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

3

I WAS SOME DAYS in the Palace, before being presented. I thought I should never learn my way about this high maze of splendors; everywhere tall columns of marble or porphyry or malachite, with gilded capitals and twisted shafts; on every wall reliefs, colored and glazed brighter than life, of marching warriors, or tribute-bearers from the further empire, leading bulls or dromedaries, bearing bales or jars. When one lost one’s direction, one seemed alone in a solemn crowd, with nobody to ask.

In the eunuchs’ courtyard I was received without much warmth, as being destined for privilege; but for the same reason, none treated me ill, lest I should take my grudges with me.

It was on the fourth day, that I saw Darius.

He had been taking wine and hearing music. The room gave onto a small fountain court, sweet with the scent of lilies; in the flowering trees hung gold cages of bright birds. By the fountain the musicians were putting up their instruments; but the water and the birds made a soft murmuring concert. The court had high walls, and was part of the room’s seclusion.

He was on his cushions, looking into the courtyard; by him on the low table were the wine-jug and empty cup. I knew him at once for the man at my father’s birthday feast. But he had been dressed then for a long ride up rough roads. Now he was robed in purple worked with white, and wore the Mitra; the light kind he used when at ease. His beard was combed like silk, and he smelled of Arabian spices.

I walked with downcast eyes behind the chamberlain. One must not look up at the King; so I could not tell if he remembered me, or whether I found favor. When my name was pronounced, I prostrated myself as I had been taught, and kissed the floor before him. His slipper was of soft dyed kid, crimson, embroidered with sequins and gold wire.

The eunuch took the wine-tray and placed it in my hands. As I backed out of the Presence, I thought I heard a faint stir among the cushions.

That night I was admitted to the Bedchamber, to assist at the disrobing. Nothing happened, except that I was given things to hold till the appointed person took them away. I tried to show grace and be a credit to my teacher. It seemed he had given me advanced instruction; in reality, some allowance was made for a beginner. For the next night, while we waited for the King to enter, an old eunuch, whose every wrinkle spoke of vast experience, whispered in my ear, “If His Majesty should beckon you, do not leave with the others, but wait and see if he has any more commands for you.”

I remembered my training; watched under my eyelids for the beckoning; did not stand about, but occupied myself in a seemly way; and recognized, when we were alone, the signal to undress. I laid my clothes out of sight; I only failed in walking up with a smile. I was so scared, I knew it would look like a sheepish grin; so I approached grave and trustful, hoping for the best, as the bed was folded back for me.

At first he kissed and dandled me like a doll. Later I divined what was required of me, for I had been well prepared; and it seemed I was acceptable. Certainly, as Oromedon had said, I was never betrayed into pain by pleasure. In all the time I was with him, he gave no sign of knowing a eunuch can feel anything. One does not tell such things to the King of Kings, if he does not ask.

I was to be enjoyed, like the flame and crimson birds, the fountain and the lutes; and this I soon learned to manage, without jarring his dignity. I was never insulted, never humiliated, never handled roughly. I was dismissed with a civil word, if he was still awake; and often next morning a gift would come. But I too had learned to understand pleasure. He was getting on for fifty, and in spite of the baths and the sprinkled perfume, already he began to smell rather old. For some time, in the royal bed, my one wish was to change this great tall bearded man for the supple body of Oromedon. But it is not for the perfect vase or the polished gem to choose their owners.

If I grew discontented, I had only to remember my former lot. The King was a man jaded with too much pleasure, but unwilling to put it by. I achieved for him what he needed; he was content and gracious. When I thought of those others, the greedy rough hands and stinking breath and nasty wishes, I was shocked that I had felt a moment’s repining, and I showed my master the gratitude I felt.

