When the elephants started moving backwards, Craterus began shouting, and the bridge that had been hidden behind bales of hay and stacks of wood was rolled out and pushed over the river. Soon Craterus’s cavalry and foot soldiers were rushing towards the opposite shore to finish the battle.
The sun was very high now. The storm had left the air sultry and heavy. It felt like being inside a sauna. There was no shade on the battlefield. The brassy heat shimmered as the men struggled and fought. Now I could see Alexander’s cavalry. He was in the fiercest fighting. Plexis fought on his right side, Perdiccas on his left. The horses were covered with white lather. It was nearly impossible to distinguish anyone. Everyone was striped with blood.
As I watched, there came a tight knot of Indians towards Alexander. I held my breath. They rode armoured horses and used them to clear a path through the archers. When they reached Alexander’s group they dropped their heavy shields and drew sharp swords. The sunlight flashed on the metal as they raised their arms to attack.
Alexander managed to deflect the blows with his round shield, letting go of Bucephalus’s reins and twisting his body around to face his attackers. His sword jabbed out from beneath the shield, keeping the men at bay. Perdiccas took a nasty blow on the leg but his horse reared, saving him. When he came down, Perdiccas had recovered enough to riposte, fighting to clear some space. Plexis was on the right, and he took the brunt of the attack. Light of build and flexible, he could dodge and turn, avoiding blows while dealing out his own. Using his legs to control his horse, he brought his horsemanship into play. But the ground was wet with rain and blood and the hours of marching and fighting were taking their toll. His horse was young, not experienced like Bucephalus. When a sword cut his chest he veered and Plexis met an attacker head on. He didn’t have time to duck; the blow caught him on the temple and he fell.
My legs suddenly gave out. Through a blur of tears I could see Alexander had lunged forward, using the superior weight and strength of Bucephalus to smother his opponents. With a fresh wave of cavalry rushing to join him, Alexander soon gained fifty yards of ground and cleared through the enemy. I couldn’t see Plexis anywhere. His horse was rider-less, but then, so were many horses. I took huge, deep breaths to try to calm myself. My nose, never any good in an emergency, bled profusely. I stood, gripping the wood so tightly my fingers whitened. I saw Alexander, he had cleared a space around him. He and Perdiccas were fighting back to back. Around them stood Alexander’s men, the infantry and the archers, holding their positions.
As soon as Craterus reached the opposite shore, mass confusion scattered Porus’s ranks, who were now set upon from all sides. Shouting, cursing, and screaming hysterically, they tried to find an escape route, but they were caught in a vice. Porus, on his elephant, called out to his men, swinging his arms, telling them to attack, and attack again. But the battle was lost. It had been lost from the moment Alexander divided his troops and outflanked the elephants. Suddenly there was silence.
The men were exhausted. I could hear their breath coming in great sobs, and the high whistle of the horses’ breathing sounded like steam engines. The metallic clash of weapons stopped. The elephants stopped trumpeting. The men stopped screaming.
Craterus held his men in check now. They were fresh, quivering, shining in the sun, ready to move in and slaughter Porus’s army at a word from Alexander. The silence was tense.
A voice rang out. It was Alexander’s. Hoarse, broken, but absolutely triumphant.
‘Do you concede?’ he called.
Porus spoke no Greek, but Alexander’s tone of voice said everything. He raised his arms. ‘No!’ he shouted.
There was a minute’s shocked silence as his men digested this bit of news, then they seemed to draw their collective breath and plunged back into the fray.
It became a massacre. At a motion from Alexander, Craterus let loose his men and they swept in from the river, fresh, strong, yelling, and screeching. Their weapons were not yet dulled with blood and they flashed in the hard sun. They arrived at a full gallop and the shock of the collision was deafening. Their horses had the weight and the impetus of a freight train, and they ploughed twenty feet into the mass of foot soldiers. There were men flying through the air. The sound was dreadful, like an avalanche. The soldiers started to scream again.
