They lasted near half a month. All the best artists from all the Greek lands were there. I went to the plays, mostly to watch his face. Only one of them stays with me, The Myrmidons, which Thettalos had done before for Alexander; it's about Achilles, and Patroklos' death. Thettalos himself had just lost a dear friend, a fellow actor who had died on the journey down from Ekbatana. He carried it through; he was a professional. Alexander sat as if his mind were far away. I knew the look. He had had it when Peukestas cut out the arrow.
The music seemed to do him good; he looked released from himself when the kitharists were playing. Afterwards he entertained all the winners, saying just the right things to each. Perhaps, I thought, the last of the madness had been seared out of him by so much burning.
He began to go down again to the river, to watch the seamen training; he held races for the rowers, and offered prizes. Then the embassies from Greece arrived.
They were envoys of compliment, to honor his safe return from the world's end. They brought gold crowns, exquisite wreaths of jewelers' work, and scrolls of honor. Even the envious Athenians came, full of lying compliments. He knew they lied. But he gave them in return the statues of the Liberators, fetched from Susa, to put back on their citadel. When he made the presentation, he pointed as if by chance to the daggers, and caught my eye.
The last embassy was from Macedon.
It was not like the rest. The regent, Antipatros, whom Krateros was to supersede, had sent his son to speak for him.
During all his years of regency, which went back to King Philip's day, Queen Olympias had hated him, my belief being that she wished to govern instead. Knowing of all her slanders, it was perhaps no wonder if he thought they had made their mark, and he'd been sent for to go on trial; for ten years he'd not set eyes on Alexander, to know him better. Even so, one would have thought he'd have had more sense than to send his son Kassandros. That is, if his faith was good.
Whenever Alexander had told me about his boyhood, he'd mentioned this youth, as then he'd been, with detestation. They had disliked each other at sight, and on all through their schooldays; once they had come to blows. The reason he had been left behind in Macedon was simply that Alexander would not have him In the army.
However, he had helped his father put down a rising in southern Greece, and done quite well there; no doubt both had hoped that this would recommend him now. He arrived, after so long, almost a stranger; only this stranger and Alexander hated each other on sight, as they'd done before.
He was an arrogant, freckled, red-haired man, with the old-time Macedonian beard. He was also, of course, a perfect stranger to court life in Persia. One had forgotten such people existed.
No doubt he was mad with envy. The Throne Room had been refurnished, to receive the embassies; about the throne was a great half-circle of couches with silver feet, where the King's chief friends, Persian and Macedonian, had a right to sit when he gave audience. All the Household would stand behind him. My own place, now we were back among real procedure, was near the throne. I was there to watch Kassandros when he came. While he awaited Alexander, I saw him look at us eunuchs as if we were noxious vermin.
The audience did not go well. There had been petitioners out from Macedon to plead causes against the regent. Kassandros was too hasty, in saying they had come to be well away from all the evidence; I think one, at least, had been sent by Queen Olympias. Only one man had ever been allowed to speak against her to Alexander, and he was dead. Alexander broke the audience off, and asked Kassandros to wait while he saw some Persians.
Barbarians before him! I could see his fury. He stepped back, and the Persians, who were below the rank of Royal Kin, made the prostration.
Kassandros sneered. It is not true, as some say, that he laughed aloud. He was an envoy with work to do. Nor is it true that Alexander knocked his head on the wall. He had no need. .
It is true the sneer was open; I suppose anger made him reckless. He turned to some companion he'd brought with him, pointing a finger. Alexander let the Persians rise, spoke to them, dismissed them; then stepped down from the throne, grasped Kassandros in one hand by the hair, and stared into his face.
I thought, He is going to kill him. So did Kassandros I daresay. But it was more than that. It was more than the kingly power, more even than the word of Ammon's oracle. He had been through fire and darkness. All he needed was to lay it bare. Kassandros stared as the bird does at the serpent, white with pure naked terror of man for man.
"You have leave to go," said Alexander.
It was a good way to the doors. He must have known his fear had marked him like a brand, and all we creatures of his scorn had seen it.
