The Novels of Alexander the Great: Fire From Heaven, the Persian Boy, and Funeral Games

4

“IT IS A PITY,” said Epikrates, “that you cannot give more time to it.”

“Days should be longer. Why must one sleep? One should be able to do without.”

“You would not find it improved your execution.”

Alexander stroked the polished box of the kithara with its inlaid scrollwork and ivory keys. The twelve strings sighed softly. He slipped off the sling which let it be played standing (sitting muted its tone) and sat down by it on the table, plucking a string here and there to test the pitch.

“You are right,” said Epikrates. “Why should one die? One should be able to do without.”

“Yes, having to sleep reminds one.”

“Well, come! At twelve years, you are still pretty rich in time. I should like to see you entered for a contest; it would give you an aim to work for. I was thinking of the Pythian Games. In two years, you might be ready.”

“What’s the age limit for the youths?”

“Eighteen. Would your father consent?”

“Not if music was all I entered for. Nor would I, Epikrates. Why do you want me to do it?”

“It would give you discipline.”

“I thought as much. But then I shouldn’t enjoy it.”

Epikrates gave his accustomed sigh.

“Don’t be angry. I get discipline from Leonidas.”

“I know, I know. At your age, my touch was not so good. You started younger, and I may say without hubris that you have been better taught. But you will never make a musician, Alexander, if you neglect the philosophy of the art.”

“One needs mathematics in the soul. I shall never have it, you know that. In any case, I could never be a musician. I have to be other things.”

“Why not enter the Games,” said Epikrates temptingly, “and take in the music contest too?”

“No. When I went to watch, I thought nothing would be so wonderful. But we stayed on after, and I met the athletes; and I saw how it really is. I can beat the boys here, because we’re all training to be men. But these boys are just boy athletes. Often they’re finished before they’re men; and if not, even for the men, the Games is all their life. Like being a woman is for women.”

Epikrates nodded. “It came about almost within my lifetime. People who have earned no pride in themselves are content to be proud of their cities through other men. The end will be that the city has nothing left for pride, except the dead, who were proud less easily…Well, with music every man’s good is ours. Come, let me hear it again; this time, with a little more of what the composer wrote.”

Alexander slung and strapped on the big instrument sideways to his breast, the bass strings nearest; he tested them softly with his left-hand fingers, the trebles with the plectrum in his other hand. His head inclined a little, his eyes rather than his ears seemed to be listening. Epikrates watched him with exasperation mingled with love, asking himself as usual whether, if he had refused to understand the boy, he could have taught him better. No; more likely he would simply have given it up. Before he was ten, he had already known enough to strum a lyre at supper like a gentleman. No one would have insisted on his learning more.

He struck three sonorous chords, played a long rippling cadenza, and began to sing.

At an age when the voices of Macedonian boys were starting to roughen, he kept a pure alto which had simply gained more power. As it went soaring up with the high grace notes flicked by the plectrum, Epikrates wondered that this never seemed to trouble him. Nor did he hesitate to look bored when other lads were exchanging the obsessive smut of their years. A boy never seen afraid can dictate his terms.

God brings all things to pass as he would have them be;

God overtakes the flying eagle, the dolphin in the sea.

He masters mortal men, though their pride be bold;

But to some he gives glory that will never grow old.

His voice floated and ceased; the strings echoed and re-echoed it, like wild voices in a glen.

Epikrates, sighing, thought, He’s off.

As the dramatic, headlong, passionate impromptu swept from climax to climax, Epikrates gazed at leisure; he would not be noticed. He felt bewildered by the misuse to which, with open eyes, he was dedicating his aesthetic life. He was not even in love; his tastes were otherwise. Why did he stay? This performance, at the Odeon of Athens or of Ephesos, would have enraptured the upper tiers and had them booing the judges. Yet nothing here was for show; it was redeemed not indeed by ignorance, Epikrates had seen to that, but by a perfect innocence.

And this, he thought, is why I stay. I feel here a necessity, whose depth and force I cannot measure; and to deny it makes me afraid.

There was a tradesman’s son in Pella, whom he had overheard playing once, a real musician; he had offered to teach him for nothing, to redeem his peace of mind. The lad would make a professional, worked hard, was grateful; yet those fruitful lessons engaged Epikrates’ mind less than these, when all that was sacred to the god he served was flung like wasteful incense on an unknown altar.

Garland the prow with flowers, my song is for the brave…

The music climbed to a rapt crescendo. The boy’s lips were parted in the fierce and solitary smile of an act of love performed in darkness; the instrument could not sustain his onslaught, and was going out of tune; he must have heard it, but went on as if his will could compel the strings. He is using it, thought Epikrates, as one day he will use himself.

I must go, it is more than time; I have given him all he will ever take from me. All this he could do alone. In Ephesos, all round the year one can hear good music, and once in a while the best. And I should like to work in Corinth. I could take young Peithon; he ought to be hearing the masters. This one here, I am not teaching him, he is corrupting me. He comes to me for a listener who knows the language, and I listen, though he murders my native tongue. He must play to what gods will hear him, and let me go.

“You have learned your begetting; live as what you are!”

He swept the plectrum across the strings. One snapped, and whipped around the others; there was discord, and silence. He stared at it unbelievingly.

“Well?” said Epikrates. “What did you expect? Did you think it was immortal?”

“I thought it would last till I’d finished.”

“You would not treat a horse so. Come, give it me.”

He took a new string from his box, and began to put the instrument in order. The boy walked restlessly to the window; what had been about to be revealed would not return. Epikrates worked on the tuning, taking his time. I wish I could make him show what he really does know, before I leave.

“You have never yet played to your father and his guests, except on the lyre.”

“The lyre is what people want at supper.”

“It is what they get for want of better. Do me a kindness. Work on one piece for me and play it properly. I am sure he would like to see how you have got on.”

“I don’t think he knows I have a kithara. I bought it myself, you know.”

“So much the better, you will show him something new.” Like everyone else at Pella, Epikrates knew there was trouble in the women’s quarters. The boy was on edge with it, and had been for some time. It was not only his practice he had missed, but a lesson too. As soon as he had walked in, Epikrates had seen how it would be.

Why, in the name of all gods of reason, could the King not be content with paid hetairas? He could afford the best. He had his young men as well; was it too much to ask? Why must he always do his rutting so ceremoniously? He must have gone through at least three such weddings before this last one. It might be an old royal custom in this backward land, but if he wanted to be thought a Hellene, he should remember “Nothing too much.” One could not make over barbarians in a generation; it came out in the boy as well; and yet…

He was still gazing from the window as if he had forgotten where he was. His mother must have been at him. One could have pitied the woman, if she had not begged for half her troubles, and her son’s as well. He must be hers, hers only, and only the gods could say what else, for the King was civilized when set beside his Queen. Could she not see she might cry stinking fish once too often? From any one of these other brides might come a boy glad enough to be his father’s son. Why could she not show some policy? Why could she never spare the boy?

There was no hope, thought Epikrates, of his learning anything today. As well put away the kithara…Well, but if I myself have learned, what have I learned for? Epikrates put on the instrument, stood up and began to play.

After a while Alexander turned back from the window, and came to sit on the table, fidgeting at first, then quiet, then still, his head tilted a little, his eyes finding a distance for themselves. Presently tears filled their lashes. Epikrates saw it with relief; it had always happened when music moved him, and embarrassed neither of them. When it was over, he wiped his eyes on his palms and smiled. “If you want me to, I’ll learn a piece to play in Hall.”

Epikrates said to himself as he went away, I shall have to go soon; the turbulence here is too much for any man who wants harmony and balance in his soul.

A few lessons later, Alexander said, “There will be guests at supper; if I’m asked to play, shall I try it?”

“Certainly. Play it just as you did this morning. Will there be a place for me?”

“Oh yes; it will be all men we know, no foreigners. I’ll tell the steward.”

Supper was late; it had to wait for the King. He greeted his guests with civility, but was rather short with the servants. Though his cheeks were flushed and his eyes injected, he was clearly sober, and anxious to forget whatever had put him out. Slaves passed along the news that he had just come from the Queen.

The guests were old campaigning friends from the Companion Cavalry. Philip looked down the couches with relief; no state envoys to put on a show for, or to complain if they got along early to the wine. Good full-bodied Akanthian, and no water with it; he needed it, after what he had had to endure.

