Storms over Babylon Read online

  STORMS OVER

  BABYLON

  Jennifer Macaire

  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2018

  Octavo House

  West Bute Street

  Cardiff

  CF10 5LJ

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  Copyright © Jennifer Macaire 2018

  The right of Jennifer Macaire to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Accent Press Ltd.

  ISBN 9781786154828

  eISBN 9781786154620

  “This man, it was I who saved him when he was shipwrecked, alone in the storm, after Zeus capsized and destroyed his vessel as it sailed in the wine-coloured sea …” Calypso

  Homer, “The Odyssey”

  “O, Athenians, can you believe what dangers I’ve affronted just to merit your praises?”

  Onesicritus: Alexander to his generals

  “Shāh Māt” – Checkmate – The king is dead.

  Chapter One

  ‘Is it always going to be like this?’

  ‘Like what?’

  I turned my head and looked at my husband. He was lying on his side next to me, his hands clasped behind his head. From outside the tent came the usual commotion and clamour of forty thousand soldiers, hundreds of horses, sundry slaves, countless cooks, dozens of doctors, and whoever else made up the army. Inside, it was peaceful -Chiron was napping.

  Alexander nodded his chin towards the tent flap. Sunlight flooded in showing motes of dust floating in the air. ‘There’s plenty of water. The air is dry, but the bushes give many berries and there is a great quantity of hares that my soldiers love to eat.’

  ‘Are you asking me if the voyage is going to go this smoothly all the time?’ I leaned up on my elbow and stared at him.

  He grinned. ‘Why not? I can ask my own oracle, can’t I?’

  I narrowed my eyes and shook my head slowly. ‘Oh no you don’t. I won’t say a bloody thing, Alexander. You don’t think I’m going to tell you everything that’s going to happen, do you? Besides,’ I flopped back on the bed, ‘I have no idea. I already told you, I’m not an expert on you. Anyway, the history books are incomplete. So much information was lost when the great library of Alexandria burned...’ My voice faltered. From his expression, I could tell I hadn’t told him that part.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then, ‘Well, as long as you’re feeling so helpful, what do you propose we do about Roxanne?’

  I said a bad word.

  ‘I already told you I wasn’t going to touch her again,’ he said smugly.

  ‘Send her north with Craterus then,’ I said.

  ‘You still haven’t forgiven her for trying to poison you?’

  He could sound almost innocent when he wanted.

  I rolled over and glared at him.

  ‘Alexander, listen to me. I’m only going to say this once. I have not forgiven Roxanne for anything she’s done. Poisoning me was just the last straw. Send her north with Craterus. It’s not going to be like this much longer.’ I heaved a huge sigh.

  ‘Will you really try and save me?’ he asked.

  It was the same question every day. His eyes were sad sometimes, and sometimes they were hopeful. I smiled and traced the shape of his nose, the arched brows; his long lashes tickled my hands. ‘I promise,’ I told him, and I kissed him. Our kiss grew deeper and his hands roamed over my body.

  He moved onto me like a wave breaking over the beach. ‘Oh, Ashley,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes I feel as if my whole life was just a dream, and tomorrow I’ll wake up and none of this will have ever happened.’

  ‘What would you regret the most?’ I asked. ‘Beating Darius? Conquering all of Persia? Seeing India?’

  ‘I would regret this the most,’ he said, his breath catching in his throat as he moved on me, slowly sliding back and forth, letting his body speak for him. I would have thought he was happy, except for the tears falling on my shoulders.

  Alexander had separated the army into three sections, sending Craterus and Seleucos northwards with the elephants and Roxanne. Nearchus took the navy and sailed along the coast. And we went into the Gedrosian desert. At first, the journey seemed easy. There was plenty of water, and game abounded. We were headed towards home, and the soldiers sang as they marched.

  We had the hipparchies – archers on horseback – with us, almost all the cavalry, the rank and file, and a huge group made up of mostly soldiers’ wives and children, and families that had hitched onto the army for the return trip. The front part of the army was marching easily along. At the back, the wagons full of civilians dragged sometimes several days’ march behind. It didn’t worry Alexander too much; his scouts made sure there was no threat to anyone. But he was uneasy, his handsome face sombre as he walked or rode at the head of his army.

  The people in our tent, Brazza, Axiom, Usse, and Plexis had somehow picked up Alexander’s melancholy mood. I think there were two reasons for it; he had not stopped thinking about what I’d said, and the strain of knowing he had less than two years to live was sapping his strength. He knew now he was marching towards his destiny in Babylon. Moreover, he was still bitterly disappointed that his soldiers hadn’t wanted to continue with him further into India.

  We had no privacy to talk, so he had to ruminate on every issue by himself. I wanted desperately to find time alone with him, but it was impossible on the first leg of our journey.

  Our tent was swamped with people at night when we set up camp – and during the day, Alexander didn’t have a single moment to himself. Even when he went to bathe there was always a petition to sign, a problem to settle, or someone to see him.

  ‘Can it wait until I’m finished?’ he asked peevishly as another man came into the tent with one more papyrus scroll to endorse. He poked his head around the screen that separated the chamber pot from the rest of the tent. ‘I’ll be out in a minute. Just wait outside, will you?’

