The Persian Boy (5 page)

“And my mother?” He fell now into Persian. “She is too old for these hardships. Is she well cared for?”

“Great King, My Lady’s health is excellent. Alexander always inquires for it. When I left, he was visiting her nearly every day.”

“Visits my mother?” His face had changed suddenly. I thought that he looked pale. I could not think why; the Queen Mother was over seventy.

“Indeed, my lord. He gave her offense at first; but now, when he asks her to admit him, she always gives him leave.”

“What insult did he offer her?” asked the King. He sounded eager.

“He gave her a parcel of wool for weaving.”

“What? Like a slave?”

“So My Lady thought. But when she showed her affront, he begged her pardon. He said his mother and sister did such work, and he thought it would give her pastime. When My Lady perceived his ignorance, she accepted his apology. Sometimes they will be talking, through the interpreter, an hour together.”

The King sat staring before him. Presently he gave the eunuch leave to go, and, remembering my presence, signed to me to play. I played softly, seeing him troubled. It was to be many years, before I understood the cause.

I gave the news to my friends at court; for I had friends by now, some in high places, some not, who were glad to hear things first. I took no presents for this; it would have been like selling my friendship. Of course I took bribes, to further suits with the King. To refuse would have been to proclaim enmity, and someone would have poisoned me. Needless to say, I did not bore the King with their tedious suits; it was not for such things he kept me. I would say sometimes, “So-and-so gave me this to get your favor”; it amused him, because the others did not tell. Now and then he would ask, “What did he want?” and say, “Well, we must keep you in credit. I daresay it can be arranged.”

The strange conduct of the Macedonian King was much debated. Some said he liked to show himself a man of iron, above pleasure; some that he was impotent; some that he was keeping the Royal Family unharmed, to get good terms of surrender. Others, again, said he liked only boys.

The Queen’s Eunuch said that, indeed, he was waited on by a band of highborn youths; but this was the custom of all their kings. In his own belief, it was in the young man’s nature to be generous with suppliants. He quickly added that for beauty and presence he could not compare with our own King; he would scarcely stand higher than Darius’ shoulder. “Indeed, when he visited the ladies to give his safeguard, the Queen Mother bowed to his friend instead. If you will believe it, they walked in together, side by side, and hardly distinguished in dress from one another. The friend was taller, and handsome for a Macedonian. I was distraught, having seen the King in the roy?al tent already. The friend drew back, and she saw my warning signs. She was of course distressed, and began her prostration again before the King. But he raised her in his hands, and was not even angry with this man; he said, as the interpreter assures me, ‘Never mind, mother, you weren’t far out; he is Alexander too.’ “

Well, they are barbarians, I thought. Yet something sighed in my heart.

The eunuch said, “I never saw a king keep so little state; he lives worse than any general would with us. When he entered Darius’ tent, he stared like a peasant at its appointments. He knew what the bath was, and used it, the first thing he did; but for the rest, one had hard work not to smile. In Darius’ chair, his feet would not touch the ground, so he put them on the wine-table, taking it for a footstool. However, he soon moved in, like a poor man with a legacy. He looks like a boy, till you see his eyes.”

I asked what he had done with the royal concubines; had he preferred them to the Queen? The eunuch said they had all been presented to his friends; he had not kept one. “It’s boys then,” I said laughing. “So now we know.”

The girls from the Harem, whom the King had taken along, were of course the choicest, and a great loss to him. However, he still had plenty; some only of his nights were spent with me. Though it is true that, by old custom, there were as many women as days in the year, some were of course past youth; and it is an absurdity such as only Greeks could invent, that they were paraded nightly round his bed to choose from. Now and then he would visit the Harem, look over the girls, and learn from the Chief Eunuch there the names of five or six he found most pleasing. Then at night he would send for one; or sometimes for all the group to play and sing to him, later beckoning one to stay. He liked to conduct such matters gracefully.

When he went there he often took me with him. Of course I should never have been brought in the Queen’s presence; but I ranked rather higher than the concubines. He liked to have his beautiful possessions admired, if only by one another. Some of the girls were exquisite, with a fragile bloom like that of the palest flowers. Even I could dream of desiring them. Perhaps Oromedon had saved me from great danger; for already one or two had slid their eyes at me.

