The Persian Boy by Mary Renault Page A

found them deadly, and withdrew his men. They had thought him gone. But he’d heard from a shepherd, whom he later made rich for life, of some dizzy goat-track, by which, if he did not break his neck, he could outflank the pass. Over this he led his men, through darkness and deep snow. He fell on the Persians from their rear, while the rest of his people forced the pass, now freed of its defenders. Our men were grain between the millstones. Meantime, we rejoiced at Ekbatana.
    Days passed; the snow lay crisp, the sky was clear and windless. From the Palace windows I could see, between the orange battlements and the blue, the town lads throwing snowballs.
    Long used to being with men, I had scarcely thought how it would be, to be a boy among others. I had just turned sixteen; now I would never know it. It came to me that I had no friends, as those boys down there would understand it. I had only patrons.
    Well, I thought, no use lamenting; it won’t put back what the slave-dealer cut away. There is the Light and the Dark, the Magus used to tell us, and all things that live have the power to choose.
    So I rode out alone, to see the sevenfold walls with their colors and their metals, shining in the snow. On the hills a new air touched me, a scent of delight breaking through the whiteness. It was the first breath of spring.
    The icicles melted from the waterspouts. Brown rusty grass showed through the snow; everyone went out riding. The King called a war council, to plan for when the roads were open and the new troops came. I took out my bow, and shot a fox in a gully. It had a beautiful pelt, with a silver sheen. When I had taken it to a furrier in the town, to have a hat made out of it, I went back to tell Boubakes. Some servant said he was in his room, he had taken the news hard.
    From the passage I heard him weeping. Once, I would not have dared go in, but those days were done.
    He lay prone on his bed, crying his heart out. I sat down by him and touched his shoulders. He lifted a face all blotched with tears.
    “He has burned it. Burned it to the ground. Everything gone, ashes, cinders, dust.” “Burned what?” I asked. He said, “The Palace of Persepolis.”
    He sat up and clutched a towel, fresh tears pouring down as soon as he had wiped his face. “Has the King asked for me? I can’t lie here like this.” I said, “Never mind, someone will attend to him.” He went on, gasping and sobbing, about the lotus columns, the beautiful wall-carvings, the hangings, the gilded and coffered ceilings. It all sounded to me pretty much like Susa; but I grieved with him in his loss.
    “What a barbarian!” I said. “And a fool, to burn it when it belonged to him.” We had had that news some time.
    “He was drunk, they say. You should not ride out so long, just because the King’s in council. He would think it a liberty if he knew; it would do you harm.”
    “I am sorry. Here, give me your towel, you need cold water.” I wrung it out for him, then ran down to the guard hall. I wanted to hear the messenger, before he was sick of telling his tale.
    Those who had heard were still milling it over; but they had plied him with so much wine that he was now pretty near speechless, and was dozing on a pile of blankets. There was a crowd of Palace people, and some soldiers off duty.
    A chamberlain told me, “They were at a feast, all roaring drunk. Some whore from Athens asked him to set the place alight, because Xerxes had burned their temples. Alexander threw the first torch himself.”
    “But he was living there!” I said.
    “Where else? He sacked ?the city when first he took it.”
    This too I had heard. “But why? He never sacked Babylon. Or Susa.” I had thought, to tell the truth, of some houses there I would gladly have seen in flames.
    A grizzled soldier, a captain of a hundred, said, “Ah, there you have it. Babylon surrendered. So did Susa. Now in Persepolis, the garrison made a run for it, or started getting what