I walked towards the lake and passed a few people on the road. To one used to the teeming traffic of my world, Macedon seemed dead and deserted. I spoke to some of the people, but ran into the same barrier of language as with the plowman.
Finally a two-horse chariot came along, driven by a stout man wearing a headband, a kind of kilt, and high-laced boots. He pulled up at my hail.
“What is it?” he said, in Attic not much better than mine.
“I seek the philosopher, Aristoteles of Stageira. Where can I find him?”
“He lives in Mieza.”
“Where is that?”
The man waved. “You are going the wrong way. Follow this road back the way you came. At the ford across the Bottiais, take the right-hand fork, which will bring you to Mieza and Kition. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” I said. “How far is it?”
“About two hundred stadia.”
My heart sank to my sandals. This meant five parasangs, or a good two-days’ walk. I thought of trying to buy a horse or a chariot, but I had never ridden or driven a horse and saw no prospect of learning how soon enough to do any good. I had read about Mieza as Aristotle’s home in Macedon but, as none of my maps had shown it, I had assumed it to be a suburb of Pella.
I thanked the man, who trotted off, and set out after him. The details of my journey need not detain you. I was benighted far from shelter through not knowing where the villages were, attacked by watchdogs, eaten alive by mosquitoes, and invaded by vermin when I did find a place to sleep the second night. The road skirted the huge marshes that spread over the Emathian Plain west of Lake Loudias. Several small streams came down from Mount Bermion and lost themselves in this marsh.
At last I neared Mieza, which stands on one of the spurs of Mount Bermion. I was trudging wearily up the long rise to the village when six youths on little Greek horses clattered down the road. I stepped to one side, but instead of cantering past they pulled up and faced me in a semicircle.
“Who are you?” asked one, a smallish youth of about fifteen, in fluent Attic. He was blond and would have been noticeably handsome without his pimples.
“I am Zandras of Pataliputra,” I said, giving the ancient name for Patna on the Ganges. “I seek the philosopher Aristoteles.”
“Oh, a barbarian!” cried Pimples. “We know what the Aristoteles thinks of these, eh, boys?”
The others joined in, shouting noncompliments and bragging about all the barbarians they would some day kill or enslave.
I made the mistake of letting them see I was getting angry. I knew it was unwise, but I could not help myself. “If you do not wish to help me, then let me pass,” I said.
“Not only a barbarian, but an insolent one!” cried one of the group, making his horse dance uncomfortably close to me.
“Stand aside, children!” I demanded.
“We must teach you a lesson,” said Pimples. The others giggled.
“You had better let me alone” I said, gripping my staff in both hands.
A tall handsome adolescent reached over and knocked my hat off. “That for you, cowardly Asiatic!” he yelled.
Without stopping to think, I shouted an English epithet and swung my staff. Either the young man leaned out of the way or his horse shied, for my blow missed him. The momentum carried the staff past my target and the end struck the nose of one of the other horses.
The pony squealed and reared. Having no stirrups, the rider slid off the animal’s rump into the dirt. The horse galloped off.
All six youths began screaming. The blond one, who had a particularly piercing voice, mouthed some threat. The next thing I knew, his horse bounded directly at me. Before I could dodge, the animal’s shoulder knocked me head over heels and the beast leaped over me as I rolled. Luckily, horses’ dislike of stepping on anything squashy saved me from being trampled.
I scrambled up as another horse bore down upon me. By a frantic leap, I got out of its way, but I saw that the other boys were jockeying their mounts to do likewise.
A few paces away rose a big pine. I dodged in among its lower branches as the other horses ran at me. The youths could not force their mounts in among these branches, so they galloped round and round and yelled. Most of their talk I could not understand, but I caught a sentence from Pimples:
“Ptolemaios! Ride back to the house and fetch bows or javelins!”
Hooves receded. While I could not see clearly through the pine-needles, I inferred what was happening. The youths would not try to rush me on foot, first because they liked being on horseback, and if they dismounted they might lose their horses or have trouble remounting; second, because, as long as I kept my back to the tree, they would have a hard time getting at me through the tangle of branches, and I could hit and poke them with my stick as I came. Though not an unusually tall man in my own world, I was much bigger than any of these boys.
This, however, was a minor consideration. I recognized the name “Ptolemaios” as that of one of Alexander’s companions, who in my world became King Ptolemy of Egypt and founded a famous dynasty. Young Pimples, then, must be Alexander himself.
I was in a real predicament. If I stayed where I was, Ptolemaios would bring back missiles for target practice with me as the target. I could of course shoot some of the boys with my gun, which would save me for the time being. But, in an absolute monarchy, killing the crown prince’s friends, let alone the crown prince himself, is no way to achieve a peaceful old age, regardless of the provocation.
While I was thinking of these matters and listening to my attackers, a stone swished through the branches and bounced off the trunk. The small dark youth who had fallen off his horse had thrown the rock and was urging his friends to do likewise. I caught glimpses of Pimples and the rest dismounting and scurrying around for stones, a commodity with which Greece and Macedon are notoriously well supplied.
More stones came through the needles, caroming from the branches. One the size of my fist struck me lightly in the shin.
The boys came closer so that their aim got better. I wormed my way around the trunk to put it between me and them, but they saw the movement and spread out around the tree. A stone grazed my scalp, dizzying me and drawing blood. I thought of climbing but, as the tree became more slender with height, I should be more exposed the higher I got. I should also be less able to dodge while perched in the branches.
That is how things stood when I heard hoofbeats again. This is the moment of decision, I thought. Ptolemaios is coming back with missile weapons. If I used my gun, I might doom myself in the long run, but it would be ridiculous to stand there and let them riddle me while I had an unused weapon.
I fumbled under my tunic and unsnapped the safety strap that kept the pistol in its holster. I pulled the weapon out and checked its projectiles.
A deep voice broke into the bickering. I caught phrases: “… insulting an unoffending traveler… how know you he is not a prince in his own country?… the king shall hear of this… like newly-freed slaves, not like princes and gentlemen…”
I pushed towards the outer limits of the screen of pine needles. A heavy-set, brown-bearded man on a horse was haranguing the youths, who had dropped their stones. Pimples said:
“We were only having a little sport.”
I stepped out from the branches, walked over to where my battered hat lay, and put it on. Then I said to the newcomer: “Rejoice! I am glad you came before your boys’ play got too rough.” I grinned, determined to act cheerful if it killed me. Only iron self-control would get me through this difficulty.
The man grunted. “Who are you?”
“Zandras of Pataliputra, a city in India. I seek Aristoteles the philosopher.”