The Persian Boy (36 page)

He did not trust in vain. As long as he lived, no news of treachery came to him from there.

All that meant most to him was fulfilled in that river battle. He fought mightily against man and nature; did not his hero Achilles fight a river? Happier than Achilles, he had Patroklos by him to share his glory; Hephaistion was with him all that day. And he won with a welded army of all his peoples, just as Kyros fought with his welded Medes and Persians, though this was a greater thing. At the end, he found a brave enemy to make a friend of. Yes, that was my lord’s last moment of perfect fortune.

Now it was done, his eyes were turned, as they always were, to the next horizon. What he lived for now? was to make the march to Ganges, follow its shores, and reach the Encircling Ocean; his empire a finished work from sea to sea, crowned with a marvel. Thus his teacher Aristotle had told him the world was made, and I have not yet met a man who could deny it.

-22-

KING POROS’ flesh wound soon healed, and Alexander feasted him. He was magnificent, still in his thirties though with sons of fighting age, for the Indians marry young. I danced for him, and he gave me some ruby earrings. To Alexander’s pleasure, the faithful elephant, scar-seamed from earlier wars, recovered too.

There were victory games, and thank-offerings to the gods. Just when the victims had been consumed, the rain came down again and doused the fires. I had never grown used to watching the divine flame polluted with burning flesh; nor is any Persian easy when he sees it quenched from the sky. But I said nothing.

The King founded two cities, one each side the river. He named the right-bank one for Oxhead; his tomb was to be in the public square, with his statue cast in bronze.

After that, he and King Poros rode off to war together. Roxane he left in the palace, where she could have the company of King Poros’ wives, and be in comfort out of the wet. Me he took with him.

They first had to fight Poros’ cousin, a long-time enemy who’d declared war upon Alexander as soon as he learned that they were allies. His courage was not equal to his hate; he fled the test, and Alexander left Hephaistion’s force to reduce the province, which he would give to Poros. He himself was for pushing on, drawn by the Encircling Ocean, making short work of anything in his way.

He offered peace to each town that surrendered; kept his word, and let them retain their laws. Those who fled their forts before him, he pursued without giving quarter, reckoning they would have made terms unless they meant to attack him in rear. It had often happened; yet, thinking how peasants will fly from the mere sight of soldiers, depending on what they’ve known of them before, I was sorry it had to be.

With Poros, he took the great fort of Sangala, despite its walls and its hill and its lake, and the triple wagon-wall drawn up all round them. Then he gave Poros leave to join Hephaistion in settling his new province. Himself, he pushed on towards the next river, the Beas; he would camp on its nearer shore, to rest his men. The rain came down.

We lumbered on, over ground trodden to mush by those before us. The elephants tugged their feet from the mud with sounds like great smacking kisses. The Scythians and Baktrians, to keep dry, wore in the wet swelter their hot felted clothes. The cavalry urged on footsore horses, each mile like three miles’ work. The men of the phalanx trudged ankle-deep by the oxcarts which bore their gear; their boots warped with wetting and drying, now soaked again; the thin Indian stuff they’d had to buy for tunics plastered to their thighs; the edges of their cuirasses galled them through it as if they had been naked. The rain came down. On rising ground above the river, they pitched the great tent of Darius; Alexander had brought it, to show himself as a king. It was green and fragrant here; we were coming towards hill country; from the east I could swear I smelled the breath of the mountains, but the clouds hid everything. The rain came down, steady, unwearied, sighing through the trees and the tall green canes; as if it had fallen since the world began, and would not cease till the world was washed away.

The tent was leaking. I had that seen to, and looked out for him a dry robe and shoes. When he came, he felt my clothes, and would accept no service till I had changed them. I was so used to being wet, I had hardly noticed.

He had his generals to supper. Listening inside, I could tell he was in good spirits. He said he’d heard that beyond the Beas the land was rich, the people were stout fighters, and the elephants bigger and stronger even than King Poros’s. A last fine battle, before reaching the world’s end.

But something odd ?had struck my ear. If he was a little drunk, his voice would always carry over the rest. But he was sober, and still it did. He was not loud; it was the others who were quiet.

