“No. He was shamming dead.”
“Was he? Well, who can blame him? One can’t even sit up, everything spins round. He hoped they’d be scared at what they’d done, and go away.”
“I opened his eye, and I know he saw me. But he gave me no sign, though he knew it was over then.”
“Very likely he just went off again.”
“I watched him, he was awake. But he won’t say he remembers.”
“Well, he’s the King.” Hephaistion had a secret kindness for Philip, who had always treated him with, courtesy, even with tact; with whom, too, he shared an enemy. “People might misunderstand, you know how tales get twisted.”
“To me he could have said it.” Alexander’s eyes, glittering in the near-darkness, fastened upon his. “He won’t own that he was lying there, knowing he owed his life to me. He didn’t want to admit it, he doesn’t want to remember.”
Who knows? thought Hephaistion. Or ever will? But he knows, and nothing will ever shift it. His bare shoulder, crossed by Hephaistion’s arm, had a faint sheen like darkened bronze. “Supposing he has his pride? You ought to know what that is.”
“Yes, I do. But in his place I’d still have spoken.”
“What need?” He slid his hand up the bronze shoulder into the tousled hair; Alexander pushed against it, like a powerful animal consenting to be stroked. Hephaistion remembered his childishness in the beginning; sometimes it seemed like yesterday, sometimes half a lifetime. “Everyone knows. He does; so do you. Nothing can take it away.”
He felt Alexander draw a long deep breath. “No; nothing. You’re right, you always understand. He gave me life, or he claims so. Whether or not, now I’ve given it him.”
“Yes, now you’re quits.”
Alexander gazed into the black peak of the rafters. “No one can equal the gifts of the gods, one can only try to know them. But it’s good to be clear of debt to men.”
Tomorrow he would sacrifice to Herakles. Meantime, he felt a deep wish at once to make someone happy. Luckily he had not far to seek.
“I warned him,” said Alexander, “not to put off dealing with the Triballoi.” He sat with Antipatros at the great desk of Archelaos’ study, over a dispatch full of bad news.
“Is his wound thought dangerous?” Antipatros asked.
“He couldn’t sign this; just his seal, and Parmenion’s witness. I doubt he even finished dictating it. The last part reads more like Parmenion.”
“He has good-healing flesh, your father. It’s in the family.”
“What were his diviners doing? Nothing’s gone right with him since I left. Perhaps we should consult Delphi or Dodona, in case some god needs appeasing.”
“It would spread through Greece like wildfire that his luck was out. He’d not thank us for that.”
“That’s true, no, better not. But look at Byzantion. He did everything right; got there fast, while their best forces were at Perinthos; chose a cloudy night; got up to the very walls. But of a sudden the clouds part, out comes the moon; and all the town dogs start barking. Barking at the crossroads…they light the torches…”
“Crossroads?” said Antipatros into the pause.
“Or,” said Alexander briskly, “maybe he misread the weather, it’s changeable on Propontis. But once he’d decided to lift both sieges, why not have rested his men, and let me take on the Scythians?”
“They were there on his flank, and had just denounced their treaty; but for them he might have hung on at Byzantion. Your father’s always known when to write off his losses. But his troops had their tails down; they needed a solid victory, and loot; both of which he got.”
Alexander nodded. He could get along well with Antipatros, a Macedonian of ancient stock, bone-loyal to the King beside whom he had fought in youth, but to the King before the man. It was Parmenion who loved the man before the King. “He did indeed. So there he was, lumbered up with a thousand head of cattle, a slave train, wagons of loot, on the north border where they can smell plunder further than buzzards. Tails up or not, his men were tired…If only he’d let me go on north from Alexandropolis; he’d have had no raid from the Triballoi then.” The name was established now; the colonists had settled. “The Agrianoi would have come in with me, they’d already agreed…Well, done’s done. It’s lucky his doctor wasn’t killed.”
“I should like to wish him well when the courier leaves.”
“Of course. Let’s not trouble him with business.” (If orders came back, would they be Philip’s or Parmenion’s?) “We shall have to shift for ourselves awhile.” He smiled at Antipatros, whom he liked none the worse for being charmable, and amusingly unaware of it. “War we can deal with well enough. But the business of the south—that’s another thing. It means a great deal to him; he sees it differently; he knows more about it. I should be sorry to act without him there.”
“Well, they seem to be working for him there better than we could.”
“At Delphi? I was there when I was twelve, for the Games, and never since. Now, once again, to be sure I understand it: this new offering-house the Athenians put up; they put in their dedications before it had been consecrated?”
“Yes, a technical impiety. That was the formal charge.”
“But the real quarrel was the inscription: SHIELDS TAKEN FROM PERSIANS AND THEBANS FIGHTING AGAINST GREECE…Why did the Thebans Medize, instead of allying with the Athenians?”
“Because they hated them.”
“Even then? Well, this inscription enraged the Thebans. So when the Sacred League of Delphi met, being I suppose ashamed to come forward themselves, they got some client state to accuse the Athenians of impiety.”
“The Amphissians. They live below Delphi, up river.”
“And if this indictment had succeeded, the League would have had to make war on Athens. The Athenians had sent three delegates; two went down with fever, and the third of them was Aischines.”
“You may remember the man; he was one of the peace envoys, seven years ago.”
“Oh, I know Aischines, he’s an old friend of mine. Did you know he was an actor once? He must have been good at gagging; because when the Council was about to pass the motion, he suddenly recalled that the Amphissians had been raising crops on some river land which had once been forfeited to Apollo. So he went rushing in, somehow got a hearing, and counteraccused the Amphissians. Is that right? Then, after his great oration, the Delphians forgot Athens, and rushed down pell-mell to wreck the Amphissians’ farms. The Amphissians fought; and some of the Councilors had their sacred persons knocked about. This was last autumn after the harvest.”
It was now winter. The study was as drafty and cold as ever. The King’s son, thought Antipatros, seemed to notice it even less than the King.
“Now the League is meeting at Thermopylai to pass judgment on the Amphissians. It’s clear my father won’t be fit to go. I am sure what he would like would be for you to represent him. Will you?”
“By all means, yes,” said Antipatros, relieved. The boy knew his own limits, eager as he was to stretch them. “I shall try to influence whom I can, and, where I can, postpone decisions for the King.”
“Let’s hope they’ve found him a warm house; Thrace in winter is no place for healing wounds. Before long, we shall have to consult him about this. What do you expect will happen?”
“In Athens, nothing. Even if the League condemns Amphissa, Demosthenes will keep the Athenians out. The countercharge was a personal triumph for Aischines, whom he hates like poison, and indicted on a capital charge of treason after their embassy here, as I daresay you know.”
“No one better. Part of the charge was that he was too friendly with me.”
“These demagogues! Why, you were only ten years old. Well, the charge failed, and now Aischines comes back from Delphi a public hero. Demosthenes must be chewing wormwood. Also, a larger issue, the Amphissians support the Thebans, whom he won’t wish to antagonize.”