Alexander (Vol. 3) (Alexander Trilogy) Read online

  Suddenly, however, the boat struck something, perhaps a hippopotamus which was surfacing at that moment, and it very nearly capsized. Hector lost his balance, fell into the water and disappeared immediately, dragged down by the weight of his armour, his clothes and his sodden cape.

  The Egyptian rowers of the boat wasted no time diving in, as did many of the young Macedonians and Hector’s own brother, Nicanor, ready to brave the currents and the jaws of the crocodiles, of which there were many in that area, but it was all in vain. Parmenion, on the eastern bank from where he had been watching the orderly arrival of the army, looked on, helpless, as the tragedy unfolded.

  The news reached Alexander shortly afterwards and he immediately gave orders to the Phoenician and Cypriot mariners to try at least to recover the young man’s body, but nothing came of all their efforts. That same evening, after hours and hours of desperate searching, in which he participated personally, the King went to visit the grief-stricken old general.

  ‘How is he?’ he asked Philotas who was standing outside the tent, as though guarding over his father’s privacy. His friend shook his head disconsolately.

  Parmenion was sitting on the ground in the dark, in silence, and only his white hair stood out in the gloom. Alexander felt his knees go weak – he was deeply sorry for this valiant and loyal man who so many times had irritated him with all his advice to be prudent, with the incessant reminders of just how great his father Philip had been. Now Parmenion looked like an age-old oak tree that for years had withstood storms and hurricanes and had now suddenly been rent by a bolt of lightning.

  ‘This is truly a most sad visit I pay you, General,’ he began, his voice shaking slightly. As he looked at Parmenion he could not help but think of the rhyme he used to sing as a boy whenever he saw him arriving at his father’s war councils with his hair which even back then was already white:

  The silly old soldier’s off to the war

  And falls to the floor, falls to the floor!

  Almost automatically Parmenion got to his feet at the sound of his King’s voice and managed to say, his voice broken, ‘Thank you for coming, Sire.’

  ‘We have tried everything, General, to recover your boy’s body. I would have granted him the highest of honours, I would . . . I would have done everything if only . . .’

  ‘I know,’ replied Parmenion. ‘The proverb has it that in peacetime sons bury their fathers, while in wartime fathers bury their sons, but I had always hoped that I might be spared this grief. I had always hoped that the first arrow or the first sword blow would be for me. But instead . . .’

  ‘It is a most terrible loss, General,’ said Alexander. In the meantime his eyes had become used to the gloom in the tent and he could make out Parmenion’s features, distorted in his pain. He seemed to have aged by ten years in a matter of moments – his eyes were red, his skin dry and wrinkled, his hair untidy. He had never seen Parmenion in such a state, not even during the toughest of battles.

  ‘If he had fallen—’ Parmenion said, ‘if he had fallen in battle, fighting as he brandished his sword then it would have made some sense to me – we are soldiers after all. But to die like that . . . in those muddy waters, ripped to pieces and devoured by those monsters! O by the gods! Gods above! Why? Why?’ He covered his face with his hands and burst into a long, doleful crying that was truly heartbreaking.

  Alexander could find no more words in the face of that suffering. All he could manage was to murmur, ‘I am sorry . . . I am sorry.’ And he left, saying goodbye to Philotas with just one pained look. The other brother, Nicanor, arrived just at that moment, he too stricken by grief and exhaustion, still soaked to the skin and covered in mud.

  The following day, the King had a cenotaph erected in memory of the young man and he personally celebrated the funeral rites. The soldiers, all lined up, shouted Hector’s name ten times so that his memory would not be lost, but it was not like the occasion when they had shouted the names of their fallen companions on the mountains of Thrace and Illyria in the midst of the snowcapped peaks, under the sapphire sky. In that grave, dark atmosphere, on that muddy water, Hector’s name was immediately swallowed up by the silence.

  *

  That same evening the King returned to Barsine. He found her stretched out on her bed crying. Her maid told him that she had eaten hardly anything all day.

