Alexander (Vol. 2) (9 page)

They had to use their spears to keep them at bay, but in the dark they could not take aim properly and to use bows and arrows was even more difficult so that they found themselves having to engage in close combat, using daggers. Some of the steeds, frightened terribly, bolted, neighing and kicking, into the night and the horsemen, when they finally got the upper hand over the pack that had attacked them, found the number of horses almost halved.

‘We must continue all the same!’ ordered Philotas in a fury.

They leaped on to their mounts, those who still had them, and rode to the courtyard of the palace, which was lit by lamps arranged all around the portico. There before them was a most beautiful woman, dressed in a Persian gown with long golden fringes.

‘Who are you?’ she asked in Greek. ‘What do you want?’

‘I am sorry, my Lady, but we are looking for a man who has sold his sword to the barbarians and we have reason to believe he is in this house, probably wounded. We followed his doctor.’

The woman was obviously shocked by these words and turned pale with rage, but she moved to one side to let them past. ‘Come in and look anywhere you wish, but I beg you to behave appropriately in the women’s quarters. If you fail to respect my wishes I will make sure your King is informed. I hear he is a man who cannot bear any abuse of power.’

‘Did you hear that?’ Philotas asked as he turned to face his men, covered in wounds and dirt from the dogs.

‘I am sorry,’ Barsine then added, as she realized exactly what a state they were in. ‘If you had had yourselves announced, you could have avoided meeting the dogs. Unfortunately the area is rife with brigands and we have to take measures to protect ourselves. As for the physician, I will lead you to him immediately.’

Together with Philotas she entered the atrium and then started off along a long corridor, behind a handmaid who held a burning lamp.

They entered a room where a youth lay on a bed. Snefru-en-Kaptah was examining him.

‘How is he?’ asked Barsine.

‘It is only indigestion. Have him drink this infusion three times a day and have him fast all day tomorrow. He will soon be fighting fit.’

‘I must speak to the doctor alone,’ said Philotas, ‘with only my interpreter present.’

‘As you wish,’ Barsine agreed, and showed them both into a nearby room.

‘We know that this is Memnon’s home,’ Philotas began as soon as the door was closed.

‘Indeed, it is,’ the Egyptian confirmed.

‘We are looking for him.’

‘In that case you must look elsewhere, because he is not here.’

‘And where is he?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Have you treated him?’

‘Yes. I treat all those who require my services.’

‘You are of course aware that I can . . .
oblige
you to speak if I so choose.’

‘Of course, but I will not be able to tell you any more than I already have. Do you think that a man like Memnon would ever tell his doctor where he was planning on going?’

‘Was he wounded?’

‘Yes.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Any wound can be a serious one. It depends on how it progresses.’

‘I have no need of a medical lesson. I want to know what state Memnon was in the last time you saw him.’

‘He was on the mend.’

‘Thanks to your treatment.’

‘And those of some Greek doctors, including a certain Ariston of Adramyttion, if I remember correctly.’

‘Was he in any condition to ride?’

‘I really have no idea. I know nothing of horses. And now, if you will excuse me, I have other patients who are waiting for me.’

Philotas could not think of anything else to ask the doctor and let him go. Back in the atrium he met up with his men, who in the meantime had searched the house.

‘Well?’

‘Nothing. There’s no sign of him. If he has been here, he certainly left some time ago, or he is hidden somewhere we can’t think of, unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless we set this place alight – if there are any rats hidden away they would have to come out at that stage, don’t you think?’

Barsine bit her lip, but she said nothing. She simply lowered her eyes so as not to meet the gaze of her enemies.

Philotas shook his head in disappointment. ‘Let’s just leave it and clear off – there’s nothing here of any interest to us.’ They left, and shortly afterwards the galloping of their horses faded into the distance, followed by the barking of the dogs. When they were three stadia away, Philotas pulled on the reins of his mount.

‘Blast! I bet right now as I speak he’s crawling out of some hole and he’ll be speaking peacefully with his wife. A beautiful woman . . . beautiful, by Zeus!’

‘I don’t understand why we didn’t grab her and . . .’ said one of his men, a Thracian from Salmydessus.

‘Because she’s too rich for your palate and if Alexander were ever to find out he’d cut your balls off and give them to his dog for supper. Indulge yourself with the camp whores if you really don’t know where to put it. Let’s go now, we’ve been riding around for too long.’

At that very moment, over on the other side of the valley, Memnon was being transported towards another refuge on a stretcher suspended between two mules, one behind and one in front.

Before crossing through the pass that led to the Vale of Ephesus and the city of Azira, he asked the mule driver who was leading the first animal by its halter to stop. Memnon sat up and turned his head to look back at the lights of his home. He could still smell the perfume of Barsine’s last embrace.

T
HE ARMY MOVED SOUTHWARDS
with the wagon and mule trains, in the direction of Mount Ida and the Gulf of Adramyttion. There was no longer any reason to stay in the north because the capital of the satrapy of Phrygia had been occupied and was held by a Macedonian garrison.

Parmenion had returned to assume deputy command of the army while Alexander retained control of all decisions regarding strategy.

‘We will move south along the coast,’ he announced one evening during a war council. ‘We have taken the capital of Phrygia, now we will take the capital of Lydia.’

‘Sardis,’ Callisthenes said, ‘the mythical capital of Midas and Croesus.’

‘It’s difficult to believe,’ said Leonnatus. ‘Remember the tales old Leonidas used to tell us? And now we’re going to see those very places.’

‘Indeed,’ confirmed Callisthenes, ‘we’ll see the Hermus, on whose banks Croesus was defeated by the Persians almost two hundred years ago. And we’ll see the Pactolus with its gold-laden sands, which gave birth to the legend of Midas. And the tombs where the Kings of Lydia lie.’

