The cloaked figure stopped for a moment before setting off with decision towards the soldiers, bearing a tray.
‘It’s Leptine,’ said one of them.
‘Hail, Leptine. Why don’t you come to keep us company later? We’re tired and we feel terribly alone.’
The woman shook her head as if used to jokes of this kind, offered them some of the food on the tray and entered.
In the light of two lamps the figure uncovered her head, revealing the proud countenance of the foreign guest. She gazed long on the portrait of Memnon, which still lay on the table, and brushed it with her fingertips. Then she slipped a long pin with an amber head from her hair and moved lightly towards the curtain which separated the King’s bed from the rest of the tent. On the other side was the feeble light of a third lamp.
She moved the curtain to one side and went in. Alexander was sleeping on his back, covered only by his military chlamys. Alongside him was a stand bearing the armour he had taken from the temple of Athena at Troy.
At that very moment, far away in her bed in the palace at Pella, Queen Olympias turned in her sleep, tormented by a nightmare. All of a sudden she sat up and let forth with a sharp, bloodcurdling cry which resounded throughout the silent rooms of the building.
The Persian woman sought Alexander’s heart, holding the hairpin in her left hand, then she raised her right hand to strike the amber head, but just then the King awoke with fire in his eyes. Perhaps it was only the shadow projected by the lamp, but his left eye, dark as the night itself, made him look like some alien and titanic creature, almost a mythological monster. The woman’s hand hung in mid-air, suspended and incapable of unleashing the mortal blow.
Alexander raised himself slowly, pushing his chest against the bronze point so that a drop of blood appeared there. He continued staring at her without blinking at all.
‘Who are you?’ he asked when he was standing there before her. ‘Why do you want to kill me?’
19
THE WOMAN LEFT THE HAIRPIN fall to the ground and covered her face with her hands as she burst into tears.
‘Tell me your name,’ said Alexander. ‘I will not harm you. I saw your son’s reaction on seeing Memnon’s portrait on my desk. He is your husband, is that not so? He is, isn’t he?’ he repeated, raising his voice and grabbing her by the wrists.
‘My name is Barsine,’ replied the woman without lifting her face, her voice feeble now, ‘and I am Memnon’s wife. Please do not harm my sons, and if you fear the gods, do me no dishonour. My husband will pay the highest ransom – whatever you ask – as long as his family is returned to him.’
Alexander had her lift her face and as he looked into her eyes he felt himself burn with desire once more. He understood that if he kept this woman near him she would be able to do whatever she wished with him. And in her gaze, too, he saw a strange apprehension which was different from maternal anxiety or the fear of a woman alone being held as a prisoner. What he saw there were flashes of an atavistic and powerful emotion, controlled by a will that was strong, yes, yet bore signs of strain. He asked her:
‘Where is Leptine?’
‘In my tent, guarded by my sons.’
‘And you took her cloak . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you harmed her?’
‘No.’
‘I will let you go and these events will remain our secret. There is no need for a ransom, I do not make war with women and children – when I meet your husband I will fight him personally and I will win, if I know that the prize will be to share my bed with you. Go now, and send Leptine to me. Tomorrow I will have you escorted wherever you wish to go.’
Barsine kissed his hand as she murmured incomprehensible words in her native tongue, then she went off towards the door, but Alexander called her back:
‘Wait.’
He moved towards her, towards those splendid, tearful and trembling eyes, took her face in his hands and kissed her lips.
‘Farewell. Do not forget me.’
He led her out of the tent and stood watching her as the two pezhetairoi stood at attention, their spears held firmly, on seeing their King.
Leptine returned shortly afterwards, angry and upset at having been held prisoner by two boys, but Alexander calmed her down:
‘There is nothing to fret about, Leptine – the woman was afraid for her own personal safety. I have reassured her. Go to sleep now, you must be tired.’
He kissed her and returned to his bed.
The following day he gave orders for Barsine to be escorted as far as the banks of the Meander with her own guards and he himself followed the small convoy for some stadia.
When he stopped, Barsine turned to wave goodbye.
‘Who is that man?’ asked Phraates, the younger of her sons. ‘Why did he have a portrait of our father on his desk?’
‘He is a great soldier and a good man,’ replied Barsine. ‘I do not know why he had that portrait of your father – perhaps because Memnon is the only man in the world who can be compared to him.’
She turned once more and saw that Alexander was still there, motionless astride Bucephalas, atop a windswept hill. She would remember him this way.
*
Memnon remained for ten days on the hills around Halicarnassus, waiting for all his soldiers who had survived the Battle of the Granicus, about a thousand in total, to join him and re-form the ranks. Then one night he entered the city on horseback, alone, wrapped in his cloak and wearing a Persian turban that almost completely covered his face. He rode towards the council chamber.
The great assembly hall stood near the giant Mausoleum, the monumental tomb of the dynast of Caria, Mausolus, who had made the city the capital of his realm.
The moon was now high in the sky and it illuminated the great structure – a cube of stone crowned by a portico of Ionic columns, in turn surmounted by a stepped pyramid supporting the stately four-horse chariot in bronze which carried an image of the former sovereign.
