The Road to Alexander Read online

  My article would start with a description of the opalescent colours of the hills, then ... I tripped on a rock and winced, the pain bringing me back to the present. I inspected my toe, shaking the dew off my foot, then sniffed. The smell of woodsmoke and garlic wafted through the air, along with the sharper odour of sweat and the sound of many voices. I crested the last hill and stopped, dazed. I hadn’t truly realized what I had done yet, or where I was. Imagining the camp was one thing, actually seeing, hearing, and smelling it was another. I had arrived.

  The encampment was a sprawling affair near the banks of a river. I’d read that Alexander had forty thousand men with him. Unbleached linen tents were set up in orderly rows in a level field; behind them were horse corrals. Soldiers swarmed around like ants. After watching closely, I saw an order to their movements. Some men were taking care of weapons – there was a veritable thicket of long spears alongside the tents – checking shields, or sharpening swords. Other soldiers were in the shade playing with what looked like dice. They were talking, laughing or even singing. I heard music from flutes.

  A strong smell of garlic and onions permeated the encampment. There were also the odours of smoke, acrid sweat, freshly cut wood and baking bread. The camp was surrounded by guards and was full of soldiers, but I saw other people as well. Merchants hawked their wares, slaves bustled about, and pot-bellied children played noisily. On the banks of the wide, shallow river, women were washing clothes and chattering in shrill voices.

  I walked down the hill and entered the camp. Nobody paid any direct attention to me, but the sentinels followed me with their eyes, spears gripped tightly in their hands. For all their apparent relaxation, they were on the qui vive.

  I strolled down a well-trodden path following the riverbank and smiled in a friendly fashion to a young woman carrying a jug of water on her head. She smiled back and said something to me that set my tradi-scope working. They work well, but they have to be prompted by sound. So, for a few annoying seconds, there was an infernal buzzing in my head while the tradi-scope chewed up the woman’s words, digested them, and spit them out. She’d said, ‘Lovely morning for a walk.’

  ‘Very nice,’ I agreed. My own words came out of my mouth in her language, thanks to a complex bio-implant in my cerebral cortex. It was a shock at first.

  ‘Are you one of the temple virgins?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not a temple virgin. I’m an onirocrite.’

  Her eyes widened. Onirocrites interpreted dreams. They were also exempt from most of the mundane sacrifices. It wasn’t a bad choice for someone from the future.

  I waved and continued along the path. I wanted to go directly to Alexander’s tent. He was reputed to be easily approachable, well educated, and interested in omens, portents and dreams. The biggest tent was set off by itself between two tall palm trees. I thought it must be Alexander’s, so, after taking a deep breath to clear my head, I went towards it.

  There were three guards outside his tent. They were sitting on a mat made of woven grass, playing a game with bleached knucklebones. Bright coins glittered in the middle of the mat, and after each throw a new one would be added or subtracted from the pile. The guards barely glanced at me when I arrived.

  ‘Is Alexander here? May I speak with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s in the tent; let me announce you. State your name and business.’ The guards were all professional. They seemed to be absorbed in their game but had subtly shifted position as soon as I’d arrived, so that I could neither advance nor retreat.

  ‘I can’t tell you my real name,’ I said truthfully. ‘But you can say that an onirocrite is here to speak to him. I’ve travelled all night.’

  After a second’s hesitation, the guard lifted the tent flap and disappeared inside. The heavy cloth was nearly soundproof. All I could hear was an indistinct murmur of voices before he came out again.

  ‘Iskander receives the onirocrite,’ he said, holding the flap high for me.

  I ducked and entered. My eyes took a second to get used to the gloom. Then I saw him. Alexander was sitting cross-legged on a beautiful rug. A bowl of pale green grapes was next to him, and he was idly picking through them, choosing the smallest and sweetest to eat.

