FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEB1CA 3 страница

One day he remembered that I sang, and asked to hear me. My voice was never wonderful, like some eunuchs', which far surpass women's both in strength and sweetness; it was pretty and clear, when I was a boy. I fetched in the little harp my old mistress had bought in the bazaar. He was as shocked as if I had brought in some piece of offal. " Whatever is that thing? Why did you not ask someone for a proper instrument? " He saw my dismay and said kindly, " No, I understand your modesty prevented you. But take it away. When you have something fit to play on, then you shall sing. "

I was given a harp of tortoise-shell and boxwood, with ivory keys, and had lessons with the Chief Musician. But one day, before I had learned his difficult pieces, I sat on the fountain-rim in the sunset light, and remembered it slanting far across the plain from our walls at home. When he asked me for a song, I gave one that my father's warriors used to sing at night by the watch-fire.

When I had done, he beckoned me over; I saw he had tears in his eyes. " That song, " he said, " sets your poor father before me. What happy days gone by, when we were young together. He was a faithful friend to Arses, whose spirit may the Wise God receive; had he lived, he would have been welcomed here as a friend of mine. Be sure, my boy, I shall never forget you are his son. "

He laid on my head his jeweled hand. Two of his friends were there, and the Chief Steward; from this moment, as he had meant, my standing at the court was changed. I was no longer a bought pleasure-boy, but a favorite of gentle birth, and they were all to know it. I was to know, too, that if my looks were damaged or went off, he would still look after me.

I was given a charming room in the Upper Household, with a window on the park, and my own slave; an Egyptian, who tended me like a prince. I was fourteen, my looks were changing from boy to youth. I heard the King tell friends that he had foreseen my promise, and I had fulfilled it; he did not believe that for beauty all Asia contained my equal. They would of course agree that I surpassed comparison. Certainly I learned to carry myself as if it were true.

His bed was canopied with a lattice, bearing a pure gold vine. Jeweled grape-clusters hung from it, and a great fretted lamp. Sometimes at night, when it threw on us its leaflike shadows, he would stand me by the bed, and turn me here and there to take the light. I thought this possession of the eyes would have contented him, but for his respect for his manhood.

However, on other nights he wanted entertainment. The world seems full of people who desire the same thing each time, not enduring the least change in it; this is tedious, but does not tax invention. The King liked variety and surprise; himself he was not inventive. I had run through all that Oromedon had taught me, and began wondering when the day would come for me, too, to start training my successor. There had been a boy before me, I had found out, who had been packed off after a week, because the King found him insipid.

In search of ideas, I visited the most famous whore in Susa, a Babylonian, who claimed to have trained at some temple of love in India. To prove it, she had a bronze in her room (bought I daresay, if truth were told, from a passing caravan) of two demons, with six or eight arms apiece, having intercourse while dancing. I doubted this would delight the King, but kept my hopes. Such women will always oblige a eunuch now and then; they get more men than enough; but her crude squirmings so disgusted me that without regard for good manners, I got up and dressed. As I put down my gold piece, I said I would pay for her time, since I had wasted it, but I could not stay to instruct her. She was so angry, I was halfway downstairs before she found her voice. So I was thrown on my own resource, since it seemed there was no one better.

It was then that I learned to dance.

As a child I had liked it, following the men, or prancing and spinning to some tune out of my head. I knew, if I were taught, I still had it in me. The King was glad for me to learn accomplishments (I did not mention the Babylonian) and hired me the best master in the city. It was not like my infant games; one had to train as hard as a soldier; but this I welcomed. It is idling makes eunuchs flabby; standing about, gossiping, waiting for something to do. It was good to get in a sweat and stir my blood.

So, when my tutor said I was ready, I danced in the fountain court for the King and his friends; an Indian dance with a turban and spangled loincloth; a Greek dance (so I believed) in a scarlet chiton; a Parthian dance with a little gilded scimitar. Even the Lord Oxathres, the King's brother, who had always looked down his nose at me because he liked only women, called out " Bravo! " and tossed me a piece of gold.

