Fire From Heaven (40 page)

‘Sir! Ah, you will have your joke.’

‘Your own friend, perhaps?’

‘Nothing of the kind, I assure you, entirely at your disposal. Only see him for yourself. I paid two hundred staters for him.’

Alexander stood up. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘what I have done to deserve you, or your merchandise either. Get out of my sight.’

He did so, returning with consternation to the peace party, which had wished the young man to take away grateful memories. A curse on false reports! Too late now to offer a woman.

He rode north next day.

Soon after, the dead of Chaironeia were brought to their common tomb in the Street of Heroes. The people debated who should speak their funeral praises. Aischines was proposed, and Demades. But the one had been too right, the other too successful; to the sore hearts in Assembly, they looked sleek and smug. All eyes returned to the ravaged face of Demosthenes. Perfect defeat, enormous shame had burned out, for the time, all spite from him; the new lines on his tight-drawn skin were of a pain greater than hate. Here was one they could all trust not to rejoice when they were mourning. They chose him to speak the epitaph.

Ê

All the Greek states but Sparta sent envoys to the Council at Corinth. They acknowledged Philip supreme war-leader of Hellas against the Persians, for defence. At this first meeting he asked no more. All the rest would follow.

He marched to the frontier of sullen Sparta, then changed his mind. Let the old dog keep its kennel. It would not come out; but if cornered, it would die hard. He had no wish to be the Xerxes of a new Thermopylai.

Corinth, city of Aphrodite, proved readier to please than Athens.

The King and Prince were splendidly entertained. Alexander found time to climb the long path to Acrocorinth, and survey the great walls which, from below, looked narrow as ribbons round the mount’s towering brow. With Hephaistion he gazed, the day being clear, south to Athens and northward to Olympos; appraised the walls; saw where one could build better ones and scale those that were there; and was reminded to admire ?the monuments. At the very top was the small graceful white temple of Aphrodite. Some of the goddess’s famous girls, the guide advised them, would certainly at this time have come up from the city precinct to serve her there. He paused expectantly, but in vain.

Ê

Demaratos, a Corinthian aristocrat of the ancient Dorian stock, was an old guest-friend of Philip, and played host to him during the Council. At his great house on the footslopes of Acrocorinth, he gave one night a small intimate party, promising the King a guest who would interest him.

It was Dionysios the Younger, son of Dionysios the Greater, late of Syracuse. Since Timoleon had expelled him from his tyranny, he had earned his bread here by running a school for boys. He was a short-sighted, gangling, mouse-coloured man of about Philip’s age; his new calling, and lack of means, had ended his once notorious dissipations, but he had an old drunkard’s broken-veined nose. A combed, scholarly beard masked his weak chin. Philip, who had surpassed the achievements of even his formidable father the elder tyrant, treated him with charming tact, and when the wine had been round was rewarded by his confidences.

‘I had no experience, when I inherited from my father, none at all. My father was a very suspicious man. You will have heard the stories; they are mostly true. All the gods could have witnessed, I never had a thought of doing him any wrong; but to the day of his death, I was searched to the skin before I was admitted to his presence. I never saw state papers, never attended a war-conference. Now if he had left me, as you did your son to govern at home while you were on campaign, history might have a different tale to tell.’

Philip nodded gravely, and said he could well believe it.

‘I would have been content if he had only left me to enjoy a young man’s pleasures in peace. He was a hard man; very able, but hard.’

‘Well, many causes go to these reversals.’

‘Yes. When my father took power, the people had had a bellyful of democracy; and when it passed to me, they’d had a bellyful of despotism.’

Philip had perceived he was not always as foolish as he seemed. ‘But was Plato no help to you? They say you had two visits from the philosopher.’

There was a working in the ineffectual face. ‘Don’t you think I learned some philosophy from Plato, when you see me bear so great a change of fortune?’

The watery eyes had taken on almost dignity. Philip looked at the well-darned splendour of his one good gown, laid a kindly hand on his, and beckoned up the wine-pourer.

Ê

On a gilded bed, whose headpiece was carved with swans, Ptolemy lay with Thais the Athenian, his newest girl.

