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

1

THE CHILD WAS WAKENED by the knotting of the snake’s coils about his waist. For a moment he was frightened; it had squeezed his breathing, and given him a bad dream. But as soon as he was awake, he knew what it was, and pushed his two hands inside the coil. It shifted; the strong band under his back bunched tightly, then grew thin. The head slid up his shoulder along his neck, and he felt close to his ear the flickering tongue.

The old-fashioned nursery lamp, painted with boys bowling hoops and watching cockfights, burned low on its stand. The dusk had died in which he had fallen asleep; only a cold sharp moonlight struck down through the tall window, patching the yellow marble floor with blue. He pushed down his blanket to see the snake, and make sure it was the right one. His mother had told him that the patterned ones, with backs like woven border-work, must always be let alone. But all was well; it was the pale brown one with the grey belly, smooth as polished enamel.

When he turned four, nearly a year ago, he had been given a boy’s bed five feet long; but the legs were short in case he fell, and the snake had not had far to climb. Everyone else in the room was fast asleep; his sister Kleopatra in her cradle beside the Spartan nurse; nearer, in a better bed of carved pearwood, his own nurse Hellanike. It must be the middle of the night; but he could still hear the men in Hall, singing together. The sound was loud and discordant, slurring the ends of the lines. He had learned already to understand the cause.

The snake was a secret, his alone in the night. Even Lanike, so near by, had not discerned their silent greetings. She was safely snoring. He had been slapped for likening the sound to a mason’s saw. Lanike was not a common nurse, but a lady of the royal kindred, who reminded him twice a day that she would not be doing this for anyone less than his father’s son.

The snores, the distant singing, were sounds of solitude. The only waking presences were himself and the snake, and the sentry pacing the passage, the click of his armor buckles just heard as he passed the door.

The child turned on his side, stroking the snake, feeling its polished strength slide through his fingers over his naked skin. It had laid its flat head upon his heart, as if to listen. It had been cold at first, which had helped to wake him. Now it was taking warmth from him, and growing lazy. It was going to sleep, and might stay till morning. What would Lanike say when she found it? He stifled his laughter, lest it should be shaken and go away. He had never known it stray so far from his mother’s room.

He listened to hear if she had sent her women out in search of it. Its name was Glaukos. But he could only hear two men shouting at each other in Hall; then the voice of his father, the loudest, shouting them both down.

He pictured her, in the white wool robe with yellow borders she wore after the bath, her hair loose on it, the lamp glowing red through her shielding hand, softly calling “Glaukos-s!” or perhaps playing snake-music on her tiny bone flute. The women would be looking everywhere, among the stands for the combs and paint-pots, inside the bronze-bound clothes chests smelling of cassia; he had seen such a search for a lost earring. They would get scared and clumsy, and she would be angry. Hearing the noise from Hall again, he remembered his father did not like Glaukos, and would be glad that he was lost.

It was then he resolved to bring him back to her now, himself.

This must be done, then. The child stood in the blue moonlight on the yellow floor, the snake wound round him, supported in his arms. It must not be disturbed by dressing; but he took his shoulder-cloak from the stool, and wrapped it around both of them, to keep it warm.

He paused for thought. He had two soldiers to pass. Even if both turned out to be friends, at this hour they would stop him. He listened to the one outside. The passage had a bend in it, and a strongroom was round the corner. The sentry looked after both doors.

The footfalls were receding. He got the door unlatched, and looked out to plan his way. A bronze Apollo stood in the angle of the wall, on a plinth of green marble. He was still small enough to squeeze behind it. When the sentry had passed the other way, he ran. The rest was easy, till he got to the small court from which rose the stair to the royal bedchamber.

The steps went up between walls painted with trees and birds. There was a little landing at the top, and the polished door with its great ring handle in a lion’s mouth. The marble treads were still scarcely worn. There had been nothing but a small harbor town on the lagoon at Pella, before King Archelaos’ day. Now it was a city, with temples and big houses; on a gentle rise, Archelaos had built his famous palace, a wonder to all Greece. It was too famous ever to have been changed; everything was splendid, in a fashion fifty years old. Zeuxis had spent years painting the walls.

At the stair-foot stood the second sentry, the royal bodyguard. Tonight it was Agis. He was standing easy, leaning on his spear. The child, peeping from the dark side-passage, drew back, watching and waiting.

Agis was about twenty, a lord’s son of the royal demesne. He had on his parade armor, to wait upon the King. His helmet had a crest of red and white horsehair, and its hinged cheek-flaps were embossed with lions. His shield was elegantly painted with a striding boar; it hung upon his shoulder, not to be put down till the King was safe in bed, and then not out of arm-reach. In his right hand was a seven-foot spear.

The child gazed with delight, feeling within his cloak the snake softly stir and twine. He knew the young man well; he would have liked to jump out with a whoop, making him throw up his shield and point his spear; to be tossed up on his shoulder, in reach of the tall crest. But Agis was on duty. It would be he who would scratch upon the door, and hand Glaukos to a waiting-woman; for himself there would be Lanike and bed. He had tried before to get in at night, though never so late as this; they always told him nobody could enter except the King.

The floor of the passage was made of pebble mosaic, checkered black and white. His feet grew sore from standing, and the night chill came on. Agis had been posted to watch the stairs, and only that. It was a different matter from the other guard.

For a moment he considered coming out, having a talk with Agis, and going back. But the slither of the snake against his breast reminded him he had set out to see his mother. That, therefore, was what he was going to do.

If one kept one’s mind upon what one wanted, the chance appeared. Glaukos, too, was magical. He stroked the snake’s thinned neck, saying voicelessly, “Agathodaimon, Sabazeus-Zagreus, send him away, come, come.” He added a spell he had heard his mother use. Though he did not know what it was for, it was worth a trial.

Agis turned from the stairs into the passage opposite. There was a statue a little way along, of a lion sitting up. Agis leaned his shield and spear on it, and went round behind. Though stone sober by local reckoning, he had drunk before going on duty too much to hold till the next watch. All the guards went behind the lion. Before morning, the slaves would wipe it up.

The moment he started walking, before he put down his weapons, the child knew what it meant and started to run. He flew up the cold smooth stairs on silent feet. It always amazed him, when with children of his own age, how easily they could be outrun or caught. It seemed impossible they could really be trying.

Agis behind the lion had not forgotten his duty. When a watchdog barked, his head went up at once. But the sound came from the other way. It ceased, he straightened his clothes and picked up his arms. The stairs were empty.

The child, having pushed to behind him, silently, the heavy door, reached up to fasten the latch. It was well polished and oiled; he coaxed it home without a sound. This done, he turned into the room.

A single lamp was burning, on a tall standard of bright bronze, twined with a gilded vine and resting on gilded deer’s-feet. The room was warm, and breathing all over with secret life. The deep curtains of blue wool with embroidered edges, the people painted on the walls, all stirred with it; the flame of the lamp breathed too. The men’s voices, shut off by the heavy door, were no more than murmurs here.

There were close scents of bath-oil, incense and musk, of resined pine-ash from the bronze hearth-basket; of his mother’s paints and oils and the phial from Athens; of something acrid she burned for magic; of her body and her hair. In the bed whose legs were inlaid with ivory and tortoiseshell and ended in lions’ paws, she lay sleeping, her hair falling across the worked linen pillow. He had never seen her in such deep sleep before.

It seemed she had never missed Glaukos, to sleep so soundly. He paused, to enjoy his stealthy undisturbed possession. On her tiring-table of olive-wood, the pots and bottles were clean and closed. A gilded nymph upheld the moon of her silver mirror. The saffron night-robe was folded on a stool. From the room beyond where her women slept came a faint distant snore. His eyes strayed to the loose stone by the hearth, under which lived forbidden things; he had often wished to try working his own magic. But Glaukos might slip away. She must have him now.

He stepped softly up, the unseen guard and lord of her sleep. Gently the cover of marten skins, edged with scarlet and fringed with bullion, rose and fell above her. Her brows were drawn clearly above the thin smooth lids which seemed to show through them the smoke-grey eyes beneath. Her lashes were darkened; her mouth was firmly closed, the color of watered wine. Her nose was white and straight, and whispered faintly as she breathed. She was twenty-one years old.

The cover had fallen back a little from her breast, where, till lately, Kleopatra’s head had too often lain. She had gone to the Spartan nurse now, and his kingdom was his own again.

