Alexander and Alestria

by Shan Sa

  Having recovered from the initial shock, the barbarian soldiers threw down their weapons and prostrated themselves, crying: “Spirits! spirits!”

  Standing outside my tent, I turned away from my soldiers’ misery, and stared up at the tops of those dark, shady trees. Alexander would find a way to overcome the conspiracy of men and spirits. The suffering was only short-lived. I must keep on advancing and would never retreat.

  HORDES OF SAVAGES plagued us again. Having not mastered the art of molding metal, they used stone daggers and bludgeons made of rocks bound to sticks. They launched wooden arrows dipped in lethal poison. The Persians explained that these hairy-bodied people, the Gonya, were descended from apes. A million years earlier an epidemic had struck the men living in the depths of the forest, and they could no longer couple with their women. To ensure the continuity of the race, the tribes had captured great apes to inseminate their women. The Gonya believed in gods, I learned, but the apes had no religion—that was their difference.

  The rainy season was upon us, and storms broke out several times a day. In the rare bright periods the Gonya appeared, wearing coats and hats of sewn banana leaves, to continue with their offensives. They fell into the traps we had dug in the ground and got caught in nets I had strung up between the trees. A succession of strange creatures paraded before me: some extended their own teeth with boar tusks; others had a short bony tail between their buttocks; some were tattooed; others were painted, pierced, or adorned with feathers, amulets, and tiger’s tails.

  They were interrogated by my Persian interpreters, who spoke so many languages that they understood the Gonyas’ speech in a matter of days. After days of marching through the mud they took us to the village of the Boonboongonya tribe, which supplied poison to the entire region.

  The village was huddled against a steep rock face and sheltered from the outside world by gigantic trees that acted as pillars for a thick wall of ivy covered in thorny creepers. My soldiers tried to breach this wall, but immediately developed a rash on their hands and arms; they rolled on the ground screaming in pain. Communicating in gestures, one of our guides explained that a labyrinth of seven walls of vegetation protected this ancient tribe, and only its own members and their monkeys knew how to get through it. On my orders, my soldiers camouflaged themselves and watched the comings and goings. In three days they captured dozens of monkeys carrying bamboo tubes full of deadly venom; these were intended for neighboring tribes who gave them hashna—the grass of happiness—in exchange. One of the Gonya prisoners told us it was rare to meet a Boonboongonya because they were famed for their laziness.

  The monsoon was over, and I forced my way into the village with fire. My troops took cover beneath their shields and finally broke into the kingdom of poisoners, but they encountered no hail of pebbles or lethal arrows. A strange sense of calm reigned over the village, where the only sounds were birdsong and the whisper of a waterfall. Dense shrubs and flowers shaped like water lilies with pistils like red snake’s heads wound into an intoxicating labyrinth. I followed the monkeys in secret passageways to reach their masters: a group of Boonboongonya were sunbathing outside their huts, men with matted hair, a tiny tail at the end of their backs, and wearing a seashell to hide their genitals. Some were asleep on the bare earth; others rubbed yellow and black powder into their skin. Seeing us approaching, they smiled to reveal green teeth: they chewed hashna, I was told, which made them dream with their eyes open in broad daylight.

  All at once we heard piercing cries, and a group of Boonboongonya females appeared, naked save for the red paint that covered them. They threw down handfuls of snakes, millipedes, and pestle-shaped stones. My guards were quick to grab them, but they in turn screamed, watching their hands go purple as they came in contact with the creatures.

  The males of this tribe did not work: the women could cast a spell over the monkeys to enlist their help in their work and to climb trees to pick fruit, which was their main source of food. They drugged crocodiles and taught them to chase snakes. They covered their children in a paste made of poisons from plants, centipedes, and spiders; this made their thick hair fall out, leaving smooth skin and unwrinkled faces. When a crocodile brought them a snake, they attached it to an instrument and tortured it until it spat out its most deadly venom. Mixed with black powder and toxic roots and leaves, and pounded by the monkeys, it became the lethal concoction known as boonboon.

