riches in all the world. Truly, enough to keep the wolf from the chariot.
As winter hardened, closing the roads again, shutting us up together week after week with only the muddy town or the barren hillsides, men grew prickly or dull or sour. The soldiers fell into tribal factions, reviving old feuds from home. Townsmen came up to complain that their wives, or daughters, or sons had been debauched. The King would not be troubled with such trifles; soon all petitioners sought Bessos or Nabarzanes. Yet idleness made him moodier; it fell on one man or another mostly by chance, but everyone was on edge from it. All that befell later, as I believe, was hatched in those long white empty days.
One night he sent for me, the first time in a long while. I saw Boubakes, as he withdrew from the Bedchamber, signal discreet congratulation. But from the first I was ill at ease with myself, uncertain of the King. I remembered the boy before me, packed off for being insipid. So I tried something which had amused him once at Susa. Suddenly he pushed me off, fetched me a great slap on the face, said I was insolent, and ordered me out of his sight.
My hands were shaking so, I could hardly get my clothes on. I stumbled down cold corridors, half blinded with tears of pain, anger and shock. Putting my sleeve to my eyes to wipe them, I ran clean into someone.
The feel of his clothes told me he was a lord. I stammered an apology. He put both hands on my shoulders, and looked at me by the light of the wall-sconce. It was Nabarzanes. I swallowed my weeping in shame. He had a biting turn of mockery when he chose.
“Why, Bagoas,” he said with the greatest gentleness. “What is it? Has someone been ill-using you? That lovely face of yours will be bruised tomorrow.”
He spoke as if to a woman. It was natural; yet, fresh from humiliation, I found it too much to bear. Without even dropping my voice, I said, “He struck me, for nothing. And if he is a man, then I reckon so am I.”
He looked down at me in silence. It sobered me; I had put my life in his hands. Then he said gravely, “I have nothing to say to that.” While I still stood rooted, feeling my words’ enormity, he put his finger-tips to my stinging cheek. “It is forgotten,” he said. “We must all learn to hold our tongues.”
I would have prostrated myself, but he raised me up. “Go to bed, Bagoas. And don’t lose sleep over your future, whatever may have been said. He will forget it, no doubt, tomorrow, or the day after.”
All night I scarcely closed my eyes; but not from fear for myself. He would not betray me. At Susa, I had grown used to the petty court intrigues; to office-seeking, backbiting of rivals, the endless play for favor. Now I knew that I had looked into far deeper places. He had not hidden his contempt; and it was not for me.
When my bruise was gone, the King sent for me to dance and gave me ten gold darics. But it was not the bruise that hung about my memory.
-7-
WITH THE turn of winter, we had good news from the north. The Scythians, those in alliance with Bessos, were to send us ten thousand bowmen, as soon as spring cleared the passes. The Kadousians, who live by the Hyrkanian Sea, had answered the King’s summons with a promise of five thousand foot.
The governor of Persis, Ariobarzanes, also got a message through. He had walled, clean across, the great gorge of the Persian Gates, the pass into Persepolis. It could be held forever; any army that went in would be destroyed? from the heights above, with rocks and boulders. Alexander would, with any luck, be dead with his men before they reached the wall.
I overheard Bessos saying, as he passed me with a friend, “Ah, it’s there we should be, not here.” Happy for him, had some god fulfilled his wish.
It’s a long hard ride from Persis to Ekbatana, with only one spare horse. Before that news even reached us, if we had known it, Alexander was in Persepolis.
He had tried the Persian Gates; soon
As winter hardened, closing the roads again, shutting us up together week after week with only the muddy town or the barren hillsides, men grew prickly or dull or sour. The soldiers fell into tribal factions, reviving old feuds from home. Townsmen came up to complain that their wives, or daughters, or sons had been debauched. The King would not be troubled with such trifles; soon all petitioners sought Bessos or Nabarzanes. Yet idleness made him moodier; it fell on one man or another mostly by chance, but everyone was on edge from it. All that befell later, as I believe, was hatched in those long white empty days.
One night he sent for me, the first time in a long while. I saw Boubakes, as he withdrew from the Bedchamber, signal discreet congratulation. But from the first I was ill at ease with myself, uncertain of the King. I remembered the boy before me, packed off for being insipid. So I tried something which had amused him once at Susa. Suddenly he pushed me off, fetched me a great slap on the face, said I was insolent, and ordered me out of his sight.
My hands were shaking so, I could hardly get my clothes on. I stumbled down cold corridors, half blinded with tears of pain, anger and shock. Putting my sleeve to my eyes to wipe them, I ran clean into someone.
The feel of his clothes told me he was a lord. I stammered an apology. He put both hands on my shoulders, and looked at me by the light of the wall-sconce. It was Nabarzanes. I swallowed my weeping in shame. He had a biting turn of mockery when he chose.
“Why, Bagoas,” he said with the greatest gentleness. “What is it? Has someone been ill-using you? That lovely face of yours will be bruised tomorrow.”
He spoke as if to a woman. It was natural; yet, fresh from humiliation, I found it too much to bear. Without even dropping my voice, I said, “He struck me, for nothing. And if he is a man, then I reckon so am I.”
He looked down at me in silence. It sobered me; I had put my life in his hands. Then he said gravely, “I have nothing to say to that.” While I still stood rooted, feeling my words’ enormity, he put his finger-tips to my stinging cheek. “It is forgotten,” he said. “We must all learn to hold our tongues.”
I would have prostrated myself, but he raised me up. “Go to bed, Bagoas. And don’t lose sleep over your future, whatever may have been said. He will forget it, no doubt, tomorrow, or the day after.”
All night I scarcely closed my eyes; but not from fear for myself. He would not betray me. At Susa, I had grown used to the petty court intrigues; to office-seeking, backbiting of rivals, the endless play for favor. Now I knew that I had looked into far deeper places. He had not hidden his contempt; and it was not for me.
When my bruise was gone, the King sent for me to dance and gave me ten gold darics. But it was not the bruise that hung about my memory.
-7-
WITH THE turn of winter, we had good news from the north. The Scythians, those in alliance with Bessos, were to send us ten thousand bowmen, as soon as spring cleared the passes. The Kadousians, who live by the Hyrkanian Sea, had answered the King’s summons with a promise of five thousand foot.
The governor of Persis, Ariobarzanes, also got a message through. He had walled, clean across, the great gorge of the Persian Gates, the pass into Persepolis. It could be held forever; any army that went in would be destroyed? from the heights above, with rocks and boulders. Alexander would, with any luck, be dead with his men before they reached the wall.
I overheard Bessos saying, as he passed me with a friend, “Ah, it’s there we should be, not here.” Happy for him, had some god fulfilled his wish.
It’s a long hard ride from Persis to Ekbatana, with only one spare horse. Before that news even reached us, if we had known it, Alexander was in Persepolis.
He had tried the Persian Gates; soon
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