A strand of her hair spilled down towards him, dark red, strong, and shining in the moving lamplight with streaks of fire. He pulled forward some of his own, and set them together; his was like rough-wrought gold, gleaming and heavy; Lanike grumbled on feast-days that it never held a curl. Hers had a springy wave. The Spartan woman said Kleopatra’s would be the same, though now it was like feathers. He would hate her, if she grew more like their mother than he was. But perhaps she would die; babies often did.

In the shadows, the hair looked dark and different. He looked round at the great mural on the inner wall: the Sack of Troy, done by Zeuxis for Archelaos. The figures were life-sized. The Wooden Horse towered in the background; in front, Greeks plunged swords into Trojans, rushed at them with spears, or carried on their shoulders women with screaming mouths. In the foreground, old Priam and the child Astyanax weltered in their blood. That was the color. Satisfied of this he turned away. He had been born in this room; the picture held nothing new for him.

Round his waist, under his cloak, Glaukos was wriggling, no doubt glad to be home. The child looked again into his mother’s face; then let fall his single garment, lifted delicately the blanket’s edge, and still twined with the snake slid in beside her.

Her arms came round him. She purred softly, and sank her nose and mouth into his hair; her breathing deepened. He pushed down his head under her chin; her yielding breasts enclosed him, he could feel his bare skin cling to hers, all the length of his body. The snake, too tightly pressed between them, squirmed strongly and slid aside.

He felt her wake; her grey eyes with their inner smoke-rings were open when he looked up. She kissed and stroked him, and said, “Who let you in?”

While she still half-slept and he lay wrapped in bliss, he had been ready for this question. Agis had not kept proper lookout. Soldiers were punished for it. Half a year had gone by since he had seen from the window a guard put to death on the drill-field by the other guards. After so long an age, he had forgotten the offense, if he had ever known it; but he remembered the small distant body bound to the post, the men standing round with javelins poised at the shoulder; the shrill taut command followed by a single cry; then, when they had all crowded in to jerk out the bristling shafts, the head lolling, and the great spill of red.

“I told the man you wanted me.” No need for names. For a child fond of talking, he had learned early how to hold his tongue.

Her cheek moved in a smile against his head. He had hardly ever heard her speak to his father, without being aware she was lying about one or another thing. He thought of it as a skill she had, like the snake-music on the bone flute.

“Mother, when will you marry me? When I’m older, when I’m six?”

She kissed the nape of his neck, and ran her finger along his backbone. “When you are six, ask me again. Four is too young to get handfast.”

“I’m five in Lion Month. I love you.” She kissed him saying nothing. “Do you love me best?”

“I love you altogether. Perhaps I shall eat you up.”

“But best? Do you love me best?”

“When you are good.”

“No!” He rode her waist with his knees, pummeling her shoulders. “Really best. Better than anyone. Than Kleopatra.” She made a soft sound, less reproof than caress. “You do! You do! You love me more than the King.”

He seldom said “Father” if he could help it, and knew it did not displease her. Through her flesh he felt her silent laughter. She said, “Perhaps.”

Victorious and exulting, he slipped down beside her. “If you promise you love me best, I’ll give you something.”

“Oh, tyrant. What can it be?”

“Look, I’ve found Glaukos. He came into my bed.”

Folding the blanket back he displayed the snake. It had coiled round his waist again, having found this pleasant.

She looked at the burnished head, which lifted from its resting-place on the child’s white breast, and softly hissed at her.

“Why,” she said, “where did you find this? This is not Glaukos. The same kind, yes. But this one is much bigger.”

They gazed together at the coiled snake; the child’s mind filled with pride and mystery. He stroked the reared neck, as he had been taught, and the head sank down again.

The lips of Olympias parted, and the blacks of her eyes grew wide, invading the grey irises; he saw them like soft silk, pleating together. Her arms slackened about him; he was held in the grasp of her eyes.

“He knows you,” she whispered. “Tonight, when he came, be sure it was not for the first time. He must have come often, while you slept. See how he clings to you. He knows you well. He comes from the god. He is your daimon, Alexander.”

The lamp flickered. The end of a pine-brand slipped into the embers, and threw up blue flame. The snake squeezed him swiftly, as if to share a secret; its scales trickled like water.

“I shall call him Tyche,” he said presently. “He shall have his milk in my gold cup. Will he talk to me?”

“Who knows? He is your daimon. Listen, I will tell you—”

The muted noises from the Hall broke out loud as its doors were opened. Men shouted to each other good-nights, jokes or drunken taunts. The noise flowed in on them through their closed defenses. Olympias broke off, gathered him close into her side, and said softly, “Never mind, he won’t come here.” But he felt her taut with listening. There was a sound of heavy feet, a stumble and a curse; then the rap of Agis’ spear-butt on the floor, and the slap of his soles as he presented arms.

The feet came scuffing and tramping up the stairs. The door flew open. King Philip crashed it behind him, and without a glance at the bed started taking off his clothes.

Olympias had pulled up the covers. The child, eyes round with alarm, had for a moment been glad to lie hidden. Then, cowered in the womb of soft wool and scented flesh, he began to feel horror of the danger he could not confront or see. He worked down a fold to make a peephole; it was better to know than to guess.

The King stood naked, one foot up on the cushioned stool of the toilet-table, loosing his sandal strap. His black-bearded face was cocked sideways to see what he was doing; his blind eye was towards the bed.

For a year or more, the child had run in and out of the wrestling-ground, when anyone dependable would take him off the women’s hands. Bare bodies or clothed, it was all one, except for being able to see men’s war-scars. Yet his father’s nakedness, seldom seen, always disgusted him. Now, since one eye had been blinded at the siege of Methone, he had become frightful. At first he had kept it covered with a bandage, from which blood-tinged tears had stained a track down into his beard. Then these had dried, and the bandage had come off. The lid, which the arrow had pierced on its way in, was puckered and streaked with red; the lashes were gummed with yellow matter. They were black, like his good eye and his beard, and the mats of hair on his shins and forearms and chest; a track of black hair led down his belly to the bush, like a second beard, between his loins. His arms and neck and legs were seamed with thick scars, white, red or purple. He belched, filling the air with the smell of stale wine, and showing the gap in his teeth. The child, glued to his peephole, knew suddenly what his father looked like. It was the ogre, one-eyed Polyphemos, who had picked up Odysseus’ sailors and crunched them raw.

His mother had risen on one elbow, with the clothes pulled up to her chin. “No, Philip. Not tonight. It is not the time.”

The King took a stride towards the bed. “Not the time?” he said loudly. He was still panting from the stairs on a full stomach. “You said that half a month ago. Do you think I can’t count, you Molossian bitch?”

The child felt his mother’s hand, which had been curved around his body, clench into a fist. When she spoke again it was in her fighting voice. “Count, you wineskin? You’re not fit to know summer from winter. Go to your minion. Any day of the month is the same to him.”

The child’s knowledge of such things was still imperfect; yet he had a feeling of what was meant. He disliked his father’s new young man, who put on airs; he loathed the secrets he sensed between them. His mother’s body had tightened and hardened all over. He held his breath.

“You cat-a-mountain!” said the King. The child saw him rush upon them, like Polyphemos on his prey. He seemed to bristle all over; even the rod that hung in his black bushy crotch had risen by itself and was thrusting forward, a sight of mysterious horror. He pulled back the bedclothes.

The child lay in his mother’s arm, his fingers dug into her side. His father started back, cursing and pointing. But it was not at them; the blind eye was still turned that way. The child perceived why his mother had not been surprised to feel his new snake beside her. Glaukos had been there already. He must have been asleep.

“How dare you?” panted Philip hoarsely. He had had a sickening shock. “How dare you, when I forbade it, bring your filthy vermin in my bed? Sorceress, barbarian witch…”

His voice stopped. Drawn by the hatred in his wife’s two eyes, his one eye had moved that way, and he had seen the child. The two faces confronted one another: the man’s empurpled, with the wine, and with anger heightened now by shame; the child’s as brilliant as a jewel set in gold, the blue-grey eyes fixed and wide, the skin transparent, the delicate flesh, taut with uncomprehended agony, molded close to the fine bones.

Muttering something, Philip reached by instinct for his robe to cover his nakedness; but there was no more need. He had been wronged, insulted, exposed, betrayed. If his sword had been at hand, he might well have killed her.

Disturbed by all this, the child’s living girdle writhed, and lifted its head. Till now, Philip had not seen it.

