The Eternal Banquet

by Jennifer Macaire

  I shivered at the mention of that city. The name would always prickle the hair on the back of my neck. ‘I was in Babylon, yes, and the Hanging Gardens were incredible.’ She took my arm and led me to the garden. We strolled through the shade of the yew trees while I told her about the gardens and the great palace. Then I described Athens as best I could. I had been there once, but three thousand years in the future, and the buildings I’d seen had been in ruins, so I had to embroider. I told her the nicest city I’d seen so far had been Alexandria, but that Rome was a lovely place also. Iberia was quite savage, I assured her, with hardly any proper cities. Parisii was an interesting town, and if she wanted, she should go to Glanum or Massalia to buy wonderful soap and perfumes.

  Elaina listened avidly. As I’ve already said, people loved to get news and hear descriptions of far-off places. They were thirsty for stories, songs and news. Travellers were welcome in private homes – they were expected to entertain with gossip. I tried to be as interesting as possible, knowing that Elaina would appreciate my stories as much as if I’d given her a new book to read or a picture. I finished describing the jewellery and clothes I’d seen in the North. Then I tried to remember a recipe for octopus stew I’d eaten in Iberia.

  When the sun grew hot, I begged her leave and went to pack our belongings. Alexander was sleeping when I went into the room. Plexis was off somewhere with Augustus, and Axiom was with Paul. Silently, I put my toilet articles in my small, sandalwood chest. Alexander had given the chest to me in Arbeles, ten years ago. The wood was polished smooth, and the brass clasp was shiny with use. I closed it slowly, then sank down on my bed and held my face in my hand. A great lassitude came over me. I sat there until a small flutter in my stomach startled me. The baby was starting to kick. He was growing. I smiled and put my hand over my belly. The bump was getting bigger; I looked like I had a melon under my robe. Tears suddenly rolled down my cheeks. The stress and anguish of yesterday were catching up on me. I sat on my bed and shook. My teeth chattered. I tried to stop them but couldn’t. Alexander rolled over and opened his eyes. They were sunken with pain, shadowed with fatigue, but still magnificent. He raised himself up on his elbow and motioned to me.

  ‘Come here,’ he ordered.

  I obeyed. My legs trembled when I walked, but I made it to his bed. He reached up and pulled me to him. We lay on the bed and he undressed me, his hands urgent. His mouth was urgent as well, seeking my lips, my breasts, my throat. He rolled over and pinned me beneath him. There were no words between us. None were needed. There was just the harsh sound of his breathing, my low moans, and the steady creak, creak, of the bed beneath us.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was glad to leave Rome. All its rules and regulations were just a thin veneer of civilization hiding the most ruthless, bloodthirsty people I’d met so far. The Romans would have been horrified to hear of themselves described in those terms. They considered their city the most civilized place on earth, and their rules and regulations were proof of their superiority. I thought that the Game of Phersu was proof enough of their barbarism. But when the boat left the harbour and we sailed down river, I couldn’t help looking back at the city with something like a pang of homesickness. It was odd, but only Rome had resembled the cities I’d known in the future: the dilapidated apartment buildings hung with laundry, the traffic jams, the bossy police, the tourists gawking, and even the stadium.

  Paul was glum; he hated leaving his new friends. Hirkan had insisted on staying with Scipio in Rome. Scipio had sworn undying friendship to Paul, promising letters every week, and to come to visit whenever he could. He gave Paul an amulet made of glass. It was a round pendant in the form of a bearded man’s face. His eyes were round and staring, his beard was made of tiny, black glass beads. It was comical looking, but Scipio told Paul it was to protect him from evil. Evil covered quite a few things, from poison to lightning bolts, and Paul wore the pendant on a silken cord.

  Augustus was anxious to visit us in Alexandria. With his Roman pragmatism, he’d already planned a trading voyage in the winter with produce from his farm in Gaul. Elaina had given me a farewell present. It was a Roman cookbook, handwritten on precious vellum. I was stunned. As we sailed away, I surprised myself by hoping I’d see her again soon. I would reciprocate with a gift of my own. Chirpa could help me compile a book of Greek, Persian, and Egyptian recipes. I looked at the first page of Elaina’s cookbook – roasted wild boar chops with honey and thyme. It sounded delicious.

