Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt

by Alexander at the World's End (lit)

  ‘To Philip, of course; Philip when he’s sober.’

  Philip was having a good day; the woman got her appeal, and got judgement in her

  favour, too. But the silent three or four heartbeats after she’d said that was

  the longest three or four heartbeats I can ever remember, and when it was over I

  checked my reflection in a polished silver plate to see if my beard had gone

  white while I’d been waiting.

  As soon as the two litigants had been shooed away again, every­body started

  talking at once. Philip was pouring himself a stiff drink, probably feeling he’d

  earned it. I was just starting to relax when I heard raised voices from up on

  Philip’s table, a man’s voice and a woman’s.

  The woman was Philip’s wife, Queen Olympias. The man was Aristotle.

  What’s he doing here? I asked myself, feeling a bit like the man in the old

  story who dies and goes to the Islands of the Blessed only to find when he gets

  there that his mother-in-law’s there too.

  The argument they were having was a wonderful illustration of diametrically

  opposed slanging-match techniques. Queen Olympias was yelling at the top of her

  extremely powerful lungs. Aristotle, on the other hand, was waiting till she had

  to stop and draw breath and then carrying on where he’d left off, ignoring

  everything she’d said and talking in his most monotonous, plonking tone of

  voice. Philip rolled his eyes (an alarming sight, I assure you) then belted the

  table with his fist so hard that cups and jugs fell over on all sides.

  ‘You two,’ he murmured. ‘Pack it in.’

  Did I say just now that everybody in the world was afraid of Philip? Everybody

  bar one. Whether or not Philip was afraid of Olympias, on the other hand, is a

  moot point. I don’t think he was; he tolerated her, because killing her would

  cause more problems than it would solve and besides, he was on-and-off in love

  with her — fascinated would be a better word — probably for the same reason,

  that she wasn’t afraid of him.

  They’d met when they were both very young, at a weird religious bash in her home

  territory in the wilds (the very wilds) of Illyria . Olympias’ people were

  snake-worshippers, and she was as keen as mustard on the whole snake thing. Why

  Philip was up there getting initiated into a snake cult, the gods only know; he

  was about as religious as my neighbour Philemon’s old mule and besides, the

  snake people weren t even his gods. It was lust at first sight for him —ten or

  so years later, she was still a sight to see, although a lot of wine and

  honey-cakes had passed through the gates of her teeth in that time, and there

  was quite a lot more of her in every direction. What she saw in him I don’t

  know, could have been any one of many things or maybe the snakes told her to

  marry him. In any event, the outcome of all this had been a splurge of

  diplomatically useful daughters and a son, by the name of Alexander.

  Aristotle, I quickly gathered from the text of the slanging-match, was up here

  as the boy’s tutor, and whatever it was that he was teaching the lad, Olympias

  didn’t hold with it. Not one bit.

  I won’t try to reproduce the way Olympias spoke; Greek wasn’t her native

  language and she hadn’t bothered to clean up her accent or her grammar. So I’ll

  translate it a bit and put down what she would have said if she’d been able to;

  after all, I’m pretending to be a historian, and that’s what historians do.

  ‘Evil, that’s what he is.’Those were the first words of hers I actually made

  out. ‘He’s poisoning my son’s mind with his Athenian lies. If you were any sort

  of a father, you’d throw him in the river instead of paying him good money to

  —Philip stood up, crossed the floor to where she was standing in three long

  strides, and slapped her across the face so hard that she stumbled backwards and

  sat down heavily, jarring her back against a table. Everybody stopped talking;

  but I rather got the impression that this wasn’t the first time that Philip had

  done something like this, not by a long way.

  ‘— Teach our son all this blasphemous Athenian trash,’ Olympias carried on as if

  nothing had happened (though she dabbed blood from her cheek and upper lip with

  her sleeve as she spoke). ‘I’m telling you for the last time, if you don’t do

  something about it then I will, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Philip growled, softly and with considerable menace; it was a characteristic

  noise of his, one which I think he made without even realising it. ‘You lay one

  finger on that man and I’ll kill you,’ he replied, his voice only just audible

  even in the deathly hush. ‘Now get out of my sight. Go and sleep it off

  somewhere you can’t be seen.’

  Olympias stood up, spat with great force on the ground between Philip’s feet,

  and hobbled out of the audience chamber. For his part, Philip breathed out

  slowly, then turned to Aristotle and nodded.

  ‘I apologise for my wife,’ he said. ‘I wish I could say it won’t happen again,

  but I respect the truth too much for that. I’ll assign you a guard for the next

  three days or so; after that she’ll lose interest, she’ll be trying to get at me

  some other way.’

  Aristotle smiled, very thinly, and thanked him. Something told me that he wasn’t

  in the least reassured. I can’t say I blame him.

