Alexander and Alestria (18 page)

The sun, where is the sun?

Where is Apollo who made me invincible? The flames grimaced at me and danced frenetically while the voices rang out:

"I don't want to be destroyed!" I cried out. "I am Alexander! I am the king of all men, let me go!"

But still the flames held me, stifling me. Voices whispered to me, saying there was no escape; I struggled and prayed to Apollo to send me his rays. Suddenly a beam of light pierced the shadows. I clung to it like a ladder, climbing back toward life, only to find I was lying in my tent in total darkness.

Feeling my way, I stood up, then tripped, fell and stood again. I opened the door and saw shapes coming toward me. Thinking they were talking flames, I took a step back. Then my eyesight cleared, and I recognized Hephaestion, Crateros, Cassander, and Bagoas.

"We greet you," they cried respectfully. "We greet you, Alexander, King of Asia, and wish you a long life!"

I came back to my senses under my friends' watchful eyes and surrounded by gleaming weapons.

"Bring me food!" I ordered. "I want to eat this life, to devour it. Bring me drink! I want feasting and drunkenness!"

My eunuchs came running, my pages busied themselves. Soon there were tables laden with fruit, meat, pitchers, and goblets. Generals, commanders, and a whole display of beautiful young men lounged on soft carpets. I took the first young man I liked in my arms, and the heat of his youthful body warmed my limbs that still felt so cold; his kisses made me forget the burning scars. I gave him orders to press mangoes, grapefruit, and pineapple over my face, showering me with the sugar of life as I inhaled the fragrance of nature. For tomorrow, under the ground, the sky will be black forever and there will be no more pleasure.

As I brought the umpteenth goblet to my lips, I remembered I had a wife: I threw down the goblet and called Bucephalus. Despite Bagoas's weeping and exhortations, despite Hephaestion's sad expression, I set off at a gallop with a troop of one hundred soldiers. I traveled for many days, flying across the land, I could not wait to have that feeling once again, the most vibrant feeling of earthly life: holding Alestria in my arms.

I renounced sleep, forcing my soldiers to ride on through the night. I could not wait any longer. Waiting meant risking death itself.

At last I saw the ornate outline of my flags, then a silhouette. Alestria was waiting on horseback at the entrance to the camp. I galloped on, and she kicked her mare toward me. I leaped to the ground and ran over to her; she slipped from her horse's back and ran to me. How long it seemed to take! Let me reach her before the underground fires leap up and take me back to their kingdom! Alestria tripped, then tossed off her golden shoes and tied up the bottom of her tunic. I opened my arms, and she threw her arms around my neck, pressing her weight against me. I carried her all the way to our tent, where I tore off her clothes and undressed myself in a flash. My lips clung to hers, my body found hers. Her cool skin soothed my worries, and her tongue rolling over my cheeks and my chest put out the shadowy fires.

Bear me a child, Alestria! This child will be proof of our union and will have the purity I have lost. This child from your belly will wipe clean the horrors sown by Alexander. I am not worthy to be king. He shall be, though. He will be transparent as the glacier and ardent as a mountain on fire. He will have my dignity and your magic, the innocence of a girl married to the power of a warrior king.

I did not wait for daybreak before setting off on my return journey. I left behind the tears of my queen. I left behind her hair, which smelled of roses and mint. I left behind her wooden comb, her golden hair grips, her body curled up in despair. I galloped to flee my own pain while a voice inside my head screamed that I would never see her again, that that was our last embrace. Tears flowed over my cheeks but were dried by the wind. I urged my horse on to drive away my thoughts: I must carry on with my war.

I rejoined my Macedonian troops, who complained that their legs were lacerated by the undergrowth. They showed me where their arms had been devoured by leeches, hornets, and mosquitoes, and dragged me to where the injured lay dying with gangrenous wounds. Hepahestion, Crateros, and Cassander took turns trying to convince me we must turn back. I clenched my fists and reasoned with them: beyond the forest there were cities more wonderful than Babylon, civilizations more evolved and religions more sublime than any westerner could have imagined. All these wonders had to be ours. The last of my friends withdrew, and Bagoas appeared to talk to me of conspiracies: I listened to him and then sent him away.

Parrots chattered in the trees, and tigers roared in the distance. Then there was silence around the encampment. A rustling sound from deep within the woods wound between the tents, making the campfires flicker before disappearing into the trees.

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 Boon-boongonya 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 Boonboongo-nya 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.