“What’s that?” His pointing finger shook. “What’s that upon the boy? That thing of yours? Are you teaching him now? Are you making him into a back-country, snake-dancing, howling mystagogue? I tell you, I’ll not endure it; take heed of what I say, before you suffer; for by Zeus I mean it, as you will feel. My son is a Greek, not one of your barbarous cattle-lifting hillmen…”

“Barbarous!” Her voice rose ringing, then sank to a deadly undertone, like Glaukos’ when angered. “My father, you peasant, sprang from Achilles, and my mother from the royal house of Troy. My forebears were ruling men, when yours were hired farm-hands in Argos. Have you looked in a mirror? One can see the Thracian in you. If my son is Greek, it is from me. In Epiros, our blood runs true.”

Philip gritted his teeth. It squared his chin and broadened his cheekbones, which were wide already. Even under these mortal insults, he remembered the child was there. “I scorn to answer you. If you are Greek, then show a Greek woman’s manners. Let us see some modesty.” He felt the lack of clothes. Two pairs of grey eyes, smokily rimmed, stared from the bed. “Greek schooling, reason, civility, I mean the boy to have them as I have had. Make up your mind to that.”

“Oh, Thebes!” She threw out the word like a ritual curse. “Is it Thebes again, now? I know enough of Thebes. In Thebes they made you a Greek, in Thebes you learned civility! In Thebes! Have you heard an Athenian speak of Thebes? The byword of Greece for boorishness. Don’t make such a fool of yourself.”

“Athens, that talking-shop. Their great days are done there. They should keep quiet about Thebes for shame.”

“It is you should do that. What were you in Thebes?”

“A hostage, a pledge of policy. Did I make my brother’s treaty? Do you throw that in my face? I was sixteen. I found more courtesy there than you ever showed me. And they taught me war. What was Macedon, when Perdikkas died? He had fallen to the Illyrians with four thousand men. The valleys lay fallow; our people were afraid to come down out of the hill-forts. All they had were the sheep whose skins they wore, and those they could hardly keep. Soon the Illyrians would have taken everything; Bardelys was making ready. Now you know what we are and where our frontiers stand. Through Thebes, and the men who made me a soldier there, I came to you a king. Your kindred were glad enough of it.”

The child, pressed to her side, felt her breath drawn in and in. Blindly he waited for the unknown storm to break from the lowering sky. His fingers clenched on the blanket. He knew himself forgotten now, and alone.

The storm broke. “A soldier, was it, they made you there? And what else? What else?” He could feel her ribs convulsed with rage. “You went south at sixteen, and by then already the country all around was full of your by-blows, don’t you think I know who they are? That whore Arsinoe, Lagos’ wife, old enough to be your mother…Then the great Pelopidas taught you all the learning Thebes is famous for. Battle and boys!”

“Be silent!” roared Philip, loud enough for a battlefield. “Have you no decency before the child? What does he see in this room? What does he hear? I tell you, my son shall be brought up civilized, if I have to…”

His voice was drowned by her laughter. She drew back her hand from the child, to thrust her body forward. With her arms and open palms propping her weight, her red hair falling forward over her naked breasts and the child’s open mouth and eyes, she laughed till the high room echoed. “Your son?” she cried. “Your son!”

King Philip breathed as if he had just run the long-race. He strode forward and raised his hand.

Starting out of a perfect stillness, in one flash of movement the child threw off the curtain of his mother’s hair, and stood upright on the bed. His grey eyes, dilated, looked almost black; his mouth had whitened. He struck at the lifted arm of his father, who from mere astonishment withdrew it. “Go away!” screamed the child, glittering and fierce as a forest wildcat. “Go away! She hates you! Go away! She will marry me!”

For three long breaths, Philip stood rooted, mouth and eyes gaping, like a man clubbed on the head. Then diving forward, he seized the child by both shoulders, swung him through the air, let go with one hand while he wrenched the great door open, and tossed him outside. Taken unawares, rigid with shock and fury, he did nothing to help himself. His sliding body reached the head of the stairs and began to tumble down them.

With a great clattering din, young Agis let fall his spear, dragged his arm out of his shield-straps, and taking the stairs in threes and fours leaped forward to catch the child. At the third stair down he reached him, and picked him up. His head seemed not to have been struck, and his eyes were open. Up above, King Philip had paused with the door in his hand. He did not slam it till he had seen that all was well; but of this the child knew nothing.

Caught up along with him, startled and bruised, the snake whipped free of him as he began to fall, poured itself down the stairs, and was gone into the dark.

Agis, after his first start, had seen what it was. The child was enough to think about. He carried him downstairs, and sitting at their foot took him on his knees, looking him over by the light of the torch in its wall-sconce. He felt stiff as a board, and his eyes were turned up to show the whites.

In the name of all gods below, thought the young man, what shall I do? If I leave my post, the Captain will have my blood. If his son dies on my hands, the King will. One night last year, before the new favorite’s reign began, Philip had looked his way, and he had pretended to be dense. Now he had seen too much; his fortunes, he thought, would sell dear at a sack of beans. The child was looking blue about the lips. In the far corner was Agis’ thick wool night-cloak, ready for the cold small hours. He picked it up, wadded a fold between the child and his own hard corselet, and wrapped him round. “Come,” he said anxiously. “Come, look, all’s well.”

He seemed not to be breathing. What to do? Slap him, like a woman in a laughing-fit? It might kill him instead. His eyes were moving, and focusing. He drew in a crowing breath, and gave a violent scream.

Deeply relieved, Agis loosed the cloak round the struggling limbs. He clucked and muttered as if to a frightened horse, not holding him in too hard but letting him feel firm hands. In the room above, his parents were calling down curses on one another. After time Agis did not reckon—he had most of the night before him—these sounds died down, and the child began to weep, but not for long. Having come thus far to himself, soon he fell quiet. He lay biting his lower lip, swallowing, and gazing up at Agis, who tried suddenly to remember how old he was.

“That’s my young captain,” he said gently, moved by the almost manlike struggle on the childish face. He dried it with the cloak, and kissed it, trying as he did so to picture what this golden boy would look like when he was old enough for love. “Come, sweetheart, you and I will stand guard together. We’ll look after one another, eh?”

He enfolded the child and stroked him. After a time, the quiet, the warmth, the unconscious sensuality of the young man’s caresses, a vague awareness of being more admired than pitied, began to heal the enormous wound which had seemed his whole and only self. It began to close, sealing in all within it.

Presently he put out his head from the cloak and looked about. “Where is my Tyche?”

What did the strange child mean, calling upon his fortune? Seeing Agis’ face look blank, he added, “My snake, my daimon. Where did he go?”

“Ah, your lucky snake.” Agis thought the Queen’s pets entirely loathsome. “He’s hiding awhile, he’ll soon be back.” He wrapped more cloak round the child; he had begun to shiver. “Don’t take it to heart, your father didn’t mean it. It was only the wine in him. Many a clip on the head I’ve had from mine.”

“When I’m big…” He paused to count on his fingers, up to ten. “When I’m big, I’ll kill him.”

Agis sucked in his breath through his lower teeth. “Ss-ss! Don’t say such a thing. It’s god-cursed to kill a father, it sets the Furies after a man.” He began to describe them, but broke off as the child’s eyes widened; he had had more than enough. “All these knocks we get when we’re young, that’s how we learn to bear our wounds, when we go to war. Look. Move over. Look what I got, the first time I fought the Illyrians.”

He pulled back the kilt of scarlet wool from his thigh, and showed the long ridged scar, with a pit where the spearhead had plowed through almost to the bone. The boy gazed with respect, and felt it with his finger.

“Well,” said Agis, covering it again, “that hurt, you can guess. And what kept me from yelling out, and being shamed before the Companions? My father’s clips on the ear. The fellow who gave me that never lived to boast of it. My first man, he was. When I showed my father his head, he gave me my sword belt, offered up my boy’s girdle-cord, and feasted all our kindred.” He looked along the passage. Would no one ever come by, and take the child to his bed?

“Can you see my Tyche?” he was asking.

“He’ll not be far. He’s a house-snake. They don’t wander. He’ll come for his milk, you’ll see. It’s not every boy can tame a house-snake. That’s the blood of Herakles in you, I daresay.”

“What was his snake called?”

“When he was a newborn babe, two snakes crept into his cradle—”

“Two?” His fine brows drew together, frowning.

