Daimon

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

But that was years later, a lifetime, it seemed, from the days when we played soldiers at Mieza, and I first basked secure in his love and Aristotle’s admiration.

That love and admiration would be tested at Pella when Aristotle arranged a kind of graduation exercise for our group before the whole court. I went first, successfully debating another boy—I forget who and about what. But I do remember the hails of approval. Even my father snorted in contentment. And my mother—her spies flitting everywhere, for she no longer attended most of the functions at which my father presided—was no doubt smiling her serpent’s smile as the cheers arrived before her minions’ reports.

The evening went on pleasantly—some Pindar here, some Plato there—until Aristotle motioned for me to pick up my lyre, as Achilles had done in his tent on the plains of Troy. I played the lyre well enough. But what I really excelled at musically was singing. I had a high voice, as limpid as a stream and just as true, and as I sang, I became transported. Or perhaps I remained rooted where I was, and it was merely the audience that was transported.

The song, a piece in the Dorian mode about Achilles’ spirit wandering the Elysian Fields, began with a cry, a twisting, turning plea that slithered under the skin and swelled with feverish strings. It ended with a whisper sealed by two quickly plucked strings—the seventh and first of the scale.

When I finished, I was suddenly aware that I had not been aware at all. I looked out in amazement to a reception that would never again greet me in all my years as commander and king—stunned silence.

I must’ve been terrible—or terribly good, I thought. The latter, I felt, for the silence gave way to thunderous applause—cheering, standing, stomping. One of the older guests grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips. Much of this was due, of course, to my status as heir apparent as well as the wine that flowed freely. (Thank Zeus the servants had begun mixing it with water early on.) Still, I had sung well. I could see it in Aristotle’s posture as he stood leaning on a pillar at a distance—his head thrown back, a smile on his lips as he reveled in the moment. I had never been so proud, so utterly fulfilled.

Until, that is, my father dashed his cup and all my illusions.

“What’s this?” he shrieked, lurching from his couch. “Kings do not sing. Generals do not strum. You sound like a girl and worse, one in training for the hetaerae.”

Silence immediately descended again, and I realized that however well I may sing or do anything, there was only one star in this firmament. For what seemed an eternity, I stood there utterly mortified, the color rising in my fair cheeks and spreading to my ears and the back of my neck. But in reality, it was only a split second, for I was gone as the cries of “Alexander, come back. He only meant it in jest” died on the wing.

I hid on a corner of the roof, where I often went to escape Father and Mother. But Aristotle found me out and crouched before me as I sat against the wall, hugging my knees with one arm and drying my tears with the other.

“Your father is an absolute king,” he said at last, “and absolute kings can be cruel absolutely. It is his curse to be a great man impervious to the greatness of others and to a son who will be greater still. It is our curse to have to bear his arrogance or be crushed in the process. Do you understand, Alexander?”

I nodded “Yes,” for I could not yet trust myself to speak. Finally, I blurted, “I will never sing or play again.”

“Then you will be spiting only yourself.”

“All right, then: I will never play or sing for him.”

“That is your choice, a king’s prerogative, for in the end, a king must keep a part of himself for himself. Come now: Be a man. Dry your tears and have some honey cakes with your friends.”

But later that night, alone in my bed, I could not help but resume weeping—steady, silent tears shaped by periodic convulsive sobs that I stifled with my wet pillow. Then I felt a presence and heard a voice: “Move over. This bed’s too small, and I’m too cold.”

Hephaestion did not say anything else. Instead, he leaned up on one elbow and watched me as I wept. Then finally he kissed my cheek and, lying down, placed an arm over me, threading his fingers through mine.

“They cannot hurt you anymore,” he whispered as he kissed my neck and, pressing up against me, moved our entwined hands over my groin. “I’ve got you now.”

But they could and did, for they were my parents, my makers, and all the Arcadian intimacy in the world would never change that. Please him, and I would offend her. Placate her, and he would rage.

“I see that witch in you, boy,” he would say, staring into my eyes and squeezing my high, wide cheekbones until they ached, “and I want to tear her out of you.”

Then he’d send me reeling to the floor. For my pains all I got was her constant carping and her lunatic fear—or was it a self-fulfilling prophecy?—that I did not love her best in the world.

I still sought ways to show them I was worthy of their love—the love that would never be fully given, because its price could never be fully met.

* * * *

Was that what had spurred me into the enclosure that noon to see if I could tame him? I was a mere youth, and he, a wild black stallion let loose, it seemed, from Hades itself, with a white marking shaped like an ox’s head.

