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

10

WE PERSIANS HAVE A saying that one should deliberate serious matters first drunk, then sober.

I woke next morning on my pallet in Nabarzanes’ room, where I had slept unmolested as with a kinsman. My head scarcely ached; it had been good wine. Dawn bird-song filled the forest. Trying to remember where I was, I saw across the room my host still sleeping. Memory stirred, together with the sense of some frightful thing impending.

We had talked and drunk, drunk and talked. I remembered saying, “Is it true they paint themselves blue?” Yet at some much later time, it seemed to me he had taken me in a chaste but warm embrace, invoked the gods for me, and kissed me. I must have consented.

In the camp a hound bayed deeply. Men were stirring; I must think before he woke. Some of the talk was coming back to me. “It is for you to choose. I have used no deceit with you. You would learn the truth when I had gone, and, if you prosper, might be a dangerous enemy. But you showed loyalty to Darius, in the presence of me who killed him. I trust you to keep as good faith with me. You will speak of me as you have found.”

He had said also, “When I had my command, I made it my business to learn about Alexander. One should know one’s enemy. Among matters of more use, I found that his pride extends into the bedchamber. He has never lain either with slave or captive. I daresay the first thing he will ask is whether you are free, and have come there willingly.”

“Well,” I had answered, “then I shall know what to tell him.”

A little bird perched on the timbered window, singing so loudly its throat beat like a heart. Nabarzanes slept on, as peacefully as if his head had no price upon it. He had said, as I remembered, “Twice to my knowledge, men seeking favor have offered to buy him Greek boys famed for beauty. He refused with indignation. But, my dear Bagoas, it appears that none of these eager sycophants took the trouble to offer him women.”

I seemed to recall his taking a lock of my hair still damp from the bath, and winding it round his fingers. We were fairly drunk by then. “It takes no great fortitude,” he said, “to resist a name in a letter, joined to the word beautiful. But the living presence, ah! that is another thing.”

What had my life been, I thought, since the King had died? There was no trade I knew to live by, but what I had. Only one thing had been wanted of me; even by Nabarzanes, though for another man. If I went tramping on with nothing, I should soon end where I began when I was twelve years old.

Yet it was terrible, to part from all I knew and make my life among barbarians. Who could say what this Macedonian was like in the inner room? I had learned at Susa that the outward man could be a mask for horrors. And then again, supposing I did not please him?

Well, I thought, better the unknown danger than creeping miseries, coming slow like leprosy, till one bears at last a life whose mere thought would once have made one end it. One throw, win or lose; so be it.

Nabarzanes stirred, yawned and smiled at me. It was not till we were at breakfast that he said, “Does sober agree with drunk?”

“Yes, my lord, I’ll go. On one condition, that you give me a horse. I’ve had enough of walking. And if you’re presenting me to the richest man in the world, I should look as if I were worth something.”

He laughed aloud. “Well begun! Never cheapen yourself with Alexander. You shall have clothes too, not those makeshifts; I am sending to Zadrakarta. In any case, we must give those scratches time to heal. Now I see you by daylight, you have certainly traveled rough.” He turned my face in his hand. “Skin-deep. A few days merely.”

Four days later, our cavalcade rode down to Alexander’s camp.

Nabarzanes had been generous. My horse, a chestnut with blond mane and tail, was even prettier than poor Tiger; I had two fine suits, the best one, which I was wearing, with real gold buttons and embroidered sleeves. “I am sorry, my dear boy,” he’d said, “that I can’t give you your dagger back. Alexander would think I was sending him an assassin.”

Behind us came the string of Nisaian horses, with sparkling cheek-rosettes and bridles, and saddlecloths fringed with bullion. Nabarzanes rode beside me, dressed as a noble suppliant; somberly but becomingly, looking as well-bred as his horses. I hoped Mithra would forgive my kindly thoughts of him.

In front rode the guide, a Macedonian officer who spoke a few words of Persian. He pointed out the camp in the plain below, at the foot of the hills, beside a river. It was not very big; Alexander had divided his forces to search the mountains and man their strongpoints, and had only his own troops with him. We could see his tent. It was imposing, and had a Persian look.

Nabarzanes said, “He took it at Issos. That was Darius’ tent. I would know it anywhere.” He never spoke of Issos without bitterness. I remembered his men in Babylon, saying how well he’d fought till the King had fled.

We rode into camp through staring Macedonians, till we came to the open space before the tent. Grooms took our horses. Nabarzanes was announced to Alexander, who presently came out.