“Ah, but these were bad ones. Zeus’ wife Hera sent them, to choke him dead. But he grabbed them by their necks, one in each hand…” Agis paused, silently cursing himself. Either it would give the child nightmares, or, and maybe likelier, he would go off and try to throttle a viper. “No, this only happened, you see, to Herakles because he was the son of a god. He passed as King Amphitryon’s son, but Zeus had begot him on Amphitryon’s Queen. So Hera was jealous.”

The child listened alertly. “And he had to work. Why did he work so hard?”

“Eurystheus, the next King, was envious of him, because he was the better man, a hero, and half divine. Eurystheus was only a mortal, you understand, and Herakles had been meant to have the kingdom. But Hera caused Eurystheus to be born first. That’s why Herakles had to do his Labors.”

The child nodded, like one to whom all has been made clear. “He had to do them, to show he was the best.”

Agis missed these words. He had heard at last, along the passage, the captain of the night guard, going his rounds.

“No one’s been by, sir,” he explained. “I can’t think what the nurse can have been about. The child was blue with cold, running about the Palace mother-naked. He says he’s looking for his snake.”

“Lazy bitch of a woman. I’ll shake up some slave-girl to go in and rouse her. It’s too late to disturb the Queen.”

He strode rattling off. Agis hoisted the child across his shoulder, patting his buttocks. “Bed for you, Herakles, and not before time.”

The child wriggled down, to clasp both arms round his neck. Agis had sheltered his wounds and not betrayed them. Nothing was too good for such a friend. He shared his secret, since it was all he had to give.

“If my Tyche comes back, tell him where I’ve gone. He knows my name.”

Ptolemy, known as the son of Lagos, cantered his new chestnut towards the lake of Pella; there was good riding-land along the shore. The horse was a gift from Lagos, who had grown fonder of him with the years, though his childhood had been less happy. He was eighteen, a dark big-boned youth whose strong profile would grow craggy in later life. He had speared his boar, and could sit at table with the men; had killed his man in a border skirmish, and changed his boy’s waist-cord for a red leather sword belt with a horn-handled dagger in its slot. It was agreed he brought Lagos credit. In the end they had done pretty well by one another; and the King had done well by both.

Between the pine woods and the lake, he saw Alexander waving to him, and rode that way. He was fond of the boy, who seemed to belong nowhere: too bright for the seven-year-olds, though not yet seven; too small for the older boys. He came running through the marshland, hard-caked with summer around its scrubby reeds; his huge dog rooted after voles, coming back to push its dirty nose in his ear, which it could do with both forepaws on the ground.

“Hup!” said the youth, and hoisted him in front on the cloth saddle-square. They trotted along in search of a stretch to gallop. “Is that dog of yours still growing?”

“Yes. He’s not big enough for his paws.”

“You were right; he’s Molossian both sides sure enough. He’s growing his mane.”

“It was just about here, where we are now, the man was going to drown him.”

“When you don’t know the sire, they don’t always pay for rearing.”

“He said he was rubbish; he had a stone tied round him.”

“Someone got bitten in the end, or so I heard. I shouldn’t like a bite from that dog.”

“He was too little to bite. I did it. Look, we can go.”

The dog, glad to stretch its great legs, raced by them along the broad lagoon which linked Pella with the sea. As they galloped full-out along its verge, mallards and gulls, dangle-foot herons and cranes, came beating and honking from the sedges, startled by their thunder. The boy in his high clear voice sang loudly the paean of the Companion Cavalry, a fierce crescendo tuned to the rhythm of the charge. His face was flushed, his fair hair fluttered from the peak upon his brow, his grey eyes looked blue, he shone.

Ptolemy slowed to breathe the horse, and extolled its virtues. Alexander replied in terms as expert as a groom’s. Ptolemy, who sometimes felt responsible, said, “Does your father know you spend so much time with the soldiers?”

“Oh, yes. He said Silanos could teach me throwing at the mark, and Menestas could take me hunting. I only go with my friends.”

Least said, then, soonest mended. Ptolemy had heard before that the King preferred even rough company for the boy, to leaving him all day with his mother. He flicked the horse to a canter, till a stone lodged in its frog and he had to dismount and see to it. The voice of the boy above him said, “Ptolemy. Is it true you’re really my brother?”

“What?” His start freed the horse; it began to trot away. The boy, who had at once got hold of the reins, pulled it firmly up again. But the young man, disconcerted, walked at its head without mounting. Perceiving something amiss, the boy said soberly, “They were saying it in the guardroom.”

They paced on in silence. The boy, sensing consternation more than anger, waited gravely.

Ptolemy said at length, “They may; but they don’t say it to me. Nor must you. I’d have to kill a man if he said it.”

“Why?”

“Well, one must, that’s all.”

There was no answer. Ptolemy saw with dismay that the boy was bitterly wounded. It was something he had not thought of.

“Come,” he said awkwardly, “a big growing boy like you, if you don’t know why…Of course I’d gladly be your brother, that’s nothing to do with it, that’s not it. But my mother’s married to Father. It would mean I was a bastard. You know what that is.”

“Yes,” said Alexander, who knew it was a deadly insult.

Sensing confusion if not ignorance, Ptolemy did a brother’s duty. His blunt questions got blunt answers; the boy had used his ears among his guardroom friends. It seemed, though, that he thought the birth of offspring called for some further magic. The young man, having dealt sensibly with the matter, was surprised by the long intent silence at the end.

“What is it? It’s the way we are all born, nothing wrong with it, the gods made us so. But women must only do it with their husbands, or the child’s a bastard. That’s why the man wanted to drown your dog: for fear he’d not run true to strain.”

“Yes,” said the boy, and returned to his thoughts.

Ptolemy felt distressed. In his childhood, when Philip had been only a younger son and a hostage too, he had been made to suffer; later he had ceased to be ashamed. If his mother had been unmarried he could have been acknowledged, and would not have been sorry. It was a matter of the decencies; he felt he had treated the boy meanly, not to have made this clear.

Alexander was looking straight ahead. His dirty childish hands kept a managing grip on the reins, minding their own business, making no demand on his thought. Their capacity, so far beyond their growth, approached the freakish; it gave an uneasy feeling. Through his face’s puppy roundness, a gem-clear profile already began to show. Ptolemy thought, The image of his mother, nothing of Philip at all.

A thought struck him like a thunderflash. Ever since he had been eating with the men, he had been hearing tales about Queen Olympias. Strange, turbulent, uncanny, wild as a Thracian maenad, able if she was crossed to put the Eye on you: fittingly the King had met her in a cave by torchlight, at the Mysteries of Samothrace; had been mad for her at first sight, even before he knew what house she came of; and had brought her, with a useful treaty of alliance, in triumph home. In Epiros, it was said, until quite lately women had ruled without men. Sometimes the drums and cymbals sounded all night in her pine grove, and strange piping came from her room. It was said she coupled with serpents; old women’s tales, but what happened in the grove? Did the boy, so long her shadow, know more than he should? Had it only now come home to him?

As if he had turned a stone from a cave-mouth of the Underworld, letting loose a swarm of bat-squeaking shades, there passed through Ptolemy’s mind a score of bloody tales going back for centuries, of struggles for the throne of Macedon: tribes fighting for High Kingship, kindred killing kindred to be High King; wars, massacres, poisonings; treacherous spears in the hunting-field, knives in the back, in the dark, in the bed of love. He was not without ambition; but the thought of plunging in that stream made his marrow cold. Dangerous guesswork, and what proof could there ever be? Here was the boy in trouble. Forget the rest.

“Listen,” he said. “Can you keep a secret?”

Alexander lifted his hand and pronounced with care an oath enforced with deadly curses. “It’s the strongest,” he finished. “Silanos taught it me.”

“That’s too strong. I absolve you of it. You must be careful of oaths like that. Now the truth is, your father did get me on my mother; but he was no more than a boy, fifteen. It was before he went to Thebes.”

“Oh, Thebes.” His voice echoed another.

“He was old for his age that way, well known for it. Well, never mind that, a man can’t wait till he’s wedded, nor have I done if you want the truth. But my mother was married to Father already, so it dishonors them to talk of it. It’s one of the things a man must have blood for. Never mind if you see why or not; that’s how it is.”

“I won’t talk.” His eyes, already deeper set than other children’s, were fixed upon the distance.

Ptolemy fiddled with the horse’s cheekstrap, thinking unhappily, Well, what could I say? Someone else would have told him. The boy still in him rescued the defeated man. He halted the horse.

“Now, if we were sworn blood-brothers, we could tell everyone that.” He added, cunningly, “But you know what we have to do?”

