by Mary Renault
It was now winter. The study was as drafty and cold as ever. The King’s son, thought Antipatros, seemed to notice it even less than the King.
“Now the League is meeting at Thermopylai to pass judgment on the Amphissians. It’s clear my father won’t be fit to go. I am sure what he would like would be for you to represent him. Will you?”
“By all means, yes,” said Antipatros, relieved. The boy knew his own limits, eager as he was to stretch them. “I shall try to influence whom I can, and, where I can, postpone decisions for the King.”
“Let’s hope they’ve found him a warm house; Thrace in winter is no place for healing wounds. Before long, we shall have to consult him about this. What do you expect will happen?”
“In Athens, nothing. Even if the League condemns Amphissa, Demosthenes will keep the Athenians out. The countercharge was a personal triumph for Aischines, whom he hates like poison, and indicted on a capital charge of treason after their embassy here, as I daresay you know.”
“No one better. Part of the charge was that he was too friendly with me.”
“These demagogues! Why, you were only ten years old. Well, the charge failed, and now Aischines comes back from Delphi a public hero. Demosthenes must be chewing wormwood. Also, a larger issue, the Amphissians support the Thebans, whom he won’t wish to antagonize.”
“But the Athenians hate the Thebans.”
“He would like them to hate us more. A war pact with Thebes is what any man of sense would work for, in his place. With the Thebans he may succeed; the Great King has sent him a fortune to buy support against us. It’s the Athenians will give him trouble; that feud’s too old.”
Alexander sat in thought. Presently he said, “It’s four generations now since they threw back the Persians; and we Medized, as the Thebans did. If the Great King crossed now from Asia, they’d be intriguing and impeaching one another, while we turned him back in Thrace.”
“Men change in less time than that. We have come up in one generation, thanks to your father.”
“And he’s still only forty-three. Well, I shall go out and take some exercise, in case he should leave me anything to do.”
On his way to change, he met his mother, who asked the news. He went with her to her room, and told her as much as he thought good. The room was warm, soft and full of color; bright firelight danced on the pictured flames of Troy. His eyes turned to the hearth, he stared unnoticed at the loose stone he had explored in childhood. She found him withdrawn, and accused him of weak compliance with Antipatros, who would stop at nothing to do her harm. This happened often, and he passed it off with the usual answers.
Leaving, he met Kleopatra on the stairs. Now at fourteen she was more like Philip than ever, square-faced, with strong curly hair; but her eyes were not his, they were sad as an unloved dog’s. His half-wives had borne him prettier girls; she was plain at the age when, for him, it mattered most; and for her mother she wore the mask of the enemy. Alexander said, “Come with me, I want to speak to you.”
In the nursery they had been struggling rivals. Now he was above the battle. She longed for, yet feared, his notice, feeling unequal to anything it could mean. It was unheard of for him to confer with her. “Come in the garden,” he said, and, when she shivered and crossed her arms, gave her his cloak. They stood in a leafless rose-plot by the Queen’s postern, close against the wall. Old snow lay in the hollows and between the clods. He had spoken to her quietly, he had not wished to frighten her, she saw that in herself she was unimportant; but she was afraid.
“Listen,” he said. “You know what happened to Father at Byzantion?” She nodded. “It was the dogs betrayed him. The dogs, and the sickle moon.”
He saw the dread in her sad eyes, but read no guilt in it. Neither of Olympias’ children looked for innocence in one another. “You understand me. You know the rites I mean. Did you…see anything done?”
She shook her head dumbly; if she told, it would come out in one of their dreadful love-quarrels. His eyes searched her like the winter wind; but her fear hid everything. Suddenly he became gentle and grave, and took her hand through the folds of cloak. “I won’t tell that you told me. By Herakles. I could never break that oath.” He looked round at the garden shrine. “Tell me, you must. I must know.”
Her hidden hand shifted in his. “Only the same as other times, when nothing came of it. If there was more, I didn’t see it. Truly, Alexander, that’s all I know.”
