Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr Page B

unabashed curiosity. Not that they could have understood much of what went on within: the discussion was heated but the words indistinct.
    Her guide led her past them to exchange words with the guard at the inner flap. The guard looked dubious, but he said, “Alexander told us to send her straight in.”
    Her guide nodded with a touch of impatience, as if the other was belaboring the obvious. “I’ll take her, and answer for her if I have to.”
    She bit her tongue. This was no time or place to object to being discussed as if she were not there. Maybe it was her gown. Not only did she look like a woman, she looked respectable.
    The king and his animated discussion—she would not say quarrel, not quite—were not immediately within. There was another antechamber, a table covered with what looked like maps and dispatches and rolls of accounts, men sitting at it, busy and apparently unperturbed by the noise.
    The room beyond looked like a council chamber. It was a moment before Meriamon realized that there were only a few people in it. Alexander, of course. Hephaistion, it seemed, inevitably. Ptolemy. One or two others whom she did not know, in what she had learned was the gold-and-purple cloak of the king’s Companions. And facing the king, grey beard bristling, in armor that had seen much use, a gnarled tree-trunk of a man whose age might have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. He was not more than a palm’s width taller than the king, but he took full advantage of it, bulking over the smaller, slighter man.
    Alexander was angry, but controlling it. His lips were a thin line, his eyes as pale as water. They seized on Meriamon. She shivered: their touch was burning cold. “Ah, Mariamne. Will you sit down? I’ll be done in a bit.”
    “You will not be done,” gritted the man in armor, “until you answer me. We’ve had enough of your evasion. Will you or will you not—”
    “Parmenion,” said Alexander, light and deadly, “do you forget who I am?”
    In the throbbing silence, Meriamon crept Sekhmet-quiet to a chair. There was someone else huddled near it, sitting on the floor, hugging knees to chest and staring with wide frightened eyes. Yet he was no child nor awed recruit; he was a man both tall and strong, bull-broad, bull-muscled, with a face that would have been handsome had not its features been so slack. As she stared at him, a trail of spittle found its way down his beard.
    Addled, Meriamon thought. Someone took excellent care of him: his tunic was almost clean, his hair cut, his black brush of beard trimmed close to his jaw. He looked—she started. He looked like the portraits she had seen of Philip the king, Alexander’s father.
    This would be Arrhidaios, then, Philip Arrhidaios, Alexander’s half-brother. She had not known that he would be here.
    Something—maybe her shadow, maybe simple compassion—made her lay a hand on his shoulder. He started. “Hush,” she said softly. “I won’t hurt you.”
    He stared at her. His attention was abrupt and complete. The fear began to fade from his eyes. They were round and brown and moist like a dog’s, with a dog’s eagerness to trust.
    She smiled. She did not need to pretend to warmth. Big as he was, he was a gentle creature. The smile he gave her in return was remarkably like his brother’s. The same power, though dimmed and muddied. The same sweetness.
    “Pretty lady,” he said. His voice was deep and rather muffled. “You come to see me?”
    She could tell the strict truth, and confuse him. Or she could say what after all, at the moment, was true. “Yes, I came to see you. My name is Meriamon.”
    “Meri,” he said. “Amon. Meri. That’s a funny name.”
    “It’s my name. Don’t you like it?”
    “Oh, I like it,” he said. He frowned. She could see how formidable his father must have been, in what that knotting of brows did to his face. “My brother and Parmenion are fighting again. I hate it when they fight.”
    “Do you think