Alexander sat on the end of Phoinix’ supper couch and shared his table. He never sat with his father unless invited. Phoinix, who had no ear to speak of but knew all the literary references to music, was pleased to hear of the boy’s new piece and cited Achilles’ lyre. “And I shall not be like Patroklos, who Homer says was sitting waiting for his friend to leave off.”

“Oh, unfair. It only means Patroklos wanted to talk.”

“Now, now, boy, what are you up to? That’s my cup you’re drinking from, not yours.”

“Well, I pledge you in it. Try mine. If they rinsed wine round it before they put in the water, that was all.”

“It’s the proper mixture for boys, one in four. You can pour some in my cup, we can’t all take it neat as your father can, but it looks bad to call for the water pitcher.”

“I’ll drink some to make room, before I pour.”

“No, no, boy, stop, that’s enough. You’ll be too drunk to play.”

“Of course not, I only had a mouthful.” And indeed he showed no sign beyond a little heightened color. He came of well-seasoned stock.

The noise was rising as the cups were topped up. Philip, shouting above it, invited anyone to give them a tune or a song.

“Here’s your son, sir,” called Phoinix, “who has learned a new tune for this very feast.”

Two or three cups of strong neat wine had made Philip feel much better. It was a known cure for snakebite, he thought with a grim smile. “Come up, then, boy. Bring your lyre and sit up here.”

Alexander signed to the servant with whom he had left the kithara. He put it on with care, and went over to stand by his father’s couch.

“What’s this?” said the King. “You can’t play that thing, can you?” He had never seen it used by a man not paid to do it; it struck him as unsuitable.

The boy smiled, saying, “You must tell me that when I’ve finished, Father.” He tested the strings and began.

Epikrates, listening down the hall, looked at the boy with deep affection. At this moment he could have posed for a young Apollo. Who knows, this may be the true beginning; he may come to a pure knowledge of the god.

All the Macedonian lords, who had been awaiting the cue to shout a chorus, listened amazed. They had never heard of a gentleman playing like this, or wanting to. What had those schoolmasters been up to with the boy? He had the name of being plucky and game for anything. Were they making a southerner of him? It would be philosophy next.

King Philip had attended many music contests. Though without sustained interest in the art, he could recognize technique. He was aware of it here, together with its lack of fitness. The company, he could see, did not know what to make of it. Why had the teacher not reported this morbid fervor? The truth was plain. She had been bringing him again to those rites of hers, steeping him in their frenzies, making a barbarian of him. Look at him now, thought Philip; look at him now.

Out of civility to foreign guests, who always expected it, he had got into the way of bringing the boy to supper in the Hellene fashion; his friends’ sons would not appear till they came of age. Why had he broken this good custom? If the boy had a girl’s voice still, must he tell the world? That Epirote bitch, that malignant sorceress; he would long since have put her away, had her powerful kin not been like a spear poised at his back when he went to war. Let her not be too sure of herself. He would do it yet.

Phoinix had had no notion the boy could play like this. He was as good as that fellow from Samos a few months back. But he was letting himself get carried away, as he did sometimes with Homer. Before his father, he had always held himself in. He should never have had that wine.

He had reached the cadenzas which led to the finale. The stream of sound cascaded through its gorges, the bright spray glittered above.

Philip gazed, almost unhearing, taken up with what he saw: the brilliant glow of the face, the deep-set eyes unfocused and glittering with unshed tears, the remotely smiling mouth. To him, it mirrored the face he had left upstairs, its cheekbones flushed red, its defiant laughter, its eyes weeping with rage.

Alexander struck the last chord and drew a long deep breath. He had not made one mistake.

The guests broke into uneasy applause. Epikrates joined in eagerly. Phoinix shouted rather too loudly, “Good! Very good!”

Philip banged down his wine cup on the table. His forehead had flushed dark crimson; the lid of his blind eye had dropped a little, showing only the white spot; his good eye started in its socket.

“Good?” he said. “Do you call that music for a man?”

The boy turned slowly, as if waking from sleep. He blinked his eyes clear, and fastened them on his father.

“Never,” said Philip, “let me see you make such a show of yourself again. Leave it to Corinthian whores and Persian eunuchs; you sing well enough for either. You should be ashamed.”

With the kithara still strapped on to him, the boy stood stock-still for a few moments, his face blank, and, as the blood receded, growing sallow. Looking at no one, he walked out between the couches and left the hall.

Epikrates followed. But he had wasted a few moments thinking what to say, and did not find him.

A few days later, Gyras, a tribal Macedonian from the inland hills, set out along ancient tracks, returning home on leave. He had told his commander, formally, that his father was dying and had begged for a last sight of him. The officer, who had expected it since the day before, told him not to waste time at home when he had done his business, if he wanted to draw his pay. Tribal wars were winked at, unless they showed signs of spreading; they were immemorial; to put down blood-feud would have taken the army all its time, even had it not been itself steeped in tribal loyalties. Gyras’ uncle had been killed, the wife raped and left for dead; if Gyras was refused leave he would desert. Some such thing happened once a month or so.

It was his second day out. He was a light cavalryman with his own horse, small and scrubby but tough, qualities Gyras shared; a gingery brown man, with a broken nose set slightly skew and a short bristly beard, dressed mainly in leather, and armed to the teeth, this being required for the journey as well as for his errand. He had been favoring his horse over grass wherever he could find it, to keep its unshod hooves sound for the work ahead. At about noon, he was crossing a rolling heathland between the mountain ribs of Macedon. In the wooded dips, birches and larches swayed in a gentle breeze; it was late summer, but up here the air was fresh. Gyras, who did not want to be killed, but preferred it to the life of disgrace which followed a failure to take vengeance, looked about him at the world he might shortly have to leave. Meantime, however, there was an oak grove ahead; in its hushed and grateful shade a stream burbled over pebbles and black oak-leaves. He watered and tethered his horse; dipping the bronze cup he carried on his belt, he approved the water’s sweetness. From his saddlebag he took goat cheese and black bread, and sat on a rock to eat.

Hoofbeats cantered on the track behind him. At a walk, some stranger entered the wood. Gyras reached for his javelins, already laid at hand.

“Good day to you, Gyras.”

Till the latest moment he had not believed his eyes. They were a good fifty miles out from Pella.

“Alexander!” His bread had stuck in his throat; he dislodged and bolted it, while the boy dismounted and led his horse to the stream. “How did you get here? Is no one with you?”

“You are, now.” He invoked the god of the stream in proper form, restrained his mount from drinking too much, and tethered it to an oak sapling. “We can eat together.” He unpacked food and came over. He wore a man’s long hunting-knife on a shoulder-sling; his clothes were tumbled and dirty, his hair had pine-needles in it. Clearly he had slept out. His horse carried, among other things, two javelins and a bow. “Here, take an apple. I thought I should catch up with you about mealtime.”

Dazedly Gyras complied. The boy drank from cupped hands and splashed his face. Concerned with his own affairs, for him momentous, Gyras had heard nothing of King Philip’s supper party. The thought of this charge on his hands appalled him. By the time he had returned him and set out again, anything might have happened at home. “How did you come so far alone? Are you lost? Were you out hunting?”

“I am hunting what you are hunting,” said Alexander, biting into his apple. “That is why I am coming with you.”

“But…but…what notion…You don’t know what I’m about.”

“Of course I do. Everyone in your squadron knows it. I need a war, and yours will do very well. It is quite time, you know, that I got my sword belt. I have come out to take my man.”

Gyras gazed transfixed. The boy must have tracked him all this way, keeping out of sight. He was equipped with care and forethought. Also, something had changed his face. His cheeks had sunk and flattened below the cheekbones; his eyes looked deeper under the shelf of his brows, his high-bridged nose stood out more. There was a line across his forehead. It was scarcely a boy’s face at all. Nonetheless he was twelve years old, and Gyras would have to answer for him.

“It’s not right,” he said desperately, “what you’ve done. You know it’s not right. I was needed at home, you know that. Now I’ll have to leave them in their trouble, and take you back.”

“You can’t, you’ve eaten with me, we’re guest-friends.” He was reproving, not alarmed. “It’s wicked to betray a guest-friend.”

“You should have told me the right of it first, then. I can’t help it now. Come back you must and will. You’re no more than a child. If harm came to you, the King would have me crucified.”

The boy got up without haste, and strolled to his horse. Gyras started up, saw he was not untying it, and sat down again.