By day I danced in my finery; at night too I danced, wearing only the shadows of the fretted lamp that hung from the golden vine. I soon learned to slow down the pace towards the end; he never gave me time to get my breath.

I often wondered if he would have set such store by me if the Queen had not been captive. She was his half-sister, by a much younger wife of their father, and was of an age to have been his daughter. They said she was the loveliest woman in all Asia; of course he would be content with nothing less. Now he had lost her to a barbarian younger than she, and, from his deeds, it would seem hot-blooded. Of course he never spoke of such things to me. Indeed, once in bed he hardly spoke at all.

About this time, I caught a summer fever. Neshi, my slave from Egypt, nursed me with much kindness. The King sent me his own physician; but he never came himself.

I remembered Oromedon's scar. Since my mirror gave me bad news, it was better so. Yet, being young, I must have had something left in me that still looked for —I don't know what. I cried once in the night, when I was weak and silly; Neshi got up from his pallet to sponge my face. Soon after, the King sent me some gold darics, but still did not come. I gave the gold to Neshi.

Itwas when I was about again, and had been playing my harp in the fountain court with the King alone, that the Grand Vizier himself came in, panting with news. The Queen's Eunuch had escaped from Alexander's camp, and begged audience.

Had others been there, they would have been dismissed and I would have followed. But I was like the birds and the fountain, part of the appointments. Besides, when the man came in, for secrecy they spoke Greek.

No one had ever asked if I understood it. As it happened, there were several Greek jewelers in Susa, whom my old master traded with, in gems, or in me. So I had come to the Palace with a smattering, and had often passed idle time by listening to the Greek interpreter. He did all kinds of business in public, between court officials and suitors to the King; fugitive tyrants from Greek cities freed by Alexander, or envoys from states like Athens, which he had spared, as it seemed, to intrigue against him; generals of Greek mercenaries, shipmasters and spies. With all the Persian repeated in Greek, it was easy to learn by ear.

Impatient even through the prostration, the King asked if his family was alive. The eunuch said yes, and in good health; moreover, they were given their royal rank, and fitting quarters. This, he said (he was an oldish man and looked the worse for his long journey), was how he had escaped so easily; the guard on the royal women was posted more to keep intruders out, than anyone in.

On the ends of his chair-arms I could see the King's hands working. No wonder. What he had to ask should not be asked of a servant.

" Never, my lord! " The eunuch's gesture called God to witness. " My lord, he has not come even into her presence since the day after the battle, when he came to promise his safeguard. We were there all the time; he, also, brought a friend with him. I have heard that his companions, in their wine, recalled the fame of her beauty, and urged him to change his mind; and he too had been drinking, as all Macedonians do, yet he was angry, and forbade them to name her in his presence again. One who was there assured me of it. "

The King was some time silent. Having given a long sigh, he said in Persian, " What a strange man. " I thought he would go on to ask what he looked like, which I myself wished to know; but of course, he had seen him in the battle.

" And my mother? " He fell now into Persian. " She is too old for these hardships. Is she well cared for? "

" Great King, My Lady's health is excellent. Alexander always inquires for it. When I left, he was visiting her nearly every day. "

" Visits my mother? " His face had changed suddenly. I thought that he looked pale. I could not think why; the Queen Mother was over seventy.

" Indeed, my lord. He gave her offense at first; but now, when he asks her to admit him, she always gives him leave. "

" What insult did he offer her? " asked the King. He sounded eager.

" He gave her a parcel of wool for weaving. "

" What? Like a slave? "

" So My Lady thought. But when she showed her affront, he begged her pardon. He said his mother and sister did such work, and he thought it would give her pastime. When My Lady perceived his ignorance, she accepted his apology. Sometimes they will be talking, through the interpreter, an hour together. "

The King sat staring before him. Presently he gave the eunuch leave to go, and, remembering my presence, signed to me to play. I played softly, seeing him troubled. It was to be many years, before I understood the cause.

