Alexander (Vol. 3) (Alexander Trilogy) (50 page)

Leonnatus took his men up the ramp after Alexander to help him, but some enemy soldiers, having seen what had happened, rushed to form a barrier and block them, so that their companions could then kill the King within the walls.

In the meantime Alexander had realized the danger he was in and the fact that he was surrounded; he retreated until his back was against an enormous fig tree, where he was fighting desperately against a group of opponents. Leonnatus fought his own way through, swinging his axe, sending the enemy rolling down the ramp and shouting, ‘Alexander, hold on! Hold on, we’re coming!’ But in his heart of hearts he knew that the King risked being completely overwhelmed at any moment. Right then he heard a howling come from behind him and he remembered the dog. He shouted as loudly as he could, without even turning round, ‘Peritas! Run, Peritas! Run to Alexander!’

The Molossian ran up the ramp like a fury and reached the top at the very moment when his master collapsed, struck by a javelin; Alexander held his shield fast with the very last drop of strength he had. It took no more than a moment: Peritas leaped from the top of the walls, landing like a lightning bolt in the midst of the enemy, sending them rolling backwards; he crushed one soldier’s hand with a single bite, tore another’s throat out, and ripped open the belly of a third, whose guts spilled to the ground. The magnificent animal fought like a lion, growling, baring his bloodied fangs, his eyes burning like those of a wild beast.

Alexander seized the moment to crawl backwards while Leonnatus, who had finally reached the top with his men, ran down shouting like a madman and swinging his cleaver in circles, opening up a path to the King. At that point he turned and faced the enemy who continued to attack: he split the first enemy soldier who came forward into two, from his head down to his groin, and the others, terrified by such frightful strength, retreated. In just a few instants hundreds of Macedonian assault troops and shieldsmen spread throughout the city, filling it as they went with fierce cries, with desperate screams, with the clangour of arms clashing in the fury of battle.

Leonnatus knelt down alongside the King and unlaced his breastplate, but at that moment Alexander turned his gaze and his eyes filled with tears and despair. ‘Peritas! No! What have they done to you!’

The Molossian was covered with blood and sweat and was staggering towards him, whining, a javelin planted firmly between his ribs.

‘Call Philip!’ shouted Leonnatus. ‘The King is wounded! The King is wounded!’

Peritas managed to reach his master’s hand, to lick it for one last time before collapsing lifeless before him.

‘Peritas! No!’ Alexander moaned between his sobs, pulling the dog to himself and embracing this friend who had made the ultimate sacrifice in order to save his life.

Perdiccas arrived, covered in blood and close to total exhaustion. ‘Philip is not here; in the confusion of the attack no one thought to give him a horse.’

‘What can we do now?’ panted Leonnatus, his voice cracking.

‘We can’t move him in this state. We’ll have to extract the weapon. Hold him, because this is going to hurt like hell.’

Leonnatus gripped Alexander’s arms and held them behind his back while Perdiccas tore his
chiton,
exposing the wound; then, with one hand on the King’s chest, he used the other to try to pull the bolt out, but the metal head was jammed between his collar bone and his shoulder bone and it simply would not budge.

‘I’ll have to use the blade of my sword as a lever,’ he said. ‘Shout, Alexander, shout as loudly as you can, for I have nothing to soothe the pain you will feel!’

He unsheathed his sword and put it into the wound. Alexander shouted, his body racked by the lancing pains. Perdiccas sought his shoulder blade with the point of the sword and pushed it backwards forcibly while with the other hand he pulled on the shaft of the bolt, which came free all of a sudden with a great spurt of blood. With one last shout, the King collapsed in a faint.

‘Find some glowing embers, Leonnatus, quickly! We have to cauterise it or he’ll bleed to death.’

Leonnatus ran off and returned quickly with a piece of a wooden beam from a burning house and plunged it into the wound. There was a nauseous smell of charring flesh, but the blood stopped flowing. Perdiccas’s men in the meantime had built a stretcher and now they moved the King on to it and carried him out of the gates of the city.

