Alexander at the Worlds End Tom Holt

by Alexander at the World's End (lit)

  up the mess; as it was, I didn’t want to do that, just in case. Well, you never

  know; people remember things, they put two and two together. And if that sounds

  paranoid, fair enough. When you get into heavy stuff like regicide and treason,

  paranoia s a useful survival tool.

  ‘Bury it?’ I suggested.

  Peitho gave me a pained look. ‘You bury the bloody thing,’ he grumbled. ‘Look at

  it, it’s huge.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not that big,’ I said. ‘If you go steady, don’t try and

  rush it, won’t take you more than a couple of hours.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Bad back,’ I said (which was true; bad experience dismantling and manhandling

  carts the day before).

  ‘Get lost,’ Peitho said, looking around. ‘We’ll drop it down a well.’

  I frowned. ‘Can’t do that,’ I said. ‘Mortal sin, that is, in these parts; hardly

  the way to stay inconspicuous. Go on, bury it like I told you. The sooner you

  make a start...’

  The flies were starting to gather. ‘I know,’ Peitho said, ‘we’ll send it to the

  mess tent. We’ll say it got delivered here by mistake, nothing to do with us.

  They’ll cut it up and stew it, problem solved. Besides, it’s wicked to waste

  good food.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ I said. ‘You saw the way it went down, the bloody thing’s full

  of poison. You could wipe out half the bloody camp.’

  ‘I’m not burying it,’ Peitho said firmly. ‘For gods’ sakes, I’m a Captain of

  Engineers, Captains of Engineers don’t bury camels. If anybody saw me, they’d

  know at once I was up to something.’

  I scratched my head. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘we’ll leave it here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just leave it. Walk away. There’s nothing to connect us with it. Nobody’s seen

  us except that Egyptian clerk at the pound, and we all look alike to them.’

  Peitho looked worried. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  A big fat fly settled on the camel’s naked eyeball and started to get busy.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring you a spade.’

  ‘We’ll leave it,’ Peitho said. ‘Nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Agreed. And if anybody did see us with it, we’ll just tell the truth. We

  checked it out of the pen, it suddenly keeled over dead, we left it there and

  walked away. What does that make us guilty of? Untidiness. They don’t chop heads

  off for being untidy, even in this man’s army.’

  Peitho rubbed his temples, in the manner of a man who has a bad headache coming.

  ‘I suppose that is the truth,’ he said, ‘in a way. I mean,’ he went on, ‘most of

  it is actually true.’

  ‘All of it,’ I said. ‘Which is more than you can say of History.’

  I don’t think anybody would deny that Alexander’s rapid and well-documented

  slide into weirdness began not long after the visit to the Ammon shrine at Siva.

  The big question is, did he catch weirdness there, like some kind of nasty tummy

  bug, or did it just bring out the weirdness that had always been in there

  somewhere? Like most big questions, I’m not sure it matters a damn, but for what

  it’s worth I’m inclined to go for the latter option.

  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying his trip to Ammon had nothing to do with it.

  But a man doesn’t walk into a place believing he’s a mortal and come out again

  believing he’s a god unless there’s at least a slender core of weirdness in him

  already.

  What’s the matter, Euxenus? You look like you’ve just swallowed a wasp. Didn’t

  you know? Oh, for gods’ sakes, I thought everybody knew. One thing it was never

  intended to be was a secret.

  Yes, it’s perfectly true; and I don’t mean History true, I mean true. During his

  time in Egypt, shortly after his interview with whatever it is they’ve got

  tucked away in that shrine at Siva, Alexander let it be known that with effect

  from such-and-such a date he was a god and that all diplomatic and

  administrative protocols were to be amended to take account of this development.

  The official explanation was that it was all for the benefit of the Egyptians,

  who believe that all their kings are gods; if Alexander went round saying he

  wasn’t a god, he couldn’t be King of Egypt, and we’d suddenly find ourselves

  with a horrendous rebellion on our hands. Perfectly valid point; the Egyptians

  are like that. Go into the market, round up a hundred people at random and cut

  off their heads, and nobody’d dream of making an issue out of it. Accidentally

  run a cart over a sacred cat or a sacred dog and they’ll come for you with

  scythes and hayforks, and they’ll keep coming till either you or they are wiped

  out. Really, you’ve got to admire a people who take their faith that seriously

  (actually no, you haven’t; people who take their faith that seriously are

  dangerous nutters. Still, we as a race do tend to admire dangerous nutters, so I

  don’t see why we shouldn’t admire the Egyptians. They’re pretty much like us,

  when you get right down to it, except that they’re completely different).

