by Mary Renault
War councils were called; the professional soldiers conferred with the tribal lords who commanded their own levies. Olympias asked Alexander what kept him so often away, and why he looked so full of business. He answered that he hoped soon to see action against the Illyrians on the border.
“I have been waiting to speak to you, Alexander. I hear that after Kallixeina the Thessalian entertained you all one evening, you made her a present and never sent again for her. These women are artists, Alexander; a hetaira of that standing has her pride. What will she think of you?”
He turned round, for a moment quite bewildered. He had forgotten the existence of such a person. “Do you think,” he said staring, “that I’ve time now to be playing about with girls?”
She tapped with her fingers on her gilded chair-arm. “You will be eighteen this summer. People may be saying you do not care for them.”
He stared at the Sack of Troy, the flames and blood and the shrieking women flung back across warriors’ shoulders, waving their arms. After a moment he said, “I shall find them something else to talk about.”
“You have always time for Hephaistion,” she said.
“He thinks of my work, and helps.”
“What work? You tell me nothing. Philip sent you a secret letter; you did not even tell me. What did he say?”
With cool precision, without a pause, he gave her the tale about the Illyrian war. She saw, and was shaken by, the cold resentment in his eyes.
“You are lying to me,” she said.
“If you think so, why ask?”
“I am sure you told Hephaistion everything.”
Lest Hephaistion should suffer for the truth, he answered, “No.”
“People talk. Hear it now from me, if you do not know. Why do you shave, like a Greek?”
“Am I not Greek, then? This is news, you should have told me sooner.”
Like two wrestlers who in their grapple reel towards a cliff, and let go in a common fear, they paused and swerved.
“Your friends are known by it, the women point at them. Hephaistion, Ptolemy, Harpalos…”
He laughed. “Ask Harpalos why they point.”
She was angered by his endurance, when instinct told her she was drawing blood. “Soon your father will be making you a marriage. It is time you showed him it is a husband he has to offer, and not a wife.”
After a moment’s stillness he walked forward, very slowly, and lightly as a golden cat, till he stood straight before her looking down. She opened her mouth, then closed it; little by little she shrank back into her thronelike chair, till its high back held her and she could retreat no further. Judging this with his eyes, he then said softly, “You will never say that to me again.”
She was still there, and had not moved, when she heard Oxhead’s gallop thudding away.
For two days he did not come near her; her orders to deny him her door were wasted. Then came a feast; each found a gift from the other. The breach was healed; except that neither spoke of it, or asked forgiveness.
He forgot it, when the news came in from Illyria. Word having spread that King Philip was arming against them, the tribes, which had been settling, were in ferment from the border to the western sea.
“I expected no less,” said Antipatros in private to Alexander. “The price of a good lie is that it gets believed.”
“One thing’s certain, we can’t afford to undeceive them. So they’ll be over the border any day. Let me think about this; tomorrow I’ll tell you what troops I need to take.”
Antipatros saved his breath; he was learning when to do so.
Alexander knew what forces he wanted; what most concerned him was how to avoid, without suspicion, committing too many troops to the work they were supposed to be standing by for. Soon fact supplied a pretext. Since the Phokian war, the Thermopylai fort had been held by a Macedonian garrison. It had just been “relieved,” in strength and without agreement, by a force of Thebans. Thebes, they explained, had to protect herself from the Sacred League, which, by attacking her allies the Amphissians, was clearly threatening her. This seizure was as near a hostile act as a formal ally could compass. It would be natural, now, to leave a good holding force at home.
The Illyrians were lighting war-fires. Alexander got out his father’s old maps and records; questioned veterans about the terrain, which was mountainous and cleft with gorges, and tested his men in marches across country. From one such day he got back at fall of dusk, bathed, greeted friends, had dinner, and, ready for sleep, went straight up to his room. He threw off his clothes at once; with the cold draft from the window came a warm drift of scent. The tall standing lamp shone in his eyes. He stepped past it. On the bed a young girl was sitting.
