The Golden Mean Part 18

He looks at me.

"I mean, you told me you didn't have a brother. I've never heard you mention him since that day, how many, five years ago?"

"Am I an extreme, next to him? And what would be the mean of the two of us?"

"Do you swim?"

"Of course."

"Do you?"

"A little."

"I could teach you."

He says nothing, waiting for what's to come.

"I've been meaning to give your brother a day at the beach, a day out. We could all go together."

"A swimming lesson."

"A lesson in moderation. We spoke of pride before, and the excess of pride. Vanity, might we call that?"

"Yes." I know he's thinking of his father and the honours he grudged him at Maedi.

"And a lack of pride, a want of pride: shame."

The flush begins to creep up his pretty cheeks.

"You're ashamed of your brother. You are, aren't you?"

Very softly: "We share blood."

"He speaks. He's clean. He doesn't smell. He can ride, on a lead. He's like a very, very small child in a grown man's body. Once you get past the incongruity, it gets easier."

"You would come?"

At first I'm not sure what he's getting at.

"You wouldn't leave me alone with him?"

I promise.

"Only my father might summon me first. If his emba.s.sies to Athens and Thebes fail, I might have to leave right away. Tomorrow, maybe, even."

"I can't tomorrow anyway," I say. "I have some business tomorrow."

"The day after tomorrow, then, if my father doesn't send for me."

I agree.

"What business, anyway? You don't seem like a man of business to me. What's tomorrow?"

"NO," PYTHIAS SAYS.

"Love." We're in her room, early evening. She sits in her bed, propped with many pillows. I've come to present my case, not plead it. "She's defiant. It's intolerable."

"She's smart and competent. How has she defied you? Tell me and I'll speak with her."

I won't tell her, not this truth. "She threatened to poison us."

Pythias gives me a look. "She threatens to poison everyone six times a day. It's how we know she's happy. Since when are you such a tyrant with the slaves? Tycho refuses to bathe with the others and you haven't sold him."

"I've had Tycho for twenty years. Are you going to make a horse bathe if it doesn't want to?"

"Tycho's not a horse."

I stand. This conversation is done. I do not say: Her function is devotion to you and she cannot perform her function. Her fear is uninteresting. A hawk's fear, a dog's fear, a horse's fear is of no account. They perform the functions they are trained for or they do not. Her rebellion is more than just an inconvenience; it's an affront to the natural order of things. It offends against everything I've pinned my sanity on, sweet stability and order, everything in its right place. I won't be threatened.

"No!" Pythias says as I turn to the door. "She's mine!"

"You have others. That dark one you like, Herpyllis-"

"You said they were family. You said we don't sell family."

"They were never family. Look. Listen. It's the natural order of things, the natural ends things are fitted to. Means and ends. Some people are born to be slaves, some masters. But sometimes life interferes with the natural order, and things get-confused. We've made a mistake with Athea."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I've made a mistake. She wasn't meant to be a slave. She isn't fitted for it. She wasn't born to it, and she's too independent and stubborn to accept that her circ.u.mstances have changed. If she were a man, she'd make a physician. I can't in good conscience keep her."

Pythias looks at me the way my father looked at me long ago, like something is happening to me, to my face, to the words coming out of my mouth.

"It would be unethical."

"Free her, then." Pythias shakes her head once, sharply, like she's trying to rid herself of something. "Free her and pay her for her services. She'd stay with us as a freed-woman, I know she would. Where else would she go?"

"We're arguing in circles. I don't want to keep her. She's disobedient. You think that will improve if we try to keep her as a servant instead of a slave? It'll only get worse, and set a bad example to the others. They'll think we're afraid of her, don't dare tell her what to do, don't dare get rid of her. We have only one option." An idea occurs to me, a cruel idea. Little Pythias is newly walking now. She clings to Athea's skirts, following her everywhere, singsonging the slave's name in her deep little voice. "The baby will miss her, it's true."

Pythias goes still.

"And she will miss the baby. They're very close, those two, aren't they?"

