The rain kept falling. Rain mingled with hailstones spattered on the soldiers, who covered their heads with their shields. Violent winds pushed them over, battering them with broken branches. They struggled through the icy mud, looking in vain for some purchase by prodding their lances into the ground. The first row fell backward onto the second, who took all the rest with them. As they fell, they injured themselves on each other's weapons. Their terrified horses whinnied and tried to clamber back to their feet. Lightning tore through the darkness, striking the earth with a terrible crackling and briefly illuminating the trees so that they looked like Titans looming out of the earth. The Persians knelt to pray while the Greeks and Macedonians looked for a means of escape.
Still riding Bucephalus, I forged a route through the chaos. As the thunderclaps covered my men's desperate cries, I shouted at them, forcing them to get back up, to form orderly ranks and advance. The rain blinded me and turned my limbs to ice, rain that wanted to wipe Alexander's army from the face of the earth, rain acting as a messenger for unknown powers that wanted to stop me in my headlong race against myself.
The rain kept falling, weaker but persistent. We had pitched our tents and lit fires when a Persian soldier burst into my tent to report the pitiful state of his regiment, and then himself collapsed. I had him carried to my bed and continued my discussions with my generals. When the poor boy came to, he was startled: ashamed and terrified to find himself sleeping in Alexander's place, he prostrated himself at my feet and begged me to punish him.
"Soldier," I said, "Darius would have condemned you to death for sullying his throne. Alexander asked for you to be carried to his bed in order to save your life. With Darius your life had barely any value; you were an armed slave who could be broken and abandoned. With Alexander you are a free man, a respected warrior. Go back to your regiment and tell them to rest before the next battle."
That rain heralded painful ordeals. A young page called Hermolaus, the son of a noble Macedonian warrior called Sopo-lis, was secretly plotting to assassinate me. When his scheme was denounced by one of his accomplices, he was taken before an assembly of Macedonian soldiers because the law of our native land granted them the right to try him and condemn him. The young page acknowledged his crime without shame and used the opportunity to whip up the crowd.
"You, Alexander, have killed innocent people! Attalus, Par-menion, Philotas, Alexander of Lyncestis, and Cleitos all protected you with their shields in the face of enemies; they suffered injuries to guarantee victory and glory for you. But this is how you thanked them: Cleitos drenched your table with his blood, Philotas was tortured and exposed to jeering from the Persians he himself had defeated, you used Parmenion to kill Attalus and then had him assassinated too. That is how you rewarded your Macedonians!"
The soldiers cried out in protest, and Sopolis was tempted to throttle his own son. I calmed them with a firm wave of my hand, and invited Hermolaus to go on.
"We have endured too much of your cruelty as well as the humiliation you inflict on us by making us dress like barbarians! You love living like a Persian, but it is a Macedonian we want to fight for!"
Those names-Parmenion, Philotas, and Cleitos-echoed in my ears like so many thunderclaps. Those who had been father, lover, and friend to me had betrayed me and had all ended up in a bloodbath. But the evil they had sown lived on in men like Hermolaus. Even dead, they were still conspiring, urging soldiers to avenge their alleged innocence.
If Hermolaus were put to death, other conspirators would soon replace him. There would always be discontent, anger, rebel-lion-they go hand in hand with victory. For Alexander was not unique; there were as many different Alexanders as there were Macedonians, Persians, Greeks, soldiers, women, and children. Every people judged him according to their own culture and religion. Every man understood him according to his upbringing, his parentage, and his past. Those who had already met him judged him on just one word, one look, the color of his skin, what he was wearing, or his mood when they saw him. Those who had never seen him formed an opinion about him from rumors and legends that could inspire admiration or hatred. They all took what they needed from him and rejected him when that harmed their own interests.
Neither Plato nor Aristotle had ever pondered this phenomenon. No man had ever inspired such extreme passions. Loved and feared, desired and loathed, I had capitulated before this extension of myself. From East to West, I offered myself to the living and to those who would curse me or sing my praises after my death. I was their horrifying shade from the tenebrous depths, or a ray of sunlight awakening life and distributing poetry. I was their god and their sacrifice.
