He never would have seen me but for the grey mare, grazing nearby. He parted the branches of the willow tree and saw me, huddled in the grass. He was used to misery so he sat on the log and rolled up a few willow leaves. It was a habit he had. Soon I was surrounded by little coils of leaves. I watched as they slowly unwound themselves. One landed on my cheek.
‘Why didn’t you leave me behind?’ I asked.
‘Did you want me to?’ He sounded sincerely hurt, and I rolled over and sat up.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘You made Iskander very unhappy.’
‘I’m sorry, but the worst part is, I didn’t make him unhappy. He was already unhappy, and he just let some of it out. That’s all. He told me about his mother.’
Plexis raised one eyebrow. ‘Oh.’
‘But I was mean to him. Oh, Plexis, I’m such a horrible person! I teased him about the eagles.’
His mouth twitched, but he didn’t quite smile. ‘He doesn’t have too much to be proud of in his childhood, except those eagles.’
‘I realize that now,’ I said heavily. ‘It just seemed so ridiculous to me at the time. He has so very much to be proud of, and yet he doesn’t seem to know it.’
‘Why don’t you tell him, then?’ The tone was still gentle, making me feel even worse.
‘I will.’ I sighed and got to my feet. The fact that there were no decent feminine hygiene products became evident the minute I stood. Blood ran down my legs. I started crying.
‘Hormones?’ Plexis’s voice was sympathetic.
I was laughing and crying at the same time. Plexis did that to me. He led me to the stream and I sat in it. He washed me with his one good arm quite clinically. He washed my body, and my face, and even my hair, which always got horribly greasy when I got my period. He washed me off and dried me with his cloak. He held me tightly, and let me cry on his unbroken shoulder until I felt better.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘It’s just my period. I’ll be all right. If only there were something I could wear that would help.’
‘Your mother didn’t show you?’ he asked cautiously. He didn’t like getting onto the subject of my family. I shook my head. He sighed. ‘Ah, well. I think you’d better come with me. I’m sure Usse will find you something.’
We rode slowly after the army and arrived when everyone had settled, and dusk was making it hard to see the road. The fires looked inviting, but before I could go into the tent I took care of my pony, and then went into the bathhouse to clean off again. It was dreadful not having tampons.
Usse gave me a few linen bandages and I made bulky napkins. I tied them around my waist and between my legs with more linen strips. It looked awful and felt worse, and I spent three days being absolutely miserable to everyone. They learned from Plexis that I had some dreadful affliction called ‘hormones’. Axiom was very impressed, Usse warily sympathetic, Callisthenes bore the brunt of my bad humour, with his silly harp and silly baby songs, and Alexander stayed as far away from me as possible.
I think Plexis explained things to him though, because after a few days he joined me at the back of the line again. I was feeling better; I’d found a stream, bathed with some of Usse’s ‘soap’ and felt almost human again.
Alexander and I looked sideways at each other. He’d been coming to bed very late each night, after making sure I was asleep. And I’d lain as still as possible so he’d think I was asleep. Everyone in the tent was pretending to be asleep, and the result was no one slept, and we were all getting terribly tired and cranky.
‘I’m sorry, can I explain?’ We both spoke at once. I blushed and Alexander grinned. We pulled the horses up, leaned over and kissed. I slid off my mare’s back, and we walked a little way until we came to a pretty meadow.
I bent to pick a flower, and then, mindful of my mistake with the stream, I asked, ‘O flower, do you mind if I pick you?’
‘What are you doing?’ Alexander was staring at me, perplexed.
‘Asking permission of the flower nymph.’ I was proud of myself; I’d remembered something.
‘Flowers have no nymphs,’ he said, frowning. ‘They last but a few days. Streams, trees, springs, lakes; these things have nymphs.’
‘Oh.’ I looked at the flower and then at the meadow. ‘It’s an easy mistake for a beginner,’ I said, smiling.
‘Ashley,’ he said, ‘sit here next to me.’
