Over our vast straggling horde, a trumpet sounded. The horse-train trampled and whinnied; orders barked in the snapping air; in less time than one could believe, the cavalry came out in column. Alexander mounted his war-horse; they plunged off into the weather, the ground shuddering under them. It was as if a slow giant had opened his cloak, and hurled a javelin.
We made camp and waited among all the winds of heaven; men and women were scratching the plain for firewood. I went to my Greek lessons with Philostratos, a grave young Ephesian, who did not despair of me. (To him I owe it that King Ptolemy lets me use his library, and I have read most Greek authors worth mentioning, though I cannot to this day make out the simplest inscription in my native tongue.)
The clerks kept up the records, so I got the news. The tribesmen had fled at the mere rumor of Alexander; the satrap had escaped to Bessos. Alexander had marked him down for death; he could never abide treachery. Nonetheless, the new satrap he had appointed for Areia was another Persian. He rode back in a snowstorm, and settled to his load of business.
The returning troops made a great rush for women, or whatever their fancy was. I knew better than to await any such summons. When he poured out his strength in war, he kept nothing back; and there was a half-month's work of government saved up for him. He got through it in five days. Then he asked in some friends, and they sat up all night drinking. He grew talkative, and fought over the whole war again. Then he slept all day, and on through the next night.
It was not the wine, though he had had a lot of it; he could have slept that off in half the time. Wine was what he used, to bring his mind to a stop when it had forgotten rest. Drunk as he was, he managed to take a bath, which he liked at bedtime. He never laid a hand on me, except to steady his steps. Wine brings out hidden things, and it did with him; but coarseness in the bedchamber was never one of them.
The day after, he woke as fresh as a foal; got through another mountain of work; and said to me at bedtime, "How can it have been so long?"
I made him welcome in every way I knew, and some I had only just thought of. It was a joke of his that I was making a Persian of him; the truth was that I was forgetting already how to please anyone else. A gentle subtlety was better for him than passion. Though I had the art to draw men into violent pleasures, and had done it also with him, it left a cloud on him; and for me it was only a taught skill. I should have obeyed my heart from the first; but no one before him had ever let me have one. Now I had shown him his way about the garden of delight, or as much of it as ever would delight him, he wanted a companion there, not an entertainer. He was never clumsy; it was his nature to be a giver, here as elsewhere. And, here as elsewhere, if he was vain it was never about nothing.
Prince Oxathres had been promoted into the King's Bodyguard. Alexander liked handsome men there, and thought it due to his rank. He was within a thumb-breadth of Darius for height; Alexander said to me laughing that it was a change for Philotas, to have someone look down at him. I replied with constraint, which I hoped he noticed. This Philotas had been on my mind.
He was the grandest of the generals, Commander of the Companions, thought handsome, though too red for a Persian taste. Of all those who put on more state and luxury than the King, he was the chief. I swear he went hunting with more gear and attendance than Darius had, and the inside of his tent was like a palace. I had taken a message there, and he had looked at me with contempt. It did him no good with me, even that Hephaistion disliked him too.
When one knows the ways of courts, one knows what to look for. Sometimes I would post myself outside the audience room, as I'd done at Babylon, to watch faces as men came out. There would be the usual run of relief, disappointment, pleasure, familiar ease; but Philotas' smile used to drop off his face too quickly, and once I could have sworn I saw a sneer.
I kept it in my heart. I dared say nothing. Alexander had known him all his life; with boyhood friends, he was loyal beyond sense. Not only that; the man's father, Parmenion, outranked every other general, even Krateros who outranked all others here. Parmenion had been King Philip's chief commander. I had never seen him, because his army was guarding the western roads behind us, a trust on which all our lives depended. So I held my peace; only praising Oxathres' Nisaian chargers and their splendid trappings, and adding, "But of course, my lord, even at Darius' court he was never as rich as Philotas."
"No?" he said, and I could see it had made him think; so I clasped him laughing, and went on, "But now not you yourself are as rich as I."