  He was wearing a short, pleated tunic made of bleached linen. His feet were bare, but a pair of leather sandals lay on the floor next to him. Otherwise, he wore no ornaments and his tunic, though finely woven, was plain. He had many scars on his legs and arms. Most looked like they had been made by swords. They’d healed well, but one on his wrist seemed recent. As I watched, he rubbed it a bit; perhaps it still pained him. His hands were square and strong with the tendons showing on the backs. His fingers were long and his nails trimmed very short. On the inside of his arms I could see the tracing of blue veins. Though he was tanned, his skin was nearly translucent in some places; there were lavender shadows beneath his eyes and on his temples, and in the hollow of his throat I could see a pulse beat.

  My first impression was that he was dangerous. He gave off an aura of energy. His movements were controlled. His gaze was direct yet hooded. He had long, brassy gold hair tied back from his face with a leather thong. His hair was dyed, which was not unusual for a man in that time, but it was impossible to say what the true colour was, perhaps a reddish-gold, or a warm brown. His eyebrows were dark, thick, and arched across a wide, clear brow. His eyes were canny; I was reminded of a South American jaguar. Then he tilted his head and I saw that one eye was blue-green and the other brown. It was disconcerting. He looked both wary and assured. Without breaking his gaze, he popped another grape into his mouth.

  Before I realized how he’d done it, he was standing in front of me. His movement had been so fast and fluid I hadn’t even registered it. I took a step back.

  ‘Did I startle you? My pardon.’ His voice was a comfortable tenor. He smiled for the first time since I had come in, showing white, even teeth with a slight overbite, and he motioned towards the rug. ‘Please sit down. I was told you’d walked all night. Would you care for a drink, or something to eat?’

  ‘Both, please, thank you. Is this your breakfast?’

  He looked amused. ‘No, it’s just a snack. I’ve been up since before dawn. I eat breakfast when the first rays of the sun pierce the night’s gloom.’

  I looked around the tent and found it Spartan yet rich. Only one rug, but it was sublime. Just one bed covered with richly embroidered cushions. A low table of carved wood, inlaid with ivory and jet, stood in the corner. On top of it were writing materials made of bone set with gold. A delicately moulded glass lamp hung from the tent pole overhead. The fruit bowl was carved from a block of apple-green jade.

  I sat cross-legged on the rug and waited for him to sit, but he paced back and forth in front of me, further heightening the impression of a caged feline. I wondered if I should speak or wait until he spoke to me. I was irritated to feel myself getting flustered. Then Alexander sat down next to me with a fluid movement and I stifled an exclamation.

  ‘What can I give you? Grapes? Some wine?’

  ‘That sounds fine,’ I said, my fingers itching for a pen so I could write down all my impressions. But I had to wait until I got back. Until then, I was supposed to make a mental note of every word and action.

  He chose a grape for me and gently put it into my mouth. It was one of the most sensual gestures anyone had ever made to me. I felt faint, and, when he leaned over and kissed me, I toppled over onto the rug with hardly a whimper.

  Alexander obviously thought I’d come to see him for only one reason. I guess he was smothered with women throwing themselves on him, but vestal virgins? My body was saying, ‘Yes! Yes!’ My head said, ‘Ashley! Get a hold of yourself this instant!’ I sat up and pushed him away. ‘Sorry, I can’t do this,’ I said.

  His expression of surprise was comical. ‘You mean, you really did come from the temple?’

  ‘Can we talk?’ I avoided the question and took a bunch of grapes.

  ‘N
ot those,’ he said, plucking them from my hand and putting them back into the bowl. ‘Those grapes are poisoned. I keep them in case an enemy comes. So, what do you want to talk about?’ His brow furrowed, then his face cleared. ‘Ah, yes, I recall. You’re the onirocrite. So, what dreams have you had?’

  ‘I dreamt that I came to your tent while you were sleeping. In your sleep you were calling out my name, the secret one that I can’t tell to anyone except the goddess. When you woke up you saw me. You said that I must come to you because you had a dream that you wanted me to interpret for you. You also said that it was a waking dream.’

  He looked interested. ‘Really? And just what is a waking dream?’

