Alexander (Vol. 3) (Alexander Trilogy) (24 page)

The men beat their spears on their shields and shouted the King’s name, just like Macedonian soldiers. Then those who wanted to remain took their three steps over the line and Alexander saw that they constituted almost half of his Greek allies.

*

The Greeks who had chosen to return home set off that very same day, marching through the two wings of the infantry and the cavalry lined up for the final salute, while the trumpets sounded the signal for the army to fall out; and when Parmenion himself ordered, ‘Present arms!’ many of these men, inured to all dangers and all of life’s excesses, had their eyes full of tears.

As soon as they had disappeared round the first bend in the road and the sound of the drums that marked their steps had faded away, Alexander had the trumpets sound once more, and his army turned and set off in pursuit of the Great King. Oxhatres knew all the short cuts and offered to go on ahead with two of his Scythian mercenaries and set off at a gallop.

The army advanced over a vast plateau on which small antelopes and wild goats were grazing, and every now and again at night they could hear lions roaring. The pace of their march was almost unbearable – many of the infantrymen had to stop because of sores on their feet and more than a few beasts of burden collapsed under the weight of their loads – but Alexander rejected all suggestions that they should slow down and instead demanded that they move ever more quickly, sleeping only for a few hours each night without pitching their tents, all of this to keep up the pressure on Darius.

He reminded all the veterans how they had once marched to Thebes from the banks of the River Ister in just thirteen days, and he too slept out in the open at night, covered only by his military cloak. Occasionally they were able to find some shelter in the caravanserai along the road leading to the eastern provinces, but these structures were rather limited in size, places designed for people who were ill or those who really were struggling along their journey.

The air was becoming thinner and sharper, especially towards evening, and Eumenes had started wearing trousers again, which made him feel much better. For six days of the march eastwards they followed the edge of an impressive mountain chain dominated by the highest peak any of them had ever seen, its top covered with snow. Then they came to a narrow passage that took the name of the Caspian Gates. This was a gorge at the bottom of which flowed a torrent, flanked by walls so steep that even the Agrianians would find it almost impossible to scale them.

‘If they ambush us here,’ said the Black, ‘they’ll tear us to pieces.’ And indeed it seemed unlikely that Darius would not seek to make the most of this natural advantage.

Alexander looked up the almost vertical walls and watched the slow gliding of an eagle, ‘Do you think there might be anyone up there?’

‘There is only one way to find out.’

‘The Agrianians.’

‘I’ll send them up immediately.’

Shortly afterwards the soldiers, at a halt on the bottom of the gorge, turned their faces skywards and watched the acrobatics of the Agrianian assault troops as they climbed up the rocky faces, chipping away at times with their picks, creating passageways so as to be able to move through crevasses and then continue upwards, indefatigably agile. One of them, shortly before reaching the summit, lost his handhold as he was trying to reach out to an outcrop, fell and was smashed to pieces on the rocks below. His companions continued climbing, but another group set off from the bottom of the gorge up to the point where the battered body had become stuck between two rocks. They took it and at great danger to themselves dragged it down to the bottom where they prepared a stretcher, laid him out on it and covered him with a cloak before waiting to start the march again.

In the meantime the others had reached the top and blew a horn to give the signal to advance. The army moved forward and there were no signs of any of the Great King’s soldiers offering any resistance. At the first stop the Agrianians celebrated their companion’s funeral; they put him on a pyre of pine branches and cremated him while together they sang a mournful dirge. Then, after burying his ashes in an urn, together with his weapons and the buckle of his cloak, they got drunk and revelled together for the rest of the night.

I
T WAS JUST BEFORE
the end of the fourth watch when Alexander, half asleep, became aware of Peritas growling.

‘What’s up? What can you hear? Good boy, good boy . . . it must be a wolf, a lynx perhaps.’ He raised his eyes to the sky and saw the bonfires the Agrianians had lit on the sides of the gorge to show that the coast was clear, for the moment. Then he heard the noise of shuffling feet and confused whispers.

What’s up?’ he repeated, louder this time.

Hephaestion moved forward, ‘Oxhatres has come back with his Scythians – he wants to speak to you.’

‘Oxhatres? Let him through.’

From the bottom of the gorge three horsemen advanced, armed with bows across their shoulders, all completely covered with dust. Oxhatres, exhausted, dropped to the ground and walked forwards, swaying slightly. He had probably lost all feeling in his legs after having ridden beyond the limit. ‘King Darius deposed and made prisoner by Bessus,’ he gasped, ‘Satrap of Bactriana.’

‘The son of a bitch who very nearly took us from behind on the right at Gaugamela,’ said Leonnatus.

Oxhatres asked for help from an interpreter to be sure he would be understood and continued, ‘The King had left Ecbatana with six thousand horsemen, twenty thousand infantrymen and seven thousand talents of the royal treasure with the intention of razing the earth behind him and waiting for you at the Caspian Gates, but his soldiers ended up demoralized due to all their retreating; it was common knowledge that neither the Scythians nor the Kadusians would be sending any reinforcements. Many of them had begun to desert, and indeed we actually met some who gave us this information. They would abandon the encampment at night and spread out in the mountains and through the desert, while the scouts brought back news of the approach of your leading soldiers. At that point Bessus, supported by other Satraps – Satibarzanes, Barsaentes and Nabarzanes – arrested the King, had him put in chains and locked him up in a cart which is now on its way at top speed towards the farthest eastern provinces.’

‘Where are they now?’ asked Alexander. In the meantime his Companions had dressed and put on their weapons – someone had added wood to the fire and they all stood around it, feeling in their bones that they would soon be going into action.