How clearly, even now, I remember him a stranger. He was not so small as I had expected. Of course he would have measured like a boy against Darius; the young Macedonian who had come out behind him was taller, too. He was of middle height; but I suppose people had expected his stature to match his deeds.

Artabazos had said that even in Persia he would have been called beautiful. Just now, he had been riding about for days in an open helmet instead of a hat, and had been caught with sunburn. Being fair-skinned, he had gone rather red, a tint not much admired among us, recalling the northern savages. But he had not their rufous hair; his was bright gold. He wore it rough-cut, in a length between neck and shoulders; it was neither straight nor curling, but fell like a shining mane. When he turned to the interpreter, I perceived his features were very fine, though marred by a sword-cut on the cheekbone.

After a time, Nabarzanes bowed, and pointed to his train of gifts; then looked towards me. I was too far to hear his words; but Alexander looked, and for the first time I saw his eyes. Them I remember like yesterday; my own mind less clearly; a kind of shock, a sense that one should have been more prepared.

I came up with lowered gaze, and made the prostration. He said in Persian, “You may rise.” At this time he scarcely knew any of our language, but had learned this off along with the words of greeting. He was unused to being bowed to down to the ground; you could tell it made him uneasy. One gets up in any case, without command; but no one had liked to tell him so.

I stood before him, my eyes cast down as is proper before a king. He said suddenly, “Bagoas!” and I was startled into looking up, as he had intended.

As one might smile at the child of a stranger seeing it scared, so he did at me, and said to the interpreter, “Ask the boy if he is here of his own free will.”

I said, “My lord, I speak Greek a little.”

“You speak it quite well.” He looked surprised. “Did Darius speak it, then?”

“Yes, my lord King.”

“Then you know what I just asked.”

I replied that I had come freely, hoping for the honor of serving him.

“But you come with the man who killed your master. How is this?” His eyes had changed. He was not trying to frighten me; but they had grown cold, and that was enough.

Nabarzanes had withdrawn to a decent distance. Alexander just glanced towards him. I felt myself being reminded that he knew no Greek.

“Lord King,” I said, “Darius loaded me with kindness. I shall always grieve for him. But Lord Nabarzanes is a soldier. He thought that it was necessary.” I saw his eyes change as if at something he understood. I said, “He repents it truly; that I know.”

He paused; then said abruptly, “Has he been your lover?”

“No, my lord. Only my host.”

“Then that is not why you plead for him?”

“No, my lord.” I think it was his eyes, rather than Nabarzanes’ counsel, which told me not to cheapen myself. I said, “If he were my lover, I would not leave him.”

He raised his brows; then he turned with a smile to the young man behind him. “You hear that, Hephaistion? An advocate worth having.”

The young man, without as much as a bow or a My Lord, said, “All the same, they might at least have finished him off.”

To my surprise, Alexander did not notice the disrespect. “We were treading on their tails,” he said. “They were in a hurry. I’d no notion he spoke Greek. If only I’d been in time!”

He had a look at the horses, commended them through the interpreter, and invited Nabarzanes inside his tent.

I waited by the fidgeting horses, while the Macedonians looked at me. Among Persians, the eunuch knows himself marked out at sight by his lack of beard; it was most strange to be in a crowd where no young man had one. Alexander had shaved from his youth, and liked his fashion followed. Persian soldiers would have had any man’s blood, who told them to make themselves like eunuchs; but I don’t think this had even occurred to the Macedonians. They had no eunuchs. I was the only one.

No one molested me. There was discipline, but not the reverence one expects to surround a king. They stood about and stared, and discussed my looks as if I had been a horse, not knowing I could understand them. The lower ranks I could not; but though they spoke Macedonian, which is barely Greek, I knew what they meant. I fought back the tears of wretchedness. What would become of me, among such people?

The tent-flaps opened. Alexander came out, with the interpreter and Nabarzanes. The King said something, and offered his right hand. I saw from Nabarzanes’ face it was the sign of pardon.

He made a graceful speech of loyalty, and was given leave to depart. Turning to me, he said very solemnly (the interpreter was in hearing), “Bagoas, serve your new master as well as you did your former one.” As he turned towards his horse, he winked at me.

He returned to his ancestral lands and his harem, and must have lived there, as he had said, in quiet. I never saw him again.

Alexander ordered the horses led away, then turned to me, as if he had only just remembered me. I have seen it better done. For an instant, I could have sworn I saw a look that one can’t mistake. When it is hard and smug it is a bad lookout; but sometimes it is a softening. It vanished utterly, before I could be sure of it; there was only a soldier’s briskness.

