The Persian Boy (6 page)

I rode back from the road to the Palace square, as the torches paled. Now they were bringing out the Chariot of the Sun. It was sheathed all over with gold; a sunburst emblem stood in it on a silver pole; the symbol of the god, its only rider. Not even the body of its charioteer would sully it; its matched pair of great white horses was led on foot.

Last came the King’s battle chariot, nearly as splendid as the god’s. (I wondered if it was as good as the one he had left for Alexander.) The charioteer was putting in the King’s weapons, javelins and bow and arrows in their holsters. In front of it stood his litter for the journey, with gold shafts, and a sun-canopy fringed with bullion.

As the east began to glow, appeared the Sons of the Kindred, elegant youths a little older than I, who would march before and behind the King, dressed from head to foot in purple.

All this order of the march was fixed by ancient hierarchy. It was time to find my place alongside the eunuchs’ wagons; clearly there was none for me near the King.

Suddenly, above the Sun Chariot shone a brilliant point of light. The center of its sunburst was a globe of crystal. It had caught the first shaft of sunrise. There was a bray of horns and blare of trumpets. In the distance a figure in white and purple, tall even from so far, stepped into the royal litter.

Slowly, without at first any forward movement, the vast train stirred into fidgeting and shuffling. Then, sluggish as a winter snake, it began to crawl. We must have been moving nearly an hour, before one felt to be really marching.

We traveled the Royal Road, through the land of rivers, low and green, with thick crops in rich black earth. Shallow lakes mirrored the sky, spiky with sedge. Sometimes great rough-rock causeways spanned the swamps. Now they were mostly caked and dry, but we never made camp there; they had a name for fever.

I attended the King each evening when his tent was pitched. There was room for most of his usual people. He seemed to like the sight of familiar faces. Often he kept me at night. He was harder to stir up than I had ever known him, and I wished he would settle for sleep instead. But I think the truth was that, if alone, he would lie awake.

Every few days, galloping to meet us, the last man and horse of the long relay as fresh and swift as a stag, a King’s Messenger brought dispatches from the west.

Alexander had taken Gaza. It seemed he had nearly been put out of the way for good. He had been struck on the shoulder by a catapult bolt, and felled clean backward; it had pierced his armor, but he had got up and gone on fighting. Then he had fallen again, and been carried off like the dead. Our people had waited a while to see, he being known by now for a man who was hard to kill; and sure enough, though he had bled himself white, he was still alive. He would be laid up some time; but his advance guard was already on the march to Egypt.

When this was known, I thought to myself, Perhaps he’s shamming, so that we take our time; then he could strike east like lightning and take us by surprise. Now if I were the King, I thought, I would be out of my litter into my chariot, and dash on ahead with all the cavalry to Babylon, just in case.

I longed for the trumpet calling us to ride. Each evening, reckoning that Neshi would have had enough with his footmarch, I curried my horse myself. I had called him Tiger. I had only seen the skin of one, but it was a good fierce name.

But when I went to the King at evening, he was playing draughts with one of the lords, in such abstraction that the man had hard work to lose. When the game was ove?r, the King asked me to sing. I remembered the battle-song of my father’s men which he had liked before; I hoped it would cheer his soul. After two verses, however, he called for something else.

I thought of his old combat with the Kadousian champion, which had won him his renown; I tried to picture him striding forward in arms, hurling his javelin, stripping the enemy of his weapons, returning to the warriors’ cheers. He had been younger then; he had had no palaces, and fewer girls. And then again, a battle is different from such a combat, especially if one is in command; still more, if one is meeting the man from whom one fled last time.

My song drew to its end. I said to myself, Who am I to judge? What action shall I ever see? He has been a good master; that should be enough for me, who will never be a man.

Each morning, the Standard of the Sun was set up by the King’s pavilion. Each morning, when the first sunbeam struck the crystal, the horns sounded, the King was escorted to his litter, the chariot was walked behind it. So we followed the Royal Road through the river country, and the night followed each day.

