Alexander (Vol. 3) (Alexander Trilogy) (21 page)

‘Why? Are we setting off again?’

‘As soon as possible.’

Instead, however, they stayed on in Persepolis for months. The imperial archives and chancellery were here and Eumenes explained to Alexander that before pushing on further it was necessary to consolidate what had been won already, and organize the road and communications systems, so vital for supplies. They had to instruct all the Satraps and administrators of those provinces which had already been subdued, and guide relations with Macedonia and with the regent Antipater. Eumenes also hunted for any document that might constitute proof of the Persian court’s involvement in the assassination of King Philip, or traces of any contact with Prince Amyntas of Lyncestis who, on the King’s orders, was still under surveillance following the accusations of his having colluded with Darius when the army was still in Anatolia. The archival material was all in cuneiform characters and, given the scarcity of capable translators, the work involved in studying it all carefully would have taken years.

As Eumenes had predicted, however, the inertia and the free availability of money was radically changing the behaviour of the soldiers and Alexander’s own Companions given that they all lived now in the most beautiful palaces of the city, cleaned and restored, and they lived like kings. He continued to invite them for rides on horseback and often organized ball games to keep them in some sort of physical shape. His friends went to these without much enthusiasm, simply to keep him happy, but once they actually started playing they found that they enjoyed themselves just as they had done when they were boys.

Thus in those days the porticoes of the palace rang to shouts and laughter just as the palace at Pella had done many years previously.

‘Pass me the ball! Pass me the ball, by Hercules!’ shouted Alexander.

‘You lost it last time I gave it to you!’ replied Ptolemy, shouting even louder.

‘Shoot instead of chatting. Are you sleeping or what?’ shouted Leonnatus.

The one who always asked for a break first was Eumenes because he had had neither the education nor the training of a warrior, ‘Lads, that’s enough, my heart is about to burst.’

‘What heart? You’ve got books in place of a heart!’ said Craterus, the most skilful and the fastest of them all.

However, these moments of relief gradually became fewer and farther between. Once the game was over, the influence of power and riches fell over them once more.

One day Eumenes wanted to speak to Alexander in private and went to him in his apartments in the imperial palace.

‘With every day that passes it gets worse,’ he began.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean they’ve all changed. Ptolemy has girls brought from as far away as Cyprus and Arabia, Leonnatus only trains for his wrestling if he has the finest Libyan sand and he has it sent by camel. Lysimachus has had a urinal made of solid gold and encrusted with precious jewels. A urinal, would you credit it? Seleucus has one woman slave to do up his sandals, another to comb him, another to perfume him, and one who . . . well, let’s leave it at that. As for Perdiccas . . .’

‘Perdiccas too?’ Alexander asked, incredulous.

‘Yes, even Perdiccas. He’s had purple sheets made up for his bed. And then there’s Philotas – he has always been on the arrogant and presumptuous side, but now he’s worse; rumour has it that he—’

But the King interrupted him, ‘Enough!’ he shouted. ‘Enough! Call a herald immediately!’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Did you hear me? I told you to call a herald!’

Eumenes left and returned shortly afterwards with an orderly.

‘You will proceed without delay,’ said the King, ‘to the homes of Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Craterus, Leonnatus, Lysimachus, Hephaestion, Seleucus and Philotas to tell each of them to come here immediately to see me.’

The orderly ran outside, leaped on to his horse and set off to deliver his message to the King’s Companions. Some were not at home and he left word with the servants, indicating not only the bare message, but also an idea of the King’s mood so that the servants soon set about looking for their masters.

‘It must be another game,’ Leonnatus suggested to Perdiccas as they climbed the stairs together.

‘I doubt it. Have you ever seen him use an orderly from the assault cavalry to invite people to a ball game?’

‘I reckon we’re off to war again,’ said Lysimachus who appeared just at that moment.

‘War? What war?’ said Seleucus, as he arrived in a rush.

Eumenes met them all in the antechamber with a deadpan expression on his face, saying only, ‘He’s through there.’

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ asked Ptolemy.

‘Me? No . . . this doesn’t regard me,’ he said as he opened the door, had them enter and closed it behind them before immediately getting into position to listen in. Alexander was soon shouting so loudly that he had to move his ear away from the lock.

‘Purple sheets!’ he cried. ‘Solid gold urinals! Sand from Libya for wrestling! Of course there’s no sand here, right? Or perhaps it’s just not fine enough for your delicate backside?’ and he grimaced as he approached Leonnatus. ‘You’re a bunch of spineless imbeciles! That’s what you’ve become! Do you think I brought you all this way to see you reduced to this?’

Ptolemy tried to calm him down, ‘Alexander, listen—’

‘What right do you have to speak? I hear you have your whores brought all the way from Cyprus and Arabia! I brought you this far to change the world, not to soften you up in luxury. Perhaps we engaged in this war simply to pick up the way of life of those we defeated? Is this the reason why we marched and suffered through heat and cold, through hunger and all sorts of ordeals? To lower ourselves to the same level as those we conquered? Don’t you understand that this is exactly why the Persians lost? Because they lived just as you are living now?’

‘In that case then why—’ Perdiccas began and had he been able to finish he would have added, ‘why leave all the Persian governors in their previous posts?’ but the King cut him short:

‘Silence! From tomorrow onwards you will all be billeted out in the camp, under canvas as before. Each one of you will groom his own horse and will polish his own armour. And the day after tomorrow you will all come with me on a lion hunt up in the mountains, and if you end up being mauled to death because your rear ends have grown too fat to let you move, then I won’t be lifting a finger to save you. Do you all understand?’

