‘You do,’ I repeated.
‘Oh, yes. I’ve known for some time. Really, I’m sorry for them. It’s so
pointless, isn’t it?’
He’d said ‘them’, not ‘you’. I looked at him. He broadened the smile, till you
could have dried fish in the warmth of it.
‘Poor Eudaemon,’ he said, ‘you look so worried. But really, there’s nothing to
worry about. They can’t hurt me. Nobody can. That’s why I haven’t done anything.
At least,’ he went on, frowning slightly, ‘not yet. I’ve been wondering about
that, actually.’
‘Oh, yes?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘It’s awkward,’ he said. ‘Really, I should know the answer to this,
but I can’t seem to clarify my thinking. Ever since I’ve known, it’s been —
well, disorientating, I suppose you could call it. I feel like a child who’s
suddenly found himself inside a man’s body, it takes some getting used to. No,
the thing I can’t decide is, ought I to do anything about it? I mean, if their
silly plot can’t possibly succeed — and it can’t, of course, we both know that —
then ought I to punish them for it? Should you punish someone for trying to do
something that’s wicked but actually physically impossible?’ He rubbed the tip
of his nose with the knuckle of his thumb — dammit, brother, he picked that up
from you. I knew it was bugging me, where I’d seen someone do that before.
‘I suppose I’ve got to,’ he went on. ‘I mean, my father does. He punishes
blasphemers and perjurers and people who desecrate His temples. If my father
does it, I suppose I’ve got to do it too; for their sake, really, not mine,
otherwise if I don’t, how can they possibly have any faith? I don’t know, it
just seems so unnecessary, somehow. So petty, if you know what I mean.’
I nodded. ‘So you know who’s in the plot, then?’ I asked.
‘Of course I know. I’ve always known.’ He grinned. ‘I guess it’s a bit like
people who get hit on the head and lose their memory, and then a while later it
slowly starts coming back. Yes, that’s a good way of putting it; there’s all
these things I’ve always known, and slowly I’m beginning to remember them.
Explains a lot, really; like how I’ve always known exactly what to do in a
battle, without really knowing why.’ He frowned. ‘That’s a point, actually.
Since I’m — well, what I am — do you think there’s any point in carrying on with
the war? I mean, it all seems so unfair. They can’t possibly win, can they?’
I realised that I’d stopped breathing some time ago. ‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘Of
course not.’
‘Maybe I should stop, then,’ he said. ‘Except, I can distinctly remember a whole
lot more battles, ones we haven’t had yet. There’s going to be one quite soon,
in fact, once we’ve crossed the Tigris . I wouldn’t remember if it wasn’t going
to happen, it stands to reason. There’s all sorts of odd things I can remember,
you know. I can even remember dying, which is a really strange sensation, let me
tell you.’
‘It must be,’ I said.
He sighed, and shook his head. ‘That’s the trouble,’ he said, ‘I’m blundering
about, not really having the faintest idea what I’m doing, and of course there’s
nobody I can ask, which is what’s really annoying. You’d have thought my father
would have told me by now, or sent somebody. But I assume that’s all part of it,
working it out for yourself. It’s very lonely, you know? I’ve never been alone
before, I’m not sure I like it. There’s so much I don’t understand yet. Still,
that’s my problem. I’ve enjoyed talking to you, though. It’s almost like
talking to your brother. We must do it again. Often.’
‘Sir,’ I said.
He stood up, and I stood up too, just in case he was about to bite me. ‘I’ve
been thinking of sending for him, you know. I can’t think of anybody else who
might possibly understand. But I don’t think I should, really. It’d be unfair on
him, for one thing. And really, I do have to deal with this on my own, there’s
no getting away from it. He’d say the same thing if he was here, I know.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘Am I dismissed?’
He nodded; then, before I could get out of there, he went on, ‘I think I’d
better punish them after all. For one thing, it’s what I would have done — you
know, before. And I’ve decided that until I’ve remembered a bit more and I’ve
understood what I’m supposed to be doing, it’d probably be better if I carried
on as if nothing had happened. Otherwise it might upset people. What do you
think?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. It seemed safest, somehow. And true, of course.
‘I think it’s best,’ he said, with a slight nod of his head. ‘Until I really
know what I’m doing and what I’m about, I’d better keep it to myself; otherwise
I’m just going to make myself look ridiculous. I’ll send for you when I want you
again.’
‘Sir.’
‘That’s all, then. I’m sorry about the bees, by the way. It was an accident,
obviously. We’ll get some more in a week or so. They do say the African ones are
much fiercer, so in a way it’s all for the best.’
I got out of there as quickly as I could, which wasn’t nearly quick enough. As I
sneaked back across the camp, I felt as if someone had scratched the word IDIOT
across the back of my mirror-burnished breastplate in very big letters. My first
instinct was to head back to my tent, stoke up the fire but good with medicine,
and try to get away from it for as long as possible; but something prompted me
to go to look in on the bees first, so I did.
