The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  8

  KING PHILIP’S NEWEST WIFE had had her firstborn. It was a girl.

  The downcast midwife brought it from the lying-in room. He took in his hands, with ritual signs of approval, the little red crumpled thing, brought naked to prove it free from blemish. Attalos, who had been haunting the house since the birth-waters broke, craned over, his face red and crumpled too; he must have hoped against hope till he saw the sex for himself. His pale blue eyes followed it with hatred as it was carried back; he would as soon have thrown it in the lake like an unwanted bitch pup, Philip thought. Often it made him feel foolish that he seemed to sire five girls for every boy; but this time he had heard the news with deep relief.

  Eurydike was all he liked in a girl, sensual without looseness, eager to please without fuss, never making scenes. Gladly, any day, he would have put her in Olympias’ place. He had half-thought, even, of having the witch put out of the way for good; it would solve all problems, she had blood-guilt enough on her hands to make it a rough justice, and there were people to be hired as skilled in such matters as she. But however well it was managed, the boy would know. Nothing would hide it from him; he would pluck the truth from air. And then?

  And now? Well, this girl-child gave breathing-space. Attalos had told him a dozen times that their family ran to boys. Now let him keep quiet awhile. Philip put off decision, as he had been doing these ten months.

  His plans for the war in Asia went forward smoothly. Weapons were made and stored, levies came in, horses were broke for cavalry; gold and silver flowed out like water, to contractors, to paymasters, to agents and client rulers. The troops drilled and maneuvered, ready and disciplined, swapping legends about the fabled wealth of Asia and the vast ransoms of captive satraps. But a gloss had gone, a resonance, a crackle and spark, a smile on the face of danger.

  There were also rubs more palpable. A savage brawl, which would beget half a dozen blood-feuds, had broken out in a Pella wineshop, between cavalry of Attalos’ tribal levy, and those of a corps lately renamed Nikanor’s Horse, though no one who valued his life would call it this in hearing of its men. Philip sent for the chief offenders; they glared at each other and were evasive, till the youngest, heir of an ancient house that had helped a dozen kings in or out and well remembered it, lifted his shaven chin and said defiantly, “Well, sir, they were slandering your son.”

  Philip told them to look after their own households, and leave his to him. Attalos’ men, who had hoped to hear him say, “I have no son yet,” went grieved away. Soon after, he sent out yet another spy, to learn what was going on in Illyria.

  To Epiros he sent none; he knew where he was, there. He had had a letter he perfectly understood; the protest of a man of honor, carried just as far as honor required. One could almost see the drawn line. He replied with equal nicety. The Queen had left him from self-will and sullen temper, having suffered no legal injuries. (He was on good ground here; not every Epirote royal house had been monogamous.) She had turned his son against him; the young man’s present exile was her fault alone. The letter contained no mortal insults. It would be understood in its turn. But what was happening in Illyria?

  Some few of the young men had ridden home from Epiros, bringing a letter.

  Alexander to Philip King of the Macedonians, greeting. I send back to you and to their fathers these men, my friends. They are guilty of no wrong. In kindness they escorted the Queen and me into Epiros; this done, we required no more of them. When the Queen, my mother, is restored to her rights and dignity, we will return. Till then I shall do as I think good, asking no man’s leave.

  Greet for me the soldiers I led at Cheironeia, and those who served under me in Thrace. And do not forget the man who was saved by my shield, when the Argives mutinied before Perinthos. You know his name. Farewell.

  In his private reading-cell, Philip crumpled the letter and threw it down; then, bending stiffly with his lame leg, picked it up, flattened out the creases, and locked it away.

  One after another, the spies from the west brought in uneasy news, never facts one could grip on. The names of the small close band were always there. Ptolemy: ah, if I could have bride-bedded his mother it would have been a different tale. Niarchos: a good sea-officer, due for promotion if he’d had sense. Harpalos: I never trusted that limping fox, but the boy would have him. Erigyios…Laomedon…Hephaistion, well, as soon part a man from his shadow. Philip brooded a moment, in the sad resenting envy of the man who believes himself always to have sought the perfect love, not owning that he has grudged the price.

