by Judith Tarr
Quick anger tightened Hephaistion’s jaw, but he did not burst out at once with it. He took a long breath, careful of his bound ribs. He counted heartbeats in the marks of the lion’s claws. He said, “A good and honest king can do much, even under a bad Great King. A bad king can wreak havoc in despite of a good overlord. Though,” he said, “not for long, if Alexander hears about it. Alexander has infinite patience in most things. But he has none at all for cowards and thieves.”
“I’d like to see him,” said Abdalonymos.
“So you shall,” Hephaistion said, “if you’ll be king. He’ll set you on your throne himself, and crown you with his own hand.”
“No,” said Abdalonymos. “That won’t sit well with people here. They’ll want a say in it. They hated it when the Persians got too obvious about being our masters. That’s what made them turn rebel.”
“We can speak for the people,” Artas said. “You know us; you know what influence we can bring to bear. Will you be king in Sidon?”
“Well,” said Abdalonymos, looking at the crown and the robe and the staff where they lay in their wrappings. The sun made them shine; the black earth of his garden brightened their splendor. He raised his mud-blackened hands. “I’m no princeling,” he said.
Hephaistion held out his own hands. They were clean enough, but roughened and callused with years of riding and hunting and fighting. “Soft hands would blister fast,” he said, “if they had to hold the reins of kingship.”
“I suppose,” said Abdalonymos. He looked about him. His garden was grey and forlorn in its winter sleep. Overhead, sudden and sharp, a seabird cried.
Abdalonymos stiffened his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “All right. Get me to a bath and tell me what a king does, and let me see how I like this Alexander. If we look like getting on, I’ll do it.”
Hephaistion let the smile bloom at last. “Oh, you’ll get on. Believe me, lord king. You’ll get on famously.”
o0o
Meriamon was not there to see the new king’s meeting with Alexander, but she heard about it afterward. Abdalonymos was blunt and completely unawed, and Alexander, people said, was delighted with him. They did, indeed, get on; and Sidon settled to it, though its elders were not pleased to be ruled by a man of low estate. “So I’ll give him a great one,” Alexander said, and gave him all that the old king had had, and a share of the Persians’ booty, and a great estate outside the city, with his old garden in the middle of it. After that, will they or nill they, the elders held their peace.
Meriamon was tired of traveling about, of living on strangers’ sufferance, of being rained on and windblown and shouted at in languages that were not her own. Worse than that, she could not sleep, for when she did, her dreams were haunted.
It was not the Parsa. The Magi had gone with Darius’ ambassadors, and they had not come back, openly or in secret. This was something else. As if the gods wanted to speak to her, but the distance was too great, her strength too little, so far from its source.
It was always the same dream: the dark country, the vulture and the serpent, the shadow-dancers, the voice speaking, gentle and low. She always woke before she understood the words. It was not the dream of comfort that she had had at Marathos. Its darkness was the darkness behind the stars. Its gods wore demons’ faces. She lay there always in that bed which was not an Egyptian bed, and breathed air that was not the air of Khemet, and knew, in the dark before the dawn, that if she did not see her home again, she would die.
She was growing thinner. Her Persian trousers were loose, folded thick under the belt. Her face felt bony and haggard; when she glimpsed it in the side of a silver cup, there were hollows under her eyes.
“You look awful,” said Niko.
They had been the better part of a week in Sidon, and the army was starting to settle in, as armies will if given opportunity. Where they would go next or what they would do, no one was sure of, although there were rumors in plenty. Meriamon dragged herself out of bed before sunup, dressed in what came to hand, came out to the central room to find Niko there alone, mending a shield-strap. It should have been impossible for a man with one good hand and one in splints, but he was making do.
He no longer glared quite so terribly when she came out in the morning, but his greeting was pure Niko. She knotted her hands together before they could rise to her face, and went to look at the breakfast laid on the table by the brazier. Greeks would never eat anything but dry bread till midday at least, but Phoenicians were more sensible. They ate well before the day began, to make it begin properly.
