He stood up and went over to the map which he had had set up on an easel. ‘Our rendezvous is here. At Gordium.’
‘Gordium? Do you know what Gordium is famous for?’ asked Ptolemy.
‘He knows, he knows,’ said Eumenes. ‘King Midas’s chariot, tied to its yoke by means of an inextricable knot. An ancient oracle of the Great Mother of the gods says that whoever undoes that knot will be lord of all Asia.’
‘And is this why we are going to Gordium?’ asked Seleucus suspiciously.
‘We digress,’ said Alexander, cutting him short. ‘We are not here to speak of oracles, but to establish a plan of action for the coming months. I am glad you all agree on the fact that we must push forwards. Indeed, we will not stop during the autumn, nor during the winter. Our men are used to the cold – they are men of the mountains, the Thracian and Agrianian auxiliaries even more so, and Parmenion knows that he must not stop until he reaches his destination.’
‘And Memnon?’ asked Eumenes, bringing the most burning question back on to the table.
‘No one will ever lead me to kill him in an act of treachery,’ replied the King, hard-faced. ‘He is a valiant man and he deserves to die with his sword in his hand, not poisoned in his bed or stabbed in the back as he crosses through the shadows.’
‘Alexander, listen,’ said Ptolemy, trying to have him see reason. ‘These are no longer the days of Homer, the armour you keep near your bed never really did belong to Achilles – at the most it’s two or three hundred years old – and the truth is that you yourself are aware of these facts. Think of your soldiers – Memnon is still capable of causing the deaths of thousands of them. Is this what you want, just to keep faith with your ideals of heroism?’
The King shook his head.
‘All this without considering,’ said Eumenes, ‘that Memnon might easily plan the same fate for you – pay an assassin to kill you, corrupt your physician and give him instructions to poison you . . . have you ever considered that? Memnon has access to enormous sums of money.’
‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ continued Seleucus, ‘that he might lend support to your cousin Amyntas, to whom you have given control of the Thessalian cavalry?’
The King shook his head. ‘Amyntas is a good man and he has always displayed loyalty. I have no reason to doubt him.’
‘I am still convinced that the risks are too great,’ repeated Seleucus.
‘Me too,’ agreed Eumenes.
Alexander hesitated for a moment – he had a vision of his adversary there before him under the walls of Halicarnassus, his face hidden by the burnished helmet on which the silver rose of Rhodes stood out, and he heard his voice once again: ‘I am Commander Memnon.’
He shook his head a third time, yet more decided now, ‘No, I will never give orders for such a thing. Even in war a man remains a man and my father used to tell me that the son of a lion is a lion . . .’ and then he paused before adding, ‘. . . and not a poisonous snake.’
‘There is no point in insisting,’ Seleucus surrendered. ‘If the King has made his mind up, then that’s the way it must be.’
Ptolemy and Eumenes nodded, but without too much conviction.
‘I am glad you all agree,’ said Alexander. ‘Now then, let’s take a look at this map and try to organize our march along the coast.’
The meeting continued until they were too tired to go on. Eumenes retired first, followed shortly by Ptolemy and Seleucus. But as soon as they were all outside the secretary signalled and asked them to come to his tent. He had them sit down and sent an orderly to call Callisthenes, who by that time was certainly fast asleep on the other side of the camp.
‘What do you think?’ began Eumenes.
‘About what?’ asked Ptolemy.
‘But it’s obvious, isn’t it? About the King’s refusal to have Memnon eliminated,’ replied Seleucus.
‘I understand Alexander,’ Eumenes said, ‘and you must understand him as well. Indeed, our enemy inspires nothing but admiration – he is an exceptional man, able in mind and with his sword, but it is precisely for this reason that he represents a mortal danger. Imagine he succeeds in causing an uprising among the Greeks, imagine that Athens, Sparta and Corinth join him. The allied armies would march northwards to invade Macedonia, the Persian fleet would effect a pincer move from the sea . . . are we really so sure that Antipater would manage to fend them off ? And if Antipater should fail? And if Memnon should reawaken the ambitions of some survivor of the Lyncestian dynastic branch, for example the commander of our Thessalian cavalry, thus unleashing a civil war or bringing about military rule? If Memnon were to win, he could block the Straits and prevent our return, for ever. Is that a risk we wish to take?’
‘But neither can we go against Alexander’s wishes,’ said Seleucus.
‘I say that we can, as long as he knows nothing of it. I will not take the responsibility alone, however. If we all agree then we proceed, otherwise we let things be as they are and face the risks as they come.’
‘Let’s say we are all in agreement,’ replied Ptolemy, ‘what exactly would your plan be?’
‘And why have you sent for Callisthenes?’ asked Seleucus.
Eumenes took a look outside the tent to see if the historian was on his way, but there was no sign of him.
‘Listen: as far as we know, Memnon is now on Chios, ready to sail northwards, presumably to Lesbos. There he will wait for a favourable wind to cross the sea to Greece. He will have to wait some time, however, because he has to gather and load all the necessary supplies for the expedition. This is the moment to act and eliminate him once and for all.’
