Alexander and Alestria

by Shan Sa

  The queen was so in love that she planted giant bamboo, golden ivy, and venomous flowers around the bed to form a magnificent aviary. She asked the birds to watch over her captive. The queen was so in love that she forgot her duties. She forgot food and drink and the girls of Siberia who wept in her absence. She could think only of her man, of bathing him, suckling him, kissing him, feeding him, and singing him her most beautiful songs. She could not take her eyes off him, or take a single step away from his side. The whole world could have collapsed and she would have had only one regret: her body could not be permanently united with his because they were like two tree trunks with mismatched limbs; their bodies could not fuse into one, as two flowers can never be one.

  The king missed his people, and his sadness made the queen unhappy. But she could not abandon her tribe, she could not follow him, for her world was here, with her girls and her animals; this was her land, the land of her ancestors. One morning the queen finally emerged from the aviary to give an audience. It was a very heated gathering: the girls, rebelling against their neglectful queen, called for the foreigner’s head. Weighed down by their reproach, the queen had to use all her skills as an orator to calm the women’s anger. When she returned to the aviary, she found a gaping hole in the bamboo wall. She understood that the girls had stolen her man and torn out her heart.

  She followed footprints along the path to the place they had first met, but the tracks disappeared into the swaying grass. Had he been captured? Had he been assassinated? Haunted by a grim sense of foreboding, the queen kept walking. She called the beautiful creature by the name she had given him. She cried out. The deep valleys gave the only reply, an echo of her sorrow.

  The queen no longer wanted to reign. She lay on her bed, now made of dry grass and wilted flowers. She lay there with her eyes trained on the treetops, waiting for her beloved bird to return. The moon rose. The moon set. Still the man was invisible, as if he had never existed.

  She was racked with terrible spasms. She writhed and sobbed. For three days and three nights she tried to rip her own belly open, but her servants tied her hand and foot to stop her tearing her own flesh with her nails. On the fourth morning two children came from her belly, already dead. The queen was consumed with pain and bitter disappointment. No one knew whether she had seen her children, no one knew whether she had understood that loving a man was impossible. From that day forward, from generation to generation, our tribe passed down this law: it was forbidden to love the masculine race; it was forbidden to conceive.

  Loving a man and bearing his child destroys a girl of Siberia. I, Tania, had received the order from my mother, Tankiasis, to watch over my queen. She carried within her the continuation of our tribe.

  WHAT LAY ON the far side of Mount Siberia?

  It was said there was an ocean and seafaring people.

  It was said there were huntsmen who lived in trees with golden leaves.

  It was said there was a desert covered in sands beautiful and pure as a blend of diamonds and gold.

  It was said there were men who killed each other, ate each other, drank the blood of their brothers and sisters, and coupled with their mothers and fathers.

  On the far side of Siberia there were as many splendors as there were crimes. Our Great Queen had committed the sin of being with child to one of these men. That was why the God of Ice strangled her children in her belly with their own cord—because the fusion of purity with impurity was impossible.

  Hundreds of thousands of years later, eternal snow swept over the mountain. Generation after generation our tribe moved farther from the sky and closer to the earth. On the steppes our ancestors forgot the birds with scaled skin and rainbow-colored feathers, and learned to tame those wingless birds known as horses.

  Our tribe began its decline with the Great Queen’s sin. We lived in a world where nature was not so generous and animals not so magnificent. Good grazing became sparse, and we had to fight off hordes of horsemen who descended on our flocks. The winters were harsh, with winds that howled more threateningly than the wolves. The swirling snow forced us to shut ourselves into our tents with our sheep.

  I knew that the steppes would be our tribe’s last kingdom before it emigrated into the shades. I foresaw the end without sadness, and I let the smell of a new spring intoxicate me. In the summer I closed my eyes and listened to the silence and the rumblings of the steppes. Rain clouds clashed on the horizon and spread across the sky. The wind drove great emerald green waves over the plains. White cranes, frightened by the thunder, danced as if possessed. I sat at the entrance to my tent and watched the lightning throw its terrifying writing across the mauve vault of the sky. The autumn unfurled sapphire blue skies, and I lay in the grass watching butterflies with wings covered in tiny scales.