  We left Rome in the morning and reached Pompeii, just down the coast, early the following afternoon. We didn’t want to stay long, just enough time to pick up the money Ptolemy had we hoped – sent to the city. We were broke. The money Alexander had won in the Game of Phersu was gone. In a typical Alexander gesture, he’d given most of it to Hirkan to ensure that the boy would never become a slave or a gladiator. The rest he gave to Phaleria as payment for our voyage.

  So now we had to go to a place called the ‘Villa of the Faun’ and pick up some gold.

  We stayed there for three days. To Alexander’s delight, there was a whole sack of mail. To my delight, the house was luxurious, with a shallow pool in the centre of the atrium. In the middle of the basin was a beautiful statue of a faun that gave the house its name. The house also boasted the famous mosaic, ‘The Battle of Issus’, in which Alexander had fought against Darius.

  ‘That’s an excellent likeness of Bucephalus’, said Alexander as he leaned closer to examine the huge mosaic.

  ‘It looks a great deal like Darius too,’ said Axiom, standing back and squinting. His eyes had been bothering him for a while now, and I was afraid he had cataracts.

  ‘But why did they make my nose so big?’ asked Alexander, shaking his head.

  ‘Your nose was broken then, don’t you remember?’ Axiom grinned. ‘Look at that, your spear went right through the body of Darius’s son-in-law. Poor fellow.’

  ‘That must have hurt,’ said Paul, whistling.

  I was shocked. The mosaic was incredible; the fear in the dying man’s face – he was little more than a chubby teenager – and the despair as Darius reached his hand out to save him was almost palpable. Around them, the fighting was intense. Alexander’s face is stern and his eyes have an almost crazed look to them. I knew that look, having seen it several times before. The Phersu had taken a step backwards when he’d seen it. And I imagine that Darius knew the battle was lost as soon as he’d caught sight of those immense, parti-coloured eyes. He’d fled, leaving everything behind him, including his tent with his family huddled inside. His wives and children, and his mother, Sisygambis, became Alexander’s prisoners.

  Knowing the Persian protocol for their women, Alexander had made sure that no one entered the tent. He’d sent the family, under royal guard, back to their palace in Ecbatana, and never once did he try to catch a glimpse of Darius’s bride, the woman described as ‘the most beautiful woman on earth’. I’d seen her, and it was true, she had been a bewitching beauty.

  All those thoughts tumbled through my mind as I stared at the mosaic. Alexander was uncommonly silent as well. The dead tree in the picture, a real landmark in the actual battle, stretched bare branches to the lowering sky. There is no blue in this picture, only violent reds, oranges, browns, and the pitch-black of Darius’s horse. There are splashes of white, Darius’s robe and Alexander’s spear glitter white. But the sky, Alexander’s armour, and the tree are dark grey. The clouds are roiling, the winds of change are blowing, and two cultures have come in violent conflict.

  ‘I won,’ said Alexander, suddenly fierce.

  We turned and stared at him. He was standing with his fists clenched and the skin around his nose and mouth had gone white.

  ‘I won, and no one can take that away from me.’ Then he left the room. In the three days that remained, I didn’t see him there again. Although once, during the night, I woke up and he had gone. I didn’t know where he went, but Axiom told me he’d seen a glow in that room, as if s
omeone held a lamp.

  We left Pompeii for another reason. The second day we were there, as we walked through the city, we turned a corner and came face-to-face with the insufferable Onesicrite.

  I have no idea why he was there. He had been in Babylon when Alexander had died, and I thought I’d heard he’d gone back to Greece. But he hadn’t. There he was, strolling down the street, looking into a bakery. When we saw him it was too late, he lifted his eyes, saw us, and turned purple.

  He opened his mouth, like a fish, and started to gasp. He turned purple, then blue, and I remembered belatedly that the people of that time often carried their money around in their mouths. The silly goose was choking to death on an obol.

  Well, it served him right. Demos, always glad for a new patient, leapt forward, grabbed Onesicrite and turned him upside down, while Axiom banged on his back. There was a hacking cough, a piece of silver shot out of his mouth, and Onesicrite sat down on the pavement and gaped at us.

