Stealing Fire

by Jo Graham

  We all looked at it. Alexander looked back.

  “It does seem a little the worse for wear,” I said. I handed the little boy back to his mother, the younger wife Rania.

  “I'm afraid we do not have dinner suitable for guests,” she said, blushing furiously at the humiliating breach of hospitality.

  “We could go for a walk,” I said to Artashir. “We could go walk around for a while and come back later. After all, it's rather early for dinner.”

  Artashir's eyes went from one woman to another. “That sounds like an excellent plan. We'll go for a long walk.”

  And so we did. Once we were out of earshot of the house I couldn't help laughing. After a moment, Artashir started laughing too. He laughed until he was nearly crying. “The bird, the fish…”

  “The cat,” I said. “And the children.”

  “It's chaos, Lydias,” he said. “But good chaos.”

  “I know,” I said, sobering.

  He did too, brushing his long hair back from his eyes. “You still mourn?”

  I shrugged.

  He drew me into an embrace, hands on my back like a kinsman. “I cannot tell you to ever forget, for I never would forget if I lost Rania or Amina, or any of the children. But one can love more than once. Loving a second child does not reduce your love for the first. I do not love Mardonias the less because Cyaxara is his little sister.”

  “I do not even know how to begin,” I said. “You make the complicated seem simple.”

  He released me and we strolled in silence down to the harbor, where the breakwater was under construction. It was growing dark as we walked along it, the waves piling against the mole a man's height beneath our feet. The wind off the Middle Sea lifted my hair and plucked at my chiton as if to give me wings.

  “It's dark out to sea,” I said.

  “Lift your eyes to the heavens,” he said.

  I tilted my head back and watched the stars appear bright against the indigo sky, the Hunter with his belt of fire rising clear of the sea.

  “Do you ever wonder,” Artashir asked quietly, “what the first men who came this way thought? When they came down the Nile in little reed boats and walked along the shore looking up at the sky and out at the sea?”

  I looked at him sideways, his eyes on the stars, keen and alight, and for a moment it seemed to me I had stood like this with him before, in some distant dream. “I expect they wondered if the sky was just another ocean,” I said.

  “I expect they did,” Artashir said, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the heavens.

  “Maybe it is,” I said, and as I said it I knew it was true. “We will build a boat of steel and silver to navigate the high oceans of night, and you will pilot it, and we will go there someday.”

  “I expect we will,” Artashir said, “if Alexander wills it.” He clasped my hand wrist to wrist. “It is good to have such a friend as you, Lydias.”

  “It is,” I said. “My friend always.”

  Artashir looked at me sideways. “Always is a very long time.”

  “I know,” I said.

  WINGS OF FIRE

  Summer had at last come to the uplands, and even the highest passes ahead were clear of snow. Here, however, in the lowlands by the sea not so far from the field of Issos, it was burning hot in the daytime. At night, it was bearable.

  I waited in the shadow of a stone, a darker shape indistinguishable in the dark. The night was moonless, but the stars were very bright. Sothis had risen behind the peaks and was ascending the heavens as I waited, my cloak drawn tight about me to prevent any glint of steel. It would not surprise me if I waited the night through, as I had waited the past two nights. We were not certain how close the funeral cortege was. Which of course was the entire point of my being there. I could have sent any other man instead, but if this went as we had anticipated, it could hardly be entrusted to a trooper.

  It might be tonight. Four days ago we had met a merchant who said that he had passed the hearse on the road west, a splendid procession, the oxen drawing the heavy hearse moving at a slow walk. His wagons had passed it easily and left it behind. It might be tonight.

  To my surprise, I had little time to wait. The Dogs had hardly lifted clear of the peaks when I saw a movement below. Someone was coming along quietly, barefooted and cloaked.

  I waited. It might be some local shepherd bound on a nocturnal errand or up to no good. It might be one of Perdiccas’ scouts. In which case, I had the drop on him, and my knife in my hand, while presumably he did not yet know precisely where I was, only that if Ptolemy intended to do anything he must also have scouts out.

