by Mary Renault
I had nothing near finished; but something made me stop. His eyes were on me. I almost swallowed my heart.
I said, I will love you forever, though what my tongue said was, “Is that in your book, my lord?”
“No. But it’s in Herodotos.” He pushed back his chair, and walked towards the window that faced the sea.
Thankfully I got up too. Would he make me sit down again? The clerks who wrote out his letters had to sit while he walked about. But he said nothing. He turned and came back to where I stood under the lamp, with my back against my chair.
Presently he said, “You must tell me when I say the Persian wrongly. Don’t be afraid to correct me, or I shall never learn.” I took a step towards him. My hair had fallen forward over my shoulder. He put up his hand and touched it.
I said softly, “My lord knows well that he only has to ask.”
Eros had gathered his net in the strong grip of a god, and pulled in his catch, no longer to be defied. The hand that had touched my hair slid under it; he said, “You are here under my protection.” At this, without respect for the sacred person of a king, I put both arms round his neck.
That was the end of his pretenses. Now here I stood, in the sole embrace which, out of so many, I had ever worked to get.
I did not speak. I had gone far enough above my place already. All I wished to tell him was, I have only one thing in the world to give you, but that is going to be the best you ever had. Just take it, that is all.
He still seemed hesitant; not from reluctance that was sure; but from something; a kind of awkwardness. The thought broke in on me, Where has he lived, and he a soldier? He knows no more than a boy.
I thought of his famous continence, which I had supposed to mean only that he did not rape his captives. I thought of it when he went to the outer door, to tell the guard he was going to bed and needed no attendance (I expect they had had a bet on whether I would come out). As we went through to the Bedchamber, I thought, Everyone else has always known what he wanted. Shall I have to find it out for him? I do not know his customs, I may offend against what is permitted. He must love me, or I shall die.
Peritas, who had heaved himself up from his corner and strolled in after us, curled up at the bed’s foot where I had been taught to lay my clothes, lest the sight of them offend the King. But the King said, “How does all this come off?” and in the end they were all in a heap with his own upon the clothes-stool.
The bed was ancient but grand, of painted and gilded cedarwood. And now it was time to serve him the royal Persian banquet he must be expecting from Darius’ boy. I had it ready, with all the seasonings. But though in my calling I felt as old as time, my heart, which no one had trained, was young, and suddenly it mastered me. Instead of offering spices, I simply clutched him, like the soldier with the arrow wound; uttering such follies as I blush even now to think of, and, when I remembered I was speaking Persian, repeating them in Greek. I said I had thought he would never love me. I did not beg him to take me with him wherever he was going; I did not think so far. I was like a traveler in the desert, who comes to water.
The last thing he could ever have looked for was to be eaten alive like this. I doubt he understood a word of it, smothered upon his shoulder. “What is the trouble?” he asked. “What is it, then, tell me, don’t be afraid.” I lifted my face and said, “Oh, I am sorry, my lord. It is nothing. It is love.” He said, “Is that all?” and laid his hand on my head.
How foolish my plans had been! I should have learned better from seeing him at table, giving away the best though he was left with none. He distrusted taking pleasures for himself, from pride, and jealousy of his freedom; and I, who had seen what I had seen, was not one to blame him. Yet he did have something from those empty dishes. He was in love with giving, almost to folly.
“Only love?” he said. “Don’t fret, then; we have enough to go round, between us.”
I should have seen at table too that he never snatched. Except for Oromedon, which did not count, he was the youngest man I had ever been to bed with; yet his embrace had changed to comfort, as soon as he’d thought I was in trouble; he would have heard out the whole tale, if there had been one. Indeed, one learned soon enough, and some learned to his cost, that he would do anything in return for love.
