The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [97]
“In marriage?”
Philip laughs and wipes his eyes.
“Caria.” I try to think clearly.
“Not too big, not too small. Strategic. It might just do. We’re having a dinner for him, you must come.”
“For Arrhidaeus?”
“For Pixodarus. The satrap. That’s a thought, though. I suppose he should be there?”
“Arrhidaeus?” I say again.
“You’re right, of course. I hope he doesn’t fuck it up. Feeds himself, does he?”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Philip squints fiercely. “Can’t remember,” he says finally. “How long have you been with us?”
“Six years.”
“That sounds about right.”
I get up to go.
“Wait, wait, wait. You’re in a fuck of a rush today. I haven’t told you the main thing yet.”
Apparently not the death of my wife, nor the birth of his daughter, nor the marriage of his son is the main thing. I sit back down.
“You look like I’m going to hit you.”
He feints a punch at my head and I duck automatically. Sometime in the last twenty-five years I’ve acquired the reflex.
Philip laughs. “I never thanked you for my wedding gift, did I, in all the commotion? You always were funny.”
So that is the main thing: a sticky little book, a bit of nostalgia still smelling slightly of raisins. “I was?”
“You had a face like a clown. You were always trying to make everybody laugh. I remember you could mimic people. You used to do your father, and my father. That was a little spooky, actually.”
“Not me.”
“Oh, yes. And you did me once, too, and I beat the shit out of you. Funny as hell, but I had to. I think you were pretending to screw an apple.”
“You did love apples,” I say, slowly, trying to remember.
“Still do.” He swats his own leg conclusively, as though I’ve settled the matter. “And that’s a funny thing. Alexander loves them, too. I used to share mine with him when he was a toddler, feed him off my own knife. He couldn’t get enough of me, once. Where did that little boy go, do you suppose?”
“Got his own knife.”
He bumps my jaw with his fist, gently, a blow I see coming and this time let happen. “We should have been better friends.”
It’s the closest to an apology I’m going to get. I nod.
“Cleopatra says Olympias might be telling the truth about the boy having been fathered by one of the gods. Never mind that face, you’ve heard the rumours. Olympias herself spreads them. Has done for years, but I never paid any attention before now. Little Cleopatra, eh? Already a politician. We both know what she’s really getting at, of course, only she knows better than to come out and say it. Though I don’t think it can be true. Another lover? Not back then, anyway. We were white hot for a while, his mother and I. Do you think he looks like me?”
“What a thing to ask.”
Philip laughs. “See? Funny. After all, what are you going to say? All right. Though he has always favoured her, the hair and skin and so on. Is it ridiculous to start wondering only now?”
I decide my grief will buy me some indulgence. “He’s not very tall.”
“That’s nice of you to remind me.” Philip looks annoyed, which was the danger. But then he says again, “That’s nice of you to remind me,” his eyes no longer focused on me, and I know I’ve given him what he wanted, a little polished stone to hold on to in the night and rub with his thumb, a worry-bead, a talisman: two short men in a kingdom of tall.
I wonder how long this will hold him, and how clever his new little wife really is. A daughter this time, but a son next time, maybe, and then what? Not so blank and guileless, if she’s already looking that far ahead. She’s learned quickly, or someone is teaching her. And how long before Alexander hears that his father is wondering if he’s a bastard?
“All right,” Philip says. I wonder how much of this he’s already figured out for himself. Most of it, would be my guess. “You see, it’s always good for me to talk to you. Now I’m going to give you something. This probably isn’t the right time, and you may not care right now in your time of mourning, but I want