I gave the news to my friends at court; for I had friends by now, some in high places, some not, who were glad to hear things first. I took no presents for this; it would have been like selling my friendship. Of course I took bribes, to further suits with the King. To refuse would have been to proclaim enmity, and someone would have poisoned me. Needless to say, I did not bore the King with their tedious suits; it was not for such things he kept me. I would say sometimes, " So-and-so gave me this to get your favor"; it amused him, because the others did not tell. Now and then he would ask, " What did he want? " and say, " Well, we must keep you in credit. I daresay it can be arranged. "

The strange conduct of the Macedonian King was much debated. Some said he liked to show himself a man of iron, above pleasure; some that he was impotent; some that he was keeping the Royal Family unharmed, to get good terms of surrender. Others, again, said he liked only boys.

The Queen's Eunuch said that, indeed, he was waited on by a band of highborn youths; but this was the custom of all their kings. In his own belief, it was in the young man's nature to be generous with suppliants. He quickly added that for beauty and presence he could not compare with our own King; he would scarcely stand higher than Darius' shoulder. " Indeed, when he visited the ladies to give his safeguard, the Queen Mother bowed to his friend instead. If you will believe it, they walked in together, side by side, and hardly distinguished in dress from one another. The friend was taller, and handsome for a Macedonian. I was distraught, having seen the King in the royal tent already. The friend drew back, and she saw my warning signs. She was of course distressed, and began her prostration again before the King. But he raised her in his hands, and was not even angry with this man; he said, as the interpreter assures me, 'Never mind, mother, you weren't far out; he is Alexander too. ' "

Well, they are barbarians, I thought. Yet something sighed in my heart.

The eunuch said, " I never saw a king keep so little state; he lives worse than any general would with us. When he entered Darius' tent, he stared like a peasant at its appointments. He knew what the bath was, and used it, the first thing he did; but for the rest, one had hard work not to smile. In Darius' chair, his feet would not touch the ground, so he put them on the wine-table, taking it for a footstool. However, he soon moved in, like a poor man with a legacy. He looks like a boy, till you see his eyes. "

I asked what he had done with the royal concubines; had he preferred them to the Queen? The eunuch said they had all been presented to his friends; he had not kept one. " It's boys then, " I said laughing. " So now we know. "

The girls from the Harem, whom the King had taken along, were of course the choicest, and a great loss to him. However, he still had plenty; some only of his nights were spent with me. Though it is true that, by old custom, there were as many women as days in the year, some were of course past youth; and it is an absurdity such as only Greeks could invent, that they were paraded nightly round his bed to choose from. Now and then he would visit the Harem, look over the girls, and learn from the Chief Eunuch there the names of five or six he found most pleasing. Then at night he would send for one; or sometimes for all the group to play and sing to him, later beckoning one to stay. He liked to conduct such matters gracefully.

When he went there he often took me with him. Of course I should never have been brought in the Queen's presence; but I ranked rather higher than the concubines. He liked to have his beautiful possessions admired, if only by one another. Some of the girls were exquisite, with a fragile bloom like that of the palest flowers. Even I could dream of desiring them. Perhaps Oromedon had saved me from great danger; for already one or two had slid their eyes at me.

I met him once, crossing a courtyard in the sun, gaily dressed as ever; it was strange to know my own clothes were richer now. At first sight, I would have run straight up to embrace him; but he smiled softly and shook his head, and I now knew enough of courts to understand. It would never do, to have it seen that from the dish prepared for his master, he had kept a portion back. So I returned his smile in secret, and passed him by.

Sometimes, when the King had a girl at night, I would lie in my pretty room, smelling the scented breezes from the park, looking at moonlight striking my silver mirror, and thinking, How pleasant and coolthis is, to lie here alone. If I loved him, I should be grieving. It made me sad and ashamed. He had done me many kindnesses, raised me to honor, given me my horse and the gifts my room was full of. He had not asked love of me, not even to pretend it. Why should I think of such a thing?

