Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great (32 page)

“Upon the completion of Second Creation it was perfect,” said Gobares. “But it was also subject to imperfection because it existed as a physical thing. In that instant, before First Man took a single breath, the Hostile Spirit, likewise uncreated, launched his attack. He burst through the stone sphere of the Sky, making the hole we see at those times when the Sun or Moon disappear from view. Plunging down, he landed in the sea, and churned it up with storms, and turned it bitter to taste with the salt of his sweat. And striding out on the Earth, he plucked the Sun from the sky and grazed the land with it, scorching all the many forms of Single Plant. These places are now desert. And places that were not scorched were afflicted by swarms of insects, or the brown of withering, so that the principle of Fire could no longer hold spirit and matter together, or only for a short time in each case. Thus mortality appeared in the world…”

“And so,” asked Alexander, “may we say that Ahuramazda ran a risk when he decided to make a material world, because his creation could be attacked?”

“Yes, that is true. Among some
herbads
, or priests, Ahuramazda is called ‘the god who risked.’ Yet witness the wonder of His handiwork, as the people of the Good Faith, as we call ourselves, take every one of the Six Creations to be holy. All water is holy, all metal, all plants and animals, all fire, all men—not just this one plant here, or that one man there. All merit our reverence, and in accord with His revealed word, we take all the world as our temple.”

Listening to Gobares, this seemed to me a naïve way of thinking, to take everyone and everything to be sacred. If all is worthy of worship then nothing is, I thought. But later I came to observe the basic gentleness of these so-called people of the Good Faith. Their discipline and humility is remarked all around the lands of the Great King. In Babylon I heard a saying that attested to the trust they earned: “Fight by the side of a Greek, eat in the house of a Jew, but sleep under the roof of a Zoroastrian.” Their decency is obvious to anyone walking through the narrow alleys of a Persian village. Where in Greek towns we must dodge sewage dumped from windows, Zoroastrian women set pans of embers sprinkled with marjoram on their doorsteps, to perfume the air for all who must breathe.

“The Great Enemy then visited his predations on First Animal, slaying the Uniquely-created Bull. Angra Mainyu then sought out First Man. He found him sitting in a garden, completely unafraid because he had never known harm in the unmixed Creation. ‘Who are you?’ asked First Man, in his innocence. ‘I am a teacher of a different kind,’ replied the Hostile Spirit. And with that he set upon First Man as his corrupter, appearing to him as a beautiful woman. First Man, who was curious, approached Woman as a child might, without fear, as the Hostile Spirit afflicted him with temptation beyond his experience. Stirred in that way for the first time, he pushed inside the womb of Angra Mainyu. The Hostile Spirit made First Man’s progress inside him smooth, like a woman who was willing, but cold and hard, as if he lay with a figure of polished marble. In that instant Fear was born in First Man. With fear came doubt. With further generations, doubt feasted on the minds of men, making them forget the truth of Ahuramazda’s supremacy. Some of these doubters became the agents of the Hostile Spirit. Corrupted, they are what we call the
daevas
.”

“The
daevas
—we’ve heard of them already.”

“You’ve heard of them and seen them. For the
daevas
are everywhere, in every form. In ancient times, and in ignorant lands today, they are worshipped as gods. They exist only to thwart wisdom. Where there is peace, they bring tumult. Where there is order, they bring caprice. You may know them by their fires, for smoke is the degradation of fire, and the haze that follows in their train. They are the soldiers of Angra Mainyu.”

A different expression appeared on Gobares’ face as he described these acolytes of ruin. For the first time, his tranquility abandoned him, and he stared intently downward, as if trying in vain to temper the force of his condemnation.

“Gentleman, I think we’ve been insulted!” I said.

“I know we have been,” agreed Ptolemy.

“Eminences, I assure you I meant no offense.”

Craterus, rising on uncertain legs, glowered over the priest.

“This is a dog that must be beaten!”

With that, he called for a riding crop. But as a slave went out to fetch one, Bagoas seized his chance to speak up, appealing to
A
lexander:

“Lord, let me be the one to thrash the priest! I have had the privilege before, in the garden of the Medan palace of Ecbatana, after the
dahmobed
of the temple breathed his rue-smelling breath on the Great King!”

“This is a job for a whole man,” replied Craterus.

But Bagoas pressed his appeal, training his petulant eyes on Alexander, telling him again that Darius had once been liberal enough to grant him this honor. Against this argument Alexander had no reply, determined as he was to outdo Darius both in the breadth of his mercy and the depth of his wrath.

And so the party was treated to the spectacle of the smooth-cheeked, smooth-bottomed Bagoas putting the crop to the naked back of the priest. This rounded out an evening of Macedonian conviviality very well. The humiliation of a beating from the nutless one so tickled the symposiasts that they either wet themselves with laughter or did a little healthful vomiting. Gobares was the only one who kept his silence, even as Bagoas kept swinging hard; his sole request was to ensure that any crop that touched his body was free of impurities.

That the old man took his punishment well impressed his hosts. They would therefore have occasion to take him out of the stockade again from time to time, when they lacked for amusement. He enters my story again when Alexander is on his return from India.

XV
.

One of the more charming tales attached to Alexander involves his relationship with his horse, Bucephalus. Aeshines has done his part to perpetuate this myth. And it is true that the King had a special connection to this animal, which had begun when he was a boy in Macedon and lasted beyond the battle at the Hydaspes. Little Bucephalus would suffer no one else but little Alexander to ride him, and as the years and the distance accumulated, the King took care to lighten his burden as much as possible, to prolong his life.