“He won’t kill you if I come back. If I die, you’ll have plenty of time to run away. I don’t suppose he’d kill you anyway. Think about me, instead. If you do anything to get me sent home before I’m ready, if you try to ride back or send a message, then I shall kill you. And that you can be sure of.”

He had turned from the horse with lifted arm. Gyras looked along a javelin, balanced and poised. The narrow leaflike blade shone blue with honing, the point looked like a needle.

“Keep still, Gyras. Sit just as you are, don’t move. I’m quick, you know, everyone knows it. I can throw before you can do anything. I don’t want you for my first man. It wouldn’t be enough, I should still have to take another in battle. But you will be, if you try to stop me now.”

Gyras looked at his eyes. He had faced such eyes through helmet-slits. He said, “Now, come, now, you don’t mean that.”

“No one will even know I did it. I shall just leave your body in that thicket, for the wolves and kites. You’ll never be buried, or given your rites to set you free.” His voice grew rhythmic. “And the shades of the dead will not let you cross the river to join their company, but you will wander alone forever before the wide gates of Hades’ house. No, don’t move.”

Gyras sat immobile. It gave him time to think. Though ignorant of the supper party, he knew about the King’s new wedding, and those before. There was already a boy from one of them. Folk said it had started bright enough, but had turned out an idiot, no doubt poisoned by the Queen. Maybe she had only bribed the nurse to drop it on its head. Maybe it was just a natural. But there might be others. If young Alexander wanted to make himself a man ahead of time, one could see why.

“Well?” said the boy. “Will you pledge yourself? I can’t stand like this all day.”

“What I’ve ever done to deserve this of the gods, they only know. What do you want me to swear to?”

“Not to get word to Pella of me. To tell no one my name without my leave. Not to keep me from going into battle, or get anyone else to do it. You must swear all that, and call down a death-curse on yourself if you break your oath.”

Gyras felt himself flinch. He wanted no such compacts with a witch’s son. The boy lowered his weapon but kept the thong in his fingers, twisted for a throw. “You’ll have to do it. I don’t want you creeping up to bind me when I’m asleep. I could sit up to watch, but it would be stupid before a battle. So if you want to come out of this wood alive, you’ll have to swear.”

“And what’s to become of me after?”

“If I live I’ll see you right. You must chance my dying, that’s war.” He reached into his leather saddlebag, looking over his shoulder at the still unsworn Gyras, and took out a piece of meat. It smelled high, not having been fresh when it left Pella. “This is from a haunch of sacrifice,” he said, slapping it down upon a boulder. “I knew we should have to do this. Come here. Lay your hand on it. Have you respect for oaths before the gods?”

“Yes.” His hand was so chilly that the dead goat-flesh felt quite warm.

“Then say this after me.”

The oath was elaborate and exact, the death-fate invoked was ghastly. The boy was well versed in such things, and had on his own account a ready awareness of loopholes. Gyras finished binding himself as he was told, and went to swill his bloody hand in the running stream. The boy sniffed at the meat. “I don’t think this is fit to eat, even if we were to waste time making fire.” He tossed it away, holstered his javelin, and came back to Gyras’ side. “Well, that’s done, now we can go on like friends. Let’s finish eating, while you tell me about the war.”

Passing his hand across his brow, Gyras began to recite his kinsmen’s injuries. “No, I know about that. How many are you, how many are they? What kind of country is it? Have you horses?”

Their track threaded green hills, steadily rising. Grass gave way to bracken and thyme, the track wound past pine woods and thickets of arbutus. The ranges heaved up all round them; they met mountain air, with its life-giving holy pureness. They entered the open secrecy of the heights.

Gyras traced back the feud three generations. The boy, his first questions once answered, proved a good listener. Of his own affairs, he said only, “When I’ve taken my man, you must be my witness at Pella. The King didn’t take his man till he was fifteen. Parmenion told me so.”

Gyras planned to spend the last night of the journey with distant kinsmen, half a day’s ride from home. He pointed out their village, clinging to the edge of a gorge, with rocky slopes above it. There was a mule-track along the precipice; Gyras was for taking a good road round the slope, one of King Archelaos’; but the boy, having learned that the pass was just usable, insisted on going that way to see what it was like. Between the steep bends and giddy drops, he said, “If these are your clansmen, it’s no use our saying I’m your kin. Say I’m your commander’s son, come to learn about war. They can never claim you lied to them.”

Gyras readily agreed; even this would hint that the boy must be kept an eye on. He could do no more, on account of the death-fate. He was a believing man.

On a flattish shelf a few furlongs round about, between a broken hillside and the gorge, was the hamlet of Skopas, built of the brown stone which lay loose all round it, looking like an outcrop itself. On its open side was a stockade of boulders filled in with thorn-brush. Within, the coarse grass was full of cow-pats from the cattle that spent the night there. One or two small hairy horses were at graze; the rest would be out with the herders and hunters. Goats and some ragged sheep moved on the hill; a goat-boy’s piping sounded from above, like the call of some wild bird.

Above the pass, on a gnarled dead tree, was spiked a yellow skull, and a few bones left of a hand. When the boy asked about it, Gyras said, “That was a long time back, when I was a child. That was the man killed his own father.”

Their coming was the news of half a year. A horn was blown to tell the herdsmen; the oldest Skopian was carried in from the lair of still older rags and skins where he was waiting to die. In the headman’s house they were offered sweet small figs, and some turbid wine in the best, least chipped cups; people waited with ritual courtesy till they had done, before the questions began, about themselves, and the distant world. Gyras said the Great King had Egypt under his heel again; King Philip had been called in to set things to rights down in Thessaly, and was Archon there now, as good as King; it had put the southerners in a taking. And was it true, asked the headman’s brother, that he had taken a new wife, and put the Epirote Queen away?

Aware of a stillness more piercing than all the voices, Gyras said that this was a pack of lies. The King as he got new lands in order might honor this lord or that by taking a daughter into his house; to Gyras’ mind, they were by way of a kind of hostage. As for Queen Olympias, she stood in high respect as the mother of the King’s heir, a credit to both his parents. Having got off this speech, sweated over in silence some hours before, Gyras cut off comment by asking in his turn for news.

News of the feud was bad. Four enemy Kimolians had met in a glen two of Gyras’ clansmen, out after deer. One had lived just long enough to creep home and tell them where to find his brother’s corpse before the jackals had it. The Kimolians were puffed with pride; the old man had no hold upon his sons; soon no one would be safe from them. Many deeds were milled over, many words quoted which had struck someone as telling, while the livestock was driven in, and the women cooked the goat which had been slaughtered to feast the guests. With the fall of dark, everyone went to bed.

Alexander shared with the headman’s son, who had a proper blanket. It was verminous; so was the child, but being in awe of his guest he let him sleep in what peace the fleas allowed.

He dreamed that Herakles came up to the bed and shook him. He looked as he did in the garden shrine at Pella, beardless and young, hooded in the fanged mask of the lion, its mane hanging down behind. “Get up, lazy boy,” he said, “or I shall start without you. I have been calling you this long time.”

All the people in the room were sleeping; he took his cloak and stepped softly out. A late bright moon lit the wide uplands. No one kept watch but the dogs. One huge wolflike beast ran up to him; he stood still to be smelled, and it let him be. It was movement outside the fence that would have had them baying.

All was quiet, why had Herakles called him? His eye fell on a tall crag, with an easy way up well worn by feet, the village lookout. If a guard was there…But no guard was. He scrambled up. He could trace the good road of Archelaos, winding on down the hill; and on it a creeping shadow.

Twenty-odd horsemen, riding light, without burdens. Even in the far-sounding hills, they were too far off to hear; but something twinkled under the moon.

The boy’s eyes widened. He raised both hands to the sky, his shining face uplifted. He had committed himself to Herakles, and the god had answered. Not leaving him to find the battle, he had sent the battle to him.

In the light of the gibbous moon, he stood printing on his mind the shape of the place, the vantage points and the hazards. There was nowhere down there to ambush them. Archelaos, a good road-builder, had no doubt planned against ambushes. They would have to be ambushed here; for the Skopians were outnumbered. They must be roused at once, before the enemy got near enough to hear the stir. If he ran about shaking them up, they would forget him in the scramble; they must be made to listen. Outside the headman’s hut hung the horn which had called the villagers. He tested it softly, and blew.

Doors opened, men ran out with clouts clutched round them, women squealed to each other, sheep and goats bleated. The boy, standing up on a high boulder against the glimmering sky, called, “War! It is war!”