‘Take him back as well,’ said Leonnatus, his eyes red with tears and fatigue, pointing to the lifeless body of Peritas. ‘He is the true hero of this battle.’

I
N THE DEEP OF
the night Alexander was taken, unconscious and burning up with fever, to the banks of the river where Nearchus had set up camp. Roxane ran to him shouting in despair, then she knelt alongside him and kissed his hand as she sobbed. Leptine looked on as she prepared clean bandages and water, her face pale and expressing all her terror and worry as they waited for Philip to arrive.

The physician appeared almost immediately and set to work straight away, leaning over the wounded man. He cut the rough dressing Perdiccas and Leonnatus had applied to the wound and began cleaning it with the water Leptine offered from a metal urn.

He put his ear to Alexander’s chest and proceeded to examine him carefully while the King’s friends, who one by one had entered in silence, waited anxiously for the verdict.

‘Unfortunately this is not just any wound,’ said Philip as he got to his feet. ‘The point of the javelin has punctured his lung. I can hear the blood gurgling with every breath he takes.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Hephaestion.

Philip, unable to speak, simply shook his head.

At that moment Alexander’s breath rattled and saliva mixed with blood ran from his mouth, spreading a large red stain on his pillow.

Ptolemy moved towards his friend and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It means that Alexander might die, Hephaestion,’ he said, with a lump in his throat. ‘Come on, let’s leave him to rest for the moment.’

Seleucus, who had led the attack on the other cities, entered at that moment together with Craterus and Lysimachus and he immediately realized what had happened. He moved towards Philip and asked him in a whisper, ‘Is there any hope?’

The physician lifted his eyes and in his gaze Seleucus saw such grief, such a sense of distress and impotence, that he said nothing else and left.

The tent was suddenly empty and quiet. All that could be heard was Roxane’s soft lament as she cried disconsolately, covering her husband’s motionless hand with kisses and tears.

Leptine, who in truth had always detested anyone who had ever become intimate with Alexander, approached slowly and put her hand on Roxane’s shoulder. ‘Do not cry, my Queen,’ she whispered. ‘I beg of you, do not cry. He can hear you. You must be strong. You must think . . . you must think that everyone loves him . . . we all love him and love is stronger than death.’

Philip took off his bloodstained apron, saying to the two women as he did so, ‘Remember. Don’t leave him unattended, not even for the briefest of moments. I am going now to get everything ready for a drain for the wound. If anything happens, send someone for me immediately.’

Leptine nodded and the physician took a lamp and left the tent. As he crossed the camp he saw Ptolemy and Leonnatus placing Peritas’s body on a pile of wood; the dog’s lead, decorated with silver studs, was laid alongside, like the ritual offering made on the pyre of a hero. He walked over to them.

‘What a terrible day,’ Ptolemy murmured. ‘Just when it seemed that the pain and the fatigue were behind us . . .’ He stroked the lifeless dog as it lay on a blanket of red wool. ‘I’ll miss him,’ he said with tears in his eyes. He would always keep me company when I was on guard.’ At that moment Craterus arrived with a patrol of
pezhetairoi
who lined up on the two sides of the pyre.

‘We felt he deserved full honours,’ Leonnatus explained. He was the King’s first guard.’

Then he took a torch and lit the pyre. He waited until the flames took hold, crackling in the darkness, and then shouted,
‘Pezhetairoi,
present arms!’

The infantrymen raised their
sarissae
in salute while Peritas’s soul flew off on the wind, separated from his master for the very first time since Alexander of Epirus had given him to Alexander all those years ago.

*

Philip watched over the King all night, together with Roxane and Leptine. Only towards dawn did the Queen start dozing, exhausted after being without sleep for so long, but as she dozed she moaned continually, tormented by her anguish.

As day broke Hephaestion and Ptolemy entered and it was clear they had had no rest either. ‘How is he?’ they asked.

‘He has made it through the night. I can’t tell you any more than that,’ replied Philip.