We walked to a little hollow surrounded by tall, yellow golden-rod. Alexander spread his cloak on the ground, and we sat on it. The bees were buzzing around us, and the air was scented with honey and dried grass. There was an autumn smell in the air. I was feeling melancholy; the season did that to me. I sighed deeply.
‘It has come to my attention that you’ve been crying a lot lately,’ he said, plucking some daisies and starting a daisy chain. ‘I want to know why you’re so unhappy. Will you tell me that at least?’
‘Well, yes, if I could. I think it’s just an autumn thing, you know, leaves falling, flowers dying, and winter coming. I get melancholy around this time. I love this season, but it’s a sad time of year. It’s like nature’s in mourning, and I get depressed easily.’
‘I see.’ He held up the daisy chain and looked at it critically. ‘So, it has nothing to do with me?’
‘No, nothing to do with you.’ I lay down and put my head on his lap, so I could look up at him. The sun was behind him, making a corona around his head. He’d started dying his hair again, brassy yellow, but it suited him. I smiled. ‘You’re so handsome,’ I said. I reached up and stroked his cheek. It was softly scratchy with whiskers and there were scars on his chin. I twisted around a bit and examined his leg. A scar climbed up his thigh, and another scar made a ‘V’ on his shoulder. I traced it with my finger. ‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘A lance.’ He sounded tired.
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Of course. Are you just going to say inane things? Or do you really want to talk?’
I tried to look as if what he’d said didn’t hurt, but it was impossible. I’d started wearing my emotions close to the skin and I was hypersensitive now. My mouth trembled. He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine. They were warm and firm. I pulled his head down further and kissed him hard.
‘Can we talk now?’ he asked. His eyes were pleading, one blue, one brown, both colours sad today.
I closed my eyes. If I were erased, so be it. I couldn’t hurt Alexander any more. He took my silence for a reproach. His childhood had been so dreadful that he couldn’t stand rejection. When I was erased, Paul would vanish too. It broke my heart, but we had no place here anyway.
‘I will tell you everything you want to know,’ I said.
‘I don’t want you to tell me what I want to know.’ He was infuriating. ‘I want you to tell me what is bothering you. Don’t you care about me anymore?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘How can you care for me and not tell me about yourself? How you grew up, where you lived, what you did as a child? How can you keep such things secret?’
‘Don’t you have secrets?’ I asked. ‘You never told me about Cxious, for example.’
He blanched. ‘I only wanted to hear a little about your childhood,’ he said. ‘Perhaps some good memories you could share with me.’ He said this heavily, shredding the daisy chain into little pieces.
I took his hands. ‘I said I would tell you everything, and I will, despite the consequences. I love you. I don’t care about Cxious, or your mother, or your father, or even your other wives. I care about you.’ I stopped and searched for the words I needed. ‘What I tell you must stay a secret between us. No one else can ever know.’
‘Except Plexis when he dies.’ It was said without the faintest trace of humour.
‘If I’m there to tell him.’
I thought that when I told Alexander I came from the future, I’d disappear in the seconds that followed, but I was ready. Perhaps it was the season. I was surrounded by autumn.
I sat up and hugged Alexander tightly. Then my hands moved down his body. I closed my eyes. I wanted to memorize each and every inch of him. I wanted to imprint his body into my being. I loved the way his stomach contracted when I stroked his groin. I loved the wiry hair on his belly and the smoothness of his sex. I stoked it and felt the velvet softness become a shivering hardness. My heart echoed in Alexander’s harsh breathing. I looked up at him. ‘May I make love to you?’
He nodded, and I saw the muscles work in his neck as he swallowed.
I pushed him down, and I made love to him. I wouldn’t let him move. Each time he tried to, I held him still. I had never made love to him before, he had always made love to me, and I had accepted it. Now I took my time, and I took his body and made it mine.
