I followed the sandstorm. It was easy enough at first, but hour after hour Alexander kept the gruelling pace. My mare was covered with foam, and her sweat soaked through the sheepskin blanket and thick felt pad saddle. The reins were slippery with sweat, and my hands grew covered with blisters. I stopped the mare when she could go no further, and I saw that Alexander had slowed as well. The great cloud of dust was settling. I hardly had time to get my breath and take a sip of water from my flask, when they started again. I jumped onto the mare’s back and galloped after them.
They had stopped at a water hole. They had only paused long enough to give the horses a drink and then leave. The water was muddied and churned from a thousand horsemen, but my mare was thirsty and drank deeply. I didn’t let her drink much. When she lifted her dripping muzzle to take a breath, I pulled her away. Then we galloped after Alexander.
An hour later, I was still galloping. We started to catch up with Alexander, so I slowed and saw he’d started alternating bouts of trotting and galloping. We continued like this until it was too dark to see.
In the dark, I stumbled into the army and was immediately captured by the sentinels.
‘Halt! Who goes there?’
It was Seleucos. I nearly cried with relief. ‘It’s me, Ashley,’ I said weakly.
‘Ashley?’ His voice climbed into the stratosphere after the first syllable.
‘Don’t tell Iskander I’m here, all right?’
‘What? Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘He’ll just send me back – please!’
‘But we’re going to move out as soon as the horses are rested. There’s a spring a few hundred feet over there, let me water your mare.’
‘No, you’re supposed to be on guard. I’ll go.’ I got off my horse and fell on my face – my legs had forgotten how to hold me. ‘Damn. Did you see which way she went?’ My horse had disappeared.
‘She went toward the water. Don’t worry, I’ll go get her.’
‘No, no. I’ll get up in a second. I just felt like resting, that’s all.’ I grinned at Seleucos. In the dark, I could see the flash of his white teeth as he grinned back at me. ‘It’s just like old times, huh?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes. When we galloped to Babylon.’ He laughed. ‘But it was I who lay on the ground then, not you.’
‘Now I know how you felt,’ I said. ‘Well, I think I’ll go see about finding my horse. Don’t tell Iskander. Please?’
‘All right.’ He sounded doubtful.
In that moonless night it was hard to see. I staggered over to the water and found my horse standing knee-deep in the spring, drinking. When she finished, I took off her saddle and rubbed her down, then I hobbled her and took her bridle off so she could graze. Horses milled about; every one tied to its rider so they couldn’t wander off. Mine was easy to spot; her pale coat made her look like a ghost.
I washed in the spring. I drank the water, although it was silty and tasted as though a thousand horses and their riders had already waded in it. I was too thirsty and dusty to care. I was just getting out of the water when I heard someone whisper my name.
‘Ashley?’
‘Who’s there?’ I asked, peering through the inky darkness.
‘It’s me, Plexis.’
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I was cross.
‘I followed you, what do you think?’ He sounded just as angry as I did. ‘And if you imagine I ...’
There was a short blast from a bugle and the night was suddenly full of movement and the sound of horses whinnying. Plexis cursed.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘They’re moving out.’
‘Already? But I can’t see a thing!’
‘The horses see well enough in the dark.’ He grabbed my arm when I tried to get by him. ‘Wait. Wait until they’ve left. It’s dangerous to be in the middle. If you fall asleep and fall off your horse you could get trampled.’
‘Fall asleep on a horse? I never heard of that!’ I said in disbelief.
‘You’ve never been in a real cavalry unit, have you?’ he asked dryly.
We waited until the last horses were gone, and then we mounted and rode after them. In the dark, on his black horse, Plexis looked as if he were floating in air. He rode behind me. ‘To pick up the pieces’, he told me when I asked him why. I set my teeth and wrapped my hands in my horse’s mane. The pieces indeed!
I fell off twice that night. Once when my horse stumbled and tossed me over her head, and once when I fell asleep.
Each time Plexis was there to pick me up and brush me off.
