by Tom Holt
‘You remember Megasthenes? He was in our gang when we were boys.’
I smiled. ‘Of course I remember him. Never been anybody who could imitate a dog being sick like Megasthenes could. How is the old son of a—?’
‘He’s dead too,’ Sostratus said. ‘Got stabbed to death by robbers on the way home from the City. In broad daylight, too.’
You’ve no idea how much meeting Sostratus cheered me up. I’ve always found other people’s bad news has that effect on me; you listen to a catalogue of woes and then think of your own troubles, and you come away all happy and grateful. What really bucked me up, though, was the thought that if I’d stayed in Athens and taken my rightful share of the family property, I could well have ended up just as miserable as Sostratus. In fact, he made me feel so good about myself that I decided to do something for him.
‘What’re these?’ he asked, as I pressed the gift into his hands.
‘Just dried leaves,’ I told him. ‘You chuck them on the fire and they make the room smell nice.’
‘Oh.’
‘All the way from Scythia ,’ I pointed out.
‘Oh. Are they valuable?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Depends,’ I said. ‘If you mean valuable as in selling them for money, probably not. On the other hand, how can you put a price on happiness and a general sense of well-being?’
He looked at the leaves for a moment as if he expected them to try to steal the money out of his mouth. ‘I could do with something like that, actually,’ he said. ‘That bastard Coenus has started a tannery right across the street from our house, and you wouldn’t believe the stench—’
‘Try the leaves,’ I said. ‘Just the job.’
He thought a little longer, then said, ‘Thank you.’ I think he was almost as surprised as I was to hear the words come out of his mouth. ‘Well then, this trip won’t be a complete dead loss, then. Almost,’ he added, ‘but not quite.’
I frowned. ‘Aren’t they paying you, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh sure. Not much, but something. Trouble is, I spent most of what I’ve been paid already on what I thought were genuine bona fide goods, and it turns out they’re worthless.’ He grinned wretchedly. ‘Just my luck,’ he added.
‘Sounds like it,’ I said. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I was in the market at Ephesus , we stopped there a day or so on our way here, and I saw this stall selling jars of honey. Dirt cheap; of course, if I’d had the sense I’d been born with I’d have suspected something was wrong then and there. Anyhow, I bought the stuff, twelve jars of it, and stowed it under my bench back on the ship. Turned out later — and of course I only found this out after we’d set sail, when it was too late to do anything about it — this honey was made by bees who fed off this special sort of shrub you only get in that region; big bushy job with glossy leaves, purple flower in late spring. Can’t remember the name offhand. Anyhow, the point is, honey made with pollen from that stuff’s deadly poison. Eat so much as a finger’s wipe of it and you’re dead, just like that. Talk about a narrow escape; I could have wiped out half of Attica with that lot. Although,’ he added, ‘the way things are there right now, maybe I’d have been doing them a favour, at that.’
I waited for a moment before saying anything. ‘This honey,’ I said. ‘Where is it now?’
‘Still on the ship,’ he replied. ‘When I’ve got five minutes I’ll dump it into the sea and wash out the jars. Might get a few obols for them, you never know.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll take them off your hands for you.’
‘Why?’
‘Sorry?’
He scowled at me. ‘What do you want with twelve jars of deadly poison?’
Well, he had me there. ‘I’ll give you what you paid for them,’ I said.
‘Answer the question, dammit. What do you—’
‘Mice,’ I said. ‘And wasps. They can be a real pest, out here in the desert.’
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered, looking away. ‘What if someone ate some by mistake and died? Wouldn’t people say it was my fault?’
‘Doubt it,’ I replied. ‘And anyway, I’ll take full responsibility. But nobody’s going to die, I promise you. Not any more.’
‘What do you mean “any more”?’
‘Do you want to get rid of the stuff or don’t you?’
‘Oh, all right. But you’ll promise me you won’t—’
‘I promise.’