  The other girls made fun of my melancholy ways.

  Melancholy is the poetry of a carefree life.

  I, TANIA, SERVING girl to the queen, do not know where I was born; I do not know my age or my birth name. Here, everyone calls me Tania, “the fragrance of butterflies.”

  “Am I beautiful?” I asked my mother, the one who took me in and fed me on ewe’s milk.

  “Beauty is a lake that exists within us,” she replied. “Beauty is a reflection of the sparkling, transparent Siberian glacier. Beauty is the smile of God.”

  We, the girls from that snow-covered mountain, we were not afraid of hunger, heat, cold, or invasion. Each of us had a tiny portion of the glacier. As guardians of its white flame, we lived solitary lives, far from cities and kings.

  The eagles were our friends: the queen knew how to call them, and they would come down from the skies to act as our guides. We tended our horses, bathing them, rubbing them, and grooming them adoringly. For horses were our faithful companions. The steppes did not have the riches of the mountain; there was very little fruit with soft juicy flesh; the rare red berries that we found made us skip for joy. We hunted with bow and arrow for hares, foxes, and wolves to give us the strength for our mounted expeditions, which could last several months.

  Once a year, when we had eaten well and drunk wine made from roots and berries, when our horses were well fed and groomed, we would launch ourselves into a headlong gallop, continuing for many moons without rest. Our bodies were gripped by such frenzy, our souls overcome by such a longing to fly, that we set off for the farthest limits of the steppes, following our queen to the point of exhaustion. We sustained ourselves on thin air, the rain, and the wind. We knew neither sorrow nor fear. We knew only the freedom that was ours and was the source of our pride. We were like migratory birds summoned by a mysterious force. We raced toward the place where the moon rose, heading for the great annual celebrations that drew together all the peoples of the steppes.

  Men and women jostled and barged on the banks of the river Iaxarte. Noblemen could be distinguished by their hats of leather or felt, decorated with feathers, flowers, and animal heads. Lowlier people competed in their techniques for tying turbans. Tribes gathered here to exchange weapons, tents, jewels, and women. Everyone spoke a language the nomads used for trading. The girls of our tribe knew a few words of it, but only the queen and I perfectly mastered this dialect of numbers, exclamations, and exaggerations.

  During that month of festivities, we exchanged our horses for leather pouches, painted pots, bead necklaces, and young girls. We gleaned information about the huge world beyond the steppe. That was how we learned that Persia, the vastest empire under the sun, had been brought down by an army from the west. Endless battles had sent the Persians fleeing eastward. Their sumptuous fabrics, elegant plates, and jewelry decorated with precious stones were everywhere in our markets and changed hands for almost nothing. Men and women from all tribes strutted and showed off their Persian tunics and carpets. I, Tania, watched this preening and excitement with a strange sense of foreboding.

  THE AMAZONS STOPPED, awestruck, before a display of toys. Then, laughing and crying out in delight, they rushed at the tr
inkets, reaching out for them: figurines, puppets, automated animals worked by a system of leather straps, pretty ribbons, pouches filled with ravishing stones for board games, gold counters for flipping into the gaping mouths of carved frogs, abacuses with sleekly sliding beads, floating glass fish, imitation birds made with real feathers…in the middle of all this the man struggled to keep order, brandishing toys and waving his hands as he sputtered out his prices. His shouts amused and intimidated the girls, who backed away and stopped their laughing. They could not choose: taking did not come easily to us, we who had nothing.

  I ventured over toward the spice trader to make my annual purchases. In a series of earthenware bowls blue, yellow, saffron, orange, purple, violet, and every shade of green mingled with a multitude of different whites. The price of spices had dropped that year: I sensed great changes. I followed my queen into the labyrinth of stalls displaying cloth. Fabrics fluttered over my face and stroked my hand. Rough, soft, fine, thick, transparent, opaque, sparkling, bleached, white, black, green, blue, orange, and red, all undulating in the wind and dancing in the sunlight. Dazzled, I looked away and kept my eyes on my feet: girls of Siberia could only afford the cheapest fabrics.