He didn’t seem to need sleep. My own eyes were burning with fatigue and my eyelids weighed a ton. It was awful. When dawn came we were still going, though by now the horses moved at a shuffling trot. We went on and on. The sun climbed into the sky, and we started passing the men who’d fallen off, or whose horses had died beneath them.
Some men had broken arms or legs and were turning back towards camp. Some were on foot. They were carrying their bridles and weapons. Tears ran down their cheeks as they told of horses foundering and falling, blood frothing from their nostrils as their lungs literally exploded with the effort of galloping all day and all night. As the sun climbed higher, its heat was like brass cymbals clashing overhead, blinding and suffocating us.
Still we went on.
Bessus fled before us. We came across the first victims of his flight on the afternoon of the second day. We had stopped to rest our horses. Far across the plain was the cloud of dust that marked Alexander’s cavalry. We’d fallen behind, but we weren’t too far, Plexis assured me. We weren’t alone. Seleucos had come back to find me. He told me he was worried. When he saw Plexis he grinned and saluted. ‘Hail, General.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘General?’
Plexis nodded, his eyes on the horizon. ‘Yes, I was promoted in Ecbatana.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
‘Well, it won’t last. When Iskander finds out I’ve followed him, I’ll be demoted to assistant cook.’ He grinned tiredly.
‘I hope you like peeling potatoes,’ I joked.
‘What's a potato?’ they both asked at once.
After a few more miles, we saw the bodies of four men. I didn’t recognize their outfits, and Plexis told me they were from Bessus’s army. We were catching up.
That evening, we reached a village in the foothills of the mountains. It was a wretched place. All the people who lived there were sitting on their doorsteps as if they had been watching a parade go by, and I suppose they had. First Bessus and his army, then Alexander and his cavalry, and now us.
Plexis rode up to an old woman standing at the steps of a small temple and said, ‘Hail, Grandmother. What can you tell us?’
‘Tell you?’ She spat reflectively in the dust, making my horse jump. ‘I can tell you this. First we saw a group of five horsemen riding at full speed across the plains. They entered our village shouting that we should get out of the streets because the army was coming through. Behind them, was a team of six horses pulling a wagon. In the wagon was a giant. He was tied hand and foot, and he sat so still some of us thought he was dead.’
‘A giant?’ I asked.
‘A tall man,’ whispered Plexis. ‘Go on, Grandmother.’
‘He had black hair and he was naked, but I could tell he’d once been a king.’
‘Ha!’ Seleucos jeered. ‘And how could you tell that, Grandmother?’
‘Because I saw the ghost of a crown over his head. But his eyes were empty.’ Her voice became shrill and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. ‘His eyes were empty pools of gold,’ she said, in her weird voice. ‘Hail to the king, the king has come and gone! Twice today have I seen a king! Behind the empty-eyed king came an army, and after them came the new king. Bright he was and shining like the sun! In his eyes were the twin kingdoms of heaven and earth, and I knew him for the eternal one! Hail to the new king! His kingdom shall be like a path of shining stars on
the face of the earth. A column of fire shall rise to the sky, and he will unite the past and the present in the future!’ Her voice rose to a shriek and she fell to the ground, frothing at the mouth, blood pouring from her nose.
‘Ashley!’ cried Plexis, and he took my chin in his hands.
I stared at him, uncomprehendingly, until he held up his hands and I saw they were red. A few scarlet drops landed on my lap, but it was simply a nosebleed. It stopped right away, as usual, but the old woman still lay on the ground. I wheeled my mare around with an oath, and dug my heels into her belly. I wanted to get out of that village. I didn’t stop until my mare was so lathered and gasping for breath that Plexis leaned over and pulled on my reins.
‘It’s behind us,’ he said, and there was a strange pity in his voice.
‘We have to catch up to them now,’ I said.
He just nodded. We kept our horses moving, and we caught up with Alexander just as the sun set on the second day.
He didn’t seem surprised to see me, and I glared at Seleucos. He tried to look very interested in a grasshopper sitting on his horse’s ear.
‘When will we catch up with them?’ I asked.