Well, we hauled the stuff back on a cart. Then I gave Sostratus the slip and went to look for Peitho.
‘Poisoned honey?’ he said. ‘That’s right.’
He bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘How do you know it works?’ he said.
I frowned. ‘Well, it’s not as if he was trying to sell it to me. Why’d he say it was deadly poison if it wasn’t?’
‘Maybe he was just exaggerating,’ Peitho said. ‘Maybe it just makes you ill, gives you the runs or something.’
I considered this for a moment. ‘So what do you suggest?’ I said. ‘You want to test it on somebody first, is that it?’
He looked at me all strange. ‘No, of course not. Well, not on somebody.
Something.’
I couldn’t see any harm in that. ‘Such as?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. It’d have to be something big,’ he went on. ‘If we use a dog or a sheep, that wouldn’t prove anything.’
I had a brainwave. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘What about a camel?’
‘That’d do,’ he replied. ‘Where are we going to get a camel from?’
I clicked my tongue impatiently. ‘This is Egypt ,’ I said. ‘Everywhere you look, there’s bloody camels.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You find us a camel.’
So I did. I marched straight down to the livestock pens, grabbed the smallest and most hapless-looking Egyptian clerk I could find and started yelling at him, hoping he wasn’t one of those annoying cosmopolitan Egyptians who can speak Greek. Fortunately he wasn’t, so I was able to terrify him into letting me book out a camel without actually stealing it. Works every time, that trick; if you’re annoyed and you outrank them and they can’t understand a word you’re saying, all they really want to do is get out of your way. Understandably, of course; the Macedonian reputation for unmitigated bastardry is entirely merited.
The camel hit the deck like a windfall apple off a tree; I’ll swear its stupid, ugly mouth was still churning away when it went splat. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything taken dead that quickly since my first campaign in Illyria , when the man next to me in the line had his head taken off by a catapult bolt.
‘It works, then,’ Peitho said.
‘Looks like it,’ I replied.
He prodded the camel’s nose with his foot. ‘What are we going to do with this?’
he asked.
I hadn’t really given the matter any thought. Under normal circumstances, I’d simply have called over the nearest couple of squaddies and told them to clear up the mess; as it was, I didn’t want to do that, just in case. Well, you never know; people remember things, they put two and two together. And if that sounds paranoid, fair enough. When you get into heavy stuff like regicide and treason, paranoia s a useful survival tool.
‘Bury it?’ I suggested.
Peitho gave me a pained look. ‘You bury the bloody thing,’ he grumbled. ‘Look at it, it’s huge.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not that big,’ I said. ‘If you go steady, don’t try and rush it, won’t take you more than a couple of hours.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘Bad back,’ I said (which was true; bad experience dismantling and manhandling carts the day before).
‘Get lost,’ Peitho said, looking around. ‘We’ll drop it down a well.’
I frowned. ‘Can’t do that,’ I said. ‘Mortal sin, that is, in these parts; hardly the way to stay inconspicuous. Go on, bury it like I told you. The sooner you make a start...’
The flies were
starting to gather. ‘I know,’ Peitho said, ‘we’ll send it to the mess tent. We’ll say it got delivered here by mistake, nothing to do with us.
They’ll cut it up and stew it, problem solved. Besides, it’s wicked to waste good food.’
‘You’re crazy,’ I said. ‘You saw the way it went down, the bloody thing’s full of poison. You could wipe out half the bloody camp.’
‘I’m not burying it,’ Peitho said firmly. ‘For gods’ sakes, I’m a Captain of Engineers, Captains of Engineers don’t bury camels. If anybody saw me, they’d know at once I was up to something.’
I scratched my head. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘we’ll leave it here.’
‘What?’
‘Just leave it. Walk away. There’s nothing to connect us with it. Nobody’s seen us except that Egyptian clerk at the pound, and we all look alike to them.’
Peitho looked worried. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it.’
A big fat fly settled on the camel’s naked eyeball and started to get busy.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring you a spade.’