  ‘You must not despair so,’ Alexander said to her. ‘Nothing will happen to your boy – I had two of my men follow him to make sure he will be alright.’

  Barsine got up and sat on the edge of the bed: ‘Thank you. You have taken a weight off my heart . . . even though the shame remains. My children have judged and sentenced me.’

  You are wrong,’ replied Alexander. ‘Do you know what your boy said to his younger brother as he left? The guards told me about it. He said to him, “You must stay with our mother.” This means that he loves you and he has done what he has done because he feels that this is precisely what he must do. You should be proud of him.’

  Barsine dried her eyes, ‘I am sorry that all this has happened. I wanted to be a source of joy to you, I wanted to be close to you in your moment of triumph, but instead all I am capable of doing is crying.’

  ‘Tears flowing after tears,’ replied Alexander. ‘Parmen-ion has lost his youngest son. The entire army is in mourning and I could do nothing to prevent it. Becoming a god has not done me much good at all. But please sit now and eat with me, together we must seek to regain that happiness which destiny is so envious of and which destiny tries to snatch from us.’

  *

  Admiral Nearchus received orders to sail for Phoenicia while the army returned by land, along the road that ran between the sea and the desert. As they approached Gaza, an orderly from Sidon arrived with some bad news: ‘Sire,’ he said, leaping from his horse and not even waiting to get his breath back, ‘the Samaritans have tortured and burned alive Commander Andromachus, your governor of Syria.’

  Alexander, already saddened by recent events, grew angry, ‘Who are these Samaritans?’ he asked.

  ‘They are barbarians who live on the mountains between Judaea and Mount Carmel, their city bears the name Samaria,’ replied the orderly.

  And do they know nothing of Alexander?’

  ‘Perhaps they do know something,’ said Lysimachus, ‘but they don’t care. They think they can risk incurring your wrath.’

  ‘In that case they must be taught something more of Alexander,’ replied the King, and he gave orders to start off again on the march. They proceeded to Akrai without stopping and from there marched eastwards towards the interior, with the light cavalry of the Triballians and the Agrianians and with the Vanguard fully prepared for battle. The King led them in person, accompanied by his friends, while the heavy infantry, the auxiliaries and the hetairoi cavalry remained on the coast under Parmenion’s command.

  They arrived just as evening was falling and were completely unexpected. Indeed, the Samaritans were a shepherding people and they were all out on the hills with their flocks at pasture. Over a period of three days every village was set alight and the capital, which was nothing more than a slightly larger and walled village, was razed to the ground. Their temple, a modest sanctuary which did not even have a statue or an image of any kind, was reduced to ashes.

  The action continued until nightfall on the third day, and the King decided to set up camp with his men out on the mountains and to wait for the following day before setting off on the journey back to the sea. Double sentries were posted on all the surrounding paths so as to avoid any surprise attacks, and fires were lit to illuminate the guard posts and the night passed peacefully. Shortly before dawn the King was awakened by the officer in charge of the last watch, a Thessalian from Larissa by the name of Euryalus, ‘Sire, come; there is something you must see.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Alexander as he got to his feet.

  ‘There is a group of people coming from the south. It looks like some sort of delegation.�
��

  ‘A delegation? And where can they be from?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘There is only one city in that direction,’ said Eumenes who had been awake for some time and had already made one inspection round. ‘Jerusalem.’

  ‘And what city is Jerusalem?’

  ‘It is the capital of a small kingdom that has no king – the realm of the Judaeans. It perches high up on a mountain and is surrounded by cliffs.’

  As Eumenes spoke, the small group had reached the first guard post and was asking permission to pass through.

  ‘Let them come,’ Alexander ordered. ‘I will receive them in front of my tent.’ He covered his shoulders with his cape and sat on his field stool.

