Ben Bova - Orion and the Conqueror

One by one, the Companions and guards staggered out of the hall, most of them with a girl or boy on their arms. Except for Ptolemaios, who brought two young women with him. “I’ll forget all about her,” he muttered. “At least, for tonight.”

I got up from my couch and pushed past the few couples still carousing, heading for the door. I still wondered where Philip was and why he had not deigned to greet his returning son. And I hoped that Ketu was still somewhere in the palace; there was much I wanted to learn from him.

As I neared the door, however, I noticed a messenger boy scanning the spattered, littered hall. His eyes stopped on me.

“Are you the one called Orion?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“The queen summons you.”

Glad that I had stayed out of the food fights, I followed him toward the stairs that led to the queen’s rooms.

“She said I would recognize you by your size,” said the lad. While some of the mountain people were big-boned, most of the Macedonians were much smaller in stature than I.

The lad smiled up at me as we started up the stairs. He held his lamp up to my face. “And your beautiful gray eyes,” he added.

I knew that boys his age often sought a mentor who would guide them into adult male society. Homosexual relationships were an accepted norm between noblemen and pubescent boys. Usually the boy grew up to marry and raise a family, and then take on a boy companion at a later stage in life. From what I saw, Macedonian wives had closer bonds with their husbands than those in the cities further south, where wives were left at home and men sported with hetairai, professional courtesans like Thais. Still, men could remain lovers throughout their lives if they wished; Alexandros and Hephaistion seemed to be, although neither of them spoke about it and the other Companions only mentioned it jokingly when neither of them was within earshot.

“I am a stranger here,” I said, “and only a member of the royal guard by the king’s favor. I am not a nobleman.”

“So I had heard,” the boy said, looking a bit disappointed. He was ambitious, I realized. He would find someone other than a hired soldier.

The queen was in her small sitting room, where the window overlooked the palace courtyard. A stiletto-thin sliver of a moon had just cleared the dark bulk of the mountains. I could see stars glittering out in the night.

The room was lit by a single lamp on the table beside the queen. Alexandros had apparently been sitting at his mother’s knee. He scrambled to his feet as the messenger boy opened the door.

“Come in, Orion,” said Olympias. To the boy she said, “You may go.”

He closed the door behind me, although I did not hear his footsteps leaving. He had been barefoot, and he was slight of build. I gave the possibility of his eavesdropping no further thought.

Alexandros eyed me uneasily. He always seemed on edge, upset, when he met with his mother this way. Who knew what poisons she was pouring into his ears?

Olympias seemed content to have me stand at the doorway. She ignored me, reaching for her son’s bare arm.

“Come, sit down again,” she urged. “We still have much to talk over.”

Alexandros looked uncertain, but after a moment’s hesitation he sat on the floor again. For an instant I thought he would rest his head in his mother’s lap.

“It is certain, then?” he asked, looking up into her coldly beautiful face.

Olympias nodded once. “As certain as the man’s insatiable lust. He will marry her.”

“But what will that mean to you, mother?”

“Better to ask what it will mean to you, Alexandros.”

“He can’t disown me. He can’t ignore that I exist.”

“He is a very clever man.”

“But all the army saw me at Chaeroneia. I am a general now, equal in rank to Parmenio and the others.”

“Orion,” she called to me, “do you believe that if the army voted for a new king this night they would elect Alexandros?”

So that’s why she wanted me. As a sounding board for her own opinions.

“He is greatly admired,” I said.

“But not yet nineteen years old,” the queen countered.

“The men trust him. At Chaeroneia—”

“Answer me truthfully. If the army voted this night, would they elect a nineteen-year-old over Parmenio? Or even Antipatros? Remember that their families are as old and noble as Philip’s. They were all horse thieves together only a generation ago.”

“I believe they would vote Alexandros king,” I said truthfully. “Probably with Parmenio as regent for a year or so.”

“You see?” she said to Alexandros. “You would get the title but not the authority. They will keep you from true power.”

“But why this question?” I asked. “Has something happened to the king?”

“He’s going to marry Attalos’ niece, Kleopatra, the one he calls Eurydice.”

“Marry?”

“The king may have more than one wife,” Alexandros explained.

“He already has had several political marriages,” said Olympias. “His marriage to me was to cement his alliance with the Molossians, originally.”

“He fell in love with you,” I said.

“He lusted after me, just as he’s lusted after every wench with hair between her legs. And quite a few boys, too.”

“I don’t see it as a problem, Mother—as far as I’m concerned. I know it’s a slap in your face, of course.”

“Do you think I care about that?”

I thought she cared very much. But I kept my mouth shut.

“I think he hurts you,” said Alexandros.

“And he humiliates you,” she said, clutching at his shoulder. “He expects me to be so enraged at him that I will leave and return to my father in Epeiros. If I refuse to do that, he will divorce me. This little baggage he’s marrying wants to be his only legitimate wife; that’s Attalos’ plan.”

Understanding seemed to dawn on Alexandros’ face. “Which means that if he has a son by her—”

“You will have a rival for the throne. Attalos will push for his niece’s son because that will bring the throne to his house, his family.”

“But not for many years,” I pointed out.

She shot me a venomous glance. “He could have a new son a year from now. And my son will be pushed aside. He’ll claim that he never fathered you, Alexandros. I know he will!”

“You told me that he didn’t,” Alexandros said, his voice hollow.

“I told you that you were fathered by Zeus,” she said imperiously. “But Philip has always claimed you as his own.”

“Until now.”

“The clever dog will use your own godly heritage against you. He will call me an adulteress and you a bastard. Wait and see.”

Again I broke in, “But all this is supposition. Philip hasn’t even announced his intention to marry again.”

“He will.”

“Even if he does, even if he marries, it could be years before he produces a son. Alexandros will be a fully grown man, perfectly able to be voted king when Philip dies.”

“Or he may not produce a son at all,” Alexandros said.

“Yes,” said Olympias. “He may not live long enough to sire a new heir.”

Olympias dismissed her son, but kept me with her. Like the slave that I was I followed her to her bed chamber where we made love until dawn amid her slithering, hissing snakes.

She did not need the special drugs that her vipers had injected into me other times. I was a cooperative slave that night, a willing lover. My body was unmarked by their fangs, although Olympias had sunk her own fingernails into my flesh more than once.

“You plan to assassinate Philip,” I said to her as we lay together.

“Is that a question?” she asked lazily.