Herald of Steel

“Let’s get back to the topic,” Alexander’s voice bought Cambyses back from her thoughts.

He then resumed, “I understood that I would have to become a freeman to have a chance at living like a human. And I tried to do that honestly. I worked myself to the bone and I almost succeeded. And, if we had won today, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

Here Alexander let out a heavy sigh, *Sigh*, but that’s not what happened. We lost and I quarreled with Nestoras and then started the rumor. And I don’t regret anything one bit, because if I hadn’t done what I did, I would be dead by now.”

Here he switched his pitch to a low, pleading one, “But that gave my master the perfect excuse to forever deny my freedom. But anticipating such a possibility, I had long before taken steps to ensure my freedom, through blood and death. Cam. I swear I had no intention of harming anyone as long as they gave me what rightfully belongs to me. The thing that I rightfully earned and they swore would give me.”

By the end of Alexander’s speech, he was choking on his own voice.

This rare display of weakness from, in Cambyses’s eyes, the omnipotent Alexander melted the girl’s soft heart and she began to look at the situation through Alexander’s eyes and started to empathize with the reality he faced.

It was us or them, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed.

She then softly said, “You didn’t kill my brother or father. That’s why I will forgive you. And I have no qualms about killing Pallidus.”

“But” here her tone turned inquisitive and even a bit puzzled, ” Why is Aristotle doing this? He is old, has one foot in the grave and all his supporters are dead”

Alexander was very pleased to see Cambyses asking such questions.

Shaking his head, he said, “Aristotle does not believe he is old, weak, and alone. He believes he will live forever. He thinks by ousting you and killing me, somehow he and Pallidus can win against Theocles and Menes. The senile fool.”

In the end, Alexander gave a disdainful snort.

“Theocles? Oh, yea, he was acting a bit strange. He gave me all the beetroots and I even heard he defended you against father. What’s up with that?” Cambyses’s attention was drawn to the unusual addition to their team.

“It’s a long story, but the gist of it is that he believes me to be the blessed of goddess Gaia.”

“Hmmm, a lot of people seem to think you are a blessed of Gaia. I heard everything while I was in the clinic.”

Then Cambyses eyes turned into a crescent, “And I seem to remember asking you about it and you promised me that you will tell me by today. Well now’s as good a time as any.”

She then folded her arms, waiting for Alexander’s response.

This put Alexander in an awkward position.

He had been far too busy to think of a good way to answer the girl and now felt torn between saying the truth or making it a bit malleable.

In the end, considering the future implications, he decided to do the latter, choosing not to outright lie and to cleverly evade.

He knew a simple, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Now is not the time’, will never satisfy the girl.

It might even cause her to lose faith in him permanently.

So he figured he would have to decorate his answer very elaborately.

So elaborately that she does not even detect that he did not answer her question.

So he started, “You are asking me if I am god or mortal, huh? Well, let me tell you a story. It might not make sense at the start, but you will get it once I finish it.”

Taking a deep breath, Alexander then started his recount, “There once was a girl who lived with her mother. The girl was born blind and thus had never seen color.

One night the mother was giving her milk.

But the mother was having a hard time getting her to drink it because the daughter did not like the taste of milk.

So, to coax her, the mother said, “If you drink milk, you can see again, dear.”

This made the girl very excited and so she asked, “Really mother? Then what does milk look like?”

The mother replied, “Milk is white in color.”

The girl being blind had never seen any color.

So she asked confused, “Mother, what does white look like?”

This stumped the mother for a bit but she quickly came up with a witty reply.

“Clouds are white.” She said.

But the girl had never seen clouds.

So she asked, “What is a cloud?”

The mother said, “Clouds float in the sky.” 𝗯𝐞𝐝𝗻𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥.𝐜𝗼𝐦

Then came the predictable question, “What’s a sky?”

The mother still patiently answered, “Skies are where birds fly.”

“What’s a bird?” Chirped the girl.

Seeing that this was going nowhere, the mother began to feel frustrated, thinking her daughter was just trying to stall for time and not drink her milk.

So she cunningly said, “The heron is a bird.”

And when her daughter asked, ‘What’s a heron?’, the mother thinking she had finally won said, “Heron is white in color. And it snatches the eyes of naughty children who don’t drink their milk.”

But hearing this, the daughter started screaming in terror, saying, “Oh my god! The milk is going to snatch my eyes. I’m not drinking any milk.”

“Hahahaha.” As Alexander finished his story, came Cambyses’s pearly laughter as she bent over and clutched her belly.

She laughed for a while and finally after the girl stopped laughing, Alexander asked, “So do you understand the moral of the story?”

“You mean to say I am that blind girl and you are the mother?” Cambyses intelligently got the point.

“Yes,” Alexander nodded. “The mother had the best intentions for her child. But their perspectives were so different that it was very hard for the mother to convey her message in a way her daughter could understand.”

“Herons are white and attack human eyes because to the heron, the cloudy, translucent, moving eyeballs look exactly like a fish swimming underwater. But the daughter equated white to milk and the mother just trying only to scare her as being actually real.”

He then craftily said, “My answer is very much like this example. That’s why I asked for some time so I could think of a way to explain it. But now that I think about it, it’s very hard for me to give you a straight yes or no answer.”

After that he decided to give some sketchy details, “But the best example that I can give you is when I sleep I feel like I am in a hazy dream-like space, where I float and various ‘things’ engraved with strange markings float around me. I don’t know where I am and I certainly can’t talk directly to any god, but I can sometimes, somehow read the engravings on these floaty things. Sometimes they have useful information, like how to make sweet water or cure your constipation. Most times they contain things illegible to me.”

“You did not have to bring up that.” Cambyses blushed at being reminded of her embarrassing history.

What Alexander had described was roughly his memories floating inside his head.

But seeing how Cambyses was blushing and not asking further questions, she seemed to have taken it as some kind of mythical space.

This signified that she had at last bought the story.

Success!

And although Alexander did feel a tad bit sad that he would never be able to share his past experiences with his new love, he had chosen to hide the truth after a bit of deliberation.

Because he was afraid that, she might leak it accidentally.

Even if she said it only at home, the many slaves and servants around may spread it.

Alexander did not want his true origins to be known by anyone.

Also, even if she never told anything to an outsider, she might tell their children and Alexander was afraid that in such a case they might not look up to him, thinking everything he had ever done was because he had the knowledge beforehand.

But in practice, possessing knowledge and knowing how to apply it were two very different things.

There’s a reason why the derogatory saying ‘bookish knowledge’ exists, which has the meaning that just reading a book does not equate to being able to apply it in practice.

Just like the sweet water example, Alexander was surprised to find the juices to have sour and bitter notes, because he didn’t take into consideration proper filtering.

Alexander would himself admit that this consideration was pretty far-fetched and unlikely, but he didn’t see an urgent need for Cambyses to know this and he did not want to take any chances with the future of his successor.

Or at least that’s how he justified his elaborate little white lie.