I noticed Plexis was moody. He picked up a stick and prodded the fire, then put it down, nearly burning his foot. Then he spilled his dinner on his lap. I thought at first it was because of his arm, but when I asked him he shook his head and sighed. ‘I’m worried,’ he admitted. ‘The others have vanished.’
‘What do you mean, “vanished”?’
‘I can’t find a trace of them. I have no idea if we’re still on the right track. At first I thought they’d skirted the mountains, heading due north. Now I’m not so sure. Moreover, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t turn back. I want to find their trail.’
‘What does it mean? Are we lost?’
‘Lost? Of course not. I can find my way back to Orce.’ Then his handsome face clouded. ‘But I’m beginning to think they were “vanished” on purpose. I think that our plan backfired. The druids have separated us.’
‘But, why?’ I asked, frightened now. ‘Why would Alexander try and lose us?’
‘Not Alexander. The people who were following us.’
‘They haven’t tried to harm us,’ I said, uneasily.
‘Perhaps they are afraid of you.’ He spoke slowly, the weight of his thoughts behind his words.
‘That’s silly,’ I said.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time people feared you. I don’t know what these druids believe, but perhaps they have an underworld, and a king of the underworld, and you are supposed to be his queen.’
‘Persephone the Terrible,’ I said, giving my title. I nibbled on a mushroom, but worry took away my appetite. ‘Will we be able to find them soon?’ I asked.
Plexis grinned. ‘I can find them.’ When he sounded so sure of himself, I believed him. ‘We’ll leave at first light. Come with me now, I’m going to set some snares. Hopefully we’ll have a rabbit or two for dinner tomorrow night.’
‘And hopefully we’ll be on their trail again,’ I muttered.
Breakfast was rabbit and mushrooms, lunch was rabbit and wild onions, and dinner was boiled vegetables and broth made with the rest of the rabbit. Plexis didn’t waste a thing.
We covered roughly five parasangs, which was the Persian unit of measurement Alexander used on his marches. They were worth just over five thousand metres, so that meant we hiked about twenty-five kilometres through the forest. Then finally Plexis picked up a faint trail.
He smiled at me and in the violet evening his teeth shone white. ‘I’ve found them.’ There was a definite note of smugness in his voice. ‘They’re ahead of us, and the druids are covering up the trail.’
‘How did you find it?’ I asked.
‘The signs Alexander leaves for us have been erased by the druids. But I found this one. Alexander knows that we were left behind on purpose, or perhaps he simply guessed, or wants to make sure. At any rate, he has started leaving secret signs, ones we used when we were boys in Macedonia.’ His voice trailed away and he sighed. ‘It seems so very long ago.’ He looked glum. ‘Long ago and far away.’
‘I love hearing stories about you and Alexander when you were little,’ I said, to cheer him up.
He brightened. Stories were his favourite things, and he loved both listening to them and telling them. ‘Did you hear about the time I visited him in Pella?’ he asked.
‘When he got Bucephalus? Alexander told me about the horse, but I didn’t know you were there as well.’
‘Yes, I was there when he got Buci,’ he said, giving the horse Alexander’s nickname for him. ‘Let’s see, I was twelve then and Iskander was thirteen. Bucephalus was a full-grown stallion. A trader had brought him to Philip’s court to sell him. The price was steep, but the horse was exceptional. They took him out to the field and, one by one, Philip’s grooms tried to ride him, but they were all thrown. Philip declared he didn’t want the horse, that he was far too expensive for a wild horse, and ordered the trader to take him away. Then Iskander spoke up.’
Plexis’s voice grew dreamy. ‘He was such an intense boy. I can see him now, standing in front of his father with his hands clenched and his eyes blazing. ‘I can ride him! Let me have the horse, Father! ‘ he cried.
‘And Philip guffawed. “What? You? You’d better run back to your books, son, this is a real horse not one of your daydreams!”.’
‘He said that?’ I frowned. I knew they didn’t get along, but that seemed harsh.
