by Shan Sa
I pretended to fall into the trap by arranging a royal funeral for his double. I made the most of his “death” to take the pompous title of King of Asia. On the pretext that every Persian province had to submit to Alexander, I set off again along those steep roads to find the real Darius. Tracking a man who no longer existed, I ventured deeper and deeper into the shadows of the Orient.
I climbed every mountain, guided by eagles. They were not afraid of the cold or of solitude, flying high above life. Standing on those peaks, looking down at the world, I smiled to think I could die in the next battle…but Darius would have survived me. He would be the conqueror in a war in which he had been conquered.
BESSOS, DARIUS’S ACCOMPLICE, was flayed alive, and now no one but Bagoas knew my rival was still alive.
The world fell apart, and the world was reborn. Where there had been a narrow path, a wide road defended by garrisons appeared. In the wake of my army, inns cropped up and prospered, and caravans came and went, selling the West and buying up the East. My troops formed a thread stretching out across the land, coiling back, tumbling down hillsides and undulating along mountain crests. Still we marched on, my legend traveling before me and most tribes choosing to surrender without resistance. My army had grown: the soldiers from the League of Corinth had been joined by Persian recruits and warriors offered by vassal clans. I ordered them to take local wives and sow in their bellies the seeds of future warriors for my empire. I sent for scholars from Greece and Babylon to accompany me in my explorations. They were to study these hitherto unknown lands, their fauna and their peoples, to draw them and write about them. The blacksmiths and armorers worked nonstop. After each battle, traders who specialized in selling weapons gathered up enemy arsenals to supply us with the pots, fabrics, and furs we needed. Tailors and seamstresses traveled in my footsteps to clothe my army. Macedonian cobblers assisted by oriental slaves supplied us with tens of thousands of pairs of sandals and shoes whose soles wore away with the endless marching. I drew up a contract with tomb raiders: they gave me half of their gains and secretly sent the treasure to Ecbatana, where Parmenion managed our supplies.
Despite my glorious title of King of Asia, I slept on a carpet on the bare earth like my soldiers, and like them I took only two meals a day: at dawn we had bread, honey, and dried fruits; late in the afternoon, as the sun skimmed behind the treetops, cooked vegetables, broth, and meat. I allowed myself alcohol and copious meals only on feast days, when all those who followed me—soldiers from every land—were invited to share in these dishes.
The fighting was so easy that the long march became wearying. Veterans who had followed me for eight years grew homesick, and their discontent crept up to the ranks of my generals. Not daring to cross me publicly, they sent Hephaestion to ask me one simple question: When do we go home?
Maintaining command of such a huge army was weighing on me. Much time was lost in discussions over its administration, and the moment the fighting ceased, intrigues flourished in court once more. Having set out to conquer, I found myself a king with countless menial responsibilities, making me a slave to my own subjects. The accumulated irritations eventually drained my enthusiasm for this unprecedented spree of victories: I was filled with doubt.
When Hephaestion pressed me, I invented a justification:
“Darius is dead, but those faithful to him still resist us as if he were alive. Until I have pacified the Persian territories in their entirety, there could be revolts, towns we have already conquered could turn against us, the Achemenides nobility could betray us. We must flush out those who will not submit and exterminate every last one of them.”
I could not admit to him that I missed the exultation of war, that at twenty-eight I was covered in scars and sometimes longed for rest and the sweet pleasures of family life. But a living Darius was a poison dripping stealthily into my thoughts. I could not reveal this truth to my friends, who believed I was already victorious: I am tracking a rival who confronts my strength with his cunning; he and I are competing in a trial of endurance and perseverance. Darius’s flight drew me inexorably in his pursuit.
“There is no room for discussion,” I told him yet again. “We must advance!”
