The Persian Boy (21 page)

The executions would be next day; stoning for the lesser men; for Philotas, a squad with javelins. In Persia, they would have bricked up such men in a cold furnace, and stoked it slowly. And the King would have asked no man’s leave.

Had Philotas, when he hid the plot, just seized the chance to profit by others’ risk; or was he himself behind it? This was still unproved.

The King being shut up in council, for pastime I went back to the tower-top. Already the stakes were being sunk for the executions. On the roads and passes, I could see the guard-posts. Something moved on the western road; three men in Arab dress, on racing dromedaries. They caught my eye by the beauty of their action, after the great shaggy Baktrian camels. No creature that carries man is swifter or more enduring. They went up with their smooth stride towards the pass, and I looked to see them turned back. But after a moment’s pause at the guard-post, they were let through.

I went down, lest the King should need me. Soon after, his council left. As they turned to the stairs, Hephaistion was last. The King beckoned him back. He went in, and bolted the door.

At other times, I should have found some dark place to grieve in. But it was nothing like that, as their faces told me. So I left my slippers in my cell, and crept up barefoot. The door-bolt was a great wooden thing; Hephaistion had been some time coaxing it. While he was drawing it back, I could be well away. You cannot learn too much of the one you love.

Hephaistion was saying, “I always thought he carried tales to your father. I told you so.”

“I know you did.” I heard again the voice of the distant boy. “But you never liked him. Well, you were right.”

“Yes, I was. He hung round you from ambition, he always envied you. You should have listened in Egypt. This time, we have to know.”

The King said, “Yes. We must know now.”

“And don’t take it to heart after. He’s not worth it, never was.”

“No. I shan’t do that.”

“He’s been living soft, Alexander. It won’t take long.”

His voice came close to the door, and I made ready to run; but the King said, “Wait.” So I crept back again.

“If he denies his father knew, don’t push him to extremity.”

“Why not?” Hephaistion asked. He sounded impatient.

“Because it makes no difference.”

“You mean,” said Hephaistion slowly, “that you’ll-?”

“It is done,” said the King. “Nothing else was possible.”

There, was a pause. Their eyes spoke, I suppose. Hephaistion said, “Well, it’s the law. A traitor’s near kin. It’s only the manner of it.”

“It’s the only way.”

“Yes. But you’ll feel better, if you know he’s guilty.”

“Could I know from that? I won’t lean on a lie, Hephaistion. It was necessary, and I know it. That is enough.”

“Very well. Let’s have it over.” Hephaistion moved to the door again. I was in my cell long before he got it open.

After long enough, I asked the King if he needed anything. He was still standing where he must have been before. “No,” he said. “I have something to see to,” and went off by himself down the winding torchlit stair.

I waited, listening. At Susa, while still a slave, I had gone like other boys to the place of punishment. I had seen a man impaled, and flayings, and other things. Three times I had gone, drawn as boys are against their will to horrors. There were crowds that went every time; but I had had enough. I had now no wish to watch Hephaistion’s work. It could be nothing much, to what I had seen already.

In time I heard the scream of a powerful voice. I felt no pity. What he had done to my lord, nothing undoes; the first betrayal by a friend. I, too, could remember losing childhood in a moment of time.

The scream sounded again, less like a man, more like a beast. Let him suffer, I thought. My ?lord has not only suffered a broken faith. He has taken a burden he will never again be free of.

I had understood his secret words to Hephaistion. Parmenion ruled like a king, in the lands behind us. Among his own troops, he could never be arrested, never be put on trial. Guilty or innocent, he would have his blood-feud the moment he got the news. I pictured our army and all its followers, in the freezing Baktrian winter, supplies cut off, no reinforcements; the conquered satraps, released by Parmenion’s troops, taking us in rear; around us, Bessos and his Baktrians closing in.

I knew the errand of the dromedaries, swiftest of all beasts that carry man: to outrun the news, carrying death.

Such burdens fall only upon kings. He bore it all his life, and, as he foresaw, he bears it dead. Since I am one of many thousands who, because he took it on him, are still alive, it may be said I plead my own cause; but to the end of my days, I shall never see what else he could have done.