  The man looked abashed and left the tent. I heard a loud sigh from Alexander and a click as he rolled up the scroll he’d been reading on the toilet. ‘I don’t have time to do anything anymore,’ he griped as he carried the pot outside and gave it to a slave to empty. After a cursory glance, he signed the scroll and came back in to help us.

  Brazza and I got busy packing up the tent. We would be marching in less than an hour, and we were running late. Axiom took the fragile glass lamp and poured out the oil, then he carefully packed it in a box lined with sawdust to keep it from breaking.

  I took the bedcovers off the bed and folded them away. They would need a good cleaning soon, next time we set up camp I would see to that. Our clothes were getting grubby too. I wrinkled my nose and plucked at the linen tunic I was wearing. It was a fine, herringbone weave, but it was getting smelly. I would have loved to find a Happy Travels Inn just over the next rise, but that chain of hotels wouldn’t make it to the world before another two thousand five hundred years. I would have to put up with the tent and my dirty clothes for a while longer.

  Chiron was in his playpen. It was a very useful thing, made of slender ash wood and easy to set up or put away. It had been made by one of the men in charge of fixing the long spears used in the phalanx. The broken spears were turned into the pe
n. Some of the bars had marks notched into them. I was afraid to ask what these notches represented. I was sure I knew what the answer would be.

  When I finished the bedcovers, I put away Chiron’s toys and got him ready to travel; packing his diapers and his food in my saddlebags. We would only stop marching when the sun set.

  Alexander completed his affairs. He checked his armour, smoothed the leather straps and laid the bronze breastplate with its enamelled Gorgon’s head in his gilded wooden chest. When everything was put away he turned to me, his eyes sad. ‘I can’t believe I’ll never wear them again in battle,’ he said with a deep sigh.

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that. I thought you were glad to stop fighting.’

  He looked crestfallen. ‘I said that?’

  ‘You did. Axiom! I’m all set here.’ I picked up Chiron out of his playpen and put him in Alexander’s arms. ‘We’re going to start reading The Odyssey tonight, you promised.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ He sounded pleased. He loved reading. We’d just received The Odyssey in the mail. Alexander’s mother, Olympias, had sent it nearly two years ago. Although I hated my mother-in-law for kidnapping my son Paul, I was glad to get a new book to read.

  ‘We finished The Iliad months ago. Since then, we haven’t read anything. Besides, I got to the point where I didn’t like Achilles,’ I said, braiding my hair and tying it with string.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘He was always sulking,’ I explained, fastening my tunic tightly around my waist. ‘I much preferred Hector. I cried when he died.’

  ‘So did I, he was so brave. What was your favourite part?’ Alexander loved talking about The Iliad. I liked it too, but I had gotten tired of all the bloodshed, described in gory detail by the blind poet.

  ‘I think I liked the part when Hector’s father Priam comes to see Achilles and he actually kisses his hand. I think that was the bravest thing anyone did in the whole story.’ I was ready to go. I peeked out the tent and saw my horse being led up. ‘But I tired of the men always telling the women to do the same thing, “Go back to your quarters and take care of your weaving. Go and give orders to the servants.” How degrading! As if all they could do was weave or order slaves around!’

  ‘Well, what else did you think they could do?’ Alexander frowned. ‘You don’t think Hector was going to tell his wife, “Grab a spear and come and fight with me! I’m about to go and get killed fighting an immortal”? No! He had his son to think about and he wanted his wife to take care of the babe.’

  ‘Bullshit. He knew he was going to be killed, and he knew his wife would be sold into slavery and his son would most likely be killed as well. He was just being your typical male. All brawn and no brains.’

  ‘What would you have had him do?’ Alexander looked scandalized. I was slandering one of his heroes.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe pack up and leave in the dead of night.’

  ‘You mean run away?’ His voice rose several octaves and Axiom poked his head back in the tent to see if anyone had been stabbed.

  ‘Yes, run away. What’s the use of dying for a lost cause? He knew Troy was about to be burned to the ground and everyone in it killed or enslaved. If he really loved his wife and son, he would have done anything to save them including saving his own neck. Don’t you think his father, Priam, would have liked to know that his son and grandson were safe somewhere?’

  Alexander scratched his head. ‘How long have you lived here, I mean in this time?’

  ‘Ten years, I think.’ I frowned. ‘I suppose you’re going to say something spiteful like, are all your people cowards?’

  ‘No, but you didn’t quite catch the mentality of the heroes in the story. They thought it was better to die gloriously than to live in shame.’

  ‘Really?’ My voice was sarcastic. ‘And I suppose you think the same? You would gallop off to war knowing you were about to be slaughtered and that I would end up in a silver mine somewhere, literally slaving away. And that Chiron would be killed.’ My words caught in my throat.

  ‘Oh, Ashley.’ He tilted his head to the side and contemplated me. ‘We’re not talking about The Iliad, are we? You’re talking about me and you.’