He stared at her in silence; she gasped and looked down, as if the last thing she had looked for here was an unclothed man. Then slowly she got to her feet, unclasped her hands to let them fall at her sides, and raised her head.
“I am here,” she said like a child repeating lessons, “because I have fallen in love with you. Please don’t send me away.”
He walked steadily across to her. The first shock had passed; one must not be seen to hesitate. This one was not like the painted jeweled hetairas with their easy charm, the patina of much handling. She was about fifteen, a fair-skinned girl, with fine flaxen hair falling unbound over her shoulders. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes dark blue, her small breasts firm and pointed; the dress of snow-white byssos showed the pink nipples through. Her mouth was unpainted, fresh as flowers. Before he reached her, he felt her steeped in fear.
“How did you get in?” he asked. “There’s a guard outside.”
She clasped her hands again. “I—I have been trying a long time to come to you. I took the first chance I saw.” Her fear shivered like a curtain round her, it almost stirred the air.
He had expected no answer to the purpose. He touched her hair, which felt like thin silk clothing her; she was shaking like the bass string of a kithara lately struck. Not passion, fear. He took her shoulders between his hands and felt her a little calmed, like a scared dog. It was because of him, not of him, she was afraid.
They were young; their innocence and their knowledge spoke together, without their will. He stood holding her between his hands, no longer heeding her, listening. He heard nothing; yet the whole room seemed to breathe.
He kissed her lips, she was just the right height for him. Then he said crisply, “The guard must have gone to sleep. If he let you in, let’s make sure there is no one else here.”
She grasped him with a clutch of terror. He kissed her again, and gave her a secret smile. Then he went to the far end of the room, shaking the window-curtains loudly on their rings, one after another, looking into the great chest and slamming its lid. He left to the last the curtain before the postern door. When at length he pulled it aside, no one was there. He shot the bronze bolt home.
Going back to the girl, he led her towards the bed. He was angry, but not with her; and he had been offered a challenge.
Her white gauze dress was pinned on the shoulders with golden bees. He loosened them, and the girdle; it all fell on the floor. She was milky as if her flesh never saw the sun, all but the rosy nipples, and the golden fuzz which painters never put in. Poor soft pale thing, for which the heroes had fought ten years at Troy.
He lay down beside her. She was young and scared, she would thank him for time and gentleness, there was no hurry. One of her hands, ice-cold with fright, started traveling down his body; hesitant and inexpert, remembering instruction. It was not enough that she had been sent to learn if he was a man, this child had been told to help him. He found himself handling her with the most delicate care, like a day-old pup, to protect her from his anger.
He glanced at the lamp; but it would be a kind of flight to quench it, shameful to fumble in the dark. His arm lay across her breast, firm, brown, scratched from the mountain brambles; how weak she looked, even a real kiss would bruise her. She had hi
dden her face against his shoulder. A conscript without doubt, not a volunteer. She was thinking what would become of her if she failed.
And at the best, he thought; at the best? The loom, the bed, the cradle; children, the decking of bride-beds, clacking talk at the hearth and the village well; bitter old age, and death. Never the beautiful ardors, the wedded bond of honor, the fire from heaven blazing on the altar where fear was killed. He turned up her face in his hand. For this lost life, the creature that looked at him with these flax-blue eyes, helpless and waiting, had been created a human soul. Why had it been ordered so? Compassion shocked him, and pierced him with darts of fire.
He thought of the fallen towns, the rafters burning, the women running from the smoke as rats and hares ran out when the last stand of wheat falls to the sickle and the boys wait stick in hand. He remembered the bodies, left behind by men for whom the victor’s right of mating, with which wild beasts were content, was not enough. They had something to revenge, some unsated hatred, of themselves perhaps, or of one they could not name. His hand traced softly on her smooth body the wounds he had seen; there was no harm, she did not understand it. He kissed her so that she should be reassured. She was trembling less, knowing now that her mission would not fail. He took her carefully, with the greatest gentleness, thinking of blood.
