The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  “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?”

  There was a silence. Alexander searched the man with his deep eyes.

  “Release him, but stand by. Now let me understand you. You are saying you told all this to someone at my headquarters, who undertook to report it?”

  “Yes, Alexander!” He had nearly sunk down, when the soldiers let him go. “I swear it, only ask him, King. He said I’d done right, and he’d report it as soon as he had the chance. Then yesterday he said you’d had too much business, but he’d do it before night. And then today, when we could see Dymnos and the rest still going free, my brother said I must see you somehow myself.”

  “It seems your brother’s no fool. To whom had you given this message?”

  “To General Philotas, King. He—”

  “What?”

  The man repeated it, stammering in terror. But what I saw in Alexander’s face was not disbelief. It was recollection.

  Presently he said, “Very well, Kebalinos. You and your brother will now be held as witnesses. You have nothing to fear if you speak the truth. So prepare your evidence, and be ready to give it clearly.”

  The guards removed him. Alexander sent everyone else to summon men he needed. Meantime we were alone. I tidied the bath-things, stupidly concerned that all these people would be here before I could get hold of the slaves to carry the heavy bath away. I was not leaving him by himself till someone came.

  Striding about the room, he came face to face with me. Words burst out of him. “He was with me an hour that day. The last part of it, he was talking horses. Too much business? … We have been friends, Bagoas, we’ve been friends since I was a child.” He took another turn, and came back. “He changed after I went to Siwah. He mocked it to my face, but he has always mocked the gods, and I forgave it him. I was warned of him in Egypt; but he was my friend; what was I, Ochos? Yet he has never been the same; he changed when I had the oracle.”

  Before I could reply, the men he’d sent for began arriving, and I had to withdraw. The first was General Krateros, who had his lodging close by. As I went, I heard Alexander say, “Krateros, I want a guard put on every road out of here; every track and riding-path. No one at all, for any reason, is to leave this place. Do that, it can’t wait; then come back and I’ll tell you why.”

  The other friends he’d sent for, Hephaistion and Ptolemy and Perdikkas and the rest, were shut with him in his room, and I could hear nothing. Then came trudging feet upon the stairs. Young Metron, running ahead, now over his fright and full of self-importance, scraped at the door. “Alexander, they’re bringing Dymnos. Sir, he resisted arrest.”

  Four soldiers brought on an army stretcher a youngish, fair-bearded Macedonian, with blood over his side and trickling from his mouth. His breath was rattling. Alexander said, “Which of you did this?” and they all turned as white-faced as their burden. The leader, finding a voice of sorts, said, “He did, King. I’d not even arrested him. He did it as soon as he saw us coming.”

  Alexander stood by the stretcher. The man knew him, though his eyes were glazing. The King put a hand on his shoulder; meaning, I supposed, to shake out of him the names of his confederates while there was time. But he just said, “How have I wronged you, Dymnos? What was it?”

  The man’s lips moved. I saw on his face a last shred of anger. His eyes rolled round and lighted on my Persian clothes; and his voice, half clotted, began to say “Barbar—” Then the blood came up, and his eyes fixed in his head.

  Alexander said, “Cover him. Put him somewhere out of sight and set a guard.” The soldier of lowest rank spread, unwillingly, his cloak over the corpse.

  Soon after, Krateros returned to say the guard-posts were being manned; then someone announced that the King’s supper was ready.

  As they all passed my closet, to which I had withdrawn, Alexander said, “The outpost guards must still be on their way. He must know nothing, at all costs, till the roads are closed. We shall have to break bread with him, however little we like it.” Hephaistion answered, “He has broken it with you, without any shame.”

  It was a Macedonian supper; I was not needed. I should have liked to watch the faces. People like me are blamed for curiosity; having lost part of our lives, we are apt to fill the gap from the lives of others. In this I am like the rest, and make no pretenses.

  The royal hall was a stone barn, with a rock floor that stubbed one’s toes. Not much of a place for his life’s last feast; but I wished him nothing better.

  I got rid of the bath, made the room fit for company, had supper, and came back to warm my hands at the brazier, and think about the closing of the roads. After a while it came to me. Philotas was son to Parmenion, the greatest man in Asia next the King. It was he who secured our rear. He was warden of the Ekbatana treasury; and had his own army, which from that hoard he could pay forever. Many were hired men, who had only fought under him. Philotas was his one son left living; two others had died upon campaign. I understood.

  The King’s supper finished early. He came back with his friends, and sent for young Nikomachos to hear his story. He was young, girlish and scared; the King treated him gently. After that, at about midnight, the conspirators he had named were all arrested. Philotas was taken last.

