Child of a Dream

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘And beyond Italy lies Sicily, the most fertile and beautiful land known. There stand Syracuse and Agrigentum, Gela and Selinous. And even further on is Sardinia and then Spain, the richest country in the world with its inexhaustible silver and iron and tin mines.’

  ‘I had a dream last night,’ said Alexander.

  ‘What did you dream?’ asked the King.

  ‘We were together, you and I, on horseback, at the top of Mount Imarus, the highest in your realm. I was astride Bucephalas and you were on Keraunos, your battle charger, and we were both in the midst of a field of shining light because just then there was one sun setting over the sea to the west while another one rose way over to the east. Two suns . . . can you imagine that? A truly moving spectacle.

  ‘Then we said goodbye to each another because you decided to go to where the sun was setting while I opted for the place where the sun was rising. Isn’t that something? Alexander of the rising sun and Alexander of the setting sun! And before parting, before each of us spurred on his horse towards his own fiery globe, we made a solemn promise: that we would never meet again before completing our journeys and the place we chose for our meeting was . . .’

  ‘Was where?’ insisted the King. ‘Where is the place we agreed on for our reunion?’

  ‘Ah! I don’t remember that.’

  31

  ALEXANDER WAS NOT LONG in understanding that his stay in Buthrotum would soon create unbearable complications, both for himself and for his uncle, Alexander of Epirus. Philip continued to send urgent requests to Epirus requiring Alexander to return to Pella, make amends for his misdeeds and beg forgiveness in front of the assembled court.

  The young Prince made up his mind to leave.

  ‘But where will you go?’ asked the King.

  ‘North. Where he can’t find me.’

  ‘You can’t. That area is peopled by wild and semi-nomadic tribes, permanently at war with one another. And on top of that the bad weather’s just about to start. It snows and snows up there in those mountains, you know. Do you have any experience of white weather? It’s a formidable enemy.’

  ‘I am not afraid.’

  ‘We all know that.’

  ‘And so I will go. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘I will not let you leave unless you give me details of the route you’re planning to take. If I should need you, I want to know where I can find you.’

  ‘I have studied your maps. I’m going to Lychnidos, on the eastern side of the lake, and from there I’ll head towards the interior along the Drilon valley.’

  ‘When do you plan to set off ?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Hephaestion is coming with me.’

  ‘No. You must remain here for another two days at least. I have to prepare everything you’ll need for your journey. And I will give you a horse for carrying your supplies; when you have finished the food you’ll be able to sell the horse and continue along your way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alexander.

  ‘I will give you letters for the Illyrian chiefs of Chelidonia and Dardania. They might be useful to you. I have friends in those regions.’

  ‘I hope one day to be able to repay you for all you have done for me.’

  ‘There’s no need to say that. And keep your spirits up.’

  That same day the King hurriedly wrote a letter and gave it to the fastest of his messengers with instructions to deliver it to Callisthenes, in Pella.

  *

  Alexander went to say goodbye to his mother on the morning of his departure. She held him tightly, crying warm tears and cursing Philip from the depths of her soul.

  ‘Don’t say these things, Mother,’ Alexander begged her, his voice muffled with sadness.

  ‘Why?’ shouted Olympias in a voice that came directly from her grief and her pain. ‘He has humiliated me, wounded me, he has forced me into exile. And now he obliges you to run away, to set off into the unknown in the midst of winter. I wish him the worst of deaths, if only he could be made to suffer as I have!’

  Alexander looked at her and felt a cold shiver run through his blood. If he was afraid of anything, he was afraid of such hatred, a hatred so strong she reminded him of a heroine from the tragedies he had seen many times in the theatre: Clytemnestra wielding the axe with which she kills her husband Agamemnon, or Medea who kills her own children to spite Jason, her husband, to hurt him in the very depths of his love.