  ‘That said,’ Philip went on, ‘I’d be interested to know — what exactly have you

  been teaching the boy that she’s taken such an exception to? She was saying

  something about blasphemy, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Quite so,’ Aristotle replied nervously. ‘But I really can’t imagine why she

  found it so offensive. Today we were considering animals, and I was pointing out

  that every living thing has its own nature, to which it cannot help but be

  faithful — dogs bark and wag their tails, birds sing and lay their eggs in

  nests, snakes hiss and crawl on their bellies in the dirt—’

  ‘Snakes,’ Philip repeated. ‘You told him snakes were animals.’

  ‘I believe so,’ Aristotle replied. ‘I mentioned various examples in today’s

  lesson; not necessarily the ones I gave you just now, but quite possibly the

  same. Snakes are quite an obvious—’

  ‘I see,’ Philip interrupted. ‘What else did you say about snakes?’

  Aristotle paused for a moment, frowning. ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘I mentioned the

  fact that their jaws are flexible, not fixed; that they shed their skins

  repeatedly during their lifetimes; that they can extend and retract their

  tongues; that the eyes of a decapitated snake close of their own accord forty

  minutes after death, and likewise the severed head of a poisonous snake will

  still bite and discharge its poison an hour after being struck from the trunk—’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Philip broke in. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Aristotle replied confidently. ‘I’ve observed it myself, and it s

  recorded by good authorities.’ He frowned. ‘Would that have offended her, do you

  think?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Philip replied. ‘Quite the reverse, in fact. Anything that

  suggests that snakes don’t die the way other animals do ought to please he
r no

  end. What else did you say?’

  Aristotle tugged at his beard — he actually did do that, the only person I ever

  met who did. ‘I honestly can’t remember,’ he replied. ‘Oh, yes, I pointed out

  that the snake, contrary to popular belief, is in fact deaf, and can only detect

  sounds by feeling vibrations transmitted through the—’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  Aristotle gave him a startled look. ‘Snakes are deaf,’ he repeated.

  ‘They have no ears. Therefore they cannot hear in the way that—’

  ‘Ah.’ Philip nodded. ‘That’ll be it, then. You see, she sings to her snakes for

  an hour every morning and evening. That’s how she prays to them. You implied

  that they can’t hear her prayers.’

  ‘Well, properly speaking they can’t—p

  ‘And if they can’t hear her prayers,’ Philip went on, ‘they can’t hear her

  telling them the names of the people she’s put curses on. Which means the curses

  won’t work.’ He smiled. ‘Actually, I’m surprised she confined herself to

  shouting at you.’

  ‘Really,’ Aristotle said, rather disdainfully.

  Philip nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have, if I was her. Anyway,’ he went on, as Aristotle

  cringed visibly, ‘no harm done. But if I were you, I’d check my bed carefully

  before getting into it for a week or so, just to be on the safe side. You might

  see if the housekeeper’s got some of that fine-mesh Persian gauze, to make a

  canopy out of, in case someone bores a hole in the ceiling and drops something

  down on top of you. It’d be highly appropriate if the snakes punished you for

  your wicked slanders, don’t you think?’

  Aristotle had gone ever such a funny colour. ‘It hadn’t occurred to me—’ he

  began, but Philip didn’t let him finish. ‘Apparently not,’ Philip said. ‘Which

  surprises me, you being a philosopher and a wise man generally, and knowing how

  she feels about snakes. Well, it only goes to show; we can all learn something

  new every day, no matter how clever we are.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Alexander,’ the Macedonian told me, ‘is the king’s son. What more needs to be

  said?’

  I frowned. I’d been trying to find out more about the boy, simply because

  Aristotle was his tutor and I didn’t like Aristotle. If it turned out that young

  Alexander was violent, unruly and big for his age, and that he regularly set

  booby-traps for his teachers or threw the writing-tablets at them or stabbed

  them with the pen when they said he’d got something wrong, it would have

  delighted my soul and brightened my day, since a good man delights as much in

  the discomfiture of an enemy as in the good fortune of a friend.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But apart from that; what’s he like? Is he quiet? Noisy?

  Does he climb trees? Does he go for long walks on his own and keep pet frogs in

  jars, or is he more into playing with other kids of his own age? It must be

  strange,’ I went on, ‘being the King’s son. Where I come from, either they’re in

  school or they’re out on the hill with the goats or scaring birds off the

  planted fields. I don’t suppose the King’s son does that sort of thing.’

  The Macedonian looked at me as if I was asking detailed questions about his

  mother’s sex life. ‘The King’s son learns the arts of war and government,’ he

  said stiffly. ‘As is fitting. He is accompanied by the sons of noblemen, who

  will grow up at his side and in time become his trusted ministers and captains

  in war. He also learns such noble accom­plishments as hunting, falconry,

  athletics, dancing and music, although,’ he added, ‘it’s not proper for a

  nobleman to play or sing too well, just enough to be able to join in the singing

  at the banquet without disgracing himself. And of course he learns to honour the

  gods of his country.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, trying to imagine Aristotle giving falconry lessons. ‘Well, I

  agree that that’s just the sort of thing a king’s son ought to know.’