Alexander shook his head. ‘I don’t know. They’ve started splitting into groups. How many dead did you count?’ he asked Plexis.
‘Thirty-four of Bessus’s. One of ours.’
‘And how many of ours have dropped behind?’
Plexis frowned. ‘Twelve or thirteen, and five horses dead.’
‘Tomorrow it will be much worse,’ said Alexander. His voice was sad.
We slept for an hour, watered our horses, and then set off at a gallop. We galloped until the dark forced us to slow down. I rode in the back with Plexis and Seleucos. I had learned my lesson. During the night, three men were trampled to death.
In the morning we had slowed to a walk. My horse walked as if she were drunk. Her feet dragged, and her head hung to her knees. We stopped at a spring and rested for an hour. Alexander came to find me and held me tightly in his arms. I felt him quiver. The skin on his face was drawn over his bones and his magnificent eyes were shadowed.
‘Ashley, I need you to see for me,’ he said quietly. I flinched. ‘Please. Tell me. Should I continue? I am responsible for these men. If we continue like this, there will only be half of us left after today, and then half again tomorrow. I need to know, Ashley, is it all in vain?’ My mouth was set in a stubborn line and my eyes were pleading. He lifted my chin and kissed me ever so softly on the lips. ‘Listen. When we were in the village, the old woman said she saw Darius in a cart, naked, bound and tied. He’s been humiliated. It’s true I killed his son and his brother. Sis should hate me, but she doesn’t. She’s always loved me – she was the mother I should have had. How can I look her in the eyes if I don’t try and rescue Darius?’
‘He’s a fool,’ I said, my voice a harsh whisper.
‘He’s a fool but I love him.’
I took a deep breath and let it shudder out. His arms tightened around me. ‘You’ve just answered your own question,’ I said.
I looked at him he gazed back at me, his eyes wide and guileless. What had the old woman said? ‘The king, with the twin kingdoms of heaven and earth in his eyes’? One eye was the cool of the morning sky; the other held the warmth of the earth. At times I was almost afraid to touch him.
We rode through the furnace of the third day. Before us, Bessus fled. The bodies of his men and horses lay in our path, and we lost ground when our own horses had to leap or swerve to avoid the dead.
Behind us, our men fell. That afternoon, five hundred horses perished. By evening, there were only four hundred left of the thousand men who’d followed Alexander in his mad chase after Darius.
We didn’t stop. Alexander had answered his own question. Now he would go on until he caught up with Darius, no matter what the consequences.
That night we kept going, though we mostly walked our horses, trudging beside them. I copied the cavalrymen, tying my arm over my mare’s withers, so that I wouldn’t go down when I fell asleep while walking. One time I woke up, my feet dragging along the ground, my arm half-pulled out of its socket.
My hands were bloody, and my lips were cracked and bleeding. My eyes stung with sweat and dust. I had great, raw patches where the skin had rubbed off my legs and buttocks, but I followed Alexander. My mare was valiant and she bowed her head into the night and plodded onwards. We ate nothing and we drank only when we crossed streams or met springs head on. We didn’t deviate from our route. Like bloodhounds that scent when their prey is just within reach, new energy carried us towards the mountains. We mounted and urged our horses onwards, kicking them into a shambling trot.
The dawn coloured the sky crimson, and Plexis cursed once when his steed pitched forward and threw him. His black horse got back to his feet and stood unsteadily, then it seemed to lose control of its limbs. It collapsed, pink froth pouring from its nostrils.
‘No!’ Plexis’s cry was torn out of him. He knelt by his horse and held its head. ‘No, no, no!’ he sobbed.
But there was no help for it. The horse died and afterwards Plexis stood with his head down, breathing harshly.
‘Take mine,’ I said, getting off my mare and holding out her reins, but Plexis shook his head.
‘No, go with Iskander. I’ll follow on foot, don’t worry about me.’ His face was white with shock and fatigue. ‘I was a foot soldier before I joined the cavalry, and there are a few hundred men behind me.’ This was true, most of the horses had died but the men walked on, stoic.