The gabble hushed. His clear voice cut in. Ever since he left Pella, he had been thinking in Macedonian.

“I am Alexander, King Philip’s son. Gyras knows who I am. I have come to fight in your war for you, because the god has warned me. The Kimolians are there on the valley road, twenty-three riders. Listen to me, and before sunup we’ll make an end of them.” He called up, by name, the headman and his sons.

They came forward in stunned silence, their eyes starting in the gloom. This was the witch’s child, the son of the Epirote.

He sat on the boulder, not wishing to part with the height it lent him, and spoke earnestly, aware all the while of Herakles at his shoulder.

When he had done, the headman sent the women indoors, and told the men to do as the boy had said. They argued at first; it went against the grain to strike no blow at the accursed Kimolians till they were in the stockade among the cattle they had come to steal. But Gyras came out too for it. So in the loom of the false dawn the Skopians armed themselves and caught their ponies, and clustered the far side of the houses. It was clear the Kimolians reckoned on attacking when the men had gone out about their work. The bar of thorn-brush which closed the gateway had been thinned enough to let them in, but not to make them think. The shepherd boys and goat-boys were sent up on the hill, to make it look like a common morning.

The peaks stood dark against the sky, in whose deeps the stars were paling. The boy, holding his bridle and his javelins, watched for the first rose of dawn; he might be seeing it once for all. This he had known; for the first time, now, he felt it. All his life he had been hearing news of violent death; now his body told back the tale to him; the grinding of the iron into one’s vitals, the mortal pain, the dark shades waiting as one was torn forth to leave the light, forever, forever. His guardian had left his side. In his silent heart he turned to Herakles, saying, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Dawn touched the highest peak in a glow like flame. He had been perfectly alone; so the voice of Herakles, still as it was, reached him unhindered. It said, “I left you to make you understand my mystery. Do not believe that others will die, not you; it is not for that I am your friend. By laying myself on the pyre I became divine. I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee, and I know how death is vanquished. Man’s immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.”

The rose-red on the hilltops changed to gold. He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, I am not afraid. It was better than music or his mother’s love; it was the life of the gods. No grief could touch him, no hatred harm him. Things looked bright and clear, as to the stooping eagle. He felt sharp as an arrow, and full of light.

The Kimolians’ horses sounded on the hard earth of the road.

They paused outside the stockade. A goat-boy piped on the hill. In the houses children talked, innocent of guile; a guileful woman was singing. They kicked the thorn-brush aside, and rode in laughing. The cattle they had come for were still within the pound. They would have the women first.

Suddenly came a yell so loud and high that they thought some wild girl had seen them. Then came the shouts of men.

Horse and foot, the Skopians burst out on them. Some were already making for the houses; these were dealt with quickly. Soon numbers were almost even.

For a while there was only chaos, as men dived and stumbled about among the bawling cattle. Then one of the raiders made a bolt for the gate, and was off. Cheers of triumph rose from the Skopians. The boy perceived that this was the beginning of flight; and that the Skopians were going to allow it, content that the day was theirs, not looking to another day when the enemy would come back, sore from defeat and bent on vengeance. Did they take this for victory? With a shout he rode towards the gate, calling fiercely, “Head them off!”; and, drawn by his certainty, the Skopians followed. The gate was blocked. Cattle still milled about; but men were facing men; there had formed, in little, opposing battle-lines.

Now! thought the boy. He looked at the man across from him.

He had on a war-cap of greasy black old leather, stitched with crudely forged plates of iron, and a corselet of goat’s hide with the hair on, worn bald here and there. His red beard was young, his face freckled and peeled with sunburn. He was frowning deeply, not in anger but like a man charged with some work he is not skilled in, who has time for no one’s concerns except his own. Nonetheless, thought the boy, that is an old war-cap, often used; and he’s a grown man, quite tall. One must take the first comer, that is the proper thing.

He had his two javelins, the first to throw, the second to fight with. Spears were flying, and one Skopian had jumped on a house-roof with a bow. A horse neighed and reared, a shaft sticking in its neck; the rider fell, and scrambled off hopping on one leg; the horse bolted round the houses. Much time seemed to pass in these beginnings. Most of the spears had missed, through impatience, distance or lack of skill. The red-haired man’s eyes shifted, waiting for the melee to throw up his own enemy he must fight. Before long, someone else would have him.

The boy poised his throwing-spear as he kicked his pony forward. An easy mark; there was a black patch on the goatskin over the heart. No; this was his first man, it must be hand to hand. Alongside was a dark, stocky, swarthy man with a black beard; the boy jerked back his arm, and threw almost without looking; his fingers reaching for the second shaft the moment the first was gone, his eyes seeking the red-haired man’s. The man had seen him, their eyes met. The boy shouted a wordless battle-yell, and urged on his horse with his spear-butt. It leaped forward jerkily over the broken ground.

The man leveled his spear, a longer one, peering about. His eyes passed over the boy, shifting and seeking. He was waiting for someone; for a grown man, whom he must heed.

The boy threw up his head, and shouted at his lungs’ full pitch. The man must be roused, made to believe in him, or it would not be a proper killing; it would be like taking him in the back, or half asleep. It must be perfect, there must be nothing that could ever be said against it. He yelled again.

The raiders were a big-made tribe. To the red-haired man, it seemed a child who came riding. He gazed in unease, disliking the need to keep an eye on him, fearing that while he beat him off some man would rush in and take him off guard. His eyesight was only middling; though the boy had seen him clearly, he took some moments to make out the approaching face. It was not a child’s. It raised the hair on his neck.

The boy set his face into a warrior’s, that he might be believed in and challenge death. In a perfect singleness, free from hatred, anger, or doubt, pure in dedication, exultant in victory over fear, he swooped towards the red-haired man. With this face of inhuman radiance; with this being, whatever it was, eerie, numinous, uttering its high hawklike cries, the man wanted no more to do. He swerved his horse; a burly Skopian was nearing, perhaps to single him out; someone else should deal with the matter. His eye had strayed too long. With a shrill “Ahii-i!” the shining man-child was on him. He thrust with his spear; the creature swung past it; he saw deep sky-filled eyes, a mouth of ecstasy. A blow struck his breast, which at once was more than a blow, was ruin and darkness. As sight faded from his eyes, it seemed to him that the smiling lips had parted to drink his life.

The Skopians cheered the boy, clearly a luck-bringer; it had been the quickest kill of the fight. The raiders were shaken; this was the favorite son of their headman, who was old and would get no more. They struggled in bad order to the gate-gap, forcing their horses through the cattle and the men; not all the Skopians were resolute. Horses squealed, cows bawled and trampled the fallen; there was a stink of fresh-dropped dung, crushed herbage, sweat and blood.

As the flight cohered, it was seen to head for the road. The boy, steering his horse through goats, remembered the lie of the land, seen from the lookout. He burst out of the press, with an ear-piercing yell of “Stop them! The pass! Head them for the pass!” He never looked back; had the spellbound Skopians not streamed after him, he would have confronted the Kimolians all alone.

They were in time; the raiders were contained, all ways but the one. In full panic now, unfit for a wise choice of evils, scared of the precipices, but ignorant of the goat-ways on the rocky hill, they crowded onto the narrow track above the gorge.

At the back of the rout, a single man wheeled round to face the pursuers. Straw-haired, darkly tanned, hawk-nosed, he had been first in attack and last to fly; last, too, to give up struggling to reach the road. Knowing the choice of evils had been wrong, he waited where the mouth of the pass grew narrow. He had planned and led the raid; his youngest brother had fallen, at the hand of a boy who should still have been herding goats; he would have to face their father with it. Better redeem shame in death; the odds were on death in any case; a few might escape, if he could hold the pass awhile. He drew the old iron sword which had been his grandfather’s, and, dismounting, straddled the rough way.

The boy, riding up from his place in the dragnet, saw him hold his own against three, take a head blow, give at the knees. The chase broke over him. Ahead, the raiders were strung along the ledge. Yelling with joy, the Skopians hurled rocks at them, the archer loosed his bow. Horses fell screaming down the cliff, men followed the horses. They had lost half their strength, before the remnant turned out of range.

It was over. The boy reined in his pony. Its neck had been cut, it began to feel the pain and be plagued by flies. He caressed and reassured it. He had only come to take his man, and he had won a battle. This the god had given him from the sky.