  The names never varied; the news always did. They were at Kossos’ fort; at the castle of Kleitos, who was as near a High King as Illyria would stomach; they were on the Lynkestid border. They were on the coast, said to be asking after ships for Korkyra, for Italy, for Sicily, even for Egypt. They had been sighted in the ranges beside Epiros. They were rumored to be buying arms, to be hiring spearmen, to be training an army in some forest lair. Whenever Philip needed to dispose his troops for the war in Asia, one of these alarms would come in, and he must spare a regiment for the border. Without doubt, the boy was in touch with friends in Macedon. On paper, the King’s war-plans remained unaltered; but his generals could feel him hanging fire, awaiting the next report.

  In a castle perched on a craggy headland by a wooded Illyrian bay, Alexander stared up at the night-shrouded, smoke-black rafters. He had spent the day hunting, like the day before. His bed was of rushes, full of fleas, in the guest-corner of the hall; here, among dogs crunching the bones from old suppers, the bachelors of the household slept. His head ached. A draft of clean air blew from the doorway; the moonlit sky looked bright there. He got up and threw his blanket round him. It was soiled and torn; his good one had been stolen some months before, about the time of his birthday. In a nomad camp near the border, he had turned nineteen.

  He steered past sleeping bodies, stumbling on one, which grunted curses. Outside on the bare crag ran a narrow rampart. The cliff plunged straight to the sea; far down, moon-gleaming foam crawled round the boulders. He knew the footsteps behind and did not turn. Hephaistion leaned on the wall beside him.

  “What is it? Couldn’t you sleep?”

  “I woke,” Alexander said.

  “Have you got the gripes again?”

  “It stinks in there.”

  “Why do you drink that dog-piss? I’d sooner go to bed sober.”

  Alexander gave him a look like a silent growl. His arm propped on the wall was scored by the claws of a dying leopard. All day he had been in movement; now he was still, looking down the giddy drop to the sea.

  At last he said, “We can’t keep it up much longer.”

  Hephaistion frowned at the night. He was glad, however, to be told; it was being asked he had most dreaded. “No,” he said. “I doubt we can.”

  Alexander picked some stone chips from the wall-top, and pitched them down at the shimmering sea. No ripple showed, no sound returned from the depth, even when they struck rock. Hephaistion did nothing. He offered his presence, as his omens had directed him.

  “Even a fox,” said Alexander presently, “runs through all its tricks in time. And the second time round, the nets are waiting.”

  “You’ve often had luck from the gods.”

  “Time’s running out,” Alexander said. “It’s a feel one gets in war. You remember Polydoros with his dozen men, trying to hold that fort in the Chersonesos. All those helmets propped on the walls; moved, too, now and again. I was fooled into sending for reinforcements, two days, remember? Then a catapult knocked off a helmet and showed the stake. It was bound to happen; his time ran out. Mine will run out when some Illyrian chief crosses the border on his own account, for cattle, or a feud, and Philip hears I wasn’t leading. I’ll never fool him after that, he knows me too well.”

  “You could still lead a raid, it’s not too late to change your mind. If you pushed a little way in, and withdrew from strength…With all he has to do, it’s not l
ikely he’d come in person.”

  “How can I know that? No, I had a warning…a kind of warning…at Dodona.”

  Hephaistion stored away this news in silence. It was the most Alexander had ever told him of it.

  “Alexander. Your father wants you back. I know it. You should believe me. I’ve known it all along,”

  “Good. Then he can do right by my mother.”

  “No, not only for the war in Asia. You don’t want to hear this, but he loves you. You may not like the way it takes him. The gods have many faces, Euripides says.”

  Alexander laid his hands on the broken stone, and turned on his friend his entire attention. “Euripides wrote for actors. Masks, you can say; yes, masks; some pretty, some not. But one face. Only one.”

  A meteor flared down with a yellow-green glowing head and fading red trail, and plunged into the distant sea. Hephaistion put happiness briskly by, like a cup drunk down in haste. “It’s an omen for you. You must decide tonight. You know; you came out to do it.”

