Orion and the Conqueror o-4

by Ben Bova

  “Or he may not produce a son at all,” Alexandros said.

  “Yes,” said Olympias. “He may not live long enough to sire a new heir.”

  Chapter 18

  Olympias dismissed her son, but kept me with her. Like the slave that I was I followed her to her bed chamber where we made love until dawn amid her slithering, hissing snakes.

  She did not need the special drugs that her vipers had injected into me other times. I was a cooperative slave that night, a willing lover. My body was unmarked by their fangs, although Olympias had sunk her own fingernails into my flesh more than once.

  “You plan to assassinate Philip,” I said to her as we lay together.

  “Is that a question?” she asked lazily.

  “No. An observation.”

  “And you will warn him of it, won’t you?”

  “I am loyal to Philip,” I said.

  “Not to me?”

  “You can force me to do whatever you wish. That does not engender loyalty.”

  She laughed in the predawn darkness. “Come now, Orion, can you truthfully say that you don’t enjoy what we do together?”

  “My body certainly enjoys it.”

  “But your mind…?”

  I hesitated, not wanting to stir her anger. But I heard my voice tell her, “I know what a trained bear must feel when he’s made to dance.”

  She laughed again, genuinely amused. “A trained bear! Yes! That’s what I want you to be: my trained bear.”

  I cursed myself for giving her a new source of amusement.

  “Time for another performance, my great big bear,” she said. “Must I find a whip to encourage you?”

  I did not need a whip.

  By the time the first pink flush of dawn was lighting the sky beyond her window, she returned to our earlier conversation.

  “You will tell Philip that I plan to assassinate him, won’t you?”

  “If you don’t prevent me, yes, I will.”

  “It’s nothing that he doesn’t know already.”

  I got out of the bed and went to the wash basin on the table across the room.

  “Go ahead and tell him, Orion. Let him know what awaits him. There’s nothing he can do to avoid it. Assassination is his fate. The gods have decreed it.”

  “The gods!” I spun around and faced her, still lying languidly in her bed. “There are no gods and you know it.”

  She laughed at me. “Careful, Orion. Men have been executed most painfully for blaspheming.”

  “For telling the truth,” I muttered.

  “Go,” she said, her voice suddenly imperious. “Go to Philip and tell him the fate that awaits him. Tell him that it is ordained by the gods. There is nothing he can do to avoid it.”

  I left her chamber, Olympias’ words and haughty laughter echoing in my mind. She said that Philip’s assassination was ordained by the gods. As I strode along the empty corridors of Philip’s palace in the dawn’s gentle light, I clenched my fists and vowed to do everything I could to stop her.

  “Nothing is preordained,” I muttered to myself. “Time itself can be bent and changed, not only by the so-called gods but by their creatures, as well. We create the future by our own actions.”

  And I swore that I would protect Philip with every ounce of strength in me.

  I went back to my usual palace duties. By day we of the royal guard exercised the horses, trained our squires, oversaw the slaves who maintained our weapons and armor, shopped in Pella’s growing market place for clothes and trinkets. And we gossiped, chattering among ourselves about Ptolemaios’ madness over Thais, about the queen’s scheming, about whether or not Philip truly intended to invade the Persian Empire.

  Pausanias kept us busy and kept us sharp. He took his duties as captain of the royal guard very seriously, despite the sniggering jokes that the men made about him behind his back. I began to understand that the sly laughter had something to do with Attalos. Whenever anyone mentioned Attalos’ name, or spoke about the prospects of the king marrying Attalos’ niece, Pausanias’ normally dour face darkened like a thundercloud.

  I had to tiptoe around the subject, since it was so obvious that Pausanias was sensitive to the point of homicide about it, but at last I got Ptolemaios to explain it to me.

  “A lovers’ quarrel, from years ago. It got very nasty.” Ptolemaios’ usual smiling good nature turned grim at the memory of it. “You wouldn’t think it to see him now, but when Pausanias was a youth he was quite beautiful. So much so that he became one of the king’s lovers.”

  “Philip?” I blinked with surprise. “And Pausanias?”

  Ptolemaios nodded grimly. “But the king never keeps any lover for long. Soon he turned his eye to another lad who had been Attalos’ lover.”

  I blinked again. This was starting to sound as complex as harem intrigues.

  “Pausanias became very angry at losing the king’s favor. He insulted the boy horribly, called him a womanly coward. A short time later the boy proved his manhood by saving Philip’s life in battle. That was when Philip lost his eye.”

  “So the boy—”

  “The boy died protecting Philip. Attalos was infuriated, but he kept his anger hidden. Attalos bided his time, that’s his way. Months later he invited Pausanias to dinner, got him falling-down drunk, and then turned him over to his stable boys. They rammed him pretty well, from what I hear. Some say Attalos fucked him too.”

  “By the gods!”

  “It could have started a blood feud between the two families; they’re both high-born. So the king stepped in. Philip would not permit a blood feud; he absolutely forbade it. He smoothed things over by giving Pausanias the honor of becoming captain of the royal guard. But he didn’t punish Attalos or even rebuke him.”

