I could see at once this was a night when Alexander felt like drinking. He set the pace; the wine-pourers went round so fast, everyone was tipsy by the time the meat was finished; when, at a decent Persian feast, the wine would first have come in. I am angry to this day, when ignorant Greeks say we taught the King deep drinking. Would to God he had learned from us.
There was a dessert that day; beautiful apples from Hyrkania. They had traveled well; Alexander had made me take one before supper, in case there should be none left. He was never too busy to think of things like that.
It seems the nature of man to turn God's good gifts to evil. At all events, it was over these apples that the talk began to go wrong.
The fruits of all earth's four quarters, said Alexander's friends, now reached him from his own lands. The Dioskouroi had been deified for conquests far less than his.
Now I know, from my later reading, that this is true. The furthest the Twins ever got from their Spartan home, was up to the Euxine in Jason's ship; about as far as from Macedon to western Asia, and just the coast at that. Their other wars had been these little Greek ones, cattle-raids, or getting their sister back from some king of Athens; all quite near home. Good fighters, no doubt; but I never heard they could fight hand to hand while leading men in battle. One of them was just a boxer. So Alexander did not deny he had excelled them. Why should he? Yet I felt the breath of trouble.
Sure enough, the old school started to raise the cry of blasphemy. At this, the King's friends shouted out (by now everyone was shouting) that the Twins had been born as mortal as Alexander; and it was only spite and envy, putting on a false face of reverence, which had denied him the same honors, better earned.
As if touched by the ferment in the hall, I had helped myself well to wine out in the anteroom, and was in a haze; as one is in dreams where disasters loom, but one knows one can do nothing. Sober, though, I would have known the same.
"Alexander this, Alexander that, all Alexander!" Kleitos' thick raucous voice topped all the rest. It brought me from the anteroom to the entry. He was standing up in his place. "Did he conquer Asia by himself? Did we do nothing?"
Hephaistion yelled back (he was as drunk as all the rest), "He led us! You didn't get as far in Philip's day."
This was just the thing to double Kleitos' anger. "Philip!" he cried. "Philip started with nothing! How did he find us? Tribes feuding, rival kings, enemies all round. He was struck down before he was fifty, and where was he then? Master of Greece; master of Thrace to the Hellespont; all ready to march to Asia. But for your father," he shouted straight at Alexander, "where would you be today? Without the army he left you ready? You'd be still beating off the Illyrians."
I was shocked to the soul that such insolence was being heard by Persians. Whatever was done to the man later, he must be got out at once. I looked for the King to order it.
"What!" he shouted back. "In seven years? Are you off your head?"
Never had I known him so to forget himself. It was like some trooper in a tavern. And the drunk fools of Macedonians did nothing but shout along with him.
"—still fighting the Illyrians!" bawled Kleitos over again.
Alexander, who was used to being heard above a battle when he raised his voice, lifted it now. "My father was fighting the Illyrians half his life. And they never kept quiet till I was old enough to do it for him. I was sixteen. I drove them leagues beyond their borders, and there they've stayed. And where were you? Lying up with him in Thrace, after the Triballians had thrashed you."
I had long heard that Queen Olympias had been a turbulent jealous woman, who taught him to hate his father. This, I thought, is what comes of their having no one trained to manage their harems properly. I could have sunk with shame.
A roar of dispute broke out. The disaster by the river was fought over once again. During the hubbub Alexander came to himself a little. He called for silence, in a voice that at once procured it; I could see him fighting for calm. Presently he said to the Greek guests sitting near, "You must feel like demigods among wild beasts, in all this uproar."
Kleitos had heard. Purple with drink and fury, he yelled, "Beasts now are we? And fools and bunglers. It'll be cowards next. That's what it will be! It's we, the men your father made us, we put you where you are. And now his blood's not good enough for you, you son of Ammon."
Alexander was dead silent a moment; then he said, not loudly but in a voice so deadly it cut through everything, "Get out."
"Yes, I'll go," Kleitos said. "Why not?" Suddenly his arm shot out and pointed straight at me. "Yes, when we have to beg barbarians like that creature there for leave to see you, better stay away. It's the dead, it's Parmenion and his sons, it's the dead are lucky."