  ‘The Goddess!’ he shrieked in a whisper. ‘The Great and Mighty Iskander! You’ve come back from Hades’ realm! Eeep! Eeep! It’s the King of Heaven and Earth!’

  Alexander winced; he’d always hated it when Onesicrite called him that.

  For a minute, the only thing he could do was squeak, eeep, eeep, eeep, like a hysterical mouse, then Plexis strolled around the corner. ‘Hephaestion! You died in Ecbatana!’ Onesicrite’s eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out, keeling over in the street.

  ‘We can’t leave him there,’ said Axiom reasonably, as he dragged him out of the way of a chariot.

  ‘Let’s leave him over there in the shade,’ I said nervously. ‘Then we can get out of here.’

  ‘What will happen when he wakes up and starts screaming?’ asked Plexis, in an interested tone of voice.

  ‘No one will believe him. If he said, “I saw the Great and Mighty Iskander”, maybe some would believe. But he’s going to be ranting about the goddess Persephone, Iskander, Hephaestion, and no one will take him seriously ever again.’ Axiom was grinning.

  I stared at the Greek journalist, lying in a heap. A giggle, albeit a nervous one, escaped me. I had always despised the fellow. He’d written the most biased accounts back to Greece, causing friction and discontent within the kingdom. After Alexander’s death, the journalist had gone with Roxanne to Macedonia, but Cassander had thrown him out. That much we’d heard from a traveller in Rome. Now here he was, at my feet. My mouth curled in a grin. ‘Well, it’s about time no one took him seriously,’ I said.

  That was the last we saw of him, the last we ever heard about Onesicrite, Alexander’s ‘sex and scandal’ journalist from Athens.

  We finished our walk through the main part of town. We ended up at a racecourse where Alexander lost a great deal of money – most of it to a pickpocket and the rest betting on losing horses – and where Plexis won a great deal of money; he knew horses.

  There were horse races and chariot races, and, as I said, thieves. They were everywhere, which was why people put their money in their mouths. The thieving guild was a very powerful one. It was perhaps the first organized labour union. The members paid dues, and there was a very strict hierarchy within the guild itself. The guild paid for lawyers when a thief was caught. It chipped in and took care of the widow and the orphans when the thief was found guilty – despite the lawyer – and was sent to the mines, became a galley slave, or a permanent fixture in the gladiator games. Those were the punishments awaiting a criminal in those times, prisons not having been invented yet.

  After the races, we wandered back to the Villa of the Faun, and waded in the pool to cool off. The weather was stifling hot – it was autumn, but a storm was brewing and the wind was from Africa. We would have to wait another day before setting sail. I was anxious to return to our home in Alexandria. I was impatient to see Chiron and Cleopatra again. I missed my two children so much.

  That evening, Alexander shut himself in the bedroom and opened his mail while Plexis, Axiom, Paul, and I played dice games. Axiom frowned at the dice and then sat up and sighed. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and said, ‘It’s getting worse. I think I’ll have to go see an eye doctor soon. Perhaps Usse can help me.’

  I peered at his eyes and asked him to look towards the light. Faint clouds were visible when the firelight reflected from his irises a certain way. ‘What can he do?’ I asked.

  ‘An operation,’ Axiom sounded surprised. ‘In your time, isn’t there any cure for eye sickness?’

  ‘Of course, but, we use lasers and can grow new lenses from a person’s own cells. What do you do here?’

  ‘We use a hollow needle and draw the sickness out. Usse will know what to do. The Gauls perfected the operation, but it was developed by the Egyptians.’ Axiom sounded unperturbed.

  I didn’t know cataracts had been operated on so long ago. I stole a glance at my son who was busy counting his points. He was living in a golden age, indeed. Well, almost golden. There was still a little problem with communication. Mail was slow, and there were no telephones, telegrams, televisions, or tele-anythings to transmit news. Writing, talking, shouting, singing – these were the choices we had, or pigeons at a pinch. Birds were the quickest means of getting messages across. Birds were even dyed different colours, for quick, coded signals. Smoke signals and drums were used. In some places, there were strategically placed whistlers who could pass along a complicated message almost as fast as the ancient telegrams. But the whistlers lived in a valley in the southwest of Gaul, and their whistles were a secret the tribes of that region guarded carefully.

