The Novels of Alexander the Great

by Mary Renault

  I said, “I am sorry that they died.”

  “They too. They loved their lives. But they died unfearing. It was living without fear, that made their lives worth loving. Or so I think.”

  He rose and picked up the casket. “Look, you have been nearer it than you knew.” He moved the pillow of his bed, and opened the bed-box. A dagger was there too, honed like a razor. Every second king of Macedon had been murdered, and sometimes two kings running.

  Long after this, I caught my name as I approached his tent, and heard him say, “I tell you, when he heard the story of Achilles, his eyes were full of tears. And that fool Kallisthenes talks of Persians as if they were Scythian savages. The boy has more poetry in one finger than that pedant has in his head.”

  At autumn’s end, we reached the southern spurs of Parapamisos. They were already shawled with snow. Far to the east, they join Great Kaukasos, the wall of India, which goes on higher and higher, further than anyone knows.

  On a spur of their foothills, sheltered from the north wind, he made the year’s third Alexandria. By the time of the first snowfall, it was ready for us to winter in. After some of the king-houses, like ogres’ lairs in legends, it was good to smell clean new wood and wall-paint. The governor’s house had a porch with columns, in the Greek style; and a plinth in front, for a statue of Alexander.

  It was the first he’d had done since I had been with him; but he, of course, was as used to taking his clothes off for this as for his bath. The sculptor made drawings from all around him, seven or eight studies, while he gazed into the distance making himself look beautiful. Then he was measured all over with the calipers. Then he could go off hunting, and need not come back till the face was being finished. It was very fine, both calm and eager; true to his soul, though of course it left out the sword-cut.

  One evening he said to me, “The new thing has begun. Today I sent orders back to the cities, to make me a new army. This one I’m growing from seed. I’m having thirty thousand Persian boys taught Greek, and trained to use Macedonian weapons. Does that please you?”

  “Oh, yes, Al’skander. It would please Kyros too. When will they be ready?”

  “Not for five years. They must start young before their minds get fixed. By then, I should hope, the Macedonians will be ready as well.”

  I said I was sure of it. I was still of an age when five years seem half a lifetime.

  The air grew soft in the foothills, delicate flowers pierced the melting snow. Alexander decided he could cross straight over the mountains after Bessos.

  I don’t suppose even the local shepherds warned him. They only went up with the summer snow-line. He guessed the high passes would be hard, and went ahead with the soldiers; but I doubt he knew what they were in for. It was terrible even for us, who had their beaten way to follow, with more supplies. I, who love mountains, felt that these hated men. My breath labored, my feet and my fingers burned as I beat the blood back into them. People huddled at night for warmth, and I had many offers, all with fair promises to treat me like a brother; meaning that when it was too late I would not dare to tell. I slept with Peritas, whom Alexander had left in my care; he was a big dog, and there was a good deal of warmth in him.

  Our hardships were nothing to the army’s. With no fuel on the barren rock to cook their meat, they had to thaw it on their bodies, or were lucky to have it warm from some horse that had fallen dead. Their bread ran out, and they fed on the herbs the cattle eat. Many would have slept into the snow-death, but for Alexander struggling on foot along the column, finding them where they lay, dragging them to their feet, and putting his own life into them.

  We overtook them at the border fort of Drapsaka, on the other side. There was food to be had; below, Bessos had wasted the land to starve us out.

  I found him in a lodging of old roughhewn stone. His face was all burned with cold, and it seemed that only his sinews held his frame together. I was still not used to a king who starved with his men. “That’s nothing,” he said. “That soon comes back. But I can’t yet believe I’ll ever be warm again.”

  He smiled at me, and I said, “You will tonight.”

  I did not have the chance to warm him long. Once his men were rested and fed, before a full month was up he was off down into Baktria.

  I was now of fighting age. Eunuchs before, among them my wicked namesake, had borne arms. I kept thinking how Hephaistion had been with him on the mountains; keeping him warm, maybe. So the night before he went, I asked him to take me with him; saying my father had been a warrior, and if I could not fight at his side, I would be ashamed to live.

