The young men made sounds of outrage, but briefly, being eager to learn what next.
“Mentor took his seal and fixed it to forged orders, which opened all the strongpoints of Atarneus to Mentor’s men. King Ochos now owns them, and all the Greeks within them. As for Hermeias…”
A brand fell out of the hearth; Harpalos picked up the fire-iron and shoved it back. Aristotle wetted his lips with his tongue. His folded hands did not move, but their knuckles whitened.
“From the first his death had been determined; but that was not enough for them. King Ochos wished first to know what secret treaties he might have made with other rulers. So he sent for the men whose skill it is to do such things, and told them to make him speak. It is said they worked on him a day and a night.”
He went on to tell them what had been done; forcing his voice, when he could, into the tone of his lectures on anatomy. The young men listened wordless; their breath hissed as they sucked it in through their shut teeth.
“My pupil Kallimachos, whom you know, sent me the news from Athens. He says that when Demosthenes announced to the Assembly that Hermeias had been taken, he numbered it among the gifts of fortune, saying, ‘The Great King will now hear of King Philip’s plots, not as a complaint from us, but from the lips of the man who worked them.’ He knows, none better, how such things are done in Persia. But he rejoiced too soon. Hermeias told them nothing. At the end, when after all they could do he was still alive, they hung him on a cross. He said to those in hearing, ‘Tell my friends I have done nothing weak, nor unworthy of philosophy.’”
There was a deep-voiced murmuring. Alexander stood rooted and still. Presently, when no one else spoke, he said, “I am sorry. Indeed I am truly sorry.” He came forward, put his arm around Aristotle’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. He stared on into the fire.
A servant brought the warmed wine; he sipped it, shook his head, and put it aside. Suddenly he sat up, and turned towards them. In the upward glow of the fire, the lines of his face looked as if carved in clay, ready for casting in the bronze.
“Some of you will command in war. Some of you will have the ruling of lands you conquer. Always remember this: as the body is worth nothing without the mind to rule it, as its function is to labor that the mind may live, such is the barbarian in the natural order God ordained. Such peoples may be bettered, as horses are, by being tamed and put to use; like plants or animals, they can serve purposes beyond what their own natures can conceive. That is their value. They are the stuff of slaves. Nothing exists without its function; that is theirs. Remember it.”
He stood up from the chair, giving as he turned a haunted look at the fire-basket, whose bands were reddening. Alexander said, “If I ever take the men who did this to your friend, the Persians or the Greek, I swear I will avenge him.”
Without looking back, Aristotle walked to the dark staircase and went up it out of their sight.
The steward came in, to announce that supper was ready.
Talking loudly of the news, the young men made for the dining-room; there was not much formality at Mieza. Alexander and Hephaistion lingered, exchanging looks. “So,” said Hephaistion, “he did arrange the treaty.”
“My father and he caused this between them. What must he feel?”
“At least he knows his friend died faithful to philosophy.”
“Let’s hope he believes it. A man dies faithful to his pride.”
“I expect,” said Hephaistion, “the Great King would have killed Hermeias in any case, to get his cities.”
“Or he did it because he doubted him. Why was he tortured? They guessed there was something he knew.” The firelight burnished his hair and the clear whites of his eyes. He said, “If ever I get my hands on Mentor, I shall have him crucified.”
With a complex inward shudder, Hephaistion pictured the beautiful vivid face watching unmoved. “You’d better go in to supper. They can’t start without you.”
The cook, who knew how young men eat in cold weather, had allowed a whole duck to each. First helpings, with the breast, were being carved and handed; a warm aromatic smell enriched the air.
Alexander picked up the plate they had put before him, and swung down his feet from the dining-couch he was sharing with Hephaistion. “Everyone eat, don’t wait. I’m only going to see Aristotle.” To Hephaistion he said, “He must eat before night. He’ll fall sick if he lies fasting in the cold, in all that grief. Just tell them to get me something, anything will do.”
The plates were being wiped with bread when he came back. “He took a little. I thought he would once he got the smell of it. I daresay he’ll have more, now…There’s too much here, you’ve been giving me yours.” Presently he added, “Poor man, he was half out of his mind. I could tell, when he made us that speech about the nature of barbarians. Imagine calling a great man like Kyros the stuff of slaves, only because he was born a Persian.”
The pale sun rose earlier and gained strength; steep mountain faces let slip their snow-loads, roaring, to flatten great pines like grass. Torrents foamed down their gorges, grinding boulders with thunderous sound. Shepherds waded thigh-deep through wet snow to rescue the early lambs. Alexander put his fur cloak away, in case he should come to depend on it. The young men who had been doubling up went back to sleep alone; so he put away Hephaistion too, though not without some regret. Secretly Hephaistion exchanged their pillows, to take with him the scent of Alexander’s hair.
King Philip came back from Thrace, where he had deposed King Kersobleptes, left garrisons in his strongpoints, and planted the Hebros valley with Macedonian colonists. Those who applied for lands in these uncouth wilds were mostly men unwanted, or wanted too much, elsewhere; the wits of the army said he should have called his new city, not Philippopolis, but Knavestown. However, the foundation would serve its purpose. Pleased with his winter’s work, he returned to Aigai to celebrate the Dionysia.
Mieza was abandoned to its slaves. The young men and their teacher packed up their things, and rode along the track which skirted the ridge to Aigai. Here and there they had to descend to the plain, to ford swollen streams. A long while before they sighted Aigai, on the forest trail they felt the earth below them shudder from the pounding of the falls.
The old rugged castle was full of lights and bright stuffs and beeswax polish. The theater was being readied for the plays. The half-moon shelf Aigai stood on was like a great stage itself, looked down on by wild hills whose audience one could only guess at, when in the windy spring nights they cried to each other over the sounds of water, in defiance, terror, loneliness or love.
The King and Queen were installed already. Reading as he crossed the threshold those signs in which the years had made him expert, Alexander judged that, publicly at least, they were on speaking terms. But they were unlikely to be found together. This had been his first long absence; which should be greeted first?
It ought to be the King. Custom decreed it; to omit it would be an open slight. Unprovoked too; in Thrace, Philip had gone to trouble to keep things decent before him. No girl about the place; never a glance too many at the handsomest of the body-squires, who thought himself a cut above the rest. His father had commended him handsomely after the battle, and promised him his own company when next he went into action. It would be boorish to insult him. Indeed, Alexander found that he wished to see him; he would have much to tell.
The King’s business room was in the ancient tower which had been the first core of the castle, filling its upper floor. A ponderous wooden ladder, mended through the centuries, still had beside it the heavy ring to which earlier kings, whose bedchamber it had been, had chained a watchdog of the great Molossian breed that could rear up taller than a man. King Archelaos had hung a smoke-hood over the hearth; but he had made few changes at Aigai, the Palace at Pella had been his love. Philip’s clerks had the anteroom below the ladder. Alexander had one of them announce him, before he went up.