  At that moment there came to his mind another of the terrible stories about the Queen that had done the rounds at Pella: it was said that during an initiatory ceremony of the cult of Orpheus she had eaten human flesh. He looked into her enormous eyes, full of darkness now, full of such desperate violence that he would have believed her capable of anything.

  ‘Don’t curse him, Mother,’ he repeated. ‘Perhaps it is a good thing that I should suffer solitude and exile, cold and hunger. This is a lesson that I have never had before, one that my father never taught me. Perhaps he wants me to learn this as well. Perhaps it is the ultimate lesson, a lesson that only he can give me.’

  With some difficulty he pulled himself from her embrace, leaped onto Bucephalas and dug his heels vigorously into the horse’s flanks.

  The charger rose up onto his hind legs with a neigh, thrashed his front hooves in the air and then set off at a gallop blowing steamy vapour from his nostrils. Hephaestion lifted an arm in salute and then he too spurred his mount on, keeping hold of the bridle of the third horse as he rode off in pursuit.

  Olympias stood there watching as they disappeared, her eyes brimming with tears. Soon all that was left before her was the empty northern road.

  *

  The letter from the King of Epirus reached Callisthenes in Pella a few days later and Aristotle’s nephew opened it impatiently and began reading.

  Alexander, King of the Molossians, hails Callisthenes!

  I trust this finds you well. My nephew Alexander is enjoying a quiet life here in Epirus, far from the turmoil of military life and the daily pressures of government. He spends his days reading, especially Euripides, and of course Homer, in the boxed edition he received as a present from his teacher and your uncle, Aristotle. Sometimes he amuses himself by playing the lyre a little.

  On other occasions he takes part in hunting expeditions . . .

  As he read the missive Callisthenes found himself increasingly surprised by its ordinariness and complete irrelevance. There was nothing important and nothing personal in the King’s communication. The letter seemed to be a completely futile exercise. But why?

  Deeply disappointed, he put the papyrus down on his desk and started pacing the room, trying to understand what the King of Epirus had had in mind when suddenly, as his eyes fell on the sheet, he saw that there were cuts all along its edges, and on looking more closely he saw that these had been made deliberately, with scissors.

  He brought the heel of his left hand up to smack his forehead. ‘Why on earth didn’t I think of it before! It’s the intersecting polygon code.’

  This was a code that Aristotle had once taught him and he, in his turn, had taught it to Alexander of Epirus, thinking that it might just be useful one day if the young sovereign ever found himself leading a military campaign.

  He got a ruler and a set square and started joining all the cuts in order and then all the intersecting points. He then traced perpendicular lines on each side of the internal polygon, thus obtaining further intersections.

  Each intersection highlighted a word in the text and Callisthenes rewrote them all following a sequence of numbers that Aristotle had taught him. A simple yet ingenious way of sending secret messages.

  When he had finished he burned the letter and ran to Eumenes. He found the secretary up to his eyes in paperwork, reckoning taxes and expenditure forecasts for equipping four more phalanx battalions.

  ‘I need to ask you something,’ he said, and he whispered in Eumenes’ ear.

  ‘They left ten days ago,’ replied Eumenes, lifting his head from
the papers.

  ‘Yes, but where did they go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You know perfectly well where they are.’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘In that case I don’t know.’

  Callisthenes moved closer once more and again whispered something in Eumenes’ ear, then he added, ‘Can you get a message to them?’

  ‘How much time do I have?’

  ‘Two days at the most.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘I’ll do it myself then.’

  Eumenes shook his head. ‘Come on, give it to me then. You reckon you could manage a job like this?’

  *

  Alexander and Hephaestion wound their way up the Argirinian Mountains, the peaks already dusted with snow, and then descended towards the valley of the River Aoos which shone like a golden ribbon way down below in the depths of the green slopes. The mountainsides, bedecked with forests, were beginning to change colour with the approach of autumn and across the sky flew flocks of cranes, crying as they left their nests on their long migratory journey towards the lands of the pygmies.