Soldiers of Macedonia, you have voted for Hermolaus to die! He and his accomplices will be stoned. But I have decided to spare members of their families, who, according to our law, should die along with the criminals.
"Alexander responds to violence with clemency! He is not afraid of betrayal, he knows how to live with conspirators, he feels no self-pity for his pain, he still trusts you.
"A king who has not survived betrayal is not a great man, he is not worthy of leading an army. To those who want to deflect me from the path of my fate, to those who want to stop my progress toward the Orient, I say, Show yourselves now! Alexander is waiting for you!
"Hermolaus accuses me of becoming a Persian. How could a Persian talk to you like this in Macedonian?
"What is a Macedonian? He is a man capable of marching for days on end without food or water, and who throws himself at enemies with ten times as many troops. He is a man who kills without batting an eye and who does not weep when his father and brothers fall.
"I am accused of exhausting you and dragging you into endless wars. I am accused of wanting to conquer the world. I am accused of spreading Macedonian glory to the very outposts of humanity. Soldiers, think of those who stayed in our native land and who are watching you! Aging men who envy you because you are marching with the greatest army in the world; children who dream of giving war cries on the battlefield; wives adorned with the gold you have sent them; and mothers weeping with pride when they hear of your victories.
"You, my young, strong, beautiful soldiers, are you already thinking of going home? Are you ready to renounce being masters of the world; would you prefer to go back and plow fields, tend sheep, and die of old age in a bed? Are you not afraid of being called cowards, weaklings, deserters? Are you not afraid to hear people muttering when you walk along the street: That's the man who left Alexander, he's hiding at home while his brothers, with a shield in one fist and a lance in the other, throw themselves at enemy ramparts and die in battle!
"Soldiers of Macedonia, in your footsteps cultures blend together, languages intertwine, children are born with the intelligence of the Jews, the refinement of the Persians, and the vitality of the Macedonians. In a thousand years, in ten thousand years, people will still sing of our magnificent army, and your names will be engraved in all eternity.
"As King of Asia, I lived as a simple soldier, you know that. All that is mine also belongs to you. I am your reason, your every word; you are my acts, my hope, the realization of who I am. My army and I are but one! What I want is what you want too: a path carved out by our weapons, a wide road to the very foot of the sun.
"To achieve this unprecedented conquest we need the help of the Greeks. We also need the Persians whom we defeated by our strength and converted by our ambition. The differences in language, customs, religion, and gods mean nothing. Alexander unites them in this one truth: without him, warriors are merely instruments of death. With him they are a celebration of life!
"Come now, soldiers, repeat after me:
"Weariness is fleeting.
"Nostalgia can be defeated.
"Courage is our strength.
"The Indus River is roaring, calling to us!"
The sun was obstructed by trees so vast that seven soldiers with open arms could not encircle them. Their gnarled branches wrapped in lichen and fungus stretched out horizontally, bearing roots that hung down to the ground. Creepers wider than a man's thigh clung round their trunks, entwining them to fill the gaps and reach the skies. We were lost, turning round in circles and coming back to where we had set off. Maps had betrayed us, and trading posts had long since disappeared. Instead of paths there were leaves, round, oval, serrated, shaped like feathers, hands, lances; and flowers, their seeping, gleaming, tufted throats exhaling a sweet, fetid perfume.
My soldiers broke through the vegetation with axes and swords. We all suffered the same discomforts as leeches dropped from the trees and gathered on every patch of bare skin. When we tore one off, another arrived, still more thirsty for blood. Our legs were nicked by venomous thorns, and the swelling and itching spread all over our bodies. We scratched ourselves till we broke the skin. Some soldiers were bitten by snakes and died of sudden fever; others forgot my orders and rushed to drink from ponds, only to succumb to debilitating diarrhea.