‘Philip used to accuse Iskander of being a sissy. He hated the fact he was always reading. Philip couldn’t read three lines of Greek. I think he was jealous. Iskander was as handsome as a young god, whereas Philip was crooked with scars and bloated with drinking. He was missing an eye as well. His face could frighten brave men. Anyway, Philip was sure that Iskander was going to disappoint him. You’ll never believe me, but Iskander hated going to war with his father.’
‘Oh, I think I can believe you,’ I said dryly.
‘So, there was Iskander, standing in front of his father, challenging him. Philip was taken aback, then he grew angry. “Go ahead and mount the horse then, boy! And if you break your neck, it will be as the gods wish. But hear this. If you fall, you will pay me the full price of the horse.” “And if I ride him, he’s mine!” Iskander retorted coolly. “If you ride him!” Philip burst out laughing again. I was standing nearby. I didn’t dare get involved. Iskander was my friend, but I was frightened of Philip. He had a fearsome temper and a heavy hand. He used to beat Iskander. He thrashed him if you want to know the truth. Well, Iskander took the horse from the groom and led him to the centre of the field. I could see him talking to the beast, and soon Bucephalus pricked up his ears and started to listen. Alexander was slight for his age but strong and wiry- despite having a penchant for books,’ added Plexis with a wry grin. ‘He’d also noticed the horse shied at shadows, so he turned him around until he was facing the setting sun and the shadows were behind them. Then, in one fluid motion, he leapt onto the horse’s back. Bucephalus snorted and pranced, but he didn’t see any shadows and Iskander was light on his back. Bucephalus let Iskander ride him, and I think Philip was more angry than proud at that moment. Plus, Iskander was a terrible winner; you know how he is. He couldn’t help gloating. It’s in his nature. He trotted Bucephalus around the pasture, and then he cantered. He was showing off. I was pleased for my friend, but Philip was livid. He paid the trader the full price for the horse and then stormed off to the palace. And Iskander got another thrashing that night.’
‘Why?’ I was shocked.
‘Oh, no reason, really, except that Philip was a brute and Iskander didn’t have any respect for him. His father could have thrashed him from one end of Pella to the other, and Iskander would still look at his father with that superior air he has, and Philip would lose his temper and strike him. I used to beg Iskander to show some respect, even if he didn’t feel it, but he couldn’t. Iskander could never hide his true self. He was always so sure he was right, and that everyone else was wrong, and Philip felt the same way. It made the atmosphere unbearable sometimes. However, it never cowed Iskander. I think that Philip knew he could never break his spirit, and that’s why he sent him to study with Aristotle. In his own way, Philip loved Iskander, and he knew he’d kill him if he didn’t send him away.’ Plexis shrugged. ‘Love can show itself in different ways. Philip was incapable of making a tender gesture, but he was able to save Iskander’s life.’
‘Do you think Alexander realized?’ I asked.
‘No. Certainly not at the beginning. At first, he thought school was just another torture his father had invented for him. Then he grew to know Aristotle. Soon he loved school. He wanted to study everything. He learned things like a sponge sucks up water, thirstily, always asking for more. He wanted to know everything about anything. When Aristotle couldn’t answer him, he would get angry! It was funny sometimes. The questions he asked, the utter intensity of his regard. He read voraciously. He wanted to be a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, and an astronomer – everything but a soldier; but that’s what his father wanted. Philip recogniz
ed his genius and wanted to turn it towards war.’
‘Alexander was an incredible leader of men,’ I said cautiously.
‘I think that for one of his smiles, I would follow him to the ends of the earth,’ confessed Plexis. ‘And most everyone felt the same way. He was brilliant, and his sheer audacity combined with genius won him battles no one else could have won.’
‘And he knew it,’ I said.
‘And he knew it,’ agreed Plexis, grinning broadly.
‘Did Alexander kill his father?’ I asked.
Plexis drew in his breath. ‘Don’t ask me that,’ he said. ‘I was not in Pella at that time, and, despite the rumours, I never believed Iskander capable of killing his own father.’