I cried out in anguish at the sight and covered my face with my hands but didn’t dare look away. Alexander was out there, his sword lifting and falling, his face a terrible mask of fury and exhaustion. Porus’s army turned and fled. As soon as a space opened for them they scattered. Only Porus still fought on standing on his howdah. His elephant was covered with thick leather armour and his drivers had huge shields.
Then an arrow struck Porus’s shoulder and I saw him fall to his knees. Surely he must give up now? Taxiles thought the same thing as I, for he rode his horse towards his enemy and called up to him to surrender, but Porus, in a fit of rage, nearly ran over him with his elephant. Only Taxiles’s horse’s agility saved him.
Then Meroes, the other Indian rajah rode over and spoke urgently to him.
There was another lull in the battle. Craterus’s men were like hunting dogs that have been called back. They turned reluctantly. Everyone else stood in place. Most were swaying, white-faced and drained from the battle. Shock was setting in and soon they would collapse.
Porus bade his elephant to kneel and he dismounted. I gasped. He was nearly seven feet tall, with a stern, beautifully sculpted face. He wore a blue and orange silk robe.
He took his armour off, no easy feat with an arrow still planted in his shoulder. Then he let it drop onto the blood-soaked ground.
Alexander rode up on Bucephalus. The great horse walked stiffly. His sides heaved like bellows and he was covered in white foam and sweat. He had galloped nearly fifty miles in one night. He’d swum a river and had been in a battle that had lasted a full eight hours.
Alexander dismounted, letting the reins drop to the ground. He walked over to Porus, and, as was his custom, knelt at the rajah’s feet.
Porus stood motionless, looking over Alexander’s head. Then he took a deep breath and looked down at the young king.
I couldn’t see his face, he was too far away. But the set of his shoulders spoke of a grief that could never be assuaged. I didn’t know then that he’d lost his eldest son in the battle.
Alexander got back to his feet and said something to Porus, who replied shortly. There were no translators around, but I could imagine Alexander saying in his fledgling Hindi, ‘Hot curry day, tired to death, what want you?’
What he really said was, ‘How shall I treat you?’
Porus replied, ‘Like a king.’
Alexander smiled gravely. ‘Ask what you wish, I will grant it to you.’
Porus answered, ‘I have already asked for what I wish.’
‘You will always be a king for me. Your kingdom is your own. And I will add to it all the lands that I have conquered on the far side of the river, so that never again will you have to face an enemy across these shores.’
Porus bowed low. He became one of Alexander’s most fervent followers from that moment on. He motioned to his men to start counting the dead and took Alexander by the arm. They walked towards his elephant. Porus wanted to go to his palace to break the news to his wives and the rest of his family.
The dead amounted to about twenty thousand on Porus’s side, including his son, and nearly a thousand on Alexander’s side, including Bucephalus. For although the mighty warhorse had carried his master safely through the battle with never a foot placed wrong or a stumble, his great heart gave out as soon as the battle was over.
It was almost as if the horse had waited to make sure that Alexander was no longer on his back and no longer had any need of his services. He had stood still while Alexander spoke to Porus, and had watched, his ears pricked forward, as his master took the tall Indian’s arm to help him over the slippery ground towards the waiting elephant. Then he’d tu
rned his head – his heavy, great head, with his wise eyes and white mark shaped like a bull – towards the mountains. And, with one last look towards the west, towards the land where he was born, he sank slowly to the ground, rolled over, and died.
A cry went up from the watching soldiers, and Alexander spun around. His hand fell from the rajah’s arm and he froze. Even from where I was, I could see his face contorting. Then he rushed towards his horse, throwing himself across Bucephalus’s neck.
I scrambled down the scaffolding and dashed across the floating bridge, grabbing for handholds as the river tossed it about. I had to run across a muddy, blood-soaked battlefield. I leaped over bodies of men and horses, sliding and stumbling, my breath whistling in my tight throat. I knew I had to get to Alexander. He was so unrestrained. His joy and grief knew no bounds. This loss would devastate him.