Seeing our expedition reduced to endless suffering, I took out a map, traced a straight line all the way to the Indus, and ordered my men to set fire to the trees where they formed impenetrable walls. The flames broke through the trees, and sunlight poured into the forest. Tigers, monkeys, snakes, and clouds of birds fled the columns of smoke. Near-naked men with tattooed faces and piercings in their ears and noses emerged from their hiding places in the luxurious vegetation, brandishing weapons.
Whistling arrows, the screams of men fighting, and the clash of weapons woke me from the torpor of that wearying march. Turning a deaf ear to my advisers, who begged me to keep to the rear, I headed up the Macedonian troops to give my men courage and strength. But the fighting was more difficult here: my troops were used to confrontations in formation and were thrown by these men coming down from the branches, appearing from the undergrowth, and vanishing up rock faces. Their archers clung to creepers and jumped from tree to tree without putting a foot to the ground, and their trained monkeys threw themselves at our soldiers and bit their faces.
On the ninth day our men abandoned their horses, and the enemy no longer needed to take refuge in the trees. The injured fought to the death, and the living, covered in blood, went on slitting each other's throats in appalling hand-to-hand combat. I had lost my helmet, my lance, and my sword but grabbed the king of the savages and we rolled to the ground, his hands squeezing my throat. I saw stars against a dazzling white sky. As I struggled to free myself, I kneed him: my vision cleared and the enemy's hairy fingers released their grip. I gathered the last of my strength, raised myself to my knees, and shattered his skull with a rock I grasped. His hideous face grew bigger and bigger as I hammered at his head, screaming, while his brains oozed over my fingers. His eyes rolled upward, his lips drew back to reveal yellow teeth, and he breathed the unbearable exhalation of death over me.
For three days after that battle I shut myself away in the darkness of my tent and saw no one. I lay inert on my bed, surrounded by dancing flames. The fires of the shades encircled me; yellow flames burned me, blue flames chilled me to the marrow, black flames devoured me, and I ran screaming-there was fire everywhere. A wave of it swept over me, followed by another, and in the middle of those flames were dark, silent, icy corridors. I was burning but I was cold, fleeing while my teeth chattered. Every now and then I remembered I was Alexander, but the flames laughed and growling voices chorused:
The sun, where is the sun?
Where is Apollo who made me invincible? The flames grimaced at me and danced frenetically while the voices rang out:
"I don't want to be destroyed!" I cried out. "I am Alexander! I am the king of all men, let me go!"
But still the flames held me, stifling me. Voices whispered to me, saying there was no escape; I struggled and prayed to Apollo to send me his rays. Suddenly a beam of light pierced the shadows. I clung to it like a ladder, climbing back toward life, only to find I was lying in my tent in total darkness.
Feeling my way, I stood up, then tripped, fell and stood again. I opened the door and saw shapes coming toward me. Thinking they were talking flames, I took a step back. Then my eyesight cleared, and I recognized Hephaestion, Crateros, Cassander, and Bagoas.
"We greet you," they cried respectfully. "We greet you, Alexander, King of Asia, and wish you a long life!"
I came back to my senses under my friends' watchful eyes and surrounded by gleaming weapons.
"Bring me food!" I ordered. "I want to eat this life, to devour it. Bring me drink! I want feasting and drunkenness!"
My eunuchs came running, my pages busied themselves. Soon there were tables laden with fruit, meat, pitchers, and goblets. Generals, commanders, and a whole display of beautiful young men lounged on soft carpets. I took the first young man I liked in my arms, and the heat of his youthful body warmed my limbs that still felt so cold; his kisses made me forget the burning scars. I gave him orders to press mangoes, grapefruit, and pineapple over my face, showering me with the sugar of life as I inhaled the fragrance of nature. For tomorrow, under the ground, the sky will be black forever and there will be no more pleasure.
As I brought the umpteenth goblet to my lips, I remembered I had a wife: I threw down the goblet and called Bucephalus. Despite Bagoas's weeping and exhortations, despite Hephaestion's sad expression, I set off at a gallop with a troop of one hundred soldiers. I traveled for many days, flying across the land, I could not wait to have that feeling once again, the most vibrant feeling of earthly life: holding Alestria in my arms.