The truth was, for ten years I had been beloved by parents who loved each other. I had learned to think well of love; having had none since, I had not learned to think worse. Now I was at the age when boys fumble about and make their first mistakes, laughed at by unkind girls before their elders, or tumbling some sweaty peasant and thinking, So this is all? To me none of this could happen; love was the image of lost happiness, and the stuff of fantasy.

My art had no more to do with love than a doctor's skill. I was good to look at, like the golden vine though less enduring; I knew how to wake appetite grown sluggish with satiety. My love was unspent, my dreams of it were more innocent than a homebred boy's. I would whisper to some shadow made of moonlight, " Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live. " It was true, at least, that youth cannot live without hope.

Summer grew hot in Susa; this time of year, the King should have been in the hills, at the summer palace of Ekbatana. But Alexander still sat before Tyre, stubbornly running out a mole to it; this was all I knew then of that great piece of siegecraft. Any time, they said, he might weary of the task, and turn inland; then Ekbatana would have been too far away. Indeed, it came to my ears that the captains thought the King should have stayed in Babylon. One said, " The Macedonian you would find nearer the action. " Another answered, " Well, it's only a week from Susa down to Babylon; the generals there are doing well enough on their own. Or better. " I slipped off unseen. It was no part of my duty to inform on men who meant no harm and were only speaking too freely, as my father had once done. To do the King justice, he never asked it of me. He did not mix business with pleasure.

Then Tyre fell.

Alexander had broken the wall and stormed the breach. There had been a great killing; the Tyrians had murdered Alexander's envoys before the siege, and then had flayed his men by pouring red-hot sand on them. The Tyrians who survived the sack had been enslaved, except those in Melkaart's sanctuary. It seemed Alexander revered this god, though he called him Herakles. What all this meant, was that Persian ships had no port of call in the Middle Sea north of Egypt, save Gaza, which could not hold out long.

Little as I knew of the western empire, the King's countenance told me how great the disaster was. Alexander's way was now clear to Egypt, where our rule was hated ever since Ochos put back our yoke on them. He had defiled their temples and killed their holy bull-god; now, if our satraps there were to shut gates against Alexander, the Egyptians would spear them in the back.

Soon we all knew that the King had sent an embassy, led by his brother Oxathres, suing for peace.

The terms were not divulged. I had never been fool enough to coax the King for secrets. I'd been offered huge bribes to do it; but one learns as one goes along, and I found it policy to take small ones, saying he kept his counsel well, and though I would do my best for them, it would be cheating them to accept more. Thus they bore no grudges, and I could not come under the King's suspicion, for I never asked him anything.

Even though the embassy used the royal post-stages for fresh horses, lords do not ride like King's Messengers racing the wind. While we waited, life at the Palace was at pause, like dead air before a storm. My nights were spent alone. In those weeks, the King took a great turn for women. I think it gave him assurance he was a man.

When the embassy did return, its news was stale. Oxathres had thought Alexander's answer should go quickly, and sent a copy by King's Messenger. Galloping the Royal Road with fresh horses and fresh men, it arrived half a month ahead.

No need to ask questions. You could feel the thud of it all through the Palace and on into the city. All the world can quote it now, even from memory, as I do.

You may keep your ten thousand talents; I am not in want of money, I have taken enough. Why only the half of your kingdom to the Euphrates? You offer me the part in exchange for the whole. Your daughter whom you speak of, I shall marry if I choose, whether given by you or not. Your family is safe; no ransom is required of you; come here yourself and make your suit to me, you shall have them free. If you desire our friendship, you have only to ask.

There was a time, I forget how long, perhaps a day, of still, stunned whisperings. Then suddenly all was trumpeting and shouting. Heralds proclaimed the King was marching west to Babylon, to ready his troops for war.

e started in a week. It was without precedent, for the Household to move so fast. The Palace was in an uproar. All the chamberlains were clucking about like hens. The Chief Eunuch of the Harem was trying to make the King decide which girls to take; the Warden of the Silverware appealed to me to choose out his favorite pieces. He himself had no time for me; the men he now called to conference wanted no dancing with it, and at night, he was so tired that he even slept alone.

