He held the leather dice-bag, muttering an incantation over it. The guard, who would have liked to go where he had friends, gave an impatient cough. Lambaros threw a wild look over his shoulder.
“Take no notice,” said Alexander. “He’s a guard, that’s all. He can’t tell you what to do.” He thought it a great dishonor to the house, that a royal hostage should be worse treated in Pella than in Thebes. It had been in his mind, even before the day he had come upon Lambaros crying his heart out with his head against a tree, watched by his indifferent warder. At the sound of a new voice he had turned like a beast at bay, but had understood an outstretched hand. Had his tears been mocked, he would have fought even if they killed him for it. This knowledge had passed between them without words.
There had been red lice in his red hair, and Hellanike had grumbled even at asking her maid to see to it. When Alexander had sent for sweets to offer him, they had been brought by a Thracian slave. “He’s only on sentry go. You’re my guest. Your throw.”
Lambaros repeated his prayer to the Thracian sky-god, called fives, and threw a two and three.
“You ask him for such little things; I expect he was offended. Gods like to be asked for something great.”
Lambaros, who now prayed less often to go home, said, “Your god won for you.”
“No, I just try to feel lucky. I save prayer up.”
“What for?”
“Lambaros; listen. When we’re men, when we’re kings—you understand what I’m saying?”
“When our fathers die.”
“When I go to war, will you be my ally?”
“Yes. What is an ally?”
“You bring your men to fight my enemies, and I’ll fight yours.”
From the window above, King Philip saw the Thracian grasp his son’s hands, and, kneeling, arrange them in a formal clasp about his own. He lifted his face, speaking long and eloquently; Alexander knelt facing him, holding his folded hands, patient, his whole frame attentive. Presently Lambaros leaped to his feet, and gave a high howl like a forsaken dog’s, his treble attempting the Thracian war-yell. Philip, making nothing of the scene, found it distasteful; he was glad to see the guard stop idling and walk over.
It brought back to Lambaros the truth of his condition. His paean stopped; he looked down, sullen with misery.
“What do you want? Nothing is wrong, he is teaching me his customs.” The guard, come to separate brawling children, was startled into apology. “Go back. I shall call you if I need you. That’s a fine oath, Lambaros. Say the end again.”
“I will keep faith,” said Lambaros slowly and gravely, “unless the sky fall and crush me, or the earth open and swallow me, or the sea rise and overwhelm me. My father kisses his chiefs when he swears them in.”
Philip watched, incredulous, his son take in his hands the red head of the young barbarian, and plant the ritual kiss on his brow. This had gone far enough. It was un-Hellenic. Philip remembered he had not yet given the boy the news about the Pythian Games, to which he intended taking him. That would give him better things to think about.
There was a drift of dust on the flags. Alexander was scribbling in it, with a whittled twig. “Show me how your people form up for battle.”
From the library window on a floor above, Phoinix saw with a smile the gold and the rufous head bent together over some solemn game. There was always relief in seeing his charge a child awhile, the bow unbent. The presence of the guard had lightened his duties. He returned to his unrolled book.
“We’ll win a thousand heads,” Lambaros was saying. “Chop-chop-chop!”
“Yes, but where do the slingers stand?”
The guard, who had had a message, came up again. “Alexander, you must leave this young lad to me. The King your father wants you.”
Alexander’s grey eyes lifted to his a moment. In spite of himself, he shifted his feet.
“Very well. Don’t stop him from doing everything he wants. You’re a soldier, not a pedagogue. And don’t call him this young lad. If I can give him his rank, then so can you.”
He walked up between the marble lions, followed by Lambaros’ eyes, to hear the great news from Delphi.
4
“IT IS A PITY,” said Epikrates, “that you cannot give more time to it.”
“Days should be longer. Why must one sleep? One should be able to do without.”
“You would not find it improved your execution.”
Alexander stroked the polished box of the kithara with its inlaid scrollwork and ivory keys. The twelve strings sighed softly. He slipped off the sling which let it be played standing (sitting muted its tone) and sat down by it on the table, plucking a string here and there to test the pitch.
“You are right,” said Epikrates. “Why should one die? One should be able to do without.”
“Yes, having to sleep reminds one.”
“Well, come! At twelve years, you are still pretty rich in time. I should like to see you entered for a contest; it would give you an aim to work for. I was thinking of the Pythian Games. In two years, you might be ready.”
“What’s the age limit for the youths?”
“Eighteen. Would your father consent?”
“Not if music was all I entered for. Nor would I, Epikrates. Why do you want me to do it?”
“It would give you discipline.”
“I thought as much. But then I shouldn’t enjoy it.”
Epikrates gave his accustomed sigh.
“Don’t be angry. I get discipline from Leonidas.”
“I know, I know. At your age, my touch was not so good. You started younger, and I may say without hubris that you have been better taught. But you will never make a musician, Alexander, if you neglect the philosophy of the art.”
“One needs mathematics in the soul. I shall never have it, you know that. In any case, I could never be a musician. I have to be other things.”
“Why not enter the Games,” said Epikrates temptingly, “and take in the music contest too?”
“No. When I went to watch, I thought nothing would be so wonderful. But we stayed on after, and I met the athletes; and I saw how it really is. I can beat the boys here, because we’re all training to be men. But these boys are just boy athletes. Often they’re finished before they’re men; and if not, even for the men, the Games is all their life. Like being a woman is for women.”
Epikrates nodded. “It came about almost within my lifetime. People who have earned no pride in themselves are content to be proud of their cities through other men. The end will be that the city has nothing left for pride, except the dead, who were proud less easily…Well, with music every man’s good is ours. Come, let me hear it again; this time, with a little more of what the composer wrote.”
Alexander slung and strapped on the big instrument sideways to his breast, the bass strings nearest; he tested them softly with his left-hand fingers, the trebles with the plectrum in his other hand. His head inclined a little, his eyes rather than his ears seemed to be listening. Epikrates watched him with exasperation mingled with love, asking himself as usual whether, if he had refused to understand the boy, he could have taught him better. No; more likely he would simply have given it up. Before he was ten, he had already known enough to strum a lyre at supper like a gentleman. No one would have insisted on his learning more.
He struck three sonorous chords, played a long rippling cadenza, and began to sing.
At an age when the voices of Macedonian boys were starting to roughen, he kept a pure alto which had simply gained more power. As it went soaring up with the high grace notes flicked by the plectrum, Epikrates wondered that this never seemed to trouble him. Nor did he hesitate to look bored when other lads were exchanging the obsessive smut of their years. A boy never seen afraid can dictate his terms.