarta. If he had divined my trouble, and could not cure it, he knew how to make me forget.

I was tired of my old dances; for him I composed a new one. It began fast, Kaukasian style; then turned slow, with the bends that show one’s balance and strength. The last part would have the sparks in it; not too many since I was a dancer and not an acrobat; but enough. For my costume, I ordered a Greek-style tunic, made all of scarlet ribbons, caught together just at the neck and waist. My sides were bare. I had anklets sewn with round tinkling rattles of beaten gold. For the first part, I would use the hand-clappers.

I practiced for my life. The first day, when I’d done and sent off the flautist, Alexander came in and found me toweling down, still out of breath. He took my shoulders between his hands. “From now on till the games, you sleep in here. One thing at a time.”

He had a bed sent in for me. I knew he was right, but grieved he could do without me; still knowing less than the least of his soldiers what he could do without. I thought I could not bear a night away from him, but had worked so hard I slept as I lay down, and did not stir till morning.