‘Somewhere between us and the city of Hecatompylos, the capital of the Medians, but the gorge is free, and if you rush now with the cavalry you will manage to capture them. It is terrible that this ambitious traitor is enjoying the fruits of his treachery. If you are thinking of pursuing him, then I will come with you and I will be your guide.’

‘I don’t think you’re up to riding any more,’ replied Alexander. ‘You’re exhausted.’

‘Give me time to eat something and stretch my legs a little and you’ll see.’

Leptine appeared just then with a jug of‘Nestor’s Cup’ and Alexander nodded to her to serve some for Oxhatres, ‘Try this,’ he said, ‘it’s strong enough to bring people back from the dead.’ Then, turning to his companions, ‘All cavalry units prepare to move immediately.’

This was exactly the order they had all been waiting for. The trumpets blared out the signal to fall in, and immediately afterwards Alexander leaped on to his horse and set off at a gallop along the bottom of the gorge, beside Oxhatres, followed by Hephaestion, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Craterus and all the others. The
hetairoi
divisions set off as they became ready and as the space cleared down at the bottom of the narrow gorge.

They rode for hours, stopping only to let the horses get their breath back. The gorge was now opening up towards the valley, which led down towards the city, and the sun was just beginning to show from behind the snowy peaks of the Hyrcanian Mountains. Suddenly Oxhatres shouted, ‘Halt!’ and tugged on his horse’s reins. The animal snorted heavily and pulled up, shining with sweat, and Alexander and his men stopped too, arranging themselves in a wide circle and preparing their weapons. The King unsheathed his sword, Leonnatus unhooked his cleaver and everyone turned to the Persian Prince who was pointing to an object off at a distance of some two stadia.

‘It’s a carriage from the royal stables,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they abandoned it so as to be able to speed up.’

‘Let’s move forward and keep our wits about us,’ Alexander ordered. ‘It might be a trap. Hephaestion on that side, Ptolemy over there. You, Perdiccas, move forward along the road and see what the situation is just beyond that bend. Be careful.’

Oxhatres spurred his horse on towards the carriage and Alexander followed him, together with Leonnatus and Craterus.

The royal carriage was there in the middle of the road, apparently intact, its doors closed.

‘Wait,’ said Leonnatus. ‘Let me go first.’ He dismounted and wielded his axe as he opened the door and looked inside: ‘Oh, by Zeus . . .’

Alexander also approached – King Darius lay there on the floor, dressed in his country clothes and completely lacking in any sign of his regal status, apart from his majestic head: his long hair, his beard bedecked with rings and his thick black moustache which contrasted greatly with the deathly pallor of his skin. A wide red stain covered his chest, his clothes were soaked in blood right down to his belt, and his hands were bound together. Out of contempt they had used a gold chain for this job.

‘Bastards!’ Alexander swore indignantly.

‘Quickly, let’s pull him out!’ exclaimed Ptolemy. ‘Perhaps he’s still alive. Call Philip, quickly!’

Two soldiers delicately lifted the Great King’s body and placed it on the ground on a blanket. Philip arrived in a rush and knelt down by Darius, placing his ear on his chest to listen for a heartbeat.

‘Is he dead?’ Leonnatus asked.

Philip gestured for him to be quiet and continued to listen, ‘It’s incredible . . .’ he said. ‘He is still breathing.’

Everyone looked at one another. Alexander knelt close to Philip, ‘Is there anything you can do for him?’

The physician shook his head, then he began undoing the chain around Darius’s wrists, ‘This is all I can do – let him die as a free man. It’s a matter of moments now.’

‘Look!’ exclaimed Craterus. ‘He’s moving his lips . . .’

Oxhatres too knelt down and tended his ear towards the King’s lips for an instant, then he stood up with his eyes full of tears.

‘He is dead now,’ he said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘Great King Darius III is dead.’

Alexander moved closer: ‘Did he say anything?’ he asked. ‘Did you manage to hear his words?’

He said, “revenge”!’ he replied.

Alexander looked on his enemy, at the glassy eyes that had once stared at him for an instant on the battlefield at Issus, and he felt a deep sense of pity for this man who up until a few months before had sat on the highest throne on the earth, revered as a god by millions of subjects and who now, betrayed and murdered by his own friends, lay abandoned on a dusty road. There came to his mind the lines of the
Fall of Ilium
which describe the lifeless body of Priam, killed by Neoptolemus:

He murmured, ‘I will be the one to avenge your death. I swear it,’ and he closed Darius’s eyelids.

Alexander to Sisygambis, Great Queen Mother, Hail! Your son Darius is dead. He died not by my hand, nor at the hands of my men, but was killed by his own friends: they assassinated him and abandoned his body by the side of the road to Hecatompylos.

He was still breathing when I found him, but we were unable to do anything to help, apart from swearing to avenge the ignominy of his death. His last thoughts were certainly for you, just as my thoughts are with you now. This death is for me a great offence, just as it was for him because it has deprived us both of a fair match, face-to-face, which would have left us with a winner and would anyway have left the loser with some honour.

I will send him to you now, so that you may embrace him for one last time and weep for him as you accompany him to his final resting place. His body has been prepared so that it might survive this last, long journey to the ruins of Persepolis where the tomb that had been dug alongside the other Kings is ready to welcome him.

Arrange a fine funeral for him. As for me, I will not rest until I find the assassins and avenge his death. For a mother there is no greater grief than the loss of a child, but I beg you not to hate me – the gods at least have given you the possibility of mourning him and burying him, in keeping with your ancestral customs. My mother, who has been waiting for me for years, will perhaps not even be granted this concession.

Sisygambis closed the letter and cried for a long time in the intimacy of her own room, then she called the eunuchs and ordered them to prepare her small carriage and the horses, their mourning dress and the funeral offerings. She set off the following day across the land of the Ouxians, the people on whose behalf she had interceded with Alexander to stop him clearing them out of their own lands.