Soon I waited on most of his leisure. He gave me a beautiful little horse, to ride in the royal park with him. No wonder Paradise was named after such a place. For generations, the kings had had rare trees and flowering shrubs brought from all over Asia; full-grown trees sometimes, with their roots and soil, needing a train of oxcarts, and an army of gardeners to tend them on the way. The game, too, was choice; at the hunt, they would drive it towards the King to shoot at, and when he killed we would all applaud.

One day he remembered that I sang, and asked to hear me. My voice was never wonderful, like some eunuchs’, which far surpass women’s both in strength and sweetness; it was pretty and clear, when I was a boy. I fetched in the little harp my old mistress had bought in the bazaar. He was as shocked as if I had brought in some piece of offal. “Whatever is that thing? Why did you not ask someone for a proper instrument?” He saw my dismay and said kindly, “No, I understand your modesty prevented you. But take it away. When you have something fit to play on, then you shall sing.”

I was given a harp of tortoise-shell and boxwood, with ivory keys, and had lessons with the Chief Musician. But one day, before I had learned his difficult pieces, I sat on the fountain-rim in the sunset light, and remembered it slanting far across the plain from our walls at home. When he asked me for a song, I gave one that my father’s warriors used to sing at night by the watch-fire.

When I had done, he beckoned me over; I saw he had tears in his eyes. “That song,” he said, “sets your poor father before me. What happy days gone by, when we were young together. He was a faithful friend to Arses, whose spirit may the Wise God receive; had he lived, he would have been welcomed here as a friend of mine. Be sure, my boy, I shall never forget you are his son.”

He laid on my head his jeweled hand. Two of his friends were there, and the Chief Steward; from this moment, as he had meant, my standing at the court was changed. I was no longer a bought pleasure-boy, but a favorite of gentle birth, and they were all to know it. I was to know, too, that if my looks were damaged or went off, he would still look after me.

I was given a charming room in the Upper Household, with a window on the park, and my own slave; an Egyptian, who tended me like a prince. I was fourteen, my looks were changing from boy to youth. I heard the King tell friends that he had foreseen my promise, and I had fulfilled it; he did not believe that for beauty all Asia contained my equal. They would of course agree that I surpassed comparison. Certainly I learned to carry myself as if it were true.

His bed was canopied with a lattice, bearing a pure gold vine. Jeweled grape-clusters hung from it, and a great fretted lamp. Sometimes at night, when it threw on us its leaflike shadows, he would stand me by the bed, and turn me here and there to take the light. I thought this possession of the eyes would have contented him, but for his respect for his manhood.

However, on other nights he wanted entertainment. The world seems full of people who desire the same thing each time, not enduring the least change in it; this is tedious, but does not tax invention. The King liked variety and surprise; himself he was not inventive. I had run through all that Oromedon had taught me, and began wondering when the day would come for me, too, to start training my successor. There had been a boy before me, I had found out, who had been packed off after a week, because the King found him insipid.

In search of ideas, I visited the most famous whore in Susa, a Babylonian, who claimed to have trained at some temple of love in India. To prove it, she had a bronze in her room (bought I daresay, if truth were told, from a passing caravan) of two demons, with six or eight arms apiece, having intercourse while dancing. I doubted this would delight the King, but kept my hopes. Such women will always oblige a eunuch now and then; they get more men than enough; but her crude squirmings so disgusted me that without regard for good manners, I got up and dressed. As I put down my gold piece, I said I would pay for her time, since I had wasted it, but I could not stay to instruct her. She was so angry, I was halfway downstairs before she found her voice. So I was thrown on my own resource, since it seemed there was no one better.

It was then that I learned to dance.

As a child I had liked it, following the men, or prancing and spinning to some tune out of my head. I knew, if I were taught, I still had it in me. The King was glad for me to learn accomplishments (I did not mention the Babylonian) and hired me the best master in the city. It was not like my infant games; one had to train as hard as a soldier; but this I welcomed. It is idling makes eunuchs flabby; standing about, gossiping, waiting for something to do. It was good to get in a sweat and stir my blood.