  He answered gently, “Dear Bagoas, I know you’d fight at my side. And you would die there, and quickly too. If your father had lived to train you, you would have made a soldier up to my best. But it takes time; and the gods willed otherwise. I need you now where you are.” He was proud, but not for himself alone; he had feeling for the pride in others.

  Just then Peritas, who had been terribly spoiled from sleeping in my blankets, tried to creep by stealth on the bed, though he weighed it down and took up all the room. So it passed in laughter; but I was left behind again, for Alexander went ahead with the troops, expecting Bessos.

  He was not there; nothing was there but snow, still thick on those high uplands. He had not found much to ravage; in winter the people there bury everything, their vines, their fruit trees, even themselves, for they live in sunk beehive huts which the snows cover all over; they hole up with all their stores, and come out in spring. Soldiers clemmed with hunger would see a wisp of smoke rise through the snow, and dig down to the food. They said the stench was dreadful, and everything tasted of it; but they did not care.

  With the spring, we followers caught up; the court and the royal city took form and traveled onward. Then news came that Bessos had crossed the Oxos, east. He was on the run, with a poor following. Nabarzanes had been the first, but not the last, to know he had looked for a king in vain.

  Alexander marched slowly through Baktria. No one resisted him; so wherever he went, he had to take surrenders, and get his new lands administered. For Bessos, once again there was no hurry.

  The next we heard of him, was from one of his own lords, a man well on in years, who came on a weary horse, his clothes and his beard full of dust, to give himself up to Alexander. This, he explained through me (I was interpreting, for the sake of secrecy), was what he had urged Bessos himself to do, when he held a war council. Gobares, who now addressed us, had cited Nabarzanes as an example, which was surely rather simple of him. Bessos had taken drink, and at the mere sound of the name made for Gobares with drawn sword. He had scrambled off, faintly pursued since he was well respected; and here he was, ready in return for pardon to tell us all he knew.

  Bessos’ Baktrian levies had now deserted him. He had never led them, only fallen back before Alexander. They had gone home to their tribal villages; their surrenders could be trusted. All Bessos had left were those who had escorted Darius to his death; a remnant who shared his flight not from love, but fear.

  He was making for Sogdiana, in which his last hopes lay. The Sogdians, Gobares said, do not like strangers, and would be loath (“At first,” he said politely) to accept a foreign king. So Bessos would cross the Oxos, and burn his boats behind him.

  “We will cross that river when we come to it,” Alexander said.

  Meantime, he had to choose a satrap for Baktria. I awaited this with sadness; the second Persian satrap of Areia had rebelled, and he had had to send them a Macedonian. Nonetheless, he gave Baktria to a Persian. It was Artabazos. He had lately told Alexander he was getting too old to march about any longer; the mountain-crossing had left him rather tired. I have heard he ruled his province with prudence, vigor and justice; retired from office at ninety-eight; and died at a hundred and two, from riding a horse that was too fresh for him.

  So now it was time to go north and cross the Oxos. We’d been near it in the mountains; it takes its rise there; but for
leagues it dashes through rocky gorges, where only a bird could go. The hills open out on the threshold of the desert; after that, it slows and widens on into the furthest wilderness, where at last, they say, it sinks into the sand. We were to cross at the first ferry, where the road goes on to Marakanda.

  We went down pleasant warm slopes with vines and fruit trees. The holy Zoroaster, who taught us to worship God through fire, was born in those parts. Alexander heard this with reverence. He was sure the Wise God was the same as Zeus; and had seen him in fire, he said, since childhood.

  We had enough of fire before long. When we came down into the Oxos valley, the desert wind from the north was blowing. It comes in midsummer, and living things all dread it; it’s as if the air had been passed through a furnace, and blown at you with bellows. We had to wrap our heads in cloth, to save them from the burning, pelting sand; four days of it, before we reached the river.

