Storms over Babylon

by Jennifer Macaire

  ‘I think that I’ll feel much better if you do that more often,’ he said shyly. Only his voice was shy. There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

  I was so relieved to see him looking more like himself that I agreed. I also thought I’d ask Usse. I would hate to save Plexis and then be responsible for his demise.

  Usse looked doubtful when I told him what I’d done, and he wondered if he shouldn’t add something stronger to the potion that he was giving Plexis. But he decided against it when he saw how deeply Plexis was sleeping that afternoon.

  Alexander became more haggard every day. Trying to create a government from what were essentially fighting factions was sapping his energy. But at least he could leave the palace. I wished I could too, as I’d done in Ecbatana, but I was getting too far along in my pregnancy. It would be difficult for me to disguise myself, unless it were as a hippo.

  I missed the bustle and riot of the marketplace, and I started to understand Roxanne’s fondness for the myriad slaves, ladies-in-waiting, squawking parrots, and screeching monkeys in her apartments. I loved my quiet rooms with their deep shade and their calm, but I longed to hear the bright chatter and shouts of people bargaining for goods, the minstrels’ songs, and children’s laughter as they rushed around the marketplace.

  Actually, the royal palace in Babylon wasn’t that bad. It was divided into several parts. Straddling the Euphrates, half of the palace was on one side of the river, and half on the other side. There was a narrow, covered bridge spanning the river for the royal women, and we could walk around the palaces as long as our eunuch guards accompanied us.

  The hanging gardens were not in the women’s part of the palace. To get to them, we had to take the bridge and then underground hallways. The gardens were immense. They were built on staggered platforms. Water cascaded from one level to another and the sound was delicious. Tall date palm trees and ferns cast a fresh, green shade, and flowers grew in brilliant profusion.

  Paul and Chiron loved to play in the gardens. Musicians, tourists, priests, merchants, and soldiers strolled through the wide, shady passages near the river. The gardens beckoned to everyone, and anyone could gain access to the main part of the gardens. Persian princesses and queens were cloistered, but I had persuaded Alexander to let me walk through the gardens as far as the outer gate. Although people would often stop and stare at me, everyone was friendly and polite. Paul and Chiron would run and shout, splashing their hands in the cool water, taking advantage of the green shade, their running footsteps echoing in the tiled corridors.

  Outside the gardens, the white and rose walls of the city shimmered in the blinding heat. Inside, everything was cool and protected. During the hottest months of the year, merchants set up their stands in the echoing hallways.

  I loved the gardens. My visual memories of Babylon are fading, except for the lapis blue and gold of the Ishtar Gate and the green tiles in my quarters. However, I can still see the long, shady corridors tiled with terracotta, pink pinpricks of sunlight on the floor like drops of blood. I can still recall the sound and the smell of the water running over brick aqueducts in the sun, splashing through the streams irrigating the hanging gardens. And the thick, verdant vegetation, redolent with jasmine, gardenia, and passion flower, will always stay with me.

  Some days I would visit the women’s palace. There was a swimming pool and another large garden just for the women. Their rooms looked onto a roofed courtyard, and their garden was just below. My rooms were not in the women’s quarters, though. Alexander had a whole section of the smallest palace set aside for me and Plexis, who was now hidden in my bedroom. No one could come into my sanctuary, on pain of death. Alexander had made that quite clear.

  My room was large and airy, with a garden all around it. Tall trees cast their shade onto the roof, keeping the rooms cool, and there was a swimming pool just outside my balcony.

  Alexander was staying in the same palace as I was, to my immense relief. Normally he was expected to sleep in the Grand Palace, the one with the hanging gardens. That way, the king was near his administrators.

  Stateira and Roxanne were both in the women’s quarters with Olympias and Sis. Sis had left Drypetis in Ecbatana to be with her adored Alexander. However, the women were all very shocked about the sleeping arrangements, especially when Alexander refused to see his other wives at first. The priests started petitioning him; after all, he was their king and expected to make the crops grow and the sun rise and they were counting on him begetting at least one or two heirs to the crown. I had flatly refused to let anyone designate Paul or Chiron. Alexander didn’t even acknowledge them as his official children. To appease the Persians, Alexander spent several nights with Stateira.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not jealous?’ he asked me for the hundredth time.

