by Mary Renault
It did even the great Aristotle no good, that he’d warned his pupil against Persians; he had to run for his life, as a friend of Macedon, and never dared return. A smaller man took his school; then the philosophers joined the chorus.
So now, for mercy and honor shown to my people, my lord is barbarous; a tyrant, because he punished his would-be murderers, the right of their meanest citizen; a mere vaunting soldier, though wherever he went he brought Greece with him, the Greece he honored, of which these liars are the unworthy heirs.
One good thing’s come out of it; it determined King Ptolemy to write down the truth while he still has time. Now, he had rather work on his book than govern Egypt, which he mostly leaves to his son.
“Oh, my dear Bagoas!” my friends here say to me. “A man like you, who reads the best of the Greeks, how can you be content to die without seeing Athens? The voyage is nothing, in the good season. I can recommend you a ship; I will write out all the things you ought to see; I will give you letters to men of learning. What holds you back, when you’ve traveled so much further? Do go, before age overtakes you and journeys become a burden.” So they say. But my lord in his house of gold here, my lord who is younger now than I—he understands why I shall never go to Athens.
Spring broke at last. It was time for India.
All winter the King had been seeing caravan masters, and Greeks from beyond Kaukasos, who had gone trading with the caravans and stayed on. Craving for Greek speech again, or just for gold, they came to tell him about the country beyond the mountains, the Land of Five Rivers.
These rivers flowed down from Kaukasos, the greatest being the Indus which received the rest. The Indians who lived between them were mostly at feud, and would welcome anyone who fought their enemies. Alexander said that it had been the same in Greece, which was how his father had conquered it.
From the man who had journeyed furthest, he learned one day that a half-month’s march from the Indus was a river even greater. This stream, the Ganges, flowed not west but east, and ran into the Ocean.
I have seldom seen him so exalted. He was still full of it at bedtime, though he’d been talking of it all day. “The Encircling Ocean! We shall have crossed the world to its furthest end. We can sail north to the Euxine, or round south to Babylon. We shall stand at the end of the world.”
“It will be remembered forever,” I said, “by men to come.”
I had been wearing my coat of the silk from Marakanda, with its flying serpents and flowers. Its blue gleam caught my eye (I had taken it off to bathe him); the buttons were of a pale green stone, heavy and cool to touch, carved with magic signs. According to the merchant, it had all been a year on the road. The liar, I thought; he was just putting up the price.
“What are you thinking of?” asked Alexander smiling. I was ashamed to have been so trivial, and said, “Of the altar you’ll build, Al’skander, at the world’s end, carved with your name.”
“Ride with me tomorrow early. I must give Oxhead a canter, or he’ll start grieving. His wind’s still good. But I’m sorry he must cross the mountains.” He still missed Peritas. Friends had offered him good dogs, but he would not have one. “You know,” he said, “Oxhead is rising thirty.”
I bent, as I washed him, and kissed his head. I had seen, where the lamplight caught the gold, two threads of grey.
When spring opened the passes, we marked our leaving with a holocaust. The new troops had brought only their own necessaries; but the old army was lumbered up with wagons and wagons of heavy loot—furniture, beds and bedding, hangings, carpets, clothing; meant, I suppose, to be carted back to Macedon. They were no use meantime, unless to sell for a song by men in debt. The generals had whole trains of it. Alexander, though he always kept less than he gave, had some wagons of fine stuffs and carpets. He had everything carted out on a bit of heath, and the draft-beasts led away. Then he went up to his own wagons. A fire had been kindled near, with a pile of torches by it. Into each wagon, he threw a burning torch.
The officers, warned beforehand, followed suit. Even the men did not hang back too long. They had shed blood for all these goods, and carried them off in triumph; now they were tired of hauling them along. Besides, a love of fire is born in everyone; even a young child will try to grasp it; which proves that it is divine. As the splendid blaze went up, the men started flinging firebrands, at other men’s things at first, then anywhere, laughing and shouting like boys, till the heat drove them back. But I watched the revel, I who had grown old without manhood when I was ten; I remembered the burning rafters of my father’s house, and thought of the waste of war.
This time we crossed Parapamisos without much hardship; Alexander had learned from the time before. He stayed awhile in Alexandria, putting it to rights, the governor having proved a fool and rogue; meantime, he sent heralds over to Omphis, the nearest of the Indian kings, asking for his allegiance. His land had been subject to the empire since the first Darius’ day.
Omphis came himself; the first Indian, except a few common soldiers, the troops had seen. He came with twenty-five elephants, on the first of which he sat like a glittering image in his painted howdah; a handsome man of good stature, darker than a Mede, but not so dark as an Ethiop. He wore ivory earrings; his mustache and beard were dyed bright green. We Persians like rich colors; the Indians prefer brilliant ones. Besides the gold sequins stitched to his clothing everywhere, he was stuck all over with jewels so huge, I’d not have believed in them, if he had not been a king.