  Like all Gonya peoples, the Boonboongonya lived as a community and had no concept of family. The males did not have a role as fathers, and the females bore children that belonged to the whole tribe. Unlike other Gonya, though, the Boonboongonya had lived a long time in isolation, and their blood had degenerated. The males had grown so lazy they no longer even bothered to mount their females; that was why there were so few young. Those who looked young were in fact old but still had beautiful skin thanks to the poison wraps; those who looked old were over a hundred.

  My soldiers were disappointed not to have found an antidote to the deadly poison, as the Boonboongonya did not make one. And they were horrified when, on the night of a full moon, they heard wails so harrowing their skin crawled. The Boonboongonya had congregated near the waterfall and chosen one male and one female from among them. Without any ceremony they tore them limb from limb while they were still alive, grilling hunks of their flesh on the fire, tossing their organs to the crocodiles, and giving the bones to the monkeys to gnaw.

  My soldiers slaughtered the cannibals with their lances. Their blood spilled, and when it came in contact with my men’s skin, it left red patches that itched terribly. Any unfortunate whose eyes were splattered with this blood lost his sight for several days. I asked for the black and orange millipedes to be released from their containers of woven leaves and ordered that the huts be set alight. The flowers caught fire, and with them instruments of torture, wooden mortars impregnated with poison, and vessels made of bamboo. The bitter smell released by them gave my men migraines.

  My army did not even wait till dawn to decamp and flee those nauseous flames. The boonboon monkeys ran after us, moaning. One of them leaped at Bucephalus and climbed onto my shoulder, hanging round my neck and not wanting to leave me.

  I named it Nicea.

  “THE MACEDONIANS DON’T understand why you have abandoned the sumptuous palaces,” Hephaestion told me, “or the hordes of concubines and the constant banqueting, and all for this endless marching across the arid Bactrian mountains onto the Scythians’ steppes and into the luxuriant forests of the Indies, where you have to battle with monsoon rains, ape-men, and snakes. They now realize that Alexander seeks neither gold nor glory, and they no longer believe in your constant promise of diamonds. Without the lure of booty, without dazzling victories to flatter their warrior vanity, their every step is weighed down by exhaustion. That is why discontent has spread like an epidemic.”

  “Hercules tackled the Nemean lion, the Erymanthian boar, and the Cerynian hind,” I replied. “He slew the birds on Lake Stymphalus and the Minotaur in Crete, and he put Cerberus in chains. The ape-men are nothing compared to the monsters the hero of yesteryear brought down. Our soldiers will soon see the wealthy cities of the Indies; they will sleep on soft cushions and send home caravans of gold and precious stones.”

  “The weakness of strength is to believe only in strength,” said Hephaestion.

  Irritated, I said nothing and sought out Nicea. I had tended and groomed him myself, and the little monkey now had golden fur again and wore a scarlet tunic embroidered with gold thread that I had tailored specially for him. He brought us a tray of fruit, chose the best of the bananas, peeled it carefully, and handed it to me. I smiled.

  “Do you know what our soldiers are saying?” Hephaestion went on.

  “That the Gonya steep their arrows in poison and the Macedonians in slander,” I replied wearily.

  “They say you have gone mad!” cried Hephaestion. “They say you have fought too much, galloped too far, and slept too little!
Your mind is no longer lucid, hence your stubbornness, your refusal to hear any complaints or listen to advice!”

  I made Nicea jump onto my lap.

  “Why risk your life fighting creatures that are not even human? Why go on when you have already conquered Persia and been recognized as King of Asia? If you were struck by a poisoned arrow tomorrow, all that glory and the crown would no longer be yours. You, Alexander, do not even have an heir!”

  His words hurt me, but I held my temper in check. I opened up a silver casket and showed him the leaves in there.

  “Look, Hephaestion, here is the secret of this war: they are hashna leaves. They do not grow in this forest, and the Gonya know nothing of cultivating the land. Men are supplying them with this mild drug on condition that they make war with us. Men are manipulating them to attack us. Men are afraid of us and want to drive us out of the Indies before we take their cities by storm and claim their treasures for ourselves.”