He was not used to staying motionless. I sat on him, looking down at him, and I moved my hips gently. I closed my eyes and held myself very still, to feel the beating of his heart within the very depths of me. Then I opened my eyes wide and stared into his face. He was concentrating on not moving. Sweat pearled on his brow; his hair touched the moisture and curled, lifting off his forehead and temples. I pressed my lips to his, then moved to his eyes, his temples, and down to his neck. I kept on going downwards, tickling with my tongue until I found him, and then I took him in my mouth.
He jerked like a fish on a line, but I put my hands firmly on his hips and held him. My hair was a silvery curtain, hiding my face. He was breathing in great gasps, with a soft moan in between. I tickled him with my fingers and my hair, but I wouldn’t let him finish. I would start a rhythm and then change it. Each time I brought him to the brink, and then I pushed him away. I wanted it to last for ever. It was the last chance I’d get.
I sat up again and straddled him, gently guiding him inside me. I made him arch his back up towards me and rode him like a horse, sliding back and forth until suddenly the breath caught in my throat, and the throbbing in my belly exploded throughout my body. With a cry, I flung myself onto him and rolled over, pulling him on top of me. I urged him on with my hands and my hips. I whispered all the things I loved the most about his body, while he shivered and shuddered against me, finally losing himself with a hoarse cry that seemed to shake the ground beneath us.
We quivered, our bodies trembling against each other’s. I held on to Alexander while my body convulsed. It seemed that it would never be still. Each time I moved and felt his body, his arm, his leg, or his chest, it would start again. The throbbing would shake me, and I would moan into Alexander’s neck.
He held me until the tremors ceased and I relaxed. He rolled away from me. He face was drained of all emotion. It was as if he’d woken up after a long sleep. He looked over at me. I was still lying on my back, incapable of moving anything.
‘I can see why you don’t do that at night in the tent,’ he said, when he got his breath back.
‘It would wake up most of the camp,’ I agreed, smiling wanly, my chest heaving.
‘But I think I could get used to it, you know, every once a year or so.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It was very nice.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you.’ He pursed his lips. His eyes were dreamy.
I cleared my throat. ‘I was born in the future. It won’t mean anything to you to know the date, but it will make sense if I say that it’s more than three thousand years from now.’ I glanced at him to see how he was taking this, but he hadn’t moved and his face hadn’t changed. ‘I was born to elderly people who were profoundly embarrassed by my arrival. I was unwanted, and was sent away to school as soon as possible. I grew up surrounded by tutors of every kind, but had no friends at all. My father died when I was ten. When I was sixteen I was married to a much older man. The marriage was a disaster, and I divorced soon after.
‘I enrolled in journalism school, because I’d always wanted to, and because I’d always been good with languages. I was especially gifted in the dead languages, Ancient Greek and Latin, so I specialized in a programme called Time-Journalism. Five years later, I won a prestigious award and I was chosen to travel in time. I decided to interview you, and the rest is, as they say, “history”.’
I laughed nervously and looked down at my feet. For some reason, I was sure that the erasure would start at my toes and then work its way up, rather like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps my smile would float in the air a bit before I disappeared completely. I hoped my teeth were clean. I wanted to leave a good impression.
My toes were still there. I wiggled one. Yes, it still worked. I frowned. How odd.
‘You came from the future?’ Alexander’s face was very white.
I nodded, not sure what he’d understood.
‘You came from more than three thousand years in the future,’ he breathed. His eyes started to glow, as what I’d told him sank in. ‘And more than three thousand years from now people still know of me?’ His face broke into one, huge, gigantic grin.
‘Listen to me,’ I said sternly. ‘I will not tell you anything about your own future, is that clear? I told you I’d talk about me, not about you.’
He laughed and rubbed his chin. He shook his head and looked at his own toes, flexing his feet. ‘Three thousand years.’ He put his hand on my arm. ‘So the people of your world travel through time as easily as we sail down a river?’
‘No, it’s not easy at all. It takes so much energy that the voyage is limited. Only one person a year can travel, and can stay but twenty hours.’
