The Road to Alexander

by Jennifer Macaire

  In the morning they untied my hands and gave me a piece of bread. They let me urinate, but I had to squat between them. I was mortified.

  They tied my hands again and put me in the boat. As before, I was made to lie down and a cloth was thrown over my body, but I was no longer gagged and my head was uncovered. I contemplated screaming but was too frightened. They wouldn’t answer when I spoke; they only tightened their lips. I gave up asking what they were going to do with me and simply watched the clouds drifting in the endless sky.

  Chapter Five

  After four days of travelling, we arrived at a temple where I was imprisoned for nearly a year. I was a captive, and the only people I saw were two priestesses and a deaf-mute eunuch who watched my every move.

  My room was small and had no window. It was deep in a stone temple. I had a bed, a brazier, an oil lamp, a chamber pot and a rug. I can describe everything in the minutest detail because there was nothing else to contemplate except the cracks in the stone walls: no books, television, or music. A linen cloth the size of a bath towel was my only clothing –. it was also my bath towel. My bed was a wooden bench with a flat cushion stuffed with hay, and a woollen blanket. The cushion was itchy and lumpy, and the blanket was cream-coloured and scratchy. The rug was red and orange, with blue threads running through it horizontally. One of the blue threads was broken, and a green thread had been tied to it. The unexpected green line saved my sanity a few times when I thought I’d go mad with boredom. The chamber pot is probably in a museum somewhere now. It was a heavy earthenware affair with a beautiful deep red glaze.

  I was taken outside twice a day, morning and afternoon, no matter what the weather. While I was outside, my room was cleaned, and a large basin of water for washing and a plate with my meal were set on the rug. They took them away when I left in the afternoon, so I never saw who fed me. I ate once a day. It was enough. I didn’t get much exercise. I started to get fat, which puzzled me, until one day I realized I was pregnant.

  I was never very regular, and I had assumed that my lack of menstruation was due to stress and poor diet. I thought that well until my fourth month of pregnancy.

  I had put my morning sickness down to nerves, and my sore breasts were because the bed was impossibly hard and lumpy.

  When I finally realized the truth, I was stunned. Then I started to cry.

  I’d never cried before, so the priestess who’d been tending the garden, hurried over. As usual, she was silent, only pointing to me with a worried look on her face. When I told her I was pregnant, her face turned as white as parchment, and that’s how I found out she understood Greek.

  I tried to strangle her. The eunuch pulled me off, but when he made to hit me, the priestess waved him away. I was trembling violently and I had to sit. I made my way to a bench beneath an apricot tree and sank upon it, hugging myself to keep from shaking. The woman sat beside me and I could feel her shaking too. Obviously something had gone wrong.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you spoke Greek?’ I cried. ‘Why don’t you answer my questions? What’s to become of me? What’s to become of my baby? Where’s Iskander? Does he know I’m here?’ I gripped the edge of the stone bench. Otherwise, I would have attacked her again.

  The priestess opened her mouth then snapped it shut. Tears ran down her cheeks, but for what reason I didn’t know. She had always treated me politely, although she’d never once spoken to me or answered any of my questions. Her homely face was kind, and I’d gotten used to her silent presence, much as I’d adapted to the eunuch who followed me around the vast, high-walled garden.

  However, she didn’t speak to me, and after a while she got up and left me alone in the garden. The eunuch stood by the far wall and stared at me with deep suspicion. I pried my fingers off the bench and stood unsteadily. The sun was bright and a bird sang in the apricot tree, but I was alone again.

  I watched as the shadows lengthened and turned purple. I was always left in the garden until the sun set. As soon as the sun touched the horizon I was taken inside. Bells rang in the town and trumpets sounded. I couldn’t see the town; we were high on a hill and it was beneath us. The walls were too high to see over. Mostly I wandered around.

  After I discovered I was pregnant, I started talking endlessly to my baby. I didn’t feel so lonesome any more. Soon I perceived the fluttery movement of the foetus and I would lie still, my hand over my belly, and try to imagine Alexander’s baby floating dreamlike in my womb.