  Pausanias had grudgingly accepted the king’s judgment in the matter. Philip had avoided a blood feud between two noble families that would have been costly and dangerous to his kingdom. But the affair still festered in Pausanias’ mind; he still hated Attalos, that was painfully clear.

  Each evening a handful of us were picked to stand guard during Philip’s nightly banquet, which inevitably turned into a wine-soaked drunken circus. It was no surprise to me when Pausanias told me I would be on duty the night after my meeting with Olympias and Alexandros. What did surprise was that when Philip struggled up from his couch and lurched drunkenly toward his bed chamber, he crooked his finger at me to accompany him.

  For the flash of an instant I felt a pang of fear, but then I told myself that I was not the kind of young boy that the king sometimes took to bed. And I certainly was not a shapely young wench. He wasn’t that drunk.

  As I followed him up the winding stone stairs to his bed chamber, I realized that he was not drunk at all. He limped on his bad leg and he leaned on the stone wall of the staircase for support, but he was able to climb the stairs unassisted otherwise.

  Two young male servants were waiting in the bed chamber.

  “Have you had any supper?” Philip asked me gruffly.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “Before coming on duty.”

  “Very well.” He dismissed the servants with a wave of his hand, then sat wearily on the bed.

  And he smiled at me, a wry, crooked smile. “That’s the way I learn what my closest companions are thinking, Orion. I listen to what they say when they’re drunk.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ve been with the queen.” It was a statement, not a question. I realized that the entire palace was honeycombed with spies and counterspies and people who spied for both the king and the queen.

  “It was not my choice,” I said.

  He grunted and leaned down to pull off his sandals. I went to help him but he waved me away. “I’m not as helpless as some people think,” he muttered. Then he looked up at me. “She can entrance a man, I know. Her and those damned snakes of hers.”

  I said nothing.

  “She’s a witch, all right. I should have drowned her instead of marry
ing her.”

  “She bore you a fine son.”

  “That she did. And now she poisons his mind against me.”

  “She intends to assassinate you,” I blurted.

  Strangely, he laughed. “Does she now? Indeed!”

  “Truly,” I said.

  “She’s been intending that since Alexandros was born. Just waiting for the right moment.”

  “I think she will try soon.”

  He sat in silence for a few moments, the bedside lamp flickering shadows across his face. Then Philip shook his head. “Not yet. The boy’s still too young. Never be elected king in his own right. Not yet.”

  “Are you certain?”

  He wiped his beard with the back of his hand. Hunching closer to me, he said, “Orion, I have lived with the threat of assassination all my life. I surround myself with loyal men, and work hard to make certain they remain loyal. I change my royal guard often enough to make sure that no man stays so long as to be bewitched by her.”

  I leaned back slightly, away from him. “As I have been,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes. I’m afraid you can no longer be a member of my guard. Or of Alexandros’. I’m going to have to send you out of the palace altogether.”

  “But I want to protect you.”

  Philip cocked a skeptical brow at me. “Yes, I believe you do. But she will get you to do her bidding, sooner or later, one way or the other.”

  I had no answer to that. He was probably right. “I still value your service, Orion. I have an important task for you to do.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m sending this ambassador from the Persians, the one with the unpronounceable name—”

  “Svertaketu,” I said.

  “Yes, the one you found with Demosthenes. I’m sending him back to the Great King with a message from me. I want you to head the escort I send with him.”

  “I would rather stay here to protect you,” I said.

  “That cannot be.”

  I bowed my head slightly to show I understood.

  “In case you’re curious, my message to the Great King is a peaceful one.”

  “I thought it would be.”

  “I want to assure him that I have no desire to make war on his empire. I will offer one of my family women in marriage to one of his male relatives. I want peace.”

  Before I could say anything he went on, “But—a king can’t always get what he wants. I’ve created an army and I don’t intend to see it rust away, or turn into an instrument for my generals to use against one another.”

  “Then what do you intend?”

  “I want the Great King to understand that the islands in the Aegean are Greek, not Persian. Lesbos, Samos and the others were settled by Greeks centuries ago, they must be free of Persian overlords. And the cities on the Ionian coast, too: Miletos, Ephesos—those are Greek cities and should be as independent as Athens or Corinth or any other Greek city.”

  “Will the Great King agree to that?”

  Philip smiled grimly. “Not without a fight, I’m certain. But I want him to be the one who starts the war. Then we’ll have all the cities of the Greeks with us, instead of them taking Persian gold to work against us.”

  “But you said you wanted peace.”

  “And so I do!”

  “Yet you make conditions that will lead to war.”

  He scratched at his beard briefly. “Does it seem strange to you that war can lead to peace?”

  “No stranger than the fact that a rainstorm leads to sunshine.”

  His black eyebrows rose. “Aristotle’s turned you into a philosopher, eh?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Well, listen to a king’s reasoning. We’ve beaten Athens and her allies. For the time being they’re lying low, worrying about what I plan for them, surprised that I didn’t occupy the city with my troops.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Now then, if the Great King refuses to let the Greek cities and islands have their freedom, if he sends his army into Ionia or his fleet to Lesbos, don’t you think the Athenians and all the others will rally to me, as the protector of those Greeks on the other side of the Aegean?”