“Yes, yes, I believe you,” he said impatiently; then grasped at her hand again. “Don’t let her do it. She hasn’t the right, now. I saved him at Perinthos. He’d be dead now, but for me.”
“Why did you?” Much could be left unsaid between them. Her eyes dwelt on the face that was not Philip’s, the rough-cut, shining hair.
“It would have been disgraceful not to.” He paused, seeking, she thought, some words that would serve for her. “Don’t cry,” he said, and passed a fingertip gently under her eyes. “That’s all I wanted to know. You couldn’t help it.”
He began to lead her in; but paused at the doorway, and looked about them. “If she wants to send him a doctor, medicines, sweets, anything, you must let me know. I charge you with it. If you don’t, it will rest on you.”
He saw her face pale with shock. Her surprise, not her distress, arrested him. “Oh, Alexander! No! Those things you spoke of, they’ve never worked, she must know it. But they’re terrible, and when—when she can’t contain her soul, they purge it. That’s all they are.”
He looked at her almost with tenderness, and slowly shook his head. “She meant them.” He gave her one of his secret looks. “I remember,” he said softly.
He saw her sad dog’s eyes, flinching from this new burden. “But that’s long ago. I expect it’s as you say. You’re a good girl.” He kissed her cheek, and squeezed her shoulders as he took back his cloak. From the doorway she watched him go shining off through the dead garden.
Winter dragged on. In Thrace the King mended slowly, and could sign letters with the shake of an old man. He had understood the news from Delphi, and directed that Antipatros should support, discreetly, the Amphissian war. The Thebans, though pledged to Macedon, had been doubtful allies, intriguing with the Persians; they were expendable at need. He foresaw the League states voting for the war, each hoping that its burden would be borne by others; Macedon should stand by, without officiousness, in friendly willingness to assume the tiresome duty. It would put the key to the south into his hand.
Soon after midwinter, the Council voted for war. Each state offered only a token force; none would yield leadership to a rival city. Kottyphos, a Thessalian, being President of the Council, had flung in his lap command of this awkward army. Thessalians, whom Philip had rescued from tribal anarchy, remained mostly grateful. There was small doubt where Kottyphos would turn in his hour of need.
“It has begun,” said Alexander to his friends, as they sluiced down under the fountain by the stadium. “If one only knew how long.”
Ptolemy, pushing his head out of his towel, remarked, “Women say a watched pot never boils.” Alexander, dedicated to constant readiness, had been working them hard; Ptolemy had a new mistress, of whom he would have liked to be seeing more.
“They say too,” Hephaistion countered, “that when you take your eye off it, it boils over.” Ptolemy looked at him with irritation; it was well for him, he was getting enough of what he wanted.
He was getting, at least, what he would not have changed for any other human lot; and the world could know it. The rest was his secret; he came to what terms he could with it. Pride, chastity, restraint, devotion to higher things; with such words he made tolerable to himself his meetings with a soul-rooted reluctance, too deep to suffer questioning. Perhaps Olympias’ witchcraft had scarred her child; perhaps his father’s example. Or, thought Hephaistion, perhaps it was that in this one thing he did not want the mastery, and all the rest of his nature was at war with it; he had trusted his very life m
uch sooner and more willingly. Once in the dark he had murmured in Macedonian, “You are the first and the last,” and his voice might have been charged with ecstasy or intolerable grief. Most of the time, however, he was candid, close, without evasions; he simply did not think it very important. One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.
He talked of man and fate; of words heard in dreams from speaking serpents; of the management of cavalry against infantry and archers; he quoted Homer on heroes, Aristotle on the Universal Mind, and Solon on love; he talked of Persian tactics and the Thracian battle-mind; about his dog that had died, about the beauty of friendship. He plotted the march of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, stage by stage from Babylon to the sea. He retailed the backstairs gossip of the Palace, the staff room and the phalanx, and confided the most secret policies of both his parents. He considered the nature of the soul in life and death, and that of the gods; he talked of Herakles and Dionysos, and how Longing can achieve all things.