She had come young to Corinth, and had her own house already. There were wall-paintings of twining lovers; the bed-table held two exquisitely shallow cups, a wine-jar, and a round flask of scented oil. A triple lamp, upheld by gilt nymphs, glowed on their pleasures; she was nineteen, and had no need of mystery. Her black hair was feather-soft, her eyes were dark blue; her rose-red mouth was unpainted, though she had tinted like pink shells her nails and nipples and nostrils. Her creamy skin had been polished and plucked as smooth as alabaster. Ptolemy was enchanted with her. Languidly, for the hour was late, he stroked her over, hardly caring whether reminiscence renewed desire.

‘We must live together. This is no life for you. I shan’t marry for many years. Don’t fear that I won’t take care of you.’

‘But, darling man, I have all my friends here. Our concerts, play-readingsÉI should be quite lost in Macedon.’ Everyone said he was Philip’s son. One must never sound too eager.

‘Ah, but soon it will be Asia. You shall sit by a blue-tiled fountain, with roses round you; I shall come back from battle and fill your lap with gold.’ She laughed, and nibbled his ear.

He was a man, she thought, whom one could really put up with every night. When one considered some of the othersÉ. ‘Let me think a little longer. Come to supper tomorrow; no, it’s to?day. I’ll tell Philetas I’m sick.’

‘Little finch. What shall I bring you?’

‘Only yourself.’ She had seldom known this to fail. ‘Macedonians are really men.’

‘Ah, well, you would move a statue.’

‘I’m glad you’ve begun to take your beards off. One can see the handsome faces now.’ She ran her finger along his chin.

‘Alexander set the fashion. He says a beard gives the enemy a handhold.’

‘Oh, is that why?É That beautiful boy. They are all in love with him.’

‘All the girls but you?’

She laughed. ‘Don’t be jealous. I meant all the soldiers. He’s one of us, you know, at heart.’

‘No. No, there you’re wrong. He’s as chaste as Artemis; or nearly.’

‘Yes, that one can see; it’s not what I meant.’ Her feathery brows moved in meditation. She liked her bedfellow, and for the first time bestowed on him her real thoughts. ‘He is like the great, the famous ones; like Lais or Rhodope or Theodotis they tell tales of in those old days. They don’t live for love, you know; but they live upon it. I can tell you, I have seen, they are the very blood of his body, all those men who he knows would run after him through fire. If ever the day comes when they will follow him no longer, it will be the same with him as with some great hetaira when the lovers leave her door and she puts away her mirror. He will begin to die.’

A sigh replied to her. Softly she fished up the coverlet and drew it over both of them. He was fast asleep, and it would soon be morning. Let him stay. She might as well start getting used to him.

Ê

From Corinth, Philip went homeward to prepare for the war in Asia. When he was ready, he would seek the Council’s sanction to begin.

Most of the troops had gone on ahead under Attalos, and dispersed to their homes on leave; Attalos also. He owned an old grey ancestral fort on the footslopes of Mount Pydna; Philip received a message from him, begging the King to honour his rough house by breaking the journey there. The King, who had found him both keen and capable, sent an acceptance back.

As they turned off the high road into the hills, and the sea-horizon widened, Alexander grew taciturn and withdrawn. Presently he rode off from Hephaistion’s side, overtook Ptolemy, and beckoned him away from the cavalcade among the heath and scrub of the hillside. Ptolemy followed, puzzled; his mind had been on his own concerns. Would she keep her word? She had made him wait for her answer to the very last.

‘What can Father be thinking of,’ said Alexander, ‘not to send Pausanias on to Pella? How can he bring him here?’

‘Pausanias?’ said Ptolemy vaguely. His face changed. ‘Well, it’s his right to guard the King’s person.’

‘It’s his right to be spared this, if he has a right to anything. Don’t you know, it was at Attalos’ house it happened?’

‘He has a house at Pella.’

‘It was here. I’ve known that since I was twelve. I was in the stables at home, in one of the stalls, they didn’t see me; Attalos’ grooms were telling ours. Mother told me too, years later; I didn’t tell her it was stale fish. It happened here.’

‘It’s a good while back, now. Six years.’

‘Do you think one could forget in sixty?’

‘He’s at least on duty, he needn’t feel himself a guest.’

‘He should have been released from duty. Father should have helped him out.’

‘Yes,’ said Ptolemy slowly. ‘Yes, a pityÉ. You know, I’d not recalled the matter till you spoke of it, and I’ve had less business to think of than the King.’