‘And how?’ asked Ptolemy. ‘An assassin, or poison?’
‘Neither one, nor the other. An assassin would never get close enough to him – he is always surrounded by four men who are blindly loyal and who would automatically kill anyone who approached closer than the authorized distance. As for poison, I imagine that he has his food and drink tasted, he has been in contact with the Persian world for many years and he will certainly have learned these things.’
‘There are poisons which have a delayed effect,’ Ptolemy offered.
‘That is true, but they are still poisons. The effects and the symptoms are well known. If in the end it comes to be known that Memnon was poisoned then suspicion would immediately fall on Alexander and we cannot allow that to happen.’
‘And so?’ asked Seleucus.
‘There is a third possibility.’ As he spoke, the secretary lowered his eyes as though almost ashamed of what was going through his mind.
‘What would that be?’
‘An illness, an incurable illness.’
‘But that’s impossible!’ exclaimed Seleucus. ‘Illnesses come when they come and go when they go.’
‘Apparently things are not that simple,’ said Eumenes. ‘It seems that some illnesses are caused by very small creatures, invisible to the human eye, which pass from one body to another. I know that Aristotle carried out secret experiments before he went to Athens, based on his inquiries into spontaneous generation.’
‘In other words?’
‘In other words it seems that in certain situations these creatures are not spontaneously generated at all – but rather they spread. And anyway Callisthenes knows about this. He knows about the experiments and could write to his uncle. At the beginning nothing would happen – that way no one would suspect his cook or his doctor. Memnon would act and move normally. It would be days before any effects were visible.’
They all looked at one another – amazed and at the same time troubled by the plan and this new knowledge.
‘It seems to me it will be an extremely difficult plan to put into action, it calls for a series of complex circumstances to be engineered,’ said Ptolemy.
‘That is true, but it is also the only possible approach, in my view. There is one fact which is in our favour, however, and that is that Memnon’s physician comes from the school of Theophrastus and . .
.’
Seleucus looked at Eumenes in surprise, ‘I had no idea your duties involved spying.’
‘Obviously I have been doing a good job, since this very fact itself is secret information. Anyway, King Philip in his day had already put me in touch with all his Greek and barbarian informers.’
At that moment Callisthenes appeared in the tent, ‘What do you want of me at this hour?’ he asked, his voice still full of sleep.
*
Alexander was having difficulty sleeping as well. The idea that Memnon was planning an attack on Greece, or on Macedonia even, worried him greatly. Would old Antipater be up to the job? Wouldn’t it be better to send Parmenion back home?
While Leptine busied herself with her work, he left the tent and walked along the seashore.
It was a warm, peaceful night and his pace assumed the rhythm of the noise of the waves on the pebbles. An almost full moon spread a diaphanous clarity over the many islands which dotted the surface of the water, and it illuminated the white houses dotting the hillsides, down to the bays and the small harbours.
The beach was suddenly interrupted by a rocky promontory, but instead of turning back, Alexander climbed up to the summit, from where the view was even more beautiful.
As he was climbing, the addition of the physical effort to the great mental fatigue which had been weighing for some time on his soul suddenly made him feel mortally tired and in need of help. Without any apparent reason his father came to mind. Indeed, he almost seemed to see him, standing there erect on the headland. He wished it were true, he wished he could run towards him just as he used to do at Mieza and shout out, ‘Father!’ And he would have liked to sit down beside him and ask his advice.
He was lost in these thoughts as he approached the summit and the view of the next section of the coastline opened up before him. What he saw there amazed him. On the other side of the promontory there was a sort of necropolis – many monumental tombs dug into the rock and others standing solitary and proud on the shore, spectral in the whiteness diffused by the moonlight, some of them partially submerged by the waves of the sea.
And there was a man standing there, in silence, with a lantern hanging from a stick he had placed in the sand. His back was turned to him.
He was of the same build as his father and was wrapped in a white cloak fringed with a golden frieze, like the one Philip had been wearing on the day he was assassinated. Alexander stopped and stood there speechless, almost unable to believe his eyes, almost expecting the man to turn and speak to him with Philip’s voice and with Philip’s gaze. But the man stood there motionless – only the white cloak moved, fluttering in the wind with a slight rustling, like the wings of a bird.
The King approached, stepping lightly, and saw that there was a spring gurgling from a rock, a crystalline flow which reflected the light from the man’s lantern. A small stream, the overflow, ran from the spring across the sand of the beach to the salty waves of the sea. The man, who must have heard him, did not turn – he seemed to be looking at something within the spring. Alexander approached even closer, but in the darkness his scabbard struck against a rock. The man turned suddenly in the darkness and his eyes shone strong in the light of the lantern – Philip’s eyes!
Alexander jumped, a shiver ran over him and he was about to cry out, ‘Father!’
But in just an instant he recognized the differences in the man’s features and the darker colour of his beard. A stranger he had never seen before until this moment.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’
The man stared at him with a strange expression and again Alexander perceived something familiar – he somehow felt his father’s gaze in those burning eyes.
‘I am observing this fount,’ replied the man.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am a seer.’