I scrambled over the last twenty metres, calling Alexander’s name. He sat cradling his horse’s head in his lap, saying over and over, ‘Buci, Buci, Buci …’
He looked up as I arrived. ‘Ashley,’ he said hoarsely. Then, ‘Your nose is bleeding.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ I squatted down next to him. ‘You were wonderful,’ I said. ‘Incredible. I watched the whole battle from the tower. Now I know why men will study this battle, sing songs about it, and write stories about it for thousands of years. It was amazing.’
‘Do they really?’ He smiled, but tears ran down his cheeks. ‘Was it so great?’ His voice was raw and broken.
‘More than great,’ I assured him. I looked down at his hands, wrapped in Bucephalus’s mane. One of them was bleeding and swollen. ‘If you want, I’ll make you a bracelet with some of his hair.’
‘I’d like that,’ he said simply, and watched as I carefully plucked ten hairs from the horse’s long mane. ‘He was my horse,’ he said softly.
‘He was more than that!’ I said. ‘Why, if everyone had a horse like Bucephalus, they would be the luckiest of men.’
‘As was I.’
‘As you still are,’ I said firmly, taking his face in my hands and kissing his mouth.
We sat for a moment, Alexander’s hands twisting and twining in his horse’s mane. Then he bent over and put his cheek on the great animal’s neck. ‘I’ll miss you, old fellow,’ he whispered. ‘You and I, we travelled far together.’ He got to his feet and took my arm, helping me up. ‘Thank you for coming to me,’ he said simply.
‘What did you say to Porus?’ I asked.
‘I tried to say he’d be treated like a king. I think he understood me.’
I smiled. ‘I’m sure he did. Let’s go back to the tent now. You need to rest.’ His legs were trembling violently, the shock of the battle was taking its toll. I flagged down a litter and made him get on it.
‘I have to see my men,’ he said. He was still crying.
‘Let Perdiccas take over, he’ll get everyone settled. You have to learn to give over the reins. You’ll kill yourself if you go on like this.’ My voice was shaking. I was afraid he would ask for Plexis.
‘Get Nearchus, tell him to …’ His voice broke.
‘Please, just lie down.’ I motioned for the men to start walking back to the camp.
‘I have to go with Porus,’ he protested, but I held his shoulder.
‘No. Let them prepare the funerals. They have so many dead.’ My face twisted. ‘You can’t see from here, but Craterus slaughtered nearly all Porus’s infantry.’
‘What a waste,’ he sighed.
My hand tightened on his arm. ‘War is nothing but waste,’ I said tiredly. ‘But that never seems to stop it, does it?’
Chapter Fourteen
Alexander fell asleep on the litter. His face was so colourless I was frightened, but Usse told me he was unharmed except for a broken bone in his left hand.
They found Plexis on the battlefield. He wasn’t dead, as I’d feared, but he was unconscious. He’d taken a blow to the head, his arm was broken, and Usse had to cauterize a nasty wound on his side. He lay for three days in a light coma.
Alexander was up and about the next morning, but I was strict. He wasn’t leaving the tent without Usse’s permission and he had to eat something. Roxanne sent messages every half hour, demanding to see Alexander. I sent back a message telling her to leave him alone for at least a week. That didn’t please her, but she was powerless to do anything but complain.
Usse pronounced Alexander fit, so that afternoon we attended the funeral of Porus’s son. The dead were cremated. The soldiers’ remains were sent to their families. Porus’s son was burned along with his young wife on a special pyre in the palace’s courtyard.
I had heard about suttee from vague tales, but in my time, it was a custom that had died out so long ago that it had been forgotten. At first, I didn’t notice the slender woman following the funeral cortège. She wore scarlet robes. Her unbound hair fell to her heels, which was what first caught my eye, and she looked lovely and terribly young, maybe fifteen or sixteen.
I was standing with the Greek dignitaries. Alexander was with Porus. His wives were in a separate section by themselves – he had twelve – and his other children were gathered around the pyre. Porus’s son had been wrapped in white cotton, and flowers were strewn all over his body. His face was not covered, and I saw that the young man, who must have been only twenty, was as handsome as his father.