‘We’ll leave it,’ Peitho said. ‘Nothing to do with us.’
‘Agreed. And if anybody did see us with it, we’ll just tell the truth. We checked it out of the pen, it suddenly keeled over dead, we left it there and walked away. What does that make us guilty of? Untidiness. They don’t chop heads off for being untidy, even in this man’s army.’
Peitho rubbed his temples, in the manner of a man who has a bad headache coming.
‘I suppose that is the truth,’ he said, ‘in a way. I mean,’ he went on, ‘most of it is actually true.’
‘All of it,’ I said. ‘Which is more than you can say of History.’
I don’t think anybody would deny that Alexander’s rapid and well-documented slide into weirdness began not long after the visit to the Ammon shrine at Siva.
The big question is, did he catch weirdness there, like some kind of nasty tummy bug, or did it just bring out the weirdness that had always been in there somewhere? Like most big questions, I’m not sure it matters a damn, but for what it’s worth I’m inclined to go for the latter option.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying his trip to Ammon had nothing to do with it.
But a man doesn’t walk into a place believing he’s a mortal and come out again believing he’s a god unless there’s at least a slender core of weirdness in him already.
What’s the matter, Euxenus? You look like you’ve just swallowed a wasp. Didn’t you know? Oh, for gods’ sakes, I thought everybody knew. One thing it was never intended to be was a secret.
Yes, it’s perfectly true; and I don’t mean History true, I mean true. During his time in Egypt, shortly after his interview with whatever it is they’ve got tucked away in that shrine at Siva, Alexander let it be known that with effect from such-and-such a date he was a god and that all diplomatic and administrative protocols were to be amended to take account of this development.
The official explanation was that it was all for the benefit of the Egyptians, who believe that all their kings are gods; if Alexander went round saying he wasn’t a god, he couldn’t be King of Egypt, and we’d suddenly find ourselves with a horrendous rebellion on our hands. Perfectly valid point; the Egyptians are like that. Go into the market, round up a hundred people at random and cut off their heads, and nobody’d dream of making an issue out of it. Accidentally run a cart over a sacred cat or a sacred dog and they’ll come for you with scythes and hayforks, and they’ll keep coming till either you or they are wiped out. Really, you’ve got to admire a people who take their faith that seriously (actually no, you haven’t; people who take their faith that seriously are dangerous nutters. Still, we as a race do tend to admire dangerous nutters, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t admire the Egyptians. They’re pretty much like us, when you get right down to it, except that they’re completely different).
Well, that was the official explanation, and it was logical and comforting in a look-at-these-funny-foreigners sort of a way; at first it was all a great big joke, with Alexander joining in absolutely as much as he was able to, given that he had the sense of humour of a sandal. In the mess-hall, they’re serving dinner; everybody else gets their usual monster serving of bread and roast beef, Alexander gets an empty plate. ‘Where’s mine?’ he asks. ‘You’re having prayers,’
they reply. It starts tipping down with rain, everybody’s getting soaked;
Hephaestion gives Alexander a filthy look. ‘Pack it in,’ he says. ‘Sorry,’
Alexander replies, looking sheepish. ‘Told you you shouldn’t have had the watercress,’ says Cleitus, shaking his head. Everybody laughs.
Except me, of course. Well, you understand why; but Peitho, poor bloody Macedonian that he was, couldn’t see why I was being so uptight about it.
‘It’s an Athenian thing,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘So explain,’ he said.
I shrugged, and stoked up the fire. ‘It’s how we Athenians honour the gods,’ I said. ‘We make fun of them. It’s our sincerest expression of faith.’
Peitho raised an eyebrow. ‘Get away,’ he said.
‘Straight up. That’s how the comic plays started off, actually; the priests and the congregation making fun of the god. It’s our way of showing affection, which is so much more important than faith.’
‘You’re an odd lot, you Athenians,’ Peitho said.