He really wanted love from me. I could not credit such fortune; nobody ever had before. In the past, I had taken pride in giving pleasure, since it was my skill; never had I known what it was to take delight in it. He was not quite so ignorant as I had supposed; it was just that what he knew had been very simple. He was a quick learner, though. All I taught him that night, he thought that by some happy harmony of our souls, we were discovering together. So, indeed, it seemed at last even to me.
Afterwards, he lay a long time stretched out as if he were dead. I knew he was not asleep, and began to wonder if I was meant to go. But he drew me back, though he did not speak. I lay quiet. My body echoed like a harp-string after the note. The pleasure had been as piercing as the pain used to be before.
At last he turned, and speaking gently, as if he had been a long time alone, said, “So they did not take that from you.” I murmured something, I don’t know what. “And after,” he said, “does it bring you grief?”
I whispered, “No, my lord. It never happened to me till now.”
“Truly?” He took my face in his hand to look at by the night-lamp, then kissed me, saying, “May the omen be happy.”
“And my lord?” I said, gathering courage. “Does my lord feel grief?”
“Always for a time. Take no account of it. All good things must be paid for, either before or after.”
“You will see, my lord, I shall learn how to keep grief from you.”
He half laughed under his breath. “Your wine is too strong, my dear, to drink it often.”
I was amazed; all other men I’d known had pretended to more than they had. I said, “My lord is as strong as a young lion. This is not the body’s weariness.”
He raised his brows, and I feared he was displeased; but he only said, “Well, learned physician, then tell me what it is.”
“It is like the bow, my lord; it is the strongest that wearies, if it is not unstrung. The bow must rest. So too the warrior’s spirit.”
“Ah, so they say.” He ran a strand of my hair slowly between his fingers. “How soft it is. I never felt hair so fine. Do you worship fire?”
“We did, my lord, at home.”
“You are right,” he said, “for it is divine.”
He paused, seeking words; but there was no need. I had understood him. I laid down my head in submission, saying, “For me let my lord never turn aside out of his way; let me be like a cup of water drunk down in haste at noon, and I am content.”
He reached out to my closed eyes, and touched my lashes. “Ah, no. Is this how I repay you? No more, or we shall both be weeping. Who is talking about noon? The moon is only rising. There is no need of haste tonight.”
Later, when the moon stood high, and he lay sleeping, I leaned to look at him. Exaltation of spirit had kept me wakeful. His face was smoothed and beautiful; he was satisfied, and in sleep he was at peace with it. Though the wine is strong, I thought, you will come back for more.
What had Nabarzanes said? “Something he has wanted a long time, without being aware of it.” That subtle serpent; how had he known?
His arm, darkened by sun, lay bare, and his shoulder, milk-white, but for the deep pitted wound from the catapult bolt at Gaza. The stain was fading; it was the color of watered wine. Softly I touched my lips to it. He slept soundly, and did not stir.
My art would not have been worth much, if I could not lead him, once I had understood. A light cloud crossed the moon. I remembered that first night in his tent; and how Hephaistion came and went just as he chose, pleasant with me as with the dog. Was he too secure to spare a thought for me? Too secure even to care? “You can’t guess what I did last night.” “Of course I can. You slept wit
h Darius’ boy. I knew you would before long. And was he good?”
He was seemly in sleep, his mouth closed, his breathing silent, his body fresh and sweet. The room smelled of sex and cedarwood, with a tang of salt from the sea. Autumn drew on, the night wind blew from the north. I drew the blanket over him: without waking, he moved to me in the great bed, seeking warmth.
As I slid into his arm, I thought, We shall see who wins, tall Macedonian. All these years you have made a boy of him. But with me, he shall be a man.
13
AT ONCE THE NEWS was everywhere. Alexander took this with calm. He could be secret at need; he was never furtive. He did not conceal that my presence pleased him, but offered no foolishness to mockers. I was proud of his behavior, coming so new to it, whereas I had been trained in the right deportment. It was I, now, who attended him at the bath; he used to send out the rest.