Without a word, Alexander reached to his dish of apples, drew back his arm, and hurled one at Kleitos' head. It hit dead on; I heard the clunk on his skull.
Hephaistion had jumped to his feet, and was standing by Alexander. I heard him say to Ptolemy, "Get him outside. For the gods' love, get him out."
Ptolemy went over to Kleitos, who was still rubbing his head, took his arm and eased him towards the outer doors. Kleitos turned and waved the other arm. "And this right hand," he said, "saved you at Granikos, when you'd turned your back on Spithridates' spear."
Alexander, who had on his half-Persian robe, grabbed at his sash, as if he hoped to find a sword there. Perhaps in Macedon they'd even worn them at supper. "Turned my back?" he shouted. "Liar! Wait for me, don't run away."
Now he had good cause for anger. Though Spithridates' kin had always claimed, at Susa, that he'd fought hand to hand with Alexander, they had done him too much honor; he had tried to take him from behind when he was fighting someone else. Kleitos, coming up in turn behind Spithridates, had cut through his lifted arm. Any soldier in reach, I suppose, would have done the same; and Kleitos boasted of it so often that everyone was sick of it. To say Alexander had turned his back was truly infamous. He was already on his feet, when Hephaistion and Perdikkas gripped him round the middle. He struggled and cursed them, trying to break their hold, while Ptolemy shoved Kleitos towards the doors, still uttering some defiance swamped by the noise. Hephaistion said, "We're all drunk. You'd be sorry after."
Alexander, wrenching at their arms with both hands, said between his teeth, "This is how Darius finished. Is it fetters next?"
He is possessed, I thought; it is more than the wine; he must be saved. I ran up to the struggling knot of men. "Al'skander, it wasn't like this with Darius. These are your friends, they don't wish you harm." He half turned and said "What?" Hephaistion said, "Go away now, Bagoas"; speaking impatiently, as if to a child who comes up for notice when everyone is busy.
Ptolemy had walked Kleitos down the hall to the doors, and pulled them open. He nearly got away and back into the hall, but Ptolemy kept his hold. They vanished and the doors closed after them. Hephaistion said, "He's gone. It's over. Don't make a show of yourself, come and sit down." They let him go.
He threw back his head, and gave a great shout in Macedonian. A score of soldiers came running in from outside. He had called the guard.
"Trumpeter!" he said. The man stepped forward. It was his duty always to be in reach of the King. "Sound the general alarm!"
The man lifted his trumpet, slowly, putting off the moment to blow. It would have turned the whole army out. From his post he must have heard nearly everything. Hephaistion, standing behind the King, signed to him "No."
"Sound the alarm," said Alexander. "Are you deaf? Sound the alarm."
Again the man raised the trumpet. He saw the eyes of five or six generals fixed on him, saying no. He lowered it. Alexander hit him in the face.
Hephaistion said, "Alexander."
For a moment he paused, as if coming to himself. He said to the gaping guards, "Go to your posts." The trumpeter, after one anxious glance, went too.
Early in the uproar, the Persians had excused themselves to the chamberlains, and slipped away. The ever-curious Greeks had stayed much longer, then scrambled off without ceremony when the guard was called. It was now all Macedonians; their own quarrel forgotten, gaping like rustics beside whose village brawl a thunderbolt has fallen.
I thought, They should have let me near him. When I named Darius, he heard. Never mind what they do, I am going back to him.
But he was free now, striding down the hall, calling for Kleitos as if he were still in hearing. "All this faction in the camp, it's all your doing!"
He passed by me unseeing; and I let him pass. How could I take hold of him before all these people? There had been enough unseemliness. That he should have wished to chastise this insolent boor with his own hands, instead of sending for the executioners! What king could think of such a thing, except one reared in Macedon? It was bad enough, without his Persian boy dragging at his arm in sight of everyone. I expect it made no difference, I daresay he would have shaken me off unheard. Yet even now, I wake in the night and think of it.