  It’s a great sight when you get to it; it was at least for me, and all who had not seen the Nile. The desert deer on the far side looked small as mice. The engineers stared at it in dismay. They had brought wagons full of timber with them; but what with its great width, its depth and its shifting sands, they could sink no piles. To bridge it was impossible.

  Meantime the ferrymen met us with lifted hands, begging for bread. They had owned flat boats, with yoke-poles for a pair of horses, which were trained to swim them across. Bessos had burned the boats on the far side, gone off with the horses, and paid nothing. Alexander offered gold for anything they had left.

  At this the poorest brought out their hidden wealth; rafts of hide blown up with air, to float with the current. That was all there was; and that, Alexander said, was what we would cross on, making the rest ourselves.

  There were hides in plenty; the tents were made of them. The tentmakers studied the native craft, and oversaw the work. The insides were stuffed with straw and dry rushes, to keep them buoyant longer.

  I’ve seldom been so scared as when the moment came to push off. My two servants shared the raft with me; we swam the horses and the mules. When the current tugged, the beasts began to flounder, the Thracian moaned out prayers to some Thracian god, and I saw further on a bigger raft overturning, I thought I was bound for another River. But this was the first time I had shared Alexander’s danger, I who had talked of fighting at his side; and I could see my body-servant, a Persian from Hyrkania, watching me, in search of encouragement, or maybe to see how a eunuch would behave. I will see you dead, I said to myself, before you shall make a tale of me. So I said people crossed like this every day; and showed them that the men from the capsized raft were still holding on to it. The horses got the feel of the river and pulled us on; and we reached the shore hardly even wet.

  Even the women and children crossed like this. They had to; it was leagues through the desert to the nearest ford. I saw one raft with a woman on it hiding her eyes, and five children screaming with pleasure.

  All in all it took five days. The rafts had to be dried and made into tents again. Alexander gave timber to the ferrymen, to make good their boats.

  Horses had died in the march through the burning wind. I thought I would lose Lion; his chestnut coat was staring and his head was down. Oryx, the one I’d had from Alexander, was a fine strong beast and bore up better; but Lion was dear to me. He just lived through it; so did old Oxhead, nursed all the way, often with the King’s own hands. He was twenty-seven now, but built to last.

  Soon we could take it easier. The last two Baktrian lords to follow Bessos sent word that Alexander could have him with their leave. The village where he was lodging would give him up.

  We were now in Sogdiana. This was the first-fruit of it. They have no laws worth speaking of, but the law of blood-feud; even guest-friendship does not count for much there. If you are a little luckier than Bessos was, you may be safe under their roof; further along the road, if you have anything worth taking, they will ambush you and cut your throat. Their chief sports are robbery and tribal wars.

  Alexander disdained to pick up Bessos himself. He sent Ptolemy, with a good-sized force since he had to deal with traitors. He did not need it; the Baktrian lords had made off; the mud-walled fort let him in for a small reward. Bessos was found in a peasant hut, with only a couple of slaves.

  If Darius’ spirit looked on, he must have felt well avenged. The lords who gave Bessos up had learned from his own example; they wanted him out of the way, to keep Alexander quiet while they prepared for war.

  Ptolemy had had his orders. When Alexander came up with the army, Bessos was standing by the road, stripped naked, his hands tied up to a wooden yoke. At Susa I had seen this done to a famous bandit before they put him to death. I had never told the King of it; he must have asked Oxathres what was proper.

  Nabarzanes had been right; there was nothing of a king in Bessos. I’m told that when Alexander asked him why he had dragged his lord and kinsman to so base a death, he pleaded he had been only one of many about Darius, who had agreed on it to win Alexander’s favor. He did not say why in that case he had assumed the Mitra. The Susa bandit had put on a better face. Alexander ordered him flogged, and kept in chains for his trial.

  The traitor lords, who had hoped to keep Alexander quiet, should have known better. He marched straight on into Sogdiana. It was part of the empire, and he meant to keep it so.

