Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (34 page)

 
          
‘And
honesty leads to clarity, which leads to invisibility.’

 
          
‘Right.
Though honesty isn’t the same thing as virtue; as Gupta proves by running a
striptease parlour, albeit with metaphysical nuances. Virtue is the vice of
those without insight, those lacking in imagination. That’s why virtue is
often evil at heart. Not that there’s too much virtue in Babylon - and
consequently little deep evil, though many serious peccadillos.’

 
          
‘Sacrificing
children seems rather evil.’

 
          
‘Yes,
Daddy always lacked imagination. You heard how he denounced my mother that
night in the chapel? He never could imagine what it was to be her; or me. He
could certainly imagine being himself, ten times over. Here’s a city where,
with luck, you can become what you imagine; unless your associates have
livelier imaginations. I think I shall now imagine that I’m invisible; and you
can discover my hidden form.’

 
          
He
chuckled. ‘It
is
black dark at the
moment.’

 
          
‘So?
Maybe once I learn how to be invisible in daylight, I can learn how to be
visible in darkness.’

 
          
‘Are
you really serious about Gupta’s teachings, Thess?’

 
          
‘Alex,
if we can’t joke - ha ha! - about serious matters then we’ll never master them;
don’t you see?’

 
          
‘No.
But I feel.’ And he felt.

 
          
She
moaned to herself.

 
          
Late
the following morning Alex parted the reed door to Muzi’s room and regarded the
skin of the lioness mounted there on its hidden framework in a semblance of
the life which Muzi had destroyed, presumably at peril to himself.

 
          
Alex
stood there some while, imagining himself creeping closer, visualizing resting
a hand upon the tawny rump, then lifting her tail - yes, he spotted an edge of
satin and stitching. He fantasized that he was Muzi by night, knowing Thessany
in a way that he never himself knew her - yet not knowing her at all, since to
the invisibility of darkness she added the extra incognito of a false coat of
skin.

 
          
Should
he tiptoe closer? Should he pretend at first hand, rather than from the
doorway?

 
          
He
recalled imagining a number of things about Deborah; and realized his folly. He
went downstairs, intending to work in the garden.

 
          
When
he opened the front door, Nettychin was stomping at speed towards it, clutching
a message tablet.

 
          
‘Notify
the Mistress! Tell everybody! Lord Gibil sends word: Lord Hephaestion is dead!
The king has ordered the biggest funeral ever in the history of the world!’

 
          
Hephaestion:
the king’s favourite. The Patroclus to the Achilles of Alexander . . .

 
          
Alex
had never set eyes on Hephaestion (so far as he knew). All those months ago
when he visited the palace and the king, and later as weddings loomed,
Hephaestion hadn’t seemed to play any role in the affairs of the court. He
might easily have been absent from the city. Of late, as the king’s illness
worsened, the name Hephaestion had been bandied about increasingly.
Hephaestion, getting drunk in sorrowful anticipation. Hephaestion, performing
absurd athletic feats.

 
          
How
ironic that the young stalwart who could sprint the whole circuit of the city
walls in record time should now lie dead, while the gross, decadent, terminally
sick Alexander survived him. Unless, of course, Hephaestion had quite literally
broken his heart through overexertion.

 
          
By
late afternoon more information - perhaps of dubious quality - had arrived,
courtesy of Mama Zabala, who had hastened to the nearest suburban market. (The
letter received that morning had been a palace announcement despatched to Lord
Gibil, and sped onward to his son. Thessany had scratched a message of
acknowledgement, regretting that Master Muzi was out of town hunting. Since
Gibil’s messenger hadn’t lingered, having other urgent letters to deliver, she
had sent her tablet to Lord Gibil’s house in the care of Anshar.) By now word
of mouth had spread the news almost as swiftly from street to street, from
bazaar to bazaar.

 
          
In
chapel that evening Thessany said a prayer for the soul of Hephaestion, then
asked the cook to rise and repeat what she had heard - lucidly, now that some
time had gone by.

 
          
‘Oh,
the whole city’s buzzing,’ announced Mama Zabala. ‘Well, it must be buzzing for
the buzz to reach all the way here, from over the river! Poor Lord Hephaestion,
who was surely the most handsome man alive, and one of the most vigorous. He
wrestled yesterday evening as if he was wrestling with Death for the life of
the king himself, defeating five champions in turn. Then in a boiling lather,
hot as an oven, he rushed directly to the king’s bed to warm Alexander with his
own body - to try to sweat the fever out of the king. And he sweated the life
out of himself. In the morning, still lying in King Alexander’s bed, Lord
Hephaestion was dead. I think his heart had stopped.

 
          
‘The
king has ordered last rites such as no one has ever seen. He wants thousands of
cubits’ length of the city wall pulled down for bricks to build the inside of
the pyre. The outside will be so gorgeous it’ll likely consume a year’s
revenue. That’s all to go up in smoke - fumes rich enough for Hephaestion’s
shade to smell in the afterlife. Then the hulk will be cladded with marble as a
monument.’

 
          
Later
that night Alex crept to Thessany’s tower to warm her in bed; though wrestling
would be inappropriate.

