The Lost Books of the Odyssey - By Zachary Mason Page 0,61

valley of Gaugamela. A warm band of light burgeoned on the western mountains and spread east, first illuminating an empty expanse of cracked mud and dry grass, then the tents of the Macedonian army, and blinding, for a few moments, the eyes of its sentries. The light poured across no man’s land and then over the sprawling Persian host, gleaming red on their helmets, spearpoints, mail and buckles as though on the molten surface of a restless sea. They had been standing in battle array since sunset, their sleepless emperor determined not to be taken unawares. His multitudes blinked uneasily as the sun rose behind them.

By this time most of the Macedonian soldiers had been astir for hours despite the order that everyone get a full night’s sleep. They lingered in their tents, lying on their beds with their eyes fixed on nothing, talking quietly with their tent-mates of distant farms, old summers, and what the day might bring.

The pacing silhouettes of officers passed unnoticed on the wall of Alexander’s tent. Sergeants shouted, distant horses whinnied and men called for swords but Alexander was still asleep, his arm thrown over his face to block out the sun. Increasingly anxious aides circulated around his door. Eventually, his abashed valet, firmly directed by Ptolemy,* went in and gently shook him. Alexander woke at once, apologized to the valet for oversleeping and sprang out of bed to wash his face in cold water. The morning mist had burned off and the day was bright and clear. Alexander put on his white plumed helmet (the better for friend and enemy to find him on the battle-field) and rode out to stand in front of his troops as they formed their line, trumpets sounded and the Persians came thundering to meet them.

After crossing the Ganges, Alexander proclaimed his intention to subjugate India and if there was anything beyond to bend that to his will also and so on to the end of the world. His soldiers, however, had had enough of loot in the sack of Persepolis, enough of hard living in the frozen passes of the Hindu Kush and enough of glory when they dethroned the Emperor Darius. They missed their wives and farms and did not want to die in a strange land where their sons would never tend their graves, and they said that they would go no farther.

Alexander ordered them forward in the peremptory bark they were used to obeying. Then he cajoled them, praised their loyalty and valor, went from man to man and knew each one’s name and deeds and wounds, whose life he had saved and who had saved his. Only a little farther, he promised, and then a talent of gold for each of them and all the world would know forevermore what it meant to be a Macedonian. Next he cursed them, called them spiritless curs who were sated with glory after expelling a few hill barons from their mud fortresses—without him they would have been no more than a rabble of cattle thieves. Finally, he said that if all his men were traitors, he would go on alone and at least die with honor, a term with which they were probably unacquainted. He turned his back on them and retired to his tent where he refused both food and entreaty. After three days the men sent emissaries pleading their love, begging him to eat something and keep his strength up so that he, their king, could lead them on the long trip home, and Alexander was at last moved by his veterans’ tears.

Alexander’s deathbed was in a river-side pavilion within Babylon’s high walls. He had been wounded and gone back to the battle line so many times that he had thought he was immortal, but now he knew he was dying. A week ago there had been hope but since then he had faded, although he could still move his head and part of his left arm. His wife Rukshana tended to him, the bloom of her beauty unwilted despite the years with the army under the hard desert sun. Some days his eyes watered with love when she came in to bathe him. Others, he blamed her for his frailty.

Alexander reflected on the contrivance of his legend. Since he was a boy he had longed to be Achilles, who had never known a moment’s doubt or shied away from death even when he knew it was rushing to meet him. Alexander had carefully promoted