"She's a witch." Pythias raises her eyes to me, slowly. "I'm sick."

"She hasn't made you so, and she can't cure you. Sticks and stones and bones?"

"You will cure me."

I bow, as though to agree. I'm out of this conversation, anyway, out of this room.

AT THE MARKET THE slaving stalls are crowded, a bad sign for me. War brings uncertainty, tightens purse strings. There's a glut in the market at the moment and the goods don't move. The first man I approach sees me coming, gives her a single glance, and shakes his head. The second asks what she does without looking at me or her. He can't take his eyes off a c.o.c.kfight a few stalls away. slaving stalls are crowded, a bad sign for me. War brings uncertainty, tightens purse strings. There's a glut in the market at the moment and the goods don't move. The first man I approach sees me coming, gives her a single glance, and shakes his head. The second asks what she does without looking at me or her. He can't take his eyes off a c.o.c.kfight a few stalls away.

"Wonderful cook. Good general house slave. Loyal. Good with children." All true enough, mostly.

"Why do you want to sell her, then?"

"My wife doesn't like her." The slaver gives her a tired onceover. "You know how women are. Likes and dislikes coming out of nowhere. You can't reason with them."

"Not much to be jealous of there." The slaver's eyes drift back to the c.o.c.ks.

"Hey f.u.c.k you," Athea says.

We try another stall out of sight and hearing of the one we've just left. "No talking," I tell her. I should have brought Callisthenes, I suppose, who's better at anything requiring charm, but I'm embarra.s.sed that he was right in the first place.

"Or what you do?"

"How much?" the next slaver says.

I quote something low.

"What's wrong with her?"

"Hey f.u.c.k you," I say, pre-empting Athea and hopefully shutting her up. "She's healthy. I just don't need her any more. Household economy and so on. Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the fat."

"You gamble?" He looks interested. He thinks he's got my number. It'll do.

"Mind your own business," I say, in a way I mean him to take for yes. And I probably look like a loser, too, a mild, daintily dressed man with soft hands dragging a grinning slave from stall to stall and finding no takers.

He offers a price, less than half what I paid for her.

"She cooks," I say.

"Take it," Athea says. "He look okay."

The man's eyebrows go up and a grin starts. He looks back and forth between us, waiting for something to happen. I'm supposed to hit her, I suppose.

"I'll take it," I say.

The grin blooms. Even in this market, even for back-talk, he's got a deal. He pays me and opens the cage door. Athea ducks inside. I hope she had a good breakfast.

"She's a witch, by the way," I tell the slaver, to wipe the grin off and, I hope, make him think twice about how he treats her. I don't let myself look back.

ARRHIDAEUS IS TALLER THAN A ALEXANDER. For the rest of my life I will be able to close my eyes and see them walking down the dusty beach road between the long dry gra.s.ses, the ocean roaring just out of sight, just over the next rise. Somewhere they are alone in the universe on this sunny road, still walking, Alexander asking questions slowly and waiting for the answers, Arrhidaeus inclining his head to his brother's level. We of their retinue follow behind in an ever-thickening tail: royals first, myself, Philes, then maids and guards and porters and horses and carts to carry the stuff of a royal day at the beach. They'll set up pavilions on the sand, with furniture and carpets, tables of bread and fruit, couches so no one need know the feel of a sleep in hot sand, rising after to leave the form of himself behind. Only Alexander's companions are missing, though whether he left them behind out of embarra.s.sment or consideration I can't guess. While the beach is transformed into a village behind him, Alexander walks his brother up to the top of a nearby dune to continue their conversation. He is putting himself on show. I flatter myself, believe he's doing it for me, to show he can keep his word and keep it n.o.bly, even in circ.u.mstances I know he finds revolting, horrifying even: proximity to his s.h.i.t-headed brother. I wonder what they're talking about. The failure of Philip's emba.s.sies, perhaps, and Alexander's imminent departure, finally, to join his father's army?