  ‘It’s like a wish,’ I said. ‘It’s what you want to do with your life. Can you tell me about it?’ I was hoping for grist for the prize-winning article that I was going to write when I got back. No one knew why Alexander had decided to conquer Persia and travel as far as the Indus River. It was a mystery, and I’d decided to solve it.

  Instead of answering me, he lay back on his bed, put his arms above his head and stretched, showing off his lean body with its beautiful, flowing lines. ‘That’s too bad,’ he said. ‘I was hoping you were one of the virgins who didn’t want to be sacrificed. There are lots of them, you know,’ he added, looking at me sideways out of his magnificent eyes. ‘When they don’t want to be sacrificed they simply cease to be virgins, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I do,’ I said, ‘and I’m flattered. But can we get back to the subject of my visit?’

  ‘A single-minded woman,’ he sighed. ‘You remind me of my mother. She’s terribly stubborn. She hated it when I sucked my thumb, so I did it for years just to spite her.’

  ‘Well, that explains your teeth,’ I said, vexed to be compared to his mother.

  He looked at me, his expression unreadable. I started to think that maybe conversations about his mother weren’t the best idea, but all he said was, ‘You want to hear about my dreams, is that it?’

  ‘Please,’ I said, concentrating on his next words.

  ‘Very well.’ He stood up, poured two glasses of wine from an earthenware pitcher, and sat down next to me again, handing me one. The wine had a faint spicy note.

  I was feeling smug. The article was going to net me a huge prize. I could just imagine the accolades. I was going to be famous; I couldn’t wait to see the faces of those who’d been waiting to see me fail. ‘Cheers,’ I said, and sipped. The drink wasn’t bad. It was young grape wine with spices and a trace of honey. It had been watered down so it was refreshing.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Cheers?’

  ‘Here’s to your health,’ I amended.

  We sipped our wine in silence for a few minutes while he studied me. Finally he put down his glass and shook his head.

  ‘There’s something strange about you,’ he said, ‘though I cannot say exactly what it is. You are impressed, I sense this, and you are interested. But, you are not afraid. Perhaps it is your lack of fear I detect the most. I am extremely attuned to fear; my father beat it into me. But it goes deeper than that.’ As he spoke, he wound his body around me, pausing now and then to touch my cheeks, my neck, or my breast. ‘I get a very peculiar feeling from you. There is a coldness, a frost that emanates from your very bones.’ He paused and ran his hands lightly down my sides.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I stammered. ‘I’ve wanted to meet you since I first heard about you. It was a dream, and now it’s come true.’ The passion in my voice startled me. I frowned, struggling to keep my emotions in check. This was not the cool, calm, collected Ashley I knew.

  Alexander took my hand, stroking the inside of my wrist before pressing it to his mouth. ‘I want to bite you,’ he said. ‘I want to shake you out of your indifference. I want to hear you scream.’ He stared at me, a fierce expression in his uncanny eyes. ‘My mother is cold like you. She’s as cold as the ice on the mountaintops.’

  I shivered. ‘I’m sorry if I appear cold. It was my parents’ fault. I had to stay quiet, otherwise I was punished.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s it.’ He tilted his head and looked at me. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. There was such intensity in his gaze that I had to struggle not to drop my eyes.

  ‘Did you know that of all the living things on this earth, only man can look another man in the eye? My teacher, an old Greek, taught me that. He is a very intelligent man. He said that the world was round like an orange, and that the stars we see at night are in reality other earths, like this one, or suns. Is that heresy, do you think, or is it truth? I would like to know the answer to those questions and to so many more. I want to see the ends of the earth where the water drops off into a great chasm. Of course, if my teacher is right, I shall never find that. Instead, I will end up where I started out.’ He sighed, then leaned over and lifted a corner of the tent to peer outside. ‘It’s getting near midday, I have to go see my troops. Will you stay, or will you go back to your temple?’

  ‘If you please,’ I said humbly, ‘I’d like to stay.’

  ‘I please.’ He smiled then, and I realized that his face had more expressions than anyone’s I’d ever seen, including the great actors and mimes. His smile seemed to bloom from within, to reach out and caress me, and to bind me to him.