  It wasn't a shepherd. As he ascended the path his hood fell back, and the starlight caught his face, the clean lovely lines of it unmistakable. That kind of relentless beauty didn't just wander in.

  I made a small sound and stood.

  He tensed, and for a moment I thought he would flee.

  I pushed my cloak back, hoping he might remember my face, though it seemed unlikely. The gesture itself was what counted.

  From his posture, I saw him relax, and he took the last steps up quickly and lightly.

  “Bagoas,” I said, and offered him my hand as though he were a man.

  He hesitated, then took it. His grip was not mean for all the lightness of his bones. “I do not remember your name,” he said.

  “Lydias of Miletus,” I said. “You would not. I was not often with the King after you joined us. I was in General Hephaistion's command.”

  His dark eyes lingered on my face. “I think that I met you in Persepolis, after we came back from the desert.”

  “You did,” I said, and once again it tasted like ashes in my mouth. “I lost my wife and my child in Gedrosia, and do not like to think on it.”

  “Your pardon,” he said, and came and sat in the shadow of the rock. “I did not know, or if I had, I had forgotten.”

  I took a breath. “Where is the cortege?”

  “Less than half a day's pace on the road,” he said. “Half a day for the wagons, that is. I walked it in a little less than two hours of the night, I think. You could do it with horses in an hour, and come down on us after the road descends to the plain. The escort is a thousand foot soldiers, but lightly armed, and they do not march in harness in the heat of the day.”

  I raised an eyebrow and sat down beside him. “And how should General Ptolemy know that you do not plan a trap?” It was really a rhetorical question. We were in too deep to hold back now. A thousand men was more or less what we had expected, all infantry. If they were not in harness and could not efficiently form defensive squares we could go through that, especially with surprise on our side.

  Bagoas sounded weary. “And if I planned a trap, why should I put myself in the midst of it?”

  I shrugged, and offered him my water skin. He drank, and we sat together under the stars. It was not really a question, after all. Ptolemy was already committed to this scheme, and so was I.

  In a little while he spoke. “What has Perdiccas done for me?” he asked. “What, that I should betray my lord's wish that he should lie in Egypt? Perdiccas seeks an excuse to move his army over the Dardanelles and challenge Antipatros, or to claim the hand of Alexander's sister. That is not my lord's business or mine.”

  He did not speak of Roxane, nor did I expect him to. “It must be nice for it to be so simple,” I said, and was surprised by the wistful sound in my voice. “Your lord's wish. Instead of the snarling of dogs.”

  “Do you not serve Ptolemy?”

  I nodded, and took a drink from it myself. “I do. He's a good general and a good ruler. But he is not my lord. Not in the sense you mean.”

  “I should hardly think so,” he said, and there was amusement in his tone. “After all, you are a man and a Greek, not a barbarian slave.”

  I let the “Greek” pass. Perhaps I was, though no one born in the pure free air of Attica would consider me such, half Carian and half Ionian. I shrugged. “He i
s the best that remains. And I must place my service somewhere. Perhaps in time Egypt will come to feel like home. Indeed, I do not think I would have chosen as I did, were it not for Egypt.”

  “Perhaps it's a place, not a person,” he said quietly. “There are men who love their home above all else, even their gods. But Alexander is my god, and I shall see his wishes followed, whether I deal with Ptolemy or not.”

  “Ptolemy will take him to Egypt,” I said. “He will be interred in Alexandria, in the city of his founding, in a tomb where men will worship until the end of time. This is Ptolemy's intent. I swear it.”

  “If that is his intent, I am well content,” Bagoas said. “And if he will allow me to serve there all my days.”

  “If that is your desire,” I said, “he has no reason to gainsay it.”

  I passed him the water skin back, and he drank again. He seemed in no hurry to leave, and I said so.