Oxhead, feeling some shock through his rider, snorted and shook his glittering head. ‘That I’d not thought of! Even in our family, there’s a limit on what one can remind one’s father of. Parmenion should do it, they were young men together. But maybe he’s forgotten, too.’

‘It’s only for this one nightÉI’ve been thinking, if all goes well she may have sold her house by now. You must see her. Wait till you hear her sing.’

Alexander rejoined Hephaistion. They rode on in silence till the rock-hewn walls of the fort, a grim relic of the lawless years, came in sight round a ?bluff. A group of horsemen appeared from the gate, to meet them.

Alexander said, ‘If Pausanias is sullen, don’t fall out with him.’

‘No. I know.’

‘Even kings have no right to wrong men and then forget it.’

‘I don’t fancy,’ said Hephaistion, who had been giving it thought, ‘that he does forget. You need to bear in mind how many blood-feuds the King has settled, in his reign. Think of Thessaly; the Lynkestids. My father says, when Perdikkas died there wasn’t a house or tribe in Macedon without one at least. You know Leonnatos and I should be at feud, his great-grandfather killed mine, I must have told you that. The King often asks our fathers to supper the same night, to prove all’s well; they don’t mind it now.’

‘But that was old family business, not their own.’

‘It’s the King’s way, Pausanias must know it. That removes the affront.’

And when they reached the fort, he did indeed go about his duties as usual. It was his office to keep the door while the King was feasting, not to sit down with the host. His meal would be served him later.

The King’s train was hospitably looked after; he himself with his son and a few chief friends were led to the inner rooms. The fort was ruder, and little later, than the castle at Aigai, which was as old as Macedon itself. The Attalids were an ancient clan. Within, the rooms had been well decked out with Persian hangings and inlaid chairs. In supreme compliment to the honoured guests, the ladies came in, to be presented and offer sweets.

Alexander, whose eye had been drawn off by a Persian archer on the tapestry, heard his father say, ‘I never knew, Attalos, that you’d another daughter.’

‘Nor had I, King, till lately. The gods, who took away my brother, gave her to us. This is Eurydike, poor Bion’s child.’

‘Poor indeed,’ said Philip, ‘to watch over such a child and die before her wedding.’

Attalos said easily, ‘We don’t yet think of that; we’re too pleased with our new daughter to let her go.’

At the first sound of his father’s voice, Alexander had turned like a house-dog at a stealthy footfall. The girl stood before Philip, with a polished silver sweet-bowl in her right hand. He had taken her left in his, as a kinsman might have done, and now released it, perhaps because he had seen her blush. She had a family look of Attalos, but with his defects all turned to graces: for gaunt cheeks, delicate hollows under fine bones; for straw hair, gold; he was lanky, she was willowy. Philip spoke some praise of her dead father; she made a little reverence, met his eyes and dropped hers; then went on with her sweet-bowl to Alexander. Her sweet bland smile fixed for a moment; she had looked before he was ready.

Next day, their departure was delayed till noon, Attalos having revealed that it was a feast-day for some local river-nymphs, and the women would be singing. They came with their garlands; the girl’s voice was light, childish, but true. The clear water of the nymphs’ spring was tasted and praised.

When they set out, the heat of the day was well advanced. A few miles on, Pausanias left the column. Another officer, seeing him go down towards a stream, called after him to wait a mile or two more for better water; here it got staled by cattle. He pretended not to hear, filled his cupped hands and drained them thirstily. He had neither eaten nor drunk, all the while he was at the house of Attalos.

Ê

Alexander stood with Olympias under Zeuxis’ painting of the sack of Troy. Above her, Queen Hekabe rent her garments; behind his head spread like a crimson nimbus the blood of Priam and Astyanax. Winter firelight leaped in the painted flames, and drew hollows in the living faces.

Olympias’ eyes were ringed with black, and her face was lined like a woman’s ten years older. Alexander’s mouth looked dry and set; he too had been sleepless, but showed it less.

‘Mother. Why send for me again? All’s said and you know it. What was true yesterday is true today. I shall have to go.’

‘Expediency! Expediency! He has made a Greek of you. ?If he kills us for defying him, good, let him kill us. Let us die with our pride.’