The Persian Boy by Mary Renault Read Free Book Online Page A

thought it would give her pastime. When My Lady perceived his ignorance, she accepted his apology. Sometimes they will be talking, through the interpreter, an hour together.”
    The King sat staring before him. Presently he gave the eunuch leave to go, and, remembering my presence, signed to me to play. I played softly, seeing him troubled. It was to be many years, before I understood the cause.
    I gave the news to my friends at court; for I had friends by now, some in high places, some not, who were glad to hear things first. I took no presents for this; it would have been like selling my friendship. Of course I took bribes, to further suits with the King. To refuse would have been to proclaim enmity, and someone would have poisoned me. Needless to say, I did not bore the King with their tedious suits; it was not for such things he kept me. I would say sometimes, “So-and-so gave me this to get your favor”; it amused him, because the others did not tell. Now and then he would ask, “What did he want?” and say, “Well, we must keep you in credit. I daresay it can be arranged.”
    The strange conduct of the Macedonian King was much debated. Some said he liked to show himself a man of iron, above pleasure; some that he was impotent; some that he was keeping the Royal Family unharmed, to get good terms of surrender. Others, again, said he liked only boys.
    The Queen’s Eunuch said that, indeed, he was waited on by a band of highborn youths; but this was the custom of all their kings. In his own belief, it was in the young man’s nature to be generous with suppliants. He quickly added that for beauty and presence he could not compare with our own King; he would scarcely stand higher than Darius’ shoulder. “Indeed, when he visited the ladies to give his safeguard, the Queen Mother bowed to his friend instead. If you will believe it, they walked in together, side by side, and hardly distinguished in dress from one another. The friend was taller, and handsome for a Macedonian. I was distraught, having seen the King in the roy?al tent already. The friend drew back, and she saw my warning signs. She was of course distressed, and began her prostration again before the King. But he raised her in his hands, and was not even angry with this man; he said, as the interpreter assures me, ‘Never mind, mother, you weren’t far out; he is Alexander too.’ “
    Well, they are barbarians, I thought. Yet something sighed in my heart.
    The eunuch said, “I never saw a king keep so little state; he lives worse than any general would with us. When he entered Darius’ tent, he stared like a peasant at its appointments. He knew what the bath was, and used it, the first thing he did; but for the rest, one had hard work not to smile. In Darius’ chair, his feet would not touch the ground, so he put them on the wine-table, taking it for a footstool. However, he soon moved in, like a poor man with a legacy. He looks like a boy, till you see his eyes.”
    I asked what he had done with the royal concubines; had he preferred them to the Queen? The eunuch said they had all been presented to his friends; he had not kept one. “It’s boys then,” I said laughing. “So now we know.”
    The girls from the Harem, whom the King had taken along, were of course the choicest, and a great loss to him. However, he still had plenty; some only of his nights were spent with me. Though it is true that, by old custom, there were as many women as days in the year, some were of course past youth; and it is an absurdity such as only Greeks could invent, that they were paraded nightly round his bed to choose from. Now and then he would visit the Harem, look over the girls, and learn from the Chief Eunuch there the names of five or six he found most pleasing. Then at night he would send for one; or sometimes for all the group to play and sing to him, later beckoning one to stay. He liked to conduct such matters gracefully.
    When he went there he often took