Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt

by Alexander at the World's End (lit)

felt as if it had been modelled in clay as the perfect setting for the happiest

  days of your life, and then handed over to a work-gang of giants, who set about

  bashing rocks and diverting rivers according to the architect’s plans.

  Well, it was better than Attica ; most places are. Attica is a hard country, all

  rock and dust, everything there is an effort. Mieza was no effort at all.

  Nothing could start until Aristotle arrived, so Alexander led his schoolmates

  off into the hills to hunt things, while I settled into the quarters that

  Principal Lysimachus had assigned to me. At first, I thought I was being shown

  round the schoolhouse itself, or some royal hunting lodge; it was a huge house

  by Attic standards, with a front room as big as any in Athens and a back room

  almost as big. The furniture was amazing; I learned later that it was all stuff

  that had accumulated at the palace in Pella over the years — diplomatic gifts,

  spur-of-the-moment purchases that had seemed like a good idea at the time, that

  sort of thing; there was a gold-plated tripod stand and an Egyptian painted

  couch and an ivory folding chair and a huge, huge silvered bronze mixing-bowl

  that must have held five gallons, embossed with scenes of heroic carnage on one

  side and amorous centaurs persecuting scantily clad women on the other. There

  was a cedarwood footstool upholstered with genuine Tyrian purple, worth a

  fortune in spite of the large scorch-mark on one side where someone had left it

  too close to the fire. The overall effect was so overwhelming that I shoved most

  of it over to one side of the room and set up a sort of camp on the other with a

  plain wooden stool and a low plank table I found in the outhouse.

  In the same outhouse I found a box; a heavy olivewood chest with a smashed lock,

  which I dragged out into the light and opened up. It was full of books; twenty

  genuine books, all rather sticky and tacky after spending so long in contact

  with the olivewood, but all perfectly legible providing you were careful about

  unrolling them. Gods only know how they got there; my best guess is that they

  were another diplomatic gift, of the how-lovely-what-is-it? variety, which had

  been put away out of sight, rediscovered some time later and jemmied open in the

  vain hope that such a robust locked box must contain something worth having.

  Then the connection books-school formed in someone’s mind and they were shipped

  up here, out of the way of the men and horses.

  My excitement at this discovery waned just a little when I dis­covered that

  eleven of them were Homer; four Iliads, three Odysseys, two Homeric Hymns and

  two Cyprias. Even so, that left eight proper books, of which only one (the

  collected plays of my grandfather Eupolis) had been nibbled by mice into a state

  of total uselessness. The other seven were: the poems of Archilochus; a

  long-forgotten epic poem about Hercules by Panyasis; selections from Aristotle;

  Thucydides’ History of the War, mercifully abridged; a seventy-year-old pamphlet

  by someone called Chrysippus suggesting improve­ments to the franchising system

  for exploiting Athenian mining interests at Laurium; an anonymous commentary on

  military tactics in Homer, seeking to prove their relevance to modern-day

  warfare; and my ill-fated brother Eudaemon’s preferred bedside reading, Aeneas

  theTactician’s monograph on the art of war. I flicked through this chance

  accumulation of dross, took the Archilochus and Chrysippus pamphlet for myself,

  earmarked the selections from Aristotle for mending leaky boots, and dumped the

  rest in the front room for the use of my young and impressionable charges.

  Practicalities were all taken care of with typical Macedonian robust efficiency.

  Meals happened four times a day, monolithic affairs involving huge slabs of

  roast meat, cheeses the size of cartwheels and enormous baskets of coarse barley

  bread, washed down with raw red wine mixed half-and-half. On special days, I

  gathered, there were olives, maybe the occasional fig. Laundry was in the hands

  of three gigantic troll-women, who reminded me alarmingly of the Three Wise

  Witches — the ones who live at the end of the world and share one eye, one ear

  and one tongue between them. There was an issue of clothing once a month; one

  cloak, one tunic, one pair of sandals, ditto boots, one hat, all of them fairly

  recent cast-offs from the nobs in Pella. For some reason I kept getting Philip’s

  hats and Parmenio’s tunics; the royal hats all had a thick band of grease just

  inside the brim, and Parmenio apparently spilt more wine down his front than he

  ever managed to get into his face. Once I got a stunningly beauti­ful silk shawl

  embroidered with countless blue and red snakes, heavily scented with saffron and

  violets and heavily stained in one corner with a dark brown stuff that was,

  beyond any shadow of doubt, human blood, which raised all sorts of interesting

  speculations in my mind as to what Queen Olympias’ duties as high priestess of

  the snake cult actually involved. The boots were standard army issue, but the

  sandals were soft and comfortable, if several sizes too big. In fact, everything

  in Macedon was several sizes too big, from the crockery to the lifestyle to the

  country itself — too big for me, and I’m no dwarf, remember; extremely curious,

  that, because I met very few Macedonians who were taller or broader than me, but

  all their clothes seemed to have been made for the elder brothers of the Titans.