So, when my tutor said I was ready, I danced in the fountain court for the King and his friends; an Indian dance with a turban and spangled loincloth; a Greek dance (so I believed) in a scarlet chiton; a Parthian dance with a little gilded scimitar. Even the Lord Oxathres, the King’s brother, who had always looked down his nose at me because he liked only women, called out “Bravo!” and tossed me a piece of gold.

By day I danced in my finery; at night too I danced, wearing only the shadows of the fretted lamp that hung from the golden vine. I soon learned to slow down the pace towards the end; he never gave me time to get my breath.

I often wondered if he would have set such store by me if the Queen had not been captive. She was his half-sister, by a much younger wife of their father, and was of an age to have been his daughter. They said she was the loveliest woman in all Asia; of course he would be content with nothing less. Now he had lost her to a barbarian younger than she, and, from his deeds, it would seem hot-blooded. Of course he never spoke of such things to me. Indeed, once in bed he hardly spoke at all.

About this time, I caught a summer fever. Neshi, my slave from Egypt, nursed me with much kindness. The King sent me his own physician; but he never came himself.

I remembered Oromedon’s scar. Since my mirror gave me bad news, it was better so. Yet, being young, I must have had something left in me that still looked for—I don’t know what. I cried once in the night, when I was weak and silly; Neshi got up from his pallet to sponge my face. Soon after, the King sent me some gold darics, but still did not come. I gave the gold to Neshi.

It was when I was about again, and had been playing my harp in the fountain court with the King alone, that the Grand Vizier himself came in, panting with news. The Queen’s Eunuch had escaped from Alexander’s camp, and begged audience.

Had others been there, they would have been dismissed and I would have followed. But I was like the birds and the fountain, part of the appointments. Besides, when the man came in, for secrecy they spoke Greek.

No one had ever asked if I understood it. As it happened, there were several Greek jewelers in Susa, whom my old master traded with, in gems, or in me. So I had come to the Palace with a smattering, and had often passed idle time by listening to the Greek interpreter. He did all kinds of business in public, between court officials and suitors to the King; fugitive tyrants from Greek cities freed by Alexander, or envoys from states like Athens, which he had spared, as it seemed, to intrigue against him; generals of Greek mercenaries, shipmasters and spies. With all the Persian repeated in Greek, it was easy to learn by ear.

Impatient even through the prostration, the King asked if his family was alive. The eunuch said yes, and in good health; moreover, they were given their royal rank, and fitting quarters. This, he said (he was an oldish man and looked the worse for his long journey), was how he had escaped so easily; the guard on the royal women was posted more to keep intruders out, than anyone in.

On the ends of his chair-arms I could see the King’s hands working. No wonder. What he had to ask, should not be asked of a servant.

“Never, my lord!” The eunuch’s gesture called God to witness. “My lord, he has not come even into her presence since the day after the battle, when he came to promise his safeguard. We were there all the time; he, also, brought a friend with him. I have heard that his companions, in their wine, recalled the fame of her beauty, and urged him to change his mind; and he too had been drinking, as all Macedonians do, yet he was angry, and forbade them to name her in his presence again. One who was there assured me of it.”

The King was some time silent. Having given a long sigh, he said in Persian, “What a strange man.” I thought he would go on to ask what he looked like, which I myself wished to know; but of course, he had seen him in the battle.

“And my mother?” He fell now into Persian. “She is too old for these hardships. Is she well cared for?”

“Great King, My Lady’s health is excellent. Alexander always inquires for it. When I left, he was visiting her nearly every day.”

“Visits my mother?” His face had changed suddenly. I thought that he looked pale. I could not think why; the Queen Mother was over seventy.

“Indeed, my lord. He gave her offense at first; but now, when he asks her to admit him, she always gives him leave.”

“What insult did he offer her?” asked the King. He sounded eager.

“He gave her a parcel of wool for weaving.”

“What? Like a slave?”

