‘When you had your accident, I told Usse to bring you to my room.’ I said, not meeting his gaze. ‘And I said that no one could come to see you. I did send a message to your wife, telling her she could come. It said, “Come right away, your husband needs you.” But she wrote back, saying that she’d rather die than set foot in my quarters, and she ordered me to bring you to her rooms. She said that she would allow Usse to treat you, and that she would do everything I asked, but that you had to stay with her. She even offered to empty her quarters, so that you would be alone with just her, Usse, and Alexander … and that I would be able to visit whenever I wished.’
‘And you refused.’ His voice was curiously flat.
‘I had to.’
‘You didn’t trust her.’ He turned his face towards the window again.
‘I didn’t at the time. I don’t know now. Should I have trusted her? I think sometimes that if I’d let you go to her, she would have said nothing. Perhaps she would have gone ahead with the plan, and she would have pretended to mourn your death. She could have stayed with us, lived with us, and maybe she wouldn’t have lost your baby.’
Plexis was silent a long time. Then he turned towards me. ‘I don’t know what she would have done. She hated you. She wouldn’t let me touch her for the entire time I was in Ecbatana. It was as if I had to do penance for having dared make love to you. She thought you deserved to die. I don’t think she would have been able to keep the secret. I’m sorry about the child. In the back of my mind he was always there, a baby in Ecbatana. Now you say he died when I was supposed to. Are the gods mocking us, do you suppose?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, Plexis. If you’re angry with me, I understand.’
He looked at me, his expression inscrutable, then turned back to the window. ‘Angry? No, I am not. You love me, and you were jealous. I can understand that. You were trying to protect me, and an innocent girl lost her child because of it. I feel sorrow, that is all.’
I put folded my hands on my round stomach and bowed my head. ‘There is still time,’ I said. ‘If you still love her I will send for her. We will figure out a way to tell her you’re still alive. When you have recovered, you and Drypetis can go anywhere in the world together.’
He gave a sigh. ‘No, Ashley. Where could Drypetis go and still be happy? She could only be happy in her own world. She was raised to be a Persian princess. She has never set foot upon a floor that was not part of a palace. She has always travelled in a curtained litter, and she never once thought of parting the curtains to look outside at the world. She never went out of the palace to see what was beyond its walls. She lives in her tiny bejewelled world, and she is incapable of leaving it. If I took her away from her surroundings, she would be frightened and horrified. She could never love me if I weren’t somebody important. She is a princess.’
‘Do you still love her?’
‘Sometimes I still think of her, I won’t lie to you.’ He turned away from me.
We were silent for a while. Plexis had made his voice kind, but I’d heard a spark of … something … in it. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he angry or sorrowful? Finally I touched his hand and he turned to face me. He’d been crying silently. Tears left faint traces on his pale cheeks but his eyes were clear. I felt terrible. I realized that my selfishness had robbed him of a chance to see his wife again.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I wish I had done everything differently. I should have spoken to you before making any decisions. I wish I could do it over again, but I don’t regret saving your life.’ I stopped and shook my head. ‘I’ll never regret saving you. I only feel badly about Drypetis. If only I had another chance!’
‘What would you have done?’ He was curious.
‘I would have told you sooner. Because of my petty jealousy, you lost a wife and a child. It’s my fault.’
‘Your fault, or the gods’ fault, it matters not,’ said Plexis. ‘What is done is done, I will not look back. I think you should learn to do the same.’ A tiny flash of humour shone briefly in his eyes. ‘You spend far too much time fretting about time.’
I was startled, but he would always surprise me. As soon as I thought I’d figured him out, he’d change. Plexis was more complicated than Alexander in some ways.
It was now the month of May. A beautiful spring month. I was blooming with the flowers. Alexander cupped his hands around my huge belly and laughed delightedly each time he felt the baby kick.
‘I said you’d be huge,’ he said, grinning happily.
‘I’m much bigger than with my other children,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Usse says it’s normal, each pregnancy makes you bigger.’
