by Jo Graham
“We made them?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “People made them. It is easy for people to imagine monsters, to give them power. It is easy to imagine guilt and fear and pain in tangible form. And when you do, you make them real. In Egypt they were long ago bound to the Red Land by Pharaoh's power. Alexander could hold them, as pharaohs have for a thousand years, but he is dead and they are freed. His heir must take on the responsibility and bind them.”
I lifted my eyes to hers under the stars of this heaven, where even their patterns were strange. “There may be an heir. But if so, his heir is a baby. We don't even know if Roxane carries a boy or girl.”
“Alexander's son will never rule the Black Land,” she said, and her eyes were blue, blue as faience. “Egypt must have a pharaoh, not a disinterested overlord who will not see to what is needful. With Pharaoh's death, all is released and they roam through the world. Do you not see that all will be taken by the Furies? Do you not see that all the creatures of your mind will feed on blood and grow strong unless they are called to order and returned to the bindings that should hold them?”
“What must happen?” I asked, though I felt that somehow I already knew.
“Horus must bury Osiris in all honor and come forth by day as Egypt's champion,” she said.
“Lady, those are riddles,” I said. “Cannot you tell me plainly what you want me to do?”
“Bring the King to Memphis,” she said. A cloud passed over the moon, veiling her, and as it passed I woke.
I sat upright in the big Persian bed. It seemed stifling hot and close in the room after the cool desert I had dreamed. I got up and went to the window, looked out over the garden. The moonlight limned every leaf, every bud.
“Egypt,” I whispered. “Khemet.” I did not quite know what she wanted of me.
IT WAS ONLY a few days before we had a strange visitor. Artamenes and I were sitting in his study while he showed me the maps of the roadways that led through the Delta, to Tanis and Pi-Ramesses and other places where it was not possible to go directly by river without going far south out of one's way, when a messenger entered.
“Lord Artamenes,” he said, “there is a priest here come downriver from Memphis who says he has come to speak with the Companion Lydias.”
I straightened. “I do not know a priest,” I said.
Artamenes’ eyebrows rose. The Persians and the priesthood of Egypt had not been on good terms. Some matter of killing sacred animals, I thought. But as far as I knew, we had not offended the priesthood in any way.
“He says his name is Manetho and he is a priest of Thoth,” the messenger said. “Lord, will you see this man?”
I thought that Artamenes would refuse, but I got to my feet first. “I will come,” I said. “Perhaps he has some news of Cleomenes it would be useful to receive.”
Artamenes nodded. “Perhaps that is politic, then.”
I nodded pleasantly and went down.
The man standing in the courtyard of the fortress looked as though he had just stepped off the wall of a temple or a tomb. His head was shaven, and he wore an elaborately pleated linen skirt. His brown shaven chest was crossed by a cheetah skin, which he wore over one shoulder. He did not bow at all.
“I am the Hipparch Lydias,” I said, and came out to him. “You wanted to see me?”
“I did,” he said. “I am Manetho, and I have come from Memphis to speak with you. Is there some private place where we may walk?”
“There is,” I said, and led him toward the inner garden. The fountain should make us difficult to overhear, and I did not really fear that he would try to knife me. I could take my chances with that. “But you must have left Memphis more than a week ago. How could you know I would be here?”
He turned and regarded me solemnly. “We had word that Alexander the Son of Amon was dead, of course. It is reasonable that a man would come to Pelousion soon, and of course I asked the gate guards your name. Did you expect some other answer?”
“Of course not,” I said.
We went into the garden. I saw him look about, his face studiously neutral. It was a very, very Persian garden.
“Do you come from the Great King of Persia?” Manetho asked.
“I come from General Ptolemy, the Satrap of Egypt,” I said carefully.
“And who does he serve?” he asked.
“The Council of Regents,” I said. “Who hold the empire in trust for Alexander's child.”
“Or his brother,” Manetho said.
I nodded. “If necessary.”
Manetho sat down on the bench beneath the fig tree, and it came to me that he was quite young, at least five years my junior. “Egypt will not serve a Persian king,” he said.
“Are you here to warn me of an uprising? Or to threaten one?”
“Not at this time,” Manetho said tranquilly. “We have no prince who shall serve. Nectanebo is dead, he who was our last Pharaoh before the Persians returned and crushed us. His line is gone.” Manetho spread his hands. “There are many noble leaders in Egypt, some from Upper Egypt and some from Lower Egypt, but none who can do the thing that needs to be done.”
“Which is?”
“Keep us free,” he said, and his brown eyes met mine. “Is freedom so little to strive for?”
I nodded slowly. “And what you want is the Satrap Ptolemy to guarantee Egypt the freedoms that Alexander restored, which you did not have under the Persians? Such as the free practice of your own religions and the worship of your gods?”
Manetho nodded. “No doubt you have heard how the Great King of Persia slew the Apis bull and laughed when we wept. But you may not know how it has galled beneath their yoke, following their laws and their ways. We do not lock up our women or let men have ten wives. We do not hold man and wife yoked together when they have decided to part or make eunuchs of young boys. They have taken Egyptian women as concubines and said they may not depart if they wish, and have castrated our sons.” He shifted on the bench, and his mild face was at odds with his words. “And then Alexander the Son of Amon came and restored to us what was ours. It is said that throughout his lands he let every people live according to their customs.”