  The Sogdians live in a land of great dun hills and fearsome gorges. Along every pass there are forts full of armed robbers; the caravans have to hire small armies of guards, to get safely through. Sogdians are handsome; hawk-faced, with the carriage of princes. Nearly all Sogdiana is made of rock; but they build on it in mud, like swallows, because the men think craftsmanship beneath them. They can ride horses where you’d not think a goat could go; but they don’t regard their oaths if it does not suit them. Alexander was quite taken with them, till he found this out.

  All seemed to go well at first. The city of Marakanda surrendered; so did the line of forts down by the Jaxartes River. Beyond that are the grasslands, and the Scythians against whom the forts had all been built.

  Alexander now summoned the chiefs to his camp, to meet him in council. He wanted to tell them he would rule them justly, and ask what their laws were now. The chiefs, who knew just what they would do if they were Alexander, never doubted he wanted them there to take their heads. So of a sudden the river-forts were stormed by yelling Sogdians, and their garrisons butchered; Marakanda was under siege; a forage party from our own camp was cut to pieces.

  He dealt first with that. The raiders had a roost on a mountain crag. The signal-smoke went up from the tall cresset by his tent; the troops fell in; he set out for the place, and took it.

  They brought him back on a litter, and laid him on his bed. The surgeon was waiting in the tent, and so was I. An arrow had smashed into his shin, and split the bone. He had made them tug out the barb in the field, and sat his horse till the fort was taken.

  When we soaked the stuck bandages off, splinters of bone came with them. More chips were sticking through the skin; the doctor had to work them out.

  He lay looking upward, still as his own statue; not even his mouth moved. Yet he had wept for the maimed slaves of Persepolis; for old Oxhead; for Achilles and Patroklos, dead a thousand years; for my forgotten birthdays.

  The surgeon dressed the wound, told him to keep quiet, and left. I stood one side of the bed with the bowl of bloodstained water; on the other stood Hephaistion, waiting for me to go.

  I turned, with my dirty bowl. Alexander looked round, and said—the first sound he’d made—“You were good with the bandages. Light-handed.”

  He kept quiet for about seven days; that is, he went by litter, instead of riding, downhill towards the Jaxartes river-forts. First he was carried by an infantry detail, till the cavalry complained of being denied the privilege. He then let them take turns. At night, when I changed the bandages, he confided to me that the cavalry, being unused to marching, were inclined to
jolt.

  I rode ahead with the army, this time; he was used to my doing the dressings. The doctor smelled at the wound each day; if the bone-marrow putrefies, it mostly kills a man. Bad as it looked, it scabbed over clean at last; but it left a dent on his shin, which he had for life.

  Before long he rid himself of the litter by getting on a horse. By the time we reached the river grasslands, he had started to walk.

  Doriskos had once said to me, “He’s said to be overtrusting; but if you break your pledge, God help you.” I was now to see the truth of it.

  He took five forts in two days; at three of the assaults he was there himself. All had sworn him loyalty, and all had helped murder their garrisons. If Sogdians thought that to honor his given word a man must be soft in the head, they were now shown reasons they would understand.

  So now I saw what I’d not seen all through Baktria; the herd of wailing women and children, driven into camp like cattle, the spoils of war. All the men were dead.

  It happens everywhere. Greeks do it to other Greeks. My own father must have done it, in Ochos’ wars; though Ochos would never have given such people a first chance. However, this was the first time for me.

  Alexander did not mean to drag along this horde of women; he was planning a new city here, and they would give the settlers wives. But meantime, soldiers short of a bedmate-slave were getting their pick. A woman would be led away; sometimes young children with wet dirty faces would stumble after, sobbing or screaming, to be cared for when her new master gave her time. Some of the young girls could scarcely walk; their bloodstained skirts showed why. I thought of my three sisters, whom I’d long managed to forget.

  This was the slag of the fire, when the bright flame had passed. He knew what he was born to do; the god had told him. All those who helped, he would receive like kindred. If he was checked, he did whatever was necessary; then went on his way, his eyes on the fire he followed.