"Princes, come." I drop my bag in the sand. Philes hangs back, as I've asked him to. Relax for an hour, read a book, I told him; I've got this one. I strip and walk toward the waves. Little nothings today, little lickings at the blond sh.o.r.e. All along the beach heads turn to watch the three of us. The princes strip as I've done, Alexander easily, Arrhidaeus excitedly, tangling his head in his tunic and needing rescue from his brother. They drop their clothes in the sand as I've done. Later we'll find everything we've discarded neatly arranged in one of the pavilions, as though by reproving mothers.

Now they're in front of me, looking fine in the sunlight, waiting for what I have to offer next.

"It's like a big bath," I say, mainly for Arrhidaeus.

"I was telling him how we used to have our lessons together," Alexander says.

"No," Arrhidaeus says.

I take his hand and walk him into the water to his ankles, where he stops and squats.

"No." The water licks at him, wets his b.u.m.

Alexander walks out ahead of us until he's in to his waist. He holds his arms out of the water like a girl afraid to wet her hands. I stride past him to p.i.s.s him off, dive in, and swim a few strokes. When I look back they're in the same positions, watching me.

"Come on," I say.

Alexander holds his hand out to his brother to lead him in.

After our swim, Arrhidaeus heads doggedly for the tents and his nurse. His skin has gone grey in the way that I know, his eyes dull. He wants his nap. Alexander is happy to let him go, and throws himself down on the hot sand. I sit beside him. "Nice to get an outing."

He laughs, eyes closed to the sun.

"I used to come down here all the time, when I was your age," I say. "I should do it more often. Some days I hardly leave my library. I can't remember the last time I came swimming. I'll feel it tomorrow," I add, rubbing my legs. Truthfully, I feel it a little already.

"You sound like you're a thousand years old," Alexander says. "You want an outing? A real outing?"

I don't answer. I'm thinking about a ma.s.seur, hoping my aching muscles won't distract me, tomorrow, from my work. Annoying prospect.

"Aeschylus fought at Marathon," Alexander says. "Even Socrates was a foot soldier. What's your excuse?"

"Respect." I rummage in my bag for a towel. My legs could cramp if I leave them wet. I think perhaps they're cramping already.

"You should come," Alexander says. "March with the army, see the battle. Do you want to die never having seen a battle? Like a woman?"

"You want to teach me. You want me to become the student."

"I've been thinking." He lies back down and closes his eyes against the sun in a show of casualness. Too casual; something is coming. "I've been thinking about the forms that you explained to us that very first day. Do you remember? The chameleon? And how you said that there's something all chameleons must share, a chameleon form, but that it can't be in some other world? That it has to be in this world for us to be able to perceive it, and to account for change?"

"I remember."

"And what we spoke of the day before yesterday, about finding the mean between two extremes. The point of balance. I've been thinking the same applies to people. We're all versions of each other. Repet.i.tions, cycles. You see it best in families, the repet.i.tion of physical traits and characteristics. My hair comes from my mother, my height from my father. I'm the point of balance between them. But even more than that. You and my father. Me and my brother." He opens his eyes, briefly, can't bear not to see my reaction. "Just versions of the same form, do you see? Opposing extremes, but also versions of the same form."

I can't help mentally adding my own pairings: my master and myself, our nephews, Speusippus and Callisthenes, Lysimachus and Leonidas, Olympias and Pythias, Pythias and Herpyllis, Illaeus-now there's an interesting fulcrum. Illaeus and my master, Illaeus and my father, Illaeus and myself. Carolus and my father. Alexander and-?

"You see the consequences, don't you?" He's sitting up again now, eyes wide. He sees what he wants to say quicker than he sees the words to say it. "Macedonians and Greeks, Greeks and Persians. The same form. All just versions of each other."

"An entertaining lay application of some extremely complex ideas. You might make a philosopher after all, with a few decades' more study and no distractions."

"That'll happen," he says.

"I wish it would. You can't develop such ideas beyond the merely entertaining if you're constantly riding off to war."