“Of course I know!” He gathered the reins in his left hand, and held out the right, clenched fist turned upward, a blue vein showing at the wrist. “Come on; here, do it now.”

Ptolemy drew from his red belt the new sharp dagger, seeing the boy focused by pride and resolution to a single gleam. “Now wait, Alexander. It’s a solemn thing we’re doing. Your enemies will be mine and mine yours, until we die. We will never take up arms against each other, even if our own kin are at war. If I die in a strange land you will give me my rites, and so I will do for you. It means all that.”

“I promise. You can do it here.”

“We don’t need so much blood.” He avoided the offered vein, lightly nicking the white skin. The boy looked down smiling. Having pricked his own wrist, Ptolemy pressed the cuts together. “It’s done,” he said. And well done, he thought; some good daimon prompted me. Now they can’t come to me saying, “He is only the Queen’s bastard and you’re the King’s, so claim your rights.”

“Come on, brother,” said the boy. “Get up, he’s got his wind now. Let’s really go.”

The royal stables were built in a broad square of stuccoed brick, with stone pilasters. They were half empty; the King was holding maneuvers, as he did whenever a new thought about tactics came to him.

Alexander, on his way to watch, had stopped to see a mare which had just foaled. As he had hoped, no one was about to say she was dangerous at such a time. He slipped in with her, coaxed her, and stroked the foal while her warm nostrils stirred his hair. Presently she nudged him, to say that was enough, and he let them be.

In the trodden yard, with its smells of horse-piss and straw, leather and wax and liniment, three strange horses had just come in. They were being rubbed down by foreign grooms in trousers. Their headstalls, which a stable slave was cleaning, were oddly bedizened; glittering with gold plates, topped with red plumes, and with winged bulls worked on the bit-pieces. They were fine tall horses, powerfully built, not overridden; a spare string was being led through.

The household officer on duty remarked to the horse-master that the barbarians would have a good wait ahead of them, before the King came back.

“Brison’s phalanx,” said the boy, “are all ways still with their sarissas. It takes a long time to learn.” He was able, so far, to lift up one end of these giant spears. “Where are those horses from?”

“All the way from Persia. Envoys from the Great King, to fetch back Artabazos and Menapis.”

These satraps, after an ill-judged revolt, had fled to Macedon for refuge. King Philip had found them useful; the boy had found them interesting. “But they’re guest-friends,” he said. “Father won’t let the Great King have them back to kill them. Tell the men not to wait.”

“No, it’s a pardon, I understand. They can go home free. In any case, envoys are entertained whatever message they carry. It’s the proper thing.”

“Father won’t be back before noon. I think later, because of the Foot Companions. They can’t do close-and-open order yet. Shall I fetch Menapis and Artabazos?”

“No, no, the envoys must have an audience first. Let these barbarians see we know how to do things. Attos, stable all those horses by themselves, it’s always the foreigners bring sickness in.”

The boy had a good look at the horses and their harness, then stood in thought. Presently he washed his feet at the conduit, looked at his chiton, went in and put on a clean one. He had listened often when people questioned the satraps about the splendors of Persepolis: the throne room with its gold vine and tree, the stairway up which a cavalcade could ride, the curious rites of homage. Persians, it was clear, were ceremonious. As far as he was able without help, and at the cost of some pain, he combed his hair.

In the Perseus Room, one of Zeuxis’ showpieces where guests of rank were received, a chamberlain was watching two blue-tattooed Thracian slaves set small tables with cakes and wine. The envoys had been seated in chairs of honor. On the wall above them, Perseus was rescuing Andromeda from the sea-dragon. He was one of the ancestors, and was said to have founded Persia too. It seemed that his breed had changed. He was naked, except for his winged sandals; the envoys wore the full Median dress which the exiles during their stay had laid aside. Every inch of these men but their hands and faces was covered up with clothes; every inch of the clothes with embroidery. Their round black hats were stitched with spangles; even their beards, trimmed into little round curls like snail shells, seemed embroidered too. Their fringed tunics had sleeves; their legs were cased in trousers, notorious sign of a barbarian.

Three chairs had been placed; only two bearded men were sitting. The youth with them, an aide, stood behind the senior envoy’s chair. He had long silky blue-black hair, a skin of ivory, a face both haughty and delicate, and dark brilliant eyes. His elders being in talk, he was the first to see the boy standing in the doorway, and flashed at him a charming smile.

“May you live,” he said walking in. “I am Alexander son of Philip.”

Both bearded heads came round. After a moment both men rose, and invoked the sun to shine on him. The chamberlain, retaining his self-command, pronounced their names.

“Please sit down. Refresh yourselves, you must be tired after your journey.” He had often heard this stock phrase. He became aware they were waiting for him to sit first, the first time this had happened to him. He clambered into a chair which had been put ready for the King. His sandal-tips did not reach the floor; the chamberlain beckoned a slave to get a footstool.

“I have come to entertain you, because my father is out reviewing the army. We expect him back about noon. It depends on the Foot Companions, whether they get close-and-open order right. They may be better today. They have been working very hard at it.”

The envoys, chosen for their fluent Greek, leaned forward. Both were somewhat unsure with the broad patois of Macedon, its Doric vowels and blunt consonants; but the child’s voice was very clear. “Is this your son?” he asked.

The senior envoy answered, demurely, that he was the son of a friend, and presented him. The youth, with a deep bow, declined again to sit, but smiled. For a moment they lit up at one another. The envoys exchanged delighted glances. It was all charming; the pretty grey-eyed prince, the little kingdom, the provincial naivety. The King drilled the troops himself! It was as if the child had boasted that the King cooked his own dinner.

“You don’t eat your cakes. I will have one too.” He took a small bite; he did not want his mouth full. What he knew of etiquette did not stretch to small talk during meals. He came straight to business.

“Menapis and Artabazos will be glad they’re pardoned. They often talk about home. I don’t think they’ll ever rebel again. You can tell King Ochos.”

The senior envoy had followed most of this in spite of the uncouth tongue. He smiled into his black mustaches, and said he would not fail to do so.

“And what about General Memnon? Is he pardoned too? We thought he might be, after his brother Mentor won the war in Egypt.”

The envoy’s eyes blinked a moment. Mentor the Rhodian, he said presently, was a worthy mercenary, and no doubt the Great King was grateful.

“He’s married to Artabazos’ sister. Do you know how many children they have now? Twenty-one! All alive! They keep having twins. Eleven boys and ten girls. I only have one sister. But I think that is enough.”

Both envoys bowed. They were informed of the King’s domestic discords.

“Memnon speaks Macedonian. He told me how he lost his battle.”

“My prince,” smiled the elder envoy, “you should study war from victors.”

Alexander looked at him thoughtfully. His father always took trouble to find out where losers had gone wrong. Memnon had cheated a friend of his over a horse-deal; he would not have minded telling how he lost his battle; but he smelled patronage. If the youth had asked, it would have been different.

The chamberlain sent off the slaves, lingering himself for the rescue which would surely soon be needed. The boy bit sparingly at his cake, going over in his mind his most important questions; there might not be time for all. “How many men has the Great King in his army?”

Both envoys heard this aright; both smiled. The truth could do only good; he could be trusted, no doubt, to remember most of it.

“Beyond number,” said the elder. “Like the sands of the sea, or the stars on a moonless night.” They told him of the Median and the Persian bowmen, the cavalry on the great horses of Nisaia; and the troops of the outer empire, Kissians and Hyrkanians, Assyrians with plaited bronze helmets and iron-spiked maces, Parthians with bow and scimitar; Ethiopians in leopard and lion skins who painted their faces red and white for battle and shot arrows tipped with stone; the Arab camel corps; the Bactrians; and so on as far as India. He listened round-eyed, like any child hearing marvels, till the tale was over.

“And they all have to fight when the Great King sends for them?”

“Every one, upon pain of death.”

“How long does it take them to come?”

There was a sudden pause. It was over a century since Xerxes’ expedition; they themselves did not know the answer. They said the King ruled over vast dominions and men of many tongues. From India, say, to the coast it might be a year’s journey. But there were troops wherever he might need them.

“Do have some more wine. Is there a road all the way to India?”

It took time to dispose of this. In the doorway people were elbowing to listen, the news having spread.

“What’s King Ochos like in battle? Is he brave?”

“Like a lion,” said the envoys both together.

“Which wing of the cavalry does he lead?”