  The flutter became a nudge, then a bump, and then a kick. My stomach swelled. My womb became an orange, a grapefruit, a melon, and then a basketball. I walked slowly, hands on the small of my back, and I grimaced when the baby rolled and stretched inside me. I became short of breath, and I received the first visit from a midwife.

  I had long conversations with the baby. When the midwife came, I thought she would be as mute as the others were, so I described her entire visit to the baby; telling him exactly what she was doing, and, to entertain him, describing her thoroughly.

  I got to the part where I was telling him how she was touching him to make sure he was in the right position to be born, when suddenly she rocked back on her heels. ‘Does he understand you? Does he answer back?’ she asked.

  I had been so long without conversation that I didn’t realize at first she’d actually spoken to me.

  I gaped at her and she blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, when I’d gotten hold of myself. ‘I think he understands some things I say. At any rate, he understands the tone, and I know he listens. When he’s awake, he reacts to my voice. Sometimes he’ll push a certain way and I know he’s heard me.’ My voice trembled and I took a deep breath. ‘It’s nice of you to talk to me,’ I said. ‘So nice.’

  She nodded, evidently impressed. She was older than the two priestesses and her skin was darker. She looked as if she might be Egyptian. When I asked her she nodded. ‘I’m from Egypt, yes,’ she answered. ‘But now I live here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’ I asked, but she shook her head.

  I was disappointed, but I didn’t press her. I was too glad to hear her speak. ‘When will he be born?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re so sure it’s a boy?

  ‘Yes, I’m quite sure.’ I smiled. ‘I can’t imagine anything else. I’ve even picked out a name, Paul. I was thinking about naming him after his father, but I decided not to. Things are complicated enough. Will you come back soon?’

  She stood up, and I grabbed her robe. I was nearly in tears. ‘Please don’t go yet,’ I begged.

  ‘I must. I’ll be back before the new moon. Most women birth at the full moon, but you will have your baby when the moon is like this,’ and she made a thin crescent with her fingers. ‘I will see you then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  She stopped at the door, her face reflecting her indecision. ‘I know who they say you are,’ she said. ‘But I think you are even more.’ And before I could reply to that she prostrated herself, touching her forehead to the floor.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ I was shocked, but she got to her feet and, with a frightened look, left.

  I was a prisoner in a room with no windows for nine months. I was treated with care. I had good food and was taken outside twice a day. The garden was enchanting, but empty. A mute slave watched me, not letting me near the walls or the multiple arched doorways. At first, he was very careful, following closely at my heels. However, as my pregnancy progressed he relaxed. I was not about to go hurling myself over a twenty-foot wall when I was eight months pregnant. I would often be left alone for the entire afternoon, and I would go to my favourite places in the garden and have long conversations with my unborn baby.

  Some days I wondered if I could hit the eunuch over the head with a stick, stun him, then escape. But I didn’t try. I was afraid my captors would hurt the baby or me. No one spoke to me, and I didn’t know where I was. I had no money, no clothes, and I wouldn’t get very far. At least here I had a midwife and good food
. I would just have to wait and see what happened.

  The fact that I was treated well, and with deference, suggested they knew who I was reputed to be. I didn’t try to flee, and then the baby was born.

  It was easy, as far as first births go, I think. I’ve always been indifferent to pain. I didn’t panic and I didn’t scream until the very end, but it was more a scream of surprise than suffering. The midwife and the two priestesses assisted me and no one spoke, making the entire experience surrealistic, somewhere between a dream and a nightmare.

  The baby was beautiful. I named him Paul, simply because I liked the name, and Alexander after his father. He was mine for ten days. Then three priestesses came and took him away. I can remember starting to scream, and think I went mad because I have no recollection of the weeks that followed. My sanity left me, and I plunged into a darkness that lasted until the temple was destroyed.

  A noise woke me up. It was the deafening crack of rock as it fissured and rent, splitting apart. The sound was horrendous. It was accompanied by a peculiar undulating motion of the ground. It flung me through an opening that appeared in my cell. I slid outside on a wave of earth that picked me up and carried me right to the outside wall, where it gently deposited me. The wall collapsed, and I watched, stunned, as a city I’d never seen was obliterated. I was up on a hill, so the view was staggering.

