Ben Bova - Orion and the Conqueror

“No. An observation.”

“And you will warn him of it, won’t you?”

“I am loyal to Philip,” I said.

“Not to me?”

“You can force me to do whatever you wish. That does not engender loyalty.”

She laughed in the predawn darkness. “Come now, Orion, can you truthfully say that you don’t enjoy what we do together?”

“My body certainly enjoys it.”

“But your mind…?”

I hesitated, not wanting to stir her anger. But I heard my voice tell her, “I know what a trained bear must feel when he’s made to dance.”

She laughed again, genuinely amused. “A trained bear! Yes! That’s what I want you to be: my trained bear.”

I cursed myself for giving her a new source of amusement.

“Time for another performance, my great big bear,” she said. “Must I find a whip to encourage you?”

I did not need a whip.

By the time the first pink flush of dawn was lighting the sky beyond her window, she returned to our earlier conversation.

“You will tell Philip that I plan to assassinate him, won’t you?”

“If you don’t prevent me, yes, I will.”

“It’s nothing that he doesn’t know already.”

I got out of the bed and went to the wash basin on the table across the room.

“Go ahead and tell him, Orion. Let him know what awaits him. There’s nothing he can do to avoid it. Assassination is his fate. The gods have decreed it.”

“The gods!” I spun around and faced her, still lying languidly in her bed. “There are no gods and you know it.”

She laughed at me. “Careful, Orion. Men have been executed most painfully for blaspheming.”

“For telling the truth,” I muttered.

“Go,” she said, her voice suddenly imperious. “Go to Philip and tell him the fate that awaits him. Tell him that it is ordained by the gods. There is nothing he can do to avoid it.”

I left her chamber, Olympias’ words and haughty laughter echoing in my mind. She said that Philip’s assassination was ordained by the gods. As I strode along the empty corridors of Philip’s palace in the dawn’s gentle light, I clenched my fists and vowed to do everything I could to stop her.

“Nothing is preordained,” I muttered to myself. “Time itself can be bent and changed, not only by the so-called gods but by their creatures, as well. We create the future by our own actions.”

And I swore that I would protect Philip with every ounce of strength in me.

I went back to my usual palace duties. By day we of the royal guard exercised the horses, trained our squires, oversaw the slaves who maintained our weapons and armor, shopped in Pella’s growing market place for clothes and trinkets. And we gossiped, chattering among ourselves about Ptolemaios’ madness over Thais, about the queen’s scheming, about whether or not Philip truly intended to invade the Persian Empire.

Pausanias kept us busy and kept us sharp. He took his duties as captain of the royal guard very seriously, despite the sniggering jokes that the men made about him behind his back. I began to understand that the sly laughter had something to do with Attalos. Whenever anyone mentioned Attalos’ name, or spoke about the prospects of the king marrying Attalos’ niece, Pausanias’ normally dour face darkened like a thundercloud.

I had to tiptoe around the subject, since it was so obvious that Pausanias was sensitive to the point of homicide about it, but at last I got Ptolemaios to explain it to me.

“A lovers’ quarrel, from years ago. It got very nasty.” Ptolemaios’ usual smiling good nature turned grim at the memory of it. “You wouldn’t think it to see him now, but when Pausanias was a youth he was quite beautiful. So much so that he became one of the king’s lovers.”

“Philip?” I blinked with surprise. “And Pausanias?”

Ptolemaios nodded grimly. “But the king never keeps any lover for long. Soon he turned his eye to another lad who had been Attalos’ lover.”

I blinked again. This was starting to sound as complex as harem intrigues.

“Pausanias became very angry at losing the king’s favor. He insulted the boy horribly, called him a womanly coward. A short time later the boy proved his manhood by saving Philip’s life in battle. That was when Philip lost his eye.”

“So the boy—”

“The boy died protecting Philip. Attalos was infuriated, but he kept his anger hidden. Attalos bided his time, that’s his way. Months later he invited Pausanias to dinner, got him falling-down drunk, and then turned him over to his stable boys. They rammed him pretty well, from what I hear. Some say Attalos fucked him too.”

“By the gods!”

“It could have started a blood feud between the two families; they’re both high-born. So the king stepped in. Philip would not permit a blood feud; he absolutely forbade it. He smoothed things over by giving Pausanias the honor of becoming captain of the royal guard. But he didn’t punish Attalos or even rebuke him.”

Pausanias had grudgingly accepted the king’s judgment in the matter. Philip had avoided a blood feud between two noble families that would have been costly and dangerous to his kingdom. But the affair still festered in Pausanias’ mind; he still hated Attalos, that was painfully clear.

Each evening a handful of us were picked to stand guard during Philip’s nightly banquet, which inevitably turned into a wine-soaked drunken circus. It was no surprise to me when Pausanias told me I would be on duty the night after my meeting with Olympias and Alexandros. What did surprise was that when Philip struggled up from his couch and lurched drunkenly toward his bed chamber, he crooked his finger at me to accompany him.

For the flash of an instant I felt a pang of fear, but then I told myself that I was not the kind of young boy that the king sometimes took to bed. And I certainly was not a shapely young wench. He wasn’t that drunk.

As I followed him up the winding stone stairs to his bed chamber, I realized that he was not drunk at all. He limped on his bad leg and he leaned on the stone wall of the staircase for support, but he was able to climb the stairs unassisted otherwise.

Two young male servants were waiting in the bed chamber.

“Have you had any supper?” Philip asked me gruffly.

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “Before coming on duty.”

“Very well.” He dismissed the servants with a wave of his hand, then sat wearily on the bed.

And he smiled at me, a wry, crooked smile. “That’s the way I learn what my closest companions are thinking, Orion. I listen to what they say when they’re drunk.”

“I see.”

“You’ve been with the queen.” It was a statement, not a question. I realized that the entire palace was honeycombed with spies and counterspies and people who spied for both the king and the queen.

“It was not my choice,” I said.

He grunted and leaned down to pull off his sandals. I went to help him but he waved me away. “I’m not as helpless as some people think,” he muttered. Then he looked up at me. “She can entrance a man, I know. Her and those damned snakes of hers.”

I said nothing.

“She’s a witch, all right. I should have drowned her instead of marrying her.”

“She bore you a fine son.”

“That she did. And now she poisons his mind against me.”

“She intends to assassinate you,” I blurted.

Strangely, he laughed. “Does she now? Indeed!”

“Truly,” I said.

“She’s been intending that since Alexandros was born. Just waiting for the right moment.”

“I think she will try soon.”

He sat in silence for a few moments, the bedside lamp flickering shadows across his face. Then Philip shook his head. “Not yet. The boy’s still too young. Never be elected king in his own right. Not yet.”