The Golden Mean Part 20

"They have a detail for that. Bring your kit in case you get one that can't be moved."

"East field," Head repeats to every man as we file through the tent flap. "Horses down. Watch for the horses. East field."

Outside, at first I can't see. The sun hurts everything it touches. We walk into a world of men and horses, milling it seems like, the men stunned by the rent in the fabric they've just come through, the walk back from the killing field to the false world of tents and bedrolls and meals and living. They need to drink so they can celebrate. I look for faces I recognize and realize: most of them. Is that possible?

"This way."

Head leads us toward the river, toward the horses. There's a detail for that, too: a cavalry officer works grimly through the downed animals, cutting throats. Some scream; some scrabble their legs, running nowhere. Other medic teams are spread across the field, heads down, like berry pickers. I find Head close to me, keeping an eye.

"No," he says, as I stoop for a closer look at something; someone. Theban. "Walk on."

I stop.

"Walk on."

The Theban is looking at me.

"Walk on, c.u.n.t."

I kneel down and unshoulder my kit. Overhead, vultures...o...b..t the field, singing, waiting for us to leave.

"You c.u.n.t." Head kneels down beside me. The Theban's eyes move back and forth between us. Head feels for a pulse at the side of the throat, thumbs up the brows for a better look at the eyes, tweaks the man's feet. He moves up the legs, pinching. He's at the chest before the Theban grunts. "Help me." Together we roll him on his side. Blood all down the back. "Paralyzed," Head says. "Slashed spine. Were you running away, f.u.c.ker?"

"No," the Theban says.

We roll him back so he can look at the sky. "Walk on," Head says to me. "Come on. You don't want to see this."

I don't move.

"Close your eyes," Head tells the Theban. He doesn't. "I'm doing you like one of our own," he says, and sinks his knife where he recently felt for the pulse. We both jump back from the blood that leaps out. The Theban's hand slaps the ground a few times and then stops. His eyes never close.

"That's not my job," Head says. "Don't make me do that again."

"Head!"

The young medic has something; he's waving us over. I kneel down again.

"I don't have time for this." Head turns away. "You're on your own."

In my kit I have a tablet and stylus. I roll the Theban back onto his side and unlace the leather corset. It falls away in pieces where the weapon severed it. The lips of skin are plum-coloured. I pull them apart to discover a flap of yellow fat. It's bone I want; I need my knives, then something to clean my hands on so I can write and draw.

I don't know how much time pa.s.ses.

"Here you are."

"Minute." I'm teasing out a long thread of something from deep in the cavity.

"What is is that?" Head kneels beside me, squinting. that?" Head kneels beside me, squinting.

"I don't know. I'm seeing where it goes."

"Look at that." Another voice, another shadow kneeling beside me. The young medic. "All those bits came out of just this one here?"

I've laid a lot of viscera out on the ground.

"Are you all right?" the medic says.

"I need more tablets."

Head nods at the medic, who jogs off. "He'll find you what you need. What-f.u.c.k off." off." A stench rises; I've hit bowel. "You A stench rises; I've hit bowel. "You do do this?" he says. this?" he says.

"You do this." do this."

"Not after they're dead." Head looks around the field. I try to stand up. "Steady." He catches my arm. My feet are pins and needles from squatting so long. "They're building the pyres. You almost done?"

"No."

"He's got to go with his people."

"I haven't started the head."

Shouting at the edge of the field, behind us; some argument. "Ah, no." Head starts kicking dirt over the viscera. "No, no, no. Roll him back, quick. Help me. Put your s.h.i.t away."

"I'm not done."

"Look," Head says. "I know who you are and why you're here. I understand what you do, sort of. But soldiers are not going to get this. You left the s.e.x alone, at least. But you have to stop now."

"I was getting there."

"Women's work." He looks over his shoulder. "Oh, f.u.c.k me." He heaves the Theban onto his back so we can't see the hole I've made there. "Kneel," he hisses.

"Majesty," I say.

"Dismiss." Alexander's looking at the Theban. Head runs; runs. I stay. "Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Because," Alexander says, "sometimes you think they're dead but they're not. You have to finish them."

"Yes."

Hephaestion has stopped a dozen paces away. His face is white.

"I fought here," Alexander says. "East field. Is he dead?"

What's been smoking up my thoughts is clearing now. Behind Hephaestion I see Antipater and Philip himself. They, too, stop a cautious distance away.

"Child," I say. "Has something happened?"

"What are you doing?"

I hold out my tablet for him to see.

"Can I help?"

"I'm just done. Another time. I think we need to go wash."

"I fought here."

"Alexander." Hephaestion steps forward. Alexander draws his knife. Hephaestion steps back.

"Child," I say again. "Will you show me where to wash?"