‘A lot of people think so,’ I admitted. ‘Blasphemy, they call it; to which we quite rightly reply that the biggest blasphemy of all is saying that the gods haven’t got a sense of humour. Which,’ I added, ‘they quite patently do. You look at the way human beings reproduce, or remove waste materials from their bodies, and then try to tell me the gods haven’t got a sense of humour. Pretty basic one, not to mention a bit sick; but nobody’s perfect.’
Peitho thought about it for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I can see where you’re bothered, you being an Athenian. But Alexander isn’t; he’s Macedonian.’
I nodded. ‘But he was brought up Athenian, to all intents and purposes. Educated Athenian. Made to learn Athenian plays. Don’t think for a moment he isn’t seeing all this exactly the way I am. And that worries me. It’s as bad as the Egyptians falling flat on their faces whenever he looks at them. Worse. The Egyptians are just funny foreigners; the people cracking the jokes are Greek.’
Peitho breathed in, held his breath and blew out slowly. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I can see why you’re worried. Doesn’t change anything, does it? I mean, if we were going to kill him when he was relatively sane, we ought to kill him even more now he’s gone potty. Well,’ he added, ‘you know what I mean.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But here we are talking about it, not doing anything.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Oh, come on, Peitho. What I mean is, what’re we waiting for? We’ve got the poison honey, there’s never going to be a better time. Why don’t we just do it?’
He blinked several times, rapidly. ‘What, right now?’
I shrugged. ‘Why not?’
He rubbed his cheeks with the heels of his hands, as if he was sleepy and trying to wake himself up. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
‘Right.’ I felt a shiver go right through me. ‘You don’t think we should—’
‘What?’ Peitho looked at me. ‘You just said we should do it now. You just said.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s not what I said,’ I replied. ‘I said I couldn’t see a reason why we shouldn’t do it now. Doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one.’
Peitho frowned. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.
I stood up, took a few steps forward, then back, then sat down again. ‘Let’s face it,’ I said, ‘we aren’t very good at this. It was only the other day we were wetting ourselves trying to think what to do with a dead camel. Now you’re
saying we should murder the King of Macedon and half the court.’
‘You’ve changed your mind,’ Peitho said. ‘You’re scared.’
‘I’m bloody not.’
‘You bloody are.’
‘Yes, of course I’m scared,’ I said. ‘If I wasn’t scared, I’d be crazier than he is. Scared is a precious gift the gods gave us to stop us doing bloody stupid things that’ll get us killed.’
Peitho nodded. ‘Perfectly true,’ he said. ‘But the whole point of killing Alexander is to stop him getting us killed. What you might call a higher plane of scaredness.’
I slumped forward in my chair. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should either do this thing now or not do it at all.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ Peitho said cheerfully. ‘After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen to us?’
‘Are you serious?’ I said. ‘We could be caught and horribly tortured to death.’
‘All right,’ Peitho said. ‘And if we don’t do it, if we leave it and for some reason it becomes impossible, like we move out or suddenly we can’t get to him, what then? We could be killed in a battle, or get wounded and die slowly and painfully of blood poisoning, or catch some terrible disease; or the Persians might get us and peg us out in the desert to die, or—’
‘Oh, shut up, for gods’ sakes,’ I said. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘I’m just saying,’ Peitho replied. ‘There’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen, so what’s the point of worrying ourselves sick about it? Just makes it harder on ourselves.’
I thought about it for a moment. ‘So what you’re saying is,’ I said, ‘we should do it now. Right—now.’
‘Yes.’
I sighed. ‘All right,’ I said.
‘You’ll do it?’
‘Didn’t I just say?’
‘Sure. All right, let’s do it.
‘Right.’
We both stood up — a little bit shakily, but that was the medicine, it catches you sometimes if you move suddenly. ‘The honey,’ I said. ‘Where’d you stow it?’
‘In the supply tent, of course,’ he said. ‘You don’t think I’d keep it here, do you?’