Hephaestion withdrew sadly. He had long since stepped aside for Bagoas, who had seen him as a rival and done everything to distance him from me. The young eunuch had put on weight, like a Persian cat fattening up the moment it was well treated. Other younger and more beautiful boys had taken his place in my bedchamber. Their bodies might be slender or solid, tall or small, sometimes sculpted by exercise, their eyes might be green, brown, blue, or tawny, alive with passion or intelligence…they were like so many landscapes drawing me onward and appeasing me. But Bagoas was still my favorite because there was no official replacement for him in my heart. Since I had been called Alexander the Great, surrounded by courtesans, eunuchs, and guards, I had lost my appetite for love. My one constancy was Olympias, a diffuse light, an outpost that still answered my missives. I had become impatient and irascible.
Riding the umpteenth stallion called Bucephalus, I saw my abandoned past reeling out behind me. From an illegitimate girl, I had revealed myself a man. From weakness, I had acquired strength. My fear of Philip and the pain of rape had allowed me to build a life on revenge. By putting myself at the forefront of my attacks on every city, I had made myself the king of kings, leading men who were taller, more adept, and stronger than myself. I had lived intensely, wasting nothing of the lessons Aristotle taught me. I had done nothing to disappoint the gods who adopted me.
My courage was now legendary. My strength had been crowned with glory. My determination had taken me to heights forbidden to the sons of men. All these earthly rewards did nothing to gratify me. I was no longer happy.
How could I forget that Hephaestion, Bagoas, and all my friends and lovers created an invisible rampart condemning me to endless sterile solitude? How could I forget that glory was short-lived, that death might take me naked, with no crown and no lands but only regrets?
What was missing, and painfully so, was a wife who could accompany me on my journeys and through my life. What was missing was a child to whom I could pass on the ring of command. The absence of a family weakened me. The conspiracies around me multiplied, all with a view to assassinating a king with no heir.
A constant stream of young men appeared, to charm me. I saw this as an insidious maneuver intended to keep me from women. I used these boys and threw them away, convinced they had been sent to sound me out, to watch me and fill my free moments. Somewhere behind them was a man planning to take hold of my army and my empire.
I sat on my throne alone, and said nothing.
IT STARTED AS a slanderous rumor. Then it grew, borne on the wind, spreading through the air like pollen. People whispered that I had belittled myself by dressing as a Persian and forming an attachment for a slave like Bagoas. They said I had sunk into the arms of luxury and wasted nights on end cavorting with Darius’s concubines. They said I had developed a liking for the trappings of the Great Kings and insisted my advisers and guards prostrate themselves at my feet.
Not satisfied with spreading word of my preference for men among the Macedonians, my detractors persuaded the barbarian soldiers that Alexander had contracted an evil spirit while crossing the dark, shady Drangiane region. However fiercely I punished the gossipmongers to snuff out the defamation, the rumor persisted, nesting among the soldiers wearied by endless marching but flying away as soon as it was touched. As I had no concrete proof, nothing to indicate a particular enemy hiding in the shadows, I waited patiently.
Eventually the huge conspiracy fell apart, quite by chance. An officer called Dymnus became infatuated with a prostitute known as Nicomachus. He confided in him his plan to assassinate me and invited the boy to join him and the other conspirators. Nicomachus was quick to denounce him to his brother Cebalinus, who in turn spoke to Philotas, who had access to my private tent. Philotas was the son of Parmenion, a
general to whom I had entrusted the command of Media and the management of our supplies, but he was careful not to warn me of the danger.
Cebalinus eventually reached me himself and gave me the names of the parricidal plotters. But Philotas’s silence struck me as more dangerous than a few little foot soldiers dreaming of killing their king. It proved that he wished me dead.
Everything became clear to me then: Parmenion, Philotas’s father, was the man hiding in the shadows and slowly turning the army against me! I made Crateros responsible for subjecting Philotas to torture. His cries rang out, filling me with self-loathing. I could picture him in one of his languid poses and could not bear the thought that he only loved me the better to betray me.