  Aristotle arrived, eventually; at which point Lysimachus came to see me.

  I don’t know to this day whether Lysimachus was a Macedonian with a speech

  impediment or an offcomer who’d been in Macedon too long. As a general rule I

  had no trouble at all understanding the Macedonians, but whatever dialect or

  accent Lysimachus spoke in gave me endless problems, which was awkward when he

  was notifying me of timetable changes or amendments to the curriculum. He was a

  long, thin, harassed-looking man with a tiny little nose and enormous eyes, and

  loud noises made him jump even when he knew they were coming well in advance.

  When the school first started up and the young Alexander, banished here against

  his will from the royal court in Pella, manifested his displeasure by refusing

  to have anything to do with the proceedings, Lysimachus finally managed to coax

  him into co-operating by setting up a vast and intricate role-playing game, in

  which Alexander was the young Achilles, and Lysimachus took the role of

  Achilles’ aged and decrepit old tutor, Phoenix. At first, the whole school had

  to be run in accordance with the rules of the Homer game; everybody was assigned

  a role to play and had to stay in character every minute of every day. By the

  time I arrived this requirement had been relaxed considerably, so that we only

  had to be our Homeric counterparts at morning assembly and after the plates had

  been cleared away following the evening meal. Even those two occasions were too

  much for me; because I’d arrived late on the scene, the only role still open for

  me was that of the wily Ulysses, a character I’ve loathed and despised ever

  since I was a small child. Besides which, I’m hopeless at acting. I feel like an

  idiot, pre­tending to be someone
I’m not. But Lysimachus, by necessity, had

  taken real pains to be Phoenix , which argues a latent genius for histrionics on

  his part. After all, Phoenix as written by Homer has all the character and

  individuality of a small root; in order to be such a shallow and ill-defined

  personality so intensively and for so long, Lysimachus must have had an

  imagination capable of bending thick iron bars.

  When not being Phoenix , Lysimachus was a pedantic, worried man with a small

  gift for administration and a disturbing habit of bursting into tears whenever

  things started to go wrong. In later years Alexander demonstrated a genuine

  fondness for the poor old fool, which was in keeping with his habit of being

  very kind to simple, humble folks who agreed fervently with every word he said.

  I can picture you looking at me, Phryzeutzis, and grinning lopsidedly; here’s

  this little man, you’re thinking, taking every opportunity he can to snipe at

  the great Alexander now that he’s dead and gone. Maybe, maybe. I never claimed

  that I liked the boy, even at the height of my period of hero-worship. But the

  main reason I assume my mask of Yapping Dog, first class, when I start talking

  about him is that — well, in part I’m responsible. And if I was writing this in

  Greek you’d understand better, because we use the same word for ‘responsible’

  and ‘guilty’. I only helped shape one small part of Alexander’s character, and

  my motives for doing what I did were always, always for the best. I genuinely

  wanted to prepare the boy —and the rest of them too — for a useful career of

  service as rulers of their country; I wasn’t conducting a controlled experiment

  in creating a philosopher-king, or angling for power behind the throne when the

  Prince came into his own, or even doing what was necessary to earn money. I was

  trying to help.

  The fact that the world would be a better place if I’d died at birth is

  something I have to live with. I feel responsible, but not guilty.

  Anyway.

  Lysimachus came to see me, and he told me about the curriculum, and what I was

  supposed to be doing, when and where, and a lot of useful stuff like that, for

  which I was properly grateful. When he’d finished briefing me, he stood up to

  go, then turned round, sat down again, leaned forward and grabbed me by both

  elbows.

  ‘Now listen to me,’ he said. ‘You’re an Athenian.

  ‘I know,’ I replied, trying to tug my arms free without being too obvious about

  it.

  ‘You’re an Athenian,’ he repeated. ‘I admire the Athenians. Your Drama, your

  poetry, your philosophy — I admire it all. Athens is a great nation. You have

  given so much to all of Greece .’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘And that’s why I’m warning you,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘You don’t know these

  people the way I do, you don’t know how their minds work or how they live their

  lives. You don’t understand. So it’s very important that you remember what I’m

  telling you now. Yes?’

  I nodded, mostly in the hope that he’d finish quickly and go away. He’d recently

  been eating onions. I could tell.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now listen. Macedon is a kingdom, a monarchy. You don’t

  understand how a monarchy works. In a monarchy, there isn’t any right or wrong

  or good or evil, there’s only two things: what He wants and what He doesn’t. In

  a monarchy there isn’t any such word as Why? In a monarchy, if He says the sky’s

  green, it’s green. If He says, Kill my firstborn son, it’s done. If He says,

  Bring me the head of the murdering bastard who killed my son, that’s done too.

  No wrong. No why. Just “Yes, sir” and that’s all. You need to remember that,

  here, being an Athenian.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I replied, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Thank

  you ever so much for sharing it with me.’