“So My Lady thought. But when she showed her affront, he begged her pardon. He said his mother and sister did such work, and he thought it would give her pastime. When My Lady perceived his ignorance, she accepted his apology. Sometimes they will be talking, through the interpreter, an hour together.”

The King sat staring before him. Presently he gave the eunuch leave to go, and, remembering my presence, signed to me to play. I played softly, seeing him troubled. It was to be many years, before I understood the cause.

I gave the news to my friends at court; for I had friends by now, some in high places, some not, who were glad to hear things first. I took no presents for this; it would have been like selling my friendship. Of course I took bribes, to further suits with the King. To refuse would have been to proclaim enmity, and someone would have poisoned me. Needless to say, I did not bore the King with their tedious suits; it was not for such things he kept me. I would say sometimes, “So-and-so gave me this to get your favor”; it amused him, because the others did not tell. Now and then he would ask, “What did he want?” and say, “Well, we must keep you in credit. I daresay it can be arranged.”

The strange conduct of the Macedonian King was much debated. Some said he liked to show himself a man of iron, above pleasure; some that he was impotent; some that he was keeping the Royal Family unharmed, to get good terms of surrender. Others, again, said he liked only boys.

The Queen’s Eunuch said that, indeed, he was waited on by a band of highborn youths; but this was the custom of all their kings. In his own belief, it was in the young man’s nature to be generous with suppliants. He quickly added that for beauty and presence he could not compare with our own King; he would scarcely stand higher than Darius’ shoulder. “Indeed, when he visited the ladies to give his safeguard, the Queen Mother bowed to his friend instead. If you will believe it, they walked in together, side by side, and hardly distinguished in dress from one another. The friend was taller, and handsome for a Macedonian. I was distraught, having seen the King in the royal tent already. The friend drew back, and she saw my warning signs. She was of course distressed, and began her prostration again before the King. But he raised her in his hands, and was not even angry with this man; he said, as the interpreter assures me, ‘Never mind, mother, you weren’t far out; he is Alexander too.’”

Well, they are barbarians, I thought. Yet something sighed in my heart.

The eunuch said, “I never saw a king keep so little state; he lives worse than any general would with us. When he entered Darius’ tent, he stared like a peasant at its appointments. He knew what the bath was, and used it, the first thing he did; but for the rest, one had hard work not to smile. In Darius’ chair, his feet would not touch the ground, so he put them on the wine-table, taking it for a footstool. However, he soon moved in, like a poor man with a legacy. He looks like a boy, till you see his eyes.”

I asked what he had done with the royal concubines; had he preferred them to the Queen? The eunuch said they had all been presented to his friends; he had not kept one. “It’s boys then,” I said laughing. “So now we know.”

The girls from the Harem, whom the King had taken along, were of course the choicest, and a great loss to him. However, he still had plenty; some only of his nights were spent with me. Though it is true that, by old custom, there were as many women as days in the year, some were of course past youth; and it is an absurdity such as only Greeks could invent, that they were paraded nightly round his bed to choose from. Now and then he would visit the Harem, look over the girls, and learn from the Chief Eunuch there the names of five or six he found most pleasing. Then at night he would send for one; or sometimes for all the group to play and sing to him, later beckoning one to stay. He liked to conduct such matters gracefully.

When he went there he often took me with him. Of course I should never have been brought in the Queen’s presence; but I ranked rather higher than the concubines. He liked to have his beautiful possessions admired, if only by one another. Some of the girls were exquisite, with a fragile bloom like that of the palest flowers. Even I could dream of desiring them. Perhaps Oromedon had saved me from great danger; for already one or two had slid their eyes at me.

I met him once, crossing a courtyard in the sun, gaily dressed as ever; it was strange to know my own clothes were richer now. At first sight, I would have run straight up to embrace him; but he smiled softly and shook his head, and I now knew enough of courts to understand. It would never do, to have it seen that from the dish prepared for his master, he had kept a portion back. So I returned his smile in secret, and passed him by.

