Orion and the Conqueror

by Ben Bova

"I must hear them," said Aristotle.

  Aeschines nodded.

  Supper was served in a sumptuous room with an intricate tile mosaic for a floor and a meager fire crackling and spitting in the fireplace—just enough to ward off the autumnal night chill. Philip had ordered that Alexandros remain incognito, even to his host, so he and his beardless Companions were introduced merely as young noblemen. Alexandros was such a common name among the Macedonians that there was no need to give the Little King an alias. Most Macedonian nobles had at least a passing knowledge of Attic Greek, especially the younger ones. Philip had seen to that.

  Aeschines gave Alexandros a crafty look when Aristotle introduced him, but said nothing more than he said to all the others, including me, when names were exchanged.

  The talk around the supper table was all of Demosthenes.

  "He is whipping up the people to a war frenzy," Aeschines told us unhappily. "They go to listen to him as if they were going to the theater, and he gives them a good performance. By the time he's finished speaking they're ready to arm themselves and march against Philip."

  Aristotle shook his head, brow furrowed with worry.

  "But Athens is already at war with us," Alexandros said.

  Aeschines replied, "Technically, yes. But until now the Athenians have been content to let others do the fighting for them. They have sent silver against Philip, not Athenian troops."

  I recalled that I was one of the mercenaries that Athenian silver had bought.

  "And ships," added Ptolemaios. "Athens uses its navy against us."

  "To little avail," Alexandros boasted. "Soon they won't have a port to put into north of Attica."

  "There is talk," said Aeschines gloomily, "of making an alliance with Thebes."

  "Thebes!" A stir went around the long table.

  "They have the best army outside of Macedonia," Hephaistion blurted.

  "Their Sacred Band has never been defeated," said dark-skinned Nearkos.

  "Well, neither have we," Alexandros countered.

  Harpalos, sitting on Alexandros' left, made a disappointed frown. "Maybe we haven't been defeated in battle, but the king has walked us away from victories. Perinthos isn't the first city that we've besieged without taking."

  Alexandros' face started to turn red with anger. Aristotle spoke up. "Philip has gained more cities at the parley table than on the battlefield," he said mildly. "That is the art of a true king: to win without bloodshed."

  "There will be blood between Athens and us," Alexandros predicted, his anger barely under control.

  "I fear you're right," Aeschines agreed. "Demosthenes will not stop until he has them marching against the barbarians."

  "Barbarians?"

  "You," he said directly to Alexandros. "He calls you barbarians. And worse."

  Again trying to ward off an explosion, Aristotle said, "To the Athenians, anyone not of their city is a barbarian. The word originally meant stranger, nothing more."

  "But that's not how Demosthenes uses it now," Aeschines said.

  I could see Alexandros was struggling to control his temper. "I saw him once, years ago," he muttered. "He came to Pella at the king's invitation. He was so flustered he became completely tongue-tied. He couldn't speak a complete sentence."

  "He speaks whole sentences now," Aeschines said, somberly. "With devastating effect."

  "I must hear him for myself," Alexandros said through tight lips.

  But there was something else the prince wanted to see first. We were all quartered in one large room, all except Aristotle. After supper, as I was preparing for bed, I saw that Alexandros and his Companions were heading for the door, cloaks wrapped around their shoulders, swords at their sides.

  "Where are you going?" I demanded.

  "To the Acropolis," Alexandros replied, smiling like a boy setting off on an adventure.

  "It's forbidden. The gates to the Sacred Street are locked."

  "There's a trail up the cliff side. One of the servants told me of it."

  "You're going to follow a servant?"

  "Yes, why not? I want to see the temples up there."

  "Maybe we'll raid their treasury." Ptolemaios laughed.

  "Perhaps it's a trap," I said.

  "We are armed."

  "I'll go with you."

  "That's not necessary, Orion."

  "Your father commanded me to take good care of you. If you break your neck climbing the cliff in the moonlight, I'd better jump off and land beside you."

  He laughed as I grabbed my sword and cloak and went with them, thinking that his mother had also ordered me to protect him.

