20
IN THE end we did not start that year for India. In Sogdiana, they sent the King a whole new army to train, from provinces all over Asia. Though they'd been drilled by Macedonian officers, it's one thing to school a colt, another to get him knowing the master's hand.
For me it was strange indeed, to see the very peoples who'd made up Darius' army (often the same men) once more in a great host, but one so changed; no longer a formless mass of peasants with home-forged arms, waiting for chiefs in chariots to call them on, with the whip-men behind to urge them; but phalanxes and squadrons, forming or wheeling at a word.
Alexander inspected them in all his parade armor; he knew they would want to see a king. He flamed in the sun like the image of a god. When he threw them into maneuver, they went at it as if for a prize. There he was on a little hill, with his generals and some Persian officers, directing this vast host from his conquered nations, which had only to charge as one to sweep him from the earth. It could not happen, simply because he knew it could not. He was Alexander.
He returned to the Rock, taking his wife to see her kindred; all very properly done. One could tell they were grieved she was not with child; but he made them princely gifts, treated them courteously, and had taken no other wife. What could they say?
One was enough. He had far too much pride to bring the secrets of the marriage chamber, even to me. He knew that I understood. I have heard it said that some men choose wives in whom they see their mothers. From all I could learn of Queen Olympias, her son was one of them. But that he learned too late.
Of Olympias, I've heard she was fierce and beautiful, and brawled with her lord till the day he died, which it was whispered she'd had a hand in. She ate Alexander up with love, and made sure he and his father were never friends for long. All of us knew she had never learned the conduct of a lady; for her letters followed him all over Asia, intriguing in the affairs of Macedon, and quarreling with Antipatros, his regent there. Alexander had been heard to say, after reading one of them, that she charged high rent for the nine months' lodging she'd given him.
All of which goes to show, to my mind, that we Persians could teach the Greeks how to deal with women.
Maybe we'd taught Alexander. But also, gentle as he was with them, he had somewhere a deep core of iron, forged, I expect, when he freed himself from his mother. He had no brawls with Roxane. He never forgot he was Great King. She had her harem tent and her household; there she could rule. He would visit her now and again; if she was troublesome, he would leave, and be slower to return. I knew, as soon as he came back to me. There were certain signs, of relief from distaste elsewhere. I had been trained to understand such things.
The new squires had come out from Macedon. Even there, they'd learned of the traitors' fate. A scared huddle of boys, afraid to open their mouths, they were brought before the King. He was charming to them, and knew all their names in no time. In relief they fell over each other, trying to please him; spoke to me with respect, and gratefully took advice from me. They seemed very young. Since the last set came, I was four years older.
It was one of them who fetched me to Alexander, in the dark before dawn. He was sitting in his bath-robe on the side of his bed. Down the middle lay Peritas, taking up all the room. He had never been the same since the squires had drugged him.
Alexander said, "He tried to climb up, and I told him to get down. After a while he tried again, and something warned me." "How old was he?"
"Eleven. He should have lived a few years more. He was quiet all yesterday. I had him in Illyria, from King Kotys' huntsman, when I'd fallen out with my father and gone away. He looked like a bear-cub. I had nothing much to do, and he was good company."
"You must have his likeness put on his tomb," I said, "so that he will be remembered by men to come."
"I'll do better for him than that. I'll name my next city after him."
It has a fine site, approved by the soldiers and the merchants, on a good pass to India. The tomb and the statue are by the gate as you go in. The city is called Perita.
When the passes froze, we wintered in eastern Baktria. Though urgent news came through, it was long before we learned how Kallisthenes was beginning already his long revenge, which he has not ceased from yet.
In Athens, the news of his arrest had been like kicking a wasp-nest. More than ten years had passed, since King Philip had beaten them in a battle not of his seeking, which their speechmaker Demosthenes had talked them into, bringing ruin to Thebes as well. (It was Alexander, at eighteen, who first broke their line.) After, Philip had shown Athens a mercy that astonished Greece. In spite of this, or (for who knows man's heart?) because of it, they had loathed him, and were suspect of privity to his murder; they loathed his son, who had never set foot there but once on a peaceful mission. While my lord lived, they kept quiet from fear; after, like jackals when the lion dies, they began to tear him.