“Well, Bagoas, you are welcome to my service. See Chares, my chief steward, and he will find you quarters. I will see you again later.”

Well, I thought, that is plain enough.

The sun was sinking; my spirits also. I wondered what time he went to bed.

I ate with the clerks who kept his records. They looked surprised. There was no other place for people like me, except with soldiers or servants. The food was coarse and rough, but they seemed used to nothing better. After a while, one of them asked me how the archives were kept at Susa; as I knew this, they became more friendly; but they offered me no advice about my duties. I did not like to ask what sign the King gave, for one to stay when the rest retired. Eunuchs anywhere would have been more helpful.

The King was already at dinner with his chief officers. I returned to Chares, the chamberlain, a Macedonian of good rank. I did not think much of his service; even for a camp it was rough-and-ready to a Persian eye. When I appeared, he seemed not to know where to put me; but looking at my good clothes (I was deep in my host’s debt, there) he gave me a damp towel and a dry, for the King to wipe his hands on. I stood by his chair, and he used the towels; yet I felt even he had not expected me.

I had heard already of their barbarous way with wine, bringing it in with the meat. But nobody had prepared me for the freedom of speech the King permitted. They called him Alexander, without title, like one of themselves; they laughed aloud in his presence, and far from rebuking them he joined in. The best you could say was that when he spoke, nobody interrupted him. They fought over their campaign like soldiers with their officer; once, one said, “No, Alexander, that was the day before,” and even for this received no punishment, they just argued it out. However, I thought, does he get them to obey in battle?

When they had eaten (food like a peasants’ feast-day, with no sweets at all) the servers left, but for the wine-pourers. So I went into the King’s sleeping-place, to prepare his bed. It amazed me to find it not much better than a common captain’s, with scarcely room for two. There were a few fine gold vessels, I daresay from Persepolis; but the furniture was just the bed and clothes-stool, the washstand, a writing-table and chair, a rack of scrolls, and a fine bath of inlaid silver, which must have been Darius’s, taken with the tent.

I looked about for the perfume-sprinkler, but could not find it. Just then a Macedonian boy of about my age came in and said, “What are you doing here?”

One would have supposed he had surprised a thief. I did not return his rudeness, but said I had been taken into service that day. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Who are you, to sneak in here without leave? I’m on guard here. For all I know, you’ve come to poison him.”

He bawled out to another youth, who came in from outside, and they were about to lay hands on me, when a young man entered. The boys looked crestfallen before he had even spoken. “In the name of Zeus!” he said. “Can’t you take guard, Antikles, without shouting and brawling like a market porter? I could hear you outside; you’ll be lucky if the King didn’t. What’s this about?”

The youth jerked his thumb at me. “I found him in here, handling the King’s things.”

The young man lifted his brows. “You could have asked one of us, before you made this uproar. We’re all sick of dry-nursing you. How the King manages with such raw oafs about him, I can’t think.”

The boy, suddenly very angry, said, “And how much longer did you want to do squire service, that you can’t let go of it? I’m on duty. Am I meant to let in any spayed catamite some barbarian leaves behind?”

The young man stared at him till he flushed. “For a start, don’t be foul-mouthed, Alexander doesn’t like it. For the rest, just take my word that the boy has leave to be here. I heard Alexander speak to him. I won’t tax your understanding with more than that. By the dog of Egypt! If I were half such a fool as you, I’d hang myself.”

The boy muttered and went out. The young man gave me a long look over, smiled pleasantly, and departed also. I could make out none of it.

In fact, along with fresh troops from Macedon, the King had had fresh body-squires. By Macedonian custom, lords’ sons did this duty, part of which was to guard his person at night. Two or three years was the usual time of service; but in four years of war, the squires he set out with had become grown men. He had chosen them himself in Macedon; they knew all his ways, and he was used to things running smoothly. Now, promoted to the cavalry, they were supposed to be training the new boys, whom they held in the greatest scorn. All this I found out later.

I was now alone in the tent. No one seemed to be waiting to help the King disrobe; but no doubt they would be there presently. I kindled the night-lamp from the hanging one, and set it by the bed; then went to an empty corner, and sat cross-legged in the shadow, thinking about my fate.

There were voices outside; the King came in with two officers. It was clear they had just walked over engaged in talk; they would not be putting him to bed. This was awkward; he might not wish them to know he’d sent for me; so I stayed quiet in my dark corner.

