The red-haired man lay on his back, one knee bent up, his young beard cocked at the sky. The iron-patched war-cap, two generations older than he, had been taken already; it would serve many other men. He was not bleeding much. There had been a moment, while he was falling, when the javelin had stuck in him, and the boy had thought he would have to let go or be dragged off too. But he had tugged once more and it had pulled free, just in time.
He looked at the white face, already growing livid, the gaping mouth, and thought again, This is a battlefield, a soldier must learn to know it. He had taken his man, and must show a trophy. There was no dagger, not even a belt; the goatskin corselet was gone. The women had been quickly over the field. The boy was angry in himself, but knew that complaint would bring no redress and would lose him face. He must have a trophy. Nothing was left, now, except…
“Here, little warrior.” A Skopian youth with black tangled hair stood over him, showing broken teeth in a friendly smile. In his hand was a cleaver with half-dry blood all over it. “Let me have off the head for you. I know the knack.”
Between the grinning and the gaping face, the boy paused silent. The cleaver, light in the youth’s big hand, looked heavy for his own. Gyras said quickly, “They only do that in the back country now, Alexander.”
“I had better have it,” he said. “There’s nothing else.” The youth came forward eagerly. Gyras might be citified, but for the King’s son old customs were good enough; that was the way of quality. He tried the edge on his thumb. But the boy had found himself too glad to have this work done for him. “No. I must cut it off myself.” While the Skopians laughed and swore admiringly, the cleaver, warm, sticky, slimy, raw-smelling, was put in his hand. He knelt by the corpse, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, doggedly chopping at the neckbone, spattering himself with bloody shreds, till the head rolled free. Grasping a handful of dead hair—for there must be nothing he could know after in his most secret soul that he had feared to do—he stood upright. “Fetch me my gamebag, Gyras.”
Gyras unstrapped it from the saddlecloth. The boy dropped the head in, and rubbed his palms on the bag. There was still blood between his fingers, sticking them together. The stream was a hundred feet down, he would wash them going home. He turned to bid his hosts farewell.
“Wait!” shouted someone. Two or three men, carrying something, were running and waving. “Don’t let the little lord go. Here, we have his other trophy for him. Two, yes, look, he killed two.”
The boy frowned. He wanted to go home now. He had only fought one combat. What did they mean?
The foremost man ran up panting. “It’s true. This one here”—he pointed to the raw-necked trunk—“that was his second man. He took the first with a javelin-throw, before ever we closed with them. I saw it myself; he pitched straight down stuck like a pig. He was creeping about awhile, but he was finished before the women got to him. Here you are, little lord. Something to show your father.”
The second man displayed the head, holding it up by its black hair. The strong bushy beard hid the shorn neck. It was the head of the man he had thrown his first javelin at, before he fought hand to hand. There had been an eye-blink moment, when he had seen this was the man to have it. He had forgotten, his mind had shut on it as if it had never been. Held by the forelock, it had an arrogant upward tilt; rigor had set a gap-toothed grin on it; the skin was swarthy, one of the eyes was half closed, showing only the white.
The boy looked at the face confronting his. A coldness spread in his belly; he felt a great heave of nausea, a clammy sweat in his palms. He swallowed, and fought to keep from vomiting.
“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I never killed that man.”
They began all three at once to reassure him, describing the body, swearing it had no other wound, offering to take him there, thrusting the head towards him. Two men at his first blooding! He could tell his grandsons. They appealed to Gyras; the little lord was overdone, and no wonder; if he left his prize behind, when he was himself again he would be sorry; Gyras must keep it for him.
“No!” The boy’s voice had risen. “I don’t want it. I didn’t see him die. You can’t bring him to me if the women killed him. You can’t tell what happened. Take it away.”
They clicked their tongues, sorry to obey him to his later loss. Gyras took aside the headman, and whispered in his ear. His face changed; he took the boy kindly round the shoulders, and said he must be warmed with a drop of wine before the long ride home. The boy walked with him quietly, his face with its clear pallor remote and gentle, a faint blueness under his eyes. Presently with the wine the color came back into his skin; he began to smile, and before long joined in the laughter.
Outside there was a buzz of praise. What a fine boy! Such pluck, such a head on his shoulders; and now such proper feeling. Not much of a likeness, yet it had moved his heart. What father would not be proud of such a son?
“Look well at the horn of the hoof. A thick horn makes for much sounder feet than a thin one. Take care, too, to see the hoofs are high front and back, not flattened; a high hoof keeps the frog clear of the ground.”
“Is there any of that book,” asked Philotas, Parmenion’s son, “that you don’t know by heart?”
“One can’t know too much of Xenophon,” Alexander said, “when it comes to horses. I want to read his books about Persia, too. Are you buying anything today?”
“Not this year. My brother’s buying one.”
“Xenophon says a good hoof ought to make a ringing noise like a cymbal. That one there looks splay to me. My father wants a new battle-charger. He had one killed under him, fighting the Illyrians last year.” He looked at the dais beside them, run up as usual for the spring horse-fair; the King had not yet arrived.
It was a sharp brilliant day; the lake and the lagoon were ruffled and darkly gleaming; the white clouds that skimmed across to the distant mountains had edges honed blue, like swords. The bruised turf of the meadow was green from the winter rains. All morning the soldiers had been buying; officers for themselves, tribal chiefs for the vassals who made up their squadrons (in Macedon, the feudal and the regimental always overlapped) tough stocky thick-maned beasts, lively and sleek from the winter grazing. By noon, this common business was done; now the bloodstock was coming out, racers and parade show-horses and chargers, curried and dressed up to the eyes.
The horse fair at Pella was a rite not less honored than the sacred feasts. Dealers came from the horse-lands of Thessaly, from Thrace, from Epiros, even across Hellespont; these would always claim their stock was crossed with the fabled Nisaian strain of the Persian kings.
Important buyers were only now arriving. Alexander had been there most of the day. Following him about, not yet at ease with him or with one another, were half a dozen boys whom Philip had lately collected from fathers he wished to honor.
It was long since a Prince’s Guard had been formed in Macedon for an heir just come of age. The King himself had never been heir apparent. In the wars of succession before that, no heir for generations had had time to come of age before he was murdered or dispossessed. Records revealed that the last Prince of Macedon to have his Companions chosen for him in proper form had been Perdikkas the First, some fifty years before. One ancient man survived of them; he had tales as long as Nestor’s about border wars and cattle-raids, and could name the grandchildren of Perdikkas’ bastards; but he had forgotten everything about procedure.
The Companions should have been youths of about the Prince’s age, who had also passed the test of manhood. No such boy was now to be found in the royal lands. Fathers put forward eagerly the claims of sons sixteen or seventeen years old, who already looked and talked like men. They argued that most of Alexander’s current friends were even older. It was natural, they added tactfully, with so brave and forward a boy.