He’d noticed, too. He bade them drink up, and chase the damp from their blood. They made a better show, till the meal was over and the servers gone. Then Ptolemy said, “Alexander, I don’t think the men are happy.”

He laughed. “Happy! If they were they’d be insane. This rain, it’s like wading through Styx and on through Lethe. They’ve shown a fine spirit, and they’ve seen I know it. The wet season’s due to finish; Poros told me it’s overlong this year. As soon as it clears, we’ll hold games and give good prizes, and have them fresh to go on.”

They all said Yes, no doubt that would set them up.

At bedtime he said to me, “This rain would dispirit lions. If only I could have settled Baktria a half-year sooner, we’d have been here in winter.” He did not say, “If I’d waited there half a year.” He would have said it once. It was as if he felt, at last, the chariot of time pursuing him.

“After the rains,” I said, “they say it’s all fresh and beautiful.” I was glad he had made an early night of it. He’d been riding all day up and down the column, to see no one was bogged down. He looked tired, and the lines on his brow were back again.

Next day I came to his tent at dawn, to be first with good news. “Al’skander! It has stopped raining.”

He jumped up, threw his blanket round him, and went to look. When first I’d known him he would have gone naked from his bed. He had grown more careful, from being often with Persians. A pale sun rose over the green leaves. Even its first rays had warmth; one could tell it was more than just a break in the rains. “Thanks be to Zeus!” he said. “Now I can get my poor men in heart again. They deserve a holiday.”

The riverbanks smelled of sap and young flowers. He gave orders for the games and invited entries. I took my horse Oryx (Lion was looking tired) and rode out to smell the breath of the mountains, before we turned for the plains.

I came back through the camp. Hundreds of times, all over Asia, I had ridden through it. Apart from land and weather, it was always much the same. But not today.

Even the camp-followers, whom I passed first, were restless. One noticed the carefree children, splashing in sunlit puddles, because the mothers had their backs to them chattering. In the quarter where the better-off lodged, such as artists and merchants, one of the actors whom I knew came running; when I drew rein, he said, “Bagoas. It is true the King’s turning back?” “Back?” I said. “Why, it’s only a few days’ march to the Stream of Ocean. Of course he’s not turning back.” I rode on by the soldiers’ camp. Then I knew something was wrong.

Soldiers in rest-camp have a thousand things to do; making good their kit and boots and weapons; buying things. There will be women, cockfights and dice-games; fortunetellers, jugglers and men with dancing dogs. Such people were all about, dejected, getting no trade. The men did nothing. Nothing, that is, but talk.

A dozen with heads together; a score, hearing one man; two or three arguing; they talked. And I never heard a laugh.

When officers passed, one might be called to, as a friend for counsel; another would be scowled at silently. Some glanced even at me, as if I might carry tales of them. I only wished I knew what to tell. It was then a memory knocked at my mind-of a night on the high moors, above Ekbatana.

No! I thought. It’s not as bad as that, and with him it never could be. But it’s bad. His generals must tell him. It would be insolence from me.

They began about noon, by ones and twos. I’d been right, that it was not like Ekbatana. No one wished Alexander harm. No one dreamed of another King. The men wanted one thing only: to go no further.

I had thought he’d make light of it, at least at first. But he’d always had the feel of his troops, and he knew his officers; those who made much of little never reached these men’s rank. H?e was calm, but serious. At the end he said to Ptolemy and Perdikkas, “This must be taken in time. I shall speak myself. Give it out at once; every officer from brigade commander up, outside this tent an hour after sunrise tomorrow; allies and all. The rain’s to blame for all this.”

No more rain fell. I rode through the camp again a few hours later. The feeling had changed. Instead of sullenness there was purpose. Each senior officer’s tent had a crowd of men outside it, quite orderly, waiting to speak.

Next morning he was up early, pacing about. He hardly knew I was dressing him. I saw his lips move with the words his mind was forming.

From first light, they had been gathering outside; Macedonians, Persians, Baktrians, Indians, Thracians. Together, they made up a biggish crowd; about as many as his voice would reach.