One day I took my horse along the riverbank where the lilies grow in spring. I could see clear to the hills. Our fort was going back to its native stones. I half thought of riding up to say farewell; but I remembered looking back there, from the captain's horse, the saddlebag with my father's head bouncing and dripping. The flames of the burning rafters had risen thirty feet high. I went back, and saw to my packing.

The eunuchs of the Household would travel like the women, in covered carts with cushions; but no one expected this of me. I saw my horse groomed, and had a try at an ass for Neshi; but he had to walk with the other followers.

I took my good clothes, and a change of clothes for the road, and some dancing-costumes. My money and my jewels were in my belt-wallet; there too, in case of mischance, I put my hand-mirror and combs, and my eye-paint with its brushes. I never used carmine. No one should, who has the true Persian looks. It is vulgar to color ivory.

I bought also a little dagger. I had never used weapons; but at least, for the dance, one is taught to hold them properly.

The older eunuchs were much distressed at it, and begged me to leave it behind. They meant that unarmed eunuchs taken in war count as women, but with weapons not. I replied that any time I liked I could throw it away.

The truth was, I had dreamed again of my father, the old frightful dream. Though I woke in a sweat, I knew he had the right to come to me, his only son, demanding vengeance. In the dream, I heard the name of the traitor who had betrayed him, as he cried it on his way to death. In the morning, as always, I forgot it. There seemed small chance I would ever give him his rights; but at least for his sake I would go armed. There are eunuchs who become women, and those who do not; we are something by ourselves, and must make of it what we can.

It is the custom for the King to start a march at sunrise; I don't know if it's to give him the blessing of the sacred fire, or to let him have his sleep out. The carts and carriages were drawn up overnight. Most of us were astir soon after midnight, getting ready for the road.

At daybreak, I could scarcely believe the real army was at Babylon, and that this horde, stretching a mile both ways, was no more than the Household.

The King's Guard, the Ten Thousand Immortals, who never left his person, took up a good deal of road. Then there were the Royal Kin. It is a title of honor, not of, blood; there were fifteen thousand, though ten thousand had gone on to Babylon. They looked very fine; all their shields were worked with gold, and as they formed up by torchlight, the jewels in their helmets flashed.

Presently came the Magi with their silver carrying-altar, ready to kindle the holy fire and lead the march.

As I rode to and fro gaping at each new splendor, I wondered if I was working my horse too hard, with the march before him. Then I remembered that however many the horses and chariots were, the column would go at walking-pace, for the foot-men, and the Magi with their silver altar. I thought of the rashly spoken captain, who had said it was only a week from Susa down to Babylon. He was of course in cavalry. At this rate, we would take a month.

The transport alone seemed to stretch for miles. There were a dozen wagons for the King alone, for his tent, his furniture, his robes and tableware, his traveling bathroom and its appointments. There were the wagons for the Household eunuchs, and for their belongings; then the wagons for all the women. The King had taken all the younger concubines in the end, more than a hundred; they and their gear and their eunuchs were only the beginning. The lords at court, who'd not yet gone ahead to Babylon, had their wives and children with them, their harems, and all their luggage, as well. Then there were the store-wagons; such a host could not live off the country. The torches now stretched further than I could see. And behind the wagons and baggage train there were still the foot-followers: the army of slaves to set up camp and strike it, the cooks and smiths and grooms and harness-menders, and a great troop of personal servants, such as mine.

I rode back from the road to the Palace square, as the torches paled. Now they were bringing out the Chariot of the Sun. It was sheathed all over with gold; a sunburst emblem stood in it on a silver pole; the symbol of the god, its only rider. Not even the body of its charioteer would sully it; its matched pair of great white horses was led on foot.

Last came the King's battle chariot, nearly as splendid as the god's. (I wondered if it was as good as the one he had left for Alexander. ) The charioteer was putting in the King's weapons, javelins and bow and arrows in their holsters. In front of it stood his litter for the journey, with gold shafts, and a sun-canopy fringed with bullion.

