“Menapis and Artabazos will be glad they’re pardoned. They often talk about home. I don’t think they’ll ever rebel again. You can tell King Ochos.”
The senior envoy had followed most of this in spite of the uncouth tongue. He smiled into his black mustaches, and said he would not fail to do so.
“And what about General Memnon? Is he pardoned too? We thought he might be, after his brother Mentor won the war in Egypt.”
The envoy’s eyes blinked a moment. Mentor the Rhodian, he said presently, was a worthy mercenary, and no doubt the Great King was grateful.
“He’s married to Artabazos’ sister. Do you know how many children they have now? Twenty-one! All alive! They keep having twins. Eleven boys and ten girls. I only have one sister. But I think that is enough.”
Both envoys bowed. They were informed of the King’s domestic discords.
“Memnon speaks Macedonian. He told me how he lost his battle.”
“My prince,” smiled the elder envoy, “you should study war from victors.”
Alexander looked at him thoughtfully. His father always took trouble to find out where losers had gone wrong. Memnon had cheated a friend of his over a horse-deal; he would not have minded telling how he lost his battle; but he smelled patronage. If the youth had asked, it would have been different.
The chamberlain sent off the slaves, lingering himself for the rescue which would surely soon be needed. The boy bit sparingly at his cake, going over in his mind his most important questions; there might not be time for all. “How many men has the Great King in his army?”
Both envoys heard this aright; both smiled. The truth could do only good; he could be trusted, no doubt, to remember most of it.
“Beyond number,” said the elder. “Like the sands of the sea, or the stars on a moonless night.” They told him of the Median and the Persian bowmen, the cavalry on the great horses of Nisaia; and the troops of the outer empire, Kissians and Hyrkanians, Assyrians with plaited bronze helmets and iron-spiked maces, Parthians with bow and scimitar; Ethiopians in leopard and lion skins who painted their faces red and white for battle and shot arrows tipped with stone; the Arab camel corps; the Bactrians; and so on as far as India. He listened round-eyed, like any child hearing marvels, till the tale was over.
“And they all have to fight when the Great King sends for them?”
“Every one, upon pain of death.”
“How long does it take them to come?”
There was a sudden pause. It was over a century since Xerxes’ expedition; they themselves did not know the answer. They said the King ruled over vast dominions and men of many tongues. From India, say, to the coast it might be a year’s journey. But there were troops wherever he might need them.
“Do have some more wine. Is there a road all the way to India?”
It took time to dispose of this. In the doorway people were elbowing to listen, the news having spread.
“What’s King Ochos like in battle? Is he brave?”
“Like a lion,” said the envoys both together.
“Which wing of the cavalry does he lead?”
The mere awe of him…The envoys became evasive. The boy took a larger bite of cake. He knew one must not be rude to guests, so he changed the subject. “If the soldiers come from Arabia and India and Hyrkania, and can’t speak Persian, how does he talk to them?”
“Talk to them? The King?” It was touching, the little strategist a child again. “Why, the satraps of their provinces choose officers who speak their tongues.”
Alexander tilted his head a little, and creased his brows. “Soldiers like to be talked to before a battle. They like you to know their names.”
“I am sure,” said the second envoy charmingly, “they like you to know them.” The Great King, he added, conversed only with his friends.
“My father converses with those at supper.”
The envoys murmured something, not daring to catch each other’s eyes. The barbarity of the Macedonian court was famous. The royal symposiums, it was said, were more like the feasts of mountain bandits snowed up with their spoils, than the banquets of a ruler. A Milesian Greek, who swore to having witnessed it, had told them King Philip thought nothing of stepping down from his couch to lead the line of dancers. Once, during an argument carried on in shouts across the room, he had shied a pomegranate at a general’s head. The Greek, with the effrontery of that race of liars, had gone on to claim that the general had replied with a hunk of bread, and was still alive, in fact still a general. But if one believed no more than half, the least said the best.
Alexander for his part had been wrestling with a problem. A tale he disbelieved, and wished to check, had been told by Menapis. An exile might want to make the Great King look foolish. But these people would inform on him, and he would be crucified when he got home. It was wicked to betray a guest-friend.
“A boy here told me,” he therefore said, “that when people greet the Great King they have to lie flat down on the ground. But I told him he was silly.”
“The exiles could have told you, my prince, the wisdom of that homage. Our master rules not only many peoples, but many kings. Though we call them satraps, some are kings by blood, whose forebears once ruled for themselves, till they were brought into the empire. So he must be raised as far above other kings as they above their subjects. Under-kings must feel no more shame to fall down before him than before the gods. If he seemed less than this, his rule would soon pass away.”
The boy had listened and understood. He answered courteously, “Well, here we don’t fall down before the gods. So you need not do it to my father. He’s not used to it; he won’t mind.”
The envoys clutched at their gravity. The thought of prostrating themselves before this barbaric chief, whose ancestor had been Xerxes’ vassal (and a treacherous one at that) was too grotesque to offend.
The chamberlain, seeing it was high time, came forward; bowed to the child, who he thought deserved it, and invented a summons which could be explained away outside. Sliding down from the throne, Alexander bade goodbye to each, remembering all their names. “I am sorry I can’t come back here. I have to go to the maneuvers. Some of the Foot Companions are friends of mine. The sarissa is a very good weapon in a solid front, my father says; the thing is to make it mobile. So he’ll go on till they get it right. I hope you won’t have long to wait. Please ask for anything you want.”
Turning beyond the doorway, he saw the beautiful eyes of the youth still fixed on him, and paused to wave goodbye. The envoys, chattering together in excited Persian, were too busy to see their exchange of smiles.
Later that day, he was in the Palace garden teaching his dog to fetch things, among the carved urns from Ephesos whose rare flowers died in the bitter winters of Macedon unless they were brought indoors. From the painted stoa above, his father walked down towards him.
He called the dog to heel. Side by side they waited, prick-eared and wary. His father sat down on a marble bench, and beckoned towards the side of his seeing eye. The blind eye had healed now; only a white patch on the iris showed where the arrow had gone in. It had been a spent one, to which he owed his life.
“Come here, come here,” he said, grinning and showing strong white teeth with a gap in them. “Come tell me what they said to you. You set them some hard questions, I hear. Tell me the answers. How many troops has Ochos, if he’s put to it?”
He spoke in Macedonian. As a rule he spoke Greek to his son, for the good of his education. His tongue freed by this, the boy began to talk: of the Ten Thousand Immortals, of archers and javelineers and axmen; how cavalry chargers would bolt from the smell of camels; and how kings in India rode on black hairless beasts, so huge they could carry towers upon their backs. Here he cocked his eye at his father, not wanting to seem gullible. Philip nodded. “Yes, elephants. They are vouched for by men I have found honest in other ways. Go on; all this is very useful.”