The Persian Boy (43 page)

He gave away everything; the horse to Lysimachos, the cloths and the rest to all who’d known him well. To me, when I took his hand, he gave a Persian goblet worked with a lion, saying, “Do not fear, you s?hall drink to the very end, and no one shall take that from you.”

Last came Alexander; we moved aside from respect, as he leaned over to embrace him. But Kalanos said quietly-only those nearest heard-“We need not say farewell. I will be with you in Babylon.”

All now withdrew. The torch-bearers came up, a troop of them to make the kindling quicker. As the flames leaped, Alexander shouted for the battle-paean. The trumpets sounded; the soldiers yelled; the mahouts cried to the elephants, who lifted their trunks, and blared the salute they give to kings.

He was always tender to the pride of those he cared for. Feeling sure no old sick man could bear that searing pain without a cry, he’d ensured it should not be heard. He bowed his head as the fire rose roaring, and did not look. But I can witness that Kalanos lay with folded hands, while the flowers beneath them shriveled; he neither changed countenance nor opened his mouth. I only watched till he began to be disfigured; but all who watched to the end agreed that he did not stir.

He’d made Alexander promise to feast for him, not mourn; good healing wisdom, except that not touching wine himself, he’d never feasted with Macedonians. They were all rather mad that night, from horror or grief or both; someone proposed a drinking-contest by way of funeral games, and Alexander offered a prize. I think the winner downed two gallons. Many lay senseless until morning, on the couches or the floor; not the way to pass a cold winter night in Susa. The winner died of a chill, along with several more; so Kalanos got more than a horse for sacrifice.

Alexander had judged, not competed; he came to bed on his feet, already sobering and growing sad again.

“What did he mean,” he said to me, “that he’d be with me in Babylon? Will he be reborn as a Babylonian? How shall I know the child?”

-26-

IT WAS next day that he asked me, “You have never seen Queen Sisygambis, have you?”

I heard the name as if in an ancient tale. She was the Queen Mother of Persia, whom Darius had left behind at Issos. “No,” I said, “she was with you already, before I joined the Household here.”

“Good. I want you to see her for me.” I had quite forgotten that it was here at Susa he’d installed her and the young princesses, soon after the Queen had died. “If she would remember you at court, it might not quite do, you understand. But since she won’t, I should like to send her someone charming, after so long with only letters and gifts. You remember, you chose me a chain of turquoises for her, at Marakanda? You’ll find her well worth meeting. Give her my loving respects; say I’ve been impatient to see her, but business has held me back. Ask her if she’ll do me the favor of receiving me in about an hour; and give her this.” He showed me in its casket a necklace of Indian rubies.

I made my way to the Harem. When last I went, I had walked behind Darius, smelling the perfume from his robe.

At the Queen’s entry, where I had never been, an old stately eunuch was fetched to sanction me. He was gracious, giving no sign of knowing what I had been, though of course such people know everything. I followed him down a corridor with sun-fretted lattices, and through an anteroom where matron ladies sat talking or playing chess. He scratched at a door beyond, announced me and who had sent me, then withdrew.

She sat straight in a tall straight chair, her arms along the chair-arms; over their ram-head ends, her fingers showed as fine as ivory spindles. She wore dark blue, with a dark blue veil over thin white hair. Her face was colorless, the face of an old white falcon brooding on its crag. Round her neck was the chain of turquoises from Marakanda.

I prostrated myself, with as much care as the first time before Darius. As I rose she spoke, in the high cracked voice of age.

“How is my son the King?”

It struck me dumb. How long had it been like this with her? She had had his body to deck for burial. Why had no one warned Alexander that her wits had gone? If I told the truth, she might? fly into a frenzy, tear me with those long ivory nails, or dash her head on the wall.

Her old eyes stared at me fierce and bright, from their wrinkled lids. They blinked quickly once or twice, like an unhooded falcon’s. They looked impatient. My tongue would not move. She struck one hand upon the chair-arm.

