by Jo Graham
Bagoas’ brows knit together. “And any man could be a magistrate?”
“Any free man resident in the city, yes,” I said. “He must run in the district in which he lives.”
“Artashir could be a magistrate?”
I shrugged. “He could be. I can't imagine why Artashir would want to run for magistrate, but if he did there wouldn't be any reason he couldn't be.”
“He's Persian.”
“Yes.” I met his eyes. “The law of the city is for everyone.”
“What if a Jew ran from the Jewish district?”
I blinked. I had not truthfully thought that far. “I don't see why he couldn't be,” I said slowly. “There would be nothing in the law to prevent it if he were duly elected.”
“And then he would enforce Jewish law?”
I shook my head. “He would enforce the laws of the city. Jews may certainly keep to Jewish law above and beyond the laws of the city, but the laws of the city do not recognize Jewish law. For example, we have it in the laws of the city that if a butcher uses false weights to defraud customers, it is a crime. If he willfully disguises one kind of meat for another more expensive to defraud customers, it is a crime. But the laws of the city do not say that cattle must be butchered in accordance to Jewish law. Should a Jewish butcher wish to work in accordance with Jewish law and to advertise that, he may as long as he also observes the laws of the city in respect to weights and measures. The magistrates will not enforce that his meat must be butchered in accordance to Jewish law, but will consider use of false weights a petty crime for which he would pay a fine and return to the customers their money.”
Bagoas met my eyes. “And you truly think men will accept this?”
“I hope so,” I said simply. “I do not see how else we can proceed. And it has worked before in the cities of Greece. It is not as though we have invented democracy.”
“Democracy hasn't worked,” Bagoas said. “In Athens it turned into Demosthenes’ demagoguery, and elsewhere it has failed, wrecked on the rocks of wealth or its inability to defend itself against stronger nations with kings. Persia burned Athens, if you remember, and that was Xerxes, not a great king.”
“Which is why we will have both,” I said. “A pharaoh to rule as Lord of the Two Lands, to wield the army and deal with other nations, and a constitution for the city that does not depend on Pharaoh. Add to that a third leg, the ancient bureaucracy of Egypt that has existed for a thousand years through its temples and priests, and there is a three-legged stool that will stand. It will endure even if there is a bad king for a few years. It would take twenty-five years of bad rule to set it adrift, we hope. And bad kings rarely reign so long.”
“I had not thought you a dreamer, Lydias,” Bagoas said, but there was something in his eyes that wanted to believe.
“Come to Alexandria,” I said, “and you will see the dream made real. Alexander dreamed the Successors, an army of the sons of every nation. That will never now be real. But come to Alexandria and you will see his dreams enfleshed. You will see it in the sons of the city and in her stones, in this thing we are building. There is nothing like it in the world, and men will gape at it as they did at the first man who kindled fire and brought it into his cave. A dangerous thing, a strange thing.”
Bagoas’ mouth twisted, and I could not tell if he meant it for mockery, or if he remembered some other conversation with someone else, not without pain. “The face of things to come.”
“Yes,” I said.
WE ATE IN his room, sitting together on the large couch. It was piled up with pillows and a magnificent leopard skin, which I did not think he had gotten in Egypt. In fact, much of this must have come from Persia, and I said so.
Bagoas’ eyes smiled over the rim of his wine cup. “As heavy as the hearse already was, I didn't think it would be much heavier with a few things of mine.”
“You are the only man in the world who would be kidnapped with your luggage,” I said, shaking my head.
“There were things I did not like to lose,” he said, stroking the leopard skin. “This was a gift from Alexander, and I will not see its like again.” He spread his hands. “Besides, what should I do, arriving in Egypt with nothing?”
“I'm not complaining,” I said. I looked down at the sweet cakes still remaining on my plate and said what I had known I must. “I'm sorry I didn't ask you to come to Alexandria with me. I should have. I didn't think of it until I was halfway there. We could certainly have used you.”
Bagoas shrugged. “It wasn't your place to. If Ptolemy wants me he can send for me.”
I put my cup down. “He would not want you to take it as that sort of sending for. Ptolemy is a little strange, you know. He has no interest in boys at all, and for that matter I have never seen him with any woman besides Thais. And besides, I don't think Ptolemy thinks you're his to send for.”
“If not his, then whose?” His smile was pretty, but it did not touch his eyes.
“I don't think you're anyone's,” I said carefully. “You were the King's, but I cannot imagine who could say you are theirs now. You are a free man.”
“I am not a man at all,” Bagoas said gently. “There is no such thing as a eunuch who does not belong to someone, any more than there is such a thing as a woman who belongs to no one. If I do not belong to Ptolemy, who then do I belong to?”
“I don't know,” I said. “But you could come to Alexandria if you wanted.”
Bagoas leaned back on the cushions, one tapered foot on the edge of the couch. “We are all bound by our duty, Lydias. You act as though one can just choose who one will be.”