  In less than three minutes it was over and I was the only one left standing. All sound ceased. In the strange quiet I heard a wail, and turned to see one of the priestesses who’d tended me crawling out of the ruins. I was about to run away, but then I remembered my baby.

  I helped her to her feet, then in Greek I said, ‘Where is my child? If you do not tell me I will destroy the world searching for him.’

  She cowered from me and begged my pardon a thousand times, and then she wailed that the child had been taken to Babylon to be delivered to Marduk. That made no sense to me, but I knew I had to get to Babylon. Off I went in search of a horse, a chariot, or a boat to take me there.

  It was not easy, in the massive confusion and despair, to find a horse and guide, but I had become as ruthless as the goddess whom I was reputed to be. I stole gold from the ruins of my temple prison. In the remains of the city, I bought a slave to guide me, and two horses for us to ride. Within three hours of the quake, we were on our way. My guide seemed glad to leave the city. He was a slave. I promised to free him if he got me to Babylon.

  The horse I was riding was crazed with fear and I don’t think I’ve ever galloped so fast. We streaked towards the setting sun. The horses needed no whips or spurs; we wrapped our hands in their manes and hung on. I soon found out why. Five miles out of the city an aftershock threw our horses to their knees, unseating us, and we watched, dazed, as a second earthquake levelled the few buildings left standing in the region.

  We remounted and flew onwards. Our horses only stopped when they could not take another step.

  That night we camped in a hollow surrounded by silver birch. I lay on the grass and watched the stars. They were the first I’d seen in nearly a year.

  I wanted to know how much time had passed since my baby had been taken from me, but I didn’t know how to ask. The calendar was not the same. I remembered something vague about the Attic calendar that Athenian Greeks used, but I didn’t know what the Persians used to measure time. Days, yes. But how long was a week? Or a month, or a year? Was it the same? I put my head in my hands and keened. I didn’t know if my baby had been taken from me a day ago, a week ago, or even a year ago. It was as if I’d woken from a coma; my mind was teeming with shadows and my head felt as if it were full of glass. I didn’t dare fall asleep. I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t wake up again, so I lay on the soft, sweet-scented grass and watched as the stars wheeled across the sky. I followed the planets as they danced: Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury. They were all there.

  I frowned. All the planets in the same hemisphere? Was that a sign? I thought of what the priestess had said to me. ‘The baby is to be given to Marduk.’ Shadows in my mind parted and the glass became clear crystal through which I looked. I could see the night sky; my eyes were open. But I could also see a temple. In the temple, a hungry God with its mouth all aflame devoured a baby. I screamed and the vision disappeared.

  ‘How far are we from Babylon?’ I asked my guide, shaking him awake.

  He blinked and sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘Three, maybe four days.’

  ‘We must go then, spare not the horses,’ I said.

  We mounted and rode on. The little horses were tough but we nearly killed them. When they couldn’t carry us we led them, and when our legs gave out we mounted again and whipped the horses on. Twice we exchanged our mounts for new ones along the road. Each time my purse grew lighter, but I could think only of my baby and Marduk. If I had cut myself then, cold mercury would have flowed from my veins.

  My guide finally fell off his horse from exhaustion. He lay on the road and stared at me. ‘You go on,’ he gasped, his breath whistling in his parched throat.

  ‘No.’ I dismounted and led our horses to the side of the road and let them graze. They were too tired to do more than sniff listlessly at the grass. Their eyes were dull. I stood and looked around. My body wasn’t tired. It was full of a strange energy that seemed to get stronger the closer I was to Babylon. I was not hungry and I was not thirsty. I hardly blinked my eyes. When I did close them I saw strange visions. Visions that would haunt me. Blood fell like a shower of red rose petals. I didn’t know if they were things to come, if they had already happened, or if they could be changed.

  The road went straight on, disappearing in a bluish haze. A warm breeze raised whirling dust devils. On either side of the road dry plains seemed to stretch to infinity. The hills were to my left. They were low, rounded, and lavender in the opalescent air. I asked my guide how much further and he indicated the hills.