The decorative sculptures, created by the greatest artists of the previous generation – Scopas, Bryaxis, Leo-chares – represented episodes from Greek mythology, a cultural heritage which had come to form part of the indigenous culture, particularly those stories which were traditionally set in Asia, such as the struggle between Greeks and Amazons.
Memnon stopped for a moment to look at a relief in which a Greek soldier held an Amazon by the hair as he pinned her back down with his foot. He had always wondered why Greek art, so sublime, depicted so many scenes of violence against women. And he had decided that it must simply have been fear, the same fear that made them keep their women segregated in the harems and meant that for social occasions they had to turn to the participation of the ‘companions’.
He thought of Barsine, who was safely along the King’s Road now, by the golden gates, and he felt a deep wave of regret wash over him. He remembered her gazelle-like legs, her dark complexion, the violet perfume of her hair, the sensual timbre of her voice, her aristocratic pride.
He struck the flanks of his horse with his heels and moved further on, trying to chase the melancholy away. But right at that moment the special powers granted him by the Great King himself were of no consolation whatsoever.
He went past the bronze statue of the most illustrious citizen of Halicarnassus, the great Herodotus, author of the monumental History, the first to narrate the titanic clash between Greeks and barbarians during the Persian wars and the only one to have understood its underlying causes, himself being the son of a Greek father and an Asian mother.
On reaching the council building he dismounted, walked up the steps, illuminated by two rows of tripods bearing gigantic lamps, and knocked repeatedly on the doors until someone came to open for him.
‘I am Memnon,’ he said, uncovering his head. ‘I have just arrived.’
They led him into the chamber where all of the civil and military dignitaries of the city were gathered together – the Persian commanders of th
e garrison, the Athenian generals Ephialtes and Thrasybulus who led the mercenary troops, and Orontobates, the satrap of Caria, a corpulent character who immediately stood out because of his eye-catching clothes, his earrings, his precious ring and the shining solid gold akinake which hung from his belt.
The local dynastic ruler was also present – Pixodarus, the King of Caria, a man of about forty with a very black beard and hair just slightly streaked with grey around his temples. Two years previously he had offered his own daughter in marriage to one of the princes of Macedon, but the arrangement had fallen through and so he had compromised on the new Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, who was now his son-in-law.
Three seats had been prepared for chairmanship of the assembly – two were already occupied by Pixodarus and Orontobates, while Memnon took his place on the third, to the right of the Persian satrap. It was clear that everyone was expecting him to speak immediately.
‘Men of Halicarnassus and men of Caria,’ he began. ‘The Great King has honoured me with a tremendous responsibility – to halt the invasion of the King of Mace-don, and I have every intention of completing the task, no matter what the cost.
‘I am the only one here who has seen Alexander face to face and who has taken on his army with spear and sword, and I can assure you he is a fearsome enemy. Not only is he valiant on the battlefield, to the point of fearlessness, but he is also skilful and unpredictable. The manner in which he took Miletus shows us what he is capable of, even in conditions of complete inferiority at sea.
‘But I have no intention of being taken by surprise – Halicarnassus will not fall. We will force him to use up his strength and energies under these walls to the point of total exhaustion. We will continue to receive supplies by sea, where our fleet rules, and so we will resist for as long as it takes. When the right moment comes we will break out and crush his debilitated soldiers.
‘This is my plan: the first thing is that we will not let them near us with their war engines – powerful and effective machines designed specifically for King Philip by the best Greek engineers. Then we will use his own tactics against him: the Macedonian prevented our fleet from taking on supplies of food and water by taking control of all moorings along the coast and we will do exactly the same thing, preventing him from unloading the machines from his ships anywhere near our city. We will send divisions of cavalry and assault troops to every bay which is less than thirty stadia from Halicarnassus.
‘Furthermore, the only point where he can hope to attack us is the north-eastern sector of our walls. We will dig a trench there – forty feet long and eighteen feet wide – so that even if he should succeed in landing his machines, he will not be able to move them up to the city walls.
‘That is all I have to say for now. Make sure that work begins tomorrow at dawn, and it must continue day and night without interruption.’
Everyone agreed with the plan, which indeed seemed infallible, and gradually they left the chamber and disappeared along the city roads, white under the light of the full moon. Only the two Athenians – Thrasybulus and Ephialtes – remained behind.
‘Do you have anything to say to me?’ asked Memnon.
‘Yes,’ replied Thrasybulus. ‘Ephialtes and I would like to know to what extent we can count on you and your men.’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ said Memnon.
‘What we mean is,’ said Ephialtes, a large man at least six feet tall and as massive as Hercules himself, ‘that we are motivated by a hatred for the Macedonians who have humiliated our homeland and have forced us to accept shameful peace conditions. We have become mercenaries because it was the only way to fight our enemy without damaging our city. But you? What drives you to do this? Who can guarantee that you will remain faithful to the cause even when it is no longer convenient for you? Ultimately you are a . . .’