Listening in bed, in the lee of mountain crags, in a wood at daybreak; with an arm clasping his waist or a head thrown back on his shoulder, trying to silence his noisy heart, Hephaistion understood he was being told everything. With pride and awe, with tenderness, torment and guilt, he lost the thread, and fought with himself, and caught the drift again to find something gone past recall. Bewildering treasures were being poured into his hands and slipping through his fingers, while his mind wandered to the blinding trifle of his own desire. At any moment he would be asked what he thought; he was valued as more than a listener. Knowing this he would attend again, and be caught up even against his will; Alexander could transmit imagination as some other could transmit lust. Sometimes, when he was lit up and full of gratitude for being understood, Longing, who has the power to achieve all things, would prompt the right word or touch; he would fetch a profound sigh, dragged up it seemed from the depth of his being, and murmur something in the Macedonian of his childhood; and all would be well, or as well as it could ever be.
He loved giving, to gods or men; he loved achievement here as elsewhere; he loved Hephaistion, whom he forgave for having confronted him, irrevocably now, with his human needs. The profound melancholy after, he bore uncomplaining like a wound. Nothing could be had for nothing. But if later he threw a javelin wide, or won a race by two lengths instead of three, Hephaistion always suspected him, without a word or a look to show it, of thinking that virtue had gone out of him.
In his waking dreams, from which hard clear thought emerged like iron from fire, he would lie back in the grass with his arm behind his head, or sit with his hands loose on the boar-spear across his knees, or pace a room, or stare from a window, his head tilted up and a little leftward, his eyes seeing what his mind conceived. His forgotten face told truths no sculptor would ever catch; behind dropped curtains the secret lamp flared high, one saw the glow, or a dazzling glint through a chink. At times like these, when, Hephaistion thought, even a god could scarcely have kept his hands off him, then above all he must be let alone. But this, after all, one had known from the very beginning.
Once having understood it, Hephaistion could himself achieve, in some degree, Alexander’s power to drive the force of sexual energy into some other aim. His own ambitions were more limited; he had already attained the chief of them. He was entirely trusted, constantly and deeply loved.
True friends share everything. One thing, however, he thought well to keep to himself: that Olympias hated him, and her hatred was returned.
Alexander did not speak of it; she must have known that here she would meet with rock. Hephaistion, when she passed him without a greeting, put it down to simple jealousy. It is hard for a generous lover to pity a devouring one; he could not feel much for her, even while he believed that this was all.
It took him time to credit what he saw in front of him, that she was throwing women in Alexander’s way. Surely she would hate their rivalry even more? Yet waiting-maids, visiting singers and dancers, young wives not strictly kept, girls who dared not for their lives have risked her anger, now hung about and made eyes. Hephaistion waited for Alexander to talk about it first.
One evening just after lamp-lighting, in the Great Court, Hephaistion saw him waylaid by a young notorious beauty. He flashed his eyes at her languid ones, said something crisp, and walked on with a cool smile, which disappeared at sight of Hephaistion. They fell into step; Hephaistion seeing him on edge said lightly, “No luck for Doris.” Alexander looked ahead frowning. The newly lit cressets flung deep shadows and shifting gleams into the painted stoa.
Alexander said abruptly, “She wants me to marry young.”
“Marry?” said Hephaistion staring. “How could you marry Doris?”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Alexander irritably. “She’s married, she’s a whore, she had her last child by Harpalos.” They walked on in silence. He paused beside a column. “Mother wants to see me going with women, to know I’m ready.”
“But no one marries at our age. Only girls.”
“She has her mind on it, and she wishes I had mine.”
“But why?”
Alexander glanced at him, not in wonder at his slowness but envy of his innocence. “She wants to bring up my heir. I might fall in battle without one.”
Hephaistion understood. He was impeding more than love, more than possession. He was impeding power. The cressets flickered, the night breeze blew coldly down his neck. Presently he said, “And will you do it?”