  In the meantime one of the men from the delegation who certainly spoke Greek was exchanging a few words with Euryalus and asked if the young man sitting in front of the tent with the red cape on his shoulders was King Alexander. On being told that he was, the man moved forward, the rest of the delegation following behind. It was immediately apparent who was the most important personage in the group – an old man of average height with a long, well-kept beard, on his head a mitre and on his chest a pectoral embellished with twelve stones in various colours. He was the first to speak and to Alexander his tongue – guttural and yet harmonious, syncopated and strongly aspirated – seemed very similar to the Phoenicians’.

  ‘May the Lord protect you, Great King,’ came the interpreter’s translation.

  ‘Of which lord do you speak?’ asked Alexander, intrigued by the use of the word.

  ‘Of the Lord our God, God of Israel.’

  ‘And why should your god protect me?’

  ‘He already has,’ replied the old man, ‘allowing you to survive many battles and to travel here to put an end to the blasphemy of the Samaritans.’

  Alexander shook his head as though the interpreter’s words held no meaning for him, ‘What is a blasphemy?’ he asked, but just at that moment he felt a hand placed on his shoulder. He turned and saw Aristander, wrapped in his white cloak and with a strange expression in his eyes.

  ‘Respect this man,’ he whispered in his ear. His god is surely a most powerful god.’

  ‘Blasphemy,’ the interpreter began, ‘is an insult to God. The Samaritans had built a temple on Mount Gerizim. The one that you have just destroyed, with the Lord’s help.’

  ‘And that was . . . blasphemy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there can be only one temple.’

  ‘Only one temple?’ asked the King in amazement. ‘In my land we have hundreds of temples.’

  Aristander asked permission to speak to the old man with the white beard: ‘What is this temple like?’ he asked.

  The old man’s voice was suddenly filled with passion and the interpreter translated, ‘The temple is the house of our God, the only God who exists, creator of the earth and the sky, of the visible and the invisible. He freed our fathers who were slaves in Egypt and gave them the Promised Land. For many years He lived in a tent in the city of Shiloh until King Solomon built him a splendid temple of gold and bronze on the rock of Zion, our city.’

  ‘And what does he look like?’ asked Aristander. ‘Do you have an image of him to show me?’

  As soon as the old man heard the request he pulled a face of sheer disgust and replied dryly, ‘Our Lord has no image and we are not allowed to make use of any images to represent Him. The image of our Lord is everywhere – in the clouds in the sky and in the flowers in the field, in the songs of the birds and in the whispering of the wind through the leaves of the trees.’

  ‘What do you have, then, in your temple?’

  ‘Nothing that can be seen by human eyes.’

  ‘So who are you, then?’

  ‘I am the high priest. I present the people’s prayer to their God and I alone may pronounce His name, once a year, in the innermost sanctum of the temple. And who are you, if I may ask?’

  The King looked at the two men, first one then the other, and said, ‘I want to see the temple of your god.’

  The old priest, as soon as he understood the King’s words, knelt down and bent over so that his forehead touched the ground, begging Alexander not to do it, ‘Please do not profane our sanctuary. No one who is not circumcised, no one who is not one of God’s Chosen People may enter the temple, and my duty is to prevent such people from entering, even if it means spilling my own blood.’

  The King was about to lose his temper, as he always did when someone denied him anything, but Aristander gestured to him to control himself and whispered in his ear, ‘Respect this man who is prepared to give his life for a faceless god, this man who is not prepared to lie and to adulate you.’

  Alexander thought in silence for a short time, then he turned once more to the old man with the white beard, ‘I will respect your wishes, but in return I want an answer from you.’

  ‘What answer?’ asked the old man.

  ‘You said that the image of the only god is in the clouds in the sky, in the flowers in the fields, in the singing of the birds and in the whispering of the wind, but what is there of your god in human beings?’

  The old man replied, ‘God made man in His image and likeness, but in some men the image of God has become clouded and obscured by their behaviour. In others it shines as bright as the midday sun. You are one of these men, Great King.’

  Having said this, the old man turned and went back to where he had come from.