  I sighed and stared at him, my mouth a tight line. ‘Of course I’m jealous. What do you expect? But I’m also a realist, and I know you don’t care for her.’

  ‘A realist?’ his mouth quirked, then he was serious again. ‘I don’t care for her, but I feel guilty about it. Perhaps I’m only asking you to assuage my guilt.’

  I blushed. There were a few things I felt badly about. I still hadn’t spoken to Plexis about Drypetis. ‘Maybe you are. I’m sorry, but I won’t lie to you. When I think of you with Stateira it distresses me, but it’s nothing I won’t get over, all right?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On how long it takes you to get over it.’ He wasn’t being facetious; he was quite earnest.

  ‘Oh, it’ll probably hurt until you come back and make love to me, then all will be forgotten,’ I said, but my voice was sad and I couldn’t manage a smile.

  Alexander nodded, then turned to leave. Before he opened the door he looked at me over his shoulder and said, ‘You know, all this is making it ridiculously easy to abdicate.’

  He’d spoken so softy it was a moment before I understood him, and by the time I did, I was staring at an empty doorway.

  Gifts arrived for my sons every day. I threw most of them away immediately. I was nervous and edgy about protecting the boys. Chiron was turning into a regular chatterbox, and I was terrified he’d say something about Plexis being in my room. Paul still had an unworldly sweetness about him. They had their own room next to mine, with Brazza, Millis, and Axiom caring for them. Olympias had tried to give me Paul’s new nurse, but I was afraid she was a spy for my mother-in-law, so I’d sent her away.

  However, Olympias insisted on seeing Paul and Chiron at least once a day, so I took them to her quarters myself and sat stiffly in her room while she tried to charm my boys. She always had sweets and little toys for them. I was not worried about poison coming from Olympias. She was besotted with her grandsons. I didn’t worry about anything really, until she started to teach them about the Snake God and to tell them that their grandfather was actually Zeus-Amon. Chiron was too little to realize what she was saying but Paul’s eyes widened.

  ‘My grandfather was a snake?’ he asked.

  ‘No, dear, you’re not paying attention. The great Zeus sometimes takes the form of a mighty serpent. I was sleeping one night with my beloved snakes when I felt something enter my vagina. It was Zeus as a snake and I …’

  ‘I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day,’ I interrupted hurriedly, taking Chiron’s arm and nodding to Paul. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, Olympias.’ I stepped over one of the harmless grass snakes Olympias kept as pets. She had dozens of them slithering around her rooms. I didn’t mind, and they certainly kept the insect population under control. Olympias had no ants, spiders, beetles, or mice in her quarters. She’d given Chiron and Paul each a little snake, and they kept them in wicker cages in their room.

  ‘But I haven’t finished telling them the story of their illustrious ancestry!’ she cried.

  ‘I think they’ve heard enough about their ancestry. Right now the children must eat.’ I bowed. She waited until I was finished and bo
wed back, deeply. Then I bowed again, and she bowed – she was my husband’s mother, and therefore my social superior, although she remained persuaded my mother was Demeter, which meant I was her superior, which made things confusing for both of us. After another round of bobbing, I left her rooms.

  Paul tugged at my arm. ‘How did grandmother know that snake was Zeus?’ He had been paying attention after all.

  I heaved a deep breath of relief when we were back in our own quarters. By the sundial, it was nearly noon. The boys would eat now, although after being stuffed with sweets they were never hungry for lunch. After Chiron’s nap, I had to take the children to see Sis for an hour. She, too, insisted on seeing the children every day.

