“I forbade the match for good reasons which you know.” He had kept the best to himself; Arridaios would have been his tool, Alexander could have been dangerous. Karia was powerful. “Blame your mother,” he said. “She led you into this folly.”
“Can she be blamed?” Alexander still spoke with calm; there was a kind of searching in his eyes. “You have acknowledged children by other women. And Eurydike is in her eighth month now. Isn’t that so?”
“That is so.” The grey eyes were fastened on his face. Appeal in them might have softened him. He had been at trouble enough to train this man for kingship; if he himself fell in the coming war, what other heir could there be? Again he studied the face before him, so unconceding, and so unlike his own. Attalos, a Macedonian of a stock already old when the royal line was still in Argos, had told him country tales about the bacchic revels, customs brought in from Thrace, which the women kept secret. In the orgy, they themselves did not remember what they had done; what came of it they blamed on the god, in a human form or a snake’s; but somewhere a mortal man was laughing. That is a foreign face, thought Philip: then remembered it, flushed and brilliant, coming down from the black horse into his arms. Divided in himself and angry at it, he thought, He is here to be reprimanded; how dare he try to corner me? Let him take what he is given and be thankful, when I choose to give. What more does he deserve?
“Well, then,” he said, “if I have given you competitors for the kingdom, so much the better for you. Show your quality, earn your inheritance yourself.”
Alexander gazed at him with a piercing, an almost painful concentration. “Yes,” he said. “Then that is what I must do.”
“Very well,” Philip reached for his papers, dismissively.
“Sir. Whom are you sending to Asia, in command of the advance force?”
Philip looked up. “Parmenion and Attalos,” he said curtly. “If I don’t send you where I cannot keep an eye on you, you have yourself to thank. And your mother. That is all. You have leave to go.”
In their fort on the Lynx Hills the three Lynkestids, the sons of Airopos, stood on their brown stone ramparts. It was an open place, safe from eavesdroppers. They had left their guest downstairs, having heard what he had to say, but given no answer yet. Around them stretched a great sky of white towering clouds, fringed with mountains. It was late spring; on the bare peaks above the forests, only the deepest gullies showed veins of snow.
“Say what you like, both of you,” said the eldest, Alexandros, “but I don’t trust it. What if this comes from the old fox himself, to test us? Or to trap us, have you thought of that?”
“Why should he?” asked the second brother, Heromenes. “And why now?”
“Where are your wits? He is taking his army into Asia, and you ask why now.”
“Well,” said the youngest, Arrabaios, “that’s enough for him surely, without stirring up the west? No, if it had been that, it would have come two years ago, when he was planning to march south.”
“As he says”—Heromenes jerked his head towards the stairway—“now’s the time. Once Philip’s set out, he will have his hostage for us.” He looked at Alexandros, whose feudal duty it was to lead their tribal levies in the King’s war.
He stared back resentfully; already before this, he had been thinking that once his back was turned, the others would ride out on some mad foray that would cost him his head. “I tell you I don’t trust it. We don’t know this man.”
“Still,” argued Heromenes, “we do know those who’ve vouched for him.”
“Maybe. But those he claims to speak for—they’ve put their name to nothing.”
“The Athenian has,” said Arrabaios. “If you two have forgotten how to read your Greek, you can take my word for it.”
“His name!” said Alexandros, snorting like a horse. “What was it worth to the Thebans? He puts me in mind of my wife’s little dog, who starts the big ones fighting, and does nothing himself but yap.”
Heromenes, who had extravagant tastes as such things went on the border, said, “He’s sent a sweetener.”
“Birdlime. We must send it back. You should learn to judge a horse, then you’d not owe the copers. Don’t you value our heads at more than a bag of Persian darics? The real price, the worth of the risk, that’s not his to give.”
“That we could take for ourselves,” said Heromenes resentfully, “with Philip out of the way. What ails you, man; are you head of the clan, or our big sister? We’re offered our fathers’ kingdom back, and all you can do is cluck like some wet-nurse when the child starts walking.”
“She keeps it from breaking its head. Who says we could do it? An Athenian who ran like a goat at the smell of blood. Darius; a usurper barely settled on his throne, who has enough on his hands without a war. Do you think they care for us? And more, do you think they know whom we’d have to deal with, in Philip’s room? Of course not; they think he’s a spoiled little prince given credit for other men’s victories. The Athenian’s forever saying it in speeches. But we know. We’ve seen the lad at work. Sixteen he was then, with a head on him like thirty; and that’s three years gone. It’s not a month since I was at Pella; and I tell you, disgrace or not, put him in the field and the men will follow him anywhere. That you can take from me. Can we fight the royal army? You know the answer. So, is he in the business, as this man says, or not? That’s the only question. These Athenians, they’d sell their mothers to the stews if the price was right. Everything hangs on the lad, and we’ve no proof.”
Heromenes tweaked a bit of broom from its roots between the stones, and switched it moodily. Alexandros frowned at the eastern hills.
“Two things I don’t like,” he went on. “First, he has bosom friends in exile, some no further than Epiros. We could have met in the mountains and no one the wiser; we’d all know then where we were. Why send this go-between, a man I’ve never seen about him, why trust the man with his head? And the other thing I mislike is that he promises too much. You’ve met him. Think.”
“We should think first,” said Arrabaios, “whether he’s one who could do it. Not all men could. I think he could. And he’s at a pass when he might.”
“And if he’s a bastard as they say,” urged Heromenes, “then it’s a dangerous business, but not blood-cursed. I think he could and would.”
“I still say it doesn’t smell of him,” said Alexandros. Absently he scratched a louse out of his head, and rubbed it between thumb and finger. “Now, if it were his dam…”
“Dam or whelp, you can be sure they’re in it together,” Heromenes said.
“We don’t know that. What we do know is, the new wife’s with child again. And they say Philip’s giving his daughter as a sop to the Epirote King, so that he’ll stomach the witch being packed off. So, think which of them can’t afford to wait. Alexander can. Philip’s seed tends to girls, as everyone knows. Even if Eurydike throws a boy, let the King say what he likes while he lives, but if he dies, the Macedonians won’t accept an heir under fighting age; he should know that. But Olympias, now, that’s another matter. She can’t wait. Scratch into this deep enough, and I’ll stake my best horse you’ll find her hand in it.”
“If I thought it came from her,” said Arrabaios, “then I’d think twice.”