The Skopians crowded round him, those who had not climbed down to strip the bodies in the gorge. Their heavy hands were on his back and shoulders, the air round him steamed with their strong breath. He was their general, their fighting quail, their little lion, their luck-piece. Gyras walked by him with the air of a man whose status is changed forever.

Someone shouted, “This whore’s son is moving still.” The boy, not to miss anything, shoved in. The straw-haired man lay where he had been beaten down, bleeding from his torn scalp, trying to struggle up on one arm. A Skopian grasped him by the hair, so that he cried out with pain, and pulled back his head to cut his throat. The others gave scarcely a second glance to this natural action.

“No!” said the boy. They all turned, surprised and puzzled. He ran up and knelt by the man, pushing aside the knife. “He was brave. He did it for the others. He was like Ajax at the ships.”

The Skopians broke into lively argument. What did he mean? Something about some sacred hero, about an omen, that it would be bad luck to kill the man? No, said another, it was just some fancy of the boy’s, but war was war. Laughing, pushing aside the first comer, he came knife in hand to the man upon the ground.

“If you kill him,” said the boy, “I will make you sorry. I swear it by my father’s head.”

The knife-bearer looked round with a start. A moment ago, the lad had been all sunshine. Gyras muttered, “You had better do as he says.”

He stood up, saying, “You must let this man go. I claim him as my battle-prize. He is to have his horse; I will give you the horse of the man I killed, to make good.” They listened open-mouthed; but, he thought looking round, they were reckoning he would soon forget and they could finish the man off later. “Get him mounted now, at once, and put him on the road. Gyras, help them.”

The Skopians escaped into laughter. They bundled the man along to his horse, amusing themselves till the sharp young voice behind them called, “Stop doing that.” They slashed the horse’s rump and it went walloping off along the road, its limp rider clinging to its mane. The boy turned back, the frown-line smoothed from his brow. “Now,” he said, “I must find my man.”

No living wounded were left upon the field. The Skopians had been carried home by their women, the raiders butchered, mostly by the women too. Now they had come to their dead, flinging themselves across the bodies, beating their breasts, clawing at their faces, wrenching their loosened hair. Their keening hung in the air like the voices of wild things native to the place, young wolves or crying birds or goats at yeaning-time. White clouds sailed the sky, calmly, sending dark wings over the mountains, touching far forest-tops with black.

The boy thought, This is a battlefield. This is what it is like. The enemy dead lay littered and bundled about, forsaken, ungainly, sprawling. The women, clustered like crows, hid the fallen victors. Already, balanced swaying on high air, by one and one vultures appeared.

The red-haired man lay on his back, one knee bent up, his young beard cocked at the sky. The iron-patched war-cap, two generations older than he, had been taken already; it would serve many other men. He was not bleeding much. There had been a moment, while he was falling, when the javelin had stuck in him, and the boy had thought he would have to let go or be dragged off too. But he had tugged once more and it had pulled free, just in time.

He looked at the white face, already growing livid, the gaping mouth, and thought again, This is a battlefield, a soldier must learn to know it. He had taken his man, and must show a trophy. There was no dagger, not even a belt; the goatskin corselet was gone. The women had been quickly over the field. The boy was angry in himself, but knew that complaint would bring no redress and would lose him face. He must have a trophy. Nothing was left, now, except…

“Here, little warrior.” A Skopian youth with black tangled hair stood over him, showing broken teeth in a friendly smile. In his hand was a cleaver with half-dry blood all over it. “Let me have off the head for you. I know the knack.”

Between the grinning and the gaping face, the boy paused silent. The cleaver, light in the youth’s big hand, looked heavy for his own. Gyras said quickly, “They only do that in the back country now, Alexander.”

“I had better have it,” he said. “There’s nothing else.” The youth came forward eagerly. Gyras might be citified, but for the King’s son old customs were good enough; that was the way of quality. He tried the edge on his thumb. But the boy had found himself too glad to have this work done for him. “No. I must cut it off myself.” While the Skopians laughed and swore admiringly, the cleaver, warm, sticky, slimy, raw-smelling, was put in his hand. He knelt by the corpse, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, doggedly chopping at the neckbone, spattering himself with bloody shreds, till the head rolled free. Grasping a handful of dead hair—for there must be nothing he could know after in his most secret soul that he had feared to do—he stood upright. “Fetch me my gamebag, Gyras.”

Gyras unstrapped it from the saddlecloth. The boy dropped the head in, and rubbed his palms on the bag. There was still blood between his fingers, sticking them together. The stream was a hundred feet down, he would wash them going home. He turned to bid his hosts farewell.

“Wait!” shouted someone. Two or three men, carrying something, were running and waving. “Don’t let the little lord go. Here, we have his other trophy for him. Two, yes, look, he killed two.”

The boy frowned. He wanted to go home now. He had only fought one combat. What did they mean?

The foremost man ran up panting. “It’s true. This one here”—he pointed to the raw-necked trunk—“that was his second man. He took the first with a javelin-throw, before ever we closed with them. I saw it myself; he pitched straight down stuck like a pig. He was creeping about awhile, but he was finished before the women got to him. Here you are, little lord. Something to show your father.”

The second man displayed the head, holding it up by its black hair. The strong bushy beard hid the shorn neck. It was the head of the man he had thrown his first javelin at, before he fought hand to hand. There had been an eye-blink moment, when he had seen this was the man to have it. He had forgotten, his mind had shut on it as if it had never been. Held by the forelock, it had an arrogant upward tilt; rigor had set a gap-toothed grin on it; the skin was swarthy, one of the eyes was half closed, showing only the white.

The boy looked at the face confronting his. A coldness spread in his belly; he felt a great heave of nausea, a clammy sweat in his palms. He swallowed, and fought to keep from vomiting.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I never killed that man.”

They began all three at once to reassure him, describing the body, swearing it had no other wound, offering to take him there, thrusting the head towards him. Two men at his first blooding! He could tell his grandsons. They appealed to Gyras; the little lord was overdone, and no wonder; if he left his prize behind, when he was himself again he would be sorry; Gyras must keep it for him.

“No!” The boy’s voice had risen. “I don’t want it. I didn’t see him die. You can’t bring him to me if the women killed him. You can’t tell what happened. Take it away.”

They clicked their tongues, sorry to obey him to his later loss. Gyras took aside the headman, and whispered in his ear. His face changed; he took the boy kindly round the shoulders, and said he must be warmed with a drop of wine before the long ride home. The boy walked with him quietly, his face with its clear pallor remote and gentle, a faint blueness under his eyes. Presently with the wine the color came back into his skin; he began to smile, and before long joined in the laughter.

Outside there was a buzz of praise. What a fine boy! Such pluck, such a head on his shoulders; and now such proper feeling. Not much of a likeness, yet it had moved his heart. What father would not be proud of such a son?

“Look well at the horn of the hoof. A thick horn makes for much sounder feet than a thin one. Take care, too, to see the hoofs are high front and back, not flattened; a high hoof keeps the frog clear of the ground.”

“Is there any of that book,” asked Philotas, Parmenion’s son, “that you don’t know by heart?”

“One can’t know too much of Xenophon,” Alexander said, “when it comes to horses. I want to read his books about Persia, too. Are you buying anything today?”

“Not this year. My brother’s buying one.”

“Xenophon says a good hoof ought to make a ringing noise like a cymbal. That one there looks splay to me. My father wants a new battle-charger. He had one killed under him, fighting the Illyrians last year.” He looked at the dais beside them, run up as usual for the spring horse-fair; the King had not yet arrived.

It was a sharp brilliant day; the lake and the lagoon were ruffled and darkly gleaming; the white clouds that skimmed across to the distant mountains had edges honed blue, like swords. The bruised turf of the meadow was green from the winter rains. All morning the soldiers had been buying; officers for themselves, tribal chiefs for the vassals who made up their squadrons (in Macedon, the feudal and the regimental always overlapped) tough stocky thick-maned beasts, lively and sleek from the winter grazing. By noon, this common business was done; now the bloodstock was coming out, racers and parade show-horses and chargers, curried and dressed up to the eyes.

The horse fair at Pella was a rite not less honored than the sacred feasts. Dealers came from the horse-lands of Thessaly, from Thrace, from Epiros, even across Hellespont; these would always claim their stock was crossed with the fabled Nisaian strain of the Persian kings.