  The two women couldn’t be more different. Sis was a round, grandmotherly woman. She had grey hair and her face was full of friendly wrinkles. She always wore purple robes, befitting her rank. She was at least seventy, but her hands still moved quickly, with little, fluttery, butterfly movements when she talked, and she walked rapidly. I could hear her coming before I saw her. The long robes she wore trailed across the marble floors and the fringes of beads clicked with each quick step she took.

  Olympias was languorous. Her arms were long and white. She moved slowly and majestically, even if she was just going to pee in the chamber pot. And when she did, she acted as if she was on stage; lifting up her dress bit by bit to bare her long white legs slowly, then she would carefully sit down, making sure everyone could see her shaved pubis. Even the eunuchs had erections when she was near.

  I don’t know how Olympias remained so beautiful. Her skin was like coral, the stone she preferred above all others. All her jewellery was pink, white, or red coral, and gold. It went perfectly with her pale colouring. Her hair was just starting to show silver threads in its Venetian blonde but it looked lovely. Her eyes were deep blue and her nose was straight and long. Her lips were full, and her cheeks were smooth. She wore Persian style robes and, like all the Persian women, wore lots of perfume and make-up. And she shaved her sex. Her eunuchs were by far the best-looking except for Millis, and she tried at least once a day to buy him from me.

  She and Sis were not friends. They were not quite enemies, but they were definitely rivals. They were both in love with Alexander.

  Alexander was caught right in the middle of two, very strong-willed older women as they vied for his affections. I always suspected Olympias of having carnal relations with her son when he was very young; it would explain his fragility and his violence. Now, however, he seemed to have found a sort of equilibrium and he could face her without the nightmares coming to haunt him.

  Sis was the mothering type. She was only happy when she was giving advice, poking her nose into everyone’s lives, and generally trying to take over everything. Alexander managed to keep her out of my quarters by promising that I would see her once a day with the children. She was not as harmful as Olympias, but she suffocated Alexander. She was also constantly throwing Stateira at him.

  I wondered how he could stand the two women; they were forever barging into his quarters and into his meetings. Once, his patience with them exhausted, he gave orders confining them to the gynaeceum. It was an order that Sis took more or less gracefully, and which made Olympias break every glass object in her rooms.

  Sis was more circumspect about what she told the boys. Her stories were all about what they would have to do when ruling Persia and Greece. It did no good when I told her they would never rule; she ignored me. Most of the things they would have to do involved making the sun rise every morning and the springtime come. Not to mention making the flowers grow and the women of the whole kingdom fertile.

  ‘Why do the women need to be fertile?’ asked Paul, who sat obediently at her feet munching on the green almonds she peeled for him and popped into his mouth.

  ‘It’s time for our swim,’ I said, taking Paul’s hand and grabbing Chiron before he fell into the chamber pot.

  After taking the boys to see Sis and having them stuffed full of honey-cakes and fresh almonds, I spent the rest of the day in my private garden with my sons. There was a swimming pool and I was teaching Chiron to swim. He took to the water like a fish, and soon he was swimming around the whole pool. He was too little to swim on the surface, instead he swam with his head underwater and he’d just poke his little face into the air to breathe. Paul already swam well, and he would follow Chiron around the pool, holding him up when he was tired. I loved seeing their heads, one blond, one light-brown, bent together as they studied an insect walking across the tiles. Chiron thought the sun rose and set on his older brother, and he wanted to do everything he did.

  Alexander always managed to come and spent an hour at the pool with us. He loved to swim, and we would float together in the cool, green water. But his respite was short-lived. There were always people to see, petitions to sign, and arguments to resolve. Nothing seemed to be able to function without him.

  Chapter Eleven

  At last, things were starting to take shape. Alexander had appointed most of his men to key positions in the government and had begun delegating tasks. He enjoyed spending more time with the visiting diplomats. Setting up trade was one of his strong points. He almost looked happy sitting on his throne surrounded by delegations of foreign merchants.

  Kalanos used to sit with Alexander during his discussions with the diplomats. However, one day he sent word he felt too tired to attend, and Usse diagnosed an incurable disease. Kalanos knew there was nothing to be done. He went to Alexander and made one last request. He wished for a funeral pyre, so that he could end his days according to his beliefs. He wanted to be immolated on the day the stars were most auspicious.