‘Do you think there will be any real money to be had in those cities?’ asked Eumenes.

‘All you think about is money!’ exclaimed Seleucus. ‘Anyway, I suppose you’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right. Do you have any idea how much our Greek allies’ fleet costs us? Any idea at all?’

‘No,’ replied Lysimachus, ‘we have no idea, Mr Secretary General – you’re here to know these things.’

‘It costs us one hundred and sixty talents per day. That’s one hundred and sixty. That means that our income from the Granicus and Dascylium will be enough for a couple of weeks if things go well.’

‘Listen,’ said Alexander, ‘we’re now heading for Sardis and I don’t think we’ll meet with much resistance. Then we will go on to occupy what’s left of the coast as far as the border with Lycia, as far as Xanthus. At that stage we will have liberated all the Greek cities of Asia. And all this will be achieved before the end of the summer.’

‘Magnificent!’ said Ptolemy. ‘And then?’

‘We certainly won’t be turning back home!’ exclaimed Hephaestion. ‘I’m just beginning to enjoy myself.’

‘There is no guarantee it will be so simple,’ replied Alexander. ‘Up to now all we have done is dent slightly the Persian defences and it is almost certain that Memnon is still alive. And then we are not even sure that all of the Greek cities will open their gates to us.’

*

They marched for several days along promontories and bays of truly enchanting beauty – beaches shaded by gigantic pines and a succession of islands of all sizes that followed the coastline like a parade. Then they came to the banks of the Hermus, a large river with clear water that flowed over a bed of clean gravel.

The satrap of Lydia was a reasonable man by the name of Mitrites, and he knew he had no choice but to send emissaries to Alexander, offering him the city’s submission. He then accompanied him personally to visit the stronghold with its triple walls, its buttresses and its trenches.

‘It was from here that the “march of the ten thousand” set off,’ said Alexander, as he looked out over the plain and the wind ruffled his hair and bent the willows and the ash trees.

Callisthenes accompanied him at a slight distance, taking notes on a slate. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘And it is here that Prince Cyrus the Younger lived, then satrap of Lydia.’

‘And it is from here too, in a certain sense, that our expedition begins. Except that we will not take the same route. Tomorrow we go to Ephesus.’

And Ephesus also surrendered with no use of force. The garrison of Greek mercenaries had already left, and when Alexander established himself in the city the democrats who had been chased away came back and instigated a real manhunt. They led the people in attacks on the houses of the rich, on the nobles who up until that time had been allies of the Persian governor.

Some of these nobles sought refuge in the temples and they were dragged out and stoned to death – all Ephesus was in shock from the turmoil. Alexander sent the shields-men infantry out into the streets to re-establish order, guaranteed that democracy would be reintroduced and imposed a special tax on the rich for the reconstruction of the grand sanctuary of Artemis, which had been destroyed by fire years previously.

‘Do you know what they say about the fire here?’ Callisthenes asked him as they inspected the ruins of the enormous temple. ‘They say that the goddess couldn’t put the flames out because she was busy with your birth. Indeed, the fire took place twenty-one years ago, on the very day you were born.’

‘I want it to rise again,’ said Alexander. ‘I want rows of gigantic columns, as thick as a wood, to support the ceiling and I want the best sculptors to embellish it and the best painters to decorate the interior.’

‘It’s a fine plan. You should start talking to Lysippus about it.’

‘Has he arrived?’ asked the King, his face lighting up.

‘Yes, last night, and he cannot wait to see you.’

‘Lysippus, gods in heaven! Those hands, that gaze . . . I have never seen such creative power burning in any man’s eye. When he looks at you you can feel that he is in touch with your soul, that he is about to create another man . . . in clay, in bronze, in wax, it matters not – he is creating a man just as if he were god.’

‘God?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which god?’

‘The god that is in all the gods and in all men, but which only a few are able to see and to hear.’

The authorities of the city – the democratic leaders who years previously had taken up power under Philip’s rule, had later been expelled by the Persians and were now returning with Alexander’s arrival – could not wait to show Alexander the wonders of Ephesus.

The town stretched along a gentle incline towards the sea and towards the huge bay into which the Cayster river flowed. The port was teeming with vessels unloading all sorts of wares and loading up the cloth, spices and perfumes from the Asian interior destined to be sold in far-off places, in the depths of the Adriatic gulf, in the islands of the Tyrrhenian, in the land of the Etruscans and the Iberians. The buzz of all this feverish activity rose up to the city, mixed with the shouts of the slave merchants auctioning strong men and beautiful girls who had been led to this fate by a sad destiny.

The roads were flanked by porticoes on to which the richer and more sumptuous dwellings faced, while the sanctuaries of the gods were surrounded by the stalls of travelling merchants who offered passers-by amulets for good luck and for protection against curses, relics and pictures of Apollo and his virgin sister Artemis with her ivory countenance.

The blood from the tumults had already been washed from the roads and the grief of the relatives of the dead had been locked away in their homes. In the city there was only rejoicing and celebration – the people lined up to see Alexander and waved olive branches, while the young maids spread rose-petals as he passed by or threw them from the balconies of the houses, filling the air with a wild riot of colour and perfume.

Then they came to a magnificent palace, its atrium supported by marble columns capped with Ionian capitals, profiled in gold and painted blue, once the residence of one of the nobles who had paid in blood for his friendship with the Persians. It was now to be the dwelling of the young god who had descended from the slopes of Olympus to the edge of the immensity of Asia.

Lysippus was standing waiting for him in the antechamber. As soon as the sculptor saw Alexander, he came forward and embraced him, holding him close with those big, powerful hands.