  Well, that was the official explanation, and it was logical and com­forting in a

  look-at-these-funny-foreigners sort of a way; at first it was all a great big

  joke, with Alexander joining in absolutely as much as he was able to, given that

  he had the sense of humour of a sandal. In the mess-hall, they’re serving

  dinner; everybody else gets their usual monster serving of bread and roast beef,

  Alexander gets an empty plate. ‘Where’s mine?’ he asks. ‘You’re having prayers,’

  they reply. It starts tipping down with rain, everybody’s getting soaked;

  Hephaestion gives Alexander a filthy look. ‘Pack it in,’ he says. ‘Sorry,’

  Alexander replies, looking sheepish. ‘Told you you shouldn’t have had the

  water­cress,’ says Cleitus, shaking his head. Everybody laughs.

  Except me, of course. Well, you understand why; but Peitho, poor bloody

  Macedonian that he was, couldn’t see why I was being so up­tight about it.

  ‘It’s an Athenian thing,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘So explain,’ he said.

  I shrugged, and stoked up the fire. ‘It’s how we Athenians honour the gods,’ I

  said. ‘We make fun of them. It’s our sincerest expression of faith.’

  Peitho raised an eyebrow. ‘Get away,’ he said.

  ‘Straight up. That’s how the comic plays started off, actually; the priests and

  the congregation making fun of the god. It’s our way of showing affection, which

  is so much more important than faith.’

  ‘You’re an odd lot, you Athenians,’ Peitho said.

  ‘A lot of people think so,’ I admitted. ‘Blasphemy, they call it; to which we

  quite rightly reply that the biggest blasphemy of all is saying that the gods

  haven’t got a sense of humour. Which,’ I added, ‘they quite patently do. You

  look at the way human beings reproduce, or remove waste materials from their

  bodies, and then try to tell me the gods haven’t got a sense of humour. Pretty

  basic one, not to mention a bit sick; but nobody’s perfect.’

  Peitho thought about it for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I can see where

  you’re bothered, yo
u being an Athenian. But Alexander isn’t; he’s Macedonian.’

  I nodded. ‘But he was brought up Athenian, to all intents and purposes. Educated

  Athenian. Made to learn Athenian plays. Don’t think for a moment he isn’t seeing

  all this exactly the way I am. And that worries me. It’s as bad as the Egyptians

  falling flat on their faces whenever he looks at them. Worse. The Egyptians are

  just funny foreigners; the people cracking the jokes are Greek.’

  Peitho breathed in, held his breath and blew out slowly. ‘All right,’ he said,

  ‘I can see why you’re worried. Doesn’t change anything, does it? I mean, if we

  were going to kill him when he was relatively sane, we ought to kill him even

  more now he’s gone potty. Well,’ he added, ‘you know what I mean.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But here we are talking about it, not doing anything.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Peitho. What I mean is, what’re we waiting for? We’ve got the

  poison honey, there’s never going to be a better time. Why don’t we just do it?’

  He blinked several times, rapidly. ‘What, right now?’

  I shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  He rubbed his cheeks with the heels of his hands, as if he was sleepy and trying

  to wake himself up. ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Right now.’

  ‘Right.’ I felt a shiver go right through me. ‘You don’t think we should—’

  ‘What?’ Peitho looked at me. ‘You just said we should do it now. You just said.’

  I shook my head. ‘That’s not what I said,’ I replied. ‘I said I couldn’t see a

  reason why we shouldn’t do it now. Doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one.’

  Peitho frowned. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.

  I stood up, took a few steps forward, then back, then sat down again. ‘Let’s

  face it,’ I said, ‘we aren’t very good at this. It was only the other day we

  were wetting ourselves trying to think what to do with a dead camel. Now you’re

  saying we should murder the King of Macedon and half the court.’

  ‘You’ve changed your mind,’ Peitho said. ‘You’re scared.’

  ‘I’m bloody not.’

  ‘You bloody are.’

  ‘Yes, of course I’m scared,’ I said. ‘If I wasn’t scared, I’d be crazier than he

  is. Scared is a precious gift the gods gave us to stop us doing bloody stupid

  things that’ll get us killed.’

  Peitho nodded. ‘Perfectly true,’ he said. ‘But the whole point of

  killing Alexander is to stop him getting us killed. What you might call a higher

  plane of scaredness.’

  I slumped forward in my chair. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we

  should either do this thing now or not do it at all.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ Peitho said cheerfully. ‘After all, what’s the worst thing

  that could happen to us?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said. ‘We could be caught and horribly tor­tured to death.’

  ‘All right,’ Peitho said. ‘And if we don’t do it, if we leave it and for some

  reason it becomes impossible, like we move out or suddenly we can’t get to him,

  what then? We could be killed in a battle, or get wounded and die slowly and

  painfully of blood poisoning, or catch some terrible disease; or the Persians

  might get us and peg us out in the desert to die, or—’

  ‘Oh, shut up, for gods’ sakes,’ I said. ‘You’re not helping.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ Peitho replied. ‘There’s no way of knowing what’s going to

  happen, so what’s the point of worrying ourselves sick about it? Just makes it

  harder on ourselves.’

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘So what you’re saying is,’ I said, ‘we should

  do it now. Right—now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I sighed. ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll do it?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say?’