  I was horrified, but I was the only one who thought it was atrocious. Usse prepared a special potion for Kalanos that would take away pain and Alexander had a huge funeral pyre built according to the old Indian’s request.

  When the day came for Kalanos to die, he came to see us in my room. He was one of the few to know that Plexis wasn’t in fact dead. He put his hand on Plexis’s brow and bade him farewell. Then he bowed to me. I bowed back. We didn’t touch; he had purified himself before his death and I, as a pregnant woman, was considered impure. I had learned to live with it, though, so it didn’t bother me. Too much.

  ‘Goodbye, my lady,’ he said kindly. ‘Think of what I’ve said and remember only this. Nothing is ever right, or ever wrong. Listen to your heart. I think that is the best advice I can give you.’

  ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ I said. My voice was wobbling but I was determined not to cry. He was being so brave, why couldn’t I? ‘I’ll miss you terribly and I’ll always remember you. I will try to teach my children all the wise things you were patient enough to teach me.’

  Kalanos turned towards Alexander and for the first time his face crumpled. ‘O, mighty Sikander,’ he said. ‘I was blessed to have known you.’

  ‘No, it was I who was blessed.’ Alexander swallowed hard, his eyes bright. They embraced. Then Kalanos turned to Usse and took the potion from him. He hugged the doctor, and then hugged Axiom and Brazza. No one cried. We were all stunned.

  They left for the funeral ceremony. I, as a woman, couldn’t attend of course. I sat down next to Plexis and talked to him. He was a good patient, never grumbling, never complaining. He tried to stay as still as possible, to give his neck a chance to heal, but we worried about him. He had lost a great deal of weight and although Millis took care of him and massaged his muscles, Usse didn’t like the way his legs and arms were reacting to so much inaction. They were getting thin and losing muscle tone. Time went by slowly for Plexis. He had been so patient, but in April, after lying perfectly still for six months, his nerves finally frazzled. It started when Usse examined his neck and pronounced him nearly healed.

  ‘Now you can start to move,’ he told him.

  Plexis smiled then tried to sit up. But even when I helped him he couldn’t. His muscles had atrophied and he was too weak. I called Millis and Uss
e and begged them to do something. Usse suggested Plexis start exercising in the pool, so Millis lifted him up and carried him into the water. There he sat with him in his arms, as Plexis learned to use his legs and arms again.

  I sat on the edge of the pool with Chiron on my lap, but the little boy wriggled away and insisted on showing Plexis how well he could dive and swim. I was afraid he’d jostle Plexis and nearly called him back. But when I saw how much Chiron was cheering his father up, I smiled. After a while Plexis became tired so Millis carried him back to his bed. He was no longer flat on his back; he was propped up and could see out the window overlooking our tranquil pool and garden. After that day, he made fast progress, and within a week he was sitting up by himself. His legs were still too weak to hold him, and he had to be carried everywhere, but the pool was helping him greatly. He looked much better. I decided I had to tell him now, before he heard from someone else, or before he asked me for news.

  ‘Plexis?’

  The tone of my voice betrayed me, or perhaps his personal antenna picked up my churning emotions. Whatever it was, he put down the scroll he’d been reading and looked at me. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘I have a confession to make.’ I twisted my hands together in my lap and tried to find the right words. ‘It’s about your wife, about Drypetis. She lost her baby right after we announced your death. I’m sorry.’ I said.

  He turned his head away and looked out the window. After a while he said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

  ‘I don’t know, I felt guilty. I still do. I was so jealous of her.’ My voice dropped to a whisper and I felt my face flaming.

  He turned to face me, his eyes wide in surprise.

  ‘Jealous? You? Of Drypetis? But, but …’ He winced when he tried to sit up. ‘I keep forgetting I can’t move yet. Ashley, just tell me what happened. What happened to Drypetis? Why do you feel guilty?’