Once or twice, while I stood by his chair at table, I saw Hephaistion’s eye on me; but he gave no other sign, coming and going as freely as before. I had no means of knowing what he said when I left the room. The walls are four feet thick, at Zadrakarta.
To me Alexander never spoke of him. I did not deceive myself with this. He was not forgotten; he was unassailable.
I thought of the King’s old war-horse, for whose sake he would have sacked a province, though it would never carry him in the charge again. It is like that, I thought; he never turns love away, it is not in him. I thought Hephaistion had not done so badly. If the beautiful boy you caught in a haystack gets to be a general of cavalry at eighteen, and is still your boy, you have not much to complain of. And if he goes on to be Pharaoh and Great King, with the treasures of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis poured at his feet, and the world’s fiercest troops adoring him, is it wonderful if he finds he is a boy no longer, and wants a boy of his own? How long, I wondered, since they’d done more than just think of themselves as lovers? Since last he rode the black horse to war? And yet …
But with the night my troubles left me. He knew what he wanted now, but I knew better. Sometimes in the dance one is lifted beyond oneself, and cannot fail; it was like that.
Once when through the deep window the moonlight glinted on gold, I was put in mind of my old room at Susa, and uttered the invocation of my dreams. “Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live.” Rightly I had believed it magical.
I doubt he’d ever in his life lain down with anyone for whom he had not felt some kind of fondness. He needed love as a palm tree needs water, all his life long: from armies, from cities, from conquered enemies, nothing was enough. It laid him open to false friends, as anyone will tell you. Well, for all that, no man is made a god when he is dead and can do no harm, without love. He needed love and never forgave its betrayal, which he had no understanding of. For he himself, if it was given him with a whole heart, never misused it, nor despised the giver. He took it gratefully, and felt bound by it. I should know.
It pleased him to think he’d given me what Darius could not; so I never told him Darius hadn’t thought of such a thing. He always liked to surpass his rivals.
But still, when desire was spent, he fell back into heaviness of soul, so that I feared to break his solitude. Yet I wished to repay his gift of healing. I would draw a finger-tip from his eyebrow to his throat, and he would smile to show me he was not sullen nor ungrateful. One night, remembering the book he had shown me, and that he had set store by it, I said softly in his ear, “Did you know, my lord, that Kyros the Great once loved a Median boy?”
At the name his face lightened a little, and he opened his eyes. “Truly? How did they meet?”
“He had won a great battle, my lord, against the Medes, and was going over the field to view the slain. He saw the boy, who was wounded almost to death, lying by his dead father. Seeing the King, he said, ‘Do what you choose with me, but do not deface my father’s body; he kept his faith.’
“Kyros said, ‘I do not do such things. Your father shall be buried with honor.’ For even as the boy lay in his blood, he loved him. And the boy looked up at Kyros, whom before he had seen only far off, flashing in arms, and thought, This is my King. Kyros had him taken up from the field and tended, and honored him with love; and he was faithful forever. And peace was made between the Medes and the Persians.”
I now had all his attention. His melancholy was gone. “I never knew of this. Which was the battle? What was the boy’s name?”
I told him; love gave my invention wings. “Of course, my lord, in our part of the world people are full of these old stories. I can’t say if they are all true.” I had made up every word of it, and could have done it better if I had had more Greek. For all I know, Kyros never loved a boy in all his life.
My spell had worked. I found a few more tales which, true or false, were really told in Anshan country. A little later, he said that not even Kyros’ boy was more beautiful than Alexander’s; and afterwards he did not grieve, but slept.
The very next day, he got out the book again, and started to read it me. I had him to myself for a full hour. He said he had read it at home while still a boy, and it had shown him the portrait of a true ruler’s soul.
Well, so it might; but if it was meant to be a portrait of Kyros, Kyros would have been surprised. It had been written, not by some learned Persian who had read the records and talked to old men of the tribe, but by a hired Greek soldier of Artaxerxes’ day, who had fought for Kyros the Younger against the King. After he had led his men safe out of that and back to Greece, I suppose it was no wonder they believed any tale he told there.