When I grew weary of the eunuchs’ talk in the wagons, I would sometimes fall back to the harem train, to have a word with the girls. Each load, of course, was in charge of at least one reverend eunuch; if invited, I was safe enough to hitch my horse to the tailboard and clamber in. I found it instructive. This horde of women was nothing like my old master’s little harem. The King was achieved once in a summer, or a year, or never; or he might send for a girl most nights in a month, then never notice her again. On the whole, it was each other they had to live with; they were full of factions, alliances and bitter feuds, few of which came of rivalry for the King, but simply of seeing each other day after day, with nothing to do but talk. It was amusing to visit such a world as this; I hoped never to be employed within it.

It was amazing how fast news flew along the column. People talked from tedium, to enliven the miles. Alexander was already getting about again, and was sending spies to learn where Darius was. From what I had heard by now, I could guess what was baffling the Macedonian. He would have thought of everything, except that his enemy could still be upon the road.

However, he must soon have found out; the next thing we heard, he was making south for Egypt. So there was no hurry after all.

We marched on, fifteen miles a day, till we came to the maze of canals and streams which lead the Euphrates into the Babylonian cornfields. The bridges are built high for the floods of winter. Sometimes the ricefields spread their tasseled lakes, off which the morning sun would glance to blind us. Then one noon, when the glare had shifted, we saw ahead the great black walls of Babylon, stretched on the low horizon against the heavy sky.

Not that its walls were near; it was their height that let us see them. When at last we passed between the wheatfields yellowing for the second harvest, which fringed the moat, and stood below, it was like being under mountain cliffs. One could see the bricks and bitumen; yet it seemed impossible this could be the work of human hands. Seventy-five feet stand the walls of Babylon; more than thirty thick; and each side of the square they form measures fifteen miles. We saw no sign of the royal army; there was room for it all to encamp within, some twenty thousand foot and fifty thousand horse.

The walls have a hundred gates of solid bronze. We went in by the Royal Way, lined with banners and standards, with Magi holding fire-altars, with trumpeters and praise-singers, with satraps and commanders. Further on was the army; the walls of Babylon enclose a whole countryside. All its parks can grow grain in case of siege; it is watered from the Euphrates. An impregnable city,

The King entered in his chariot. He made a fine figure, over-topping by half a head his charioteer, shining in white and purple. The Babylonians roared their acclamation, as he dro?ve off with a train of lords and satraps to show himself to the army.

We of the Household were led through back ways along the straight high streets, to enter the Palace through doorways suited to our station, and make ready for the master.

Knowledge can alter memory. I see in my mind those glories; the fine-clay brick, polished, sculpted, enameled, glazed or gilded; the furniture of Nubian ebony inlaid with ivory; hangings of scarlet and purple, woven with gold and stitched with Indian pearls. I remember the cool, after the baking heat outside. And it seems that the coolness fell on me like the shadow of blinding grief; that the very walls oppressed me like a tomb. Yet I suppose I went in like any lad after a journey, wide-eyed for all the sights.

When they had laid out the King’s own vessels for his food and wine, they made the bed, which was plated all over with gold, a winged deity at each bedpost. Then, for he would surely come back tired and dusty from his ride, they prepared the bath.

Because it is hot in Babylon, the bath is a pleasure-house, where one could spend all day; floored with marble from the west, with glazed walls, white flowers on blue. The bath is a spacious pool, whose lapis-blue tiles have gold fish impressed in them. There are pots with sweet shrubs and trees, changed at each season, jasmine and citron; the fretted screens give onto a bathing-place, let in from the Euphrates.

Everything had been prepared, everything shone; the water was clear as crystal, tepid, just right, the tank warmed with filtered sun. There was a couch with cushions of fine linen, to rest on after the bath.

Not a tile, not a golden fish, not a thread of linen there will ever leave my memory while I live. When I saw it that first time, I just thought it very pretty.

Soon we had settled in, the days turning as smoothly as the water-wheels below the Hanging Gardens; though our lot was lighter than the oxen’s there. That beautiful man-made hill, with its shady trees and the cool groves within its terraces, needs a deal of watering, and it’s a high haul to the top. Often amid its bird-song you can hear, if you listen, the cracking of whips below.

