The Macedonian

by Nicholas Guild

  The king’s new son slept on, a few wisps of dark hair clinging to his scalp, his round face with its puffy eyelids giving him an appearance of intense concentration.

  Let them comfort one another. It occurred to Glaukon that the physician was both compassionate and wise.

  “What is his name?”

  Iocasta glanced up and scowled, as if she resented the intrusion.

  “Philip,” she said at last. “‘Lover of Horses’—perhaps the Lord Amyntas intends him for a stableboy. It would be better so.”

  She drew the sleeping child closer to her bosom and stared at the flames of the brazier, which moved with liquid slowness. What she saw there did not seem to please her, for the creases in her withered old face settled into an expression of something between pity and dread.

  “He began life by trying to break the cord that held him to his mother. Did you know that?”

  Glaukon only shook his head. Old women sometimes spoke with the voice of prophecy, but he was not sure it was always wise to listen. Certainly it was not wise to question.

  “I think he did very well,” she went on, “for mother and son will live their lives as enemies—until one is the undoing of the other. See what a beginning they have made: he almost killed her being born, and the Lady Eurydike, had she had but the strength to speak, would have damned him even as he slipped from her womb. Her belly could not be more full of venom if it held vipers in place of guts. She is a Lynkestian, a mountain woman, and she knows how to hate.”

  “You are from there yourself, are you not, Iocasta?”

  Without raising her eyes from the child, she nodded slowly, allowing herself a tight smile, as if to acknowledge an unintended compliment.

  “I am. And that is why I understand her. And that is why I know there is no more terrible destiny than a mother’s curse, even if she has not breath to utter it.”

  For a long moment she said nothing, and then she held the child away from her and put him into Glaukon’s arms. The youngest of King Amyntas’s sons stirred a little, opening his eyes briefly before returning to a profound sleep.

  “Take him away,” she said. “The sight of him oppresses my heart, for his life’s blood will be spilled through treachery.”

  The king’s steward walked home through the cold and deserted night, carrying his royal burden against his chest. The snowstorm had stopped abruptly so that the ground was a featureless white in the moonlight. The very air had taken on an unearthly clarity so that everything stood revealed, almost as if in daylight.

  Glaukon thought of what he would see in his wife’s face when he woke her from her tortured, restless sleep and put this child, still wrapped in its sheepskin, into her arms.

  I return our son to your breast, he thought, knowing these to be words he could never speak. Our son …

  He stopped for a moment—because he had to, because he was almost blinded by his own tears—and raised his eyes to the dark heavens to thank the gods for their mercy.

  Above him, in the western sky, glittered the Constellation of the Toiling Man.

  “Herakles…” The word escaped before he realized he had spoken it.

  “And this too is prophecy,” he murmured. “So perhaps, my little prince—my son—perhaps your destiny will not after all be so obscure.”

  2

  The stallion was eighteen hands high and wild as a demon. The muscles beneath its smooth black coat bunched and rippled as it trotted back and forth within the stout wooden railings of the enclosure, tearing up the earth with its hooves, searching for a means of escape. By now it knew there was no escape, but its fury would not allow it to be still.

  “This one is fine, is he not,” said Alexandros, first prince of Macedon, looking on as he leaned against the gate. He was tall and fair and almost inhumanly beautiful, and his whole carriage suggested the easy animal grace of the born warrior. He watched the stallion through pale blue, predatory eyes that reflected an odd mixture of admiration and envy, as if the beast were both a possession and a rival.

  “We found him out on the eastern plains, with a whole herd of mares all to himself. Before we could drive him in here he broke a horse’s shoulder with one kick and almost killed its rider.”

  The prince turned around toward the men who were with him, and his gaze fell on his two young brothers. Perdikkas, the elder by a year and already with a few tufts of copper-colored beard on his chin, dropped his eyes almost at once, causing Alexandros to smile with what might have been affection but was more probably contempt.