  Bagoas shrugged. “I will not go back into the camp until dawn. Getting out was easy—no one seeks to prevent people from leaving—but returning at night would be difficult. I will walk straight back in at dawn, when the watch changes and camp is breaking, as though I had walked out a few minutes before looking for a moment's privacy. I might as well wait here as closer the camp, where I am more likely to be discovered.”

  I nodded. Truly, he was a pretty thing, but not empty-headed in the least. I could see why the King had wanted him.

  “I shall be with the assault,” I said. “It will be all cavalry to spring the trap before the sun even stands high. Keep down and don't get in the way of our business. I would not see you hurt.”

  Bagoas nodded gravely. “I know how to do that,” he said. “I will stay with the coffin.”

  “It will be a hot fight,” I said. “Do that. I will tell my men to leave you.”

  “You are a troop leader?”

  “I was,” I said. “When the King was alive. Now I lead Ptolemy's cavalry,” I said. Lately they had begun to call it Lydias’ Ile, which always disconcerted me a little. I was not used to being Hipparch, and wondered if I ever would be.

  Just on the edge of the horizon I could see the faint dark shade of the sea. The stars would not pale for hours yet. When they did, it would be on a blood day. Another one.

  Bagoas leaned back against the stone, his fine features limned by starlight. “Why do you do this?” he said curiously. “If not for Ptolemy? Is it for the King that you risk your life for his cold body?”

  Perhaps it was the quiet that caused me to answer truthfully. “Because General Hephaistion would have wished it.”

  “Ah,” he said, and in that word was a wealth of understanding that I did not want to hear.

  “If I have worshipped at a lesser shrine, what is it to you?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he said. He was quiet a long moment. “I remember now where I saw you. Not Susa, but Babylon.”

  “Yes,” I said. I did not think of that, either, the funeral pyre and the coins on his closed eyes, his long red hair spread upon his shoulders.

  Bagoas was quiet a long time, and only the flicker of his lashes in the darkness told me he was still awake. At last he said, contemplatively, as though he discussed something long ago and far away, “We did not hate each other, I think. He and I.”

  “No,” I said. “I don't think so. And if you did, it's nothing now. When the world is a ruin, it hardly matters who hated who once.”

  Bagoas nodded.

  “And he did not love me,” I said. I did not know, of course, if Alexander had loved Bagoas, but there were other things I was more certain of.

  “Does that matter?” he asked.

  “No.” I looked at him sideways. “Of course not.” I got to my feet and extended a hand to Bagoas so that he might rise. “Come, then. We must be gone to keep the faith with the dead. I will see you before noon, where the road comes down to the plains. Keep your head down and stay with your lord. I will be there.”

  “I know,” he said, and gripped my hand in farewell.

  WAITING WAS THE hardest part. At midmorning we were ready, an Ile eight hundred strong, divided into two parts. Half our force waited drawn up on the south side of the road under cover of cedar trees, at the bottom of the long incline where the road came down out of the mountains. The other half waited on the north side of the road drawn up close against the mountains in a tight gully. My scouts, dismounted, had climbed the slope above. Two of them waited there, able to see the top of the last rise. They would provide the signal.

  I held my hand to my forehead, looking at them. They both waited as well, their eyes trained on the road.

  Waiting. The sun climbed up the sky. My horse drowsed. I would have liked to have ridden round a bit, working off the tension, but if I did then everyone would start moving. Better to be still and present an air of cool confidence. We had to wait for them to reach exactly the right place.

  The sun had just slipped west of the zenith by a hair when one of the scouts came down the hill a few paces, the mountainside blocking his body from the road. He lifted both his arms and waved to me.

  I waved back.

  They were coming.

  The scouts slid down the hill, all but tumbling in their haste to get back to their horses.

  They were coming. And we must wait. We must not spring the trap too fast and give their infantry the gates of the pass to defend.

  Two years, I thought. He has been dead nearly two years. Surely the world cannot have been without Alexander that long, but it was so. It had been two years since I stood beside his bier in Babylon.

