On the other hand, his feet didn’t come close to touching the footstool, dangling risibly in the air instead. Philoxenos, wishing to show initiative, leapt up, snatched a nearby small table, and placed it under Alexandros’s feet. It was the perfect height.
Seeing the table beneath Alexandros’s feet provoked a collective, horrified intake of breath by all the natives present in the room. Several men were a beat too slow in suppressing their looks of consternation. Silent tears rolled down the plump cheeks of one eunuch.
Alexandros rounded on the crowd. “What’s the matter? What’s got into you?”
There was no response, the Persian men in attendance struggling to maintain blank stares. Alexandros looked directly at the weeping eunuch. “You, fat-face, what’s the matter with you?”
The eunuch evidently knew some Greek. In a strangled voice and in broken Greek, he managed to explain that the table currently supporting Alexandros’s feet used to be Dareios’s favorite eating table. To put one’s feet where the emperor’s food used to rest amounted to sacrilege.
It was now Alexandros’s turn to be horrified, all his efforts to ingratiate himself with the local Persians undone in an instant. With a peremptory wave of his hand, he ordered the table removed.
Before Philoxenos could move, however, Fast Philotas leapt up. “Leave it where it is, sire. You couldn’t possibly have given offense either to the gods or to these craven Persians. Having no knowledge that this used to be Dareios’s eating table, your placing your feet on the table is the opposite of sacrilege; it’s a divinely inspired symbol of your supplanting of Dareios.”
Alexandros’s countenance brightened instantly. “You’re right, Philotas!” He stamped his feet on the table. “Take that, Dareios.”
Kleitos, enthusiastically following the lead of his commander-in-chief, stamped on the toes of the nearest Persian, who happened to be Abouletes. “Take that, old man.”
The satrap let out a loud yelp and seemed on the verge of punching Kleitos in the nose.
“Alright, everybody,” Alexandros called out. “That’s the end of the ceremony. Clear the room.”
*******
After everybody but the staff was gone, Alexandros turned to Philoxenos. “Alright, let’s see that Treasury Suite.”
“It’s right next door, sire, but, as I said, it’s pretty bare.”
A quick inspection confirmed Alexandros’s worst fears. A few boxes of silver coins, one large pile of silver bars, two bags of gold darics. Enough to make one man rich; not enough to run the pan-Hellenic army for more than a day.
“There’s got to be more, somewhere. Get Indabibi back here!”
“We haven’t explored the fortress yet, sire.”
Indabibi appeared at the door. “There you are, my good man. Let’s resume the tour. I believe the old fortress is next.”
“There are two ways to get there, your celestial majesty. We can go back to the eastern portal through which we entered, retrieve our horses, take the causeway back down, and then ride around the palace platform to the bottom of fortress hill and clamber up to the fortress. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.
“Or we could walk out the western portal, which is not far from here, walk to the postern gate at the edge of the platform, scramble down as best we can and then climb back up to the fortress. If we were birds, it would be but a short flight. Or, if we were mountain goats, it would be an easy jaunt. For us humans, it’s a short but perilous scramble.”
“Let’s take the western route. We’re all eagles here.” Alexandros laughed. “With the possible exception of you and Abouletes there.”
“We’ll need some picks and shovels, sire,” Philoxenos reminded us.
Although the palace platform and the fortress hill adjoined each other, originally there’d been a steep precipice between them. The sides of the platform had been especially vertiginous. However, over the centuries, people looking for a shortcut managed to fashion some steps down the almost vertical side of the platform and to fill in the bottom of the chasm with dirt and debris. As a result, Alexandros and his coterie of young men reached the foot of the fortress wall in minutes, without even getting winded. It was another story for the two old Persian gentlemen, who struggled long and hard to catch up.
“So, where is the entrance?” Alexandros asked the sentries that had been posted by Philoxenos.
“There’s no entrance, sire. It’s been walled up.”