  “I woke up, and the place stank like a midden.” A tuft of pale wallflower had rooted itself among the stones; he fingered it unseeingly. Like a great weight thrown suddenly on his shoulder, Hephaistion felt an awareness of being leaned upon, of being needed for more than love. It brought no joy; it was like glimpsing the first mark of a deadly sickness. Rust; he can bear anything but rust. “Tonight,” he said quietly. “Nothing to wait for, you know it all.”

  Without movement, Alexander seemed to gather himself together, to grow more compact. “Yes. First, I’m spending time, not using it. This I’ve never felt before. Second, there are two or three men, and I think King Kleitos is one of them, who once they’re sure they can’t use me against my father, will want to send him my head. And, third…he’s mortal, no man knows his hour. If he died, and I away over the border…”

  “That, too,” said Hephaistion calmly. “Well, then, as you say. You want to go home, he wants you back. You’ve exchanged mortal insults, no one will speak first. So you must find a proper go-between. Who is it going to be?”

  Firmly now, as if it had been some time settled, Alexander said, “Demaratos of Corinth. He likes us both, he’ll enjoy the importance, he’ll do it well. Whom shall we send him?”

  It was Harpalos, with his sad graceful limp, his dark vivid face, his quick smile and flattering grave attentiveness, who rode south. They convoyed him to the Epirote border, for fear of robbers; but he carried no letter with him. It was the essence of his mission, that no record of it should exist. He took only his mule, a change of clothing, and his golden charm.

  Philip learned with pleasure that his old guest-friend Demaratos had business in the north, and would like to visit him. He was at pains to choose the supper, and hire a good sword-dancer to enliven it. Food and dancer were cleared away; they settled down to their wine. Corinth being the listening-post for all southern Greece, Philip asked at once for news. He had heard of some rub between Thebes and Sparta; what did Demaratos think?

  Demaratos, a privileged guest and proud of it, fed with the expected cue, shook his distinguished iron-grey head. “Ah, King! That I should hear you ask if the Greeks are living in harmony! With your own house in the midst of war.”

  Philip’s dark eye, not yet much engorged with wine, slewed sharply round. His trained diplomatist’s ear had picked up a certain note, a shade of preparation. He gave no sign of this. “That boy. He flares up at a spark, like pitch. A silly speech from a man in liquor, only worth a laugh next day if he’d kept the sense he was born with. But he runs off in a blaze to his mother; and you know her.”

  Demaratos made sounds of fellow feeling. A thousand pities, he said, that with the mother of such a jealous temper, the young man should feel his future threatened by her disgrace. He quoted faultlessly (having had them ready) some apt elegiacs of Simonides.

  “Cutting off his own nose,” said Philip, “to spite his face. A boy with his gifts, the waste of it. We’d get along well enough, but for that witch. He should know better. Well, by now he’ll have paid for it. He’ll have had a bellyful of Illyrian hill-forts. But if he thinks I’ll…”

  It was not till next morning that the talking began in earnest.

  Demaratos was in Epiros, the King’s most honored guest. He would be escorting back to Pella the King’s sister and her pardoned son. Being rich already, he must chiefly be paid in kudos. King Alexandros toasted him in an heirloom gold cup, and begged him to accept it as a small memento. Olympias put out for him all her social graces; if her enemies called her vixenish, let him judge for himself. Alexander, wearing the one good chiton he had left, was most attentive; till one evening when a tired stiff old man came plodding down to Dodona on a weary mule. It was Phoinix. He had met hard weather on the pass, and almost fell from the saddle into his foster son’s lifted arms.

  Alexander demanded a hot bath, sweet oils, and a skilled bath-man; no one in Dodona, it turned out, had ever heard of such a calling. He went in to rub Phoinix down himself.

  The royal bath was an antique affair of painted clay, much mended and prone to leak; there was no couch, he had had to send for one. He worked on the knotted-up thigh muscles, following their path as Aristotle had shown him, kneading and tapping as, at home, he had taught his slave to do. In Illyria, he had been doctor to all the others. Even when, knowledge or memory failing, he had relied upon omens seen in dreams, they had preferred him to the local witch-wife.

  “Ugh, aah, that’s better, that’s where it always catches me. Have you studied with Cheiron, like Achilles?”