Here was flat bread fresh from the baking, a bowl of dates, a jar of watered wine, even a dainty: something savory that smelled of spices. Her stomach clenched.
“You look as if you haven’t slept since Issus,” he said. “Are you sick?”
“No,” she said, not quite snapping it. She poured a cup of wine, choked down a sip.
He stood up. At first he had made heavy going of it, between pain and the unbalance of his splinted arm, but he was mending now, and he had his grace back. There was a surprising quantity of it. “You’re homesick. Aren’t you?”
She did not like to be loomed over. She moved out of his shadow, aiming for the door.
He was there, broad as a wall and quite as immovable. “Go back and eat, and then I’ll take you to Philippos.”
“I’m not hungry,” said Meriamon, “and I certainly don’t need a doctor.”
“You can’t see yourself,” said Niko.
She glared up at him. “I’m not sick!”
“Tell that to your mirror.”
She drew a long, careful breath. “Yes, I am homesick,” she said. “Yes, I have been sleeping badly. No, I am not ill, or haunted, or mad—unless you give me reason to be.”
“So eat,” he said. “Maybe you don’t mind if you die on me, but I’m fond of my hide. I’d rather the king didn’t have it for a carpet.”
“I won’t die on you.”
“Prove it.”
She glared. He glared back. She stalked to the table and snatched a round of bread, and bit into it. It was still warm, fresh and fragrant. It tasted like ashes.
She ate it. Niko counted every bite. Damnable, maddening man. He disliked her intensely, she could see it in every line of him; but she was his duty, and he would look after her if it killed him.
He was supposed to fall in love with her. Guardsmen did, in stories. Particularly if what they guarded was a princess, and a maiden at that, and no man but the king to answer for her.
Not this guardsman. When the bread was gone, he set a bowl in front of her and filled it with the spiced meat. It was goat, probably. She tasted it. Yes, goat. If she could have had goose or duck, or the flesh of a fat ox...
Somehow she ate it. Her stomach wanted to cast it up again, but she was stronger. The wine went down a little more easily, both dizzying and steadying her.
She set down the empty cup. “Now. tyrant. May I have your leave to go?”
“Now you may,” he said. Was that a flicker of a smile?
Of course not. Niko never smiled at her.
Nine
There was a boy waiting when Meriamon came back to her lodging, one of Alexander’s own pages. The king would like her company, the boy said, if it pleased her ladyship.
For a moment she was sure that Niko had had something to do with it. But he had been with her all morning, treading on her shadow till it was sorely tempted to snap at him, and he had not spoken to anyone who belonged to the king. He seemed as surprised as she, even with Sekhmet to distract him, draping her loudly purring self over his shoulder.
“The cat, too,” said the page. “Alexander said she should come. And dress for riding, if you will.”
Meriamon stifled a sigh, and shrugged inwardly. Why not? Her clothes were clean, and she was presentable enough, though Phylinna was hovering and signaling broadly toward the bath.
“I’m ready,” Meriamon said. “Shall we go?”
&
nbsp; When Meriamon came out of the house with Sekhmet riding on her shoulder, another of Alexander’s messengers was waiting for her: a redheaded, freckled, gap-toothed Thracian savage, holding the bridle of a bay mare. She was Persian booty beyond a doubt, but smaller than the Persians were accustomed to breed. Desert stock, Meriamon saw, and very fine, and if her blood ran true, as hardy as she was beautiful. There was fire in her, in the flare of her great nostrils and the roll of her great eyes, and yet she looked to have sense.
She was a kingly gift in her trappings of silk and gold, with plainer gear for the march, and the horseboy to look after her. And, he said half in signs and half in abominable Greek, there was a mule in the lines as well, with pack and driver, and if she wanted a cart she could have that, though the king thought she might be well enough suited as it was.
