“My lord, for you only, I’ll make a special price.”
“I’m busy,” Philip said.
Philonikos set his thick mouth in a wide straight line. The groom, hanging for dear life on the spiked bit, began to turn the horse for the horse-lines. Alexander called out in his high carrying voice, “What a waste! The best horse in the show!”
Anger and urgency gave it a note of arrogance that made heads turn. Philip looked round startled. Never, at the worst of things, had the boy been rude to him in public. It had best be ignored till later. The groom and the horse were moving off.
“The best horse ever shown here, and all he needs is handling.” Alexander had come out into the field. All his friends, even Ptolemy, left a discreet space round him; he was going too far. The whole crowd was staring. “A horse in ten thousand, just thrown away.”
Philip, looking again, decided the boy had not meant to be so insolent. He was a colt too full of corn, ever since his two precocious exploits. They had gone to his head. No lesson so good, thought Philip, as the one a man teaches to himself. “Jason here,” he said, “has been training horses for twenty years. And you, Philonikos; how long?”
The dealer’s eyes shifted from father to son; he was on a tightrope. “Ah, well, sir, I was reared to it from a boy.”
“You hear that, Alexander? But you think you can do better?”
Alexander glanced, not at his father but at Philonikos. With an unpleasant sense of shock, the dealer looked away.
“Yes. With this horse, I could.”
“Very well,” said Philip. “If you can, he’s yours.”
The boy looked at the horse, with parted lips and devouring eyes. The groom had paused with it. It snorted over its shoulder.
“And if you can’t?” said the King briskly. “What are you staking?”
Alexander took a deep breath, his eyes not leaving the horse. “If I can’t ride him, I’ll pay for him myself.”
Philip raised his dark heavy brows. “At three talents?” The boy had only just been put up to a youth’s allowance; it would take most of this year’s, and the next as well.
“Yes,” Alexander said.
“I hope you mean it. I do.”
“So do I.” Roused from his single concern with the horse, he saw that everyone was staring: the officers, the chiefs, the grooms and dealers, Ptolemy and Harpalos and Philotas; the boys he had spent the morning with. The tall one, Hephaistion, who moved so well that he always caught the eye, had stepped out before the others. For a moment their looks met.
Alexander smiled at Philip. “It’s a bet, then, Father. He’s mine; and the loser pays.” There was a buzz of laughter and applause in the royal circle, born of relief that it had turned good-humored. Only Philip, who had caught it full in the eyes, had known it for a battle-smile, save for one watcher of no importance who had known it too.
Philonikos, scarcely able to credit this happy turn of fate, hastened to overtake the boy, who was making straight for the horse. Since he could not win, it was important he should not break his neck. It would be too much to hope that the King would settle up for him.
“My lord, you’ll find that—”
Alexander looked round and said, “Go away.”
“But, my lord, when you come to—”
“Go away. Over there, down wind, where he can’t see you or smell you. You’ve done enough.”
Philonikos looked into the paled and widened eyes. He went, in silence, exactly where he was told.
Alexander remembered, then, that he had not asked when the horse was first called Thunder, or if it had had another name. It had said plainly enough that Thunder was the word for tyranny and pain. It must have a new name, then. He walked round, keeping his shadow behind, looking at the horned blaze under the blowing forelock.
“Oxhead,” he said, falling into Macedonian, the speech of truth and love. “Boukephalos, Boukephalos.”
The horse’s ears went up. At the sound of this voice, the hated presence had lost power and been driven away. What now? It had lost all trust in men. It snorted, and pawed the ground in warning.
Ptolemy said, “The King may be sorry he set him on to this.”
“He was born lucky,” said Philotas. “Do you want to bet?”
Alexander said to the groom, “I’ll take him. You needn’t wait.”
“Oh, no, sir! When you’re mounted, my lord. My lord, they’ll hold me accountable.”
“No, he’s mine now. Just give me his head without jerking that bit…I said, give it me. Now.”
He took the reins, easing them at first only a little. The horse snorted, then turned and snuffed at him. The off forefoot raked restlessly. He took the reins in one hand, to run the other along the moist neck; then shifted his grip to the headstall, so that the barbed bit no longer pressed at all. The horse only pulled forward a little. He said to the groom, “Go that way. Don’t cross the light.”
He pushed round the horse’s head to face the bright spring sun. Their shadows fell out of sight behind them. The smell of its sweat and breath and leather bathed him in its steam. “Boukephalos,” he said softly.
It strained forward, trying to drag him with it; he took in the rein a little. A horsefly was on its muzzle; he ran his hand down, till his fingers felt the soft lip. Almost pleadingly now, the horse urged them both onward, as if saying, “Come quickly away from here.”
“Yes, yes,” he said stroking its neck. “All in good time, when I say, we’ll go. You and I don’t run away.”
He had better take off his cloak; while he spared a hand for the pin, he talked on to keep the horse in mind of him. “Remember who we are. Alexander and Boukephalos.”
The cloak fell behind him; he slid his arm over the horse’s back. It must be near fifteen hands, a tall horse for Greece; he was used to fourteen. This one was as tall as Philotas’ horse about which he talked so much. The black eye rolled round at him. “Easy, easy, now. I’ll tell you when.”
With the reins looped in his left hand he grasped the arch of the mane; with his right, its base between the shoulders. He could feel the horse gather itself together. He ran a few steps with it to gain momentum, then leaped, threw his right leg over; he was up.
The horse felt the light weight on its back, compact of certainty; the mercy of invincible hands, the forbearance of immovable will; a nature it knew and shared, transfigured to divinity. Men had not mastered it; but it would go with the god.
The crowd was silent at first. They were men who knew horses, and had more sense than to startle this one. In a breathing hush they waited for it to get its head, taking for granted the boy would be run away with, eager to applaud if he could only stick on and ride it to a standstill. But he had it in hand; it was waiting his sign to go. There was a hum of wonder; then, when they saw him lean forward and kick his heel with a shout, when boy and horse went racing down towards the water-meadows, the roar began. They vanished into the distance; only the rising clouds of wildfowl showed where they had gone.
They came back at last with the sun behind them, their shadow thrown clear before. Like the feet of a carved pharaoh treading his beaten enemies, the drumming hooves trampled the shadow triumphantly into the ground.
At the horse-field they slowed to a walk. The horse blew and shook its bridle. Alexander sat easy, in the pose which Xenophon commends: the legs straight down, gripping with the thigh, relaxed below the knee. He rode towards the stand; but a man stood waiting down in front of it. It was his father.
He swung off cavalry style, across the neck with his back to the horse; considered the best way in war, if the horse allowed it. The horse was remembering things learned before the tyranny. Philip put out both arms; Alexander came down into them. “Look out we don’t jerk his mouth, Father,” he said. “It’s sore.”
Philip pounded him on the back. He was weeping. Even his blind eye wept real tears. “My son!” he said choking. There was wet in his harsh beard. “Well done, my son, my son.”