Wish I hadn’t; because when I got there, I found my two Scythian friends
standing inside one of our specially adapted siege-tower frames, with the lid
flung open and a noticeable absence of angry, buzzing bees. The old boy was in
tears, and his sidekick not much better off.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
The old boy looked up at me, great fat teardrops rolling down his face. ‘They’re
all dead,’ he said.
I tried to look surprised. ‘What do you mean, they’re all dead?’ I asked.
‘Dead,’ the old boy replied. ‘I can’t understand it. When I looked in on them a
few hours ago they were fine. When I came to give them their honey just now,
they were all—’
I walked over and looked in. He was standing up to his ankles in dead bees.
Damnedest sight you ever saw.
‘How did that happen?’ I asked.
The younger Scythian shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t cold or hunger or
smoke. They just died.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘Bees don’t just die, surely. Nothing just dies. They
die of something. What’ve you two been doing to them? And what the hell are we
going to tell Diades?’
They didn’t reply, either of them. Just then, they couldn’t be bothered with me.
Reasonable enough, I suppose; the deaths of literally millions of living
things, even bees, is liable to scale things down a bit. Really, I was glad they
were preoccupied. Otherwise they might have noticed how calmly I took the news;
‘Get rid of them,’ I said. ‘I’ll put in for some more. We can buy locally. I do
hear the African variety’s a whole lot more aggressive than the Greek strain,
anyway.’
I walked away, but the picture went with me; all those dead bodies, heaped where
they’d fallen, like men surrounded by the enemy in some battle, hemmed in till
they couldn’t move and cut down. Alexander’s battles were often like that.
All right, then; let’s say there were a million dead bees, at a very
conservative estimate. Now let’s think how many people Alexander killed — and
I’m not talking about those he killed with his own hands, or who died in his
battles, I’m thinking of every man, woman and child who died because Alexander
decided to invade Asia; killed in battle, died of disease along the line of
march, died of starvation and exposure after our army had marched through their
land, died in a wide variety of ways because of him. A million? Very
conservative estimate. Now then; imagine them piled up in one place, the way the
bees had been. Lay them out on the mountain and from a distance they’d look like
a forest or a city. Dump them in the sea, and people would think it was a new
island. Think of the bee-keeper standing over his ankles in dead bees, or the
god in dead men. Enough to put you off your porridge, it really is.
I asked myself as I walked back to my tent, How did the fucker know? And there
were only two answers; either he had them killed, or he really was—
Peitho was waiting in my tent when I got there. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Bastard killed my bees,’ I replied.
‘What?’
‘He killed my damn bees,’ I repeated. ‘Why’d anybody do a thing like that?’
Peitho half-rose from his stool, then sat down again. ‘What the hell are you
talking about?’ he asked. ‘Did you see him? Have you set up the meeting?’
I shook my head. ‘It didn’t work out that way,’ I replied.
‘You did go, didn’t you? You didn’t lose your nerve and not turn up?’
I shook my head. ‘Of course I turned up. It didn’t work, that’s all. We’ll have
to think of something else.’
‘Oh, for—’ Peitho scowled and screwed up his eyes. ‘It was the perfect
opportunity. What was it; wouldn’t he go for the conspiracy thing?’
‘Reckons he knows all about it already,’ I said. ‘He’s gone mad, by the way.
Completely off his head. Here, look, you nearly let the fire go out.’
Well, we got the fire going again, and we were just building up a nice head of
fog when the tent-flap was thrown open and in stalked a couple of guardsmen.
Startled the life out of me, as you can imagine.
‘Which one of you’s Peitho?’ the officer said.
Peitho looked round. He was pretty far gone with the medicine, which was
unfortunate. ‘Me,’ he said. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘You’ve got to come with us.’
I wanted to do something, but between fear and medication I was pretty well
paralysed. Peitho stood up, staggering slightly. The guards officer was coughing
and pulling faces, but he didn’t say anything.
‘Where are we going?’ Peitho asked.
‘Am I coming too?’ I added. Gods know why.
The guards officer shook his head. ‘Just him,’ he said. ‘All right, move it
along. You,’ he added, looking at me, ‘stay there.’
So I stayed there, until my eyes grew heavy and I fell asleep. When I woke up,
there was light flooding in through the tent-flap and the smoke-hole, and some
bugger in armour shaking me by the arm.
‘What?’ I asked, noticing that my head was splitting.
‘Come on,’ the man said. ‘He says he can’t start the trial without you.’
I stood up. ‘Remembered something else, has he?’ I asked. ‘What?’
‘Forget it,’ I said.