“That is true,” I said.
“We will not live under Persia again,” Manetho said. “I tell you that as a fact, so that you may tell General Ptolemy.”
“General Ptolemy has no wish to interfere in Egyptian custom or law,” I said carefully, “save in those towns or places founded primarily by Greeks. You know that this new city Alexander founded, the one which is to bear his name, was intended to attract merchants from many lands who may be expected to bring their own customs with them, and to operate under a code of law that was laid down—civic law, one law for all, so that there are not discrepancies in the punishment of crimes between people just because their native language is different or their heritage. I do not think Ptolemy will be willing to abandon that.”
Manetho searched my face, and there was something in him suddenly that reminded me of the King. “I see that,” he said. “Are you then a man of government?”
“I am a plain soldier,” I said. “Not a priest or a philosopher.”
His eyebrows rose. “And yet you know something of governing.”
“I have traveled in many lands,” I said, “and in each I have seen something to like. I do not say this gives me wisdom or has taught me how to govern. I only seek to represent my master.”
“And yet it is said that one can tell a great deal about a master by the conduct of his servants,” Manetho observed.
“That is also true,” I said. “In which case you should perhaps consider General Hephaistion, as until his death I served him for many years.”
Manetho tilted his head back, looking up at the fig tree above. “I understand Alexander ordered a temple built for him in Alexandria. I do not believe the work has begun.”
“I am sure Ptolemy will follow the King's wishes,” I said rather shortly.
Ma
netho nodded politely. “As one should. Have you been there yet?”
“To Alexandria? I was there when it was laid out, but have not been back.”
I had stood holding Ghost Dancer's rein when Hephaistion came out to see why the King must do the work of a digger and had found him, hat off and sunburned, laughing and talking with the men who were setting out the lines of the streets with stakes and string, the surveyor with his angles and tripod. I stood holding the horse, letting the sea wind lift my damp hair from my neck, watching the wild seabirds wheeling in the air. Ptolemy was anxious to be off, fidgeting, while Alexander would not be satisfied until he had done all himself. I watched, looking out over the cerulean depths of the Middle Sea, watching the black-winged gulls calling on the wind over the vast natural bowl of the harbor. It seemed for a moment that the world tilted beneath me. Perhaps it was only that beauty moved me.
“Perhaps you will go,” Manetho said.
“If General Ptolemy sends me,” I said.
“Just so,” Manetho said, and took his leave.
After he was gone I walked in the garden a while longer. It was true that if I had not known I was in Egypt I should have thought I was in Persia from the garden. They had erased anything not their own.
And yet it was still fair.
The curves of the fountain were not Egyptian. The fretted screens with their elaborate carving were straight from Susa or Persepolis, that palace that Alexander had burned long ago, Thais throwing the first torch. The flowers that grew—I did not know their names—were things I had seen in Babylon.
And still it was beautiful.
Must beauty only have one form? I wondered. That is like saying that all women must be pale, or all boys doe-eyed. Is there only, as the Persians believe, one right way to live and that is the Truth, all else being Lies? And if many things can be true, how can a man know which way to live?
I wondered, beneath the fig tree, but my heart answered already. By following your heart, I thought. By giving heed always to love and honor. Really, that was all the answer I needed.
I had spoken truly when I told Manetho that if a man's worthiness can be determined from the actions of his servants, that he should consider Hephaistion rather than Ptolemy. After all, I had only served Ptolemy a few short months. If I had a model for how a Companion should behave it was Hephaistion, and if I had learned anything of governing it had been from him.
I had been sixteen and a horseboy still at the Battle of Issos, and had taken no part in the fighting. Afterward, Alexander had ridden down the coast with all haste, making for Egypt, accepting surrenders of the cities along the way as he went. In Sidon the Persian satrap ran at the rumor of our approach and the gates of the city stood open to us. Alexander stayed only a single night before he went on southward, leaving Hephaistion to order things in his wake.
Among the things that needed to be done was an arrangement made for the governing of the city. It was Alexander's custom to only appoint a Macedonian or Greek governor if the task was exceptionally challenging, a city that had resisted with great force. In other cases he returned the governance to some local person of worth who would rule according to their own customs, and thus avoid leaving a trail of anger and resentment behind us, simmering always in our rear.
So it was in Sidon that Hephaistion held a dinner for gentlemen of the important families, seeking to know which might be worthy of being made Sidon's king. Although many men pressed their claims, two young men told him that it was long custom that the king must be of a certain lineage and royal line, as that line was blessed by Ashteret of the Sea, who we call Aphrodite Cythera, and only one of that line might fruitfully rule the city. Hephaistion inquired about and found that a man of that line remained who was well spoken of, though he had fallen on hard times lately and was employed as a gardener.
He sent for this man, named Abdalonymus, but he refused, sending word that he was in the midst of pruning and could not take the time.