‘Should he die, we will burn those cities with all their inhabitants – this will be the funeral sacrifice in his honour,’ said Hephaestion darkly.

‘Let us wait and see,’ replied Philip, his voice hoarse with fatigue. ‘He is still alive.’

Another two days passed, but the King’s condition seemed to be deteriorating beyond hope. His chest had swollen up despite the drain Philip had inserted, his fever was still burning, his breath came in fits and rattles, his skin was ashen, his eyes were circled with black and sinking into their sockets.

His Companions kept vigil outside the tent so as not to disturb him. They took turns watching over him, getting a little sleep only when they were completely exhausted. The camp, usually so bustling and noisy, was immersed in an unreal silence, as though time itself had stopped.

That evening, as Alexander’s fever was rising once more and his breath seemed to come with ever-greater difficulty and suffering, Philip suddenly got to his feet and left the tent.

‘Where is he going?’ asked Leonnatus.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Hephaestion. ‘I don’t know anything any more. There is nothing to know now . . .’

Philip walked across the camp, taking a quick look at Aristander who had continued to sacrifice victims on his smoking altar during the night, and then he came to a place where a
banyan
tree rose majestically from the ground. He stood there before the skeletal figure of Kalanos who was lost in meditation.

‘Wake up,’ he said brusquely.

Kalanos opened his eyes.

‘Our gods and our science have proved impotent. Save Alexander, if you can. Otherwise, leave us and never return.’

Kalanos stood up agilely, lightly, almost as though weightless. ‘Where is he?’ he asked.

‘In his tent. Come with me,’ replied Philip as he set off.

Kalanos followed and entered the royal quarters, all lit up with burning lamps.

‘Extinguish them all,’ he ordered, his voice firm, ‘and leave us alone.’

Everyone obeyed Kalanos. He squatted on his heels behind Alexander’s bed and simply stared through the darkness at the King’s head, his body tensing up until it was like a block of stone.

They found him sitting there like that the following day, and the day after, and even on the following day. At dawn on the fourth day Philip entered to change the drain and pulled back a corner of the curtain that covered up the entrance to throw a little light on the scene. While he was washing his hands in a basin, before changing the dressings, he heard a weak voice calling out behind him, ‘Philip . . .’

He turned sharply, ‘My King!’

The fever had relented somewhat, his breathing was regular, his heartbeat was weak but constant. He listened to his chest and the gurgling had gone. He called Leptine. ‘Inform the Queen. Tell her the King is conscious. And make some broth immediately, we must feed him for he is more dead than alive.’

Leptine set about her duties while Philip immediately poked his head out of the tent where Lysimachus and Hephaestion were waiting. ‘Tell the others,’ he said. ‘The King is awake.’

How is he?’ asked Hephaestion anxiously.

How do you think he is?’ replied the physician gruffly. ‘Like someone who’s had an iron bolt stuck in his shoulder.’

He went back to take care of Alexander and only then did he see Kalanos lying motionless on the ground, as still and cold as a corpse.

‘Oh, by Zeus!’ he exclaimed. ‘Great Zeus!’

He had Kalanos taken to his own tent by his assistants and ordered them to warm him in every way they could think of and to give him something to eat, even by force if necessary, and then he returned to Alexander. Roxane was with him now, staring incredulously while Leptine tried to get him to take some broth in the only way possible – dipping some cloth in it and then holding it to his lips so that he could suck.

‘What happened?’ asked Alexander as soon he saw Philip.

‘Everything, my King,’ replied the physician, ‘but you are still alive and I have every hope you will remain so. You cannot believe how happy I am,’ he added, his voice trembling. ‘You cannot believe . . . but please stop talking now. It is a miracle you are alive, and I believe the miracle was worked by Kalanos.’

‘Peritas . . .’ Alexander managed to murmur.

‘Peritas did not survive, my King. Leonnatus tells me he died saving your life. Now you must not render his sacrifice vain – try to eat and then rest, please rest.’