Important buyers were only now arriving. Alexander had been there most of the day. Following him about, not yet at ease with him or with one another, were half a dozen boys whom Philip had lately collected from fathers he wished to honor.

It was long since a Prince’s Guard had been formed in Macedon for an heir just come of age. The King himself had never been heir apparent. In the wars of succession before that, no heir for generations had had time to come of age before he was murdered or dispossessed. Records revealed that the last Prince of Macedon to have his Companions chosen for him in proper form had been Perdikkas the First, some fifty years before. One ancient man survived of them; he had tales as long as Nestor’s about border wars and cattle-raids, and could name the grandchildren of Perdikkas’ bastards; but he had forgotten everything about procedure.

The Companions should have been youths of about the Prince’s age, who had also passed the test of manhood. No such boy was now to be found in the royal lands. Fathers put forward eagerly the claims of sons sixteen or seventeen years old, who already looked and talked like men. They argued that most of Alexander’s current friends were even older. It was natural, they added tactfully, with so brave and forward a boy.

Philip endured the compliments with a good grace, while he lived with the remembered eyes which had met his when the head, already stinking from its journey, was laid before him. During the days of waiting and seeking news, it had been clear to him that if the boy never came back, he would have to have Olympias killed before she could kill him. All this was tough meat to feast on. Epikrates, too, had left, telling him the Prince had decided to give up music, and not meeting his eyes. Philip bestowed lavish guest-gifts, but could see an unpleasant tale going round the odeons of Hellas; these men went everywhere.

In the upshot, no real attempt had been made to muster a formal Prince’s Guard. Alexander took no interest in this dead institution; he had picked up for himself the group of youths and grown men who were already known everywhere as Alexander’s Friends. They themselves were apt to forget that he was only thirteen last summer.

The morning, however, of the horse fair, he had been spending with the boys attached to him by the King. He had been pleased to have their company; if he treated them all as his juniors, it was not to assert himself or put them down, but because he never felt it otherwise. He had talked horses untiringly, and they had done their best to keep up. His sword belt, his fame, and the fact that with all this he was the smallest of them, bewildered them and made them awkward. They were relieved that now, for the showing of the bloodstock, his friends were gathering, Ptolemy and Harpalos and Philotas and the rest. Left on one side, they clumped together and, with their pack-leader gone, started edging for precedence like a chance-met group of dogs.

“My father couldn’t come in today. It’s not worth it; he imports his horses straight from Thessaly. All the breeders know him.”

“I shall need a bigger horse soon; but my father’s leaving it till next year, when I’ve grown taller.”

“Alexander’s a hand shorter than you, and he rides men’s horses.”

“Oh, well, I expect they trained them specially.”

The tallest of the boys said, “He took his boar. I suppose you think they trained a boar for him.”

“That was set up, it always is,” said the boy with the richest father, who could count on having it set up for him.

“It was not set up!” said the tall boy angrily. The others exchanged looks; he reddened. His voice, which was breaking, gave a sudden startling growl. “My father heard about it. Ptolemy tried to set it up without his knowing, because he was set on doing it, and Ptolemy didn’t want him killed. They cleared the wood except for a small one. Then when they brought him there in the morning, overnight a big one had got in. Ptolemy went as white as a fleece, they said, and tried to make him go home. But he saw through it then; he said this was the boar the god had sent him, and the god knew best. They couldn’t budge him. They were in a sweat with fright, they knew he was too light to hold it, and the net wouldn’t hold it long. But he went straight for the big vein in the neck; no one had to help him. Everyone knows that’s so.”

“No one would dare spoil the story, you mean. Just look at him now. My father would belt me, if I stood in the horse-field letting men make up to me. Which of them does he go with?”

One of the others put in, “No one, my brother says.”

“Oh? Did he try?”

“His friend did. Alexander seemed to like him, he even kissed him once. But then when he wanted the rest, he seemed surprised and quite put out. He’s young for his age, my brother says.”

“And how old was your brother when he took his man?” asked the tallest boy. “And his boar?”

“That’s different. My brother says he’ll come to it all of a sudden, and be mad for girls. His father did.”

“Oh, but the King likes—”

“Be quiet, you fool!” They all looked over their shoulders; but the men were watching two racehorses whose dealer had set them to run round the field. The boys ceased squabbling, till the Royal Bodyguard began to form up around the dais, in readiness for the King.

“Look,” whispered someone, pointing to the officer in command. “That’s Pausanias.” There were knowing looks, and inquiring ones. “He was the King’s favorite before the one who died. He was the rival.”

“What happened?”

“Shsh. Everyone knows. The King threw him over and he was madly angry. He stood up at a drinking-party and called the new boy a shameless whore who’d go with anyone for pay. People pulled them apart; but either the boy really cared for the King, or it was the slight to his honor; it gnawed at him, and in the end he asked a friend, I think it was Attalos, to give the King a message when he was dead. Then next time they fought the Illyrians, he rushed straight in front of the King among the enemy, and got hacked to death.”

“What did the King do?”

“Buried him.”

“No, to Pausanias?”

There were confused whispers. “No one really knows if…” “Of course he did!” “You could be killed for saying that.” “Well, he can’t have been sorry.” “No, it was Attalos and the boy’s friends, my brother says so.”

“What did they do?”

“Attalos got Pausanias dead drunk one night. Then they carried him out to the grooms and said they could enjoy themselves, he’d go with anyone without even being paid. I suppose they beat him up as well. He woke in the stable yard next morning.”

Someone whistled softly. They stared at the officer of the Guard. He looked old for his years, and not strikingly handsome. He had grown a beard.

“He wanted Attalos put to death. Of course the King couldn’t do it, even if he’d wanted; imagine putting that to the Assembly! But he had to do something, Pausanias being an Orestid. He gave him some land, and made him Second Officer of the Royal Guard.”

The tallest boy, who had heard the whole tale in silence, said, “Does Alexander get to know of things like this?”

“His mother tells him everything, to turn him against the King.”

“Well, but the King insulted him in Hall. That’s why he went out to take his man.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“No, of course he wouldn’t speak of it. My father was there; he often has supper with the King. Our land’s quite near.”

“So you’ve met Alexander before, then?”

“Only once, when we were children. He didn’t know me again, I’ve grown too much.”

“Wait till he hears you’re the same age, he won’t like that.”

“Who said I was?”

“You told me you were born the same month.”

“I never said the same year.”

“You did, the first day you came.”

“Are you calling me a liar? Well, come on, are you?”

“Hephaistion, you fool, you can’t fight here.”

“Don’t call me a liar, then.”

“You do look fourteen,” said a peacemaker. “In the gymnasium, I thought you were more.”

“You know who Hephaistion has a look of? Alexander. Not really like, but, say, like his big brother.”

“You hear that, Hephaistion? How well does your mother know the King?”

He had counted too much on the protection of place and time. Next moment, with a split lip, he was on the ground. In the stir of the King’s approach, few people saw it. Alexander all this while had kept the tail of his eye on them, because he thought of himself as their commanding officer. But he decided not to notice it. They were not precisely on duty, and the boy who had been knocked down was the one he liked the least.

Philip rode up to the stand, escorted by the First Officer of the Guard, the Somatophylax. Pausanias saluted and stepped aside. The boys stood respectfully, one sucking his lip, the other his knuckles.

The horse fair was always easy-going, an outing where men were men. Philip in riding-clothes lifted his switch to the lords and squires and officers and horse-dealers; mounted the stand, shouted to this friend or that to join him. His eye fell on his son; he made a movement, then saw the little court around him and turned away. Alexander picked up his talk with Harpalos, a dark lively good-looking youth with much offhand charm, whom fate had cursed with a clubfoot. Alexander had always admired the way he bore it.

A racehorse came pounding by, ridden by a little Nubian boy in a striped tunic. Word had gone round that this year the King was only in the market for a battle-charger; but he had paid the sum, already a legend, of thirteen talents for the racer that had won for him at Olympia; and the dealer had thought it worth a try. Philip smiled and shook his head; the Nubian boy, who had hoped to be bought with the horse, to wear gold earrings and eat meat on feast-days, cantered back, his face a landscape of grief.

The chargers were led up, in precedence fiercely fought over by the dealers all the forenoon, and settled in the end by substantial bribes. The King came down to peer into mouths and at upturned hooves, to feel shanks and listen to chests. The horses were led away, or kept by in case nothing better turned up. There was a lag. Phili looked impatiently about. The big Thessalian dealer, Philonikos who had been fuming for some time, said to his runner, “Tell then I’ll have their guts for picket ropes, if they don’t bring the beas now.”