At this many men would have been angry, but Hephaistion laughed and called for me to bring out Ghost Dancer, as he would go to Abdalonymus if he would not come to him.
We rode to the outskirts of the city on a beautiful morning. These were not great houses here, but modest dwellings of a room or two, though sturdily built. As I followed Hephaistion along the street I wondered at one we saw first from a distance. Its roof was overgrown with climbing roses, trained in a riot of red and pink, and every bit of the yard was planted tightly, fig trees and almond trees and weeping peach trees bending their heavy branches. Cucumbers and melons and all good things grew tied carefully to trellises, and the bees were in the lavender. It was the most beautiful tiny house I had ever seen, each plant perfect and perfectly cared for.
I went to hold the general's rein and he dismounted. I saw that he was as awestruck by the beauty of the place as I was. There are gardens, and then there are paradises.
A middle-aged man on a ladder was up in the peach tree. Hephaistion came up below. “Are you Abdalonymus?” he called up.
“Yes,” the man said without looking around.
“Will you come down and talk with me?” Hephaistion asked, his hand on his hip.
“Nope. I'm busy.” He didn't even glance down, just kept on doing what he was doing. “What do you want?”
“To make you King of Sidon,” Hephaistion said, and there was a note of amusement in his voice.
At that he did look around, a pair of shears in his hands, keen bright eyes in a stubbled face. “Why?”
“Because if this is how you care for what is yours, you are the man to rule the city,” Hephaistion said. “Will you come down and talk with me? I am Hephaistion son of Amyntor, and the King of Macedon has charged me with finding a good shepherd for this people.”
At that he came down. “What if I don't want to be King of Sidon?” he said.
Hephaistion rubbed his nose ruefully. “Well, I can't make you be King of Sidon, can I? But someone's got to be. Better for all if it's a man who builds and brings fruit rather than a man who despoils, don't you think? If you don't, whenever something goes wrong you'll wonder if you might have mended it.”
“Hephaistion son of Amyntor?”
“Yes.”
“Come inside, Hephaistion son of Amyntor. Have some wine and fill me in a bit about this king job,” he said, and they went into the house, Hephaistion hanging behind as a young man should to let his elder precede him.
I stood in the street under the peach tree, holding Ghost Dancer's rein.
DREAMS AND
NIGHTMARES
Roxane was delivered of a son, a healthy enough child they said, who was promptly proclaimed Alexander IV. This averted civil war for the moment, which surely would have erupted if the baby had been a girl. The Regents settled in for the long term—it would be sixteen years before the boy could wield real power, almost an eternity. Rather than remain in Babylon, Ptolemy arrived in Pelousion ten weeks later with nearly a thousand men.
His baggage train was larger still. Most of the men had brought all their goods and their families as well. I watched them file into the walls of Pelousion, the women with their wary eyes, veterans of too many camps and too many years on the road, their children running around them like puppies, taking in the sights. The oldest were nearly youths and maidens, ten or eleven years old, fair-skinned and light-haired, children of Greeks and Ionians. Then there were the dark-haired children of Carians and Persians, and the green-eyed children of the Medes from the middle of the campaign. One or two honey-skinned women fell to their knees in thanksgiving, women of Egypt who had at last come home.
Next there were the Bactrians and Sogdians, small-boned and quick like their ancestors on the plains near the Caspian Sea, and the sons and daughters of the Indians with their dark eyes, still carried or riding in carts as they were too small to walk all the way. Last were the Babylonians, worn in slings on their mothers’ hips, or swelling the bellies of the women in the carts.
&nbs
p; Sikander would have been three and a half, I thought. He should have been riding in a cart beside his mother, waving and pointing at the high gates painted with blue and gold. My heart ached in my chest.
Alexander had dreamed of establishing an Ile to be called the Successors, made up of the sons of his soldiers, boys from many lands who should all learn together and all fight together as brothers, as though humanity itself were nothing but a tribe. It had not happened. And yet here, watching the children of Ptolemy's men enter into Pelousion, I knew I saw a new thing. They did not see Greeks and Persians, Egyptians, Medes, Bactrians, Indians. They only saw each other, the playmates of the journey, gabbling together in a bastard Greek liberally spiced with words from their mothers’ tongues. They did not see Humans and Barbarians.
Standing there upon the wall, waiting for Ptolemy, I saw it in a flash, all that could be, all that Alexander had intended. His sacred fire was gone, broken into a thousand sparks, and I saw them all in the tired faces of women of a dozen nations eager to find the best quarters, in the faces of their children.
“A new thing,” I whispered, and felt it prick through me like pain.
“Yes,” Ptolemy said. I had not heard him join me on the wall, Thais beside him with her arm about his waist beneath his traveling cloak. The sun had burned his forehead where his hair was receding.
“General,” I said and turned, pulling myself together.
Thais’ blue eyes were compassionate, and I thought that she guessed what I felt, that my wife and son were not among them. “The Hipparch Lydias was the most gracious companion possible,” she said. “I am grateful for his escort.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Ptolemy looked out at the rapidly filling courtyard. “I don't know what we're going to do with them all tonight, but I suppose we'll work it out.”