  The climb was much easier than I had feared. The moon was bright, although the night wind cut like a razor.

  The servant turned out to be a young girl, no more than twelve, I guessed. Harpalos had spotted her in Aeschines' household. I imagined that he intended to reward her by taking her virginity.

  We reached the flat top of the cliff without trouble and stood gazing at the Parthenon and the other temples. The Parthenon was absolutely breathtaking: graceful fluted columns, perfect Pythagorean symmetry, wonderful friezes along the roof line so marvelously carved that the cold marble figures seemed almost to come alive. I had seen it before, I realized. It stood, in all its original harmonious balance, in the empty city of the Creators that I had visited in my dreams.

  It was wondrously beautiful, especially in the soft silver radiance of the moonlight. And standing in front of it was the giant statue of Athena, warrior goddess and patroness of the city, goddess of wisdom whose sacred symbol is the owl.

  We all stood gaping at the marble splendors of temples and statues. All of us except Alexandros. He took everything in with a single glance, then strode purposefully toward the statue of Athena.

  I hurried after him.

  "They say you can see the sunlight glinting off her spear tip from the harbor of Piraeus," he told me.

  The gigantic statue was clad in ivory. Her upraised spear reached higher than the Parthenon's peaked roof. In the moonlight Athena towered above us. Her face was painted, her eyes as gray as my own. But empty, blank, cold ivory.

  Alexandros started up the temple steps. "There's a smaller statue inside. They say it's clothed in gold."

  It was. This statue was merely twice life-size, much more graceful, much more lifelike. In the shadows inside the temple it seemed to glow with an inner radiance. It's the gold leaf of her robe catching stray moonbeams, I told myself. And then I looked up into her face.

  I recognized her. Athena, Anya, Ardra, I had known her under many names in many times and places. Known her and loved her. And she had loved me. But now I was alone in this timeplace, without her, without my love, lost and abandoned.

  I felt a cold dark misery enveloping me. I could remember so little, yet I remembered her. The face of this statue was the face of the woman I had loved. No, not a mortal woman. A goddess.

  I was a creature, a mortal fashioned by the Creators to do their bidding. I had dared to fall in love with a goddess who had dared to take human form and fall in love with me. And now I was without her.

  I strained with every fiber of my being to make that statue stir, to bring it to life, to have her breathe and move and smile at me.

  But it remained cold marble sheathed in gold. I could not reach beyond its form to find the goddess it represented.

  "Come on," said Alexandros brusquely. "I'm getting cold. Let's go back to our beds."

  Feeling as cold and dead as the stone all around us, I followed him back to the house of Aeschines.

  Chapter 10

  The meeting of the Assembly was held in the open air, under the crisp clear blue sky, in the natural auditorium created by the hill slope facing the Acropolis. A huge crowd turned out. Although only free male citizens could vote in the Assembly, there was no law prohibiting the whole city from listening to the orators. I imagined that clever demagogues could work up the crowd to fever pitch and sway the voting citizens wi
th mob passion.

  The orators had to compete with the vendors from the market place hawking broiled lamb strips, wine, nuts, even honeyed fruits. And when the wind gusted from the direction of the Agora there were the smells of butchered meat and dried fish in the air. And flies.

  The orators' stand was cut out of the natural rock of the hillside. Off to one side the fifty members of the city council sat on stone benches.

  Demades was the first to speak. He was tall and slim, elegant-looking. His powerful deep voice carried well all the way to the rear of the crowd, where I stood with Alexandros and his Companions. I was tall enough to see over the heads of the throng, but Alexandros had to stand on tip-toe and try to see between those in front of us.

  "Why should we tax ourselves to fight a man who harbors us no ill-will?" Demades asked. "What do we care of the petty squabbles in the northern lands? Philip has no intention of fighting us; why do we strive against him?"

  A voice in the crowd shouted back, "He stole our grain!"