  Hephaestion wanted to reply, but I interrupted him:

  “I have been told of a great king called Poros. He is so rich, it is said, that his elephants are covered in precious stones. This gallant warrior dreams of uniting all the kingdoms of the Indies. I have arranged to meet this man, Hephaestion, I must confront him. If I die in combat, you will take our troops back to Persia. If I win the battle, I shall share with you and with all my soldiers the unimaginable treasures of the Orient.”

  “Are you really so blind? The gods are sending you signs to stop this absurd campaign. The degenerate state of the Gonya proves we have reached the limits of humanity. Beyond this forest there are no more men but the kingdoms of monsters and wild beasts. And do you, the great Alexander, want to lose your soldiers down to the last man in order to be king of those lowly creatures?”

  Hephaestion shot a look laden with contempt at Nicea, then withdrew.

  Weary of arguing with him, I let him leave. Hephaestion could not understand me: his dream of seeing me venerated as king of the Greeks and Persians had been realized, and any other unexpected dreams were mere poetry and madness to him, a Macedonian nobleman raised by Aristotle like myself.

  Two days later in battle an arrow shot from behind drove into the crest of my helmet. Had the soldier’s hand wavered? Or had he been ordered to threaten me? Days passed, and still the army could not identify the murderer. I suspected a conspiracy among the highest ranks and entrusted Bagoas with carrying out a secret investigation of my friends’ loyalty.

  The eunuch reported back all the conversations his men overheard: Hephaestion was angry with me for being so obstinate; Cassander still could not forgive me for marrying an Asian of obscure parentage; Crateros complained that I had grown hard-hearted and said I was deaf; Perdiccas was still mourning the loss of Cleitos, whom I had killed with my own hand; Ptolemy, the eldest and most restrained, was convinced I should be forced to take a year’s rest. They all referred to me as the tyrant behind my back.

  Shut away in my tent, I taught Nicea how to play a musical instrument. I lay on my bed listening to the monkey plucking the strings of his lute and pictured Alexander, Hephaestion, Cassander, Crateros, Lysimaque, and Perdiccas at school together. At first we had been inseparable, all experiencing our first kisses and embraces at the same time. There were the fits of laughter, the arguments and reconciliations followed by exalted oaths of loyalty. Alexander was right at the middle of that virile little world, playing the capricious girl who knew just how to secure promises and protection.

  Those young boys swore they would never leave each other; they decided to conquer the world together. Along the way on our campaigns, carnal love had given way to friendship, and each of us in turn had taken lovers. That band of happy reveling friends had gradually split up as they waged wars and conquered lands. They had all lost their innocence, and I had become an arbitrator, responsible for sharing out glory and wealth: I was both their master and their slave, handing out titles and promotions. They plotted to try to force their ideas on me; they came and begged me to oversee their lovers’ upbringing; they formed a united front against anyone who succeeded in getting close to me; they made sure my relationships never lasted long. Their possessiveness grew the farther we marched away from Macedonia. Anything not from our country they condemned as a perversion, a whim, a disloyalty. The Persian clothes and customs I had adopted, the barbarian food I so loved, Bagoas the slave I had given a position, Alestria the Asian orphan I made my queen…all were offenses that drove Cleitos to insult me in public. By killing him with my lance, I had broken an oath of eternal friendship.

  Nicea abandoned the instrument and turned to massaging my head. The love and gratitude I read in his gaze were not enough to console me. I tore myself from this sadness by turning my thoughts to war.

  Withdrawing from the Indies and taking my troops back to Persia would mean giving the Indian princes time to rally around Poros. My soldiers were so haunted by the nightmare of crossing the Indies that—once their minds were relaxed, their bellies fed, and their muscles unwound—they would not have the courage to suffer a second time. Only the ignorant have temerity. To rest was to give up: we had to advance.