The mere awe of him…The envoys became evasive. The boy took a larger bite of cake. He knew one must not be rude to guests, so he changed the subject. “If the soldiers come from Arabia and India and Hyrkania, and can’t speak Persian, how does he talk to them?”

“Talk to them? The King?” It was touching, the little strategist a child again. “Why, the satraps of their provinces choose officers who speak their tongues.”

Alexander tilted his head a little, and creased his brows. “Soldiers like to be talked to before a battle. They like you to know their names.”

“I am sure,” said the second envoy charmingly, “they like you to know them.” The Great King, he added, conversed only with his friends.

“My father converses with those at supper.”

The envoys murmured something, not daring to catch each other’s eyes. The barbarity of the Macedonian court was famous. The royal symposiums, it was said, were more like the feasts of mountain bandits snowed up with their spoils, than the banquets of a ruler. A Milesian Greek, who swore to having witnessed it, had told them King Philip thought nothing of stepping down from his couch to lead the line of dancers. Once, during an argument carried on in shouts across the room, he had shied a pomegranate at a general’s head. The Greek, with the effrontery of that race of liars, had gone on to claim that the general had replied with a hunk of bread, and was still alive, in fact still a general. But if one believed no more than half, the least said the best.

Alexander for his part had been wrestling with a problem. A tale he disbelieved, and wished to check, had been told by Menapis. An exile might want to make the Great King look foolish. But these people would inform on him, and he would be crucified when he got home. It was wicked to betray a guest-friend.

“A boy here told me,” he therefore said, “that when people greet the Great King they have to lie flat down on the ground. But I told him he was silly.”

“The exiles could have told you, my prince, the wisdom of that homage. Our master rules not only many peoples, but many kings. Though we call them satraps, some are kings by blood, whose forebears once ruled for themselves, till they were brought into the empire. So he must be raised as far above other kings as they above their subjects. Under-kings must feel no more shame to fall down before him than before the gods. If he seemed less than this, his rule would soon pass away.”

The boy had listened and understood. He answered courteously, “Well, here we don’t fall down before the gods. So you need not do it to my father. He’s not used to it; he won’t mind.”

The envoys clutched at their gravity. The thought of prostrating themselves before this barbaric chief, whose ancestor had been Xerxes’ vassal (and a treacherous one at that) was too grotesque to offend.

The chamberlain, seeing it was high time, came forward; bowed to the child, who he thought deserved it, and invented a summons which could be explained away outside. Sliding down from the throne, Alexander bade goodbye to each, remembering all their names. “I am sorry I can’t come back here. I have to go to the maneuvers. Some of the Foot Companions are friends of mine. The sarissa is a very good weapon in a solid front, my father says; the thing is to make it mobile. So he’ll go on till they get it right. I hope you won’t have long to wait. Please ask for anything you want.”

Turning beyond the doorway, he saw the beautiful eyes of the youth still fixed on him, and paused to wave goodbye. The envoys, chattering together in excited Persian, were too busy to see their exchange of smiles.

Later that day, he was in the Palace garden teaching his dog to fetch things, among the carved urns from Ephesos whose rare flowers died in the bitter winters of Macedon unless they were brought indoors. From the painted stoa above, his father walked down towards him.

He called the dog to heel. Side by side they waited, prick-eared and wary. His father sat down on a marble bench, and beckoned towards the side of his seeing eye. The blind eye had healed now; only a white patch on the iris showed where the arrow had gone in. It had been a spent one, to which he owed his life.

“Come here, come here,” he said, grinning and showing strong white teeth with a gap in them. “Come tell me what they said to you. You set them some hard questions, I hear. Tell me the answers. How many troops has Ochos, if he’s put to it?”

He spoke in Macedonian. As a rule he spoke Greek to his son, for the good of his education. His tongue freed by this, the boy began to talk: of the Ten Thousand Immortals, of archers and javelineers and axmen; how cavalry chargers would bolt from the smell of camels; and how kings in India rode on black hairless beasts, so huge they could carry towers upon their backs. Here he cocked his eye at his father, not wanting to seem gullible. Philip nodded. “Yes, elephants. They are vouched for by men I have found honest in other ways. Go on; all this is very useful.”

“They say people who greet the Great King have to lie down on their faces. I told them they need not do it to you. I was afraid someone might laugh at them.”

His father’s head went back. He gave a great belly-laugh and slapped his knee.

“They didn’t do it?” asked the boy.

“No, but they had your leave. Always make virtue of necessity and see you’re thanked for it. Well, they were lucky to get off better from you than Xerxes’ envoys did from your namesake, in the hall at Aigai.” He settled himself at ease. The boy stirred restlessly, disturbing the dog, which had its nose on his instep.

“When Xerxes bridged the Hellespont and brought his hosts to eat up Greece, he sent envoys first to all the peoples, demanding earth and water. A handful of earth for the land, a flask of water for the rivers; it was the homage of surrender. Our land stood clear in his way southward; we should be at his back when he went on; he wanted to make sure of us. So he sent us seven envoys. It was when the first Amyntas was King.”

Alexander would have liked to ask if this Amyntas was his greatgrandfather or what; but nobody would tell one straight about the ancestors, any later than the heroes and the gods. Perdikkas, his father’s elder brother, had been killed in battle, leaving a baby son. But the Macedonians had wanted someone who could fight off the Illyrians and rule the kingdom; so they had asked his father to be King instead. Further back than this, he was always told he would know when he was older.

“In those days, there was no Palace here at Pella; only the castle up at Aigai. We held on then with our teeth and nails. The western chiefs, the Orestids and Lynkestids, thought themselves kings; Illyrians, Paionians, Thracians crossed the border every month to take slaves and drive off cattle. But all those were children beside the Persians. Amyntas had prepared no defenses, as far as I could learn. By the time the envoys came, the Paionians, who might have been sought as allies, had been overrun. So he gave up, and did homage for his own land. You know what a satrap is?”

The dog started erect and looked about it fiercely. The boy patted it down.

“Amyntas’ son was called Alexandros. He would be about fourteen or fifteen; he had his own Guard already. Amyntas feasted the envoys in the hall at Aigai, and he was there.”

“Then he had killed his boar?”

“How do I know? It was a state banquet, so he was there.”

The boy knew Aigai almost as well as Pella. All the old shrines of the gods, where the great festivals were held, were up at Aigai; and the royal tombs of the ancestors, the ancient grave-mounds kept clear of trees, with their cavelike doorways, their massive doors of worked bronze and marble. It was said that when a King of Macedon was buried away from Aigai, the line would die. When the summer grew hot at Pella, they would go up there for the cool. The streams never dried there, coming down from their ferny mountain glens, cold from the upper snows; tumbling down all over the bluff, by the houses, through the castle court, till they joined together and plunged sheer down in the great fall which curtained the sacred cave. The castle was old, thick and strong, not like the fine columned Palace; the great hall had a round hearth, and a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. When men shouted there at the feasts, the sound would echo. He pictured Persians with curled beards and spangled hats, picking their way over the rough floor.

“There was drinking. Maybe the envoys were used to weaker wine; maybe they felt free to do as they liked, having got what they came for without trouble. One of them asked where the royal ladies were, saying it was the custom in Persia for them to attend the feasts.”

“Do Persian ladies stay on for the drinking?”

“It was a barefaced lie, not even meant to deceive; pure insolence. Persian ladies are closer kept than ours.”

“Did our men fight?”

“No, Amyntas sent for the women. Those of Paionia were already slaves in Asia, because their men had defied Xerxes. In justice to him, I don’t think he could have done better than they. He had no army, as we would understand it. The Companions from his own demesne; and the tribal levies, whom their lords would train if and how they chose, and would not bring at all if they did not choose. He had not taken Mount Pangaios with the gold mines. I did that. Gold, my boy, gold is the mother of armies. I pay my men round the year, war or no war, and they fight for me, under my officers. Down south, they turn them off in the slack times, and the hired men find work where they can. So they fight only for their own strolling generals, who are often good in their way, but still just hirelings themselves. In Macedon, I am the general. And that, my son, is why the Great King’s envoys don’t come asking for earth and water now.”

The boy nodded thoughtfully. The bearded envoys had been civil because they must, though the youth was different. “And did the ladies really come?”

“They came, affronted as you can guess, not deigning to dress their hair or put on a necklace. They expected to appear a moment, and then retire.”

Alexander pictured his mother getting such a summons. He doubted she would show herself, even to keep the people of the land from slavery. If she did, she would dress her hair and put on every jewel she had.