It did even the great Aristotle no good, that he'd warned his pupil against Persians; he had to run for his life, as a friend of Macedon, and never dared return. A smaller man took his school; then the philosophers joined the chorus.
So now, for mercy and honor shown to my people, my lord is barbarous; a tyrant, because he punished his would-be murderers, the right of their meanest citizen; a mere vaunting soldier, though wherever he went he brought Greece with him, the Greece he honored, of which these liars are the unworthy heirs.
One good thing's come out of it; it determined King Ptolemy to write down the truth while he still has time. Now, he had rather work on his book than govern Egypt, which he mostly leaves to his son.
"Oh, my dear Bagoas!" my friends here say to me. "A man like you, who reads the best of the Greeks, how can you be content to die without seeing Athens? The voyage is nothing, in the good season. I can recommend you a ship; I will write out all the things you ought to see; I will give you letters to men of learning. What holds you back, when you've traveled so much further? Do go, before age overtakes you and journeys become a burden." So they say. But my lord in his house of gold here, my lord who is younger now than I—he understands why I shall never go to Athens.
Spring broke at last. It was time for India.
All winter the King had been seeing caravan masters, and Greeks from beyond Kaukasos, who had gone trading with the caravans and stayed on. Craving for Greek speech again, or just for gold, they came to tell him about the country beyond the mountains, the Land of Five Rivers.
These rivers flowed down from Kaukasos, the greatest being the Indus which received the rest. The Indians who lived between them were mostly at feud, and would welcome anyone who fought their enemies. Alexander said that it had been the same in Greece, which was how his father had conquered it.
From the man who had journeyed furthest, he learned one day that a half-month's march from the Indus was a river even greater. This stream, the Ganges, flowed not west but east, and ran into the Ocean.
I have seldom seen him so exalted. He was still full of it at bedtime, though he'd been talking of it all day. "The Encircling Ocean! We shall have crossed the world to its furthest end. We can sail north to the Euxine, or round south to Babylon. We shall stand at the end of the world."
"It will be remembered forever," I said, "by men to come."
I had been wearing my coat of the silk from Marakanda, with its flying serpents and flowers. Its blue gleam caught my eye (I had taken it off to bathe him); the buttons were of a pale green stone, heavy and cool to touch, carved with magic signs. According to the merchant, it had all been a year on the road. The liar, I thought; he was just putting up the price.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Alexander smiling. I was ashamed to have been so trivial, and said, "Of the altar you'll build, Al'skander, at the world's end, carved with your name."
"Ride with me tomorrow early. I must give Oxhead a canter, or he'll start grieving. His wind's still good. But I'm sorry he must cross the mountains." He still missed Peritas. Friends had offered him good dogs, but he would not have one. "You know," he said, "Oxhead is rising thirty."
I bent, as I washed him, and kissed his head. I had seen, where the lamplight caught the gold, two threads of grey.
When spring opened the passes, we marked our leaving with a holocaust. The new troops had brought only their own necessaries; but the old army was lumbered up with wagons and wagons of heavy loot—furniture, beds and bedding, hangings, carpets, clothing; meant, I suppose, to be carted back to Macedon. They were no use meantime, unless to sell for a song by men in debt. The generals had whole trains of it. Alexander, though he always kept less than he gave, had some wagons of fine stuffs and carpets. He had everything carted out on a bit of heath, and the draft-beasts led away. Then he went up to his own wagons. A fire had been kindled near, with a pile of torches by it. Into each wagon, he threw a burning torch.
The officers, warned beforehand, followed suit Even the men did not hang back too long. They had shed blood for all these goods, and carried them off in triumph; now they were tired of hauling them along. Besides, a love of fire is born in everyone; even a young child will try to grasp it; which proves that it is divine. As the splendid blaze went up, the men started flinging firebrands, at other men's things at first, then anywhere, laughing and shouting like boys, till the heat drove them back. But I watched the revel, I who had grown old without manhood when I was ten; I remembered the burning rafters of my father's house, and thought of the waste of war.