  ‘Sure. All right, let’s do it.

  ‘Right.’

  We both stood up — a little bit shakily, but that was the medicine, it catches

  you sometimes if you move suddenly. ‘The honey,’ I said. ‘Where’d you stow it?’

  ‘In the supply tent, of course,’ he said. ‘You don’t think I’d keep it here, do

  you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I get caught with twelve jars of poisoned honey and they ask me what I want it

  for, I’m going to have a job explaining,’ he replied, reasonably enough. ‘So I

  stashed it in with the rest of the stores, at the back where it won’t hurt.

  Then, if anybody asks, it’s nothing to do with me.’

  I frowned. ‘Small point here,’ I said. ‘How the hell are we going to know which

  jars are the poison? Dip a finger in and suck?’

  He looked annoyed. ‘You think I’m stupid,’ he said. ‘I marked the jars so we’d

  know them again. Scratched a big P on the necks.’

  ‘P,’ I said. ‘For Poison, right?’

  ‘They’ve all got batch numbers on,’ he replied. ‘I checked. The last batch in

  was Small 0, and the batch they’re drawing now is G, so there’s no danger

  they’ll draw the poison stuff by mistake. You see,’ he went on, ‘if you do

  things carefully and methodically, you don’t make mistakes.’

  So we went to the supply tent. It was late, dark as a foot up a bag, so there

  was nobody about. I’d brought an oil lamp with a little stubby wick.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have known about the batch numbers,’ Peitho was saying.

  ‘It’s your bloody clerks who do the drawing.’

  I shook my head. ‘I just let ‘em get on with it,’ I said. ‘No good ever came of

  telling a clerk how to do his job.’

  ‘True,’ Peitho said. ‘Right, here’s where I left them, behind the corn bins,

  under some old sacks.’

  I lifted the lamp. ‘No you didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Old sacks, yes. No jars.’

  He scowled. ‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘Someone’s moved them.’

  ‘Some bastard of a clerk,’ I said. ‘They’re always tidying stuff, it’s a miracle

  anything ever gets found.’

  He nodded, and lit another lamp from mine. ‘Just as well I had the good sense to

  mark the necks, isn’t it? Otherwise, gods only know what might have happened.’

  ‘Very true,’ I said. ‘All right, you look on that side and I’ll check these ones

  here. I still say you shouldn’t have put them in here in the first place.’

  ‘Relax,’ he called back out of the darkness. ‘This is the army. A place for

  everything, and everything in its — Right, here we are.’

  I breathed out; I’d been more worried than I’d realised. Silly, really; after

  all, we were only planning to poison the entire general staff. ‘Make sure you

  count them,’ I said. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Of course I’m going to—’ He stopped, didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked; though of course I knew.

  He didn’t say anything for a minute or so. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I can find

  ten.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said. ‘What about the other two?’

  ‘They’re here somewhere,’ he replied, a little shakily. ‘It’s just some bugger’s

  put them in the wrong — Make that eleven,’ he said. ‘Are yo
u looking your side?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got A to M here.’ ‘Check them all,’ he snapped.

  ‘I am doing,’ I replied irritably. ‘And they’re all A to M, like I told you.’

  I watched the pale glow of his lamp coming towards me. ‘There’s a jar missing,’

  he said. He looked awful.

  I took a deep breath. ‘The main thing,’ I said, ‘is not to panic. Right, what’s

  the drill? Who checks them out? If I know clerks, there’ll be a register,

  stock-book, something like that. You can’t draw a breath in this man’s army

  without sealing for it.

  ‘Stock-book,’ he repeated. ‘You’re right, there’s got to be a stock-book. Where

  do you think it’ll be?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Where do the clerks sit?’

  He pointed towards the door. ‘Over there,’ he said, ‘on those barrels.’

  I nodded. ‘Then I’ll bet you that’s where you’ll find the stock-book. Logic, you

  see.’

  Sure enough, next to the barrels the clerks sat on we found a stack of wax

  tablets. They were covered in little rows and columns of tallies, crossed

  through and double-crossed, each line and row marked with one or more letters.

  Meaningless, of course, unless you’re an army clerk.

  ‘I can’t read this,’ I said.

  Peitho shook his head. ‘We need a clerk to explain it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, fine. We go round and wake one up. Excuse me, we say, we seem to have

  mislaid a jar of lethally poisonous honey, would you mind checking your records

  so we can see who we’ve murdered? That’d really finish us off, that would.’

  He glared at me. ‘So what do you suggest?’ he said.

  ‘Walk away,’ I replied.

  He looked shocked. ‘You can’t be serious.

  ‘Watch me. It’s just like the bloody camel,’ I went on. ‘Nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Eudaemon, hundreds of people could die—’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I know. And it’s very sad. But life is like that,

  particularly in war. Hundreds of thousands of people die in wars and nobody

  seems too fussed about it most of the—’

  ‘Eudaemon,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to do something.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Walk away, that’s what we’ve got to do. After all,’ I went on,