  He was led in stumbling and blinking; he had drunk hard at supper, and been fast asleep. Now everyone was secured, they did not trouble closing doors for secrecy. I heard it all. Till now, the King had been like iron; now, for a moment, I seemed to hear the voice of a hurt angry boy, to an elder he once looked up to. Why had he hidden Kebalinos’ warning? How could he do it? And, in the madness which, say the Greeks, the gods inspire in their chosen victims, Philotas answered the boy, and not the King.

  With a blustering laugh, a little off the note, he said, “Why, I thought nothing of it, who would? My dear Alexander, you don’t want to hear of every spiteful little fancy-piece who has a tiff with his keeper.”

  He was a great one for women, and boastful of it. The scorn in his voice was carelessness, and I daresay the drink. But it did his busines
s. Fifteen years older in an instant, the King said, “Dymnos has killed himself, rather than face his trial. But you will stand yours tomorrow. Guard! Confined to quarters under close arrest.”

  The trials were held next day, on the heath outside the camp. It was cold, with grey scudding clouds threatening rain, but the whole army turned out, more than could get in hearing; the Macedonians in front, as was their right. Amazing to tell, the King could put no Macedonian to death without their vote. At home, any common peasant could have come and voted.

  There being no place for me, I watched from the tower the small figures stand in the open square. Dymnos’ accomplices were tried first. They had already confessed and accused each other. (Wolves howl every night in Baktria, so I can’t be sure of the sounds I heard.) After each trial the Macedonians shouted, and the man was led away.

  Last appeared Philotas, whom I knew by his height, and the King, whom I knew by everything. They seemed to stand a long time there; one could tell by their gestures which was speaking. Then witnesses testified, above a dozen. Then the King spoke again; the Macedonians shouted, louder than all the other times. Then it was over.

  I was told the evidence later. Except for the brothers’, it had all been about Philotas’ pride and insolence, and his speaking against the King. He would call him The Boy, and credit all his victories to Parmenion and himself; used to say he’d been vain from a child, and would rather be King of fawning barbarians than a decent Macedonian. Now he had swallowed whole the politic flatteries of Egyptian priests, and would be content with no less than deity; God help the people ruled by a man who thought himself more than mortal.

  The executions would be next day; stoning for the lesser men; for Philotas, a squad with javelins. In Persia, they would have bricked up such men in a cold furnace, and stoked it slowly. And the King would have asked no man’s leave.

  Had Philotas, when he hid the plot, just seized the chance to profit by others’ risk; or was he himself behind it? This was still unproved.

  The King being shut up in council, for pastime I went back to the tower-top. Already the stakes were being sunk for the executions. On the roads and passes, I could see the guard-posts. Something moved on the western road; three men in Arab dress, on racing dromedaries. They caught my eye by the beauty of their action, after the great shaggy Baktrian camels. No creature that carries man is swifter or more enduring. They went up with their smooth stride towards the pass, and I looked to see them turned back. But after a moment’s pause at the guard-post, they were let through.

  I went down, lest the King should need me. Soon after, his council left. As they turned to the stairs, Hephaistion was last. The King beckoned him back. He went in, and bolted the door.

  At other times, I should have found some dark place to grieve in. But it was nothing like that, as their faces told me. So I left my slippers in my cell, and crept up barefoot. The door-bolt was a great wooden thing; Hephaistion had been some time coaxing it. While he was drawing it back, I could be well away. You cannot learn too much of the one you love.

  Hephaistion was saying, “I always thought he carried tales to your father. I told you so.”

  “I know you did.” I heard again the voice of the distant boy. “But you never liked him. Well, you were right.”

  “Yes, I was. He hung round you from ambition, he always envied you. You should have listened in Egypt. This time, we have to know.”

  The King said, “Yes. We must know now.”

  “And don’t take it to heart after. He’s not worth it, never was.”

  “No. I shan’t do that.”

  “He’s been living soft, Alexander. It won’t take long.”

  His voice came close to the door, and I made ready to run; but the King said, “Wait.” So I crept back again.

  “If he denies his father knew, don’t push him to extremity.”

  “Why not?” Hephaistion asked. He sounded impatient.

  “Because it makes no difference.”

  “You mean,” said Hephaistion slowly, “that you’ll—?”

  “It is done,” said the King. “Nothing else was possible.”

  There was a pause. Their eyes spoke, I suppose. Hephaistion said, “Well, it’s the law. A traitor’s near kin. It’s only the manner of it.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “Yes. But you’ll feel better, if you know he’s guilty.”

  “Could I know from that? I won’t lean on a lie, Hephaistion. It was necessary, and I know it. That is enough.”

  “Very well. Let’s have it over.” Hephaistion moved to the door again. I was in my cell long before he got it open.