They laid his body on the tall pyre, and that’s when the girl hitched up her skirts in one hand and clambered onto the wood. She settled herself cross-legged by her husband’s head and took it on her lap. I frowned. Something didn’t seem right. The dry wood will burn so quickly, she’d better kiss him farewell and hurry away, I thought. But no, the torch was carried nearer and nearer and she still didn’t move.
I saw Alexander tilt his head, as if trying to understand, and then his face froze.
I knew his expressions so well. Horror, pity, and understanding fled across his face. Then his features hardened into a marble mask that let no feelings through.
Puzzled, I turned back to the funeral where the first flames started licking the wood. All around me the Greeks shifted their feet, muttering uneasily, but Alexander frowned at us. From across the fire we caught his stern gaze and we became silent and motionless.
Plexis was still in the tent, floating in a world between wakefulness and sleep. I wished I could be there. Reality was too sharp. Nothing blurred the edges of the flames or the screams.
The girl’s hair burned first and she started to shriek as the pain hit her. There was simply no way to be prepared for such a thing. It must have been horrible. She stood up and tried to run, but her feet fell through the burning wood and her dress caught fire. She raised her hands to the sky, and her features seemed to melt like hot wax. I tried to scream, but my throat was too tight. She fell in slow motion, a flaming candle in a shower of sparks. It seemed to me that she screamed for an eternity.
My mouth was open, my limbs trembling. I backed into Nearchus, standing just behind me. He gripped my shoulders. I think that if he hadn’t been there, I would have just kept backing up, backing up, until I got to the tent. My breath came in sharp gasps and my nose bled, blood dripping off my chin. I tried to staunch it, but my hands shook so much I couldn’t control them. I stood, my hands waving frantically in front of my bloody face, until Alexander managed to leave his place and come to me.
He spoke sharply, but I couldn’t understand him. I just gaped at him. I could hear him, but the sounds coming from his mouth made no sense. Then he slapped me.
It jolted me out of my shock. ‘Please Ashley, get hold of yourself. The Indians believe that the couple will go directly to Paradise. Look, see the smoke? Their souls are rising towards the sky.’
He tried to turn my head back to the pyre but I wouldn’t look. I screwed my eyes shut and whispered, ‘Stop, just stop it!’
‘Hush. I cannot.’
‘It’s barbaric,’ I said brokenly. I tried to push him away, but my arms were
about as strong as marshmallows at that point. I still shivered with shock. Even the sight of the battle hadn’t shaken me so badly. Alexander clasped me until I could breathe. When he was sure I was better, he sent me back to the tent with Nearchus and Perdiccas. He stayed for all the ceremonies. He honoured the dead.
He mourned every soldier as if they were all his men.
I lay in my bed and sobbed, not even noticing when Plexis, groggy and unsure where he was, crawled into bed next to me and asked if the battle was over.
Chapter Fifteen
We spent two weeks with Porus. Alexander was busy with Nearchus, who had come into his own at last getting his navy ready. Alexander was planning to sail down the Indus.
First, Alexander had something to do. He designed a shrine for his horse Bucephalus and founded a city in the stallion’s honour. The shrine was built on the flank of a steep hill overlooking the river where they had crossed at night. It was a small temple made of white marble; just a simple altar. A carving of Bucephalus was made in the stone. I’ll always wonder who ended up with that treasure. I never saw it in a museum. It was a life-size fresco of a horse carved into a block of marble with no rider, or harness – just free. For nearly a week, Alexander cried bitterly every time he thought of his horse. Then he dried his tears, cut his hair short as a sign of mourning, and got to know his new horse, named Dolphin.
Near the banks of the river where we camped, he founded another city, calling it Nikaea – after Nike, goddess of victory. Bucephala, the city of the ‘famous horse’, became a small trading town, and the legend of Bucephalus became an Indian legend. The story was about a goddess who rode Bucephalus to earth and stayed to marry a king. I had always liked that legend. Now I knew where it came from.
It was now monsoon season: muggy, hot, torrid, rainy, humid … I’m trying to find all the adjectives to describe what the next three months were like. We sweltered. The air felt as thick as water and the heat was oppressive. We wilted at nine in the morning, and when the sun went down there was still an hour of suffocating heat before the – relative – cool of evening set in.
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