Later she sat up softly, thinking him asleep, and began to slip out of bed. He had only been thinking. “Don’t go,” he said. “Stay with me till morning.” He would have been glad to lie alone, not crowded by this alien soft flesh; but why should she face her questioning at such an hour? She had not cried, but only flinched a little, though she had been a virgin. Of course, how not? She was to furnish proof. He was angry on her behalf, no god having disclosed to him that she would outlive him by fifty years, boasting to the last of them that she had had the maidenhood of Alexander. The night grew cool, he pulled up the blanket over her shoulders. If anyone was sitting up for her, so much the better. Let them wait.
He got up and snuffed the lamp, and lay looking into the darkness, feeling the lethargy of soul which was the price of going hostage to mortality. To die, even a little, one should do it for something great. However, this might pass for a kind of victory.
He woke to birdsong and first light; he had overslept, some men he had meant to look at would be at drill already. The girl was fast sleeping still, her mouth a little open; it made her look foolish more than sad. He had never asked her her name. He shook her gently; her mouth closed, her deep-blue eyes opened; she looked tumbled, sleek and warm. “We had better get up, I have work to do.” Out of courtesy he added, “I wish we could stay longer.”
She rubbed her eyes, then smiled at him. His heart lifted; the ordeal was over, and well achieved. There on the sheet was the little red stain the old wives showed the guests on the wedding morrow. It would be practical, but unkind, to suggest she should take it with her. He had a better thought.
He belted on his chiton, went to his casket where his dress jewels were kept, and took out a pouch of soft kidskin, old and worn, with gold embroidery. It was not long ago that, with much solemnity, it had been given him. He slipped it out, a big brooch of two gold swans, their necks entwined in the courtship dance. The work was ancient, the swans wore crowns. “It has come down from queen to queen for two hundred years. Look after it, Alexander; it is an heirloom for your bride.”
He tossed the stitched pouch away, his mouth hardening; but he walked over with a smile. The girl had just fastened her shoulder-pins and was tying her girdle. “Here’s something for remembrance.” She took it wide-eyed, staring and feeling its weight. “Tell the Queen that you pleased me very much, but in future I choose for myself. Then show her this; and remember to say I told you to.”
In fresh blowy spring weather they marched west from the coast and up to Aigai. Here on Zeus’ ancient altar Alexander offered an unblemished pure-white bull. The seers, poring over the steaming vitals, announced the good portents of the liver.
They passed Lake Kastoria flooded from the snow-streams, half-drowned willows shaking green locks over its wind-ruffled blue water; then wound up through winter-brown scrub, into the rocky heights of the Hills of Lynxes, the Lynkestid lands.
Here he thought well to put on his helmet, and the leather guard for his bridle-arm which he had had made to Xenophon’s design. Since old Airopos had died, and young Alexandros had been chief, he had given no trouble, and had aided Philip in the last Illyrian war; nonetheless this was perfect ambush country, and Lynkestids were Lynkestids, time out of mind.
However, they had done their vassal duty; here were all three brothers on strong hairy mountain ponies, armed for campaign with their highlanders behind them; tall brown bearded men, no longer the lads he had met at festivals. They exchanged greetings of scrupulous courtesy, the common heirs of an ancient patched-up feud. For generations their houses had been linked by kinship, war, rivalry and marriage. The Lynkestids had once been kings here; they had contended for the High Kingship more than once through the generations. But they had not been strong enough to hold back the Illyrians. Philip had; and that had settled the matter.
Alexander accepted their formal host-gifts of food and wine, and called them to conference with his chief officers, on a rocky outcrop patched with lichen and flowering moss.
