Free The Persian Boy by Mary Renault Page A

some such thing.
    It was Nabarzanes who had stood forward, and quoted the words of Alexander’s first defiance, when he had still been taken for a vaunting boy. “Come out and fight me. If you will not, I shall follow you wherever you may be.”
    So the army stayed in Babylon.
    To fall back on Baktria! To surrender, without another blow, with all its people, Persis itself, the ancient land of Kyros, the heart and cradle of our race, even that with the rest. I, who had nothing left there but a memory and a roofless ruin, had been shocked to my soul; what Nabarzanes felt, his face had told me. That night, the King kept me with him. I tried to keep my mind on the kindness he had shown me, and forget the rest.

The Persian Boy
    Soon after, I awaited him one morning in his inner room, when a white-haired, straight old man was shown into the anteroom. He was the satrap Artabazos, who had rebelled against Ochos, and lived an exile in Macedon in King Philip’s day. I went in and asked if I could bring him anything while he waited. As I’d hoped, he began to talk to me; and I asked if he had ever seen Alexander.
    “Seen him? I have sat him on my knee. A beautiful child. Yes, even in Persia one would call him beautiful.” He sank into himself. He was very old. He could have left it to his many sons, to follow the King to war. I thought he was getting absent, as old men will; when suddenly he opened a bright fierce eye under his thick white brows. “And afraid of nothing. Nothing at all.”
    In spring, Alexander returned to Tyre. He sacrificed, and held some more games and contests. It seemed he was asking the gods’ goodwill for a new campaign. When spring turned to summer, the spies reported him on the march for Babylon.
    -5-
    IT IS three hundred miles north up the Tigris valley, from Babylon to Arbela.
    Alexander had turned northeast from Tyre, to skirt the Arabian deserts. From the north he would come down. The King marched north with the royal army; and the Household went with the King.
    I had pictured an endless column of men, miles long. But the army was spread all over the plain, between the river and the hills. It was as if the land grew men instead of corn. They were wherever one looked, horse, foot and camels. The transport wound along in little trains, where the going was best. Apart, given as wide a berth as lepers, were the scythed chariots, with long curved blades standing out from their wheels and cars. One soldier, who was dim of sight and got in their way, had had a leg taken off, and died of it.
    The Household had a fair passage; outriders went ahead to find us the smoothest ground.
    Alexander had crossed the Euphrates. He had sent engineers ahead to bridge it; the King had sent Mazaios, the satrap of Babylon, with his men to stop them. But they pushed it out f?rom their own side by sinking piles; when Alexander came up with all his forces, Mazaios’ horse retired. The bridge was finished next day.
    Soon we heard he was across the Tigris. He couldn’t bridge that; not for nothing is it called The Arrow. He had simply breasted through it, going first himself to feel the way. They had lost some baggage, but no men.
    Then we lost him awhile. He had turned from the river plain, to take his men round by the hills, where it was cooler and would keep them fresh.
    When his route was known, the King rode out to choose the field of battle.
    He had lost at Issos, his generals had told him, because he had been cramped for room and could not use his numbers. There was a fine broad plain, about sixty miles north of Arbela. I never saw it myself; the Household was to be left in town with the gold and stores, when the King took the field.
    Arbela is a grey and ancient city, standing on its hill. It is so old, it goes back to the Assyrians. This I believe, for they still worship Ishtar without a consort. She stares at you in the temple, horribly old, with huge eyes, grasping her arrows.
    We were all in turmoil, finding