A trestle had been brought out for him to stand on. He wore his best battle armor, the winged silvery helmet, the jeweled belt from Rhodes. As he leaped on the rostrum, lithe as a boy, there was a breath like a sighing breeze. My actor friend had once said that he could have made his fortune in the theater.

I listened behind the tent-flap. This play had no part for me.

He said he grieved to hear the men had lost so much spirit; he had called them in council, to decide along with him whether to go on. He meant, of course, that he would persuade and not compel them. I don’t think the notion of really turning back had entered his head.

He had a splendid style, eloquent without rhetoric, though he’d not written down a word. He spoke of their unbroken victories; why need they fear the men beyond the river? The end of their task was near. They were coming to the Encircling Ocean; the very same that washed Hyrkania in the north, and Persia southward; earth’s utmost boundary. He could not believe- I could hear it in his voice-that they felt no touch of his burning eagerness. Had he not shared their dangers, he said, and had they not shared the spoils? Would they give up so near fulfillment? “Keep steadfastness!” he cried to them. “It is a lovely thing, to live with courage, and die leaving an everlasting fame.”

His clear voice ceased. He waited. It was so quiet, you could hear a shrill-voiced bird, and the pi-dogs bickering.

After a while he said, “Come! I’ve said my say; I sent for you to hear yours.” At this, there was a shifting and shuffling about. Suddenly I remembered the silence before Darius, at that last audience; and I felt the difference. He had been despised. Alexander had awed and shamed them; the words they’d come with had died before him. And yet, like Darius, he had not moved their minds.

“Someone speak out,” he said. “You’ve nothing to fear from me. Isn’t my word enough, do you want my oath on it?”

Someone muttered, “Yes, Koinos, go on.”

A grizzled square man was shoved forward through the crowd. I’d known him well by sight, even before his great part in the river battle. He’d fought under Philip, but, a soldier first and last, never joined a faction. Where good sense and stubborn fortitude were called for, the King chose Koines. They looked at each other. Koinos’ face, the only one I could see, said, You’ll not like this; but I trust you.

“Sir,” he said, “you’ve called us here in free council, we all know that. But I’m not speaking for us commanders; I don’t feel I’ve the right. With all we’ve had from you, we’d be overpaid already for going on. If you want to advance, it’s for us to see it done; it’s our duty, it’s what we were promoted for. So, with permission, I’d like to speak for the men. Not that they come first with me, sir. You do. That’s why I’m speaking.”

Alexander said nothing. I could see his back taut as a bowstring.

“I’m the eldest here, I think. If I can claim a good name, I have you to thank, for giving me my chances. Well, sir. The men, as you said yourself, have done more than any army did before them. Thanks to you, again. But I put it to you, sir, that when they say it’s enough, they deserve a hearing. Think how many ?of us Macedonians came out with you. How many of us are left?”

A good old man. A fine soldier. A Macedonian, speaking out to his King is his forthright way. What were my people to him, the Persian horsemen with their proud faces and slender strength? What were the strong Baktrians, the hawk-nosed Sogdians, the red-haired Thracians, the tall Indians in their jeweled turbans, the sharers in his victories? Chances along the way which led to home.

“We’ve died in the field; we’ve died of fever and the flux. There are the cripples who’ll never fight again; and the men in your new cities; not all of them happy there, but there they are. And look at the rest of us, fit to scare the crows, dressed in Indian rags. When a soldier gets neither pride nor comfort from his turnout, it pulls down his spirits. The cavalry too, the horses’ hooves are worn nearly down to the frogs. And, sir, we’ve wives and children at home. Already our children will be strangers; soon it will be our wives. Sir, the men want to get home with their loot, while they can still be somebody in their villages, looked up to. If they do that, you’ll soon have a new army sprung up from the ground, asking to follow you. Go back, King. Your mother must be longing for a sight of you. Call up the young men who’ll come out fresh. It’s best, sir. Believe me, sir, it’s best.”

His voice cracked, and he dragged his fingers across his eyes. A raucous sound came from him, as if he were going to spit; but it was a sob.

As if it had released the others, cries broke out everywhere; not of anger or defiance, but sheer pleading. They almost moaned. They stretched out their arms. If well-picked officers felt like this, what about the men?