His father Parmenion, now seventy years old, had once enjoyed Philip’s respect and Olympias’s friendship. He had come over to my camp after Philip’s death by executing my rival Attalus. He had used his skills as an orator to rally the Greeks, and his strategies had seen me win many battles. Two of his sons had died in combat, and he had offered me the vigorous young flesh of his last son. Blinded by this evidence of his support, I had interpreted his ambiguity as flexibility, his eloquence as sincerity, and his opportunism as loyalty.
The old man was a monster; why had it taken me so long to see?
He went to every banquet and invited himself into all the taverns, befriending the Persian nobility to build up his network. He waited until I reached the remotest regions of Persia to launch rumors that disrupted my soldiers. He arranged for supplies of food to arrive late or be lost along the way. Hunger and cold angered my commanders, and they too started criticizing me and plotting against me. Parmenion was a fine strategist; he could have eliminated me without touching a weapon. As governor of Media he could have taken over my empire without taking part in any conspiracy.
This ploy would have been the perfect crime, but the gods decided otherwise. The moment Philotas’s confession was ripped from him, I sent a well-chosen man to take a letter to Parmenion announcing a promotion. The general who dreamed of becoming King of Asia greeted my message with delight. He was stabbed on the spot; the strategist had lost thanks to his own strategies.
THE STEEP MOUNTAINS softened and curved; the hills turned to plains covered in meadowland. Despite warnings from my Persian generals, who still remembered defeats inflicted by the nomads, despite complaints from the Macedonians, who wanted to go home, I unleashed an arrow toward the sun and my army advanced into the kingdom of the Scythians.
Every country has its own ocean. The steppes were the Mediterranean of the northern peoples. The whispering of leaves replaced the murmur of waves. As seagulls cluster around ships, so here blackbirds flew up into the sky singing of heroes who died for glory and for love. The Scythian tribes, renowned for their savagery and insolence, appeared and vanished around us. Their mounted warriors and skilled archers attacked us and then withdrew. They loomed on the horizon like a pack of starving wolves, stole food, took women and children, then—like thunderclouds fleeing to reveal blue skies—dispersed.
“The steppes are haunted, and these tribes have powerful sorcerers,” the Persians muttered, trying to discourage me. “During their ceremonies, these men dress in lion skins and adorn themselves with feathers, animal teeth, and mirrors. They beat drums and sing and dance until they collapse, foaming at the mouth and rolling their eyes. Then the earth ripples and opens up to swallow foreign troops while the spirits of dead soldiers come down from the sky.”
I learned that Darius had been here before me. Nothing could stop me in my headlong pursuit of him. If the enemy fled across the steppe, then why should I, Alexander, not face its shifting vastness and elusive horsemen in my turn?
The wind whispered, the wind howled. Unhindered, the sky spilled over the four horizons. Some soldiers, oppressed by the vastness, went mad. They threw off their clothes and ran screaming from the encampment. The Persians explained that, unable to find houses to live in, the spirits wandered day and night over these lands, without rest. When they met foreigners not protected by magic formulae, they took possession of their souls. I thought nothing of their superstitions but doubled the number of guards watching over our camps because I knew that at night the nomads could disguise themselves as spirits to sow terror in my army.
I heard tell that on the banks of the Iaxarte there was an annual market that drew all the tribes together, and that the previous year, Darius had been seen there. He had become a flame-thrower, and the crowd applauding him had no idea he had once been king of kings.
Before I arrived, the nomads had taken down their tents and disappeared. All that was left on the ground were the holes where they had planted their stakes, and chariot tracks almost washed away by the rain. The river reflected the blue sky. I was accustomed to conquering cities and attacking fortresses on steep rocks, and for the first time I was overcome by how strange life was on the steppe. I had not come through a single town or met a single inhabitant. I could see no villages or roads on my map. Wherever I went, the horizons were empty and the inhabitants vanished. Only the grasses with their constant whispering seemed to want to communicate to me the cries of joy and animated conversations of those people. But where are the tribes? Where are my enemies? Where are the people I should subjugate and who should proclaim me as their king? Who are these people that they are indifferent to Alexander and don’t come to meet him in war?