The screams did not last long. A man in Philotas’ case has not much to lose by talking quickly.

The King came to bed late. He was stone-cold sober, as if at war. He scarcely spoke to me, except to thank me now and again, lest I should suppose him angry.

I lay in my little cell, wide awake, as I knew that he would be. The night wore on; the guard clanked and muttered below; the wolves of Baktria howled. Never be importunate, never, never, never. I dressed and gave on his door the tap he knew, and did not even wait for leave to enter.

He was lying half turned away; Peritas, who always slept unstirring at his bedfoot, was standing by him, pawing the blanket as if concerned. Alexander was rubbing his ears.

I came and knelt on the other side, and said, “My lord, may I say good night to you? Just good night?”

“Bed, Peritas,” he said. The dog went back to its blanket. He felt my face and hands. “You’re cold. Get in.”

I dropped off my things and came in beside him. He warmed my hands on his breast, as he had rubbed Peritas’ ears, in silence. I reached up and stroked his hair back from his forehead. “My father was betrayed by a false friend,” I said. “He told me so before they killed him. It is terrible from a friend.”

“When we get back,” he said, “you can tell me who it was.”

The dog, after turning round two or three times, got up to look, then went back to bed, as if satisfied he was now being well cared for.

I said, “It is death to mock the gods. At Susa, I had a slave from Egypt; not a common man, he had served a temple. He said no oracle is as pure as the one at Siwah.”

He took a deep breath, and lay looking upward at the rafters, where the shadows of cobwebs moved with the flickering lamp. After a while, I put an arm across him, and he laid his hand on it to keep it there. He was silent a long time, holding my arm around him. Then he said, “I have done a thing today that you don’t know of, which I shall be blamed for by men to come. But it was necessary.”

“Whatever had to be done,” I answered him, “you are the King.”

“It was necessary. There was no other way.”

I said, “We lay our lives on the King, and he bears them all. He could never do it, without the hand of the god.”

He sighed, and drew my head upon his shoulder.

“You are my King,” I said softly. “All you do is well done to me. If ever I am false, if ever my faith forsakes you, may I never enter Paradise, may the River of Ordeal scald me all away. You are the King, the son of the god.”

We lay quiet, just as we were, and at last he slept. I closed my eyes in contentment. Some Power must have directed me; I had come when I was truly needed.

-15-

ALONG WITH Philotas, there died by the javelins Alexandros of Lynkestis, next heir, by side descent, to the throne of Macedon. His brothers had conspired in King Philip’s murder; nothing being proved against the eldest, Alexander had taken him with the army. Now it seemed that Dymnos and the rest had meant to make him King; a decent Macedonian, who would keep barbarians in ?the place the Greek gods meant for them.

He had been warned of his trial, and prepared a speech of defense; but, before the Assembly, could only utter a senseless stammer. He had looked, they said, like a croaking frog; and they condemned him out of contempt, saying they were well shot of such a king. One or two of the accused made good their case and were set free. We were on the march again, by the time the news came in of Parmenion’s death.

The men took it quietly. They had themselves condemned Philotas; they were ready to suppose there was evidence against his father. It was the veteran officers, the old school of King Philip’s training, who remembered Parmenion had won him a victory the day Alexander was born; it was these who brooded. Philip, it seemed, had been a proper Macedonian. Having freed the Greek cities of Asia, he would have been content to go home, and be master of Greece, which was what he had always wanted.

Our moving city dragged on over barren moors scorched brown with summer, now chilled with autumn winds that sang through the broken crap. It was harsh country; among the camp-followers the sickly died; someone from their home place would scratch them a grave in the hard ground. Nobody starved; the wagon trains came from the west, and droves of cattle lean with traveling. We labored along, mostly without Alexander; he was scouring the wastes for Bessos, who was reported moving east.

After days or a half-month, they would come back, thin men upon thin horses, having outrun their supplies. Or now and again some stubborn hill-fort would hold out, and he would make a siege-train; catapults taken apart to load on mules, wood for ladders if the land was treeless; if he could bring one up, a jolting siege-tower, drawn by ten yoke of oxen; litters for the wounded, if it was too rough for wagons. He would ride up and down the line, seeing everything for himself. It was almost beyond belief, out of so many thousand men, how many he knew. Often they laughed; the soldier with the King, or the King with the soldier.