“We can choose our duties,” I said. “When I was married, I had a duty to my wife. But it was a duty I had chosen when I married her. I have a duty now to Ptolemy, but it is a duty I chose when I swore myself to his service. I will uphold my duty to the best of my abilities,” I said, lifting my crippled hand into the light, “but it is not unwelcome. I decided to follow Ptolemy because I thought he was the best Companion remaining.”
“That is the privilege of a man,” he said, and his eyes were shadowed. “Women and eunuchs do not choose, but belong to those who own them. Do you think if I were Artashir I would not choose the same? But I am not Artashir.”
“You know full well there are more ways to serve a king than in arms,” I said, and an inspiration struck me. “You see how we are struggling to get a government working, much less a court! You are what we need in Alexandria. You know how courts work, how to plan things and get things done, and how to do all without offending people. Ptolemy has never had a chief of staff except in a military sense, and I am as ill suited to the job as anyone else, having never even lived in a great household, much less run one! We are about to face diplomats from all the kingdoms of the world, and I do not know what needs to be done! Nor does that young bride, eighteen years old and not speaking a word of anything besides Greek. If you were in Alexandria, Bagoas, you could take charge of Ptolemy's Household. I assume you could work with Amina in the women's quarters without offense?”
Bagoas opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I could. In Persia and in most of the kingdoms of the East that is a eunuch's job. If one is lucky, when one's looks have faded and one is no longer a royal favorite, one learns how to run the Household. Amina is a Persian lady of noble rank. If she is the principal lady in waiting to Eurydice, she would expect to work with the eunuch who runs the Household.”
“There is also Eurydice's aunt, Berenice,” I said. “She seemed very sensible to me, though she only speaks Greek too. But I think she will be useful in time.” My left arm was cramping where I leaned on it, the muscles in the lower arm beginning to ache again, and I shifted, lying more on my side and shoulder, though it turned my head away from Bagoas. “Come to Alexandria. I will speak to Ptolemy about it. Will you come if he asks you?”
His voice was low. “I will come if he asks me,” Bagoas said. “But I am not asking you t
o do me favors or intercede with me at court.”
I stretched my arm where it was cramping. “I am not doing you favors,” I said. “I have a job I do not know how to do, and you are the one who does. Consider rather that I am recruiting someone who will make my work easier. If you take the problems of the palace and Eurydice off my hands it is I who will owe you a debt of gratitude.” Raised in Miletus as I was, I understood the obligation of favors. I did not want Bagoas to owe me, especially when the coin he had to pay was not something I should like to claim. At least not as obligation. I ducked my face against the couch pillows under the cover of stretching my sore shoulder.
And should I want it if it were offered freely, not in repayment of favors?
I should be mad not to, I thought. Where in the world was there another so beautiful, whose company I enjoyed more? Would not any man be mad to refuse those green eyes and that whiplash-fine body, honed by years of dancing and acrobatics? I had seen him dance once, in the games after Gedrosia, and though my heart had not been in it, I could hardly have missed how beautiful he was, each long, slow walkover demonstrating perfect control.
We had both aged since then. I thought with a shock that it had been nearly five years. It didn't seem so long. But Alexander had been dead two and a half years, and Sati almost five. In two months I should be twenty-nine. Surely Bagoas was not much younger.
Of course I would want him. But I knew enough to say nothing. It is that way, in friendships with women or eunuchs. If one truly wishes for friendship, one must never admit the possibility of anything else.
“You would like Alexandria,” I said, my face still turned from him, stretching casually against the couch pillows.
“And what is it that I would like?” he asked. He sounded relieved that we ventured back onto safer ground.
“It's beautiful,” I said. “The harbor is a perfect crescent, white sand and blue water. And along the main streets the city is growing, with fine houses and markets and everything else. When it's done it will be the most beautiful city in the world. And Alexander will have the most magnificent tomb ever built, better even than the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos. Believe me when I say the Egyptians know how to build tombs!”
At this he laughed as I hoped he would. “I have been to see the pyramids,” he said. “And the ones at Saqqara near where the tombs of the Apis bulls are. Is it true that Ptolemy means for Alexander to lie there?”
“Only for a little while, perhaps,” I said. “Until his tomb is ready in Alexandria. But for now he must remain within the city walls of Memphis.”
“Perdiccas.”
“Perdiccas,” I agreed. “He will come in a few months, as soon as he has had time to assemble his army. And I am useless.” I stretched out my hand on the cushion. It would go flat only with effort.
“Surely not useless,” Bagoas said, and I felt him shift behind me. “There is more to you than your hand. Must you be in the front of the charge? Cannot you command from the rear?”
“I suppose,” I said doubtfully, trying to straighten my forefinger entirely. “It's not done.”
“In Macedon,” said Bagoas, taking my hand in his and straightening it gently, his fingers digging into my palm where it was sore. “But why would Ptolemy want to be rid of the man who stole the hearse and brought it to Pelousion? Even if you can't fight on horseback there is nothing wrong with your mind.” He flexed my fingers again, working the muscle below my thumb. “Does that hurt?”