“When they learned they were to stay,” Philip went on, “they went over, as decent women would, to the far seats by the wall.”

“Where the pages sit?”

“Yes, there. An old man who had it from his grandfather showed me the place. The boys got up for them. They drew their veils and sat silent. The envoys called out compliments, urging them to unveil; for which, if their own women had done so before strange men, they would have cut off their noses; oh yes, and worse, believe me. In this indignity, young Alexandros saw his mother and his sisters and the rest of the royal kin. He was enraged, and reproached his father. But if the Persians saw, they thought nothing of it. Who cares if the whelp barks, when the dog is quiet? One said to the King, ‘My Macedonian friend, better these ladies had not come at all, than sit there a mere torment to our eyes. Pray observe our custom; our ladies converse with guests. Remember, you gave our King earth and water.’

“It was the sight of the naked sword. One may suppose a silence. Then the King went over to his womenfolk, and led them to sit on the ends of the Persians’ supper couches, as the flute-girls and the dancing-girls sit in the southern cities. The young prince saw the men lay hands on them, and his friends hardly held him back. Then suddenly he grew quiet. He beckoned the young men of his guard, and chose seven who were still beardless. These he spoke to in private and sent out. Going up to his father, who no doubt looked sick if any shame was in him, he said, ‘Sir, you are tired. Don’t sit out the drinking, leave the guests to me. They shall lack nothing that befits them, I give my word.’

“Well, it was a way for the man to save his face. He warned his son to do nothing rash, and then excused himself. The envoys, of course, supposed that nothing was now forbidden. The prince showed no anger. He came up all smiles, and did a round of the couches. ‘Dear guests, you honor our mothers and our sisters. But they came in so much haste, eager to do you courtesy, they feel hardly fit to be seen. Let us send them along to the bath, to dress and put on their ornaments. When they return, you will be able to say that here in Macedon, you were treated as you deserve.’”

Alexander sat upright with shining eyes. He had guessed the prince’s plan.

“The Persians had wine, and the night before them. They did not complain. Presently in came seven veiled ladies in splendid clothes. One walked to each envoy’s couch. Even then, though they had forfeited by their insolence the rights of guest-friends, he waited to see if they would behave themselves. When the truth was plain, he gave a signal. The young men in the women’s robes whipped out their daggers. The bodies rolled down on the platters and fruit-stands and spilled wine, almost without a cry.”

“Oh good!” said the boy. “It served them right.”

“They had of course their retinue somewhere in the hall. The doors had been made fast; none could be let out alive to bring word to Sardis. It could never be proved they had not been waylaid by bandits as they went through Thrace. When all was done, the bodies were buried in the forest. As the old man told me, the young Alexandros said, ‘You came for earth and water. Be content with earth.’”

The father paused, to enjoy the applause of a glowing silence. The boy, who had been hearing tales of vengeance since he could follow human speech—no old house or peasant tribe in Macedon was without one—thought it as good as the theater.

“So when King Xerxes came, Alexandros fought him?”

Philip shook his head. “He was King by then. He knew he could do nothing. He had to lead his men in Xerxes’ train with the other satraps. But before the great battle at Plataia, he rode over himself, by night, to tell the Greeks the Persian dispositions. He probably saved the day.”

The boy’s face had fallen. He frowned with distaste. Presently he said, “Well, he was clever. But I’d rather have fought a battle.”

“Would you so?” said Philip grinning. “So would I. If we live, who knows?” He rose from the bench, brushing down his well-whitened robe with its purple edge. “In my grandfather’s time, the Spartans, to secure their power over the south, made treaty of alliance with the Great King. His price was the Greek cities of Asia, which till then were free. No one has yet lifted that black shame from the face of Hellas. None of the states would stand up to Artaxerxes and the Spartans both together. And I tell you this: the cities will not be freed, till the Greeks are ready to follow a single war-leader. Dionysios of Syracuse might have been the man; but he had enough with the Carthaginians, and his son is a fool who has lost everything. But the man will come. Well, if we live we shall see.” He nodded, smiling. “Is that great ugly brute the best you can find for a dog? I will see the huntsman, and find you something with good blood in it.”

Leaping before the dog, whose hackles had risen bristling, the boy cried out “I love him!” in a voice not of tenderness but challenge to the death.

Cross with disappointment, Philip said, “Very well, very well. You need not shout at me. The beast is yours, who is going to harm it? I was offering you a gift.”

There was a pause. At length the boy said stiffly, “Thank you, Father. But I think he’d be jealous, and kill the other one. He’s very strong.”

The dog pushed its nose into his armpit. They stood side by side, a solid alliance. Philip shrugged and went indoors.

Alexander and the dog started wrestling on the ground. The dog knocked him about, holding back as it would with a growing pup. Presently, their limbs involved together, they lay drowsing in the sun. He pictured the hall at Aigai, littered with cups and plates and cushions and Persians sprawling in gore, like the Trojans on his mother’s wall. At the far end, where the attendants were being killed, the youth who had come with the envoys was fighting on, the last one left, standing his ground against a score. “Stop!” cried the Prince. “Don’t dare kill him, he’s my friend.” When the dog woke him by scratching itself, they had been riding off on horses with plumed headstalls, to see Persepolis.

The mild summer day declined to evening. On the salt lake of Pella fell the shadow of its island fort, where the treasury and the dungeons were. Lamps glimmered in windows up and down the town; a household slave came out with a resined torch, to kindle the great cressets upheld by seated lions at the foot of the Palace steps. The lowing of homebound cattle sounded on the plain; in the mountains, which turned towards Pella their shadowed eastern faces, far-distant watch-fires sparked the grey.

The boy sat on the Palace roof, looking down at the town, the lagoon, and the little fisher-boats making for their moorings. It was his bedtime, and he was keeping out of his nurse’s way till he had seen his mother, who might give him leave to stay up. Men mending the roof had gone home, without removing their ladders. It was a chance not to be wasted.

He sat on the tiles of Pentelic marble, shipped in by King Archelaos; the gutter under his thighs, between his knees an antefix in the shape of a gorgon’s head, the paint faded by weather. Grasping the snaky hair, he was outstaring the long drop, defying its earth-daimons. Going back he would have to look down; they must be settled with beforehand.

Soon they gave in, as such creatures did when challenged. He ate the stale bread he had stolen instead of supper. It should have been hot posset, flavored with honey and wine; the smell had been tempting, but at supper one was caught for bed. Nothing could be had for nothing.

A bleat sounded from below. They had brought the black goat, it must be nearly time. Better now not to ask beforehand. Once he was there, she would not send him away.

He picked his way down the long spaces of the ladder-rungs made for men. The beaten earth-daimons kept their distance; he sang himself a song of victory. From the lower roof to the ground; no one was there but a few tired slaves going off duty. Indoors Hellanike would be searching; he must go around outside. He was getting too much for her; he had heard his mother say so.

The Hall was lit; inside, kitchen slaves were talking Thracian and shifting tables. Just ahead was a sentry, pacing his round; Menestas with his red bushy beard. The boy smiled and saluted.

“Alexander! Alexander!”

It was Lanike, behind the corner he had only just turned. She had come out after him herself. She would see him in a moment. He started running and thinking together. Here was Menestas. “Quick!” he whispered. “Hide me in your shield.” Not waiting to be lifted, he clambered up the man and wrapped arms and legs around him. The wiry beard tickled his head. “Little monkey!” muttered Menestas, clapping the hollow shield across him just in time, and backing up to the wall. Hellanike passed, calling angrily, but too well-bred to talk to soldiers. “Where are you off to? I’ve no business…” But the boy had hugged his neck, dropped away and gone.

He threaded byways, avoiding the middens, for one could not come dirty to serve a god; and reached safely the garden-close by his mother’s postern. Outside on the steps a few women were waiting already with their unlit torches. He kept out of their way beyond the myrtle hedge; he did not mean to be seen till they were in the grove. He knew where to go meantime.

Not far away was the shrine of Herakles, his paternal ancestor. Inside his little portico, the blue wall was dusky in evening shade, but the bronze statue stood out clearly, and its eyes of inlaid agate caught the last of the light. King Philip had dedicated it soon after his accession; he had been twenty-four, and the sculptor, who knew how to treat a patron, had done Herakles about that age, but beardless in the southern style, with his hair and his lion-skin gilded. The fanged mask of the lion was put on like a hood above his brow, the rest formed a cloak on his shoulders. The head had been copied for Philip’s coinage.