I don’t know how much pomp he’d expected of Alexander. I could see him pause a moment, wondering where he was, till he saw the face and knew. He offered willing fealty, in exchange for help against his enemy, a king called Poros. This Alexander promised, if the man did not offer allegiance. He put on a great feast for Omphis, and gave him gold. None is mined in those parts, so the princes greatly prize it. Omphis promised, in return, all twenty-five of his elephants, as soon as he’d got home on them. Alexander in turn was pleased. He never used them for war, thinking them uncertain, as indeed they are; but he valued them for their strength and wisdom. They carried the parts from which he set up his catapults. Once or twice he rode one; but said he liked to feel the beast that bore him, not sit on it in a chair.
Soon he held his war council, to plan the march on India. His sleeping-room at Alexandria was just behind the room of audience, so I heard it all.
Hephaistion got command of his own army. He was to cross Great Kaukasos by the good pass, which Sogdians call Khyber; when he reached the Indus, he was to bridge it for Alexander. Khyber being the easiest way (but for the men who live there) he was to take in his charge the followers and all the women, not leaving out the harem. Alexander, with his own army and the chief of the Companions, would take the hardest task; clearing the mountains which commanded the pass of anyone who threatened it.
As I listened, I thought, This is a crossroads in my life. Now or never.
I can’t remember what he came in for after; to get a cloak or some such thing. “Alexander,” I said, “I happened to overhear your war council.”
“You always do. I only put up with it because you keep your mouth shut. Why tell me now?” He looked stern. He knew well enough what I was after.
“Don’t send me with the followers. Take me with you.”
“You should have listened better. Mine is a campaign, not a march. It may not be done by winter.”
“My lord, I know. It’s too long to leave you.”
He frowned. He wanted to take me; but he believed in doing without comforts in the field. “You’ve never been trained to hardship.”
“I come from the mountains that bred Kyros. Don’t put me to shame.”
He stood, still frowning, and looking about for what he’d come in for. I knew what it was without telling, and gave it him with a smile. “That’s all very well,” he said. “But war is war.”
“You take tanners and carpenters and cooks and bakers. You take slaves. Am I worth le
ss?”
“Too much. I wish you knew what you’re asking for. And there won’t be much time for love.”
“For bed? I know. But for love, while I live, I shall always have time enough.”
He looked into my eyes, then said, “I meant not to do this.” He went to his coffer and took out a fistful of gold. “Get yourself more warm things, you’ll need them. Pack away your dress-clothes and your tent-trimmings. Buy sheepskin horse-blankets. You may take one servant and one pack-mule.”
In the high passes it was already autumn. North of Khyber, the people were hunters and herders, whose second trade was robbery. They were reported fierce; Alexander wanted their submission.
Even up in the Parapamisos, I had not had mountain sickness. We were lower here than there; though Alexander climbed at first by slow stages, to temper our blood for the thin air. My childhood had not yet been lost in me; I went up without distress. Sometimes at evening I would count Alexander’s breaths against mine, and they were faster; but he had more work to do. He never owned to fatigue.
Some say the Wise God’s heaven is a rose garden. For me, it is in the heights. After all, he lives there. Watching the dawn on snows no bird had touched, I shivered with joy. We were invading a land of gods, whose cold hands would soon fall on us; there were wars to come; but I could feel no dread.
In the end, Alexander had let me take my Thracian groom as well as my body-servant. I think he’d really feared I might die of hardship. At night in his campaign tent (made to his order; Darius had never owned anything so simple) he’d ask if I was well. At last, guessing what he’d never utter, I said, “Al’skander, you think eunuchs are different in too many ways. If we’re shut up with women and live soft with them, then we grow like them; but so would any man. Just because we have women’s voices, it doesn’t mean we have women’s strength.”
He took my hand smiling. “You’ve not a woman’s voice; it is too pure. It’s like the aulos, the deep-toned flute.” He was glad to be free of the harem.
In the night with its fierce white stars, before the snow-clouds had gathered, as I sat by my pine-wood fire the young squires would leave their own to squat beside me. “Bagoas, tell us about Susa, tell us about Persepolis, tell us about the court in Darius’ day.” Or I would watch the blaze where Alexander sat with Ptolemy and Leonnatos and his other officers. They would pass round the wine and talk and laugh; but there was no night when Alexander turned in with steps less steady than mine.
He never had me to bed. Always before hard tasks he would gather himself together, wasting nothing. Fire is divine. He was glad of me; that was enough.
Then the wars began. The tribesmen’s forts clung to the crags, like martins’ nests. The first we came to looked impossible to storm. Alexander sent an interpreter, to offer terms, but they defied him. The Persian kings had never brought these lands under law.
The forts had done well against the assaults of other tribesmen, who had stones and arrows. Alexander had light catapults, whose bolts must have seemed to them like the darts of demons. He had scaling-ladders too. When they saw his men coming over their walls, they left the fort and fled on the mountainside. The Macedonians ran after them, and killed all they could overtake, while the fort was burned. I watched it from the camp. Though a long way off, I felt concern for these little figures, caught in the rocks or on old snowfields. I had taken calmly the deaths of many, because I had not seen them as single men. It was folly, for they would have roused other tribes against us, if they’d got away.