“I am asking you, boy, how is my son Alexander?” Her dark piercing gaze met mine, she had read my thought. She lifted her head against the chair-back. “I have only one son a King. There has never been any other.”

Somehow I came to myself, remembered my training, gave her my message in proper form, and, kneeling, offered Alexander’s gift. She lifted out the rubies in both hands, and called to two old waiting-ladies by the window. “See what my son has sent me.”

They admired, were allowed to touch, while I knelt with the casket till someone should think to take it, and remembered the son she had thrown away.

He must have guessed, after he fled at Issos; who could have known her and not guessed? It had only remained for him to know that his place was filled. In the fountain court I had played my harp softly, to soothe a grief I only now understood. It was this had turned his rage on poor Tyriotes. Did he know she’d refused his rescue at Gaugamela? Perhaps they had kept that from him. Well that they had not met again; poor man, he’d had sorrow enough.

She noticed me in time, and motioned one of her ladies to take the casket. “Thank my lord the King for his gift, and say I shall receive him gladly.” When I went out, she was still stroking the jewels on her lap.

“Did she like it?” said Alexander, as eager as if he’d been her lover. I told him she had shown great pleasure in it. “King Poros gave it me. I’m glad that she thought it worthy of her. There is the Great King who would have led your people, if God had made her a man. Both of us know it. We understand each other.”

“It’s as well God made her a woman; or you’d have had to kill her.”

“Yes, there I was spared great grief. Did she look well? I’ve something important to say to her. I want to marry her granddaughter.”

Through my first amazement, he still read my face. “That pleases you better than last time?”

“Alexander, it will please all the Persians.” He had not set eyes on Stateira since she was a child at Issos, with her face in her mother’s lap. This was a real state marriage, to honor our people and breed a royal line; it would have Sisygambis’ blood, he’d remembered, as well as Darius’s. As for Roxane, as second wife she’d still be above her station; Darius would never have made her more than a concubine. Keeping all these thoughts to myself, I hastened to wish him joy.

“Ah, and that’s not all.” We were in the fountain court, a quiet retreat when the state rooms were full of envoys and officials. He cupped the fountain-fall in his palm and let it run out again. He was smiling.

“Now, Al’skander, tell me the secret. I’ve seen it in your face.”

“Oh, I knew that! I can tell you now. This won’t be only my wedding; it will be a marriage of both our peoples.”

“Truly, Al’skander, yes.”

“No, wait. All my own friends, my generals, and the best of my Companions will be marrying Persian ladies. I shall dower them all; and we shall all share the one wedding feast. What do you think of that?”

“Al’skander, no one else could have conceived it.” Which was God’s truth.

“I conceived it on the march, but it had to wait till I’d met the army. Most of them were serving there.”

Well, I could see why he hadn’t told me. He could hardly announce to me Hephaistion’s wedding, before the bridegroom knew.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “how many couples would make a handsome feast, without crowding the pavilion. I decided eighty.” Getting back my breath, I said it sounded just right. “All my soldiers who’ve married Persian women will get dowries too. About ten thousand, I think.”

He played smiling with the sunlit fountain-stream, which fell from his hand like gold.

“We’ll make a new thing; two good wines bl?ended to make a better, in a great loving-cup. Hephaistion will marry Stateira’s sister. I should like his children to be my kin.”

I suppose he felt my silence.

He looked in my face, came over and embraced me. “Dear one, forgive me. More than children are born of love. ‘The sons of dreams’-do you remember? All this you begot; from loving you, I first learned to love your people.”

After that, it was no pain to me to do my part; which was to call on the brides and their mothers, bring gifts, and tell them about procedure. I was well received in the harems; if they’d had plans of their own before Alexander had his, nobody said so. He had chosen, of course, for the greatest Macedonians the noblest brides; if these weren’t always the best-favored, one can’t have everything. The princesses, I did not see; but Drypetis would hardly disappoint Hephaistion; that was a handsome line. In all these years, I’d never heard he’d had a mistress; but if nephews and nieces were what Alexander asked him for, no doubt he would faithfully beget them.