Sometimes, when the King had a girl at night, I would lie in my pretty room, smelling the scented breezes from the park, looking at moonlight striking my silver mirror, and thinking, How pleasant and cool this is, to lie here alone. If I loved him, I should be grieving. It made me sad and ashamed. He had done me many kindnesses, raised me to honor, given me my horse and the gifts my room was full of. He had not asked love of me, not even to pretend it. Why should I think of such a thing?

The truth was, for ten years I had been beloved by parents who loved each other. I had learned to think well of love; having had none since, I had not learned to think worse. Now I was at the age when boys fumble about and make their first mistakes, laughed at by unkind girls before their elders, or tumbling some sweaty peasant and thinking, So this is all? To me none of this could happen; love was the image of lost happiness, and the stuff of fantasy.

My art had no more to do with love than a doctor’s skill. I was good to look at, like the golden vine though less enduring; I knew how to wake appetite grown sluggish with satiety. My love was unspent, my dreams of it were more innocent than a homebred boy’s. I would whisper to some shadow made of moonlight, “Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live.” It was true, at least, that youth cannot live without hope.

Summer grew hot in Susa; this time of year, the King should have been in the hills, at the summer palace of Ekbatana. But Alexander still sat before Tyre, stubbornly running out a mole to it; this was all I knew then of that great piece of siegecraft. Any time, they said, he might weary of the task, and turn inland; then Ekbatana would have been too far away. Indeed, it came to my ears that the captains thought the King should have stayed in Babylon. One said, “The Macedonian you would find nearer the action.” Another answered, “Well, it’s only a week from Susa down to Babylon; the generals there are doing well enough on their own. Or better.” I slipped off unseen. It was no part of my duty to inform on men who meant no harm and were only speaking too freely, as my father had once done. To do the King justice, he never asked it of me. He did not mix business with pleasure.

Then Tyre fell.

Alexander had broken the wall and stormed the breach. There had been a great killing; the Tyrians had murdered Alexander’s envoys before the siege, and then had flayed his men by pouring red-hot sand on them. The Tyrians who survived the sack had been enslaved, except those in Melkaart’s sanctuary. It seemed Alexander revered this god, though he called him Herakles. What all this meant, was that Persian ships had no port of call in the Middle Sea north of Egypt, save Gaza, which could not hold out long.

Little as I knew of the western empire, the King’s countenance told me how great the disaster was. Alexander’s way was now clear to Egypt, where our rule was hated ever since Ochos put back our yoke on them. He had defiled their temples and killed their holy bull-god; now, if our satraps there were to shut gates against Alexander, the Egyptians would spear them in the back.

Soon we all knew that the King had sent an embassy, led by his brother Oxathres, suing for peace.

The terms were not divulged. I had never been fool enough to coax the King for secrets. I’d been offered huge bribes to do it; but one learns as one goes along, and I found it policy to take small ones, saying he kept his counsel well, and though I would do my best for them, it would be cheating them to accept more. Thus they bore no grudges, and I could not come under the King’s suspicion, for I never asked him anything.

Even though the embassy used the royal post-stages for fresh horses, lords do not ride like King’s Messengers racing the wind. While we waited, life at the Palace was at pause, like dead air before a storm. My nights were spent alone. In those weeks, the King took a great turn for women. I think it gave him assurance he was a man.

When the embassy did return, its news was stale. Oxathres had thought Alexander’s answer should go quickly, and sent a copy by King’s Messenger. Galloping the Royal Road with fresh horses and fresh men, it arrived half a month ahead.

No need to ask questions. You could feel the thud of it all through the Palace and on into the city. All the world can quote it now, even from memory, as I do.

You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.

There was a time, I forget how long, perhaps a day, of still, stunned whisperings. Then suddenly all was trumpeting and shouting. Heralds proclaimed the King was marching west to Babylon, to ready his troops for war.