When the fight was over, I learned what had made Alexander’s troops so fierce. He had an arrow wound in the shoulder. He’d made light of it; the corselet had stopped it from sinking in its barb. No one ever made less of his wounds than he did in battle; but it was always the same, if he got one his men went nearly mad. It was part love, part dread of being left without him.
When the doctor had gone, I took off his bandage and sucked the place clear; who could say what such people put on their arrows? It was to do such things that I’d come, though I’d had too much sense to tell him so; the way to persuade him was always to beg a gift.
The camp was noisy; the soldiers had come without women, all but the hardiest who never left their men; now they had all those from the fort, tall broad-faced hillwomen with strong black hair and jewels stuck through their noses.
Alexander took a fancy for me that night. The wound opened and I was covered in blood; he just laughed, and made me wash in case the guard thought I’d murdered him. The wound felt easier, he said; no physician like love. It is true that when dry they often fester.
The next fort surrendered, having heard about the first; so everyone was spared, as his custom was. As we marched onward, the mountain gods sent winter.
We pushed through thick driving snow like barley-grains; our clothes and our horses and the men’s sheepskin cloaks were frosted white; the beasts slithered and stumbled on the drifted tracks, which we needed native guides to find. Then the sky would clear, and the white would dazzle till we rode with eyes almost closed; that light can blind a man.
We were amply fed, Alexander saw to that; and not climbing higher than timber grows, we had warm blazing fires at night. If the wind pushed cold fingers through my furs, I just wrapped my scarf to keep my face from burning, and thought of my luck to be here with no Roxane; above all with no Hephaistion.
Alexander took the hill-forts one by one, except those that surrendered. I hardly remember one from another now, though King Ptolemy remembers each one. He did some notable deeds of arms up there, among them a duel hand to hand with an important chief, whose shield he’s kept to this day. He has put them all in his book, and who shall blame him?
After many battles and sieges, we sighted Massaga, stretched across a hill-spur; no mere tribal fort, but a strong walled town.
It gave Alexander four days’ work. On the first, when they made a sortie from their gates, he fled to lure them out, then whipped round on them and caught a good many, though the rest got back inside. Then, lest they still thought he was scared, he marched up to the walls, for which he got an arrow in his ankle. By luck no sinew was cut; the doctor told him to rest it, as one might tell a river to run back up the hills.
Next day he brought up rams and breached the wall; but the breach was stoutly held. At night, he limped now and then when he forgot, but stopped himself next moment.
The day after, he ran a bridge across to the breach from a wooden siege-tower (he’d brought engineers to make such things on the spot) and led the assault himself. Before he’d crossed, so many had pressed up to be fighting next him, that the bridge broke in the middle.
I died many deaths, before they scrambled out from the rubble below, and I saw his white-winged helmet. He limped back all grazed and bruised, but only said he was lucky not to have broken a leg; he’d just come from seeing the wounded.
Next day, with a stronger bridge, he tried again and got over. While they fought on the walls, the tribal chief fell to a catapult bolt; and the town sued for a truce, which Alexander granted.
Seven thousand of their best fighting men turned out to have been hired, from somewhere beyond the rivers; they were shorter and darker than the rest. Alexander had them called out apart; he wanted to hire them himself. They had a different tongue from the hillmen’s, but the interpreter said he knew it. In the King’s presence he addressed them; the officers replied; after some parley, he said they agreed to the offered terms. So they camped by themselves on a hill near by, while the townspeople were treated with; and Alexander set scouts to watch them, they being strangers whose good faith he did not know, in a force that could be dangerous. He’d learned to take care, in Sogdiana.
“A good day’s work,” he said to me after supper. He had bathed, and I was dressing his ankle, which seemed to be healing clean in spite of everything.
A night-guard squire came in. “Sir. One of the outpost guards, asking to report.” Alexander said, “I’ll see him now.”
The man was young, but looked steady. “Alexander. The Indians on the hill are getting ready to go.”
He stood up, stepping on my clean bandage. “How do you know?”
“Well, King, the later it’s grown, with everyone else asleep, the more they’re stirring. It’s not so dark you can’t see them against the sky. Nobody’s lying down; the whole camp’s milling; the men are bearing arms, and I saw some leading pack-beasts. I’ve good eyes, Alexander, at night; I’m known for it. That’s why the commander sent me to report.”
Alexander’s face set. He nodded slowly. Nothing was new, after two years in Sogdiana. “Yes, you did well. Stand by outside. Bagoas, I’ll dress again.” He called back the squire. “Fetch the interpreter. And hurry.”
The man came, just out of bed. Alexander said, “The hired soldiers you treated with today; are you really fluent in their language?”
The man, looking scared, assured him that he was; he had gone to their country with the caravans, and bargained for the merchants.
“You are sure they agreed, and understood what they agreed to?”
“Great King, without any doubt.”
“Very good. You can go. Menestas, have General Ptolemy waked, and ask him to see me now.”
He came, looking as always alert, steady and tough as well-cured leather. Alexander said, “The Indian mercenaries are deserting. They must have sworn in to put us off guard. We can’t have them joining with the tribes and falling on the column. If they can’t be trusted they’re a standing danger, held or let go.”