Of course, Alexander only read me his favorite pieces. As it was, with anyone else I don’t know how I could have kept my eyes open. We were both rather short of sleep. Since I could have looked at his face forever, he never knew when I stopped listening. I could always tell when something he liked was coming.
“Not all of this,” he said, “is history, as I’ve found since I was here. Your boys are not trained up in public barracks?”
“No, my lord. Our fathers train us for war.”
“And the young men too?”
“Yes, my lord. They fight with their fathers’ tribesmen.”
“So I thought. He is far too fond of the Spartans. But it’s true, I think, that Kyros liked to share his cooks’ best dishes with his friends?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. It has been an honor ever since, from the King’s table.” So this was where he had found it! The man Xenophon must have been in Persia just long enough for that. I was so touched, I nearly cried.
He read me a tale about how his lords chose for Kyros, from the spoils of battle, the loveliest of the noble ladies, who was weeping for her dead lord. But Kyros, who knew he was alive, would not even see her face, but kept her in honor among her own household, and sent the husband word of it. When he came in to surrender and swear loyalty, the King led her out and joined their hands. As Alexander read it me, I knew suddenly that this was what he had planned for Darius and his Queen. It was why he had mourned her fasting. I saw how he had pictured it, just like the book; and thought of the hide-roofed cart with its cushions dripping blood.
He had no harem with him any more. Before I came, he had settled the Queen Mother at Susa with the young princesses.
A king, the book said somewhere, should not only prove himself better than those he rules; he should cast a kind of spell on them. I said to him, “Let me say that in Persian,” and we smiled at one another.
“You must learn to read Greek,” he said. “It’s a great loss to you, not to read. I will find you a gentle teacher. Not Kallisthenes, he thinks himself too grand.”
For some days we read the book together, and he would ask me if this or that was true. He was so fond of it, I never liked to say that this Greek storyteller, coming from Athens where they had no kings, had dreamed of one and given him the name of Kyros. Where the book was wrong about Persian customs, I always told him, so that he should lose no fac
e before my people. But when he read aloud some precept that had shaped his soul, I always said it had been handed down from Kyros’ mouth in Anshan. There is nothing like giving joy to the one you love.
“I was mistaught as a boy,” he said. “I won’t insult you with what I was told to think about the Persians. The old man, I suppose, is saying the same things still in his school at Athens. It was Kyros who opened my eyes, in this book when I was fifteen. The truth is that all men are God’s children. The excellent ones, he makes more his own than the rest; but one can find them anywhere.” He laid his hand on mine.
“Now tell me,” he said, “is it really true that Kyros allied with the Medes to fight the Assyrians, as it says here? Herodotos says, and you were saying, that he beat the Medes in war.”
“He did, my lord. Any Persian will tell you so.”
He read from the book, “He ruled over these nations, even though they did not speak the same tongues as he, nor one nation the same as another’s; yet he was able to spread the awe of him so far that all feared to withstand him; and he could rouse so eager a wish to please him, that they all desired to be guided by his will.”
“That is true,” I said. “And will be again.”
“Yet he never made the Persians overlords of the Medes; he ruled over both as King?”
“Yes, my lord.” As I’d heard it, some of the chief Median lords had joined in revolt against Astyages, because of his cruelty. No doubt they made terms for this, and Kyros kept them like a man of honor. I said, “It is true, Kyros made us all one kingdom.”
“So it should be. He did not make subject peoples; he made a greater empire. He chose men for what each man was in himself, not from hearsay and old wives’ tales … Well, I don’t suppose he found it hard to persuade the conquered. To persuade the victors, that’s the thing.”
I was seized with wonder. Why, I thought, he wants to follow Kyros even in this. No, to go before him; for Kyros was pledged, but he is free … And I was the first Persian he had told.