  ‘On the other side is Babylon. On the banks of the Euphrates.’

  ‘Marduk. When is his ceremony?’

  ‘He is fed on the first day of autumn. Tomorrow,’ said the man, sitting up. He fumbled at his belt for a drink, but his flask was empty. I handed him my waterskin. It was still full. He drank, and passed it to me. I took a sip, but it was like drinking sawdust.

  Tomorrow. I went to get the horses and led them back to the road. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  We galloped until our horses staggered, then we trotted, and then we walked. The mountains drew nearer, but it was agonizingly slow. Around noon we came in sight of a long caravan. There were perhaps five hundred camels and as many donkeys, horses, and men on foot. We kicked our exhausted mounts into a shambling trot and caught up with them.

  The caravan was made up of merchants who’d joined together for protection. They were coming to Babylon for the great ceremony. Hadn’t we heard? Iskander’s wedding and Marduk’s sacrifices. Great trading opportunities. The only problem was they were late. They would have preferred to arrive early and maybe sell Iskander some gifts for his bride.

  I asked to see some cloth. As we rode along, the traders jogged next to their camels, taking down bolts of cloth. I looked until I found two I wanted.

  One was black silk, so dark it seemed to swallow the light, and one was a length of white silk. They were priceless, but the traders were late and sold them to me for their weight in gold.

  I folded them reverently and put them in my saddle pack. Then I traded our tired horses for two fresh ones, and we galloped away.

  I would have liked one of the haughty racing camels. The tall beasts were as slender as ballerinas and as fast as racehorses. However, they were too expensive and I’d already spent nearly all my gold. I might need some to bribe our way into the temple.

  As we galloped, the words ‘wedding, wedding, wedding’ drummed in my head. I knew who he was marrying. The traders told us all the news. Darius had capitulated as soon as Alexander approached Babylon, and he’d offered his eldest daughter in marriage. Her name was Stat
eira; she was twenty-seven years old. She’d already been married, but her husband had been killed at Granicus, fighting against Alexander in the first of his skirmishes against Darius. I wondered how she would welcome being married to her husband’s murderer. Remembering Alexander’s formidable personality, I figured she’d certainly fall in love with him.

  Thinking of Alexander’s wedding was agonizing, but I was trying to keep a clear head. After all, I was the mistake here. I had no business in this world, but I was determined to save my son. Our son, Paul! I would get my baby back, and then I’d stop and figure out what to do. But first, my baby. Everything else paled into insignificance beside him.

  I first saw Babylon in the late afternoon. The road dipped, curved, and the city sprang into view. The sun shone on the walls, and they glowed blue and gold. The bas-reliefs seemed to be alive; bulls, lions, and tigers walking majestically on fields of lapis lazuli.

  The whole city was decked in blue and gold, and the Ziggurat of Babylon soared above everything else. It was so massive it claimed the eye and subdued it. I bowed my head and let my tears fall in the dust. To look upon it was to perceive death. The city was beautiful, but damned. We got back on our horses and made our way towards the gates.

  We entered the city through Ishtar’s door; a huge gate made of bright blue enamelled bricks. Gold dragons and bulls adorned it. Gold lions guarded it. It was the most exquisite manmade object I’d ever seen. The whole city was dazzling, and I understood Alexander’s impatience to rule it.

  We entered the city, and I set about finding my infant. I thought about going directly to Alexander. I wanted to. However, the strange coldness in my head, that ice-crystal lens, showed me the path to take. I followed it as if I were being led. Perhaps, in some way, I was.

  We wound through the streets until we arrived at the ziggurat. Next to it was a temple with a familiar carving over the door. I’d seen it twice a day for a year. It represented a winged dog, and it had been carved on the doorway of my prison. I hesitated, but my hand raised of its own accord and knocked six times, then six more times. That was the code I’d heard used in the temple. The door creaked open and a woman peered out. I recognized her as one of my former jailers. When she saw me, she gave a strangled cry, and fell backwards. It was all I needed. I pushed my way into the hallway.