  On the far side of a large tent we came across the pottery market with heaps of brightly colored vases, bowls, and plates decorated with geometric designs. The people of the steppes stood on their carpets, discussing prices and gesticulating with their hands. They used colored pebbles to keep their accounts and only exchanged goods on the last day of the market.

  After pottery came the slave market, where near-naked men were exhibited with just a scrap of cloth over their hips. They lay in chains, playing dead. When anyone went near them they snapped open their eyes and watched with loathing, ready to pounce and bite.

  The plant market was covered with a roof of fine cloth and provided cool shade and sumptuous perfumes. Exotic flowers with unpronounceable names stopped my queen in her tracks. She moved away and came back again. When she found a plant she liked, she stopped and looked at it so intently it might grow inside her head.

  The sun was sinking and we headed back to our settlement still empty-handed but pleased with our walk. We did not allow ourselves anything luxurious, caring only for what was strictly necessary.

  Many tents had been set up at the entrance to the market. Newly formed couples could spend the night in one at a price of three black pebbles. Crowds drifted to and fro, buying warm milk, alcohol, and grilled meats. Dogs barked, and goat kids tied to stakes bleated. From that tumult of different accents the language of the steppes reserved for negotiations emerged most clearly.

  Men and women fell silent and parted to let the Amazon queen pass. Although small, she was radiant as the sun rising to announce a day of happy hard work. Her thick eyebrows, black eyes, and full lips all expressed her indomitable character. Following behind her, we confronted curious onlookers with our heads held high, clothed in our pride as if it were the most sumptuous of cloaks.

  Despite her youth, our queen was respected and feared. Rather than tarnishing her beauty, slander conferred on her all the charm of legend. It was said that we were abductors of men, that we married them only to kill them the following day. It was said that the queen of the Amazons had magic in her belly to make a man invincible, and that was why so many warriors risked their lives to couple with her. Women in the crowds watched us warily, while the more daring men winked and smiled at us. Dusk was spreading; eyes sparkled, glances flitted like so many stars in the darkness, addressing us in a language that needed no words. Any Amazon drawn to one of these signals could leave us and throw herself onto whoever sent out the sign like an eagle swooping on its prey. She could take the man or woman who caught her eye and drag her catch off to a tent for a night’s entertainment.

  There was no exchange of gifts, nor of hair or blood. An ancestral statute dictated that we could not give a stranger anything that had once belonged to us. We had to leave as we arrived, in the swish of a gallop, with no oaths or promises. There were bound to be weaker girls among us who met up with the same lover—be it a man or a woman—once a year. In those tents they could make love and whisper to each other and weep. Back in our midst they had to hide their pain at being separated as if it were a shameful sickness. We permitted them to suffer in silence. With us they had to laugh even if they wanted to cry, to be strong and full of fight even if their hearts were torn apart.

  Some girls disappeared during this annual gathering. We never pursued or punished those who left us. We considered this fall from grace to have been written in their stars. We barely even commented when a girl left: the moment she broke away from us, her name ceased to be heard, her face was erased from our memories. We considered that her soul had simply gone, just as it had once arrived in our midst. We, the daughters of the glacier, formed no attachments, not even to girls who had been our sisters.

  The Amazons respected freedom; they were freedom. Anyone who chose suffering was free to live her suffering. None of us could stand in the way of fate. We knew nothing of punishment, we knew only our adoration of the God of Ice who watched over our earthly lives. The tribe’s laws could be transgressed, for beyond laws, there was God.

  THE QUEEN WALKED on, face veiled and head held high, accompanied by clinking from the weapons fastened to her belt and by her twelve Amazons reputed to be bear-killers. Only innkeepers had the temerity to call out to her and compliment her. The queen replied to their greetings with a slight nod of her head. I sensed that she was suspicious, that she was looking for someone she was due to meet. She quickened her pace and went into a tent with a bouquet of white lilies over the door. She came straight back out again and gestured for us to leave.