‘Amazing. Amazing.’ He kept shaking his head, an idiotic grin on his face. ‘And how does it work? I mean, I can’t imagine,’ he spread his hands, ‘three thousand years. It seems so ... so immense.’
‘It is immense,’ I said sadly.
‘I want to understand,’ he said, getting excited, ‘I want to know everything. What do the people eat, how do they live ...’ He broke off suddenly, his eyes growing wide. ‘There are no gods in your time!’ he whispered.
I shook my head. ‘Not exactly; not the ones you know.’
His mouth twisted and he shivered. ‘Are there any kings?’
I shook my head. ‘Not in the sense you know.’
‘Is there anything I know?’ he asked forlornly.
I smiled. ‘Democracy. The system has lasted and prospered. Philosophy, art, Hellenistic art, the kind you love so well, is highly appreciated still. Music and wine, we love these things. We still hate lawyers,’ I grinned.
‘Ah well, Demosthenes was a bad precursor.’ He grinned back, but it was strained.
‘We have no slaves. We live in huge cities, bigger even than Babylon. We don’t use horses any more. We use electric cars and fly in gravity planes. Centuries ago our world discovered fossil fuel, and we had cars and planes, but they caused too much pollution, and the world nearly ended. Since then we’ve been more careful.’
He shook his head. ‘I know not what you mean.’
‘I mean mankind nearly destroyed the earth in the name of progress.’
‘Progress is bad, then?’
‘No, but it has to be controlled. Unfortunately, we are not good at controlling ourselves.’
‘You use words that have no meaning to me,’ he said, bewildered. ‘Fossil fuel, pollution, electric cars, gravity planes. They mean nothing.’
His memory was phenomenal. He’d recited the words without a fault, but I hated his forlorn look.
‘I’ll explain everything slowly, each time we’re alone. But never, ever, tell anyone else.’
‘I swore – does that mean nothing to you?’
‘I’m sorry. That’s another thing. In my time people say things they don’t mean all the time.’
‘A whole society of lawyers,’ he said, smiling through his tears.
I hugged him. ‘Oh, Alexander, I love you so much.’
‘I love you too.’ He sounded surprised. He tipped my head back and kissed me. ‘What made you choose to come to me?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I think
I was in love with you the moment I heard about you.’
‘Three thousand years from now, people will hear about me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Amazing.’ He shook his head again. ‘I can’t take it all in. It’s too strange.’ He thought for a while, a frown on his face, then he said, ‘And you were only supposed to stay a very short time. Is that what you said? Only a day?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And when I saved you I was actually condemning you to live for ever in my time?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ I looked at my toes again.
‘And you don’t hate me for it?’
I looked up at him quickly. ‘Oh no! I don’t hate you at all!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I swear, I swear by all your gods and mine, the ones I know about, anyway. I’ll always be happy, if you just let me stay with you. So please, promise you’ll always let me.’
His smile was blinding. ‘Oh, Ashley. Of course you will stay with me.’ He gathered me in his arms. ‘And we’ll find our son and live in Alexandria, and I’ll be king and I’ll make you my queen and ...’
‘Alex,’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘Listen to me. Listen carefully. I must never become your queen. I must never appear in the history books. If I change history the slightest bit, I will ...’ I searched for an appropriate word. ‘I’ll vanish. I’ll be undone. I don’t want to disappear. I want to stay here with you. Do you understand my predicament?’
He was silent a long time, pondering my words. Then he shuddered, once, very hard. ‘Have you heard about the sword of Damocles?’ he asked.
I nodded, my skin prickling.
‘That is what is hanging over your head. I understand now.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘It means so much to me to be able to talk about it.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ he said. ‘And you must feel free to tell me whatever you want me to know. I will never ask of you anything that may bring the sword down upon your head. And if you see that I am deviating from the history books because of you, you must tell me what to do to save you.’
The Road to Alexander Page 31