“Only in a good way,” I admitted. “Mostly it hurts all the time, my hand and my wrist and my arm.” It was good to be appreciated, I thought. It was a nice piece of work stealing the hearse, and I did not at all mind being told so.
“Let me see what I can do,” Bagoas said, shifting about again so that he sat beside me, one hand on my arm above the elbow.
“I am sorry I fell asleep on you when you worked on my shoulder before,” I said. “It was the wine, and it was very late.”
“Well, you are supposed to relax,” he said, and I heard the smile in his voice. He plucked at the back of my chiton. “Take this off and let me get at it properly.”
“If you don't mind too much,” I said. I had never known the removal of clothing to be the duty of the conscientious host, but I thought that while fortune favored the bold generally, it would not in this case. Better to let him set the pace, and to be certain what he wanted. I twisted about trying to pull my chiton over my head with my one good hand.
“Let me help.” He untwisted my sleeve where I had gotten tangled up and took it gracefully.
I had never adopted the Persian fashion of trousers, except occasionally to ride, so this left me in nothing but my skin, stretched out on my stomach on the couch. Not that I felt I had much to hide. After all, you're always nude in the gymnasium, and ten years on horseback does develop your posterior.
“Here.” He pulled the leopard skin from the end of the couch and tucked it over me from the waist down. “You wouldn't want to take cold.”
“No, of course not,” I said. I was beginning to see where this was going as he began to knead my sore shoulder with scented oil. Not many people keep a bottle of scented oil within hand's reach during dinner! Even I am not quite that dim.
I found it difficult not to drift into a stupor under his expert attention. “It smells wonderful,” I said. “What is it?”
“Lemon,” Bagoas said, “and some other things. Nabatean myrrh oil, which warms the skin, rose and star of the sea.”
“You're so much better than the boy at the gymnasium,” I mumbled.
“I should think so,” Bagoas said, and there was a smile in his voice. “In Persia we do think one should be properly trained before one is sent to the Great King.” I had never heard him speak of his life before Alexander, and I wondered at it. I did not suppose that it could have been very pleasant, serving Darius. He was perhaps not a cruel man, but a vain man and a coward does not make much of a master. I had been a slave myself, and there were certainly many men I would not have cared to serve in the bedroom.
“Did you have lessons?” I asked, wanting to know more of him without putting in at any bad bit he should not like to remember.
“I did indeed,” he replied. “It is a great deal of work. There's a good bit more to it than being pretty. There are pretty boys in every marketplace.”
“Yes, I see,” I said. Thais had said much the same once. There are pretty slave girls everywhere, but an Athenian hetaira is something else entirely.
“I had lessons in this, how to serve at the bath and at the table, and in all of the ceremonial of court, and of course in dance and music, though I fear I am not much of a musician.” His hands were both gentle and thorough. “Some eunuchs keep a sweet voice all their lives, but I had not much of a voice to begin with. Something of a disappointment,” he said, and I heard the edge in his voice again.
Yes, I thought. A disappointment like a colt one has bought because its sire was fleet as the wind, only to find out the colt takes after its dam. We are no more than that, when we are slaves. We are no more than the colt.
“I think a beautiful voice is overrated,” I said.
“Do you?” he said, and I heard him smile.
“I can't sing either,” I said.
“No one expects a cavalry general to sing.”
“Well, is there much call for the Master of the Household to sing either?” I asked.
“I am not yet Ptolemy's Master of Household,” Bagoas said, but there was no heat in it. I had steered away from that edge.
Then he began to work on the backs of my thighs, and I found it difficult to keep a thought in my head.
“Turn over,” he said at last.
I took a deep breath. “That will be rather… um…” I said, trying to turn over while keeping the leopard skin strategically draped. “I can't help it that…”
I looked up to see him smiling down at me, his long black hair nearly sweeping across my chest. “I can be more discour
aging,” Bagoas said, and leaned down and kissed me.
At which point there was really no more need for words.
THE GATHERING
STORM
I dreamed, and in my dream I stood in the desert. Above us, the dawn sky stretched pale blue, the last stars disappeared. We had marched all night. It was easier thus, with so little water.
Now we camped in a steep wadi whose sheltering walls would give us some respite from the sun. I took my helmet off and scrubbed my whole left hand across my sweat-damp hair. Sati had already pitched our tent and was putting a handful of lentils to soak in a scant handful of water. Sikander was playing in the dust beside her, one little hand clasped around a pretty stone. The horses drowsed heads down in the picket line. We would have some rest before the next night's grueling march.
I turned because Ghost Dancer had suddenly gone up on his hind legs, fighting Hephaistion's groom. I started toward him, wondering what was wrong as he jerked the bridle from the boy's hand and took off at a full gallop, his long, lean legs covering ground.
Behind him, I saw it, a sudden puff of vapor in the air up the wadi and behind it a rolling sound like thunder. Somewhere, perhaps hundreds of miles away, a violent rainstorm had broken, and now all that water came roaring down the narrow channel of the wadi straight toward the camp.