“Kittos says, sir, they can bring him, but…”

“I had to break the brute myself, must I show him too? Tell Kittos from me, if I miss this sale, they won’t have hide enough left between them for a pair of sandal soles.” With a sincere, respectful smile, he approached the King. “Sir, he’s on his way You’ll see he’s all I wrote you from Larissa, and more. Forgive the delay; they’ve just now told me, some fool let him slip his tether In prime fettle as he is, he was hard to catch. Ah! Here he comes now.”

They led up, at a careful walk, a black with a white blaze. The other horses had been ridden, to show their paces. Though he was certainly in a sweat, he did not breathe like a horse that had been running. When they pulled him up before the King and his horse trainer, his nostrils flared and his black eye rolled sidelong; he tried to rear his head, but the groom dragged it down. His bridle was costly, red leather trimmed with silver; but he had no saddlecloth The dealer’s lips moved viciously in his beard.

A hushed voice beside the dais said, “Look, Ptolemy. Look at that.”

“There, sir!” said Philonikos, forcing rapture into his voice “There’s Thunder. If there ever stepped a mount fit for a King”

He was indeed, at all points, the ideal horse of Xenophon. Starting, as he advises, with the feet, one saw that the horns of the hooves were deep before and behind; when he stamped, as he was doing now (just missing the groom’s foot) they made a ringing sound like a cymbal. His leg-bones were strong but flexible; his chest was broad, his neck arched, as the writer puts it, like a game-cock’s; the mane was long, strong, silky and badly combed. His back was firm and wide, the spine well padded, his loins were short and broad. His black coat shone; on one flank was branded the horned triangle, the Oxhead, which was the mark of his famous breed. Strikingly, his forehead had a white blaze which almost copied its shape.

“That,” said Alexander with awe, “is a perfect horse. Perfect everywhere.”

“He’s vicious,” Ptolemy said.

Over at the horse-lines, the chief groom Kittos said to a fellow slave who had watched their struggles, “Days like this, I wish they’d cut my throat along with my father’s, when they took our town. My back’s not healed from last time, and he’ll be at me again before sundown.”

“That horse is a murderer. What does he want, does he want to kill the King?”

“There was nothing wrong with that horse, I tell you nothing, nothing beyond high spirits, till he lost his temper when it took against him. He’s like a wild beast in his drink; mostly it’s us men he takes it out of, we come cheaper than horses. Now it’s anyone’s fault but his; he’d kill me if I told him its temper’s spoiled for good. He only bought it from Kroisos a month ago, just for this deal. Two talents he paid.” His hearer whistled. “He reckoned to get three, and he well might if he’d not set out to break its heart. It’s held out well, I’ll say that for it. He broke mine long ago.”

Philip, seeing the horse was restive, walked round it a few paces away. “Yes, I like his looks. Well, let’s see him move.”

Philonikos took a few steps towards the horse. It gave a squeal like a battle-trumpet, forced up its head against the hanging weight of the groom, and pawed the air. The dealer swore and kept his distance; the groom got the horse in hand. As if dye were running from the red bridle, a few drops of blood fell from its mouth.

Alexander said, “Look at that bit they’ve put on him. Look at those barbs.”

“It seems even that can’t hold him,” said big Philotas easily. “Beauty’s not everything.”

“And still he got his head up.” Alexander had moved forward. The men strolled after, looking out over him; he barely reached Philotas’ shoulder.

“You can see his spirit, sir,” Philonikos told the King eagerly. “A horse like this, one could train to rear up and strike the enemy.”

“The quickest way to have your mount killed under you,” said Philip brusquely, “making it show its belly.” He beckoned the leathery bow-legged man attending him. “Will you try him, Jason?”

The royal trainer walked round to the front of the horse, making cheerful soothing sounds. It backed, stamped and rolled its eyes. He clicked his tongue, saying firmly, “Thunder, boy, hey, Thunder.” At the sound of its name it seemed to quiver all over with suspicion and rage. Jason returned to noises. “Keep his head till I’m up,” he told the groom, “that looks like one man’s work.” He approached the horse’s side, ready to reach for the roots of the mane; the only means, unless a man had a spear to vault on, of getting up. The saddlecloth, had it been on, would have offered comfort and show, but no kind of foothold. A hoist was for the elderly, and Persians, who were notoriously soft.

At the last moment, his shadow passed before the horse’s eyes. It gave a violent start, swerved, and lashed out, missing Jason by inches. He stepped back and squinted at it sideways, screwing up one eye and the side of his mouth. The King met his look and raised his eyebrows.

Alexander, who had been holding his breath, looked round at Ptolemy and said in a voice of anguish, “He won’t buy him.”

“Who would?” said Ptolemy, surprised. “Can’t think why he was shown. Xenophon wouldn’t have bought him. You were quoting him only just now, how the nervous horse won’t let you harm the enemy, but he’ll do plenty of harm to you.”

“Nervous? He? He’s the bravest horse I ever saw. He’s a fighter. Look where he’s been beaten, under the belly too, you can see the weals. If Father doesn’t buy him, that man will flay him alive. I can see it in his face.”

Jason tried again. Before he got anywhere near the horse it started kicking. He looked at the King, who shrugged his shoulders.

“It was his shadow,” said Alexander urgently to Ptolemy. “He’s shy of his own, even. Jason should have seen.”

“He’s seen enough; he’s got the King’s life to think of. Would you ride a horse like that to war?”

“Yes, I would. To war most of all.”

Philotas raised his brows, but failed to catch Ptolemy’s eye.

“Well, Philonikos,” said Philip, “if that’s the pick of your stable, let’s waste no more time. I’ve work to do.”

“Sir, give us a moment. He’s frisky for want of exercise; too full of corn. With his strength, he—”

“I can buy something better for three talents than a broken neck.”

“My lord, for you only, I’ll make a special price.”

“I’m busy,” Philip said.

Philonikos set his thick mouth in a wide straight line. The groom, hanging for dear life on the spiked bit, began to turn the horse for the horse-lines. Alexander called out in his high carrying voice, “What a waste! The best horse in the show!”

Anger and urgency gave it a note of arrogance that made heads turn. Philip looked round startled. Never, at the worst of things, had the boy been rude to him in public. It had best be ignored till later. The groom and the horse were moving off.

“The best horse ever shown here, and all he needs is handling.” Alexander had come out into the field. All his friends, even Ptolemy, left a discreet space round him; he was going too far. The whole crowd was staring. “A horse in ten thousand, just thrown away.”

Philip, looking again, decided the boy had not meant to be so insolent. He was a colt too full of corn, ever since his two precocious exploits. They had gone to his head. No lesson so good, thought Philip, as the one a man teaches to himself. “Jason here,” he said, “has been training horses for twenty years. And you, Philonikos; how long?”

The dealer’s eyes shifted from father to son; he was on a tightrope. “Ah, well, sir, I was reared to it from a boy.”

“You hear that, Alexander? But you think you can do better?”

Alexander glanced, not at his father but at Philonikos. With an unpleasant sense of shock, the dealer looked away.

“Yes. With this horse, I could.”

“Very well,” said Philip. “If you can, he’s yours.”

The boy looked at the horse, with parted lips and devouring eyes. The groom had paused with it. It snorted over its shoulder.

“And if you can’t?” said the King briskly. “What are you staking?”

Alexander took a deep breath, his eyes not leaving the horse. “If I can’t ride him, I’ll pay for him myself.”

Philip raised his dark heavy brows. “At three talents?” The boy had only just been put up to a youth’s allowance; it would take most of this year’s, and the next as well.

“Yes,” Alexander said.

“I hope you mean it. I do.”

“So do I.” Roused from his single concern with the horse, he saw that everyone was staring: the officers, the chiefs, the grooms and dealers, Ptolemy and Harpalos and Philotas; the boys he had spent the morning with. The tall one, Hephaistion, who moved so well that he always caught the eye, had stepped out before the others. For a moment their looks met.

Alexander smiled at Philip. “It’s a bet, then, Father. He’s mine; and the loser pays.” There was a buzz of laughter and applause in the royal circle, born of relief that it had turned good-humored. Only Philip, who had caught it full in the eyes, had known it for a battle-smile, save for one watcher of no importance who had known it too.