  Seeming to ignore the heckler, Demades went on, "This pointless war increases our taxes, drains our treasury, and sends our navy out on foolhardy missions. Philip has no desire to harm us. Even when he seized the grain harvest from our ships he returned it to us in exchange for a city that we neither want nor need."

  He went on for what seemed like hours, stressing the cost of the war against Philip and its pointlessness, pounding home again and again how high taxes had been raised to prosecute the fight against Philip.

  "And what have we gained from our sacrifices? Nothing whatsoever. Philip remains in his own land, fighting against his fellow barbarians, not against us."

  I saw Alexandros' face twitch in an angry tic at the word barbarian as he leaned on the shoulders of Ptolemaios and Hephaistion, both of them a good head taller than he.

  At last Demades finished and Demosthenes took the platform. The crowd stirred. This was what they had come for.

  He was a small man, with narrow shoulders and a slightly bent posture as he walked slowly to the center of the platform. His hairline was receding, although his hair was still quite dark and his beard thick and bushy. His eyes were deep-set beneath dark brows; I suspected that his beard hid a weak chin. His robe was plain, unadorned white wool. Clasping his hands in front of him, he stood with balding head slightly bowed until the vast throng stilled into absolute silence. I could hear the breeze sighing; a bird chirped in the trees behind us.

  Demosthenes began slowly, dramatically, gestures measured to each phrase almost as if he were dancing in rhythm to his own words. His voice was higher than Demades', not as powerful, yet it carried back to us well enough. He did not try to counter Demades' arguments; indeed, he spoke as if he had not even heard them. And then I realized that Demosthenes had memorized his speech. He was not speaking extemporaneously; he was reciting a carefully-rehearsed performance, each gesture and stride across the platform perfectly timed to suit his lines. It was a long and intricate poem that he was delivering to the expectant audience, unrhymed but in careful cadence. The Athenians loved it, sighing with pleasure at his phrasing, his exact choice of words, his use of wit and even invective.

  Alexandros' face reddened as Demosthenes spoke of "this barbarian king, this sly dog, this wine-besotted beast who wants to take our freedom from us." His attack on Philip was personal and highly emotional. Within a few minutes he had the crowd entirely in his hands.

  "Athens is the light of the world, the best hope for freedom for every man. Our democracy shines like a beacon against the darkness of tyranny. Let Philip know that we are unwilling to permit the destruction of this democracy which our fathers and our fathers' fathers have bequeathed to us by their blood and sacrifice. Let Philip know, whether he wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, and oppose any foe to assure the survival of our democracy here in Athens and its spread across the world."

  The crowd shook the city with its roar of approval. They applauded and cheered and whistled and stamped their feet on the bare ground for nearly a quarter of an hour. Demosthenes waited patiently for them to quiet down, hands folded and head bowed. Then he continued.

  "There are those who claim that Philip bears us no ill will. How do they know this? Has Philip spoken to them of his ambitions toward us? Are they in Philip's employ, taking silver and gold from the tyrant to lull us into passivity and inaction? Nothing is so easy to deceive as one's self; for what we wish, we readily believe. Yet the facts speak for themselves.

  "Philip continues to build his army. Why? Why does he march against democratic cities founded by Athenians and peopled by Athenian settlers? Does Philip have any enemy in the whole of Greece to justify the size of the mighty army he is building? No! He has none. His army is meant for us and it can be meant for no other. He intends to conquer our city, to enslave our people, to burn our buildings to the ground and put all of us in chains—your wives, your daughters, your sisters and mothers will be Philip's slaves. Your sons, too."

  He castigated the very idea of kingship, insisting that a democracy and a tyrant can never be at peace.

  "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, which needs to be more carefully guarded against than that one man should be allowed to become more powerful than the people. It would be better for us to be at war with all the states of Greece, provided they were democracies, than to be friends with them if they were ruled by kings. For with free states it would not be difficult to make peace when we wished, but with tyrants we could not even form an affiliation on which we could rely. Democracies and dictators cannot exist together! Every dictator is an enemy of freedom, and Philip means to end the freedom of Athens!"