Some silly man, whose name is not worth remembering, has written that Alexander slighted our people, because no Persian lord got a Macedonian wife. Where were these wives to come from? We were in Susa; there were only concubines or camp-followers. One can guess what the lady mothers of Macedon would have said, to dispatching their maiden daughters to the beds of unknown “barbarians.” But why waste words on such folly?

Alexander meant this to be the greatest festival since his reign began. Already, weeks ahead, every weaver and carver and goldsmith in Susa was working into the night. I did not go to see if my old master prospered. One does not return to the midden one was flung in.

Since the King’s return, artists in everything had been streaming over from Greece; news of the festival made them race. One of these, a flute-player of some fame called Evios, caused a trifling quarrel; or what should have been trifling, had the men concerned not been at odds already. So wars begin, with peoples as with men. So with Eumenes and Hephaistion.

Eumenes I knew only at a distance; but he’d been Chief Secretary all through Alexander’s reign, and to his father before him. He was a Greek, who had had time to do some soldiering in India, and with success. He was about forty-five, grizzled and shrewd. I don’t know why he and Hephaistion had always brushed up each other’s fur. By my guess, it went back to Hephaistion’s boyhood. Maybe Eumenes had envied him Alexander’s love; maybe he just disapproved, as he did of me. I never took notice, knowing he could not harm me. It was different with Hephaistion. Since he led back the army, Alexander had made him Chiliarch, which is Greek for our Grand Vizier; he ranked next the King. He was incorruptible in office; but touchy about his dignity, among other things.

It had grown on him since India, where he’d had a jaundice fever. Doctors say you should not drink for a long time after; but try telling that to a Macedonian. Also he had a very constant nature; in love, and in resentment.

He was always polite to Persians; for Alexander’s sake, and because our manners have civilized formality. It is impossible for Persians of decent breeding to brawl. We poison each other after consideration, or come to terms. Macedonians, who have no such restraints, are into it in a moment.

This flautist, Evios, was an old guest-friend of his from before my time; so he took charge of his entertainment. Susa was filling up; the lodging Hephaistion found for Evios had been taken by people of Eumenes’ household; so Hephaistion turned them out.

Eumenes, a quiet man as a rule, went to him very angry. Whereas a Persian would have said it was all a dreadful mistake but too late for remedy, Hephaistion told Eumenes he must make room for guests of honor, like anyone else.

Eumenes, whose own rank was pretty high, went straight to Alexander, who had trouble to keep the peace. I know he had the flautist lodged elsewhere; I saw to that for him. What he said t?o Hephaistion, I could have overheard if I’d taken care; but I remembered that morning in the desert, and went away.

If, as I suspect, Hephaistion was asked to beg Eumenes’ pardon, he thought it beneath him, and didn’t do it. The enmity smoldered on. A petty squabble; why trouble to record it? Only because the end was to mix my lord’s bitter grief with poison, and send him mad.

Meantime, being spared foreknowledge, I thought no more of it; nor I daresay did Alexander, who was busier still. He saw a good deal of the Queen Mother, and was shown his bride. He told me she had her mother’s looks, and was a gentle modest maid. There was none of that kindling with which he had seen Roxane. I dared not ask him how she had taken the news.

The feast-day came. Darius the Great may have seen such splendors; no one living had. The whole Palace square was turned into a vast pavilion; in the center, the bridegrooms’ tent, of fine cloth with bullion tassels, propped by gilt columns; all round it, awnings for the guests. The wedding would be by Persian rite; the bridal tent had gold chairs in couples. Our women being bred to modesty, the brides would only enter after the healths were drunk, when the grooms would take their hands, sit by them for the bridal song, and then retire.

Their fathers of course were present. Alexander asked me to help in their entertainment, because he wanted me to see the rite.