  I began to see what he was driving at.

  He chuckled at me. “Ah, you do understand, don’t you? By maneuvering the Great King to make war, I cement the loyalties of Athens and Thebes and all the rest.”

  “For a while.”

  “For long enough, perhaps.”

  “And what of Alexandros?” I asked. “He doesn’t want merely to free a few cities. He wants to conquer the whole Persian Empire. And then go on from there.”

  Philip’s grin dissolved. “My hotheaded son must learn that one doesn’t always get what one wants.”

  I looked at that fiercely bearded face. “And what do you want?” I asked. “Truly, what is it that you desire? Not the king, but you, Philip, son of Amyntas. What is your heart’s dearest wish?”

  Philip did not respond for long moments. He seemed to be almost startled by the question. I guessed that he had been thinking as a king and a military commander for so many years that his own individual desires had long been hidden, even from himself.

  At last he replied, “I want them to respect me. Those sophisticated men of good manners and high talk in Athens and Thebes and the other ancient cities. Those self-righteous demagogues who could never bring all the Greeks together in peace. I know what they call me: barbarian, savage, bloodthirsty dog. I want them to respect me; my power, my leadership, my restraint and mercy in dealing with them.”

  He took a deep breath, then went on, “I want her to respect me. I know that she only pretended to love me so she could get a son who would one day be king. All right, he will be king! But only because I have paved his way. Yet she calls me horse breeder, cattle thief, she says I stink of the stables and I think like a primitive tribesman from the hills.”

  Stretching out a battle-scarred arm, Philip said, “I built this city for her, Orion. I welded this nation together and made it powerful for her. And she sees it only as a chariot for her son to ride in. But that’s why I did it. That’s what I want: respect. I don’t expect love from any of them, not even her, but I want their respect.”

  “You certainly deserve it.”

  Pushing himself up from the bed, Philip raised his hands over his head and cried out, “Look at me! I’m not even fifty years old and I’m half-crippled, half-blind, waiting for an assassin’s knife or my own wife’s poison. I’ve given my life to make something new and enduring, a nation of many tribes, many cities. No one has done that, Orion! No one in all of Greece. But I have, and I’ll keep working at it because the instant I stop it will all fall apart. There’s no end to my labors, no end except death.”

  I stood there, almost stunned by the passions my question had unleashed. Philip seemed to realize how much of his soul he had revealed. He let his hands drop to his side and shuffled off toward the window, pretending to look down into the darkened courtyard below.

  “I did it all for her,” he murmured, so low I could barely hear him. “I was a lad of eighteen, just about Alexandros’ age, when I met her. I wasn’t king; I had no prospect of being king. My two older brothers stood ahead of me.”

  He turned back toward me, his face a mask of memories and regrets. “She truly bewitched me, Orion. I wanted to conquer the world for her! I pushed both my brothers aside and seized the throne. I smashed the tribes who were carving up Macedonia. I made our army invincible. I worked for years to bring all of Greece together under my leadership. All for her. All for her.”

  I thought his voice was going to break into sobs.

  “And she spurns me. Calls me foul names and refuses to lie with me. I put the world at her feet and all she can think about is how to put her son on the throne—my throne! She doesn’t love me. She never did.”

  “She doesn’t love anyone,” I said. “She uses us the way a drover uses his oxen.”

  He cast his good
eye on me. For long moments he was silent while a parade of emotions played across his scarred, bearded face.

  At last he said gruffly, “You’d better go now. Prepare for your journey to Susa with that unpronounceable one.”

  I left him alone, staring into the past and his memories. Dawn was brightening the sky outside. Birds were stirring and singing cheerily out among the trees. But I felt far from cheerful. I wondered if I would ever see Philip again, alive.

  BOOK II — OUTLAW

  Death is not the worst; rather, in vain

  To wish for death, and not to compass it.

  Chapter 19

  With two dozen picked men—none of them from the Macedonian nobility—I escorted Ketu from Pella to the capital of the Persian Empire. I realized why Philip had picked only commoners for this mission: he wanted no one from a noble family to be in danger of being held hostage by the Great King.

  “The Persian Empire is so very, very large,” Ketu told me as we rode toward Byzantion, “that the Great King has several capitals, one for each season of the year.”

  I was far more interested in his knowledge of the Buddhist way of life than his knowledge of the empire. I worried about Philip but was glad to be out of the reach of Olympias, free from her control, free from the intrigues of Pella. But Ketu’s description of the Way, with its hope of achieving Nirvana and getting off the wheel of life, was what I wanted to know more about.

  “The Buddha described it as the Eightfold Path,” he told me. “It is the true road to enlightenment. The key to the Way is to reject all desire. Every craving, every wish, every yearning must be driven from your soul absolutely. Achieve true desirelessness and you achieve the final blessedness of Nirvana.”

  “Desirelessness,” I repeated—somewhat dubiously, I admit.

  “Oh yes, that is the key to it all,” Ketu assured me. “The Buddha has instructed us thusly, ‘The cause of human suffering is undoubtedly found in the thirsts of the physical body and in the illusions of worldly passion.’ ”