  Anyone on the receiving end of that smile, I thought, would walk straight off the edge of the world if Alexander asked him to.

  Chapter Two

  I walked around the camp, then found the latrines and used them. Very primitive, but at least they existed. The village was just under a kilometre away, so I decided to go across the fields to have a look.

  The centre of the village consisted of a temple, a marketplace, and several windowless buildings for storage. Dwellings were mud and wattle, with stone foundations. Most roofs were thatched. The streets were dusty and probably muddy when it rained. There was no particular arrangement to this town. Houses were set down haphazardly and the streets were simply winding paths. There were sewage ditches along the sides of the larger streets. They smelled rather ripe. The best buildings in town, the temple, a courthouse, and a bakery, were adjacent to the central marketplace. The warehouse was full of bales of wool and huge clay amphorae containing oil, wine and grain.

  I poked around everywhere, curious. No one minded. The village was busy. Some men were making clay pots under an awning. Women were standing in line in front of the bakery waiting to bake their bread. At a rough table near the fountain a man was setting out fish to sell.

  Children were everywhere. The older ones had loincloths or wore simple shifts tied at the waist with colourful yarn belts. They played leapfrog, knucklebones, hopscotch. Girls clutched painted dolls made of clay or wood.

  I was parched, the dust made my teeth grate. I saw someone drinking from the fountain. The water came straight from a spring and was very cold and sweet. After the people drank, they made a sign with their hands. I made the same sign, though I wasn’t sure what it meant.

  The sun was getting hot, so I drifted back towards the army camp. My feet raised little clouds of dust as I walked and the sun beat down on my head. I had no hair, I’d left my wig in Alexander’s tent; so, by the time I got back, I had a nice case of sunburn.

  The guards stepped aside and lifted the tent flap up for me. Alexander wasn’t back yet. I felt odd, alone in his tent. I thought perhaps I’d wait outside, but the air was hot. With a sigh, I retreated back into the coolness of the interior.

  Once back inside, I tried to put on my wig, but it hurt my sunburnt head too much. It was made according to the pattern of the times, that is, real hair knotted onto a rough linen mesh and attached with string under my chin. I hated it, and wished I hadn’t let myself be talked into shaving my head. Only two or three other women in the village were shorn, all the others had their own hair. They wore it plaited in many fine braids and decorated with glass paste pearls. Some of them had very short hair, others had it very long and none of them would have got
ten more than a perfunctory glance in modern times. I was going to have a long talk with the fashion consultant when I got back to my own time.

  I poured myself some of Alexander’s wine and drank it. Then I had some more because I was thirsty and hadn’t eaten all day. I didn’t touch the grapes because I’d forgotten which bunch was poisoned, and they all looked alike to me. I didn’t dare ask anyone to bring me food. I was a precarious guest, uninvited, and unsure of my welcome.

  My head started to ache so I lay down on the rug. My feet were sore from all the walking in my horrible sandals. They were made of grass, which has a sharp edge to it. I had little, stinging cuts between my toes, and my ankles were rubbed raw.

  I stared blearily at my scratchy wig, up-ended on the floor, and my uncomfortable sandals, temptingly near the brazier. I wished that the fashion consultant was sitting in front of me, so I could bite her and hear her scream.

  I drifted off to sleep with that comforting thought in mind, a half-smile on my face. I dreamed I was in the mouth of an enormous dragon. He was holding me in his jaws as delicately as an egg, but I knew that if he wanted he could close his mouth and crush me. The dragon’s mouth was wide, and long, pointed teeth surrounded me. I was trapped and I could never get out. However, the dragon wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with me. I couldn’t speak to him, but I could sense his thoughts. He wasn’t sure if I would make a good breakfast, lunch, high-tea snack, or if I would be better as a companion to talk to, or even as a sort of bauble to look at. A toy perhaps to play with? Dinner?

  ‘Dinner!’ I woke up with a cry. I was no longer alone. Alexander was sitting in front of his table writing on a clay tablet. He looked up at me and grinned.