Fresh troops were still coming in from the distant satrapies, after months upon the march. All the city turned out to see the Baktrians. It was cooling down for autumn, but still they sweated, having put on their best for show; felt coats, quilted trousers, and fur-lined hats, all fine and warm for the Baktrian winters. You could tell their land was rich, by the lords’ adornments, and the sturdy build of the men after so long a march. Each lord brought from his own stronghold his own warriors, as my father would have done if he’d been alive. But the Baktrian lords numbered hundreds. Their baggage was borne by a long train of their two-humped camels, long-bodied and thick-legged, shaggy, built for endurance.

At the head rode their satrap, Bessos, Darius’ cousin. The King greeted him standing, in the Hall of Audience, and offered his cheek to kiss. He was the taller, but not much. Bessos was thickset like his camels, war-scarred, burnt almost black with sun and wind. They had not met since the defeat at Issos. Now I saw in Bessos’ eyes, pale under black brows, a show of respect over a shadow of scorn; and in the King’s, a shadow of mistrust. Baktria was the most powerful satrapy in the empire.

Meantime, news came that Egypt had opened its arms to Alexander, hailed him as liberator, and proclaimed him Pharaoh.

I knew little of Egypt then. I know it now; I live there. I have seen him carved on a temple wall, worshipping Ammon, made to look just like all the other Pharaohs, even to the little blue strip of ceremonial beard. Perhaps when they put on him the double crown, and set in his hands the crook and flail, he even wore it. He was courteous in such things. But it makes me smile.

He had been to Ammon’s oracle, at green Siwah in the desert, where it seems he was told the god was there before the King his father, when he was conceived. So rumo?r ran; he went in alone, and said only, after, that he was satisfied.

I asked Neshi about this oracle, while he dressed me and combed my hair. He had been at a school for scribes, till Ochos conquered Egypt, when they had all been taken from their temple and sold. Even now, he still shaved his head.

He said the oracle was very old and revered. Long ago (and from an Egyptian that means at least a thousand years), the god used to speak in Thebes as he does at Siwah. In the days of the terrible Hatshepsut, the only woman Pharaoh, her stepson Tuthmosis was a young boy serving the shrine. The symbol of the god was carried by, as at Siwah now, in a boat enriched with gold and jewels and tinkling vessels. The bearers say that the carrying-poles press on their shoulders, when the god wants to speak; they feel the weight of him telling them where to go. He guided them to this young prince, who then was a nobody in the crowd, and made the boat bow before him; and they set him in the royal seat, knowing his destiny. Neshi had some very good tales like this.

I myself, when I made my pilgrimage (and a hard journey it is, though I have known a worse one), asked a question of the oracle. I was told it was enough for me to offer the proper sacrifice, and not be curious about one who had been received among the gods. Still, I could not be content never to have seen it.

Meantime at Babylon I had time on my hands, the King being always busy, and went about seeing the sights. I climbed the stair round Bel’s temple-tower, though the top was ruinous where his concubine used to lie on his golden bed. I was much beset by bawds, my youth still being enough to explain my beardlessness. And I saw the temple of Mylitta with its famous courtyard.

Every girl in Babylon, once in her life, must offer herself to the goddess. The courtyard is one huge bazaar of women, sitting in rows marked off with scarlet cords. None may refuse the first man to toss in her lap a piece of silver. There were some as fine as princesses, on silk cushions, with slaves to fan them, next to hard-handed peasant girls from the fields. Along the rows strolled the men, as if at a horse fair; I half expected they’d start to look at their teeth. The pretty ladies don’t have to wait long; but if a river bargee gets there before a lord, they must take him. Not a few stretched out their hands to me, hoping to pay their due with someone not too ill-favored. There was a grove nearby, where the rite was done.

Seeing some men stand laughing, I went to look. They were mocking the ugly girls, who sat day after day unchosen. That I might share the joke, they pointed one out to me who had been sitting there three years.

She had grown there from girl to woman. One shoulder was hunched; she had a great nose, and a birthmark on her cheek. The girls round her, plain as they were, seemed to look at her and take comfort. She just sat with folded hands, enduring the laughter, as an ox the whip and goad. Suddenly I was filled with anger at man’s cruelty. I thought how the soldiers had cut off my father’s nose alive instead of dead; how the men who gelded me had talked lightly across my pain. I took out a silver siglos from my pouch, and tossed it in her lap, saying the ritual words, “May Mylitta prosper you.”