He wore the Mitra, and the royal robe of Persia, long sleeves and all. To tell the truth, his half-Greek dress suited him better; this called for Darius’ height to set it off. But if there was one thing we’d learned in Persia, it was that a King is as tall as his soul.

For the crowd of lesser guests not to miss it all, he had heralds outside the tent, who would sound trumpets when the healths were drunk, give out the toasts, and announce the entry of the brides.

It all went perfectly. In the presence of the fathers-in-law, men of the noblest blood in Persia, the bridegrooms kept down their drinking, and did not even shout across the tent.

There were no prostrations. Alexander had given all the fathers the rank of Royal Kindred, which allowed them to kiss his cheek. There being no father-in-law for him, Oxathres took that place, and made a very fine figure, though he had to stoop for the kiss.

The King gave the bridal toast; the bridegrooms drank to the fathers, the fathers returned the honor, everyone drank to the King. The trumpets flourished for the entry of the brides. The fathers met them, took them by the hand and led them to the grooms.

Peasants apart, you seldom see the men and women of Persia walking together. Whatever Greeks may say, you won’t find more beauty anywhere on earth than you do among our nobility, who have bred for it so choicely and so long. Handsomest of all was the foremost couple, Oxathres and his niece hand in hand. Alexander rose to meet them, and receive his bride. Yes, Darius had passed his good looks on to his children. Also his stature. She topped Alexander by a good half-foot.

He led her to her chair of honor by his throne; and the difference disappeared. He’d met her in the Queen Mother’s rooms; and Alexander was nothing if not resourceful. He had had the legs of her chair cut down.

Of course they had to walk out together, when the bridal couples retired. I could almost hear his voice saying, “It is necessary.” (Days later, I found pushed into some dark corner his wedding shoes. The soles had an inch of felt in them. He’d taken no such trouble when host to seven-foot Poros.)

Hephaistion and Drypetis matched up well. She was his height to an inch.

The feasting went on all night. I met old friends, and needed no pretense, to share the merriment. Years had gone by, since he spared Susa and first rode in there. He had gone far away and become a legend, while wrong was done in his name. Now they knew him. In that city Kyros is remembered; how he did not profane the sanctuaries of the conquered Medes, nor dishonor their nobility, nor enslave their peasants?, but was a just King to us all. That a westerner should prove to be such another was a wonder everywhere. I saved up all I heard, to tell him later. He had done what he meant to do.

No doubt he did no less in the marriage bed. Stateira was installed in her royal rooms; but his visits turned to mere calls of courtesy, much sooner than with Roxane. A few days later, indeed, he visited the Sogdian. It may have been just to heal her wounded feelings; but I’m not so sure. Stateira was, as he’d said, a gentle modest girl; and he was a lover of fire. Roxane had it, even if it smoked. He soon had enough of her; yet from time to time she always drew him back. Olympias his mother, that royal termagant, was still berating his regent by every post. He would throw down her letter in anger; yet with his answer would go a gift, lovingly chosen. Perhaps there is something in the proverb about how men choose their wives.

He had done what he meant to do. Yes-among my people.

I was too happy. Once or twice, going about, I got hard looks from Macedonians; but those whom kings love are always envied; so was Hephaistion, and in higher places than I. I never thought that all Persians were more hated, till I saw Peukestas ride by in our native dress. Our people, who’d already learned his worth, saluted him; then, when he’d passed, I overheard some Macedonians. He had gone barbarian, it was disgusting, how could the King encourage it? For that matter, what was the King coming to himself?

I noted their faces and their regiment. I should not have been sorry to do them harm with Alexander. But it would only wound him, without doing him service. It was hearts, not words, he had hoped to change.