Alexandros grabbed a pick and started to pound away at the temporary seal. The rest of us joined in with whatever implements we could grab. It took less than an hour to break through.
We found a courtyard on the far side of the entrance, from which a single doorway led into a tall stone tower. That entrance had been sealed as well but our men made quick work of the flimsy wall. After two or three steps into the bottom room of the tower, we froze in our tracks. Among other things, it was hard to find a path to get through. Everywhere, there were glittering piles of gold and silver ingots, ceramic and wooden containers overflowing with coins, shimmering fabrics and random heaps of assorted articles fashioned from rare woods, ivory, and gold.
“Alright, there’s no room in here. Everybody, get out! Hephaistion, you stay here with me. And Ptolemaios, you make sure nobody enters.”
Hephaistion was put in charge of sorting and counting the loot. Eventually, he had scores of soldiers working in the tower and an additional crew deployed outside to make sure none of the treasure left the premises.
It took eleven days to finish the job. After a while, we started to discern the true character of this hoard. It became clear that, since the founding of the Persian Empire, more than enough revenue had flowed into the imperial treasuries from the tribute-paying subject nations to cover the current funding requirements of the empire. Therefore, there was no need for all the booty seized by the successive emperors in their never-ending round of conquests. For almost three hundred years, all the spoils of war from the farthest edges of the empire were simply bundled up and sent off to the Sousa fortress, where they were stored and forgotten.
After eleven days, Hephaistion handed Alexandros a partial list: 45,000 talents of gold and silver ingots; 9,000 talents of gold darics; 3,500 talents of purple-dyed cloth, still bright as new after two hundred years; and all the loot sent back by Xerxes from Greece. The list went on and on.
The amount of gold and silver beggared the imagination, far exceeding all the gold and silver possessed by all the Greek-speaking cities of the world combined. The one find that pleased Alexandros more than any other was the double statue of the tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, which had been carted off by Xerxes during his sack of Athens. Once upon a time, as a visiting teenager to the violet-wreathed city, Alexandros promised to find the beloved sculpture and return it to Athens. The leading citizens of Athens, who heard the pledge, laughed at him. Now, he had the larger-than-life bronze tableau carefully packed, crated, and shipped back to Athens.
The one item that didn’t turn up was the missing imperial tiara.
*******
Alexandros was understandably ebullient. He called in his new best friend Indabibi and handed him ten shiny new gold darics. “Now you’re a rich man, Indabibi.”
“Yes, I am, your bountiful highness. Thank you.”
“I need your help with one more matter.”
“Anything you wish, your magnanimous majesty.”
“I need you to organize a splendid banquet in the palace. I want to do it in the Persian manner and I want it to outshine anything Dareios might have done here in the past.”
“Your heavenly brilliance, I have no expertise in such matters.”
“Yes, but you do speak Persian and you strike me as a sensible and honest man. And from now on, you carry the authority of my command. Assemble all the experts and helpers you need and agree to pay whatever is required. I’ll make sure all debts you incur are paid in full.”
“When would you like to have this banquet?
”
“As soon as possible. How about tomorrow night?”
“That will be difficult but I’ll do my best. How many nights do you wish the banquet to last?”
“What? What are you talking about? It can go on until the last man has passed out. If we serve good, lightly-diluted wine, that should happen well before dawn.”
“Yes, yes. But after they wake up, they’ll expect the wine to start flowing all over again.”
“Is that how it’s done in Persia?”
“I’ve never been to a royal banquet, your majesty, but that’s what I understand. The noble guests keep drinking, passing out, waking up, retching and pissing, and then drinking again, for days on end.”
“But that’s disgusting.”
“It’s the Persian way, your majesty.”
“Well, alright. Let’s go for three nights. That should be enough for anybody. I’ll decide whom to invite but assume a couple of hundred guests. We’ll need plenty of food and wine for all three nights. And lots of entertainment, both girls and boys. Mostly girls for my men but I don’t know about your Persian nobles. And I’ll need three spectacular Persian outfits to wear. Find Dareios’s three best ensembles and get them altered to fit me.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
“And one more thing. I want everybody in attendance to address me as Emperor Alexandros, king of kings, lord of many, Ahura Mazda’s representative on Earth, and keeper of his flame.”