Dressed, themselves, with the rough usefulness of the border, leather tunics stitched with plates of iron, cap-shaped Thracian helmets, they could not take their eyes off the smooth-shaved youth who had chosen, while he outdid men, to keep the face of a boy, and whose panoply glittered with all the refinements of the south. His corselet was shaped to measure over every muscle; elegantly inlaid, but finished so smoothly that no ornament would hold a point. His helmet had a tall white crest, not to give him height but to be seen by his men in battle; they must be ready for change of plan whenever the action called for it. He explained this to the Lynkestids, since they were new to his wars. They had not believed in him before he came; when they saw him, they believed still less; but when they watched the war-scarred faces of warriors forty years old, intent on his every word, they believed at last.
They pressed on, to command the heights above the passes before the enemy; and came to Herakleia, whose fertile valley had been fought for in many wars. The Lynkestids were as familiar here as the storks on the house-roofs; they heartened their people with gnarled country jokes, and saluted shrines of immemorial gods elsewhere unknown. At Alexander the folk gazed as at a fable, and placed his acquisition to the credit of their lords.
The army rode up between vine terraces, stone-edged in good red earth, to the next range; down past Lake Prespa cupped in its rocky hills, and on till Lychnidis smiled blue below them, sky-clear, fringed with its poplars and white acacias and groves of ash, shapely with bays and rocky headlands. From the near side, war-smoke was rising. Illyria had crossed over into Macedon.
At a small hill-fort on the pass, Lynkestid clansmen greeted their chief with loyal cries. To their own kinsmen in the force, they said out of his hearing, “A man only lives once; we’d not have waited so long with that horde so near, only that we heard the witch’s son was coming. Is it true that a snake-daimon got him on the Queen? That’s he’s weapon-proof? Is it true he was born in a caul?” Peasants to whom a visit to the nearest market ten miles off was a thing for the greater festivals, they had never seen a shaved man and asked the easterners if he was a eunuch. Those who had managed to press near reported it false that he was Weapon-proof; young as he was, he was already battle-scarred; but they could attest that he was magical, having seen his eyes. Also he had forbidden the soldiers, on the way, to kill a great viper which had slid along the pass in front of them, calling it a messenger of good fortune. They eyed him warily, but with hope.
The battle was fought by the lake, among the ash groves and orchards and glittering poplar trees, on slopes starred with yellow mallows or blue with irises, which the soldiers crushed under trampling feet or stained with blood.
The lapis-blue waters were churned and fouled; the storks and the herons fled the reeds; the eaters of carrion watched each his neighbor drop from the sky, and swooped to the glut of corpses heaped on the grassy shores, or floating under the small-flowered rocks.
The Lynkestids obeyed orders, and fought to the honor of their house. They recognized, though they could not have planned, the neat tactics which had trapped the Illyrian raiders between the steeps and the shore. They joined in the pursuit, on into the snow-topped western mountains and down the gorges, where Illyrians who made a stand were dislodged from their fastnesses to die or yield.
The Lynkestids were surprised to see him taking prisoners, after his fierceness in the battle. They had been thinking that those who nicknamed him Basiliskos must have had in mind the crowned dragon whose stare is death. But now, when they themselves would not have spared one of the ancient foes, he was taking oaths of peace as though they were not barbarians.
The Illyrians were tall lean mountaineers, leathery, brown-haired, not unlike the Lynkestids whose forebears had often married with them. Kossos, the chief who had led the raid, had been trapped in a river gorge and taken alive. They brought him bound before Alexander by the rushing stream which foamed brown between the borders. He was a younger son of the great Bardelys, King Philip’s old enemy, the terror of the border till he fell spear in hand at ninety years old. Now, the greybeard of fifty, hard and straight as a spear, stared impassively, hiding his wonder, at the boy with a man’s eyes, sitting a horse which by itself would have been worth a border raid.
“You have wasted our lands,” said Alexander, “driven off the cattle, looted our towns and forced our women. What do you think you deserve?”
Kossos knew little Macedonian, but enough for this. He wanted no interpreter coming between them. He looked long into the young man’s face and answered, “What is due to me, we might not agree on. Do with me, son of Philip, what you think is due to yourself.”