No one was watching; Alexander went up to the shrine, and rubbed the right toe of the hero above the edge of the plinth. Just now on the roof he had called upon him in their secret words, and he had come at once to tame the daimons. It was time to thank him. His toe was brighter than the rest of his foot, from many such rubbings.

From beyond the hedge he heard a sistrum tinkle, and the mutter of a finger-drum lightly brushed. A torch threw its glow on the painted doorway, turning dusk to night. He crept up to the hedge. Most of the women had come. They had on bright thin dresses; they were only going to dance before the god. At the Dionysia, when they went up from Aigai into the mountain forests, they would wear the real maenad dress, and carry the reed thyrsos with its pine-cone top and wreath of ivy. Their dappled robes and fawnskins would not be seen again, but be thrown away with their bloody stains. The little skins they wore now were softly dressed and buckled with wrought gold; their wands were delicate scepters, gilded and trimmed with jewelers’ work. The priest of Dionysos had just arrived, and a boy leading the goat. They were only waiting for his mother to come out.

She came, laughing in the doorway with Hyrmina from Epiros; dressed in a saffron robe, and gilt sandals with garnet clasps. The ivy-wreath in her hair was gold, its fine sprays trembled glittering in the torchlight whenever she moved her head. Her thyrsos was twined with a little enamel snake. One of the women carried the basket with Glaukos in it. He always came to the dance.

The girl with the torch carried it round to all the others; their flames leaped up, making eyes shine, and the red, green, blue, yellow of the dresses deepen like jewels. Standing from the shadows, there hung like a mask the sad, wise, wicked face of the goat, its topaz eyes and its gilded horns. A wreath of young green vine-clusters hung round its neck. With the priest and his serving-boy, it led the way to the grove; the women followed talking quietly. The sistra gave soft jangles as their bearers walked. Frogs croaked in the stream that fed the fountains.

They went up on the open hill above the garden; this was all royal land. The path threaded winding, between myrtles and tamarisk and wild-olive bushes. Behind them all, out of sight, led by the torches, the boy stepped lightly.

The tall dark of the pine wood loomed ahead. He left the path, and slipped cautiously along through the brush. It was too soon to be seen.

Lying flat on the springy pine-needles, he looked out from a sheltering hollow at the grove. They had stuck their torches into sconces speared into the ground. The dancing-place had been prepared, the altar garlanded, the rustic trestle set with the wine cups and the mixing-bowl and the sacred fans. On his plinth, cared for as always, cleansed from bird-droppings, washed and polished so that his brown-tinted marble limbs had the sheen of youthful flesh, stood Dionysos.

Olympias had had him brought here from Corinth, where he had been carved to her commands. He was nearly life-sized, a youth of about fifteen, fair-haired, with the slim muscles of a dancer. He wore ornate red boots, and a leopard-skin on one shoulder. A long-shafted thyrsos was grasped in his right hand; the left held out a gilt cup in welcome. His smile was not Apollo’s, which says, “Man, know yourself; that is enough for your little life.” This was a beckoning smile; its secret was for sharing.

They stood in a ring with joined hands, and sang an invocation, before the goat was sacrificed. It had rained since the last blood was shed there; he came up without fear, and only when the knife went in gave one wild lonely cry. His blood was caught in a shallow cup and mixed with wine for the god. The boy watched quietly, his chin propped on his hands. He had seen countless sacrifices, in the public sanctuaries and in this grove, where in infancy he had been carried to the dancing, and slept on pine-mast to the blood-pulse of the drums.

The music had started. The girls with the finger-drums and sistra, the girl with the double flute, began softly swaying to their own time. Glaukos’ head in his opened basket was swaying too. Pace and sound built up; arms linked behind waists, the women beat the ground with their feet, their bodies arching forward and back, their hair falling loose and swinging. They drank neat wine, for the dances of Dionysos; after the sacrifice, they had drunk along with the god.

He could come out soon; he would never be sent back now.

The girl with the cymbals brought them together high over her head in a throbbing clang. He crept forward till he was almost in the torchlight; no one saw him. Turning slowly at first, to leave breath for singing, they were hymning the Triumph of the God.

He could hear most of the words, but he knew the hymn from memory. He had often heard it here. After each verse the cymbals clanged, and they sang each time louder the chorus, “Euoi, Bakchos! Euoi! Euoi!”

His mother began the hymn, hailing the god as son of Semele, born of fire. Her eyes and cheeks and hair were bright, her gold garland shimmered, her yellow dress threw back the torchlight, as if she herself were alight.

Hyrmina from Epiros, shaking her black hair, sang how the infant god had been hidden in Naxos to save him from jealous Hera, and guarded by singing nymphs. The boy crawled nearer. Above his head was the wine table; he peered over its edge. The cups and the mixer were old, with pictures painted on them. He reached down a cup to look; there was some wine still in it. He tipped out a drop or two, in libation to the god, for he was well trained in such matters; then he drank the rest. The strong unwatered taste was sweet enough to please him. The god seemed glad to have been honored; for the torches were brighter, the music became magical. He knew that soon he would dance.

They sang how Zeus’ child was brought to the woodland lair of old Silenos, who taught him wisdom till, outstripping his teacher, he found the power in the purple grape. Then all the satyrs worshipped him, for the joys and furies in his hand. The song had a twirling lilt, the dance spun round like a wheel round a well-greased axle. By himself among the trees, the boy began to step out the time and clap his hands.

The god grew to a youth, fair-faced and graceful as a girl, but burning with the levin-fire that had been his mother’s midwife. He went out to mankind, showering all good gifts on those who perceived his godhead, but dreadful to unbelievers as a ravening lion. His fame increased, he grew too bright to be hidden. Jealous Hera could be deceived no longer. By his shining and his power she knew him, and sent him mad.

The music spiraled, quicker and higher, the music skirled like the death-shriek of small prey in a midnight wood, the cymbals dinned. The boy, hungry already and thirsty now from the dance, stretched tiptoe to reach another cup. This time it did not catch his breath. It was like the fire from heaven in the hymn.

The wild god wandered, through Thrace and across Hellespont, over the Phrygian heights and south to Karia. His worshippers who had shared his joy did not forsake him, but stayed to share his madness. It brought them ecstasy, for even his madness was divine. He followed the Asian coast to Egypt, whose wise race welcomed him; he rested there to learn their wisdom and teach them his. Then filled with madness and divinity, he set out over the unmeasured leagues of Asia, traveling east. On he danced, gathering worshippers as fire kindles fire; he crossed the Euphrates on a bridge of ivy, the Tigris on a tiger’s back. Still he danced on, over plains and rivers and mountains high as Caucasus, till he came to the land of India at the outer edge of the world. Beyond was nothing but the encircling Stream of Ocean. The curse of Hera was spent. The Indians worshipped him; wild lions and panthers came meekly to draw his chariot. Thus he came back in glory to the Hellene lands; the Great Mother cleansed him of all the blood he had shed when he was mad; and he gave gladness to the hearts of men.

They raised the chorus; the boy’s voice shrilled with the flute. He had thrown off his chiton, hot with the dance, the torch-flames and the wine. The gold wheels of the lion-drawn chariot turned beneath him, the paeans sounded, rivers drew back for him, the peoples of India and Asia danced to his song. The maenads were invoking him; he leaped from his chariot to dance among them. They broke their whirling ring, laughing and crying aloud to him, and closed the ring again, so that he could circle his own altar. As they sang, he danced around it, trampling the dew, making his magic, till the grove spun round him and he did not know earth from sky. But there before him was the Great Mother, with a wreath of light in her hair; she caught him in her arms, and kissed him over; and he saw on her golden gown the red prints from his bloodstained feet, where he had trodden in the place of sacrifice. His feet were as red as the boots of the painted statue.

He was wrapped in a cloak, and laid on a deep pine-mat, and kissed again, and told softly that even the gods, when they are young, must sleep. He must stay there and be good, and in a little while they would all go home. It was warm on the pine-smelling needles, in the crimson wool; the heave of sickness had passed and the torches had stopped turning. They burned lower in their sconces, but still friendly and bright. Looking out from the folded cloak, he saw the women go off into the pine grove, hand in hand or with arms entwined. In other years, he would try to remember if he had heard deeper voices, answering theirs down in the wood; but the memories were deceitful, and each time they were invoked spoke with a different voice. At all events, he was not afraid, nor lonely; there was whispering and laughter not far away. A dancing flame was the last thing he saw before his closing eyes.