 
          
‘Hephaestion’s
death seems to have caught the public imagination as much as the king’s would
have done,’ he whispered after the first soft bout.

 
          
‘More
so,’ she replied. ‘Much more. The king’s death would have scared and saddened
people. Hephaestion’s exhilarates them.’

 
          
‘He
died instead of Alexander, didn’t he? He’s a substitute.’

           
‘Yes, I think so. Alexander will
perk up now. He'll throw off his blankets and hurl himself into the business of
the funeral, I bet.'

 
          
‘This
is a new survival strategy designed by Aristander, hmm?’

 
          
‘It's
better than murdering babes. But there still has to be a death; a fine
exemplary death.'

 
          
‘It’s
a different variation on the sacrifice theme?’

 
          
.
‘Apparently.’

           
‘The secular option ... I once
thought the king might be snuffed by his own court, and a new man appointed as
Alexander.’

 
          
She
laughed quietly. ‘You thought the new man might be yourself! A secret prince,
breezing into Babylon from exile ... oh dear me.’

 
          
‘You
don’t suppose the king might actually have died - been stifled by a pillow -
and that Hephaestion is taking his place?’

 
          
‘Hence
their spending the night together? Not in a hot sweat of homosexual health
therapy! - but one of them smothering the other, then slipping into his royal
purple nightdress? It’s a thought. It’s years since
I
last saw the king. If it’s the wrong king who attends the
funeral, do tell me!’

 
          
‘Will
we get a chance to see Hephaestion’s body?’

 
          
‘Maybe
not close up. And it’ll be embalmed; has to be. It could take a whole month to
build that pyre. Oh, what a business.’

 
          
Oh,
what a business indeed. That the funeral was business became obvious when Lord
Gibil called at the house the next day, fussing to know exactly when his son
would return.

 
          
Gibil
didn’t even enter the house. While his chariot waited outside he strode about
the garden impatiently, then once his daughter-in-law had come out he marched
her around with him (less rapidly). Alex was busy planting and staking a young
poplar. Lord Gibil and Thessany circled him as focal point, like horse and
gravid jockey exercising before some prize race.

 
          
‘Six
storeys high the pyre will be, around the brick core, each tier supported by
trunks of palm. Along the base there’ll be golden quinquereme prows with
scarlet felt draped between ’em. Giant torches on the next level, with eagles
rising from the flames. Further up, hunting scenes - a battle of gold centaurs
- golden bulls and lions; all hollow-cast, of course. Next, a row of weaponry.
Up top there’ll be a squad of sirens. Choristers will squeeze inside ’em and
sing laments through their golden lips. The choir’ll need an escape chute out
back for when the caboodle goes up in flames.

 
          
‘Oh,
there’s money to be made supplying that lot! And there’s money to be
lent
to buy it all. Palace’ll need to
raise a bit of a loan, I shouldn’t wonder. Don’t you credit that silly yarn
about demolishing some of the city wall for the core. You can’t build smoothly
with smashed-up rubble. I’ve already cornered the spare capacity in the brick
market. Then after the fire, it’ll take masses of marble to cover the burnt
core.’

 
          
He
puffed. ‘I need my boy going round with me from stage one, seeing how you
handle a big deal like this.’ ‘He’ll be back sometime tomorrow; so he said.’
‘Where is he exactly? Oh, what’s the use!’

           
Thessany spoke brightly: ‘Let’s see:
you’re hoping to lend the palace money to buy goods from you, which they’ll
then destroy? Same principle as war, but less harmful. Also, you’re hoping to
tender for the job at a price which is attractive enough - yet does require a
bit of national debt, which swells when the palace get behind on interest
payments?’

 
          
‘Yeah,
that’s it. You got it.’

 
          
‘Why
don’t
I
come round with you?’

           
‘But my boy . .

 
          
‘Is
missing at the moment.
You
missed
something, yourself.'

 
          
‘What
did I miss?’

 
          
‘This
oh-so-complicated pyre - what detailed specifications! It can’t all have been
dreamed up in a quick frenzy of inspiration.’

 
          
‘Could
have been.’

 
          
‘Unlikely.
I’d say it required forethought. Forethought implies foreknowledge of the
event. With respect, Father-in-law, you could have seen this coming - if you
had a proper paid informer at court, instead of desultory cronies. Frankly, you
could have forecast something along these lines when my own dad’s bid to become
a hereditary god ran into a spot of bother.’

 
          
Gibil
goggled. ‘You mean you suspected, and you didn’t warn me?’

 
          
‘I
was never asked. I was wed to breed an heir. Your signal ought to have been
when the palace started to boost Hephaestion.’

 
          
Gibil
pulled out a cloth and mopped his brow. ‘Yeah, I see it. That’s pretty
perceptive.’

 
          
‘Thanks.
Now let me perceive something else. Marduk wanted to sacrifice a child, which
is highly emotive. Hephaestion was a grown man, so what makes his death equally
emotive? Why, the size and cost of the cremation. How many talents of gold will
be consumed?’

 
          
‘Ten,
twelve.’

 
          
‘What
happens to all that gold when the pyre goes up in flames? Some gets lost as hot
particles whisked into the air. Most of it melts down.’

 
          
‘And
gets mixed up in the core; then covered with marble.’