  ‘And Chiron and Paul.’ I tried to smile but it wobbled across my face. ‘Alex, I couldn’t bear to lose you. If Hector thought that he and his family could be saved, don’t you think he’d have acted differently? Even if it meant giving up the fight and running away?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Alexander sounded sad. ‘The Iliad was a tragedy. It was meant to make us think about the perfidy of the gods and men. In The Iliad, there’s not much hope for anyone. Everyone is manipulated.’ We were silent a minute, our eyes locked together. His expression finally made me lower mine. He still believed in fate.

  ‘I know, but at least in The Odyssey the women do a bit more.’ I sighed.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, they’re always giving baths to the heroes in that story. I like the part where the handsome son of Ulysses takes off his …

  ‘I think,’ Alexander interrupted with a grin, ‘your idea of action and mine are quite different.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I teased. Alexander helped me put Chiron on the back of my pony and I checked to make sure that the waterskins were full. ‘Will you walk with me?’ I asked. I was glad to see him smiling and I wanted to pursue our conversation.

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll see you this evening, and we’ll start reading The Odyssey together. However, right now I have to go see Ptolemy Lagos. He wanted to tell me something important.’

  ‘Oh?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘What does he want to tell you?’

  ‘If I knew, I wouldn’t have to see him.’ Alexander sounded exasperated. ‘Go weave your wool, Woman, and give orders to your servants!’

  ‘If I had been Hector’s wife, I would have hit him over the head with my loom.’ I said, sourly.

  ‘Liar, you were crying when he bade her goodbye.’ Alexander leaned over and kissed me, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘Will you tell me what Ptolemy says?’ I was curious.

  Alexander shook his head. ‘If I think you need to know.’ He kissed me again, and I walked off leading my pony. Chiron was thrilled; he loved riding. To prove it he reached over and yanked one of my braids.

  The land was rich in strange plants, and the botanists were perhaps the happiest people in the army at that point. As I walked along, I saw the scientists scrambling about picking leaves and roots and tucking them in their pouches. Even Usse was busy gathering the different types of plants. He was interested in anything that might be a new form of medicine.

  My mould had been a success and now Usse was trying to grow even more of it. So far, he thought he’d saved three soldiers from certain death using the blue-green mould we’d grown on old bread. One of the men had cut his leg to the bone when he fell off his horse. The cut had festered and the leg had turned an angry red. Usse had packed the wound full of mouldy bread and a week later the man was still alive.

  He wasn’t completely well yet. This was not a shot of antibiotics. Nevertheless, the leg had ceased to swell and the redness had gone down. Slowly, healthy pink skin was taking over, so maybe we had something.

  Late that afternoon we arrived in front of a vast forest of brambles. The bushes grew so close together and the thorns were so long and sharp that we ended up camping while the soldiers took turns hacking a passage through the impenetrable thickets.

  I decided to find a place to wash while we were waiting. There was a large brook flowing nearby. I packed our dirty laundry on a pony, and put Chiron in his backpack. After walking upstream for half an hour I found the perfect spot. There was nobody in sight, I had found a deserted bend in the stream and the only thing that saw me was a large vulture circling very high above us in the empty sky. I looked at the big bird and frowned. Half the army would be saying it was a bad omen. The other half would be claiming it was a good omen. The Ea
st and the West were not uniting as smoothly as Alexander had hoped.

  The stream wound around a sharp bend, splashed onto a large rock, and swirled into a small deep pool. I hobbled the pony, bathed Chiron, then tied the little boy to a low tree so he couldn’t crawl away. I washed everything including my own tunic and hung the wet laundry on thorn bushes to dry. Then I went swimming. It was heavenly. The water was dark green, nearly turquoise, and pollution hadn’t been invented yet so I could even drink it. I hauled myself onto a warm rock and sat in the sun to dry.

  Chiron and I napped in the shade of a thorn tree. When I woke up the sun had moved, so I went to check to see if the laundry had dried. I had just finished, when Alexander came galloping down the bank. The horse’s hooves made a loud clatter on the rocky ground. He threw himself off the horse and tossed the reins over a branch. I wondered why he was in such a hurry; usually he hated to rush.

  He didn’t see me at first – I was sitting in the shade near Chiron, who was playing with some flat rocks, piling them up and knocking them down again. I waved. ‘Over here!’

  ‘Ashley! ‘ He limped hurriedly over to me.

  I stood when I saw his face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ptolemy told me something incredible.’ He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in wild curls. The skin on his face was drawn tight.

  ‘What is going on?’ I asked, worried now.

  ‘It’s Roxanne’s doing. She sent someone to fetch Paul from the valley of Nysa. Ptolemy told me that he’s being brought to Babylon.’

  ‘But, why?’ I sat down slowly, my legs felt weak.

  ‘My mother must have ordered her to do that. She never would have thought of it herself.’

  I turned a frozen face up towards my husband. ‘Or it could be Stateira’s orders. She’s ruling Babylon. She means to kill him, doesn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ he cried. Then seeing my expression, he shook his head. ‘No, Stateira wouldn’t dare touch him, and I think Roxanne has no evil intent. She simply followed Olympias’s orders.’