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I went to see Aristotle. I took a flask of good Chian – my father was rich, after all. This was the sweet Chian made from raisinated grapes. Sweet and strong. And instead of cutting it with water, I cut it with a mixture of wine and water I’d made in advance, and my tutor was as drunk as Dionysus by the time he’d finished his second bowl.
He had a wife – a nice enough woman – whom he largely ignored. His tastes didn’t go that way, and she managed his household and not much more. I can imagine him telling others that a wife was cheaper than a slave butler – that’s what he’s supposed to have said to Alexander. On this evening, she came in, and she was on to me in a moment – saw me pouring my watered wine mixture into the Chian.
She said nothing. Either Aphrodite was with us, or Aristotle’s wife was as happy to see him too drunk to move his legs as I was. Before he was done with me, though, he’d told me that I was the best of the pages again, and he tried to kiss me. He really was a moral man, but no man, no matter how controlled, can restrain himself with a jar of Chian under his belt. His wife took him to bed, singing a hymn to Ares of all things, and I cleaned up the wine-serving things – part of the training was learning what to mix and how to judge taste against quality of conversation.
I was never good at the subtleties, but I had just figured out how to knock a middle-aged philosopher out cold.
But I’m a worrier, and I cut across the compound, my slave laden with wine things, wondering if the prince had managed to make love to Helen of Troy, or whether some iron-clad principle had stood in the way.
I thought that I’d just have a look. I had as much right to take a peek at Cleitus as anyone.
I was sorry I looked. Not sorry, exactly. More . . . intrusive. Sensitive men do not last as household companions to princes – but at the same time, if you have no ability to read and feel other people, you’ll never be much of a battlefield commander, will you?
My prince was lying with his head on her chest in the light of the vigil lamp. He was asleep. Her eyes were open. They met mine, and the very smallest smile – the sort that Pheidias put on Aphrodite – flickered around the edge of her mouth.
I slipped away, mortified at his weakness – he looked like a boy sleeping on his mother.
What had I expected?
‘Lord, there’s a rider at the gate.’ That was my forgotten slave, Hermonius, a big barbarian from the north. He was laden with the wine service, and despite that he was alert enough.
‘Go and drop the wine things in a chest and wake . . .’ Herakles – the prince was in the wrong bed. ‘I’ll deal with it,’ I said.
I went to the gate, already wondering what could bring a messenger at this hour. Another way that the fight at the hunting camp had changed me – violence was real. Alone of the pages, or perhaps with Philip the Red, I realised that the Illyrians had intended to take or kill the prince and that meant he’d been betrayed. I’d only told two men – my father, and Aristotle. My father told Parmenio, or so he told me.
The man at the gate was Laodon.
‘My lord?’ I said, swinging the gate open. And wondering, all of a sudden, if Laodon could have been the traitor.
‘Hello, Ptolemy. I need the prince – we’re fucked, and that’s no mistake.’ He was covered in mud, wearing beautiful scale armour and a fine red cloak both fouled from the road. He slid from his horse and embraced me – that surprised me, and pretty much let him off the hook of treason in my mind. ‘Glad you are here. Get me the prince.’
‘Life or death?’ I asked.
Laodon paused just as Hermonius came out of the dark and started to untack his horse. ‘Yes,’ he said.
I grabbed his rolled cloak and led him to the infirmary. It was still dark – all I needed was some luck. ‘Swear on the furies you won’t say a word, lord,’ I said. ‘I stood my ground with you.’
Laodon shrugged. ‘He’s got that fool boy with him? Not my problem. This is the kingdom, boy – take me to the prince.’
I took his hand. ‘Swear,’ I said.
‘By the furies, damn you!’ Laodon said.
I took him into the infirmary. I got ahead of him, leaned over the bed – the oil lamp was still burning, and now they were both asleep.
I woke Alexander with a brush of fingers across his mouth – works on most folks – and he came up with a knife in his hand. But I’d been the duty page before and I knew his little ways.
‘News from Pella,’ I said. ‘Life and death. Gather your wits, lord.’
He looked past me and saw Laodon. Nodded to me. Rolled out of bed, naked but for a knife sheath on a string.
She was awake already. I lifted her, bedclothes and all, off the bed, and carried her out the back of the infirmary. I put her down on the porch – on her feet – and threw the end of the blanket over her head, and she smiled at me and ran. Problem solved.
As if we were in one of Menander’s comedies, Hephaestion came through the front door a heartbeat later. He was ready to be hysterical – he thought that he’d caught Alexander with Laodon.
I’d have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad, and if the news hadn’t been so bad.
Philip had lost a battle – and he was badly wounded. A combined force of Scythians and Thracians – not that the two are all that different – had caught him in the passes where he was carving out new territory, north and east of Illyria. He’d lost a lot of men – veterans – and part of his horse herd, and he’d taken a wound in the thigh.
Laodon shrugged when he was done with the barest relation. ‘He’s your da,’ he said. ‘So please accept my regrets. But I think he’s done – and the Thracians aren’t going to sit on the other side of the mountains and let us rebuild.’
‘My father’s going to die?’ Alexander asked. His voice had a curious timbre to it – hard to guess what he thought.
‘Almost dead,’ Laodon said.
Alexander didn’t raise his eyes from the rumpled bed – ‘Where’s Parmenio?’
‘Chasing Phokion in the south. Or being chased by him.’ Laodon shrugged.
‘Antipater?’ Alexander asked.
‘With your father, bringing the phalanx back as well as he can.’ Laodon was exhausted – I knew the signs. I poured him a cup of wine and water and he drank it off.
Alexander stood up, and he wasn’t just awake, he was quivering with energy.
‘I was afraid he would leave me no worlds to conquer,’ he said softly. ‘Ptolemy – all the pages over fifteen, with armour and remounts, in the courtyard at dawn.’
I thought that one through for fifty heartbeats. ‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Very good. See to it that the young person is suitably rewarded and silent, if you please.’ His eyes flicked back to the bed, but I knew who he meant. His voice was impersonal, military, like the better sort of Athenian orator. Like a king.
I like to think that if Alexander had lain with the courtesan and then had a good night’s sleep, it might all have been different.
By the time we cantered into Pella, our girths tight and our cloak rolls tighter, we looked like professional soldiers, the bodyguard of a king. We’d trained for it – and three days on the road moving at top speed tightened everything about us. Alexander had reached a new level of remoteness from us – he barely spoke, but when he did, his voice was light and he laughed with everyone.
He was working on a new version, a new mask. From ‘serious boy’ he was now on to ‘golden boy’.
When we reached Pella, the vanguard of the army was already coming in.
Macedon in those days was an armed camp, a state girded for war night or day, winter or summer – indeed, it was one of Demosthenes’ chief complaints about us that we made war all year long. Even the Spartans took the winter off, seemed to be the burden of his message.
But while Philip had certainly been beaten, and beaten badly – the Field of Crocuses comes to mind – Macedon was not used to defeat. Pella liked her victory celebrations, with rich, drunken pezhetaeroi swaggering through the streets and wild-eyed auxiliaries glutting themselves on wine and good bread and all the delights of civilisation.