“If you were assassinated in Athens,” Hephaistion argued, “your father would come down here and raze the city to the ground.”
“Or try to,” said Ptolemaios.
“That would force the Athenians to fight us, which is just what Demosthenes wants.”
Alexandros shook his head. “But Demosthenes wants the Athenians to fight a just war. You heard him; he claims that democracies have a higher spiritual standing than kingdoms.”
“Yes, and crows can sing.”
“He would not want to fight a war brought on by a cowardly assassination. In his own city, yet.”
“During his own speech.”
“The Athenians might refuse to fight such a war,” Alexandros insisted. “No, it was not Demosthenes.”
“Who then?”
We were climbing the cobblestoned street as it rose toward the residential area where Aeschines’ house stood.
Alexandros made a fluttering gesture with both his hands. “Aristotle taught me to look for the logical answer to every question.”
“So what’s the logical answer to this one?”
“Yes, who sent the assassins—logically?”
“The man who would gain the most from my assassination, of course.”
“But who would gain?”
Alexandros walked on for several silent steps, head bent, hands slowly balling into fists. I thought he was mulling over the question, but once he spoke I realized that he had known his answer all along.
“The king,” he said.
“What?”
“Your father?”
They all stopped walking, stunned by the enormity of the accusation.
“I don’t know if he is my true father,” Alexandros said. He spoke not with shame, not even indecision. “My true father might be Herakles. Or Zeus himself.”
The other youths fell silent. There was no sense arguing that point, each of them knew.
“But even to imagine that the king might have tried to have you assassinated…” Hephaistion’s voice was hollow with fear.
“Think of it logically,” Alexandros said quietly. “What better pretext could he have for attacking Athens directly? You said so yourself, a moment ago.”
“Yes, but—”
“Who would come to Athens’ aid if Philip made war to avenge his son’s murder?”
“No one.”
“That’s true enough.”
“He’d have isolated Athens completely.”
I spoke up. “Who would inherit the throne if Philip died in battle?”
“What difference does that make?”
“A great difference,” I said. “Philip has spent his life molding Macedonia into a powerful and secure nation. Would he throw away all that by killing his son and heir? Would he knowingly throw the kingdom into such a turmoil that it might split apart once he dies?”
The youths were nodding among themselves.
I asked Alexandros, “Is that logical?”
He gave me a troubled gaze.
“Your father,” I said, “sent me with you to protect you. Is that logical, if he wishes to have you assassinated?”
Very calmly, he looked up into my eyes and said, “You might be part of the plot, Orion. My father may have instructed you to let the assassins have me.”
I could see cold fury in his golden eyes, and felt my own rage boil up within me at his accusation. But I held my emotions in check and replied, “I was the one who warned you, Alexandros. And took a knife in the ribs for it.”
“Barely a scratch, from the look of it.”
“Your father instructed me to protect you,” I said firmly. “He is not your enemy.”
Alexandros turned away from me and resumed his walk up the sloping street. “Perhaps you are right, Orion,” he said, so low that I barely heard him. “I hope so.”
We stayed in Athens only a few days longer. The news from the Assembly was not good. The Athenians had decided to send delegations to Thebes and several other cities to arrange an alliance against Philip. Aristotle was especially downcast.
“This will mean war,” he told me as we packed his ever-growing collection. “Real war. Not the marching and petty skirmishes and sham sieges of the past few years.”
I had taken part in one of those petty skirmishes. The men who had been killed were just as dead as heroes of a great battle.
The night before we were to leave I had another dream—if it was a dream.
I was at the Acropolis once more. This time by myself. It was the closest I could be to the goddess I loved, to my past lives, to the memories that had somehow been locked away from me. The night was black and windswept, the stars blotted out by roiling clouds that seemed so low they nearly touched the upraised spear of the giant statue of Athena.
I walked through the warm wind to the gigantic statue. Lightning flashed and briefly lit her face, but it remained coldly indifferent ivory, not flesh. Rain began to pelt down, stinging cold hard drops, almost sleet. I rushed up the steps and into the shelter of the magnificent Parthenon.
The gold-clad statue stared at me with painted eyes.
“I will find you,” I said aloud, amidst peals of thunder. “Wherever you are, whenever you are, I will find you.”
And the statue stirred. The stiff gold-leafed robe softened. The eyes warmed. Her face smiled sadly at me. Twice life-size, standing on a pedestal of marble, my goddess breathed into life.
“Orion? Orion, is it you?”
“Yes!” I shouted over the earthshaking thunder. “I am here!”
“Orion, I want to be with you. Always and forever. But it cannot be.”
“Where are you? Why can’t we be together?”
“They decided… the forces…”
Her voice grew faint. Lightning flickered through the sky, throwing blue-white strobes of light through the temple. Thunder roared and boomed like the voices of the gods railing against us.
Still I shouted, “Where are you? Tell me and I’ll find you!”
“No,” she said, her voice fading, fading, “Not yet. The time is not right.”
“Why am I here?” I begged. “Why have they put me here?”
I thought she did not hear me. I thought she had left me. The lightning stopped and suddenly the temple was in utter darkness. I could not see her statue, could not sense her presence.
“Why am I here?” I repeated, almost sobbing.
No reply. Only black silence.
“What do they expect of me?” I shouted.
“Obedience,” said another voice. A woman’s voice. Hera’s.
“I expect you to obey me, Orion,” her voice slashed coldly through my mind. “And obey me you shall.”
CHAPTER 11
I returned to Pella unwillingly, filled with dread and the inner emptiness of a hopeless longing. The trip north was cold and miserable: rain in the hills, driving snow in the mountain passes. With each step along the way I felt the power of Olympias returning, settling over me like a sickness, sapping my strength and my will. In my dreams she was Hera, the haughty and demanding goddess. In my waking hours she was Philip’s queen, the witch who had cast her spell upon me, the woman I was powerless to resist.
On the day we returned to Pella the king summoned me to his presence. I reported on the assassination attempt.
He scowled darkly. “What fool tried that?”
We were alone in his small work room. The afternoon sunlight slanted through the one window, but the air was cold. Philip sat next to the meager fire, a dark woolen cloak over his shoulders, his aching leg propped on a stool, his black beard bristling, his one good eye piercing like a hawk’s.
I decided that he wanted the truth. And so did I.
“He thinks that perhaps you did,” I blurted.
“Wha—” His face went white with sudden anger. He gripped the armrests of his chair as if he were going to leap to his feet.
But the fury drained out of him almost immediately. I watched him battle to control his emotions. I saw that he was shocked by the accusation, and not because his son had hit on the truth. Philip had not tried to kill his son. And now that his immediate wave of anger had passed he looked sorrowful to be falsely accused.
“That’s his mother’s doing,” he grumbled. “She’s always poisoning his mind against me.”
I said nothing. But I realized that the assassination attempt might well have been Olympias’ doing. The assassins had plenty of time to cut Alexandros down, and his Companions with him. Instead, all they did was to drive a wedge of suspicion between the prince and his father.
“She’s a witch, Orion,” he told me. “Entranced me when we first met. At the Dionysian rites on Samothrace. I was just about Alexandros’ age and I fell completely mad for her. The most beautiful woman on earth, that was sure. And she seemed to love me just as wildly as I loved her. Once she had the boy, though, she wanted nothing more to do with me.”
She is more than a witch, I thought. She is the avatar of a goddess, or perhaps the goddess herself in human guise, with powers that could destroy us all at a whim.