Fire From Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

now? Twenty-one! All alive! They keep having twins. Eleven boys and ten girls. I only have one sister. But I think that is enough.’
    Both envoys bowed. They were informed of the King’s domestic discords.
    ‘Memnon speaks Macedonian. He told me how he lost his battle.’
    ‘My prince,’ smiled the elder envoy, ‘you should study war from victors.’
    Alexander looked at him thoughtfully. His father always took trouble to find out where losers had gone wrong. Memnon had cheated a friend of his over a horse-deal; he would not have minded telling how he lost his battle; but he smelled patronage. If the youth had asked, it would have been different.
    The chamberlain sent off the slaves, lingering himself for the rescue which would surely soon be needed. The boy bit sparingly at his cake, going over in his mind his most important questions; there might not be time for all. ‘How many men has the Great King in his army?’
    Both envoys heard this aright; both smiled. The truth could do only good; he could be trusted, no doubt, to remember most of it.
    ‘Beyond number,’ said the elder. ‘Like the sands of the sea, or the stars on a moonless night.’ They told him of the Median and the Persian bowmen, the cavalry on the great horses of Nisaia; and the troops of the outer empire, Kissians and Hyrkanians, Assyrians with plaited bronze helmets and iron-spiked maces, Parthians with bow and scimitar; Ethiopians in leopard and lion skins who painted their faces red and white for battle and shot arrows tipped with stone; the Arab camel corps; the Bactrians; and so on as far as India. He listened round-eyed, like any child hearing marvels, till the tale was over.
    ‘And they all have to fight when the Great King sends for them?’
    ‘Every one, upon pain of death.’
    ‘How long does it take them to come?’
    There was a sudden pause. It was a century since Xerxes’ expedition; they themselves did not know the answer. They said the King ruled over vast dominions and men of many tongues. From India, say, to the coast it might be a year’s journey. But there were troops wherever he might need them.
    ‘Do have some more wine. Is there a road all the way to India?’
    It took time to dispose of this. In the doorway people were elbowing to listen, the news having spread.
    ‘What’s King Ochos like in battle? Is he brave?’
    ‘Like a lion,’ said the envoys both together.
    ‘Which wing of the cavalry does he lead?’
    The mere awe of him-The envoys became evasive. The boy took a larger bite of cake. He knew one must not be rude to guests, so he changed the subject. ‘If the soldiers come from Arabia and India and Hyrkania, and can’t speak Persian, how does he talk to them?’
    ‘Talk to them? The King?’ It was touching, the little strategist a child again. ‘Why, the satraps of their provinces choose officers who speak their tongues.’
    Alexander tilted his head a little, and creased his brows. ‘Soldiers like to be talked to before a battle. They like you to know their names.’
    ‘I am sure,’ said the second envoy charmingly, ‘they like you to know them.’ The Great King, he added, conversed only with his friends.
    ‘My father converses with those at supper.’
    The envoys murmured something, not daring to catch each other’s eyes. The barbarity of the Macedonian court was famous. The royal symposiums, it was said, were more like the feasts of mountain bandits snowed-up with their spoils, than the banquets of a ruler. A Milesian Greek, who swore to having witnessed it, had told them King Philip thought nothing of stepping down from his couch to lead the line of dancers. Once, during an argument carried on in shouts across the room, he had shied a pomegranate at a general’s head. The Greek, with the effrontery of that race of liars, had gone on to claim that the general had replied with a hunk of bread, and was still alive, in fact still a general. But if one believed no more than half, the least said