Later on, when I had Alexander alone, I said to him, "Hate like that is dangerous. Why don't you pack him off home?" He answered, "Oh, no. He'd go back and tell Antipatros I'm his enemy; urge him to revolt, kill Krateros when he gets there, and seize Macedon. Antipatros might do it, if he was put in fear of his life. Let alone, he has more sense. If I meant him harm, I'd hardly have his other son as cupbearer. He's been where he is too long, that's all. No, till Krateros is in Macedon and Antipatros leaves it, Kassandros stays here under my eye . . . Hephaistion could never stand him, either."
In earlier days, I'd have begged him to have the man put quietly out of the way. I knew that what he would not own to, he would not do. It is my life's regret I did not take it on myself in secret. It torments me, to think that with one little phial I might have quenched that murderous hate that has pursued my lord even beyond the tomb; his mother, his wife, the son I never saw, who would have given us something more of him than memory.
Summer came on. All Persian kings would have been at Ekbatana. I knew he would never ride through those gates again; I was only glad he had the fleet and harbor to keep him busy. It was four months since the Chaldeans' prophecy. Except when I saw the new Bel temple going up, I could almost forget them.
Soon we left the city for a while. Down river, there were floods every year when the snows at its source were melting, and the people there, who were of old Assyrian stock, lived poor because of it. Alexander wanted to plan dams and canals against it, and make new farmlands. It was only a river cruise, but it cheered me to have him outside the walls.
He always loved rivers. The ships wound among man-tall reed-beds, the Assyrian pilots conning the channels. Sometimes great shade-trees met above, and we glided through green caves; sometimes we pushed through lily-pads in open pools; the river has many branches there. Alexander would stand in the prow, and sometimes take the helm. He had on the same old sun-hat he used to wear in Gedrosia.
The stream broadened between drooping willows which tossed in a flaw of wind. Among them stood blockish ancient stonework; with figures, worn by time and flooding, of winged lions and bulls, man-headed. When Alexander asked about them, the Babylonian shipmaster said, "Great King, those are the tombs of the old-time kings, when the Assyrians ruled here. This was their burial ground."
On the words, a gust plucked off Alexander's sun-hat, and whirled it overboard. Its purple ribbon, the symbol of royalty, was loosened and carried away. It whipped itself round the rushes beside a tomb.
The ship glided on by its own way; the rowers had shipped their oars. All along the craft passed a murmur of awe and dread.
A rower, a young quick swarthy man, dived off, struck for the bank, and unwound the ribbon. He paused with it in his hand, thought of the muddy water, and wound it round his head to keep it dry. Alexander took it with a word of thanks. He was quiet. I had all I could do not to cry aloud. The diadem had gone to a tomb, and passed to another head.
When his work was done, he went back to Babylon. I could have beaten my breast, at the sight of those black walls.
When he told the seers about the omen, they all said that the head which had worn the diadem ought to be struck off. "No," he said. "He meant well and did what anyone might. You can give him a beating, if the gods demand some expiation. Don't lay on too hard, and send him to me after." When the man came he gave him a talent of silver.
We returned to nothing but prosperity. Peukestas proudly paraded a well-trained army of twenty thousand Persians. His province was in first-class order; he was better liked than ever. Alexander gave public commendations; and began a scheme for a new Persian-Macedonian force. No one mutinied; even Macedonians had started to think that Persians might be men. Some of our words were passing into their speech.
The day came, long waited for, when the embassy returned from Siwah.
Alexander received it in the Throne Room, his Companions round him on the silver couches. Ceremoniously, the chief envoy unrolled Ammon's papyrus. He had refused to share his godhead; but Hephaistion still had his place with the immortals. He had been proclaimed a divine hero.
Alexander was content. After his first madness, he must have guessed it was as far as the god would go. Hephaistion could still be worshipped.
Commands went out to all the cities, to build him a temple or a shrine. (Here in Alexandria, I often pass the empty site near the Pharos. I expect Kleomenes, who was satrap then, took all the money.) Prayers and sacrifices were to be offered him, as an averter of evil. All solemn contracts must be sworn in his name, beside the names of the gods.