‘We understand, Sire!’ they all shouted.

‘Then clear off out of here, the lot of you!’

Everyone rushed to the door and disappeared down the stairs. At that moment the herald arrived and explained that he had not been able to find Philotas and that he had left messages for him. Eumenes nodded and was about to leave after the Companions when Alexander called him back.

‘Yes, Sire?’ he said as he entered Alexander’s rooms once again.

‘Philotas was not here,’ said the King immediately.

‘The orderly couldn’t find him. Do you want him to keep looking?’

‘No, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure he’ll hear tale of all this anyway. And you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing with all the gold you’ve received?’

‘I’m living comfortably, but without overdoing it. I’m putting what’s left to one side for my old age.’

‘Well done,’ replied Alexander. ‘You can never tell. If one day I find myself in need of a loan, I’ll know who to turn to.’

‘May I go now?’

‘Yes, of course,’ and Eumenes headed for the door. ‘Just a moment.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The order, of course, applies to you as well.’

‘What order?’

‘The one about sleeping in the camp, under canvas.’

‘Of course,’ retorted Eumenes, and then he left.

*

Some days later Alexander summoned Eumenes to tell him that, when they eventually started marching northwards, he intended to transfer all the treasure of Persepolis to Ecbatana. Eumenes was amazed by this decision, which to him seemed completely useless, senseless even, but it was clear the King would not be moved in any way.

Such an operation would last more than two weeks, and require a caravan of five thousand pairs of mules and ten thousand camels, because the mountain paths of Media made transportation by carts virtually impossible.

Eumenes failed to comprehend the reasoning behind the decision – to him it seemed strange and even risky, but any time he tried to obtain an explanation from Alexander he received vague and evasive replies. In the end he gave up asking, but his heart remained heavy with some sort of dark presentiment, a sombre portent of some dramatic event.

F
OR SOME TIME THE
Companions respected the orders and lived in the camp, but then Hephaestion asked to be allowed to return to the palace because he wanted to be near Alexander, and the King did not know how to deny his friend this request. Having made this concession to Hephaestion, he could do nothing to stop the others, who with a variety of excuses obtained permission to move back into their residences in the city. They all swore most solemnly of course to live simple, frugal lives. Spring was almost over now and the more serious wounds of the devastated city were slowly beginning to heal, but it was clear Persepolis would never be as it once had been. In the meantime, from the still independent northern provinces of the empire, there came news that Darius was assembling another army and that he was ready to stand ground on the Caucasus Mountains, on the Caspian Sea, and Alexander decided that it was time to move. He organized a party and a banquet to bring their period of rest to an end, celebrations which indeed proved to be memorable events.

All the rooms of the immense palace were brightly illuminated by hundreds of lamps; the royal cooks set to work to prepare the finest dishes; the finest looking eunuchs and girls of the palace were chosen to serve at table in states of semi-undress, after the Greek fashion. At the centre of the dining hall great vases of solid gold taken from the imperial treasure were positioned and used as craters for wine and aromatic and spiced drinks made according to oriental recipes.

Cups of gold and silver from the royal collection were placed on the tables, while everywhere there were vases full of roses and lilies – cut from the palace gardens, the only gardens to have survived in the whole city.

The feast began immediately after sunset and Eumenes realized that Hephaestion had been nominated ‘leader of the symposium’ and that as such it was he who had decreed that the wine should be served in the Thracian manner – straight.

‘Are you not celebrating with us?’ Callisthenes asked as he suddenly appeared behind Eumenes.

‘I’m not hungry,’ replied Eumenes, ‘and it’s my job to oversee everything and to make sure it all goes well.’

‘Or is it that you’d rather stay sober just to make sure you enjoy the spectacle?’

‘What spectacle?’

‘Well . . . I don’t know, but something’s bound to happen. This feast makes no sense. It’s grotesque. I arrived from the Western Gate, and believe me the palace so full of light is a terrible and dramatic contrast with the devastation and the darkness of the city. We’ve been here for months and Alexander hasn’t ordered the reconstruction of even one single house.’

‘But he hasn’t stopped anyone from rebuilding.’

‘No, that’s true; but he hasn’t done anything to stop the nobility and the landowners leaving. Only the poorest people remain, and that means the city is effectively condemned to death. And with the city—’

Eumenes lifted his hand as though to chase away some nightmarish vision, ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

‘Where is Parmenion?’ Callisthenes asked, apparently changing the subject.

‘He’s not here.’

‘And that doesn’t mean anything to you, I imagine. And the Black?’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

‘Exactly. Anyway, I don’t believe he was ever on the guest list – but just look at who
has
turned up.’

Eumenes turned and saw Tais coming along a corridor towards them – the beautiful Athenian, barefoot and with a most daring gown on, similar to the one she had worn when she first danced before the King.

‘I think she’s been sleeping with Alexander,’ said Callisthenes, ‘and I don’t think there’s anything good about that.’

‘I think I agree with you,’ replied Eumenes, ‘but things don’t necessarily have to get any worse.’

Callisthenes made no comment and went off towards the door named after Xerxes that led out on to the rear portico. From there he could see the tombs cut into the side of the mountain that towered over the palace, lit by the votive lamps burning for the Achaemenid sovereigns. Among them was the as yet unfinished tomb of Darius III. From inside the palace came the ever louder shouting and laughing of the banqueters, increasingly boisterous as they celebrated.

Suddenly he heard some music, which for a moment dominated the din made by the revellers, rhythmic music accompanied by drums and apparently suited to some orgiastic dance. Callisthenes lifted his eyes to the skies and murmured to himself, ‘Where are you, Aristotle?’