  “What would you say, Perdikkas, if I were to offer you this splendid animal? Would he not be worth a little danger? I will make you a present of him if you can stay on his back to the count of ten.”

  But Perdikkas, who, despite his new beard, was still only a boy, shook his head, not even daring to look his brother in the face.

  “Do you plan to live forever then?”

  All the strong, brave young men who were Alexandros’s friends laughed at his jest, making the boy blush with shame.

  “Our brother Perdikkas is well enough as a horseman,” spoke up the youngest of King Amyntas’s sons, his voice still piping almost as high as a girl’s. “But he is not the rider to attempt an untamed stallion—at least, not that one—and he is also not a fool to get his neck broken simply because you dare him to. However, if you really don’t want the horse for yourself, offer him to me on the same terms.”

  Philip looked up at his eldest brother as a man might look into the sun. He even shaded his eyes, his grin showing white, even teeth in a face more remarkable for strength and intelligence than for beauty. Alexandros was his hero, but he was not in the least intimidated by him.

  This was so obvious that Alexandros was forced to laugh.

  “Little brother Philip, ‘Lover of Horses,’” he said, putting his hands on his knees and crouching slightly, as if he were talking to a very young child. “For all that I put you on your first mount before you were old enough to walk, that black demon will trample you into paste.”

  They both turned to watch the stallion, which lowered its head for an instant and then reared up, slashing at the air with its hooves, seeming to issue a challenge of its own.

  “Don’t be mad,” Perdikkas murmured—his voice was hushed with dread, giving the impression he was afraid the stallion might overhear him. “Philip, that horse is a man-killer.”

  He turned to his elder brother with something like real anger.

  “Alexandros, put a stop to this folly. If you encourage him in his own rashness, Philip’s blood will be on your hands, just as surely as if you had murdered him.”

  Everyone laughed, even Alexandros, although his laughter betrayed a certain uneasiness. No one laughed harder than Philip.

  “He is right, Philip. Even I would hesitate…”

  “But I would not.” The face of Amyntas’s youngest son was set and serious. He was not to be resisted. “I mean to have the stallion, brother. Will you retract your challenge? Then I will know you think me as great a coward as yourself.”

  There was a sudden, dangerous silence. Alexandros seemed too shocked even to be angry. He actually looked as if someone had struck him.

  And then one of his companions, a youth named Praxis, rested his hand on the prince’s shoulder.

  “Come, Alexandros. Be reasonable,” he said in the soft, consoling voice with which one speaks to a grief-stricken woman. “You cannot allow yourself to be goaded into this piece of folly because a child calls you a name. Spank him for his impudence if you must, but let that end it.”

  Alexandros struck the hand away.

  “No. Rope the stallion and let little brother Philip have his wish. ‘Lover of Horses’—we shall see. If he wishes to kill himself, then let him!”

  He raised his arm and, out of sheer impatience, threw it down again.

  “Have I to do the thing myself?” he shouted, scrambling over the enclosure rails as if he really meant to. “Throw a rope across the br
ute’s neck that Philip the Demigod may climb on his back—do it at once!”

  It required almost a quarter of an hour to rope the stallion, and then a second rope was required before it could be brought to a halt and kept from rearing up and lashing out with its great hooves at the men who struggled to restrain it. In another horse so much violence might have been nothing more than simple panic, but this one seemed to seethe with fury, with the desire for revenge.

  “Well, Lover of Horses, he is yours for the taking. I wish you joy in him.”

  Alexandros grinned savagely at his youngest brother, who in that moment felt a kind of grief, as if he had lost something forever. This the first prince of Macedon saw in his face, but misunderstood.

  “If you are afraid, you need only say so. No one will think you a coward.”

  The word stung like a nettle, but Philip only shook his head.

  “I am not afraid,” he said and jumped down from the enclosure fence.

  Two grooms, working with the quick, deft movements of men who feel themselves at risk and wish to be away, were already slipping a bridle over the stallion’s head. Philip made his slow approach from the front and left, and the beast watched him through a huge, wild eye as if it knew that this was the only adversary who mattered. It whinnied slightly as Philip put his hand on its neck.