  Waiting. The men about me were restive.

  “Patience,” I said quietly, and I thought I saw admiration in the eyes of one young man. Cool. Collected. Confident. Though my heart pounded in my chest. I was not young anymore, a green boy spoiling for battle. We could wait.

  The first ranks came out of the pass. Bagoas had not lied. The infantry marched without their armor in the heat of the day. They had their sarissas, but no steel hats or breastplates.

  “Let them pass,” I said to Glaukos almost in a whisper. “Wait.”

  They started down the hill, heads rising at the cool breeze from the sea that at last reached them. We were not so far now.

  There was the hearse. An enormous team of oxen pulled it, glittering winged Victory on each corner, holding forth golden olive wreaths, the outside of the hearse painted scarlet and gold. Drivers walked beside the beasts, steadying them on the incline. They trotted a bit faster, urged by the weight of the hearse behind them. It was a magnificent sight.

  The first ranks were reaching the bottom. Now I must be careful. They were not a half mile from the men waiting beneath the cedar trees. Waiting too long…

  The soldiers following the hearse appeared, marching in good order. Twenty. Forty. A hundred. The baggage wagons and provisions would still be in the pass, but that would not matter.

  My mare's ears pricked forward as though she knew an instant before I did.

  “Forward!” I raised my sword hand and shouted as loud as I could, my voice cutting through the stillness. “Alexander!”

  Like a wave we broke from cover, sweeping downhill like a torrent on the rear of the ranks.

  “Alexander and Ptolemy!”

  The wedge resolved itself, each man falling into his proper position, a flying wedge with me at the point, four hundred horses in wild career. The beating of their hooves was like a heartbeat, like the blood singing in my veins, like drums leading the dance.

  Fire kindled off my sword point, held like a beacon. Behind me the wind tore away their answering shouts. “Alexander and Ptolemy!”

  If I had lifted into the air I should not have been surprised.

  The ranks before us turned about seeking their places. They were veterans too, and not easily spooked, but they were not in steel and they were in column. I didn't think they'd manage to form up before we were upon them, and I was right.

  Only a few sarissas were leve
led before we reached them. I swung between two of them. The ranks were too far apart for them to be an effective barrier. Once we were inside the long reach of the sarissas, they were essentially defenseless. The sarissas were too long to fight hand to hand.

  My mare went up with a squeeze, the first man borne down beneath her hooves while I took the second with my sword, straight into his unarmored chest.

  And then the wave broke.

  Far ahead, on the other side of the hearse, the first ranks turned back to face us just as the other half of our men burst from cover of the trees, bearing down on the flank of the column in the front.

  I was wind, I was flame, I was fire on the mountain. A fighting rush lifted me and held me, guard and thrust, guard and thrust and thrust again.

  Someone grabbed at my left leg, but my mare went up again, tossing him off as the thresher tosses barley.

  Ahead of me, the golden hearse shimmered like a mirage, Victory leaning down with her golden wreath.

  “To the King! To Alexander!” I yelled, the old rallying cry of the Companions, heard on many a field from one end of the world to the other. This was the last time. Never again would he be in the midst of the battle. Never again.

  We swept toward the hearse. Now the resistance was light. My mare stepped nimbly over fallen sarissas. The veterans, wise in the ways of this, had dropped them as useless. Those who resisted had drawn sword instead.

  “To the King!” I turned about when I gained it, my back to the golden lions that guarded Alexander's body, sword raised high. “To the King!” Once again I stood before his body, as I had on his deathbed. I wondered where Bagoas was. I hoped he'd kept clear.

  “Throw down your weapons and we'll give quarter!” I yelled. “Throw them down!” A cluster of cavalry was around me, fifteen or twenty who had charged straight through. We had the hearse.

  In ones and twos, and then in larger groups, they began to surrender.

  An infantryman with a bloody nose and beard whom I vaguely recognized elbowed his way to me. I thought he was probably the officer in charge. “What are the terms? And who do you serve?”