This time we crossed Parapamisos without much hardship; Alexander had learned from the time before. He stayed awhile in Alexandria, putting it to rights, the governor having proved a fool and rogue; meantime, he sent heralds over to Omphis, the nearest of the Indian kings, asking for his allegiance. His land had been subject to the empire since the first Darius' day.
Omphis came himself; the first Indian, except a few common soldiers, the troops had seen. He came with twenty-five elephants, on the first of which he sat like a glittering image in his painted howdah; a handsome man of good stature, darker than a Mede, but not so dark as an Ethiop. He wore ivory earrings; his mustache and beard were dyed bright green. We Persians like rich colors; the Indians prefer brilliant ones. Besides the gold sequins stitched to his clothing everywhere, he was stuck all over with jewels so huge, I'd not have believed in them, if he had not been a king.
I don't know how much pomp he'd expected of Alexander. I could see him pause a moment, wondering where he was, till he saw the face and knew. He offered willing fealty, in exchange for help against his enemy, a king called Poros. This Alexander promised, if the man did not offer allegiance. He put on a great feast for Omphis, and gave him gold. None is mined in those parts, so the princes greatly prize it. Omphis promised, in return, all twenty-five of his elephants, as soon as he'd got home on them. Alexander in turn was pleased. He never used them for war, thinking them uncertain, as indeed they are; but he valued them for their strength and wisdom. They carried the parts from which he set up his catapults. Once or twice he rode one; but said he liked to feel the beast that bore him, not sit on it in a chair.
Soon he held his war council, to plan the march on India. His sleeping-room at Alexandria was just behind the room of audience, so I heard it all.
Hephaistion got command of his own army. He was to cross Great Kaukasos by the good pass, which Sogdians call Khyber; when he reached the Indus, he was to bridge it for Alexander. Khyber being the easiest way (but for the men who live there) he was to take in his charge the followers and all the women, not leaving out the harem. Alexander, with his own army and the chief of the Companions, would take the hardest task; clearing the mountains which commanded the pass of anyone who threatened it.
As I listened, I thought, This is a crossroads in my life. Now or never.
I can't remember what he came in for after; to get a cloak or some such thing. "Alexander," I said, "I happened to overhear your war council"
"You always do. I only put up with it because you keep your mouth shut. Why tell me now?" He looked stern. He knew well enough what I was after.
"Don't send me with the followers. Take me with you."
"You should have listened better. Mine is a campaign, not a march. It may not be done by winter."
"My lord, I know. It's too long to leave you."
He frowned. He wanted to take me; but he believed in doing without comforts in the field. "You've never been trained to hardship."
"I come from the mountains that bred Kyros. Don't put me to shame."
He stood, still frowning, and looking about for what he'd come in for. I knew what it was without telling, and gave it him with a smile. "That's all very well," he said. "But war is war."
"You take tanners and carpenters and cooks and bakers. You take slaves. Am I worth less?"
"Too much. I wish you knew what you're asking for. And there won't be much time for love."
"For bed? I know. But for love, while I live, I shall always have time enough."
He looked into my eyes, then said, "I meant not to do this." He went to his coffer and took out a fistful of gold. "Get yourself more warm things, you'll need them. Pack away your dress-clothes and your tent-trimmings. Buy sheepskin horse-blankets. You may take one servant and one pack-mule."
In the passes it was already autumn. North of Khyber, the people were hunters and herders, whose second trade was robbery. They were reported fierce; Alexander wanted their submission.
Even up in the Parapamisos, I had not had mountain sickness. We were lower here than there; though Alexander climbed at first by slow stages, to temper our blood for the thin air. My childhood had not yet been lost in me; I went up without distress. Sometimes at evening I would count Alexander's breaths against mine, and they were faster; but he had more work to do. He never owned to fatigue.