  “That’s done, then,” he murmured, running his palm along the smooth coat, so black it seemed to cast back the sunlight like a polished gemstone. “You mustn’t be frightened. You and I will get along very well together.”

  The stallion tried to strike out with its head but only succeeded in brushing against Philip’s shoulder with its nose—the touch felt almost like a caress.

  Philip took up the reins and, with deliberate suddenness, before the stallion had time to react, grabbed a handful of mane and jumped up onto its back.

  “Slip the ropes!” he shouted, the stallion already bucking wildly beneath him. “Slip them—and stand clear!”

  It was not advice anyone needed to hear more than once. Philip saw the ropes slide away, saw the grooms running for the fence, and almost simultaneously felt himself surging straight up. Then, in the next instant, he seemed to be hanging suspended in empty space—the stallion had simply dropped from beneath him.

  He came down again with a sickening jolt that felt as if it had shattered his insides, yet somehow he managed to clamp his legs around the stallion’s back and keep from tumbling off. He yanked back on the reins, trying to assert some kind of control, but the beast had a mouth of iron so that the bit seemed useless.

  The stallion reared, snatching at the air, and then kicked back so that its whole body made a sharp twist to the left. Philip was hanging on to its mane by then, with no thought except somehow to avoid falling beneath those terrible hooves. Twice, three times he kept himself erect, knowing that if he lost his balance, he would probably be dead almost as soon as he hit the ground. And then …

  He hardly knew what happened, except that he was going down—it was like diving into a pool. The stallion lashed out, and a terrible pain, like a flash of hot, white light, seemed to explode inside his head. He threw his arms out to break his fall, and then rolled, trying to get away before the stallion caught him again.

  And all at once it was over. Philip pulled himself over onto his back and looked up at the sun. His face hurt and he could taste blood, but he was alive.

  He seemed quite alone. Philip turned his head and saw the stallion perhaps fifteen or twenty paces away, calmly standing there, ignoring him. It was almost insulting.

  Alexandros came running to help him up, but Philip shook him off. He scrambled to his feet unaided, and after a few seconds he was sure he would not fall down again.

  “I’m all right,” he said, and then he brought his left hand up to his cheek. He was bleeding just below the eye, but he wouldn’t die of it. “I’m fine—get a rope and I’ll try again. This time I’ll beat him.”

  “We will have old Nikomachos see to you.” Alexandros bent down to look at the wound on his little brother’s face. “The bone may be broken…”

  “Alexandros, rope the horse!” Philip shouted—suddenly he was in a fine rage so that he actually stamped his foot.

  “Philip, the horse is yours if you want him so much!” Alexandros shouted back. “He is a demon, as black inside as out, and you are lucky to be alive. Be content—you have proved to me that you are a man.”

  “But I have not proved it to him!”

  Tears were already coursing down his face. Philip held out his arm, pointing in the stallion’s direction, the fist clenched and trembling. And then, from one instant to the next, his anger broke.

  “Rope the horse,” he said softly. “Have it done, brother, or I will do it myself. He may be a demon, but he will not defeat me. I know his tricks now. I will ride him.”

  “‘I will alone,’ little brother?” Alexandros smiled, but with a kind of repressed impatience, as if it were being squeezed out of him, as he alluded to the story old Glaukon always told of Philip’s first attempts to walk—barely a year old, he furiously pushed away all attempts at help, shouting in his lisping baby’s voice, “I will alone, I will alone!” “You only fell on your bottom then—you may break your neck this time.”

  “Have it done, brother.”

  The smile faded. He had only to look in Philip’s eyes to know that argument was useless. Alexandros raised a hand, in a gesture that was like a shrug, and gave the order.