‘Professional mercenary?’ Memnon interrupted him. ‘Yes, it is so. Just as my men are, one and all. The most abundant commodity on the market today is mercenary swords. You claim that your hatred is a guarantee. Should I believe that? I have often seen fear prevail over hatred, and it could easily happen to you too.
‘I have no homeland other than my honour and my word, and you must trust that. Nothing is more important for me, together with my family.’
‘Is it true that the Great King has invited your wife and your sons to Susa? And if this is true, does it not perhaps mean that not even he trusts you and he has taken your family hostage?’
Memnon looked at him with an ice-cold gaze. ‘To defeat Alexander I need blind loyalty and obedience from you. If you put my word in doubt then I do not want you. Go now, I release you from your bond. Go now, while there is still time.’
The two Athenian generals seemed to confer simply by exchanging a look, and then Ephialtes spoke. ‘We only wanted to know if what they say about you is true. Now we know. You may depend on us, to the bitter end.’
They walked out and Memnon was left standing alone in the great chamber.
20
ALEXANDER, AFTER CONSULTING his officers, left the camp outside the walls of Miletus as Nearchus’s men were taking the siege machines apart before loading them on to the ships and transport barges anchored just offshore. They had decided that once this operation was completed, the admiral would round the Cape of Miletus to look for a suitable mooring as close as possible to Halicarnassus. With him he had two Athenian captains who were in charge of the two small battle fleets of triremes.
The beach was bustling with soldiers and resounded with shouts and noises of all sorts – hammer blows, calls, rhythmic chanting from the crews as they hauled the disassembled pieces on board.
The King took a last look at what remained of the allied fleet and at the city standing peaceful now on its promontory, before giving the signal to set off. Ahead of him opened up a gentle valley nestling between the olive-covered foothills of Mount Latmus to the north and Mount Grios to the south. Down below was the dusty, winding road that led towards the city of Mylasa.
It was a hot, fine day; the silver of the olive trees shone from the hillsides, while in the poppy-covered fields white-coloured cranes rooted along the streams searching for frogs and young fish. As Alexander’s army passed, a moment’s curiosity caused the birds to lift their heads and their long beaks and then they calmly set to rooting once more.
‘Do you believe the story of the cranes and the pygmies?’ Leonnatus asked Callisthenes as they rode alongside each other.
‘Well . . . Homer mentions it and Homer is felt to be a reliable source,’ replied Callisthenes, without seeming too sure of the matter.
‘That’s true . . . I remember old Leonidas’s lessons when he spoke of the continuous battles between the cranes, who kept trying to carry off the pygmies’ babies in their beaks, and the pygmies, who kept trying to break all the cranes’ eggs. I think these are just children’s tales, but if Alexander really intends to go as far as the edge of the Persian empire then we may well get to see the land of the pygmies.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Callisthenes, shrugging his shoulders, ‘but if I were you I wouldn’t count on it. These are nothing more than folk tales. Apparently if one travels up the Nile one really does meet black-skinned dwarfs, but I doubt very much that they are no taller than my forearm, which is what their name means, and that they use their axes to cut grain. Stories become altered and deformed with the passage of time and as they pass from mouth to mouth. For example, if I were to start saying that cranes take pygmy babies to carry them off to couples who cannot have children then I will have added an imaginative new detail to a story that is already very imaginative, but there would still be a certain verisimilitude to it. Don’t you think so?’
Leonnatus was a bit puzzled. He turned round to check his mules, which were loaded down with heavy sacks.
‘What have you got in there?’ asked Callisthenes.
‘Sand.’
‘Sand?’
‘Yes.’
&n
bsp; ‘But why?’
‘I use it for training for wrestling. We might just find ourselves on rocky terrain up ahead and if I don’t have my sand then I can’t train properly.’
Callisthenes shook his head and dug his heels into his mule. Some time later he was overtaken by Seleucus, galloping on towards the head of the column. He drew rein alongside Alexander and pointed to something on the crest of Mount Latmus.
‘Have you seen that up there?’
The King looked up in the direction Seleucus indicated.
‘What is it?’
‘I have sent a pair of scouts on ahead to take a look – it’s an old lady; she has been following us, together with her entourage, since this morning.’
‘By Zeus! I could have expected anything of this land, except to be followed at a distance by some elderly lady.’
‘Perhaps she’s out hunting for something!’ laughed Lysimachus, who was riding nearby and had heard everything.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ replied Seleucus. ‘What shall we do, Alexander?’
‘She certainly presents no danger to us. If she needs us, she will make the first approach. I don’t think there’s any reason to worry.’
They continued at a walk, protected by groups of horseback reconnaissance troops who cleared the way, until they reached a large open space just where the valley began to open up like a funnel in the direction of the city.
The signal to halt was given and the shieldsmen pitched canvas coverings to provide some shade for the King and his commanders.
Alexander leant on an elm tree and drank water from a flask. It was a very hot day now.
‘We have visitors,’ said Seleucus.
The King turned towards the hill and saw a man on foot approaching the camp. He was leading a white mule by the halter. Sitting on the animal was an elegantly dressed woman who was quite old despite her finery. Behind came another servant carrying a parasol, while a third chased away the flies with a horse-mane brush.
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