He's looking at the Theban. He kneels down beside him, as I did hours ago.

I walk a wide circle around him, over to Philip and Antipater. They're arguing in whispers.

"It happens," Antipater is hissing. "You know it as well as I do."

"What happens?"

Philip shakes his head. "He stabbed Ox-Head's groom," Antipater says. "Thought he was the enemy. The battle was over."

"Like after Maedi."

Antipater looks haggard.

"What?" Philip says.

We look over. Alexander is working at the Theban with his knife, up by the hairline.

"This is your fault," Philip says to me. "You teach him this s.h.i.t. What kind of animal are you, anyway? Who does this to a body? What happened after Maedi?"

Antipater shakes his head.

"That's my son."

"He still is," I say.

"He's supposed to be king someday."

"Look," Alexander calls. He's leaning over the body. "It comes off. Come look."

Hephaestion is backing away.

"Deal with this," Philip says. "The two of you, since you know so much about it. Get him into a tent, for f.u.c.k's sake, before anyone sees." He draws his own knife far enough to slam it back into its leather. "Do I have an heir or not?"

Hephaestion is green on the side of his face, the phenomenon Arimneste tried to describe to me so long ago.

"This isn't happening," Philip says. "I'm going back to camp."

I go see what Alexander's doing. He's got the face peeled down from the forehead. He's working it down with his knife, ripping and jiggling. He's got it peeled to the eyes.

"I tried, at Maedi," Alexander says. "I tried to bring one back. But I couldn't get it off."

"For me?"

"For Carolus. I was thinking it could be dried. He said they couldn't afford masks."

"May I help?" I reach for his knife. He lets me have it. I take the flap of forehead and hold it delicately taut, as he did. "May I finish this for you? I think you are required back at camp."

"I want to stay here, with you."

"Your father is very proud of you," I say slowly. "Of the work you did today. He wants to celebrate with you. He wants the world to see you together." I feel Antipater behind me, closer. "Your father needs you now."

"Majesty, come," Antipater says.

Alexander looks at Hephaestion. "Hey." His face lights with pleasure. "When did you get here?"

Hephaestion looks at me. "Just now."

I nod at him over Alexander's head, That's right. Go on That's right. Go on.

"Hey," Hephaestion says. "So, hey. I'm starving. You want to find something to eat?"

Alexander slings an arm around his shoulders and they walk back toward the tents that way. I try to smooth the Theban's forehead back down but the fit is ragged now, and the lips of skin won't meet at the scalp.

"He won't remember any of this," Antipater says. "Alexander. He didn't last time, either."

The young medic comes running up, panting, three tablets under his arm. "Is this enough? It's all I could find. Theban, yeah? They're asking at the pyres. I'll help you carry him over when you're done."

"He's done," Antipater says.

We carry him the hundred paces to the Theban pile, already spitting and crackling in the golden late-afternoon light. Gutted, he's not very heavy. We heave him onto the other bodies while the presiding officer makes a note on his tablet, keeping count. The medic runs off. Antipater and I stare at the fire and the heated air wobbling around it.

"I get nightmares," Antipater says.

A long silence.

"I work," I say. "It's like the ocean. I go in, way down deep, and then I come out."

He nods, shakes his head. The setting sun gilds our hair. The Theban-smoke-rises to the spheres.

ANTIPATER AND THE PRINCE leave for Athens, escorting the bones of the Athenian dead. A courtesy: defeat has made the Athenians respected allies again. I secured a bag of poppy seed from Head before we broke camp and showed Antipater how to administer the proper dosage. Philip will spend the fall in the Peloponnese tying up loose ends and arranging a great conference in Corinth, where he can get down to the business of readying all his new subjects for a Persian war. Philip has never been to Athens, and to forgo this opportunity is extraordinary. My guess is he can't stand, right now, to be near his son. leave for Athens, escorting the bones of the Athenian dead. A courtesy: defeat has made the Athenians respected allies again. I secured a bag of poppy seed from Head before we broke camp and showed Antipater how to administer the proper dosage. Philip will spend the fall in the Peloponnese tying up loose ends and arranging a great conference in Corinth, where he can get down to the business of readying all his new subjects for a Persian war. Philip has never been to Athens, and to forgo this opportunity is extraordinary. My guess is he can't stand, right now, to be near his son.

I travel home to Pella with a convoy of walking wounded. No goats, this time; no luck; no hurry. I change bandages, clean wounds, lance infections, sedate the delusional.

At home I give Little Pythias her present, a tiny Athenian soldier carved for me by the medic in exchange for my knives. I visit her mother in bed, where she spends most of her time now. I can't persuade her to take exercise, and when she does get up she creeps along the walls, or supports herself on a slave's arm. I can't bring myself to accuse her of malingering, but nor can I dispel that suspicion.