Alexander (Vol. 2) (51 page)

‘Do you still have that nightmare?’ asked the King. ‘That dream about the naked man being burned alive?’

‘And you?’ asked Aristander. ‘What nightmares trouble your mind?’

‘Many . . . perhaps too many,’ replied the King. ‘My father’s death, the death of Batis, the valiant soldier I dragged behind my chariot around the walls of Gaza, the ghost of Memnon, who appears between myself and Bar-sine every time I hold her in my arms, the Gordian knot which I cut with my sword rather than undoing and . . .’

And he stopped, reluctant to continue.

‘And what else?’ asked Aristander, staring into his eyes.

‘A rhyme,’ replied Alexander, lowering his gaze.

‘A rhyme? Which rhyme?’

Very quietly the King sang it:

Then he turned his back and continued to look at Aristan-der’s reflection.

‘Does it have some special significance for you?’ ‘No, it is only a rhyme I used to sing when I was young. My mother’s nurse, old Artemisia, taught me it.’

‘In that case pay it no heed. As for your nightmares, there is only one way out of that,’ said Aristander.

‘And what would that be?’

‘Become a god,’ replied the seer. And as soon as he spoke his image dissolved into the water because of the frantic movements of a tiny insect on the surface, desperate to escape death in the jaws of some predator.

*

At nightfall Alexander crossed the threshold of the great temple, illuminated within by a double row of lamps hanging from the ceiling and one great lamp on the floor which spread a flickering glow over the colossal limbs of the god Ammon.

Alexander looked up to the savage gaze of the giant, his enormous curled horns, like a ram’s, his ample chest, his strong arms hanging at his sides, his clenched fists. He thought again of the words his mother had said to him before he left: ‘The oracle at Dodona marked your birth, another oracle, in the middle of a burning desert, will mark for you another birth and another life which will last for ever.’

‘What do you ask of the god?’ all of a sudden came a resounding voice from the forest of stone columns which supported the roof of the temple. Alexander looked around, but saw no one. He turned his gaze to the enormous ram’s head with its great yellow eyes crossed by a black slit – was this then truly a manifestation of the divine?

‘Is there still anyone . . .’ he began. And the echo responded, ‘Anyone . . .’

‘Is there still anyone among those who killed my father whom I have yet to punish?’

His words died out, refracted and deformed by the thousands of crooked surfaces in the temple, and there was a moment’s silence. Then the deep, vibrant voice resounded again from the giant’s chest – ‘Take care! Measure your words, for your father is not a mortal man. Your father is Zeus Ammon!’

The King came out of the temple deep in the night, after having listened to the answers to all of his questions, but he did not want to return to his tent among all his soldiers in the camp. He crossed through the palm gardens until he found himself alone on the edge of the desert, under the infinite expanse of the starry sky. Then he heard someone approaching and turned to see who it was. Eumenes was standing there before him.

‘I would rather not talk just now,’ Alexander said, while Eumenes continued to stand motionless, ‘but if you have something important to tell me, I will listen.’

‘Unfortunately it is bad news which I have carried with me for some time now, waiting for the right moment . . .’

‘And you think that this is the right moment?’

‘Perhaps. In any case I cannot keep the news from you any longer. King Alexander of Epirus has been killed in battle, ambushed by a horde of barbarians.’

Alexander nodded gravely, and while Eumenes walked away he turned once more to the infinity of the sky and the desert, and cried in silence.

¹
Archilochos, fr. 114, translation by M. L. West.

²
Xenophon,
Anabasis
3.4.34–5, translated by Carleton L. Brownson.

³
Sappho, fragment 31.

⁴
Homer,
Iliad
XII, 322–8, translated by Robert Fitzgerald.

ALEXANDER: THE SANDS OF AMMON

Valerio Massimo Manfredi is professor of classical archaeology at Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. Further to numerous academic publications, he has published thirteen works of fiction, including the Alexander trilogy which has been translated into thirty-four languages in fifty-five countries. His novel
The Last Legion
was released as a major motion picture. He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world and has written screenplays for cinema and television.

I
AIN
H
ALLIDAY
was born in Scotland in 1960. He took a degree in American Studies at the University of Manchester and worked in Italy and London before moving to Sicily, where he now lives. As well as working as a translator, he currently teaches English at the University of Catania.

Also by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

A
LEXANDER
: C
HILD OF A
D
REAM

A
LEXANDER
: T
HE
E
NDS OF THE
E
ARTH

S
PARTAN

T
HE
L
AST
L
EGION

H
EROES
(formerly
The Talisman of Troy)

T
YRANT

T
HE
O
RACLE

E
MPIRE OF
D
RAGONS

T
HE
T
OWER

P
HARAOH

T
HE
L
OST
A
RMY

T
HE
I
DES OF
M
ARCH