The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [34]
“You don’t grieve?” Proxenus asked me.
He was a decent man, a hard worker who treated my sister well and had revered our father. My dry eyes outraged him. I had returned from a walk—I still took walks, numbly, trying to tire myself enough to sleep—to find him in my father’s study, in my father’s chair. He wanted to tidy the mess I’d made, wanted me to help him. When I didn’t respond, he waved a piece of paper I recognized.
“There’s a letter here. As your guardian, I can’t let you remain in Pella.”
Escalating military losses meant Philip and forty-nine Companions would soon leave for Thebes as hostages, an elaborate diplomatic arrangement to ensure Macedonian docility. Philip would spend the next three years in the household of the great Theban general Pammenes, learning the arts of war in a city famous for its infantry, cavalry, and military leadership. He would watch their phalanxes drill on the training ground every day. I was high enough born and a frequent enough companion of the prince that I knew Proxenus feared to see me promoted to hostage number fifty-one. I was not hardened to military life and probably would not have survived my first winter there. If I wanted to live, I would be wise to leave Pella before the Theban escort arrived.
Arimnestus would stay with Proxenus and Arimneste, at least until he was of age. They would leave as soon as possible. I knew the twins didn’t need me, and Proxenus didn’t want me festering in his house, staring too long at people and taking over his library. It was time I became a problem to no one but myself.
I told him I wanted to go to Athens. “You would always be welcome to come to us in Atarneus,” he lied. “Perhaps once your studies are concluded.”
“I would like that,” I said.
When I told Philip, he called me a piece of shit, and congratulated me, and told me not to leave without coming to the palace one last time. Suddenly everything was happening fast, and I was leaving much sooner than I was ready for. Not even weeks; days. Arimneste and her maids made clothes for me, summer clothes painstakingly embroidered. Then it was the day before the journey. Proxenus and the twins would ride down with me to see me settled and then continue on to their own home. Their preparations took far longer than mine, and on the afternoon of that frantic eve I went up to the palace.
“Got you something.” Philip gave me a book of pornographic verse, illustrated. He had found it in the palace library, he said, and doubted his brother would miss it.
I thanked him, wondering where to hide it on the journey. My trunk was already packed and stowed on the cart. I asked him, in our old manner for the last time, if he was sure he could spare it.
“It’s a book, you dumb shit. You think I need it from a book?” He grabbed at his crotch. He repeated the gesture the next morning when we rode out—he and some pages had come down to wave me off—and smiled his disarmingly happy smile. I had finally stuffed the book deep down the throat of a giant amphora of sweet raisins with which my sister had lovingly provisioned me for the winter ahead.
THREE
PYTHIAS SAYS SHE doesn’t mind living in the palace, but now that we’re staying in Pella I want a house of my own. The flunky knows of a place, a modest single-storey house tucked behind the first row of mansions immediately south of the marketplace. We tour it behind the owner’s widow, a sniffling young woman in an indigo mourning veil. She scurries ahead of us from room to room, trying simultaneously to straighten things up and keep out of sight. The flunky assures me she’s got family to go to; I don’t press him for details. The house has a gaudy entrance hall (the mosaic floor shows Zeus eyeing a nymph); a small courtyard and measly garden, surrounded by a colonnade; and, at the back, living quarters, including a room for my books, a room for