Under her hand was the gold pendant her mother always wore. It was bloodstained, but she slipped it over the lifeless head, and stood erect
“See. Here is my grandfather King Philip’s likeness. He gave it to my grandmother Audata on her wedding day, and she to my mother when she married Amyntas, King Perdikkas’ son. Look for yourself.”
She put it in the veteran’s cracked horny hand; they crowded round him, poring over the gold roundel with the square-boned, bearded profile. “Aye, Philip it is,” the veteran said. “I saw him many a time.” He rubbed it clean on a fold of his homespun kilt and gave it back to her. “You should take care of that,” he said.
He spoke as if to a young niece; and it struck a chord in all of them. She was their foundling, the orphan of their rescue and adoption. They would take her to Sardis, they told Alketas; she had Philip’s blood in her as any fool could see; and if Alexander had promised her his brother, wed they should be, or the army would know why.
“Very well,” said Alketas. He knew by now that discipline hung by a thread, and maybe his life. “Then get the road cleared, and look alive.”
With rough competence the soldiers laid Kynna out in the cart, and covered her with a blanket; brought their own transport-cart for the dead and wounded guards; picked up the baggage which the porters had dropped when with the maids they fled to the hills. They settled the cushions for Eurydike, to ride beside her dead.
One of them rode off willingly with Alketas’ despatch to his brother Perdikkas. On his way would be the main camp of Perdikkas’ and Eumenes’ armies, where he could spread the news.
So, when the last turn of the road showed her the red-rock citadel with the city around its feet, it showed her also a great throng of soldiers, crowding the road, and parting to make an avenue of honor, as if for a king.
As she came they cheered her. Close to her by the road she heard gruff murmurs: “Poor maid.” “Forgive them, lady, he told them wrong.” The strangeness, the dreamlike consummation of their long intent, made her mother’s death dreamlike too, though she could have reached out and touched the body.
From her high window, Kleopatra looked down with Perdikkas, fuming, beside her. She saw his impotence, and struck her hand in anger on the sill. “You are permitting this?”
“No choice. If I arrest her, we shall have a mutiny. Now of all times … They know that she’s Philip’s grandchild.”
“And a traitor’s daughter! Her father plotted my father’s murder. Will you let her marry his son?”
“Not if I can help it.” The cart was coming nearer. He tried to descry the face of Amyntas’ daughter, but it was too far. He must go down and make some gesture which would preserve his dignity and, with luck, gain time. Just then new movement below, from a new direction, caught his eye. He leaned out, stared, and, cursing, swung back into the room.
“What is it?” His rage and dismay had startled her.
“Hades take them! They are bringing Philip out to her.”
“What? How can—”
“They know where his tent is. You wouldn’t have him here. I must go.” He flung out, without even the curtest apology. For a very little, she thought, he would have cursed her, too.
Down below in the thick outer walls the huge gates stood wide. The cart halted. A group of soldiers, pulling something, came running out of the gateway.
“Lady, if you’ll please to step down, we’ve something here more fit for you.”
It was an old and splendid chariot, its front and sides plated with silver gryphons and gold lions. Lined with tooled red leather, it had been built for Kroisos, that legend for uncounted riches, the last Lydian King. Alexander had made a progress in it, to impress the people.
This moving throne made her sense of dream grow deeper. She came to herself to say that she could not leave her mother’s body untended.
“She’ll be watched with, lady, like she ought, we’ve seen to that.” Worn black-clad women came forward with eager pride; veterans’ wives, looking from work and weather old enough to be their mothers. A soldier approached to hand Eurydike down. At the last moment Alketas, making a virtue of necessity, came up to do the office. For a moment she flinched; but that was not the way to take an enemy’s surrender. She inclined her head graciously and took his offered arm. A team of soldiers grasped the chariot-pole, and pulled it forward. She sat like a king on Kroisos’ chair.
Suddenly, the sound of the cheering altered. She heard the ancient Macedonian cries: “Io Hymen! Euoi! Joy to the bride! Hail to the groom!”
The groom was coming towards her.
Her heart gave a lurch. This part of the dream had been blurred.
The man came riding, on a beautiful, slow-pacing dapple-grey. A grizzled old soldier led it by the rein. The face of the bearded rider was not unlike the one on the gold medallion. He was looking about him, blinking a little. The old soldier pointed towards her. When he looked straight at her, she saw that he was frightened, scared to death. Among all she had thought of, so far as she had allowed herself to think at all, she had not thought of this.
Urged by the soldiers, he dismounted and walked up to the chariot, his blue eyes, filled with the liveliest apprehension, fixed on her face. She smiled at him.
“How are you, Arridaios? I am your cousin Eurydike, your uncle Amyntas’ daughter. I have just come from home. Alexander sent for me.”
The soldiers all around murmured approval, admiring her quick address, and cried, “Long live the King.”
Philip’s face had brightened at the sound of his old name. When he was Arridaios he had had no duties, no bullying rehearsals with impatient men. Alexander had never bullied, only made one pleased to get things right. This girl reminded him, somehow, of Alexander. Cautiously, less frightened now, he said, “Are you going to marry me?”
A soldier burst into a guffaw, but was manhandled by indignant comrades. The rest listened eagerly to the scene.
“If you would like it, Arridaios. Alexander wanted us to marry.”
He bit his lip in a crisis of irresolution. Suddenly he turned to the old soldier who led his horse. “Shall I marry her, Konon? Did Alexander tell me to?”
One or two soldiers clapped hands over their mouths. In the muttering pause, she was aware of the old servant subjecting her to a searching scrutiny. She recognized a resolute protector. Ignoring the voices, some of them growing ribald, which were urging the King to speak up for the girl before she changed her mind, she looked straight at Konon, and said, “I will be kind to him.”
The wariness in his faded eyes relaxed. He gave her a little nod, and turned to Philip, still eyeing him anxiously. “Yes, sir. This is the lady you’re betrothed to, the maid Alexander chose for you. She’s a fine, brave lady. Reach out your hand to her, and ask her nicely to be your wife.”
Eurydike took the obedient hand. Large, warm and soft, it clung to hers appealingly. She gave it a reassuring pressure.
“Please, Cousin Eurydike, will you marry me? The soldiers’ want you to.”
Keeping his hand, she said, “Yes, Arridaios. Yes, King Philip, I will.”
The cheers began in earnest. Soldiers who were wearing their broad-brimmed hats flung them into the air. The cries of “Hymen!” redoubled. They were trying to coax Philip into the chariot beside her, when Perdikkas, red and panting from his race down the steep and winding steps of the ancient city, arrived upon the scene.
Alketas met him, speaking with his eyes. Both knew too well the mood in which Macedonians grew dangerous. They had seen it in the time of Alexander, who had dealt with it at Opis by leaping from his dais and arresting the ringleaders with his bare hands. But such things had been Alexander’s mystery; anyone else would have been lynched. Alketas met with a shrug of the shoulders his brother’s furious stare.