‘For your next one you’ll look like an elephant.’ Alexander tipped his head to one side, probably imagining me as an elephant. From him, that was a compliment.
He was in high spirits this morning because that afternoon he was going on a hunt with two guests, ambassadors from the faraway countries of Gaul and Iberia. I knew the places as France and Spain, but I supposed they were different from when I’d last seen them. We welcomed ambassadors from Carthage, Gaul, Eire, Britain, Ethiopia, and a man even came all the way from the wilderness of the Black Forest to see Iskander the Great Conqueror.
These ambassadors were completely unlike the men in business suits who would roam the embassies of the future. Neither of them had ever seen a barber. The Gaul’s hair hung past his shoulders in matted locks, and the Iberian had used clay to form huge spikes in his hair. The Gaul wore a long grey robe and carried a staff, and the Iberian wore a woollen blanket that smelled like a goat. Both men were awed by Alexander’s court. The court was not as awed by them. At that time, the Persians were refined and wore brightly coloured robes and fancy hats. The Greeks didn’t wear many clothes, but they were finicky about cleanliness and shaving.
I wondered if I wanted to venture north to Gaul. After all, without the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Champs-Élysées, what was left of France? And if everyone were as malodorous as these two men, the whole country must simply reek.
They had come bearing gifts. The man from Gaul had brought offerings of salt pork and cheese. Alexander had received them with without blinking. The dried, salted pork haunch was carried to the kitchen where the cooks looked at it from every angle before hanging it up as a decoration. The cheese was carefully removed from the palace by a brave slave and taken as far into the marshes as possible.
The Iberian had brought three pitch-black bulls, which were very useful. Black animals were sacrificed to the god of the dead, Hades. My ex-husband, as most people assumed. They called him Pluto, the ‘rich one’, because underground is where the gold, silver, and jewels are found. The Greeks, I discovered, panicked completely at the idea of going underground. They were afraid of stumbling into the underworld by mistake.
Alexander was most interested in the Gaul’s description of their houses. According to the Gaul they had glass-paned windows, something even the Greeks hadn’t thought of.
I smiled at my husband. The years hadn’t dimmed his enthusiasm for anything new, and his passion for discovery was still the driving force behind him. He wanted to learn everything, to understand everything, and use that knowledge to make his world a better place. I sighed. He turned to me, a comical expression on his face.
‘Why do you look at me like that?’ he asked.
‘How?’
‘With your heart in your eyes. I told you to be careful, the gods are jealous.’
‘I can’t help it,’ I admitted. ‘I’m still madly in love with you, Iskander of Macedonia. The years go by, and still I find my eyes drawn to you and my heart follows.’
He smiled blindingly. His face softened. But before he could reply, a small cough was heard. We both turned to find Nassar, our faithful translator, standing in front of us.
‘My lady. Iskander, my lord, I have come to inform you that another ambassador has come to see you. From the kingdom of Rome.’
‘Yes?’ Alexander said, raising his eyebrows.
‘Well, it seems that the Gaul and the Roman are fighting, I just thought maybe you’d like to come and try to separate them.’
‘Fighting?’ I asked, getting to my feet rather clumsily.
‘Well, I’m not sure how it started, my lady, but I think the Roman said something nasty about the Gaul’s cheese and it went downhill from there.’
Chapter Twelve
One thing I hated about Babylon: there were millions of mosquitoes. I made sure that we rubbed citronella over ourselves, and I burned dried herbs in our rooms to keep them away. At night, we slept within tents of fine muslin and that certainly helped. Unfortunately, during the hot days there was not much we could do.
At last, the funeral pyre for Plexis was lit and the funeral games could begin. Over three thousand men took part in the sports. I didn’t see any of it. Women were not invited to see or participate in the games. I stayed in my quarters with Plexis, whose funeral it was. Smoke from the burning pyre made our eyes sting and throats ache for days. We were glad when the funeral was over, except that the pall of smoke had kept the mosquitoes at bay.