What is less often remarked, however, is that Bucephalus was a cantankerous nag. Being the royal favorite, the animal seemed to believe that he himself was king. No other horses could be grazed with him, even ones much larger in size, because Bucephalus would pick fights. He would usually lose against bigger, stronger cavalry mounts, but the risk of injury to Bucephalus always resulted in the other horse being removed or killed. The grooms swore that the horse seemed to know this, and actively schemed to destroy his rivals. Even the people obliged to care for him grew to fear him. To care for the King’s mount became dangerous duty, as a long line of grooms were attacked or stepped upon. One boy, a Persian of long experience at the stables at Susa, was kicked fatally in the chest by Bucephalus.

Perhaps all this had something to do with the horse’s disappearance one day, when the army was camped several parasangs east of the Swat River. That horses died or vanished on campaign was not unusual: the Bactrians and Sodgians were accomplished rustlers, and wolves and lions lived in the more remote places. Difficult animals had a way of coming up lame or tied up when they injured the wrong person. Though ordinary cavalrymen were free to keep a close eye on their own horses, the King naturally could do no such thing.

Alexander flew into a rage at the loss of his horse. Where in other cases wild replacements could be captured out on the hoof, or found among reinforcements from home, Bucephalus himself could not be replaced. The King therefore summoned Peithon, who in turn called a meeting of all cavalry officers down to the tetrarchs. They were given a message to distribute to the natives: if Bucephalus was not returned alive by noon the next day, all their villages would be put to the torch, their men killed, and their women and children sold into slavery.

Bucephalus reappeared the next morning. He was hungry and muddy-flanked, but otherwise his old miserable self. The mystery of his disappearance and reappearance was never solved. That the King would make such a threat, however, said much about his precarious state of mind. I have no doubt he would have made good on it. At the very least, thousands of innocent people living over hundreds of square miles had been driven into panic—all for the sake of a horse. When the detestable creature did die, shortly after the battle at the Hydaspes River, there was quiet rejoicing all over the Macedonian camp.

Yes, I was to blame for encouraging Alexander in these whims because I wanted to save him from his despair over Cleitus. My goal was to save his sanity, but I discovered that his apotheosis had only bought us all a little time. In the end, his new, grand proportions only seemed to make his fallibilities more grand.

As it happened I did get one last glimpse of a younger, less encumbered Alexander. We had camped some miles west of the Indus on some high ground when the wind came in from the northern wastelands. The sudden cold sent the men scrambling for supplies of firewood, which was scarce at that altitude. We were fortunate, however, to find a good supply of cedar-wood boxes scattered over the slope, each filled with what we took to be flammable rags. After burning several hundred of these, the Macedonians were comfortable, but the people of the nearby town were in an uproar. It seems that we had burned the ancestors of these natives, who had a custom of leaving their coffins above ground.

Armed men sallied up from the valley. There was a brief clash; the attackers retired, and Alexander prepared to lay siege to their town. It was at this point that the townspeople sought a parley, and in a haunting repetition of our encounter with the Branchidae, they addressed us in Greek. Indeed, their dialect was an archaic one that was much closer to the Macedonian argot. Unlike the Branchidae, however, they did not request Alexander to spare their town, but demanded it. For it seems the founder of their city was Dionysus himself!

Fittingly, the name of the place was Nysa. In a bygone age the god of wine and ecstasy had passed this way, on his return journey from India. A number of the god’s followers, on seeing how appropriate the place was for cultivating the grape, decided to stay. Dionysus blessed their endeavor with prosperity. And indeed, all around them the Macedonians found reminders of home: vineyards of course, but also clematis, ivy, laurel and oak and poplar trees, acanthus and myrtle. None of these had been seen in such profusion since we had crossed the Hellespont. As a final proof, the Nysans said that the mountain above their town was called Meron, “the thigh.” To the Macedonians, this name was a clear reference to Dionysus’ birth out of the thigh of Zeus.

So instead of laying siege, Alexander made sacrifices to Dionysus and Zeus-Ammon. The Nysans, pleased, invited the King and his officers to sample the hospitality of the god. Craterus, Perdiccas and the rest thought themselves above such frivolity, however. Hephaestion was off managing the construction of a bridge over the Indus. So our party on the mountain was therefore a small one: just Alexander, myself, Rohjane, and Bagoas.

If there is one truth in life, it is that we remember every moment of a dull party but too little of a good one. Our day and night on the slopes of Mt. Meron exists in my mind now as images only, savored to be sure, but without a story to put them to. I do know that we began by drinking wine neat from silver cups. Somehow, as the god took hold, Alexander ended up in women’s clothes, with fawn skin tunic, fennel garland and rouge smeared on his cheeks. Looking down, I saw I was dressed the same way, though I must have made a very ugly woman! Then we were running under the pines, on the soft grass, leaping and laughing like delighted children. As our intoxication deepened, we were encouraged by attributes of Dionysus that seemed miraculously placed for our use: musical instruments hanging from boughs, more wine, figs out of season. At the base of the bay tree Bagoas found a thrysus wound with ivy, and for reasons known only to himself, used it to strike the ground there. From where the thrysus struck the earth flowed a stream of thick goat’s milk. We fell to our knees and elbows, lapping up the milk as Dionysus seemed to stand over us, a tinkle of cymbals like laughter wafting down from unseen branches. Bagoas, his mouth and jaw lathered in cream, looked up at Alexander and kissed him on the lips. Then he did the same to me as Rohjane sat back against the trunk, caressing herself down the neck and between the breasts in beastly, contented remoteness.