  “No teacher like necessity. Now turn over.”

  “Those scars on your arm are new.”

  “My leopard. I had to give the skin to my host.”

  “Did the blankets reach you safely?”

  “Did you send blankets too? They’re all thieves in Illyria. I got the books; they can’t read, and by luck they weren’t short of tinder. The books were the best. They stole Oxhead, once.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Went after the man and killed him. He’d not gone far, Oxhead wouldn’t let him mount.” He kneaded Phoinix’ hamstring.

  “You had us all on edge half a year and more. Here and there like a fox.” Alexander laughed shortly, not pausing in his work. “But time went by, and you’re not one for putting off. Your father set it down to your natural feeling. As I told him he should.” Phoinix screwed round his head to look.

  Alexander straightened up, wiping off his oily hands on a towel. “Yes,” he said slowly. “A natural feeling, yes, you may call it that.”

  Phoinix withdrew his steps from the deep water, as he had learned when to do. “And did you see battle, Achilles, in the west?”

  “Once, a tribal war. One has to support one’s host. We won.” He pushed back his steam-moistened hair. His nose and mouth looked pinched. He threw the towel hard into a corner.

  Phoinix thought, He has learned to boast of what he suffered under Leonidas; it taught him endurance; I have heard him at Pella and smiled. But these months he will never boast of; and the man who smiles should take care.

  As if he had spoken aloud, Alexander said, in sudden anger, “Why did my father demand I should ask his pardon?”

  “Well, come, he’s a bargaining man. Every bargain starts with asking too much. In the end he didn’t press it.” Phoinix swung down his stocky wrinkled legs from the couch. By it was a little deep window, with a marten’s nest in an upper corner; on the sill, speckled with droppings, lay an ivory comb with chipped teeth, in which clung some reddish hairs from King Alexandros’ beard. Combing himself, his face shielded, Phoinix looked his nurseling over.

  He has conceived that he could fail. Yes, even he. He has seen there are rivers over which, once the spate has risen, there is no way back. Some dark night in that land of robbers, he has seen himself, who knows what? A strategos of mercenaries, hired out to some satrap at war with the Great King, or to some third-rate Sicilian tyrant; maybe a wanderin
g comet, such as Alkibiades once was, a nine days’ wonder every few years, then burnt out in darkness. For a moment he has seen it. He likes to show his war-scars; this scar he will cover like a slave-brand, he hides it even from me.

  “Come! The bargain’s struck; wipe old scores away and start with the tablet clean. Remember what Agamemnon said to Achilles, when they were reconciled:

  “But what could I do? All things come to pass from God. Blindness of heart is old-born of Zeus, Ate the deadly, Who fools us all.

  Your father has felt it. I have seen it in his face.”

  Alexander said, “I can lend you a cleaner comb than that.” He put it back under the bird’s nest, and brushed his fingers. “Well, we know what Achilles said:

  “This has been all to the good for Hector, and for the Trojans; The Greeks, though, I think will long remember our falling out. Even so, we will put it all by, finished and done with, though it hurts us, beating down the inward passion because we must.”

  He picked up the fresh chiton creased from Phoinix’ saddlebag, dropped it neatly over his head like a well-trained page, and handed him his sword belt.

  “Ah, child, you’ve always been a good boy to me.” Phoinix fiddled with the buckle, head down. He had meant these words to open an exhortation; but, the rest failing him, he left them to stand as they were.

  Nikanor’s Horse was again Alexander’s squadron.

  The haggling had lasted some time; many couriers between Demaratos and the King had crossed the rough tracks into Epiros. It was the center of the bargain, achieved with much maneuvering, that neither party should claim an outright victory. When father met son at length, both felt that enough had been said already; they excused themselves from going over it again in words. Each eyed the other with curiosity, resentment, suspicion, regret, and a half-hope which each hid too well.

  Under Demaratos’ complacent eyes, they exchanged a symbolic kiss of reconcilement. Alexander led up his mother; Philip kissed her too, noting to himself the lines of pride and rancor etched deeper in, and recalling with wonder, for a moment, his youthful passion. Then they all went off to take up their lives as they found them now.