Soon after this, he got to know that Macedonian troops were waist-deep in debt, with creditors closing in. With the loot they’d had, they should have been as rich as princes; but they had no notion of bargaining, as we Persians understand it; they’d pay double the going price for all they bought, ate, drank or lay with. Hearing of their distress, as if he’d not spent enough upon their marriage dowers, Alexander gave out that he’d settle up for them. Few came forward; and at last the officers broke the truth to him; the men were saying he just wanted to know who was living beyond his pay.

It hurt him more than anything since that day in India, that they thought he’d lie to them. He could not understand it. I could have told him. He was growing foreign to them, as he came closer to us.

So he had banking-tables set up in the camp, and told his paymasters to sit there without writing things. Any soldier who showed up a debtor’s bond had it paid off, and no record made. It cost close on ten thousand talents, that piece of magnanimity. I thought that should shut their mouths awhile.

Spring was just breaking; along by the river one smelled the rising sap. The lilies would not be long. As I rode there one morning with Alexander, he looked at the hills and said, “Where was your home?”

“There, by that crag. The grey there, that looks like rock, that is the watchtower.”

“A good place for a stronghold. Shall we ride up and see it?”

“Al’skander, I would see too much.”

“Don’t see it now. Listen to some news I’ve kept for you. Do you remember, five years ago, I said I was starting an army of Persian boys?”

“Yes. We were in Baktria. Is it only five years since then?”

“It does seem longer. We’ve put a good deal into it.” Indeed, in thirty years he had filled three men’s full lifetimes. “Well, five years is up. They’re ready, and on their way here.”

“That is wonderful, Al’skander.” Six years since I came to him; thirteen since I left those walls, riding with my father’s head.

“Yes, their instructors are very pleased with them. Race me to the trees.” The gallop shook off my sadness, as he’d meant. As we breathed our horses, he said, “Thirty thousand, all eighteen years old. We’ll see something, I think.”

They reached Susa seven days later. He had a dais set up on the Palace terrace, for him and his generals t?o see the new corps parade. Presently, from their camp beyond the walls, came the Macedonian bugle-call, “Cavalry, march.”

They came in squadrons, Macedonian-armed, but on good Persian horses, not Greek scrubs. The Persians of Persis rode up first.

Macedonian dress or not, Persians are Persians. Their officers had not denied them those little touches that give an air; an embroidered saddlecloth, a cuirass with a device, a pennant on the Macedonian lance, a glittering bridle, a flower stuck in the helmet. And they had the Persian face.

I don’t suppose they had all been recruited willingly; but they had pride in their training now. Each squadron pranced up to the square with lances poised; slowed down, pacing to music; wheeled before the royal dais, saluting with their spears; then did their show-tricks, saluted again, and cantered off while the next rode in.

All Susa watched, from the walls and rooftops. The sides of the square were crowded with Macedonians. No one denies they were the best-trained army the world has seen. All that these young men did, they could have done as briskly. But we do have more sense of style. So had Alexander.

When the long review was over, he came away glowing, and talking to the Persians of his bodyguard, Oxathres, and Roxane’s brother, and one of Artabazos’ sons. Right across the Great Hall, he caught my eye and smiled. He was late to bed, having sat up talking and drinking, as he did when he was pleased. “I never saw so much beauty in one day; but still I have picked the best.” He pulled softly at my hair. “You know what I call these boys? I call them my Successors.”

“Al’skander,” I said lifting off his chiton, “did you call them that to the Macedonians?”

“Why not? They’ll breed me successors too. What is it?”

“I don’t know. You have taken nothing from them.. But they don’t like us to show excellence.”

He stood up, clothed only in his many wounds, tossing back his hair; not dulled but lit by the wine. “To hate excellence is to hate the gods.” He spoke so loudly, the squire on guard looked in to see all was well. “One must salute it everywhere, among unknown peoples, at the furthest ends of the earth; yet one must never cheapen it.” He began pacing about. “I found it in Poros, though his black face was strange to me. And in Kalanos. I find it among your people. In respect for that, I hanged the Persian satraps along with the Macedonians. To excuse their crimes like something native to them, that would have been contempt.”