  Lying in Darius’s bed in Babylon, I had laughed at the thought of my victory. Now, in the middle of a hostile forest that featured on no map, I laughed at the thought of my defeat. Losing his friends was a failure for Alexander the Great. Isolated in my tent, betrayed on all sides, I was back to the loneliness of the little boy watching the stars. The pinnacle of my life as a warrior had come full circle. Alone and disarmed, I still had the same dream, though, the same obsession: to conquer beauty.

  The headlong gallop toward wonderment knows no limits.

  Wonderment is the gold of the sun.

  I, Alexander, son of Apollo and Ammon, will not renounce it.

  CHAPTER 9

  S laves protected by warriors went ahead of us. Day and night they felled trees and carved out a road on which the Queen’s City—a vast nomadic town—could travel through the forest of the Indies in Alexander’s footsteps.

  At each stopping point the soldiers planted stakes in the ground and built a wall. Ptolemy ruled as master in the men’s quarter: he received provisions and gave supplies to the king; he took in the injured sent back from the front, and greeted reinforcements from Greece and conquered lands. Troops were constantly on the move. Over and above the whinnying of horses and the sounding of horns, we could hear the bustle of breeders mating horses from different lands, armorers experimenting with metal alloys, weavers pushing their creaking looms, and cooks noisily slaying calves.

  In the women’s quarter Alestria rose before the sun to receive her subjects’ salutation: men and women formed a long line outside her tent, and one after the other prostrated themselves at her feet—all except for the Macedonian warriors, to whom the king had granted the privilege of greeting her with a bow.

  In order to marry her, Alexander had asked Alestria to recognize the satrap Oxyartes as her father and to take the Persian name Roxana. Being extremely jealous, he required her to wear a veil in male company. I, Ania, standing beside my queen for the morning audience, ruminated on my loathing for this man who had robbed her of her dignity while offering her this daily spectacle of veneration.

  Alestria cast her black eyes over each of her visitors. Military chiefs brought her news from the front; doctors came to ask for remedies to heal the injured; sages wanted to show her their inventions; soldiers and their wives told her of conspiracies against the king; madmen, outcasts, and criminals groveled at her feet; tradesmen, courtesans, and prostitutes lined up to sing her praises; all of them hoped to reach Alexander through Alestria, all of them wanted to please the king by flattering the queen.

  The sun followed its course across the sky. The thud of felled trees, the whicker of foals, and the chanting of slaves wringing out wet sheets reached the tent. On top of this constant racket, men came in and argued, women fought and pulled each other’s hair while the babies clinging round th
eir necks screamed. Alestria heard their whispering and sobbing, their shrieked accusations and despairing lamentations, with patience and indifference. People spoke to her in every language: Macedonian, Greek, Persian, and tribal idiom. She did not understand everything, but they thought she did, confiding in her their concerns and corrosive anger. They came to her so that she could bear their pain, jealousy, and hatred. Alestria accepted these bouquets of venomous flowers without complaining about their vicious thorns, listening to them without uttering a word. Her silence was soothing, her attentive expression a balm on their open wounds, her luminous presence purifying.

  Men and women alike left feeling appeased. Alestria was the deep, limpid lake before which Alexander’s servants prostrated themselves prior to throwing their waste into it. She said nothing and never spoke to me of it, accepting this earthly waste in silence and transforming it into brilliant red fish, twinkling lights, wafting weeds, and water lilies.

  When the sun reached its zenith, the audience came to an end. Once released from her duty, the queen called for her horse, galloped to the entrance to the city, and waited for the king’s return, sheltering under a parasol erected for her by the soldiers. She remained motionless, her eyes fixed on the horizon, her body taut as a bow trained toward Alexander, toward the target that did not appear.

  If horsemen came into view, her body quivered, preparing to launch into a gallop. But Alexander was not with them; they were bringing her gifts from the king. Sad and disappointed, she went back to her tent. She took a little gold knife he had given her and carefully undid the string, the banana leaves, the leaves of gold and silver, and the petals. A gem, an insect, a box, or a feather would emerge, and she would stroke it and spend the next few days looking at this precious object.