The only upshot of this, that I could see, was his looking at Oxathres' horse-trappings, and liking them so much that he had them copied for old Oxhead. No Greek horse looks wonderful to a Persian; but now he was fed, tended and fresh, you could believe he had carried Alexander in battle for ten years and never once shown fear. Most horses would have been bothered by the new finery, the headstall with the cockade, the silver cheekpieces and the hanging plaques on the collar; but Oxhead thought very well of himself, and paced along making the most of them. There was a good deal in him of Alexander.
I was thinking this, as I sponged him down before dinner. He liked that as well as his bath at bedtime; he was the cleanest man I ever knew, when his wars allowed it. I used to wonder at first what faint pleasant scent he used, and would look about for the phial; but there was none, it was the gift of nature.
I praised the horse-trappings, and Oxhead's looks in them, and he said he was having more made as gifts for his friends. I toweled him down; all muscle, not overbuilt as those clumsy Greek wrestlers are. I said, "How well, my lord, you would wear the clothes that match the trappings."
He looked round quickly. "What put that in your head?"
"Only seeing you now."
"Oh, no. You are a seer, I told you so. I have been thinking, in one's own kingdom one should look less like a stranger."
His words delighted me. The wind was whistling round the tent. "I can tell you, my lord, in this weather you'll be much warmer in trousers."
"Trousers?" he said, staring at me in horror, as if I had proposed he should paint himself blue all over. Then he laughed. "My dear boy, on you they are enchanting; on Oxathres, they decorate the Guard. But to a Macedonian, there is something about trousers . . . Don't ask me why. I'm as bad as all the rest."
"We'll think of something, my lord. Something more like Persian court dress." I longed to make him beautiful in the fashion of my people.
He sent for a bolt of fine wool, for me to drape on him. But I had hardly started, when it turned out that not only would he not wear trousers; he would not have long sleeves either. He said they would fidget him, but I could tell it was just a pretext. I told him it was Kyros himself who'd put the Persians into Median dress; what's more, it was true; but even this magic name had no power upon him. So I had to resort to the antique Persian robe, so terribly old-fashioned that no one had worn it in a hundred years, except the King at festivals. If I'd not seen Darius being put into it, I'd never have known how it was made. It has a long skirt, stitched in folds on a waistband; a kind of cape, with a hole for the head to go through, covers the upper part and hangs over the arms to the wrists. I cut it all out and tacked the skirt together, put it on him, and moved the mirror about for him to see.
"I remember this," he said, "in the wall-reliefs at Persepolis. What do you think?" He moved sideways to the mirror. He was like a woman for dressing up, whenever he got a good excuse.
"It has great dignity," I said. He could carry it off, though it really called for height. "But do you like it to move in?"
He paced about. "If one doesn't need to do anything. Yes, I'll have it made up. In white, with purple borders."
So I found the best robe-maker (there were so many Persians in camp, that craftsmen followed them) and he made it with the real elaborate drapings. The King wore it, with a low open tiara, when entertaining Persians. I could see it increased respect. There are ways and ways of doing the prostration, which he did not see as I did. I had never told him, not wishing to betray my people; it hurt their pride, to see lower-born Macedonians make no reverence at all.
I told him now that they were well pleased with the robe. I did not say, though I longed to, that Philotas had looked down the length of the table and caught some crony's eye.
As I expected, Alexander soon found the robe tiresome; he said one could not stride out in it. I could have told him no one strode out at a Persian court. He had another made, pretty much like a long Greek chiton, except that the top overhung the arms. He wore a broad Median sash with it; purple on white. It suited him; but as far as the Macedonians were concerned, it might as well have had sleeves. He was so sure he had struck a happy mean, I hadn't the heart to tell him.
Hephaistion, as always, was on his side, and had taken to Persian horse-trappings. I heard murmurs about sycophancy as he passed; but I knew them mean. I had had time to consider Hephaistion. How easily he could have had me poisoned, or accused me through false witnesses, or had jewels hidden in my pack and charged me with their theft; something like that would have happened long ago at the Persian court, if I'd displeased a powerful favorite. He had a rough tongue among fellow soldiers, yet had never used it on me. If we had to meet, he would just speak to me as if to some wellborn page, civil and brisk. In return I offered respect without servility. Often I wished him dead, as, no doubt, so he did me; but we had reached an unspoken understanding. Neither of us would have robbed Alexander of anything he valued; so we had no choice.