  Lysimachus stared at me for a moment, as if he was trying to decode some

  abstruse cypher. ‘Just remember,’ he said. ‘And be careful. Aside from Him,

  there is no law in Macedon.’

  I nodded. ‘We have heaps and heaps of law in Athens ,’ I said. ‘No justice, but

  plenty of law. We’ve got so much we have to hire people to remember it for us. I

  think I might rather like it here.’

  He shook his head. ‘You be careful. In Macedon, people are murdered by the

  State.’

  ‘Ah.’ I smiled. ‘It’s different back home. In Athens , scores of people are

  killed by the State every year, but it’s never murder. What’s the matter,

  Lysimachus? Why are you trying to frighten me away?’

  He shook his head vehemently. Small things were thrown clear of his hair. ‘Stay

  if you want. Stay as long as you like. Just remember, that’s all.’

  I jerked my arms free and stood up. ‘You bet,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember.’

  And I have.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  P hilip of Macedon, so the story goes, was arguing with young Alexander one day.

  ‘What’s the point of me learning all this political theory and literature and

  stuff?’ the Prince asked. ‘I’m not going to need it when I’m King.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Philip said. ‘Being King isn’t about who you are, it’s

  about what you are. And don’t forget, we’re not Persians or Egyptians, we’re

  Macedonians. If they accept you as their King it won’t be because I’m who I am,

  it’ll be because you’re who you are.’

  Heartwarming, isn’t it? Not to mention completely untrue. On those occasions

  when Philip did talk to the young Alexander, it was more a case of, ‘Get the

  hell out of here, can’t you see I’m busy?’

  I should know; I was there. And that’s what makes it so bizarre when I hear

  these delightful little vignettes of family life at Pella . They’re fairy-tales,

  the lot of them, little bite-sized chunks out of myth and legend, and as

  everybody knows, myth and legend deal with long ago and far away, not something

  that happened quite recently in places where I happened to be at the time. How

  dare they do this to parts of my life? I feel like a man who comes home from

  buying sprats in the fish market and finds that his house has been taken over

  and turned into a shrine to some god or hero who happens to have the same name

  as him; and the custodians of the shrine won’t let him go into his house and get

  anything, not even a clean tunic.

  The first lesson of the first day was military history.

  Truly is it said: the best way to learn about something you’re completely

  ignorant of is to teach it to somebody else. And the key to that, of course, is

  admitting your ignorance to yourself.

  Even more truly is it said: when you don’t know spit, bullshit.

  They were sitting in a circle under a fig tree. It was a hot day, about

  mid-morning, and apart from the flies it was quiet and peaceful. I walked across

  the courtyard and they all stopped talking and stared at me. Strong men have

  been known to die of less.

  But I’m not a strong man; so I sat down with my back to the trunk of that

  excellent tree, pulled my hat down over my eyes and said, ‘Military history.’

  Nobody spoke. I
counted to twenty under my breath.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Here’s some military history for you. Iphicrates of

  Athens, who was a friend of my father, was pitching camp in the middle of

  friendly territory. He ordered his men to dig a ditch and built a palisade round

  the camp. “Why bother?” someone asked. “It’s not as if anybody’s going to attack

  us here.” Whereupon Iphicrates shook his head. “Don’t you believe it,” he said.

  “The worst thing a general can ever say is, Hell, I never expected that.” And

  that, gentlemen, is why we learn military history. Understood?’

  There was a short, polite silence, then someone asked, ‘Did your father really

  know Iphicrates?’

  That threw me. I had only the sketchiest notion of who Iphicrates was — short,

  scruffy-looking man who came to dinner once, behaved obnoxiously to the

  flute-girl and fell asleep face down in a plate of thinly sliced smoked eel —

  but this terrible child was obviously rather more familiar with the great man’s

  career than I was. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Now then, can somebody give me three

  reasons why the Phoenician colonists in Carthage would beat the crap out of the

  Phoenicians in Phoenicia if ever there was a war between them?’

  A longer silence this time; they were all looking at Alexander, and he was

  thinking it over. ‘You,’ I said, pointing to a thin-faced kid on my right. ‘Any

  ideas?’

  The boy looked startled, but recovered well. ‘The Carthaginians hire

  mercenaries,’ he said. ‘Mercenaries fight for money, not honour, so they fight

  to win the battle.’

  I nodded. ‘Correct,’ I said. ‘You — Hephaestion, isn’t it? — what do you think?’

  Hephaestion rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist. ‘The

  Carthaginians have fought a lot of wars on land against Greeks,’ he said. ‘The

  Phoenicians of Tyre haven’t, so they haven’t had the opportunity or the

  incentive to learn.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Alexander, what’s the third reason?’

  Alexander looked at me before answering. ‘If there was a war between Carthage

  and Tyre ,’ he said, ‘it would be because Tyre was trying to establish its

  authority over a former colony, and Carthage would be fighting for its freedom.