“That I am,” said Meriamon, running a hand down the silken neck, blowing softly into the mare’s nostril. The mare blew back more softly still. She saw Meriamon’s shadow; her ears pricked, quivered; her eye rolled. But she stood her ground. Meriamon smoothed the long black forelock, traced the shape of the star beneath it. “She is beautiful,” she said.
The Thracian grinned. Meriamon could not help but grin back. Little thick bandy-legged lad with his gapped teeth: he looked like Bes, dwarf-god, luck-god, whose gift was laughter.
Even Niko could not take the edge off her pleasure. He was quite as unhappy as she had expected, to see that she would be mounted where he could not. “Soon,” she said to him. “When you’ve mended a little more. Then I’ll let you ride.”
That was not enough for him, but it would have to do. Even Imhotep’s priests could not make a bone heal faster than it wanted to, and her power was a dim candle to the great blooming fire of theirs.
Enough, she thought. She set Sekhmet carefully on the ground, grasped mane, swung up to the gilded saddlecloth. Sekhmet leaped to her lifted knee and thence once more to her shoulder, coiling about her neck. The mare stood rock-solid under them both.
Meriamon gathered up the reins. The bit was a bar of simple bronze, none of the Greek cruelty that pried the jaws apart and held them rigid. But then, thought Meriamon, the Greeks insisted on stallions.
The Thracian let go the bridle. The mare was warm, supple, new-ridden from the lines. She tucked her chin and flagged her tail and danced. Everything in Meriamon yearned to clap heels to the sleek sides and plunge whooping through the city.
She turned the mare about instead. Niko had not moved. His jaw was set hard.
There was another horse waiting, and the page readying to mount it. It was a gelding, big for a Greek horse and heavy-headed, with a mild eye. From the slope of its shoulder, it would have a smooth gait.
Meriamon looked from it to Niko. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhat to the left of the gelding’s ears.
“You’ll need help mounting,” she said.
His shoulders stiffened. For a moment she thought that he would bolt. He moved, but not away. Toward the gelding. The page looked unhappy, but he offered his linked hands. Niko set his foot in them and swung lightly astride. He took in rein using teeth and sword-hand. He would have done the same, maybe, in full armor, with a shield on his arm.
His eye caught the page. The boy scrambled up behind him. Niko kicked the gelding into a walk.
The mare pawed the ground and snorted. Meriamon let her move into a dancing trot, passing man and boy and gelding, leading them down the winding street.
o0o
The king was waiting al the northward gate with a company of horsemen, and one without a rider: a fine snorting stallion, fighting the bit with its disks of bronze holding his mouth wide, shedding flakes of foam as he tossed his head. Niko’s. Obviously.
“No,” said Meriamon.
Niko showed her his teeth. “Think you can ride him?” he asked the page.
The boy shrugged. His nonchalance was elaborate. “If you like,” he said.
“I don’t like,” said Niko. “But he needs his exercise. Get on with you. People are waiting.”
Grinning, too. The page approached the stallion, calming as he moved, till he had the reins in his hands. He paused to let the beast inspect him, forestalled a lunge, mounted in a smooth long leap.
o0o
As they rode out of the gate, Meriamon found herself beside Alexander. That was intended: she could see it perfectly well. She could feel the eyes on her. too, and the pressure of scrutiny. There was less enmity than she might have expected, knowing courts, and this one most of all. Alexander’s men were fiercely jealous of him, fought over a moment of his time, came to blows over a word or a glance.
She was not a man. That mattered. And she was not a Macedonian, which should have mattered, and did, until they remembered what else she was. Sometimes she suspected that they thought of her rather as they did of Sekhmet: the gods’ creature, as uncanny as she was holy, and nothing human to hang their envy on. If anything, she proved what they had always known, that their king was not like any other in the world.
She shook herself. She was maundering, and time ran on. She glanced back. Hephaistion was directly behind, and Niko beside him. The two of them were talking easily, as if they were friends.
Hephaistion was recovering well from his encounter with the lion. No stiffness in him that she could see. Or in Niko, either, though even a smooth-gaited horse could jostle hard enough if put to it.