‘And what do you see there? It is dark, and the light of your lantern is feeble.’
‘For the first time in living memory, the surface of the water has fallen by almost one cubit and has revealed a message.’
‘Of what do you speak?’
The man lifted up the lantern and held it close to the rock from which the spring gurgled. The glow of the light illuminated an inscription in some unknown alphabet.
‘I speak of this,’ he explained, pointing to the inscription.
‘And can you read it?’
The seer’s voice became strange, as if someone else was speaking with his larynx:
‘The Lord of Asia approaches, he who in his eyes has both the day and the night.’
Then he lifted the lantern and held it near Alexander’s face: ‘Your right eye is as blue as a clear sky and the left one is as dark as the night. For how long had you been watching me?’
‘Not for long. But you have not answered my question: who are you?’
‘My name is Aristander. And who are you, with your eyes of light and of darkness?’
‘Do you not know me?’
‘Not sufficiently.’
‘I am the King of Macedon.’
The man studied him again, intensely, the lantern still held near his face: ‘You will reign over Asia.’
‘And you will follow me, if you are not afraid of the unknown.’
The man lowered his head, ‘I am afraid of just one thing, a vision which has haunted me for ages without my being able to understand its meaning – a naked man being burned alive on his funeral pyre.’
Alexander said nothing, he seemed to be listening to the constant, rhythmic breaking of the waves. When he turned towards the summit of the headland he saw his guards up there, watching over this impromptu meeting. He took his leave. ‘I have a very difficult day ahead of me, I must go back. I hope to see you in the camp tomorrow.’
‘I hope so too,’ replied the man. And he set off in the opposite direction.
33
THE FLAGSHIP ROCKED GENTLY at anchor in the harbour at Chios and a launch approached slowly. The royal standard, bearing an image of Ahura Mazda, flapped slightly with each gust of the night breeze and from the stern deck came the faint glow of a lantern.
All around was the Great King’s war fleet – more than three hundred vessels equipped with rostrums, battle triremes and quinqueremes, all lined up along the docks, held fast by large mooring ropes.
The launch drew up alongside and a sailor beat on the hull with his oar: ‘Message for Commander Memnon.’
‘Wait,’ replied the watch officer, ‘I’ll have a ladder lowered down to you.’
Shortly afterwards the sailor climbed up the rope ladder which had been lowered from the bulwark and asked to see the supreme commander.
The watch officer searched him and then led him aft, where Memnon was still awake, writing letters and reading the reports sent to him by the governors and commanders of the Persian garrisons still loyal to the Great King, and by the informers he had throughout Greece.
A message for you, Commander,’ announced the sailor as he handed over a roll of papyrus.
Memnon took it and saw immediately that the seal was his wife’s – the first letter he had received from her since their parting.
‘Is there anything else?’ he asked.
‘No, Commander. But if there is a reply, I will wait.’
‘Good. Go to the galley and have them give you something to drink and eat if you are hungry. I will call for you as soon as I have finished.’ Once alone, Memnon’s hands shook as he unrolled the missive.
Barsine to Memnon, her beloved husband, Hail!
My love, after a long journey we reached Susa safe and sound and King Darius has welcomed both myself and your sons, paying us great honour. We have been assigned a wing of the palace with servants and handmaids and a wonderfully beautiful garden, a pairidaeza with flowers of every imaginable colour, fragrant roses and cyclamens, ponds and fountains with coloured fish, and birds from every part of the world, peacocks and pheasants from India and the Caucasus, and tamed leopards from fa
r off Ethiopia.
Our situation would be enviable were it not for the fact that you are so far away. My bedchamber is desolate, too big and too cold without you.
A few nights ago I picked up the edition of Euripi-des’s tragedies which you gave me as a present and I read Alcestis, with tears in my eyes. I cried, my dear husband, thinking of that heroic love so intensely described by the poet, and I was particularly struck by the passage in which the woman goes to her death and her husband promises that no other woman will ever take her place. He says that he will have a great sculptor create an image of her and will have it placed in his bed, to lie beside him.
Oh, if only I could do the same! If only I had called some great artist, one of the great yauna masters, Lysippus or Apelles, and had had him sculpt your image, or had your portrait painted to adorn my rooms, to embellish the most intimate sanctums of my bedchamber.
Only now, my beloved husband, only now that you are far away do I understand the meaning of your people’s art, the stirring power with which you yauna represent the nudity of the gods and the heroes.
I would like to be able to look upon your naked body, even if only a statue or a painting, and then I would close my eyes and imagine that by divine will your image might acquire life and come out of the painting or down from its pedestal, and come to me like that night before our parting when we made such love, and you would caress me with your hands, kiss me with your lips.
But war keeps you far from me, war which brings only mourning and grief and destruction. Come back to me, Memnon; let someone else lead Darius’s army. You have already done more than enough, no one can find fault with you and everyone tells of your valiant feats in defending Halicarnassus. Come back to me, my dear husband, my shining hero. Return to me because all the riches in Susa, all the riches in the world are nothing compared to an instant spent in your arms.
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