The city was built near a great swamp. It was a wonderful place, full of wild animals and thousands of different kinds of wildfowl and birds. Alexander often went there to hunt. Hunting was one of his favourite sports, and now that he had elephants, it was even more fantastic. The great beasts would wade into the swamp, and from their broad backs, Alexander would shoot duck and deer with his bow and arrows. He was an excellent shot and often brought back venison and duck for our dinners. I was worried about poison so it was the only meat the children would eat.
Also that month, Alexander gave me Chirpa. There was a terrible row with Stateira about that, but I wouldn’t back down. Thankfully, Alexander didn’t either. I freed Chirpa, and she asked to stay with me. I told her about Plexis. I trusted her completely. In return, she made sure he was never bored or lonely. Soon I was used to seeing her bright head bowed over his dark one as they spoke softly together in the cool gloom of my bedroom.
A strange thing happened that month, although I didn’t see it. Each evening Alexander set aside an hour for sports. It was one of the only times the different tribes got along. Alexander was a fervent believer in games. The Olympic Games was a sports festival set aside for men. Another, in honour of Zeus’s queen, Hera, was for women and took place every four years.
Alexander’s soldiers were always ready for games, so there wasn’t a day that something wasn’t organized. Each tribe excelled in a different sport, so some days there would be foot races, some days wrestling, or polo, or archery. The men would meet in the great plain on the north side of the city, and they would compete in front of a large crowd of delighted spectators. Afterwards, just before sunset, they would make their way back to the palace and wash and get ready for dinner. Usually there was a great deal of laughing and teasing between the winners and losers.
That day, while everyone was at the sports field, a man climbed over the garden wall, donned the royal cloak and the royal crown of Persia, and sat on Alexander’s chair. He sat there until everyone came back into the garden. Alexander’s men had been talking loudly and jostling each other, when suddenly they caught sight of the strange figure. Silence descended upon them. Unfortunately, the first men in the garden were Persians. To them, the king was divine. The crown of Persia was a holy relic and to touch it was a sacrilege. No one knew what to do. When they warily approached the man, he smiled and nodded at them exactly as if he were the king. It gave them the chills.
Then Alexander arrived, hot, sweaty, and in a terrible mood because his polo team had lost and he hated losing. He saw the man on his throne and he frowned. ‘Who are you, and what are you doing here?’ he asked.
The man stared back with wide, innocent eyes, and Alexander realized that he was a simpleton, a man with the mind of a child. ‘The gods told me that the throne would soon be empty. They said that the crown would soon seek a head, and that the cape would cover a coffin.’ He smiled brightly. ‘They told me to come here and take the king’s place.’
The Persian guards were shocked beyond words. Silently they raised their spears, ready to kill him there and then.
Alexander was shocked as well, but he couldn’t help comparing the man on the throne with his idiot brother, Arrhidaeus, the one his mother had poisoned as a babe, making him retarded. The guilt he’d always felt towards his brother was tremendous. Alexander swallowed hard, trying not to vomit. His brother was older than he was. By rights, Arrhidaeus should have inherited his father’s throne, not him. Now an idiot was sitting on his throne. All at once the sun was too bright, and his head felt as if it would split open. ‘Take him away, find out where his family is and give him back to them. Tell them to take better care of him, or next time he will be killed,’ said Alexander to the men. The Persians were furious; they’d wanted to sacrifice the man that evening. The Greeks and Egyptians thought it was an evil omen, and the Macedonians mostly thought it was wildly funny. Alexander didn’t think it was funny. He went to bathe, and didn’t speak of the incident for a very long time.
Part of the problem lay in the fact that he’d left the crown and cloak where someone could take them. It was like leaving the true cross and grail lying around to a Catholic, for example, or accidentally backing your bulldozer into the Wailing Wall if you were a Jew. To the Persians it was terrible sacrilege. They were horrified at the whole thing and Alexander’s reputation suffered greatly in the eyes of his Persian guards.