  When mail came, we all wanted to see it. I knew Alexander, however. He needed to be alone with his. When he finished, he would tell us everything he thought we needed to know in a long, drawn-out ritual.

  He rarely let me look at the letters he received; mostly they were kept in a small, elegant, ebony box. It didn’t lock, but I would never have dreamed of opening it and reading his mail.

  I was chafing because I wanted to hear about my children. The rest of the politics in the world at that time didn’t interest me, beyond what directly influenced my life. Not so Alexander. He had to have news from everywhere. The people who wrote to him, Usse, Ptolemy, Artabazus, and Nearchus, for example, wrote to him in code. They were careful never to let on that Alexander was still alive. I had insisted on that point, and men, being what they are, happily invented a system of passwords and coded messages that took hours to figure out, and kept them busy. Alexander adored it, and I’m sure the others did too. At any rate, Alexander managed to receive messages just about anywhere that we landed, be it by bird, boat, or chariot-express.

  I wanted to know if any of the letters were from Ptolemy, and what he had to say about the children.

  Of course, Alexander wasn’t about to tell me right away. First, he’d make me wait until I was practically begging. Then he’d tease me; giving me titbits of information and making me guess the rest. It was his way of letting the news last as long as possible. He would draw out the whole thing until I lost my temper. I always swore I wouldn’t get angry, and every time he’d goad me until I snapped. Well, not this time. I would be cool, calm, and dignified. I drew a brush through my hair and looked at Alexander out of the corner of my eyes as he walked into the room. He wore a preoccupied frown. Some news was not good.

  Plexis glanced at his friend, but he knew him too well. ‘What is it?’ he asked, seriously.

  Alexander opened his mouth, then shut it tightly. Mutely, he looked out the window at the gathering dusk. He didn’t look at us. He stood, his back to us, and refused to answer when I asked what was the matter.

  Plexis, Axiom, and I looked at each other. Usually, Alexander would share a funny anecdote, an important piece of information, or even a nugget of gossip, if only to whet our appetites. Then he would tease us, boyishly laughing at our interpretations. Plexis and Axiom loved to play along. Even Paul would join in, twisting the scraps of news into wild tales, to Alexander’s hilarity.
Only I would get impatient and cranky – to the men’s delight, I’m sure.

  We had been together for twelve years now, Alexander, Plexis, Axiom, and I; we knew each other well. For twelve years, we’d passed the time in harmony. Never, in twelve years, had Alexander turned his back on us and shut us out.

  Plexis got to his feet, then went to Alexander. He didn’t speak; he simply put his hand on Alexander’s arm and stood next to him.

  Axiom looked at me, picked up the pieces of the game we’d been playing, and left the room. Paul whispered that he was going to go bathe and left as well. I sat still, watching Plexis and Alexander standing motionless in front of the window. After a moment, I got awkwardly to my feet, smoothed my robe over my belly, and went to see Axiom. I caught a glimpse of Alexander’s face as I left. Tears left streaks down his cheeks. His eyes were desolate. His shoulders were stiff; he didn’t acknowledge Plexis’s arm around him. I moved away quietly. If it had been bad news about the children, he would have told me. It was a private grief, one he had to face alone. I only hoped he wouldn’t fall ill with his ‘melancholy madness’, because the only one who could treat that was Usse, and he was in Alexandria, three weeks away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three weeks! If I could have blown wind into the sails to make the boat go faster, I would have. I sat at the stern and stared at the billowing sails, as if my gaze could push the boat along.

  I watched the blue water slide by the hull, white foam lacing the black wood. Dolphins danced in our wake, flying fish skipped across the waves, seagulls called loudly in the cerulean sky, and all this emphasized Alexander’s sadness. The waves, the rise and fall of the ship, and the endless horizon evoked Alexander’s admiral, his friend, his lover, and his confidant. The sea was Nearchus’s kingdom.

  Ptolemy’s message had been news of Nearchus. Somewhere off the coast of Africa his boat had been set upon by pirates. Nearchus had been captured and assuredly killed.