Marching east over bare dun upland, and through rich valleys on which we fed, we halted at the king-house of the Zarangians. It was a rude old castle, rambling about over massive rocks with crazy rough-hewn steps, the windows mostly arrow-slits. The local chief moved out of the tower rooms; they smelled of his horses which had been stabled below. Alexander moved in, knowing he would lose face with the tribesmen if he did not. The squires had a guardroom halfway up; above were the King's chamber and an anteroom; a sort of closet, used by the squire who had the care of his weapons; and another closet for me. Outside of that, the other rooms, where his friends were lodged, were reached by going outdoors.
I had a brazier brought up for him to take his bath by; the place had a whistling draft, and after the march, he wanted a good clean-up before supper. The water was good and hot; I was rubbing down his back with ground pumice, when with a groaning creak the crude door flew open, and one of the squires burst in.
Alexander, sitting in the bath, said, "Whatever is it, Metron?"
The youth stood breathless. This one had made efforts, and shaped quite well; if only from respect for Alexander, he was civil even to me. But he now stood white as a bed-sheet, trying to find his voice. Alexander told him to take a hold of himself, and speak up. He swallowed.
"Alexander. There's a man here says he knows of a plot to kill you."
I rinsed the pumice off Alexander's back. He stood up. "Where is he?"
"In the armory, Alexander. There was nowhere else to put him."
"His name?"
"Kebalinos, sir. Leonnatos' squadron. Sir, I brought your sword."
"Good. You put a guard on him?"
"Yes, Alexander."
"Good boy. Now tell me what he said."
I was still drying and dressing him. Perceiving I was not to be sent out, Metron said, "He's here for his brother, sir, young Nikomachos. He didn't dare come himself, they'd have guessed why. That's why he told Kebalinos."
"Yes?" said Alexander, very patiently. "Told Kebalinos what?"
"About Dymnos, sir. He's the one."
Alexander's brows went up a moment. Metron buckled his sword-belt on.
"He's—well, a friend of young Nikomachos, sir. He wanted him to join in, but Nikomachos said no. Dymnos had counted on his saying yes to anything; so he lost his head, and told Nikomachos they'd kill him if he didn't join. So then he pretended he would, and told his brother."
"They? Who are the others?"
The youth strained his face. "Alexander, I'm sorry. He told me, but I can't remember."
"Honest at least. If you want to make a soldier, it's when taken by surprise you have to keep your wits. Never mind; go and fetch me the Captain of the Guard."
He started pacing the room. He looked stern-faced, but hardly shocked at all. I'd learned already that more kings had been murdered in Macedon even than in Persia. There, they used the dagger. It was said his father had been struck down before his eyes.
When the Captain of the Guard came in, he said, "Arrest Dymnos of Chalestra. He's quartered in the camp, not the palace. Bring him here." Then he went with Metron to the armory.
From the anteroom, I heard the man inside cry, "Oh, King! I thought I'd never get word to you in time." Being scared he gabbled, so I missed some of his story. There was something about Dymnos feeling slighted by the King, then, "But that's only what he told my brother. He couldn't account to me for the others being in it"; and he gave their names, which like Metron I have forgotten, even though I saw them die.
Alexander let him run on, never checking him when he rambled; then said, "How long did your brother know this, before he told you?"
"Just till he could find me, Alexander. No time at all."
"Today, then, while we were making camp, this happened."
"Oh, no, Alexander. That's why I came like this. It was two days ago."
"Two days?" His voice had altered. "I've never been out of camp. How long were you in this, before you changed your mind? Arrest him."
They pulled him out, a young soldier, gaping with fright. "But Alexander," he called, between a croak and a shout, "I went the moment I heard. I swear it, I went straight to your tent. Didn't he tell you, then? He said he'd tell you as soon as you were free. And again next day. I swear it, King, by undying Zeus. Did he never tell you at all?"