I got back on my horse and galloped after Alexander.
The hours were measured in hoofbeats and they dragged out for ever. The sun rose, and I followed Alexander’s shadow as he galloped across the rocky terrain.
There were sixty of us left when we caught sight of Bessus’s army in the distance.
Sixty of us were facing the rest of the Persian army and the army Bessus had managed to raise against Alexander by claiming Darius’s crown. Perhaps thirty thousand men were in front of us, so I would have understood had Alexander hesitated.
He didn’t.
He raised his clarion and blew blast after blast. The men who had horns blew them, the rest of us screamed into the empty sky. Our horses were trained for battle, and they whinnied piercingly. Alexander raised his glittering shield, the shield he always carried into battle, and we charged.
We were spread out, riding abreast, but even sixty men abreast is a tiny thing compared to an army.
The sun glinted off the men’s shields, their spear tips and off my pale hair as we galloped towards an army in a halo of light, in a nimbus of dust illuminated by the sun. There was certainly a phenomenon of mirage, the blinding sun and the flat plain making our meagre force appear like ten thousand men; our dark shadows an army behind us.
Bessus’s army turned and saw us, and they ran.
They panicked, because they thought that Alexander’s army was sweeping down upon them, and they knew they were lost. They flung down all their weapons, and heedless of Bessus’s screams, they galloped madly away, abandoning him and Darius. They galloped as fast as they could, or ran, or crawled away, because they knew how merciless Alexander was. They knew that they would be cut to ribbons, and so they scattered and didn’t look back.
We arrived in the valley on horses that were staggering instead of walking. Even Bucephalus, proud and mighty Bucephalus, could carry his master no further. He sank to his knees, his great head bowed as if in prayer.
Alexander leapt off his groaning horse and ran towards a wagon standing off to one side. The horses had been unhitched, and it was a forlorn thing with splintered wooden wheels and its wooden sides stained with blood.
It was Darius’s. He lay in the wagon in a pool of blood. His chest was nothing but a mass of wounds with his ribs showing through, white and broken. His face was devoid of all expression except, perhaps, surprise. His golden eyes were empty, as the old woman had said, sta
ring at the sky.
Alexander let out a hoarse yell and jumped into the wagon. He gathered Darius into his arms and held him like a little child, and then, incredibly, Darius smiled.
I swear he did. He didn’t say anything as he died in Alexander’s arms, but he died smiling while Alexander kissed him and called his name in a voice that made my bones shake.
I sat down in the shade cast by the wagon. I didn’t take my eyes off Alexander, who had curled up in a ball, still clutching Darius.
The men who had managed to stay with Alexander, cared for their horses and for Bucephalus. They led them to the shade of a nearby grove of trees, watered them, and rubbed them down.
An hour went by, then two. The sun dipped below the horizon and the sky turned a violent orange-red. Storm clouds gathered in the distance, and green lightning flashed beneath them. It seemed as if the sky were mourning as well. In front of us were the mountains, behind us were the plains and the passage known as the Caspian Gate. We had passed through it, and now Alexander was master of all of Persia, and he held the king he’d dethroned in his arms as the variegated sky above him turned red, violet and black. Thunder growled across the plains, stars blazed in the clear sky above the mountains, and Alexander raised his head and turned his haggard face to the night.
‘I didn’t want him to die!’ he cried at the uncaring heavens. ‘I never wanted him to die! He was the king! He was the king ... and he was my friend. Oh, Darius, why were you such a fool?’
I went to him and he stared at me. ‘Do you know what day it is?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘No,’ I said, reaching over and gently pulling his hand off Darius’s arm. I took one hand, then the other, and I got him to his feet and led him towards the fire the men had built. Despite the evening’s heat, he was shaking and his teeth chattered.
He sat down slowly, like an old man. I gave him a drink of water and he drank deeply, pausing only to gasp for breath. Then he turned towards me and buried his face in the crook of my neck. I felt hot tears on my skin and they burned like acid.
The Road to Alexander Page 26
