by Judith Tarr
“True enough,” he said after a pause. When he spoke again, his voice was much closer. Right over her; and the weight on her middle was Sekhmet, purring. “Sweet Hygieia, she’s shrunk to nothing! What have people been feeding her?”
“Whatever she will eat.”
“Precious little, then, if she’s been as sick as that. I’ll have my cooks fix her a posset.”
He touched her. His hand was fire-warm, even against her burning skin. It felt of her brow, her cheek. It rested over her heart, where her breast curved; more maybe than he had expected, bird-small as she was. He did not pull away. “Water, too,” he said, “as pure as we can find. I’ll make sure you get some. She’s dried to a husk with the fever.”
“We’ve been giving her what we have,” the woman said, “but more would be welcome.” She paused. “You value her.”
His hand left Meriamon’s breast. “Yes, I do. Does that disturb you?”
“No,” said the woman in her Greek that was perfect but for the hint of a Persian lilt. Barsine. The name came, and with it the memory of her face. “No. You don’t want her for what her body is.”
“I might,” said Alexander. Light. Almost bantering.
Barsine did not respond in kind. “I have all of you that I need.”
“Do you?”
Meriamon could have opened her eyes. She did not. This was nothing that she was meant to hear.
“Will you come to me again?”
“Yes,” said Alexander. Still light. Still easy. But there was truth in it.
“He doesn’t mind?”
“Who? Parmenion?”
“Is he your lover, too?”
Alexander laughed. “No, Hephaistion doesn’t mind. He knows who comes first.”
“Yes,” said Barsine. Her tone was level, calm. Colorless.
Maybe he heard it. Maybe he did not. He moved away from Meriamon. “Look after my friend. Help her to get well again.”
He left. Barsine did not move. “First,” she said to the air. “Yes. And those of us who are always second—what have we?”
Friendship, Meriamon could have told her. Goodwill.
Protection.
She could not but know it. If it made her bitter, then that was her right, as well as her folly.
o0o
Meriamon was very ill. She knew that. Her head was light, her thoughts inclined to wander, but she could think clearly enough for brief stretches. She could reckon and count, and surmise. As far as she could tell, it was the third day out of Sidon. That meant that they were at Tyre, or close to it if the rain had slowed them.
It was not raining any longer. There was wind above the tent, stirring the heavy walls, and sun beyond it, and the sound of the sea.
People kept talking over her head. Alexander went away, and after a while Barsine followed. The women who came to sit with Meriamon were given to chatter, and chatter they did, incessantly. “Sister, have you heard?” one asked the other. “Have you heard what he wants with Tyre?”
“What, the sacrifice in the temple?” her sister said. “It’s one of his gods, they say. The one he claims to be descended from, who wore a lionskin, the way he does sometimes. Do you think he’s handsome?”
“I think our lady is in love with him. She’s not wise. Everyone knows about the other one, the one who’s so beautiful to look at, but he never looks at women at all.”
“That’s a shame,” the sister said.
“It’s what is. It doesn’t stop the king.”
“Nothing stops the king.”
They sighed together. “Did you see the envoys when they came to camp? They were so humble it must have hurt. With their king in the Great King’s fleet, and this king at their doorstep, and nowhere to turn; and now he wants to pray to their god. I think he baffled them. They couldn’t say yes or no. They had to go away and promise to come back.”
“He wasn’t happy about that. He hates to wait.”
“He won’t wait much longer They were coming this morning, Sardates said when he brought breakfast.”
“We could go,” the other said. “And see.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“But,” said her sister. “If our lady catches us—or if Sardates does—”
“They won’t,” the other said with sweeping confidence. “The mouse is asleep, look. She’ll be well enough for an hour.”
“She could die,” her sister said doubtfully.
“She hasn’t so far. Go on, get our wraps, before Sardates comes back and catches us.”
They went, one striding strongly, the other still protesting, but following her.