“Marry? No, I shall suit myself, when I choose, when I’ve time to think of it.”
“You’d have to maintain a household, it’s a great deal of business.” He glanced at Alexander’s creased brows and added, “Girls, you can take or leave whenever you like.”
“That’s what I think.” He looked at Hephaistion with a gratitude not quite aware of itself. Drawing him by the arm into the thick column’s shadow, he said softly, “Don’t be troubled about it. She would never dare do anything to take you from me. She knows me better than that.”
Hephaistion nodded, not liking to admit that he understood what was meant. It was true that he had begun lately to notice how his wine was poured.
A little while later, Ptolemy said in private to Alexander, “I’ve been asked to give a party for you and invite some girls.”
Their eyes met. Alexander said, “I might be busy.”
“I’d be grateful if you’d come. I’ll see you’re not plagued, they can sing and amuse us. Will you? I don’t want to be in trouble.”
It was not a custom of the north to bring in hetairas at dinner; a man’s women were his own concern; Dionysos, not Aphrodite, closed the feast. But lately, among up-to-date young men at private parties, Greek ways were admired. Four guests came to the supper; the girls sat on the ends of their couches, talked prettily, sang to the lyre, filled up their wine cups and patted their wreaths in place; they might almost have been in Corinth. To Alexander his host had allotted the eldest, Kallixeina, an expert and cultured courtesan of some fame. While a girl acrobat was throwing somersaults naked, and on the other couches understandings were being reached with covert tickles and pinches, she talked in her mellow voice about the beauties of Miletos, where she had lately been, and the oppression of the Persians there; Ptolemy had briefed her well. Once, leaning gracefully, she let her dress dip to show him her much-praised breasts; but as he had been promised, her tact was faultless. He enjoyed her company, and at parting kissed the sweetly curving lips from which she took her trade name.
“I don’t know,” he confided to Hephaistion in bed, “why my mother should want to see me enslaved by women. You’d think with my father she’d have seen enough.”
“All mothers are mad for grandchildren,” said Hephaistion tolerantly. The party had left Alexander, vaguely restless, and receptive to love.
“Think of the great men it has ruined. Look at Persia.” His somber mood being on him, he retailed from Herodotos a hideous tale of jealousy and
vengeance. Hephaistion expressed a proper horror. His sleep was sweet.
“The Queen was pleased,” said Ptolemy next day, “to hear you enjoyed the party.” He never said more than enough, a trait Alexander valued. He sent Kallixeina a necklace of gold flowers.
Winter began to break. Two couriers from Thrace, the first having been delayed by swollen streams, arrived together. The first dispatch said that the King could walk a little. He had had news from the south by sea. The League army, after troubles and delays, had won a partial victory; the Amphissians had accepted peace terms, to dismiss their leaders and put in their exiled opposition. This was always a hated condition, since exiles returned bent on settling their old scores. The Amphissians had not fulfilled their agreement yet.
From the second courier’s letter, it was clear that Philip was now dealing direct with his southern agents, who had reported the Amphissians still harbored their former government and ignored remonstrances; the opposition dared not return. Kottyphos, the League general, had written to the King in confidence: if the League were forced into action, would Philip be prepared to undertake the war?
With this came a second letter, bound up and double-sealed, addressed to Alexander as Regent. It commended his good government; and informed him that though Philip hoped soon to be fit for the journey home; affairs could not wait so long. He wanted the whole home army mobilized for action; but no one must suspect that his plans led southward; Antipatros alone could share the knowledge. Some other pretext must be sought. There had been tribal musterings in Illyria; it should be given out that the western border was threatened, and the troops were standing by for that. Terse notes on training and staffing were closed with fatherly blessings.
Like a caged bird set free, Alexander flew into action. As he ranged about in search of good country for maneuvers, he could be heard singing to the beat of Oxhead’s hooves. If some girl he had loved for years, Antipatros thought, had suddenly been promised him, he could not have glowed more brilliantly.