“That may be a bit too long to spit out, Emperor Alexandros, king of kings, lord of many, Ahura Mazda’s representative on Earth, and keeper of his flame – especially for a bunch of inebriates.”
“Well, they can shorten it, if they have to. Now, off you go. There’s much to do and little time.”
The festivities proceeded pretty much as badly as one could have expected. The decorations in the king’s hall were adequate but not spectacular. There were hangings of white cotton and blue wool, caught up to silver rods and alabaster columns by cords of fine linen and purple wool; and there were couches of gold and silver on a pavement of marble, alabaster, mother-of-pearl, and mosaics. The food was served on silver plates but was generally cold by the time it arrived. The wine was served in golden chalices but was sour and overly diluted. The Macedonian officers in attendance refused to kowtow. Alexandros looked like a little boy playing dress-up in Dareios’s outfits. The Persian officers and noblemen found it hard to hide their derision, especially after getting drunk out of their minds. The two groups of guests, forced to mingle with each other, made up for their inability to communicate by conveying their mutual contempt with their fists. Worst of all, the magoi in attendance refused to recognize Alexandros’s authority either as emperor or representative of Ahura Mazda, even when threatened with instant extinction. By the end of the third night, the King’s Hall looked more like a morgue than a banquet room.
“Well, that went well,” Hephaistion observed as he carted Alexandros off to bed after the third night.
*******
Bleary-eyed and headachy, Alexandros rose, in both senses of the word, the following dawn. Dispensing with any breakfast or morning ablutions, he decided the time had come to pay a visit on Barsine. Marching out of his tent, he woke me with a peremptory shout. “Ptolemaios, are you still asleep? Daylight’s here and we’ve got things to do.”
I struggled to my feet. “What’s up, sire?”
“We’re going back to the palace. Specifically, to the harem portion thereof.” He was already moving, practically skipping down the muddy path leading to the one gate in the palisade. “I’ve been neglecting Barsine for way too long.”
“I can see that.”
“Now, let’s not get obscene. You know that mostly I want to see my son. But if Barsine were to prove as insistent as usual, I might be unable to resist her.”
“I understand, sire.”
“And by the way, in case you’re getting your – ahem – hopes up, I made sure Artakama is not housed in the harem. So, you have no excuse to desert your station this time. You’re the only bodyguard I’m taking; I need you to stay on post. And I don’t mean that other post.”
“I’ll do my best, sire. It’s hard with all the racket you two make.”
He laughed. “Well, if it gets too hard, we’ll see whether we can find a suitable concubine for you later on.”
“Thank you, sire, but that won’t be necessary. If you wanted to help me out, you could find out where Artakama is housed. And don’t worry, I’ll stay at my post no matter what.”
“I know exactly where she is. But if you keep working at your post, you won’t be much use to her when you see her.”
By the time we reached the harem, I’d managed to inveigle Artakama’s whereabouts out of Alexandros and he’d managed to work himself up to the bursting point. We sprinted down the soft, meandering paths of the paradeisos. In his headlong rush, Alexandros ignored the exotic trees, ornamental shrubs, and aromatic plants meant to induce passersby to slow down and indulge their senses.
A beaming Barsine greeted us at the front portal of the largest of the dwellings scattered amidst the gardens. This was really a small, tile-clad, gleaming palace, which normally housed the emperor’s favorite wives. Now, most of the sumptuous suites stood empty, except for rooms occupied by Dareios’s mother, Sisygambis, and her grandchildren, Stateira, Drypetis, and Ochos, and the lesser but still opulent rooms assigned to Barsine and her son, Herakles.