  They travelled along the Aoos valley for two days, following the river as it flowed northward until reaching the intersection with the Apsos. They started up the river, thus leaving behind them the dominion of Alexander of Epirus and entering Illyria.

  The population of this country lived spread out in small villages fortified with dry stone walls and they subsisted on livestock breeding and, occasionally, brigandry. But Alexander and Hephaestion had arrived well prepared – wearing trousers in the barbarian style and rough woollen cloaks. They were hardly a sight for sore eyes, but it was good wet-weather clothing and ensured they fitted in with the people from the area without being noticed.

  When they started moving towards the interior mountain chains, snow began to fall and the temperature dropped considerably. The horses blew clouds of vapour from their nostrils and they struggled and slipped on their way up the steep paths, so much so that Alexander and Hephaestion had to dismount and continue on foot, coaxing their animals along the way.

  Now and then, on reaching the high point of a mountain pass, they would turn to look backwards and the white sameness and vastness of the snow with only their own tracks spoiling it would send a shiver through their bodies, and not just because of the cold.

  At night they had to find shelter where they could light a fire to dry their sodden clothes, spread out their cloaks and rest a while. Often, before falling asleep, they would sit and contemplate in the light of the flames the large white snowflakes as they fell dancing to earth, or they would listen rapt to the call of the wolves echoing through the lonely valleys.

  They were just boys, still fresh from their adolescence, and such moments filled them with a deep and harrowing melancholy. Sometimes they would pull the same cloak around their shoulders and hold each other tightly in the dark. In the midst of the boundless fields of snow they remembered their childhood and the nights in which they would climb into each other’s beds, frightened by a nightmare or by the lament of a condemned prisoner crying out his torment.

  And it was the frozen darkness and the apparent hopelessness of the future that led them to seek warmth in each other, to lose themselves in their nudity which was both fragile and powerful at one and the same time. Their own proud and desolate solitude left them amazed.

  The cold, livid light of dawn called them back to reality and the pangs of hunger drove them to set about finding food.

  There were traces of some animals in the snow, so they went to look at the traps they had set and found they had managed to catch a few things: a rabbit or a mountain grouse which they would eat still warm after having first drunk its blood. On other occasions they had to set off with nothing but hunger in their bellies, frozen stiff by the biting cold of those inhospitable lands. And their horses suffered this ordeal as well, eating only the old grass they managed to find by scraping the snow with their hooves.

  Finally, after days and days of difficult progress, exhausted by the cold and the hunger, they saw the frozen surface of Lake Lychnidos shining before them like a mirror in the pale light of the winter sky. They proceeded at a walk along the northern shore, hoping to reach the village of the same name before darkness fell. Perhaps they would be able to spend a night indoors, in the warmth, next to a blazing fire.

  ‘See that smoke on the horizon?’ Alexander asked his friend. ‘I was right . . . there must be a village down there. There’ll be hay for the horses and food and a straw mattress for us.’

  ‘Too good to be true, I must be dreaming,’ replied Hephaestion. ‘Do you really believe we’ll have all these things?’

  ‘Oh yes. And there might even be women. I once heard my father say that the barbarians from the interior sometimes offer them to strangers as a mark of hospitality.’

  It had started snowing again and it was drifting, so that the horses struggled now through the whiteness. The cold air penetrated through their clothes to the very bone. Suddenly Hephaestion pulled the reins of his horse. ‘Oh, by the gods . . . look!’

  Alexander threw his hood back and looked into the thick blizzard: there was a group of men blocking the way forward, motionless on their horses, their shoulders and their hoods covered in snow, all of them armed with javelins.

  ‘Do you think they’re waiting for us?’ asked the Prince, putting his hand to his sword.

  ‘I think so. And in any case we will soon know,’ replied Hephaestion, drawing his own sword and spurring his horse into a walk again.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to clear a way through,’ Alexander said.