When they went, I was about to rise and disrobe him; but he began to pace about as if he were alone. It seemed he wished his thoughts to be undisturbed. One learns when to be quiet.

He walked to and fro, his head tilted sideways, his eyes looking, as it seemed, out through the tent. After a while he sat down at the table, opened a wax diptych, and began to write. It seemed a strange task for a king. He had clerks to write whatever he wanted. In all my time with Darius, I had never once seen him touch a writing-tool.

Suddenly, without a word with the guards outside, without a pause at the entry, without asking leave, a young man came in. I knew him; he had been with the King when Nabarzanes brought me. The King, his back to the entry, went on writing. The man came straight up behind him, and took him by the hair.

I was too terrified even to scream. In an instant I thought a thousand horrors. I must get to the forest before the body was found. The killer planned to accuse me, knowing the King had sent for me. I would be three days dying.

Then, just as I rose to run for it, I perceived no blow had been struck; the newcomer had no weapon; and the King, a quick-moving man, had made no resistance. His head had not been pulled back, nor his throat cut. Simply, the other was ruffling his hair with his fingers, as a man does with a boy.

Astonishment held me rooted. I had understood. The man—I remembered his name, Hephaistion—now leaned his head beside the King’s, to read his writing. Coming a little to myself, I moved softly back to the concealing shadows. They both turned, and saw me.

My heart almost ceased to beat. I prostrated myself and kissed the floor. As I rose, Hephaistion was looking at the King with lifted brows, half laughing. The King, however, looked straight at me, and did not laugh at all.

He said, “Why are you here?” but all Greek had failed me. He beckoned me up, felt me over with hard firm hands, and said, “No weapon. How long have you been here?”

“My lord King, since after dinner.” I dared not remind him he had sent for me; no doubt he wished it forgotten. “I am sorry, indeed, my lord. I—I thought I was to wait on you.”

“You heard me say I would tell you your duties later.”

At these words, I felt a blush of shame flood my whole body and scald my face. Gladly I would have been swallowed by the earth. I could say nothing.

He saw my confusion. His harshness gone, he said quite gently, “Don’t distress yourself. I see you misunderstood me. I am not angry with you, Bagoas. You have leave to go.”

I made reverence and went out. The night guard stood facing outwards. I paused on the dark side of the tent. I had no friend here, no one to advise me. I must learn whatever I could.

The King said, “Since after dinner! And not a sound. He creeps about like a cat.”

“He was stiff with fright,” Hephaistion answered. “What have you been doing with him, Alexander? Eh?” He was laughing.

“At a guess,” said the King, “I should say he thought you meant to murder me. Remember he’s used to Persian manners, and court manners at that. Poor little wretch! He was Darius’ boy. I told him I’d see him later; of course he thought I wanted him for the night. I have put him to shame; all my fault; his Greek seemed good. I should have used the interpreter. One should have some Persian oneself, for things like this.”

“That would be worse. It took you long enough to learn Greek. Well, there’s your teacher. You might as well find some use for him; as it is, you’ve bought yourself talk enough.”

One of the guards moved; I had to slip away without hearing more.

My bed was in the clerks’ tent. A torch outside lit it dimly through the entry. Two were sleeping; the third, who had seemed to be, peeped out as I took off my clothes. It was a fit end to a dreadful day. I pulled up my blanket, bit on the pillow, and soaked it with silent tears.

I remembered Nabarzanes’ promises. What perfidy! How could he not have known this, knowing so much? The whole Macedonian army must know. How long must those two have been lovers, to behave like that, to talk like that? “It took you long enough to learn Greek”! Ten years?

The Queen’s Eunuch had told us how they had visited the royal tent together, and the Queen Mother had not known which to bow to. “Never mind, mother, you weren’t far out; he too is Alexander.” Not even from her had he troubled to hide it.

Why, I thought, did he ever accept my service? What does he want with a boy? He is somebody’s boy himself. And he must be twenty-five at least.

One of the clerks was snoring. For all my anger, I thought with longing of Nabarzanes’ house. Tomorrow it would be forsaken; by next year, rotting back into the forest. So all that was Persian in me would rot away, as I trailed through strange lands, a servitor in this barbarian army.

I recalled Nabarzanes saying, in a haze of lamplight and wine, “What can one give to a man like that? Something he has been wanting a long time, without being aware of it …” Well, he had fooled me as he did Darius; I should have expected it. And yet, he brought me here to win favor for himself; he never pretended otherwise. I am unjust, I thought. He must have acted in ignorance.

Soon after, worn out with trouble, I fell asleep.