I met him once, crossing a courtyard in the sun, gaily dressed as ever; it was strange to know my own clothes were richer now. At first sight, I would have run straight up to embrace him; but he smiled softly and shook his head, and I now knew enough of courts to understand. It would never do, to have it seen that from the dish prepared for his master, he had kept a portion back. So I returned his smile in secret, and passed him by.

Sometimes, when the King had a girl at night, I would lie in my pretty room, smelling the scented breezes from the park, looking at moonlight striking my silver mirror, and thinking, How pleasant and cool this is, to lie here alone. If I loved him, I should be grieving. It made me sad and ashamed. He had done me many kindnesses, raised me to honor, given me my horse and the gifts my room was full of. He had not asked love of me, not even to pretend it. Why should I think of such a thing?

The truth was, for ten years I had been beloved by parents who loved each other. I had learned to think well of love; having had none since, I had not learned to think worse. Now I was at the age when boys fumble about and make their first mistakes, laughed at by unkind girls before their elders, or tumbling some sweaty peasant and thinking, So this is all? To me none of this could happen; love was the image of lost happiness, and the stuff of fantasy.

My art had no more to do with love than a doctor’s skill. I was good to look at, like the golden vine though less enduring; I knew how to wake appetite grown sluggish with satiety. My love was unspent, my dreams of it were more innocent than a homebred boy’s. I would whisper to some shadow made of moonlight, “Am I beautiful? It is for you al?one. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live.” It was true, at least, that youth cannot live without hope.

Summer grew hot in Susa; this time of year, the King should have been in the hills, at the summer palace of Ekbatana. But Alexander still sat before Tyre, stubbornly running out a mole to it; this was all I knew then of that great piece of siegecraft. Any time, they said, he might weary of the task, and turn inland; then Ekbatana would have been too far away. Indeed, it came to my ears that the captains thought the King should have stayed in Babylon. One said, “The Macedonian you would find nearer the action.” Another answered, “Well, it’s only a week from Susa down to Babylon; the generals there are doing well enough on their own. Or better.” I slipped off unseen. It was no part of my duty to inform on men who meant no harm and were only speaking too freely, as my father had once done. To do the King justice, he never asked it of me. He did not mix business with pleasure.

Then Tyre fell.

Alexander had broken the wall and stormed the breach. There had been a great killing; the Tyrians had murdered Alexander’s envoys before the siege, and then had flayed his men by pouring red-hot sand on them. The Tyrians who survived the sack had been enslaved, except those in Melkaart’s sanctuary. It seemed Alexander revered this god, though he called him Herakles. What all this meant, was that Persian ships had no port of call in the Middle Sea north of Egypt, save Gaza, which could not hold out long.

Little as I knew of the western empire, the King’s countenance told me how great the disaster was. Alexander’s way was now clear to Egypt, where our rule was hated ever since Ochos put back our yoke on them. He had defiled their temples and killed their holy bull-god; now, if our satraps there were to shut gates against Alexander, the Egyptians would spear them in the back.

Soon we all knew that the King had sent an embassy, led by his brother Oxathres, suing for peace.

The terms were not divulged. I had never been fool enough to coax the King for secrets. I’d been offered huge bribes to do it; but one learns as one goes along, and I found it policy to take small ones, saying he kept his counsel well, and though I would do my best for them, it would be cheating them to accept more. Thus they bore no grudges, and I could not come under the King’s suspicion, for I never asked him anything.

Even though the embassy used the royal post-stages for fresh horses, lords do not ride like King’s Messengers racing the wind. While we waited, life at the Palace was at pause, like dead air before a storm. My nights were spent alone. In those weeks, the King took a great turn for women. I think it gave him assurance he was a man.

When the embassy did return, its news was stale. Oxathres had thought Alexander’s answer should go quickly, and sent a copy by King’s Messenger. Galloping the Royal Road with fresh horses and fresh men, it arrived half a month ahead.