Mouse, Meriamon thought. They called her a mouse. She would be angry, later. Or she would laugh.
It was better than some of the things they might have called her.
They were at Tyre. She had been right, then. And Alexander wanted to sacrifice to the god there. That would be Melqart, whom the Hellenes likened to their Herakles.
He did like to pay his respects to the gods wherever he went. It was a courtesy of his, and a piety. And he was king, and priest as well as king; it was for him to make the sacrifice.
She was sitting up. Her head reeled. She took no notice. She shivered convulsively. Parsa modesty had wrapped her in a robe under all the blankets and furs, but the air was cold.
She fell getting out of bed. She stayed there on hands and knees, scraping together her strength. After a while she went forward, still on all fours, and found a cloak, and shoes that were her own. She had to rest when she had put on each shoe, and after she had wrapped the mantle about her.
Somehow she got to her feet. Once she was up, she found that she could stay there, if she kept moving and did not stop.
The sun struck her blind, but no blinder than the light that called her. The wind almost beat her down, but no harder than the force that drew her to the shore. She ducked her head and made herself small and pushed against it.
Her sight came and went. She did not stop to wonder where she was going. The sea’s scent was strong, its voice sighing through her. The sun was warm on her back, though the wind was bitter.
There were people. She did not see them, except as shadows. She did see where they were: the long white sweep of shore, the blue brilliance of the sea, the rock in the midst of it ringed with walls and crowned with towers. There were ships, black and crimson and Tyrian purple, and purple sails, and hawk-faced sailors with gold in their ears, leaning over the rails.
She was as close as that. Close enough almost to wet her feet in the sea. Down the length of the shore she saw them, remote and clear as images in a scrying-pool: the Macedonians in their cloaks and their tunics and their scorn for wind and cold, the Tyrians in their long robes and their curled beards, smaller than the Macedonians, Egyptian-small, thin and dark and wily. They were polite. They even smiled. They yielded not a hair’s width.
“Lord king,” said the one who stood foremost, neither the oldest nor the youngest of them, but clearly the highest in rank. His robe was dyed with his city’s famous purple and embroidered with gold. “The priests have spoken. The elders concur with them. There will be no Persian nor Macedonian within the walls of our city.”
Alexander stood facing him, wearing the lionskin that he favored, with its head for a helmet. He looked odd to Meriamon’s eyes, half man, half lion, yet all Alexander.
His high color was up, between the wind and his temper, but his voice was quiet. “Even if I come alone, with only a friend or two? Even if I promise to touch nothing and offend no one, and worship the god as his priests prescribe?”
“The priests prescribe that there be no sacrifice,” the envoy said.
“Herakles is my forefather,” said Alexander. “I wish to do him honor in his own city.”
“If honor is what you wish to give him,” said the envoy, “then you may give it in Old Tyre, down the shore yonder. There’s a temple to Melqart there; its priests would be pleased to receive y
ou.”
“New Tyre is Herakles’ city,” Alexander said, still quietly, still calmly. “He built it with his own hands; he sanctified it with his presence.”
The envoy’s head shook from side to side. “Lord king, we regret to oppose you, but we must. Our laws require it. We cannot permit a foreigner in our city. You are welcome here and in Old Tyre; you may sacrifice to your ancestor with our priests’ blessing. But not in our city.”
“I see,” said Alexander softly, barely to be heard above the song of the wind. He was bulking larger the more quietly he spoke, the fire in him rising higher. “The king makes sacrifice here as in our country. You will not have this king inside your walls. Will you not reconsider?”
“We cannot,” the envoy said.
Alexander’s head lifted. The color had left his face. His eyes were brilliant in it, open wide and fixed on the city. “I will make the sacrifice,” he said. “You have my word on it.”
“Then you will wait long,” said the envoy. He too had gone pale under beard and bronzing. Alexander’s pallor was rage. The envoy’s was anger, and more than anger, fear. But he would not yield; no more than Alexander.