‘Unless he thought that Philip wasn’t really his father.’ I chose my words carefully.
Plexis stared at me. ‘If you’re suggesting Olympias succeeded in convincing Iskander his father was Zeus, you can forget it. That never happened, no matter how hard Olympias tried. Besides, what difference would it make now?’
‘I’m not sure. But I think something is tearing Alexander apart, and I often wonder what it is. I want to be able to help him. He may think he can do everything on his own, but he can’t. I’m frightened for him,’ I said simply. ‘And I love him.’
Plexis looked at the ground, then up at the sky. ‘Well, that makes two of us then,’ he said.
Chapter Five
A human skull, polished white by the wind and rain, sat on top of a stone. Bright green fungi streaked it, and a bizarre orange mushroom grew from the top of the skull.
‘How did he die?’ I asked, peering out of the undergrowth at the macabre relic.
‘Probably not on purpose,’ said Plexis grimly. ‘He has all his teeth and they look to be in good condition. A young man, I’d say. I’d bet he was killed with a ceremonial stone axe.’
‘How can you tell?’ We were whispering, hiding in a dense thorn bush.
Plexis didn’t want to get any closer to examine it. ‘Someone might be standing guard,’ he’d explained. ‘I can see a large hole in the temple from here.’
I squinted, but all I could see was that orange mushroom the skull sported like a weird hat. ‘Do you think we’re far from the village now?’ My voice was little more than a sigh. I was thoroughly frightened.
‘I’m not sure, but I think this must mark the druids’ boundary. We’ll back up and circle around. I want to see just how vast their territory is and if there’s a secret way into their village.’ He started crawling backwards and I followed him. My heart was pounding painfully. When I blinked I sent tears down my cheeks. I was experiencing a primeval fear, I told myself sternly, trying to get a hold of myself. It was perfectly normal for modern man to be frightened of his ancestors. Because I’d finally realized who the Eaters of the Dead were.
Time is a strange thing. Just as the Time-Senders couldn’t send someone back more than five thousand years, so man can’t really imagine any greater passage of time. Words like two million and ten thousand blur together and form a block of time, a sheer mass our minds cannot grasp. As a time traveller I had more of an idea what time was like. And to tell the truth, it frightened me.
Ten thousand years ago, the Mesolithic age was in full swing. Mesolithic man used fire, buried his dead, and made spear-throwers, and bows and arrows. He sewed his clothes, he painted masterpieces on cave walls, he carved statues, and he had started to form permanent settlements. All that took two million years to accomplish. Two million years of time moving hardly at all, forming a solid, frozen block of time.
Then suddenly things started to move faster. Was it the climate? Time melted and flowed like the glacier ice being freed from the grip of cold.
Roughly five thousand years ago, the Neolithic age began. People domesticated livestock, grew crops, and settled on farms and in villages. Tribes spread all over the known world. Five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians began to develop writing. It was a great leap forward. From caveman to modern man; the change was like a bolt of lightning. Civilizations began, as did history as we can comprehend it.
Strangely enough, it is almost as if our collective memory only started five thousand years ago. Before that is only cold and darkness and a primeval fear that shakes our bones.
Neolithic man replaced his ancestors, the Mesolithic man, around that time. Why and how is a mystery. No matter how hard the Time-Senders tried, they could never get past the barrier of five thousand years. It was as if a solid wall really did exist. Every single timetraveller sent back further than five thousand years disappeared without a trace.
I had my own theory about that. The incredible number of years that made up the Stone Age was too dense. It was literally a block made of two million years that held time immobile. Two million years. Twenty thousand centuries. Two hundred thousand decades. Too many years for the mind to grasp. An eternity filled with cold and darkness, when people huddled in caves for warmth and barely kept the spark of humanity alive. The Time-Senders would do anything to be able to study cavemen.
I was about to do that. I had the conviction that the Eaters of the Dead were no more than a Mesolithic tribe living in ‘modern’ times. And I was terrified.