  Again the crowd roared with approval, stamping and clapping, cheering, whistling, waving scarves to show their enthusiasm.

  And in the midst of the uproar the assassins struck.

  I had been standing beside Alexandros and his four Companions, all of us dressed in plain homespun chitons and leather jerkins. None of us wore anything rich or conspicuous; Alexandros' fingers were bare, and the short swords we carried were plain and undecorated.

  While Demosthenes spoke the crowd surged forward slightly, as if eager to be closer to their idol. A few men pushed between me and Hephaistion, who was standing directly beside Alexandros on one side. Alexandros had his arm upon the taller Hephaistion's shoulder, helping himself to stand tip-toe. Another man wedged himself between me and the young men. I turned and saw that three more were now standing just behind Ptolemaios and lanky Harpalos. Nearkos was too short for me to see in the crowd that was pressing around us.

  But I could see Alexandros' golden mane easily enough, and realized that it stood as an easy identification for anyone who wanted to find him. As the crowd broke into its thunderous ovation one of the rough-clad men who had pushed up to us stepped sideways, behind Alexandros. I saw his hand go to his belt and I knew he was going to thrust a dagger into Alexandros' back.

  "Behind you!" I shouted in the Macedonian dialect, bellowing as loud as I could over the roar of the crowd. I tried to plunge through the men separating us but suddenly my arms were pinned behind me and a swarthy short man with a scar halfway down his face was shoving a dagger at my belly.

  My senses went into overdrive and the world around me slowed to a dreamlike lethargy. I kicked at the scar-faced man's leg as I twisted my body sideways, spoiling his aim enough so that I took his dagger in my side instead of straight-on. I felt it go in and slice through me as my body instantly dampened the pain messages along my nerves and clamped down on the severed blood vessels.

  My kick knocked the scar-faced knife wielder backward a step. I stamped on the foot of the man pinning my right arm as hard as I could and yanked my arm free while I saw that Hephaistion had shoved the other assassin from Alexandros' back, but now the boys were surrounded by at least a dozen armed men.

  I punched the man holding my left arm between the eyes. As he collapsed I swung my right arm back and smashed the other
one with my elbow. With my freed left hand I hit scar-face, still trying to recover his balance, squarely in the jaw and he went down, blood spurting from his mouth. Then I leaped into the ring of knife-wielding men who had surrounded Alexandros.

  The fight ended as quickly as it started. They broke and turned tail, disappearing into the crowd. By the time a local constable came up, frowning and officious, it was all over. Hephaistion had been nicked in the arm; I had been sliced in my side but I was consciously willing the muscles beneath my skin to hold the wound tightly together, and the blood was already coagulating.

  The constable wanted to know our names and what the fight was about.

  "They were cutpurses, obviously," I said. "And stupid ones at that, since there isn't one purse among the five of us."

  He scowled at me, then glanced back and forth among the youths. "Names," he demanded. "I must have your names and places of residence."

  Alexandros, red-faced with fury, blurted, "I am Alexandros, son of Philip of Macedon. And if this is the way your noble city treats its guests, then my father is far too lenient with you."

  With that he strode off, his Companions around him. I followed them, leaving the constable standing there dumbfounded.

  "It was a deliberate assassination attempt. Deliberate!" Alexandros raged all the way back to Aeschines' house. "They tried to kill me."

  "But who sent them?" Hephaistion asked. Alexandros had torn a strip from his own chiton and tenderly wrapped the scratch on his friend's forearm.

  "Demosthenes," answered Ptolemaios. "Who else?"

  "That's not logical," Alexandros said.

  No one had bothered to wrap my wound. I knew I healed quickly, and it did not appear that any vital organ had been cut. My body responded to my conscious control; although I had shut off the pain receptors in my brain, I could sense that the wound was neither deep nor serious. Infection was the only thing I worried about, yet I knew that I could manufacture antibodies at a prodigious rate, when necessary.

  I seemed to recall Aten, the Golden One, smirking at me, telling me that he had built me to be a warrior and had included all the self-repair that I needed for my task.