Has Darius learned to be invisible? Has he come to the steppes in search of the magic that allowed men to melt into the wind?
I could no longer bear the weight of my army on my shoulders or the slow pace of our progress: I silenced their displeasure and their nostalgia by ordering them to set up camp and rest. I myself took a detachment and headed north.
I abandoned my demoralized troops with a sense of relief, galloping toward the skies like a bird escaping a trap.
THE HORIZON DREW closer. The vast swell of grasses threw itself in the air and closed in again. With every wave conquered, another impetuous wave rose up. I slid deeper into their dark ocean, forgetting sunlight, thirst, and hunger. What I truly forgot were the traitors and the complainers, their constant appetite for booty and their intriguing for glory. I called to Hephaestion to advance even faster. With speed I would conquer this vastness. With strength I would subjugate the infinite and transform it into the finite.
The sun set and the moon rose. The stars revolved and dawn came back again. Under the reddening sky, the darkness was an army beating the retreat. As I galloped onward I heard laughter and murmuring. The spirits were close by me now, mocking my progress. Their singing! The incantations of those invisible peoples trying to slow my pace, to frighten Bucephalus. Be gone, evil spirits!
Hephaestion was exhausted. He fell ill, and I had to stop. He ranted for a whole night: like a woman determined to take her warrior home, he was trying desperately to drag me back the way we had come.
“Alexander who has triumphed over every mountain peak shall not be defeated by the steppe,” I explained.
The next morning I did not wake him but left him with half my soldiers while I carried on northward.
One day at dawn some impoverished nomads driving a flock of sheep appeared. They greeted me in their language, welcomed me into their tent, invited me to eat and drink and offered their wives and daughters for my bed. They did not know who I was. They were not troubled by the absence of dialogue, and I managed to speak in gestures. I asked many of them the same question: Where are the outer limits of the steppes? and they all replied: In the stars.
We rode on together. I met other tribes, some made up of only ten people. They lived in poor, flimsy tents and vanished without warning, leaving us adrift on the green waves. Their sorcerers dressed in robes of leather and lion skin, they danced and sang and raved until they looked liked wolves, bears, or eagles and delivered their oracles. They could not write, and they healed the sick using magic potions and formulae. They smiled a great deal and took us for a warrior tribe.
I forgot Pella and Olympias and her marble palace. I forgot Athens and its ruined temples. I forgot Babylon, its scarlet walls, its tall chambers filled with incense. I forgot the burned citadels, the conquered towns, my argument with Cleitos and his body pierced by my lance. I had left them all to be with the wind, the spirits, and the green waves.
I navigated ever northward. I was no longer Alexander but the chief of a small nomadic tribe. The moon had a different luminosity, watching me and smiling. That evening it spoke:
“Alexander, prepare yourself! The volcano is about to spew out a storm of stars, the sun will come to meet the moon! Pack away your tent, pack your trunks. She is coming, she will capture you. She will take you away!”
The following morning an army appeared on the horizon.
AT FIRST IT was a line of black, then short silhouettes on broad sturdy horses. They became minute warriors wearing painted armor and helmets adorned with feathers. Their arrows rained down on us; one burrowed into my shoulder, another into my horse’s neck. It was a very long time since I had been in battle. The pain awakened Alexander as he slept. My own body unfurled, and Bucephalus, spurred on by his blood, reared and whinnied. Dashing aside arrows with my shield, I sped toward the enemy with a roar.
One of their number launched himself at me. He held off my lance with a long-handled bludgeon covered in spines, while with the sickle in his left hand he cleaved into the bronze plate and seven layers of leather on my shield. I pushed it at him, and he flung it in the air with a swipe of his bludgeon. My left hand found my sword in its sheath; I threw myself forward, aiming for his head. My lance crossed his bludgeon. My bronze sword, inherited from Philip and blessed by Vulcan, clashed with his sickle. A deafening sound. Sparks. The sickle had just chipped Alexander’s invincible two-edged sword!