Plexis was as scared as I was. It made him doubly wary about canvassing the area. We spent five days creeping around the outskirts of their territory, getting to know the terrain, the routes leading in and out of the valley, and planning our escape. I was anxious to find Paul and Alexander, but Plexis wanted to be careful not to get caught. So I fretted silently, my nerves making me sleepless and jumpy.
On the fifth day, we climbed an outcrop of rock overlooking the village. It was built in the deepest part of a narrow valley. Through it tumbled a swift brook, about three metres wide. Sheer cliffs rose on either side casting the valley in nearly perpetual shadow. Huts made of wood and bone covered with leather seemed to be the most common dwelling. Three longhouses made in the Viking style formed a three-sided square in the middle of the village. A pasture on the flank of the hill held a large flock of goats and sheep, and I could see pigsties built next to the huts. The village seemed deserted that night -everyone was sleeping when we first spied on them. But Plexis silently pointed out shadows standing hidden in doorways and behind trees, and I saw that the village was being guarded.
There was an open space next to the stream, with a stepping stone bridge. Just outside the village stood a circle of roughly hewn megaliths. The stones were black and seemed to swallow the pale light of the moon and the flickering torches set around them. They looked malevolent.
In the centre of the village was an open pit lined with slabs of rock. All this we could see clearly because there were four torches, one at each corner. In the pit were Alexander, Paul, Yovanix, and Nearchus. We couldn’t see Demos. Plexis swore under his breath. He was sure it meant that the big man had been killed.
I tried to stay more optimistic, but I couldn’t understand why they would keep Demos apart from everyone else.
We watched for a while, then we eased backwards out of sight. We ate our dinner cold, hidden up on the ridge, then curled up in our cloaks and slept. We needed to see what would happen during the daylight hours.
Plexis was awake long before I was. Or else he hadn’t slept at all. He looked haggard, the strain of his wounds and fatigue lining his face and tightening his mouth. I ran a rueful hand down his cheek, and he managed a smile. We didn’t speak. We were afraid someone would hear so we communicated with gestures. Silently, we ate breakfast and cleaned up our campsite, and then we started off towards the village. Plexis led, I followed, stepping lightly in his footsteps, trying to move as quietly as he did.
When we took our place on the outcrop again, we were doubly careful not to be seen. Like snakes we wormed onto the flat rock, staying under the cover of a thick bramble. Flat on our stomachs we inched forward and then peered down into the valley below. We were perhaps a hundred metres from the outskirts of the village an
d at least that high above it. We stared at the strange scene below.
People appeared to be divided into groups according to sex and age, and they were all working. I could see young boys sitting near the stream fishing. They were dressed in leather pants and sleeveless woollen tunics. The girls were working in the doorways of their huts scraping hides or sewing. They wore long, plain dresses made of leather or wool. Older women were weaving in the shade of the cliff near a large tree.
The people were a mixture of sizes and shapes. Some were tall and blond like the Valerian tribes. Others were short and dark of skin and hair. I’d never seen a tribe like that, and I was perplexed.
The fishing was soon done. Now I could see the boys lifting traps from the stream and shaking them out. They were full of crayfish. When they were finished, half of the boys went to tend the goats and sheep while the other half went into the forest to gather firewood.
I noticed there were no men except for the druids guarding the village. They stayed in the shadows of the houses, not moving – except one. When I saw him, my breath caught in my throat and I shivered. Voltarrix! I recognized him from his long, blond braids, his sharp nose, and the Celtic torque around his neck. He strode to the pit, and I could see Alexander’s face as they spoke to one another. We were too far to hear what was being said or even read their lips. Alexander seemed agitated, and my heart started to thump.
‘Why are you scrunching up your face like that?’ whispered Plexis, concerned.
‘I’m wishing a thunderbolt,’ I answered.
‘Why?’
‘That’s the man who killed Millis, the one the Gauls call the Thief of Souls.’
The Soul of Time Page 5