Someone must have tipped Barsine off to our arrival. She couldn’t have had more than a few seconds to prepare, yet she looked ravishing. At age twenty-four, and after five children, her figure retained the sleek, sinuous, seductive allure – and coiled menace – of a prowling puma. And her sparkling white chiton was just dense enough to conceal the olive-tinged flesh underneath yet sheer enough to make it abundantly clear she was as glad to see Alexandros as he was to see her.
“My liege, what a wonderful surprise. Your son is asleep just now but we can certainly wake him, so he can bask in your presence.”
“Nah, let him sleep. We can look in on him later.” He swept her up in his arms. “Which way to your bedchamber?”
I stood in the doorway, uncertain whether I was supposed to follow. Alexandros nodded in the direction of a small cubicle near the entrance. I got the message and took up my post.
Barsine’s room couldn’t have been too far off because I could hear every word between them. However, words were few and far between. Instead, the other inmates of the harem and I were treated mostly to outcries of carnal lust, followed by brief intervals of groans and giggles. Trying hard to keep my mind on other things, I lost count of the number of cycles they went through before they subsided into soft, amorous snoring.
Barsine awoke first and started moving around her chambers. I surmised she was primping once again. After a long pause, she spoke. “Ah, my liege, you’re awake. Would you like some wine or perhaps something to eat?”
Alexandros, his voice still groggy with sleep, declined. “I just want to eat you, my love.”
“Let’s save something for your next visit, big boy. Right now, your eyes are bigger than your sword. You get it nicely polished up so you’re ready for me next time.”
Alexandros laughed. “I’m always ready for you, sweetheart.”
“That’s what I’m afraid off. Why don’t you get dressed and we can go over and check on Herakles. He’s probably anxious for his next feeding.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and get him. I’ll wait for you here.”
The baby started to cry as soon as Barsine brought him in. “He’s hungry,” she explained.
“You can go ahead and nurse him. I don’t mind.”
“Are you planning to watch?”
“Of course. That’s the best part.”
Alexandros interrupted the ensuing silence after a moment. “There’s nothing as tender as a nursing mother and child. I’ll treasure this picture as long as I live.”
“You could see thi
s picture every day, my liege. Free us from this enameled prison and take us along wherever you go. I’d much rather live in a tent as your wife than in the most luxurious palace as your occasional paramour.”
Alexandros leapt to his feet. “That will never happen!” He stormed out of Barsine’s suite, almost knocking into me as I stepped out to meet him. “Let’s get out of here.”
Although none of us knew then, it would be a long time before Alexandros saw Barsine and Herakles again.
*******
More repelled than inspired by Alexandros’s example, I decided, after much deliberation, to pay my respects to Artakama once again. We hadn’t seen each other since our abortive, exceedingly frustrating stroll through the gardens of the Babylonian harem. I managed to persuade myself that a visit would be nothing more than an act of disinterested, platonic charity. Plus, I’d promised Barsine that I’d look after her sister and her four older children, whom she was unable to see herself. Absolutely nothing romantic will happen, I told myself. If I have so much as a prurient thought, I’ll cut my balls off.
I gathered up a few gifts for all involved and was about to leave my barracks when a messenger intercepted me in the doorway. “A note, sir.” He gave no indication of urgency or gravity and I had other things on my mind. Without looking at the missive, I nodded, gave him a coin, and rolled up the small leather tube in my sleeve.
After a few wrong turns and a meandering conversation with a pair of loitering soldiers, I finally found the former government building on the south side of the Sousa market square that now housed many of our female camp followers. Some of these ladies of easy virtue had been with us since our march out of Egypt but their ranks seemed to swell with each stop. After Babylon, there were enough of them to form at least two battalions of fighting Amazons. They’d certainly be fierce enough, I thought.
Behind the government building huddled the servants’ huts, now repurposed as temporary housing for our lower-ranking Persian hostages. Here, in a small, dingy room, I found Artakama, trying to cope with her sister’s four elder children, now ranging in age from just under four to almost ten.
Conquest of Persia Page 27