  Philip sat down on the grass, nursing his head and his pride, watching while the grooms went about their work. The stallion’s front legs had become entangled in the reins, so this time it was not so difficult to capture and subdue—besides, it no longer seemed afraid of the confrontation with mere men, as if it sensed it could win against any rider.

  “The gods punish pride,” Philip whispered to himself, his eyes narrowing slightly as they measured the hard, black shape of his adversary. “Whether yours or mine, my friend, we have still to determine.”

  He got up and walked stiffly to where the grooms and their captive were waiting for him. As soon as he gave the signal, and the ropes slipped from around the its neck, he tightened his legs against the stallion’s flanks and dropped down so that his chest was almost touching its neck.

  Snorting wildly, the stallion reared up and then jumped with all the power of his hindquarters, but, as Philip had expected, came down rather lightly on its forelegs. He anticipated the stallion’s leftward twist by throwing his weight in that direction, and it was as if his mount came to catch him before he fell.

  The stallion reared again, neighing with what sounded like incredulous rage. Again and again, with mounting fury, it tried to shake itself free of its unwanted burden, but each time Philip was able to keep his seat. Finally it seemed to give up on that tactic, stood perfectly still for a moment, and then began galloping back and forth within the enclosure.

  “Open the gate!” Philip shouted, hardly able to make himself heard. “Throw open the gate!”

  Rider and horse, looking as if they had fused together into a single being, tore over the hard-packed earth of the enclosure, out through the gate and onto the windswept grasslands beyond. The pounding of the stallion’s hooves was no more than a blur of sound—the horse burned over the open ground as if it wished to burst its heart. Never, never had Philip ridden an animal that could run like this one.

  But no living thing could go on like that forever. Gradually the stallion began to slow and, as it slowed, it began to answer to the reins. Soon, when they were down to little more than a canter, Philip was able to turn its head back the way they had come. The wooden rails of the enclosure were hardly visible.

  “Enough for one day,” Philip murmured now, letting his hand slide down to stroke the stallion’s black, sweat-lathered neck. “Time to go home.”

  He pulled in with the reins, bringing the horse to a stop, and then touched its flanks with his heels. It started forward at a walk, as if lon
g accustomed to its master’s will.

  Alexandros and Perdikkas, surrounded by Alexandros’s friends, met them at the enclosure gate. Philip jumped down, took a step forward, and offered the first prince his hand.

  “I beg your forgiveness, brother,” he said, his eyes on Alexandros’s face. “I spoke in anger, with nothing to guide my tongue but injured vanity. I forgot the justice I owe to one of proven courage.”

  For a moment Alexandros did not seem to know what to do, and then he frowned, the way one does when reproving a child.

  “If you had been killed, the king our father would have blamed me.”

  “If I had been killed, the king our father would not even have noticed.”

  In a burst of startled laughter, Alexandros threw his arms around his youngest brother’s shoulders. The stallion stepped back a pace and whinnied, as if at the sight of blood.

  “Groom—you there!” Alexandros shouted. “Take the Lord Philip’s horse to the stables and see that he is well rubbed down. My brother is hard with his animals.”

  The laughter was now general—only Perdikkas kept apart from it.

  * * *

  It was not until after nightfall, when her daughter’s husband had already crept into her bed, that the Lady Eurydike heard of Philip’s triumph. She had turned her face to the wall so that her naked back was pressed against Ptolemy’s chest, and he whispered the story to her as he gathered in the soft weight of her breasts. He knew it would elicit in her that sullen anger, like the contemplation of an old injustice, which somehow always shaded into desire. Even as he entered her he had no way to be sure which passion caused her breath to catch, or if she would have recognized there could be a difference.

  Afterward, and for a long time, she did not speak.

  “Nothing more has happened than a boy mastering a horse,” he said at last. “It was only chance that he did not break his neck.”

  “It was not chance.”

  “Of course it was chance.”

  Eurydike laughed. It was a gloomy sound in the darkness.

  “Had it been Alexandros, or anyone else, I might agree, but Philip will never die until someone kills him.”