The soldiers knew their part in him well enough. Most had not even seen him in Persian dress; they knew him in hard-worn Greek clothes, and armor of old leather with the bits of iron plating working through at the edges. They wanted no properer Macedonian than their young unbeaten general, who sweated or froze or starved with them, never sitting down till he had seen them fed and their wounded cared for; never sleeping drier than they; snatching victory out of peril. What did they care if he appointed Persian satraps, when some Macedonian might have ruled and fleeced the province? They looked for their share of loot, and he shared it fairly. If he slept with Darius’ boy when he had the time, what of it? He had a right to his share too. But they began to think about home.

They had had the cream of the spoils, the wealth of the great cities. They had swum in gold. Once, I was told, a transport mule in the treasure-train had foundered; the trooper who led it, careful of the King’s goods, had shouldered the heavy pack, staggering under it. Along came Alexander, and said, “Bear up a little longer. Just get it to your tent. It’s yours.” So they had lived. They had had their pickings from the Persians, and wanted no more part of us.

Not so with Alexander. His hunger grew by feeding. He loved victory; Bessos was still unconquered. He loved magnificence; our palaces, our manners, had shown him what that could be. As a boy he’d been taught to despise us; he had found beauty and valor among our lords, bred in for generations; also, he had found me. He loved kingcraft; here was a whole empire, weak with misrule, whose bridle had scarcely felt his hand. Above all, he had his Longing. That moment of eager joy I had felt at the Kaspian Gates with the pass ahead, with him reached far into the distance, craving for wonders rumored in travelers’ tales. Great anguish lies in wait for those who long too greatly.

Still he kept his soldiers faithful. Like Kyros, he cast his spell. He told t?hem too that to retreat without settling Bessos would invite contempt, and a rising of all the tribes; they would lose their victories and their glory. They still cared for that. They had proved themselves masters of the barbarians, and valued it.

From them he would come back to me. As for sex, he was glad of it, having been a long time without; but he could have gone longer, there were things he needed more. He liked to return to his other kingdom, and find love there; to know there is one beauty of the sun, another of the moon. He liked, I found, to be sent to sleep with the long tales of the bazaar, about princes seeking the phoenix’s egg, riding to towers of adamant ringed with flame, or coming in disguise to enchantress queens. He liked to hear about the court at Susa. At the rites of the getting-up, the bedtime and the bath, he could not keep from laughing; but to the etiquette of audience he listened carefully.

He trusted me. Without trust he could not live. He trusted Hephaistion, too; not all to my misfortune, as now it proved.

Philotas’ power had proved too great for one man. The King now divided it between two commanders: Black Kleitos, a veteran officer he had known since childhood, and Hephaistion.

If trust were everything, Hephaistion would have had it all. But the army had its politics; already the parties were dividing. Hephaistion was known as the King’s right hand in everything new he was doing. He had learned our forms of courtesy; was as tall and handsome as the Iranian lords, who admired and liked him; he was Persianized, said the men of the old school. Stocky bearded Kleitos, getting the same rank, was a surety they were not left out in the cold.

What all this meant to me, was that often Hephaistion would go out on his own campaigns.

He had proved himself well in war. He was a lord’s son of Macedon, and required honor, even if it took him from Alexander’s side. I wished him all of it he could go and find, I who required one thing alone.

About harvest-time, we came to the Valley of the Benefactors. To find this place delighted Alexander. I had told him the story, left out like so much else from his book on Kyros, of how these people had brought his army food when they were starving in the wasteland; how he found them so virtuous, he freed them from tribute and let them rule themselves. It was he who named them. Their breed endured; slow, shy, quiet, broad-faced people, friendly even to soldiers, since none had troubled them since Kyros’ day. Their valley was wide and fertile, sheltered from the lancing northern winds. Alexander rested his men there, bought their produce at the best rate they’d ever had, and promised a hanging out of hand to whoever harmed them.