Stealing Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the Regent for an unborn prince had many years ahead of wielding absolute power before the boy's majority could even be thought of.
    Who could ever know, I thought. Even I, who was there, even I who fought beside his own bier as Companion turned on Companion for control of Alexander's corpse, did not really know anything beyond rumor and innuendo.
    It was said that in the King's last hours he had named General Krateros his heir, but Krateros was halfway to Macedon, leading the veterans home who had been promised retirement. He had an army, and he would not yield place to Perdiccas easily. I did not dislike him, precisely, but he had had much to say in the past about the half-breed children of Macedonians and campaign wives that I did not like. It was the same as calling my son bastard, and that I would not take, even though my son was dead.
    In Macedon itself, the King had left Antipatros as Regent, an old man who had faithfully served the King's father before him. I had never met him and knew little of him, other than that he was said to be a skillful and true man, though quite advanced in age. His son, Cassander, I did know and disliked heartily. He beat his horses, sometimes for no flaw at all but merely in temper. One hears things as a groom, and one sees things one's betters bother to hide from their peers. I had come up from those days, but I had not forgotten. A man who treats his horses cruelly will treat men cruelly if the opportunity comes, and will treat women and eunuchs the same as his horses without a thought. If backing Antipatros meant siding with Cassander, I should rather be elsewhere.
    Perdiccas himself had much to recommend him. He had been of the party not tied to the old ways of Macedon, willing to learn as much as take from the peoples we had encountered. I could not explain precisely what there was to dislike in him. He was courteous, a reasonably good officer, and now he championed the cause of Alexander's unborn child. If he were ruthless, what is that in a soldier? And what use to say that Hephaistion would have been better? Hephaistion was dead.
    Hephaistion, of course, should have put nothing before Alexander's true-born heir. He should not have sought power for himself, but rather held it in trust as a sacred duty from his king, as he had always done. And as the Chiliarch, essentially the Grand Vizier of the empire, he should have had the power to do so. But Hephaistion was dead not even a year, and in his absence who should I follow?
    As well Ptolemy as anyone.
    A T THE HALTS I handed the child off to her mother and the little girl thanked me prettily, her head down so that all I could see of her was the top of her head. She did not seem likely to cause any trouble. Nor did she seem frightened in the least, rather raising her eyes to all we passed and sometimes asking me about the things we saw.
    The fourth night we made camp at a reasonable hour instead of pressing so hard. Men and horses were all tired.
    After the watch was set I went round the camp one last time. The horses drowsed heads down in the picket line. We had no tents, and the night was clear and not so very cool. The children slept in a little bundle on the ground, curled around each other like puppies. Thais the Athenian sat beside them, her arms about her knees like a boy, looking up at the night sky. Her himation was around her shoulders, her head tilted back, her blonde hair gleaming in the moonlight. I came and sat near, but not too near as to foster misunderstanding.
    She looked at me sideways and smiled as if she had guessed my thought.
    “I do not intend offense,” I said.
    Thais nodded. “I know. Ptolemy said you are not a man to steal that which is entrusted to you.”
    “No,” I said.
    She looked up again, as though she drank in moonlight, her pale eyes filled with it.
    “Still,” I said, “you should be wary.” She was alone in this place with me and my men, with none of her own except the children. She did