(The temple he should have had in Babylon was in the Greek style, with a frieze of lapiths and centaurs. That place is empty too. I don't suppose one stone of all those sacred places was ever set on another. Well, he should still be satisfied. He had his sacrifice.)
Alexander feasted the envoys, in honor of Hephaistion's immortality. The other guests were friends who would understand. He was lighthearted, almost radiant. One would have thought the omens all forgotten.
He was some days happy and busy, having drawings done for the shrines. He called on Roxane, whom he found healthy and strong; Sogdian women don't make much of pregnancy. Then he pressed on with plans for the new mixed army.
It meant changes in all the forces. When he was ready to reassign commands, he sent for the officers, to appoint them. He was in the Throne Room; he knew well by now what proper ceremony means to Persians. The Household was assembled behind the throne.
It was now full summer and very hot. He broke off halfway through, to take his friends to the inner room for a drink of cold citron-water mixed with wine. They would not be long; it was not worth going away; we waited behind the empty throne and the couches, and talked of trifles.
We never saw the man, till he was among us. A man in shabby clothes, a common man among thousands,
but for his face. To his crazed intentness, all of us were invisible. Before we had time to move, he had sat down on the throne.
We stared appalled, hardly believing. It is the most dreadful of all omens; that is why, through all our people's history, it has been a capital crime. Some of us leaped forward to drag him off, but the old ones cried out in warning. It would unman the kingdom, for eunuchs to free the throne. They began to wail and to beat their breasts, and we joined their lamentation. For a while it lulls the mind, and one need not think.
The officers down in the hall, aroused by the noise, ran up in horror, seized the man and had him down from the dais. He stared about, as if bewildered by this concern. Alexander came out from the inner room, his friends behind him, and asked what was going on.
One of the officers told him, and showed the man. He was a common soldier, unarmed, an Uxian if I remember. Of us the King asked nothing. I suppose our outcry had told enough.
He walked over and said, "Why did you do this?" The man stood and blinked, without mark of respect, as if at any stranger. Alexander said, "If he was sent for this, then I must know who sent him. Don't question him till I am there."
To us he said, "Quiet. That is enough. The audience is open." He finished the assignments, without carelessness, without haste.
At sundown, he came up to change his clothes. Now we were at Babylon, we had the whole ceremonial. It was I who handled the Mitra. Reading my eyes, as soon as was proper he sent out the rest. Before I could ask, he said, "Yes, we questioned him. I had it stopped. He knew nothing, not even what brought him there. He could only say he saw a fine chair and sat in it. He was due for court-martial, for repeated disobedience; of course he had not understood his orders. I am satisfied he was out of his mind."
He spoke coolly and firmly. All my blood stood still. I had longed to know that the man had confessed to deceit and a human plot, though one look at his face had told me. It is the true omens that come without intent.
"Al'skander," I said, "this one you will have to kill."
"That has been done. It is the law; and the seers said it was necessary." He walked to the flagon-stand, filled a wine-cup and made me drink. "Come, make a better face for me. The gods will do what they will. Meantime we live, and they will that too."
I swallowed the wine like medicine, and tried to smile. He was wearing a thin white robe of Indian stuff, for the summer heat, which showed his body like the robes the sculptors carve. I set down the cup and threw my arms round him. He seemed to glow from within, as always. He felt unquenchable as the sun.
When he was gone, I looked about at the images of gold and bronze and ivory, watching gravely from their stands. "Leave hold of him!" I said. "Are you not yet content? You died through your own fault, through disobedience, impatience, greed. Could you not love him enough to spare him that? Then leave him to me, who love him more." They all looked back at me and answered, "Ah, but I knew him."
More embassies came from the Greeks, garlanded as they come before their gods. Once more they crowned him; with gold fruiting olive, gold barley-ears, gold laurel, gold summer flowers. I can see him still, wearing each crown.
A few days later, his friends said that with all these triumphs, he himself had not yet celebrated his victory over the Kossaians. (They were now so much won over, he had taken some thousands into the army.) It was long, they said, since he'd held a komos; and the feast of Herakles was coming.