“I will wait as long as it takes me,” Alexander said. “Nor will I move until I have made my sacrifice.”
Even his own people gasped at that. They could see the city on its rock and the stretch of sea between, and the ships in it, tiny under the immensity of the walls. Twenty fathoms and five, that was the height of them. No one had ever scaled them. No one had ever taken them.
Alexander smiled at them. “I’ll take you,” he said. “I’ll have my sacrifice.”
Eleven
“It’s not mad,” said Ptolemy. “It makes perfect sense.”
“Lunatic’s sense.” Niko was disgusted. “Have you taken a good look at the place? Half a mile of water between us and it, no fleet to our names, and our king is crazy-mad because somebody told him he couldn’t have what he wanted.”
“I’ll say he’s angry,” Ptolemy said. “He always did hate to be crossed. But he hasn’t lost any wits to speak of. Think, for once. Remember what we’re doing here. There’s a whole fleet out there, taking its pay in Persian gold, and most of it built and crewed by Phoenicians. The Tyrian king is in it, and you can be sure he’s near the head of it. He can come in here with a whole army, keep it supplied, land it when he’s minded to fight and keep it nicely out of range when he’s minded to rest, and kill any chance we have of breaking the Persians’ yoke.”
“I know that!” Niko snapped. “I’ll wager I know it better than you. But he can’t take Tyre. What’s he going to do it with? Wings?”
“He has a plan,” Ptolemy said. “You watch.”
“Yes,” said Niko. “And for how long?”
“As long as it takes,” his brother said.
o0o
Meriamon did not remember coming this far down the shore. She had been up by the women’s end of the camp. Now she was past the place where the king had been, leaning against a spear that someone had thrust into the sand and apparently forgotten, listening to Niko and his brother.
There were other people about. They were all shouting, saying most of the same things that either Ptolemy or Niko had said. Most of them were of Niko’s mind.
The king was gone. So were the Tyrians, rowing away in one of their boats, and no doubt glad to have escaped alive. The king’s anger had a scent like hot iron, hanging in the air, making men’s eyes roll white.
“He can’t do this,” she said.
Her voice was clear in a moment of silence. Niko spun about, quick as a startled cat. She met his eyes. “He can’t do it,” she said again. “He can’t stay here. He’ll have to move heaven and earth to take this city. What will happen to Khemet?”
“What in the gods’ name are you doing here?”
His temper did not trouble her at all. Even with the spear to hold her up, she was swaying. Her knees had had enough. So, on reflection, had her hands. But she wanted an answer. “What of my country? What will become of it while Alexander salves his pride in Tyre?”
“Well,” said Ptolemy. “It’s been around for a while. It can wait a little longer.”
“Months!” she cried. “Years! It’s too long. It’s—too—”
Niko caught her. She was surprised. She might have expected Ptolemy to do it, unhappy as Niko always was to be her nursemaid; and he had got out of it so neatly, abandoning her among the Parsa women. But he was there when she fell, keeping her from falling too hard, and then cursing because he did not have enough arms to lift her. His brother did it for him, making nothing of her little bulk.
“It’s too long,” she said.
“It cursed well might be.” said Niko, “if you kill yourself fretting over it. I’ll have those bitches’ necks, by gods I will. Letting you out when you’re half dead, burning up with fever, and how in Hades you walked this far—”
“I don’t know,” she said, “how I got here. Aren’t you happy? He’ll kill them instead of you, if I don’t get better.”
“I’ll kill you,” he gritted.
“There,” said Ptolemy. He was worried; his brow furrowed when he looked at Meriamon. But he was amused, too. “There now. I’ll get you back where you belong, m’lady, and as for you, Niko, maybe this time you’d better keep a watch on her. She’s right, you know. You did dump her off on Barsine. I’d hate to hear what the king would say if he knew.”
“He knows,” said Meriamon. “He came. He didn’t say anything. Except I’m too thin.”