Philonikos, scarcely able to credit this happy turn of fate, hastened to overtake the boy, who was making straight for the horse. Since he could not win, it was important he should not break his neck. It would be too much to hope that the King would settle up for him.

“My lord, you’ll find that—”

Alexander looked round and said, “Go away.”

“But, my lord, when you come to—”

“Go away. Over there, down wind, where he can’t see you or smell you. You’ve done enough.”

Philonikos looked into the paled and widened eyes. He went, in silence, exactly where he was told.

Alexander remembered, then, that he had not asked when the horse was first called Thunder, or if it had had another name. It had said plainly enough that Thunder was the word for tyranny and pain. It must have a new name, then. He walked round, keeping his shadow behind, looking at the horned blaze under the blowing forelock.

“Oxhead,” he said, falling into Macedonian, the speech of truth and love. “Boukephalos, Boukephalos.”

The horse’s ears went up. At the sound of this voice, the hated presence had lost power and been driven away. What now? It had lost all trust in men. It snorted, and pawed the ground in warning.

Ptolemy said, “The King may be sorry he set him on to this.”

“He was born lucky,” said Philotas. “Do you want to bet?”

Alexander said to the groom, “I’ll take him. You needn’t wait.”

“Oh, no, sir! When you’re mounted, my lord. My lord, they’ll hold me accountable.”

“No, he’s mine now. Just give me his head without jerking that bit…I said, give it me. Now.”

He took the reins, easing them at first only a little. The horse snorted, then turned and snuffed at him. The off forefoot raked restlessly. He took the reins in one hand, to run the other along the moist neck; then shifted his grip to the headstall, so that the barbed bit no longer pressed at all. The horse only pulled forward a little. He said to the groom, “Go that way. Don’t cross the light.”

He pushed round the horse’s head to face the bright spring sun. Their shadows fell out of sight behind them. The smell of its sweat and breath and leather bathed him in its steam. “Boukephalos,” he said softly.

It strained forward, trying to drag him with it; he took in the rein a little. A horsefly was on its muzzle; he ran his hand down, till his fingers felt the soft lip. Almost pleadingly now, the horse urged them both onward, as if saying, “Come quickly away from here.”

“Yes, yes,” he said stroking its neck. “All in good time, when I say, we’ll go. You and I don’t run away.”

He had better take off his cloak; while he spared a hand for the pin, he talked on to keep the horse in mind of him. “Remember who we are. Alexander and Boukephalos.”

The cloak fell behind him; he slid his arm over the horse’s back. It must be near fifteen hands, a tall horse for Greece; he was used to fourteen. This one was as tall as Philotas’ horse about which he talked so much. The black eye rolled round at him. “Easy, easy, now. I’ll tell you when.”

With the reins looped in his left hand he grasped the arch of the mane; with his right, its base between the shoulders. He could feel the horse gather itself together. He ran a few steps with it to gain momentum, then leaped, threw his right leg over; he was up.

The horse felt the light weight on its back, compact of certainty; the mercy of invincible hands, the forbearance of immovable will; a nature it knew and shared, transfigured to divinity. Men had not mastered it; but it would go with the god.

The crowd was silent at first. They were men who knew horses, and had more sense than to startle this one. In a breathing hush they waited for it to get its head, taking for granted the boy would be run away with, eager to applaud if he could only stick on and ride it to a standstill. But he had it in hand; it was waiting his sign to go. There was a hum of wonder; then, when they saw him lean forward and kick his heel with a shout, when boy and horse went racing down towards the water-meadows, the roar began. They vanished into the distance; only the rising clouds of wildfowl showed where they had gone.

They came back at last with the sun behind them, their shadow thrown clear before. Like the feet of a carved pharaoh treading his beaten enemies, the drumming hooves trampled the shadow triumphantly into the ground.

At the horse-field they slowed to a walk. The horse blew and shook its bridle. Alexander sat easy, in the pose which Xenophon commends: the legs straight down, gripping with the thigh, relaxed below the knee. He rode towards the stand; but a man stood waiting down in front of it. It was his father.

He swung off cavalry style, across the neck with his back to the horse; considered the best way in war, if the horse allowed it. The horse was remembering things learned before the tyranny. Philip put out both arms; Alexander came down into them. “Look out we don’t jerk his mouth, Father,” he said. “It’s sore.”

Philip pounded him on the back. He was weeping. Even his blind eye wept real tears. “My son!” he said choking. There was wet in his harsh beard. “Well done, my son, my son.”

Alexander returned his kiss. It seemed to him that this was a moment nothing could undo. “Thank you, Father. Thank you for my horse. I shall call him Oxhead.”

The horse gave a sudden start. Philonikos was coming up, beaming and full of compliments. Alexander looked round, and motioned with his head. Philonikos withdrew. The buyer was never wrong.

A surging crowd had gathered. “Will you tell them to keep off, Father? He won’t stand people yet. I’ll have to rub him down myself, or he’ll catch a chill.”

He saw to the horse, keeping the best of the grooms beside him for it to know him another time. The crowd was still in the horse-field. All was quiet in the stable yard when he came out, flushed from the ride and the work, tousled, smelling of horse. Only one loiterer was about; the tall boy Hephaistion, whose eyes had wished him victory. He smiled an acknowledgment. The boy smiled back, hesitated, and came nearer. There was a pause.

“Would you like to see him?”

“Yes, Alexander…It was just as if he knew you. I felt it, like an omen. What is he called?”

“I’m calling him Oxhead.” They were speaking Greek.

“That’s better than Thunder. He hated that.”

“You live near here, don’t you?”

“Yes. I can show you. You can see from over here. Not that first hill there, the second, the one behind it—”

“You’ve been here before. I remember you. You helped me fix a sling once, no, it was a quiver. And your father hauled you off.”

“I didn’t know who you were.”

“You showed me the hills before; I remembered then. And you were born in Lion Month, the same year as me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re half a head taller. But your father’s tall, isn’t he?”

“Yes he is, and my uncles too.”

“Xenophon says you can tell a tall horse when it’s foaled, by the length of leg. When we’re men you’ll still be taller.”

Hephaistion looked into the confident and candid eyes. He recalled his father saying that the King’s young son might have more chance to make his growth, if that stone-faced tutor would not overwork and underfeed him. He should have been protected, some friend should have been there. “You’ll still be the one who can ride Boukephalos.”

“Come and look at him. Not too near just yet; I shall have to be here at first every time they groom him, I can see that.”

He found he had fallen into Macedonian. They looked at each other and smiled.

They had been talking some time, before he remembered he had meant to go straight up from the stable, just as he was, and bring the news to his mother. For the first time in his life, he had forgotten all about her.

A few days after, he made a sacrifice to Herakles.

The hero had been generous. He deserved something richer than a goat or a ram.

Olympias agreed. If her son thought nothing too good for Herakles, she thought nothing too good for her son. She had been writing letters to all her friends, and her kindred in Epiros, relating that Philip had tried again and again to mount the horse, and had been thrown with indignity before all the people; how it was as savage as a lion, but her son had tamed it. She opened her new bale of stuffs from Athens, inviting him to choose stuff for a new festal chiton. He chose plain, fine white wool, and, when she said it was too mean for so great a day, answered that it was proper for a man.

He brought his offering in a gold cup to the hero-shrine in the garden. His father and mother were present; it was a court occasion.

Having made the proper invocation to the hero, with his praises and his epithets, he thanked him for his gifts to mankind, and finished, “As you have been to me, so remain; be favorable to me in what I shall henceforth undertake, according to my prayers.”

He tilted the cup. A translucent stream of incense, like grains of amber, shone in the sunlight, and fell on the glowing wood. A cloud of sweet blue smoke rose to heaven.

All the company, but one, pronounced amen. Leonidas, who had come to watch because he thought it his duty, compressed his lips. He was leaving soon; another was taking up his charge. Though the boy had not yet been told, his good spirits were offensive. The Arabian gum was still showering from the chalice; the cost must run into scores of drachmas. This after his constant training in austerity, his warnings against excess!

Among the cheerful pieties, his voice said tartly, “Be less wasteful of such precious things, Alexander, till you are master of the lands they grow in.”

Alexander turned from the altar, with the emptied cup in his hand. He looked at Leonidas with an alert kind of surprise, followed by grave attention. At length he said, “Yes. I will remember.”

As he came down the steps from the shrine, his eyes met the waiting eyes of Hephaistion, who understood the nature of omens. There was no need for them to speak of it after.