Yes, that’s what I’ll call you, I said silently to the horse that I already knew would be mine—Bucephalus. Oxhead.

You and I are both stubborn and enduring, brothers under the skin. We are outsiders here, I told him silently, as he bucked and twitched, yearning to break free.

“What a shame,” I said loudly to Hephaestion and my sisters but really to a certain person. “What a shame that this fine piece of horseflesh is going to be lost to us, and all because Father and his men cannot channel his spirit.”

“You think you can tame him, boy?” Father bellowed. “Maybe you can use your lyre instead of a whip.”

Father’s friends laughed, but I merely smiled one of Mother’s icy, enigmatic smiles.

“They say Orpheus tamed the beasts with his lyre. But yes, I believe I can tame him, if you will pay the purchase price of thirteen talents.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then I will pay the price myself.”

“You, where will you get such a lofty sum, you young buck?”

Here I paused to thrust the verbal dagger in, twisting it strategically.

“I believe my mother and our relations in Epirus have coin enough to lend me.”

Father flung a bag of coins at the horse trader, Philonicus the Thessalian, who had been despairing of ever making the sale.

“All right, break your damn neck. See if I care.”

Nearby, Hephaestion had been watching warily with Cynane, Cleopatra, and our brother Philip.

“Alex,” Hephaestion whispered. “Your father’s right. This horse is not for you.”

But he was for me. I knew it as I approached him—watching, waiting.

“What fools,” I said, soothingly. “They don’t realize that your shadow is what’s spooking you, and that all they had to do was turn you away from it. But then, they don’t really see, do they, boy?”

With that, I jumped lightly on his back, and pressing my thighs against his flanks, laid my chest on the horse’s silken neck, and stroked his mane. I could feel our hearts beating as if one.

“Bucephalus,” I said. “That name has always belonged to you just as you were always meant for me.”

I straightened slightly then, and together we trotted around the pen until we came to stand before Father. It was as if Bucephalus knew exactly who—or more to the point, what—Father was, for he whinnied, shook his mane, and bowed, allowing me to slip off.

“My son,” Father cried in a rare burst of unadulterated paternal pride. “The world is not big enough for you.”

Beaming, I thanked him. The mood did not last long.

“What are you doing?” I could hear Mother from the top of the hill. No doubt they could hear her all the way to Athens as well.

“What are you doing to my child, my child?”

She was on my father like some maenad, her figure a whirl of red and royal-blue fabric, her dark-blond curls streaming about her face.

“You could’ve killed him,” she said, beating Father’s chest with her fists.

“What are you talking about?” Father yelled, slapping her arms away. “You see for yourself no harm has come to him. And if there had been trouble, I would’ve stepped in.”

“Oh, yes, you would have rushed to his side with your lame leg,” Mother sneered.

Fortunately, Cleopatra, who never met a situation into which she could not project herself, came forward to offer diversion.

“Papa, I want a horse just like Alex’s.”

“You,” Mother said, turning on her. “Certainly not. Such beasts are not fit for ladies, especially future queens.”

I could hear Cynane sighing behind us. At seventeen, she already rode better than most of the soldiers—though Father and Mother, who were grooming her to marry our cousin, Prince Amyntas, wished she’d spend more time on her weaving and less on her archery.

“You shall have your own horse, my princess, my little Cleo,” Father said, tucking her under the chin and hugging her.

It was a rare display of affection for my afterthought of a sister, though one always commensurate with his annoyance at Mother. “But not a steed like this. No indeed. You shall have a white pony with pink ribbons.”

Father had won—this time.

“Time to prepare ourselves to dine,” Mother said, once more the composed queen. “Come, Cleopatra, Cynane, young Philip. You, too, Hephaestion, of course.”

She always said his name grudgingly, as if he were a beggar relation.

“Alexander, are you coming?”

I hesitated, poised between them, wishing that I could simply freeze time.

“Get on with you,” Father said, “you mama’s boy.”

Years later, when he lay dead, and I had to hold together the fragile peace that he had forged with the Greek city-states, I met that look again on the plains of Thebes. Right before I sacked the city.

“I offered them my hand, my heart. I would’ve given them anything,” I told Hephaestion that night as we reclined at table. “But they rejected me.”

He shrugged, refusing then to pass judgment on my Achillean rage.

“They were such disapproving daddies,” I whispered, drawing his face close to mine for a kiss. “And you know how we feel about disapproving daddies.”

That day I stood amid the ruins of proud Thebes.

“Who’s the mama’s boy now?” I hissed at the wind.