“You are.” Ptolemy began to walk. His stride was long and firm, but he carried her lightly, nodding now and then to men who passed. They stared. She could feel their eyes, a raw pain, for she had no shadow to protect her. She had forgotten about her shadow. She struggled.
“No,” she said. “Not back there.”
“What, with the women?” Ptolemy frowned down at her. “You’re best with them, you know. Barsine even studied medicine for a while, with Greek tutors. Thaïs can’t take care of you as well as that.”
“No,” said Meriamon.
“Delirious,” Niko said. “She was like that when she woke up and saw where she was. Wild. They had to dose her.”
“No,” Meriamon said again. “I won’t go back there. Don’t take me back there!”
She was weak, but she was stronger maybe than Ptolemy had expected. She almost broke his hold. He gasped; her elbow had caught his ribs.
His arms clamped tight. She could hardly breathe. Her hair was out of its plaits, snarled across her face. Her arms were trapped; she could not push it away. Shaking her head made her dizzy. Her stomach heaved.
Even for that he did not let her go. He would need a clean chiton.
“That does it,” he said. “I’m taking her to Philippos. Unless,” he said to her with an edge of irony, “your highness objects?”
She had no words in her. Nor fear; nor flight. Philippos was not the Parsa. More than that, she did not care for.
o0o
Meriamon should have not gone down to the water. She knew that very well. She did not need everyone telling her, repeatedly, whenever she was awake enough to hear it.
She almost died. They told her that, too. Often. Did they think she did not know? She knew the dark, and the long light, and the voices without words. She knew the dry land and the empty sky. She knew the shadows that passed there. She knew death. She had walked its edges all her life, in the silence behind the gods’ commands.
They did not want her yet. Death and his demons would have taken her in spite of them, but Philippos was stronger than they. He would have been a priest in Khemet. He had the gift and the art, and the strength of will. He was a greater healer of bodies than she; what he might have been as a healer of souls, she could well see.
When he was not there, Kleomenes was. He never said much, and that was astonishing, for Kleomenes loved to chatter. He watched, he listened, he did what needed doing. Something about his touch woke
a truth in her.
Even on the edge of the dark she smiled. Why, the boy was in love with her. Poor thing, he should have had better sense.
Niko, now. Niko had sense. He slept by her pallet, when he slept at all. He gave what help he was, and neither Philippos nor Kleomenes was shy about asking for it. He was gentler than she would have believed, if she had not been the object of it. He was certainly not in love with her.
Kleomenes’ adoration was like a hand on her skin, constant, unvarying, sometimes comforting, often uncomfortable. Niko was presence simply, no worship in it. Far down in the dark she was aware of him, standing like a stone among the shadows, guarding her. When Philippos fought his battle for her life, Niko was there. When Philippos went away to rest, Niko stayed. She was his duty. He had forsaken her once. He would not do it again.
He was there when she decided to wake. His presence was part of why she did it then. Philippos was too strong, Kleomenes too mutely worshipful. Niko was there, that was all. She opened her eyes on lamplight and said, “I’m hungry.”
He was sitting by her bed with Sekhmet in his lap. He did not start or stare, but something in him eased perceptibly.
He set the cat beside her, got up, went out. She heard him calling, and people answering. In a little while he came back. “You’ll get a posset.” he said. “For now, drink this.”
He held her head while she drank sweet water from a cup. She was lying down again, dizzy with effort, before it struck her. One arm had held her, the other hand had held the cup.
He was still in bandages, but the sling was off, and the splints.
“That long?” she asked, staring at it.
“Yes.” He sounded almost angry. Impatient, maybe. She was too weak to tell.
“How—”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.”
She tried to sit up. She got her head up, but that was as far as it went.
“Half a month,” he said, snapping it. “Don’t get up. You’ll kill yourself.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t die now.” But neither did she try to move. She lay for a while, simply breathing. She would never have believed that she could be so weak, or so tired for doing so little. And so long. Anything could have happened. Oh, gods—anything at all.