  ‘I’m afraid so too,’ replied Hephaestion quietly.

  ‘I was so looking forward to a plate of warm soup, a bed and a fire. And maybe even a fine wench. And you?’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘On my signal?’

  ‘All right.’

  But just as they were about to launch into their charge, a shout rang out in the great silence of the valley.

  ‘Alexander’s troop salutes its leader!’

  ‘Ptolemy!’

  ‘Sire!’

  ‘Perdiccas!’

  ‘Sire!’

  ‘Leonnatus!’

  ‘Sire!’

  ‘Craterus!’

  ‘Sire!’

  ‘Lysimachus!’

  ‘Sire!’

  ‘Seleucus!’

  ‘Sire!’

  The last echo faded away over the icebound lake and Alexander looked at the six men on horseback, motionless in the snow, and his eyes filled with tears. Then he turned towards Hephaestion and shook his head in amazement. ‘By Zeus!’ he said. ‘It’s my lads!’

  32

  THREE MONTHS AFTER the wedding, Eurydice gave birth to a baby girl who took the name Europa. Shortly afterwards Eurydice fell pregnant again. Philip, however, wasn’t able to enjoy his newly rediscovered fatherhood for very long on account of developing political and personal affairs. His health was a problem too: his left eye, which had been wounded in battle but never adequately treated, was blind by now.

  That winter he received a visit from his informer Eumolpus of Soloi. He had faced the sea voyage in bad weather because the news he carried was simply too important to wait. He was used to the stable, mild climate of his city, and was frozen through now. The King had him sit near the fire and ordered a cup of strong sweet wine to revive him and loosen his tongue a little.

  ‘Well then . . . what news do you bring me, my old friend?’

  ‘The goddess of Fortune is on your side, Sire. Just let me tell you what has happened at the Persian court. As predicted, Arses, the new king, was quick to realize exactly who the real master of the palace was and, finding this reality hard to accept, arranged to have Bagoas poisoned.’

  ‘The eunuch?’

  ‘Precisely. But Bagoas had been expecting a move of this kind. He foiled the plot and took countermeasures, s
uccessfully poisoning the King. After that he had all Arses’ children killed.’

  ‘By the gods, that ball-less wonder is deadlier than a scorpion when he sets his mind to it.’

  ‘Indeed. But at that point the dynastic line had come to an end. Between those killed by Artaxerxes III and those killed by Bagoas there was no one left.’

  ‘So?’ Philip asked.

  ‘So Bagoas picked up on an old lateral lineage and put one of them on the throne with the name of Darius III.’

  ‘And who is this Darius III?’

  ‘His grandfather was Ostanes, the brother of Artaxerxes II. He is forty-five years old, and he appreciates both women and boys.’

  ‘I’m not sure how relevant that news is,’ commented Philip. ‘Haven’t you got anything more interesting to tell me?’

  ‘At the time of being nominated King he was Satrap of Armenia.’

  ‘A difficult province. He must be a tough specimen.’

  ‘Let’s say a robust one. It appears he killed a rebel of the Kadusian tribe in hand-to-hand combat.’

  Philip ran his hand over his beard. ‘I think the ball-less wonder might well have bitten off more than he can chew this time.’

  ‘Exactly,’ nodded Eumolpus who was just beginning to warm up. ‘It seems Darius has every intention of taking full control of the Straits and of reaffirming his right to rule over all the Greek cities of Asia. There is even a rumour that he wants a formal act of submission from the Macedonian crown, but I wouldn’t worry about that much. Darius is certainly not an opponent of your stature: as soon as he hears you roar he’ll run cowering to his bed.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Philip.

  ‘Do you need anything else, Sire?’

  ‘Excellent work you’ve done, but the difficult part starts now. Stop by at Eumenes’ desk and make sure you’re paid. Take extra money, if required, to pay some informers. Nothing of what goes on at Darius’ court must escape your notice.’