No need to ask questions. You could feel the thud of it all through the Palace and on into the city. All the world can quote it now, even from memory, as I do.

You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.

There was a time, I forget how long, perhaps a day, of still, stunned whisperings. Then suddenly all was trumpeting and shouting. Heralds proclaimed the King was marching west to Babylon, to ready his troops for war.

-4-

WE STARTED in a week. It was without precedent, for the Household to move so fast. The Palace was in an uproar. All the chamberlains were clucking about like hens. The Chief Eunuch of the Harem was trying to make t?he King decide which girls to take; the Warden of the Silverware appealed to me to choose out his favorite pieces. He himself had no time for me; the men he now called to conference wanted no dancing with it, and at night, he was so tired that he even slept alone.

One day I took my horse along the riverbank where the lilies grow in spring. I could see clear to the hills. Our fort was going back to its native stones. I half thought of riding up to say farewell; but I remembered looking back there, from the captain’s horse, the saddlebag with my father’s head bouncing and dripping. The flames of the burning rafters had risen thirty feet high. I went back, and saw to my packing.

The eunuchs of the Household would travel like the women, in covered carts with cushions; but no one expected this of me. I saw my horse groomed, and had a try at an ass for Neshi; but he had to walk with the other followers.

I took my good clothes, and a change of clothes for the road, and some dancing-costumes. My money and my jewels were in my belt-wallet; there too, in case of mischance, I put my hand-mirror and combs, and my eye-paint with its brushes. I never used carmine. No one should, who has the true Persian looks. It is vulgar to color ivory.

I bought also a little dagger. I had never used weapons; but at least, for the dance, one is taught to hold them properly.

The older eunuchs were much distressed at it, and begged me to leave it behind. They meant that unarmed eunuchs taken in war count as women, but with weapons not. I replied that any time I liked I could throw it away.

The truth was, I had dreamed again of my father, the old frightful dream. Though I woke in a sweat, I knew he had the right to come to me, his only son, demanding vengeance. In the dream, I heard the name of the traitor who had betrayed him, as he cried it on his way to death. In the morning, as always, I forgot it. There seemed small chance I would ever give him his rights; but at least for his sake I would go armed. There are eunuchs who become women, and those who do not; we are something by ourselves, and must make of it what we can.

It is the custom for the King to start a march at sunrise; I don’t know if it’s to give him the blessing of the sacred fire, or to let him have his sleep out. The carts and carriages were drawn up overnight. Most of us were astir soon after midnight, getting ready for the road.

At daybreak, I could scarcely believe the real army was at Babylon, and that this horde, stretching a mile both ways, was no more than the Household.

The King’s Guard, the Ten Thousand Immortals, who never left his person, took up a good deal of road. Then there were the Royal Kin. It is a title of honor, not of, blood; there were fifteen thousand, though ten thousand had gone on to Babylon. They looked very fine; all their shields were worked with gold, and as they formed up by torchlight, the jewels in their helmets flashed.

Presently came the Magi with their silver carrying-altar, ready to kindle the holy fire and lead the march.

As I rode to and fro gaping at each new splendor, I wondered if I was working my horse too hard, with the march before him. Then I remembered that however many the horses and chariots were, the column would go at walking-pace, for the foot-men, and the Magi with their silver altar. I thought of the rashly spoken captain, who had said it was only a week from Susa down to Babylon. He was of course in cavalry. At this rate, we would take a month.

The transport alone seemed to stretch for miles. There were a dozen wagons for the King alone, for his tent, his furniture, his robes and tableware, his traveling bathroom and its appointments. There were the wagons for the Household eunuchs, and for their belongings; then the wagons for all the women. The King had taken all the younger concubines in the end, more than a hundred; they and their gear and their eunuchs were only the beginning. The lords at court, who’d not yet gone ahead to Babylon, had their wives and children with them, their ?harems, and all their luggage, as well. Then there were the store-wagons; such a host could not live off the country. The torches now stretched further than I could see. And behind the wagons and baggage train there were still the foot-followers: the army of slaves to set up camp and strike it, the cooks and smiths and grooms and harness-menders, and a great troop of personal servants, such as mine.