Fire From Heaven Read Free Page A

moulded close to the fine bones.
    Muttering something, Philip rea?ched by instinct for his robe to cover his nakedness; but there was no more need. He had been wronged, insulted, exposed, betrayed. If his sword had been at hand, he might well have killed her.
    Disturbed by all this, the child’s living girdle writhed, and lifted its head. Till now, Philip had not seen it.
    ‘What’s that?’ His pointing finger shook. ‘What’s that upon the boy? That thing of yours? Are you teaching him now? Are you making him into a back-country, snake-dancing, howling mystagogue? I tell you, I’ll not endure it, take heed of what I say, before you suffer; for by Zeus I mean it, as you will feel. My son is a Greek, not one of your barbarous cattle-lifting hillmenÉ’
    ‘Barbarous!’ Her voice rose ringing, then sank to a deadly undertone, like Glaukos’ when angered. ‘My father, you peasant, sprang from Achilles, and my mother from the royal house of Troy. My forbears were ruling men, when yours were hired farm-hands in Argos. Have you looked in a mirror? One can see the Thracian in you. If my son is Greek, it is from me. In Epiros, our blood runs true.’
    Philip gritted his teeth. It squared his chin and broadened his cheekbones, which were wide already. Even under these mortal insults, he remembered the child was there. ‘I scorn to answer you. If you are Greek, then show a Greek woman’s manners. Let us see some modesty.’ He felt the lack of clothes. Two pairs of grey eyes, smokily rimmed, stared from the bed. ‘Greek schooling, reason, civility, I mean the boy to have them as I have had. Make up your mind to that.’
    ‘Oh, Thebes!’ She threw out the word like a ritual curse. ‘Is it Thebes again, now? I know enough of Thebes. In Thebes they made you a Greek, in Thebes you learned civility! In Thebes! Have you heard an Athenian speak of Thebes? The byword of Greece for boorishness. Don’t make such a fool of yourself.’
    ‘Athens, that talking-shop. Their great days are done there. They should keep quiet about Thebes for shame.’
    ‘It is you should do that. What were you in Thebes?’
    ‘A hostage, a pledge of policy. Did I make my brother’s treaty? Do you throw that in my face? I was sixteen. I found more courtesy there than you ever showed me. And they taught me war. What was Macedon, when Perdikkas died? He had fallen to the Illyrians with four thousand men. The valleys lay fallow; our people were afraid to come down out of the hill-forts. All they had were the sheep whose skins they wore, and those they could hardly keep. Soon the Illyrians would have taken everything; Bardelys was making ready. Now you know what we are and where our frontiers stand. Through Thebes, and the men who made me a soldier there, I came to you a king. Your kindred were glad enough of it.”
    The child, pressed to her side, felt her breath drawn in and in. Blindly he waited for the unknown storm to break from the lowering sky. His fingers clenched on the blanket. He knew himself forgotten now, and alone.
    The storm broke. ‘A soldier, was it, they made you there? And what else? What else?’ He could feel her ribs convulsed with rage. ‘You went south at sixteen, and by then already the country all around was full of your by-blows, don’t you think I know who they are? That whore Arsinoe, Lagos’ wife, old enough to be your mother-Then the great Pelopidas taught you all the learning Thebes is famous for. Battle and boys!’
    ‘Be silent!’ roared Philip, loud enough for a battlefield. ‘Have you no decency before the child? What does he see in this room? What does he hear? I tell you, my son shall be brought up civilized, if I have toÉ’
    His voice was drowned by her laughter. She drew back her hand from the child, to thrust her body forward. With her arms and open palms propping her weight, her red hair falling forward over her naked breasts and the child’s open mouth and eyes, she laughed till the high room echoed,