Twice in so many days; most soldiers’d give their right arms to be commended by
the King himself for two separate and distinct acts of conspicuous merit on two
successive days. But for me, he said, this terrible plot might have succeeded.
But for me, the army, the kingdom, the empire would now be an orphan child
cruelly bereft of its father, a ship without its rudder, a people wandering in
the dark. But for me.
Of the six poor buggers standing up in front of the tribunal, three I’d never
seen before in my life; the other three were Callisthenes, the philosopher
nephew of Aristotle who’d lent us the book; my junior Scythian bee-keeper; and
Peitho, my friend.
It was a chilling tale, right enough. The three staff officers, companions of
Alexander since childhood, brought up as his brothers, educated with him under
the shade of the same tree at Mieza, had conspired to kill Alexander and divide
the empire between them. To this end they’d suborned the other three;
Callisthenes, who did the research in his extensive library of books about
poison and murder, the bee-keeper, who acquired the poisoned honey, and Peitho,
who co-ordinated the whole operation. Mercifully, they made the fatal mistake of
confiding their terrible scheme to a loyal, honourable man who, in spite of his
friendship with all three of them, never hesitated to put his duty before his
personal feelings, and revealed the whole sordid business to the King.
Brother, everybody’s scared of dying; but as I stood there in front of the
tribunal hearing all this, I could think of worse things. There was a part of me
that wanted Peitho to turn round and say ‘It was him, it was all his idea’ —
honestly, if he had, I’d probably have admitted it then and there. As it was, I
was too shit-scared and ashamed to move at all. Peitho didn’t even look at me.
The Scythian called out to me — ‘Eudaemon, tell them it’s not true, tell them I
never even saw the poison honey’ — but I pretended he wasn’t there. Callisthenes
just included me in his general bewildered stare. They were found guilty, of
course. Then everybody went very quiet, as Alexander stood up to announce the
sentence.
Well, there weren’t any surprises; death by hemlock for all six, sentence to be
carried out forthwith. The Scythian and one of the Macedonians started shrieking
and kicking; the guards bashed them
on the head and dragged them out by their feet. The other four just walked away,
and that was the last I ever saw of them. Alive, at any rate; dead, it was
rather hard not to see them, since their heads were put up on poles and planted
at the corners of the drill-square, in the usual manner. As soon as it was safe
to go, I walked away fast; but someone ran up behind me. It was another of those
damned guardsmen.
Here we go, I thought; but instead the man pushed a wreath of leaves and a small
brass tripod into my hands. ‘Alexander says you forgot to take these,’ he said.
‘You left them behind, remember?’
I thanked him, took them and went back to my tent. Someone had been in there and
taken away the rest of the leaves, which was a blow, but there was still plenty
of wine left, at least when I started on it. Not so much later on. I chucked the
laurel crown on the fire, but its leaves turn
ed out to have no perceptible
medicinal value.
Afterwards, we marched for a long time and fought a battle. We won. I say ‘we’;
I spent the battle standing by.
They never got me any more bees. Apparently there were difficulties in Supply;
the purchasing clerks didn’t get the necessary docket, or they got the docket
but it was sealed at the beginning instead of the end. Something like that. It
didn’t matter, anyway; as a reward for my part in unmasking the evil plot I was
promoted to acting adjutant to the Chief of Countermines (there was no Chief of
Countermines) and issued with a garish red sash for standing by in. Since by
this stage the Department of Bees consisted of me and the old Scythian, who
quite sensibly deserted the day after they killed his friend, the Department was
consolidated with Livestock and Stores and never heard of again. I had
absolutely nothing to do now except ride a horse while the army marched and hang
around in my tent all evening on the off-chance of being summoned to a staff
meeting. I asked for a transfer back to the auxiliary infantry, but the
Macedonian in charge of establishments and personnel told me that my request
couldn’t go through unless it was sanctioned by my immediate superior. When I
explained that I didn’t actually have one, since there was no Chief of
Countermines, I was told, no superior officer, no sanction; no sanction, no
transfer. I tried to explain that this meant I was drawing pay and eating up
rations and not doing a hand’s turn in exchange. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ he
replied, and ordered me to go away.
So please, don’t ask me what it was like in the front line at Gaugamela, or the
charge of the wedge at Arbela, or the day Alexander rode into Babylon, or the
tight corner in the defile among the Uxians, or the bypassing of the Persian
Gates; I wasn’t there, or I can’t remember. Don’t look for me in the
wall-paintings and marble bas-reliefs; I won’t be there, unless the patron of
the arts who’s commissioned them is so thorough that he’s even had his
store-room and outside privy done, to depict the long, straggling baggage-train
limping along a day or so behind the interesting bits of the army. I was at
Persepolis when Alexander set fire to the royal palace of the Persian Kings with
Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt Page 62