I think Alexander realized this, and he felt guilty about that too. He wasn’t particularly religious, and he certainly didn’t take himself for a god. However, I believe that he felt very keenly the disappointment of his Persian subjects. Since he had always been determined to be respectful to everyone’s religion, he redoubled his efforts. He took part in all the religious ceremonies that month, even the Persian ones that he would sometimes skip before, trying to make up for his former lack of respect.
Chapter Thirteen
In the month of May, the weather took a turn for the worse. Thunderstorms boomed over the city and there were swarms of hungry mosquitoes at night. Alexander had to oversee religious celebrations, some lasting until very late, and one evening he came back with a slight chill. I didn’t think much of it. Usse gave him some hot tea, and we lay down in bed. Plexis was already asleep, lying in his own bed next to ours. The mosquito netting moved slightly in the breeze. It was much cooler than it had been all week; the rain had cleared the air. During the night, Alexander developed a high fever. The next morning he could hardly move, his muscles cramped and he was drenched in sweat. It was malaria.
‘How do you feel now?’ I asked him for the hundredth time that day, after Usse gave him his medicine.
Alexander opened one eye and stared at me. It was his blue eye, I noticed. ‘I would feel better if my head stopped hurting,’ he admitted. ‘The fever is making me thirsty. Do you have any water nearby?’
‘Of course.’
I poured water from the pitcher into his golden cup and held it for him as he drank. The muscles in his throat worked as the water went down. Then he lay back on the bed with a sigh. ‘Do I die of malaria then?’ he asked. He tried to grin, but his mouth trembled suddenly. I leaned down and kissed him on his lips. They were hot and dry despite the cool drink.
‘Are you afraid?’
‘I thought I wouldn’t be.’ He took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. ‘But that was when I thought the only thing that counted was my kingdom.’
‘And now?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve had time to think. When you saved Plexis that’s when things began to change for me. I realized something I hadn’t known before. I want to stay with you. I love you, Ashley of the Sacred Sandals. I have told you that twice before. I should have said it more. Now, with this fever making my bones ache, I will tell you a third time. I want to see the babe you carry. I want to grow old su
rrounded by my loved ones. I no longer want to die. Does that answer your question? Yes, I am afraid.’
‘Don’t be afraid. I love you too, Alex.’
‘So why do you cry?’ He reached a hand to my cheek and brushed tears away.
‘Because I never dared hope that you would let go of your dream.’ My tears fell faster now. Teardrops sparkled on his hands like diamonds.
‘It took me long enough to understand that my dream was an empty one without you and Plexis by my side, and that my future was an illusion. Ashley, don’t cry. Please. I feel as if I’ve woken up from a long nightmare. All the battles and bloodshed, all the good men who died following me, they will lie on my conscious for ever. Only you will be able to ease my mind. You have seen the future, so you can tell me that it was not all futile.’
‘Of course not, Alexander. Nothing you did was futile.’
‘It feels that way now,’ he said. His eyes were very bright. I frowned at him. He was starting to sound distinctly un-Alexander-like. I put my hand on his forehead and jerked it back with a muffled cry. He was burning up.
‘Usse! Usse!’ I cried.
Usse came running and started dosing him with quinine. Alexander’s symptoms eased enough to allow him to go to the various meetings he had with his generals, and for him to make the sacrifices required of him as king – and god – of Persia.
I fretted and paced in my rooms, Chiron tagging after me, tugging on my skirt, asking me to play with him. To take my mind off Alexander’s sickness I sat on the edge of the pool and watched as Chiron showed me his new accomplishment, a real, head-first dive into the water.
I took my sons to see my mother-in-law Olympias, who had heard of Alexander’s illness, and who gave me one of her sacred snakes.
‘Put it around his neck and let him sleep with it,’ she said, her beautiful eyes serious. ‘The snake has been blessed and will absorb all the poison in his body.’
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