  That year the moon had just filled for the fourth time, and it was already summer. The daughters of Siberia were restless in the encampment; all around me I heard talk of a warrior from the land where the sun sets. The girls huddled around the fire wide-eyed and eager to tell the queen the rumors they had collected during the course of each day, all talking and exclaiming at the same time. They said he came from a coast peopled by fishermen who barely wore any clothes or finery. They said he had burned down cities and raped women. They said that with the treasures he had looted from Persian cities, he had bought mercenaries. They said that with his golden lance and on his great white horse he had dared challenge the Great King of Persia, and had declared he would take Babylon, the greatest city on earth.

  The queen remained silent. I could tell she was preoccupied with some secret thought. I could read the sadness through her smiles. The night wore on, and the chattering girls grew quieter. Soon they fell silent, making way for the chirping of grasshoppers and the crackling of the fire. I lay not far from the queen and was woken by a slight sound. She lifted the tent door and went out; I followed her. She jumped onto her horse, I on mine. She left the encampment and headed for the very heart of the steppe. I kept a respectful distance without losing sight of her.

  The moon poured an ocean of silvery light over the steppe. The Amazon queen stood by the banks of the river, a motionless silhouette, while time trickled by. The clouds scudded softly past, reflected in the water. They too were heading slowly for the horizon, never to return. Although I was far from her, I could sense her trembling. Was she cold? Was she afraid? Fierce warriors and famished tigers had not succeeded in shaking her. What was she waiting for? Had some nomad invited her to follow him? Was it a woman who had arranged to meet her here to join us as an Amazon? Since when had she grown so weak that she carried a secret in her heart? Talestria, my wild queen, the warrior with two weapons, how long had she been at war with herself?

  All of a sudden I was aware of a man’s singing above the rustling grass, at first indistinct and then loud and clear. The outline of a horseman etched itself against the moon as it sank toward the earth. Although I did not understand the words, I grasped their meaning: he was singing of love, its intoxicating pleasures and its pain.

  Ta
lestria shuddered. Why that shudder? Had they met the year before? Had they exchanged sweet nothings? Had they promised each other this night of love beside the river? Talestria, my queen, had she forgotten our battles with those men who loomed on the horizon, come to steal our sheep and massacre us? Had she forgotten those hostile horsemen and their obsessive desire to catch us and use our bellies to bring forth still more valiant warriors of the steppes? Talestria had schemed, lied, and cajoled to appease hostilities, to ensure their support and evade their traps. For our survival she had lowered her proud forehead before their powerful chiefs. She had led us into war when the peace fell apart. Why should my queen—who was impregnable to emotion or fear—be shaking so this evening?

  Who was this man who could imitate the dawn chorus? Why did his voice carve through my heart and reduce me to tears? He rode toward Talestria with his stallion’s head lowered in a submissive stance. The white feathers on his helmet quivered in the wind.

  The stallion suddenly reared up, and the horseman swooped down on my queen, holding a stick armed with long spines in his hand. Talestria tugged at her mare’s bridle, and the two horses brushed past each other. She held his stick firm with the spiked bludgeon in her left hand while, with one swift twist of the crescent-shaped blade in her right hand, she sliced off his head.

  Talestria wiped her weapons and put them back into her belt. She set off without a backward glance. The horseman’s torso slipped from his steed and slumped to the ground. Blood sprang from his gaping neck and formed a stream tenderly watering the steppe. Soon wolves drawn by the smell would come and tussle over the corpse. Then crows and scavengers would pick the skeleton clean. Flies would lick up the last vestiges of sun-dried blood. Talestria had been the faster. Talestria, queen of the Amazons, was a better warrior than any man who wanted her as his trophy. Such is the law of the steppes. The strong grow stronger once they have overcome weakness. The weak have to hide or perish.