Just then, Ptolemy slipped in quietly through the service door, and said to the others, "I walked him right outside the citadel. He'll cool off there."
The King was still calling "Kleitos!" but I felt better. He's just fighting drunk, I thought. It will soon go off. I'll get him into a good hot bath, and let him talk. Then he'll sleep till noon, and wake up himself again.
"Kleitos, where are you?" As he reached the outer doors, they burst wide open. There stood Kleitos, red-faced and panting. He must have started back as soon as Ptolemy left him.
"Here's Kleitos!" he shouted. "Here I am!"
He had come back for the last word. He had thought of it too late, and would not forgo it. It was his fate to be given his wish.
From the doors behind him, a guard came in doubtfully, like a muddy dog. He'd had no orders to keep out the Commander; but he did not like it. He stood spear in hand, looking dutiful and ready. Alexander, checked in his stride, stared unbelievingly.
"Listen, Alexander. Alas, ill rule in Hellas..."
Even Macedonians know their Euripides. I daresay everyone there but I could have completed these famous lines. The gist of them is that the soldiers do it all, the general gets it all. I don't know if he meant to go on.
A flash of white went to the door, and turned again. There was a bellow like a slaughtered bull's. Kleitos clutched with both hands at the spear stuck in his breast; fell and writhed grunting; jerked in the death-spasm. His mouth and eyes fixed, wide open.
It had been so quick, for a moment I thought the guard had done it. The spear was his.
It was the silence, all down the hall, that told me.
Alexander stood over the body, staring down. Presently he said, "Kleitos." The corpse glared back at him. He took the spear by the haft. When it would not come, I saw him begin the soldier's movement to brace his foot on the body; then flinch and pull again. It jerked out, a handspan deep in blood, splashing his clean white robe. Slowly he turned it round, the butt on the ground, the point towards him.
Ptolemy has always maintained that it meant nothing. I only know I cried, "No, my lord!" and got it away. I took him unready, as he had done the guard. Someone reached over and carried it out of sight. Alexander sank on his knees by the body, and felt over its breast; then covered his face with his bloody hands.
"Oh God," he said slowly, "God, God, God, God."
"Come away, Alexander," Hephaistion said. "You can't stay here."
Ptolemy and Perdikkas helped lift him to his feet. At first he resisted, still searching the corpse for life. Then he went with them, like a sleepwalker. His face looked dreadful, all striped with blood. The Macedonians, in little knots, stared as he passed. I hurried after him.
At the door of his room, the squire on guard started forward saying, "Is the King wounded?" Ptolemy said, "No. He doesn't need you." Once inside, he flung himself on the bed, face downward, just as he was in his bloodstained robe.
I saw Hephaistion looking about, and guessed what for. I wetted a sponge and gave it him. He pulled at Alexander's hands and washed them, then turned his head this way and that, and cleaned his face.
Alexander pushed at him and said, "What are you doing?"
"Getting the blood off you."
"You will never do that." He was sobered. He knew it all.
"Murder," he said. He spoke the word over and over, like a foreign one he was trying to learn. He sat up. His face was nowhere near clean. I would have sent for warm water, gone quietly about it, and done it properly. "Go, all of you," he said. "I want nothing. Leave me alone."
They exchanged looks and moved towards the door. I waited, to care for him when his first grief was spent.
Hephaistion said, "Come out, Bagoas, he wants no one here."
"I am no one," I answered. "Just let me put him to bed."
I took a step to him; but he said "Everyone go"; so then I went. If Hephaistion had kept his mouth shut, I'd just have sat quietly in a corner till he forgot about me. Then, later in the night, when the life runs low, he would not have been sorry to have me tend him. They had not laid a blanket on him, and the nights were cold.
They went off talking together. In my room I kept my clothes on, in case he called for me. I could well understand, having brought on himself so dreadful an indignity, he could bear no one near him now. My heart shed blood for him. We had taught him enough in Persia, for him to feel his shame. When Nabarzanes had asked Darius to step down for Bessos, and the King had drawn his scimitar, it had been almost a courtly scene, compared with this.