  The Macedonian raised an eyebrow. ‘You do?’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘My father sent me out to look after the goats so

  I could learn about keeping livestock and in due course become a farmer. Every

  man trains his son to take over his trade or occupation. It’s just common

  sense.’

  ‘Oh.’ The Macedonian — a middle-aged nobleman called Parmenio, one of Philip’s

  chief advisers — shrugged. ‘I’m surprised to hear you say that, you being an

  Athenian. And,’ he added, with the tiniest curl of his lip, ‘a philosopher, so I

  gather. I thought you had different ideas.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I said. ‘You’re thinking of Aristotle, aren’t you?’

  Parmenio nodded. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. I grinned.

  ‘You don’t want to go judging the rest of us by him,’ I said. ‘And besides, he

  isn’t even a proper Athenian, he’s from Stagira . Really, he’s one of you more

  than he’s one of us.’

  Parmenio shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘You should hear the

  things he’s cramming into that boy’s head. I don’t hold with it, I’m telling

  you.’ He wrinkled his forehead, aware that he was talking to a foreigner and, by

  rights, an enemy. ‘However,’ he said, ‘since the King feels it’s appropriate—’

  ‘I’m sure Philip has his reasons,’ I said. ‘My guess is, he feels it’s important

  for his son to understand the way the Athenian mind works, the way it’s

  important for a hunter to understand the mind of the deer.’

  Parmenio wasn’t very keen on that analogy. Subtle and perfidious Athenian, I

  could see him thinking, as if the words were inscribed on his forehead. ‘It’s

  not my concern,’ he said. ‘And neither,’ he added sternly, ‘with due respect, is

  it yours.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ I replied. ‘Just idle curiosity, that’s all.’

  I went away with an image in my mind of a crown prince with all the

  individuality of a coin-blank, in between being punched out of the silver sheet

  and hammered between the forming dies to give it its shape. In fact, I used that

  comparison when I was talking to Lysicles, one of my fellow ambassadors, later

  on that day.

  ‘It’s a well-known syndrome,’ Lysicles replied, lying back on his couch and

  dropping a grape into his mouth. ‘Great men’s sons never amount to anything. All

  through their early years they’re completely overshadowed by their fathers, like

  weedy little plants growing under big trees. Everybody tries so hard to turn

  them into exact copies of the Old Man that they never learn the ability to think

  for themselves. I expect you’ll find this young Alexander’s a little tiny

  Philip, like the wee clay figures the Egyptians put in tombs; an exact copy, but

  much smaller in every respect. It’s a well-known fact; the more illustrious the

  father, the feebler the son. That’s why great empires ebb and flow like rivers,’

  he added, stifling a belch. ‘Up one generation, down the next. Take the

  Persians,’ he went on. ‘First there’s Cyrus. Cyrus the Great. Carves out a

  mighty empire, conquers half the world. And who does he have for a son?

  Hydaspes, of whom virtually nothing is kn
own. His son? Darius the wet-slap.

  Darius, who we beat the shit out of. And who does he have for a son? Xerxes. The

  moral: a great conqueror, an empire-builder like Cyrus, has a weak son and a

  pathetic grandson and great—grandson.’

  I thought for a moment before answering. ‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘Though I’m not

  quite so sure. I mean, it’s true that our great-great-grandfathers beat King

  Darius’ army—’

  ‘You bet your life,’ Lysicles yawned.

  ‘But,’ I went on, ‘not before he’d burned Chalcis and Eretria and trampled over

  most of Greece without anybody daring to oppose him. And as I recall, the first

  thing he had to do when he became king was put down major rebellions in pretty

  well every province of the empire, which he succeeded in doing in just over a

  year—’

  ‘If he’d been anything they’d never have rebelled in the first place. And

  remember, the Scythians beat him too. And they’re just savages.’

  ‘True,’ I admitted. ‘But in their country it snows half the year, and the rest

  of the time it’s so hot you die of thirst in a day if you don’t know where the

  wells are. I sort of got the impression he realised Scythia just wasn’t worth

  the effort and came home again.’

  ‘He was weak,’ Lysicles replied firmly. ‘A strong king’d never have risked his

  prestige starting a war he knew he couldn’t win. Nothing buggers up a king’s

  prestige like losing a war. Look at Xerxes.’

  I was only arguing for devilment’s sake. ‘Xerxes burned Athens to the ground,’ I

  pointed out, the voice of sweet reason and pure truth. ‘Not to mention a whole

  bunch of other cities. And he got back home again with most of his army intact.

  Sure, we won a few battles, but maybe it was the same as Darius and Scythia .

  Maybe he realised Greece just wasn’t worth the effort.’

  Lysicles smiled. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d be a bit careful talking about

  Xerxes’ war around these parts. Might be a sore topic.’

  That was a good point. Back in those days, when King Xerxes invaded Greece with

  his huge army, the King of Macedon voluntarily joined the Persian Empire rather

  than try to fight — a perfectly sensible decision on his part under the

  circumstances, since he’d have stood no chance at all, but one which had been a