As the east began to glow, appeared the Sons of the Kindred, elegant youths a little older than I, who would march before and behind the King, dressed from head to foot in purple.

All this order of the march was fixed by ancient hierarchy. It was time to find my place alongside the eunuchs' wagons; clearly there was none for me near the King.

Suddenly, above the Sun Chariot shone a brilliant point of light. The center of its sunburst was a globe of crystal. It had caught the first shaft of sunrise. There was a bray of horns and blare of trumpets. In the distance a figure in white and purple, tall even from so far, stepped into the royal litter.

Slowly, without at first any forward movement, the vast train stirred into fidgeting and shuffling. Then, sluggish as a winter snake, it began to crawl. We must have been moving nearly an hour, before one felt to be really marching.

We traveled the Royal Road, through the land of rivers, low and green, with thick crops in rich black earth. Shallow lakes mirrored the sky, spiky with sedge. Sometimes great rough-rock causeways spanned the swamps. Now they were mostly caked and dry, but we never made camp there; they had a name for fever.

I attended the King each evening when his tent was pitched. There was room for most of his usual people. He seemed to like the sight of familiar faces. Often he kept me at night. He was harder to stir up than I had ever known him, and I wished he would settle for sleep instead. But I think the truth was that, if alone, he would lie awake.

Every few days, galloping to meet us, the last man and horse of the long relay as fresh and swift as a stag, a King's Messenger brought dispatches from the west.

Alexander had taken Gaza. It seemed he had nearly been put out of the way for good. He had been struck on the shoulder by a catapult bolt, and felled clean backward; it had pierced his armor, but he had got up and gone on fighting. Then he had fallen again, and been carried off like the dead. Our people had waited a while to see, he being known by now for a man who was hard to kill; and sure enough, though he had bled himself white, he was still alive. He would be laid up some time; but his advance guard was already on the march to Egypt.

When this was known, I thought to myself, Perhaps he's shamming, so that we take our time; then he could strike east like lightning and take us by surprise. Now if I were the King, I thought, I would be out of my litter into my chariot, and dash on ahead with all the cavalry to Babylon, just in case.

I longed for the trumpet calling us to ride. Each evening, reckoning that Neshi would have had enough with his footmarch, I curried my horse myself. I had called him Tiger. I had only seen the skin of one, but it was a good fierce name.

But when I went to the King at evening, he was playing draughts with one of the lords, in such abstraction that the man had hard work to lose. When the game was over, the King asked me to sing. I remembered the battle-song of my father's men which he had liked before; I hoped it would cheer his soul. After two verses, however, he called for something else.

I thought of his old combat with the Kadousian champion, which had won him his renown; I tried to picture him striding forward in arms, hurling his javelin, stripping the enemy of his weapons, returning to the warriors' cheers. He had been younger then; he had had no palaces, and fewer girls. And then again, a battle is different from such a combat, especially if one is in command; still more, if one is meeting the man from whom one fled last time.

My song drew to its end. I said to myself, Who am I to judge? What action shall I ever see? He has been a good master; that should be enough for me, who will never be a man.

Each morning, the Standard of the Sun was set up by the King's pavilion. Each morning, when the first sunbeam struck the crystal, the horns sounded, the King was escorted to his litter, the chariot was walked behind it. So we followed the Royal Road through the river country, and the night followed each day.

When I grew weary of the eunuchs' talk in the wagons, I would sometimes fall back to the harem train, to have a word with the girls. Each load, of course, was in charge of at least one reverend eunuch; if invited, I was safe enough to hitch my horse to the tailboard and clamber in. I found it instructive. This horde of women was nothing like my old master's little harem. The King was achieved once in a summer, or a year, or never; or he might send for a girl most nights in a month, then never notice her again. On the whole, it was each other they had to live with; they were full of factions, alliances and bitter feuds, few of which came of rivalry for the King, but simply of seeing each other day after day, with nothing to do but talk. It was amusing to visit such a world as this; I hoped never to be employed within it.

⇐ Предыдущая 29 30 31 32 333435 36 37 38 Следующая ⇒