  3

  THE ARMY PROCEEDED on its march through the last part of Palestine and entered Phoenicia. A heavy sense of anguish had spread throughout the army following the death of young Hector, with all of the men taking it as a bad omen. So at Tyre the King offered a sacrifice to Hercules Melkarth in an attempt to clear the sense of oppression with a solemn religious rite.

  The city still displayed signs of the devastation it had suffered the previous year, and yet life was tenaciously beginning to bloom once again. The survivors worked hard at reconstructing the houses, transporting materials on their boats from dry land. Some concentrated on fishing while yet others busied themselves in the workshops that produced the world’s most celebrated purple dye from the mussels that lived on the rocks. New colonists had arrived from Cyprus and Sidon to repopulate the ancient metropolis and slowly the sense of desolation which had accompanied the ruins was gradually dissolving as works proceeded, as families were reunited, as the ordinary activities of daily life picked up again.

  At Tyre Alexander received visits from many delegations representing various cities in Greece and the islands, together with several messages from General Antipater keeping him informed on military recruitment activities being carried out in the northern regions. He also received a letter from his mother that made a deep impression on him:

  Olympias to Alexander, her beloved son, Hail!

  I have had news of your visit to the Temple of Zeus which stands in the midst of the desert sands and of the response the god gave you, and I find my heart flooded with the deepest of emotions. I remembered when I first felt you move in my belly – the day when I consulted the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, in Epirus, the land of my birth.

  That day a sudden wind brought the desert sands to us and the priests told me that your great destiny would be fulfilled when you reached the other great sanctuary of the god, which stands in the desert sands of Libya. I remembered a dream in which I felt I had been possessed by a god, which had taken the form of a snake. I do not believe, my son, that Philip begot you, but you descend truly from the gods. Is there any other way of explaining your astounding victories, the retreat of the sea before you, the miraculous rains in the burning sands of the desert?

  Turn your thoughts to your celestial father, my son, and forget Philip. The blood flowing in your veins is not his.

  Alexander realized that his mother was fully informed of every aspect of his expedition and that she was pursuing her own detailed design. Olym
pias was scheming to wipe out the past completely, making room for a future for Alexander that was totally different from the one envisaged by Philip and his teacher Aristotle. There was to be no room in this rewriting of the future for even any memory of Philip. He placed the letter on the table just as Eumenes entered with other papers to be read and signed.

  ‘Bad news?’ asked the Secretary General as he took in the expression of shock on the King’s face.

  ‘No, in fact I should be happy since even my mother is now telling me that I am the son of a god.’

  ‘But you don’t look like a happy man to me.’

  ‘Would you be happy?’

  ‘You well know that there was no other way of governing Egypt and being accepted by the priests of Memphis – becoming son of Ammon and therefore Pharaoh. What’s more, Ammon is worshipped as Zeus by all the Greeks who live in Libya, all those from Naucratis and Cyrene and soon those from Alexandria as well, as soon as your city is inhabited. It was inevitable, because in becoming son of Ammon you have also acknowledged that you are the son of Zeus.’

  While he was still talking, Alexander handed him Olympias’s letter, ‘The Queen Mother is simply helping you come to terms with your new role,’ Eumenes said as soon as he had finished reading it.

  ‘You are wrong: my mother’s mind is always somewhere between dream and reality, exchanging the one for the other and vice versa. And what is more—’ and he stopped here as though undecided whether to divulge such a secret, ‘. . . what is more, my mother has the power to give substance to her dreams and to pull other people into them.’

  ‘I do not understand,’ said Eumenes.

  ‘Do you remember the day when I fled from Pella, the day when my father wanted to kill me?’

  ‘Of course I do, I was there.’

  ‘I fled together with my mother with the intention of reaching Epirus and we stopped to sleep in an oak wood some thirty stadia west of Beroea. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I saw her get up and go off into the darkness – she walked as though she were floating above the ground and came to a place where there was an ancient image of Dionysus covered with ivy. I saw her there, just as I can see you now, and she called up an enormous snake from underground, I saw her conjure up an orgy of satyrs and maenads, playing her flute, completely possessed . . .’