  After long enough, I asked the King if he needed anything. He was still standing where he must have been before. “No,” he said. “I have something to see to,” and went off by himself down the winding torchlit stair.

  I waited, listening. At Susa, while still a slave, I had gone like other boys to the place of punishment. I had seen a man impaled, and flayings, and other things. Three times I had gone, drawn as boys are against their will to horrors. There were crowds that went every time; but I had had enough. I had now no wish to watch Hephaistion’s work. It could be nothing much, to what I had seen already.

  In time I heard the scream of a powerful voice. I felt no pity. What he had done to my lord, nothing undoes; the first betrayal by a friend. I, too, could remember losing childhood in a moment of time.

  The scream sounded again, less like a man, more like a beast. Let him suffer, I thought. My lord has not only suffered a broken faith. He has taken a burden he will never again be free of.

  I had understood his secret words to Hephaistion. Parmenion ruled like a king, in the lands behind us. Among his own troops, he could never be arrested, never be put on trial. Guilty or innocent, he would have his blood-feud the moment he got the news. I pictured our army and all its followers, in the freezing Baktrian winter, supplies cut off, no reinforcements; the conquered satraps, released by Parmenion’s troops, taking us in rear; around us, Bessos and his Baktrians closing in.

  I knew the errand of the dromedaries, swiftest of all beasts that carry man: to outrun the news, carrying death.

  Such burdens fall only upon kings. He bore it all his life, and, as he foresaw, he bears it dead. Since I am one of many thousands who, because he took it on him, are still alive, it may be said I plead my own cause; but to the end of my days, I shall never see what else he could have done.

  The screams did not last long. A man in Philotas’ case has not much to lose by talking quickly.

  The King came to bed late. He was stone-cold sober, as if at war. He scarcely spoke to me, except to thank me now and again, lest I should suppose him angry.

  I lay in my little cell, wide awake, as I knew that he would be. The night wore on; the guard clanked and muttered below; the wolves of Baktria howled. Never be importunate, never, never, never. I dressed and gave on his door the tap he knew, and did not even wait for leave to enter.

  He was lying half turned away; Peritas, who always slept unstirring at his bedfoot, was standing by him, pawing the blanket as if concerned. Alexander was rubbing his ears.

  I came and knelt on the other side, and said, “My lord, may I say good night to you? Just good night?”

  “Bed, Peritas,” he said. The dog went back to its blanket. He felt my face and hands. “You’re cold. Get in.”

  I dropped off my things and came in beside him. He warmed my hands on his breast, as he had rubbed Peritas’ ears, in silence. I reached up and stroked his hair back from his forehead. “My father was betrayed by a false friend,” I said. “He told me so before they killed him. It is terrible from a friend.”

  “When we get back,” he said, “you can tell me who it was.”

  The dog, after turning round two or three times, got up to look, then went back to bed, as if satisfied he was now being well cared for.

  I said, “It is death to mock the gods. At Susa, I had a slave from Egypt; not
a common man, he had served a temple. He said no oracle is as pure as the one at Siwah.”

  He took a deep breath, and lay looking upward at the rafters, where the shadows of cobwebs moved with the flickering lamp. After a while, I put an arm across him, and he laid his hand on it to keep it there. He was silent a long time, holding my arm around him. Then he said, “I have done a thing today that you don’t know of, which I shall be blamed for by men to come. But it was necessary.”

  “Whatever had to be done,” I answered him, “you are the King.”

  “It was necessary. There was no other way.”

  I said, “We lay our lives on the King, and he bears them all. He could never do it, without the hand of the god.”

  He sighed, and drew my head upon his shoulder.

  “You are my King,” I said softly. “All you do is well done to me. If ever I am false, if ever my faith forsakes you, may I never enter Paradise, may the River of Ordeal scald me all away. You are the King, the son of the god.”

  We lay quiet, just as we were, and at last he slept. I closed my eyes in contentment. Some Power must have directed me; I had come when I was truly needed.

  15

  ALONG WITH PHILOTAS, THERE died by the javelins Alexandros of Lynkestis, next heir, by side descent, to the throne of Macedon. His brothers had conspired in King Philip’s murder; nothing being proved against the eldest, Alexander had taken him with the army. Now it seemed that Dymnos and the rest had meant to make him King; a decent Macedonian, who would keep barbarians in the place the Greek gods meant for them.

  He had been warned of his trial, and prepared a speech of defense; but, before the Assembly, could only utter a senseless stammer. He had looked, they said, like a croaking frog; and they condemned him out of contempt, saying they were well shot of such a king. One or two of the accused made good their case and were set free. We were on the march again, by the time the news came in of Parmenion’s death.