“Don’t worry.” said Alexander. “If it gets to be too much for him, I’ll send him back.”
“You knew he’d come,” Meriamon said.
“He’s your bodyguard,” said Alexander.
She considered answers to that. None seemed adequate. She shifted on the saddlecloth instead, getting more comfortable, feeling out the mare’s gaits. They were like silk.
“Do you like her?” the king asked.
She glanced at him. His face was open, shining. He loved to give presents; it was the part of being king that, maybe, he liked best.
Meriamon smiled. “She’s fit for a queen,” she said.
“I thought so.”
Sekhmet uncoiled from about Meriamon’s neck. Before Meriamon could stop her, she lofted smoothly across the arm’s length of space onto Alexander’s shoulder. He did not start or recoil, though his eyes widened.
Sekhmet liked her new resting place: it was broad and level, and it barely moved with his horse’s gait. Meriamon could hear her purring even through the thudding of hoofs and the murmur of men’s voices.
Alexander reached up very carefully and scratched the cat under the chin. Her purring rose to thunder. She draped herself over his neck. giving herself up to bliss.
“Peritas would be appalled,” Meriamon observed.
“Peritas is in disgrace,” said Alexander. “He chased a certain cat through one midden too many. Or was chased. Accounts vary. I’ve confined him to quarters.”
“Oh,” said Meriamon. “Oh, no. She didn’t.”
“She did,” Alexander said. “Peritas knows better, too. I know you’d never believe it, but, he’s as well trained as any dog in Macedon.”
“I do believe it,” Meriamon said. “I believe that he’s immune to cats, too. Except for Sekhmet.”
“Except for Sekhmet.” Alexander rubbed the cat’s ears. She, the harlot, leaned into the rubbing, eyes shut in ecstasy. “No wonder you named her that.”
“That is her name,” said Meriamon, “and her essence. Power and chaos, and the lioness’ heart. Names are power, Alexander.”
“So they are,” he said. “Mariamne.”
“Meriamon.”
“Meri-Amon.”
“Better,” she said with a touch of a smile.
They rode on in silence. Meriamon was content to be quiet, to feel the sun on her face, to listen to the men talking behind. They were leaving the open fields now, riding up the track of a small swift river, coming to a wide grove that rose before them on the flanks of a mountain.
Road and river passed into the
trees under an arch of branches. A strong green scent blew toward her, a scent of earth and trees and holy places. Alien, and yet familiar: sanctity was sanctity, wherever one found it. This was a holiness that she knew, although it was not her chief power. A power of making and healing.
“Whose is this grove?” she asked. Her voice, though soft, was loud in the green stillness.
“It belongs to Asklepios,” said Alexander. “Though here they call him Eshmun.”
“In Egypt he is Imhotep,” said Meriamon. “I feel him in the air; I sense him in the earth. This is his river, is it not?”
Alexander looked at her, not surprised, not exactly; but as if he had let himself forget what she was. “This is his river,” he said, “and his temple where we’re going. It’s a great place of pilgrimage. People come from all over Greece and Asia to ask him for healing.”
“Have you something to ask him for?” asked Meriamon.
“No,” said Alexander, who still limped when he thought no one was looking. “I give him honor, that’s all. I thought you’d like to do the same.”
“I would,” she said.
Under the peace of the trees, Sekhmet came back to Meriamon. A cat knew about peace, but healing was a thing that she did in solitude. She slid inside Meriamon’s coat and lay there, warm and still.
Meriamon looked over her shoulder. No one was talking now, or laughing, or making the way light with a song.
Niko was a little pale. There was no one else on the road, which was strange, if this was indeed a place of pilgrimage. Or maybe they came by another way; or the way had been cleared for Alexander.
Whatever the reason, they were alone in the god’s wood, in the shade and the cool and the windless stillness. No bird sang. No leaf stirred. Only the river moved, flowing swift and eager to the sea.