I renounced sleep, forcing my soldiers to ride on through the night. I could not wait any longer. Waiting meant risking death itself.
At last I saw the ornate outline of my flags, then a silhouette. Alestria was waiting on horseback at the entrance to the camp. I galloped on, and she kicked her mare toward me. I leaped to the ground and ran over to her; she slipped from her horse's back and ran to me. How long it seemed to take! Let me reach her before the underground fires leap up and take me back to their kingdom! Alestria tripped, then tossed off her golden shoes and tied up the bottom of her tunic. I opened my arms, and she threw her arms around my neck, pressing her weight against me. I carried her all the way to our tent, where I tore off her clothes and undressed myself in a flash. My lips clung to hers, my body found hers. Her cool skin soothed my worries, and her tongue rolling over my cheeks and my chest put out the shadowy fires.
Bear me a child, Alestria! This child will be proof of our union and will have the purity I have lost. This child from your belly will wipe clean the horrors sown by Alexander. I am not worthy to be king. He shall be, though. He will be transparent as the glacier and ardent as a mountain on fire. He will have my dignity and your magic, the innocence of a girl married to the power of a warrior king.
I did not wait for daybreak before setting off on my return journey. I left behind the tears of my queen. I left behind her hair, which smelled of roses and mint. I left behind her wooden comb, her golden hair grips, her body curled up in despair. I galloped to flee my own pain while a voice inside my head screamed that I would never see her again, that that was our last embrace. Tears flowed over my cheeks but were dried by the wind. I urged my horse on to drive away my thoughts: I must carry on with my war.
I rejoined my Macedonian troops, who complained that their legs were lacerated by the undergrowth. They showed me where their arms had been devoured by leeches, hornets, and mosquitoes, and dragged me to where the injured lay dying with gangrenous wounds. Hepahestion, Crateros, and Cassander took turns trying to convince me we must turn back. I clenched my fists and reasoned with them: beyond the forest there were cities more wonderful than Babylon, civilizations more evolved and religions more sublime than any westerner could have imagined. All these wonders had to be ours. The last of my friends withdrew, and Bagoas appeared to talk to me of conspiracies: I listened to him and then sent him away.
Parrots chattered in the trees, and tigers roared in the distance. Then there was silence around the encampment. A rustling sound from deep within the woods wound between the tents, making the campfires flicker before disappearing into the trees.
Having recovered from the initial shock, the barbarian soldiers threw down their weapons and prostrated themselves, crying: "Spirits! spirits!"
Standing outside my tent, I turned away from my soldiers' misery, and stared up at the tops of those dark, shady trees. Alexander would find a way to overcome the conspiracy of men and spirits. The suffering was only short-lived. I must keep on advancing and would never retreat.
hordes of savages plagued us again. Having not mastered the art of molding metal, they used stone daggers and bludgeons made of rocks bound to sticks. They launched wooden arrows dipped in lethal poison. The Persians explained that these hairy-bodied people, the Gonya, were descended from apes. A million years earlier an epidemic had struck the men living in the depths of the forest, and they could no longer couple with their women. To ensure the continuity of the race, the tribes had captured great apes to inseminate their women. The Gonya believed in gods, I learned, but the apes had no religion-that was their difference.
The rainy season was upon us, and storms broke out several times a day. In the rare bright periods the Gonya appeared, wearing coats and hats of sewn banana leaves, to continue with their offensives. They fell into the traps we had dug in the ground and got caught in nets I had strung up between the trees. A succession of strange creatures paraded before me: some extended their own teeth with boar tusks; others had a short bony tail between their buttocks; some were tattooed; others were painted, pierced, or adorned with feathers, amulets, and tiger's tails.
They were interrogated by my Persian interpreters, who spoke so many languages that they understood the Gonyas' speech in a matter of days. After days of marching through the mud they took us to the village of the Boonboongonya tribe, which supplied poison to the entire region.
The village was huddled against a steep rock face and sheltered from the outside world by gigantic trees that acted as pillars for a thick wall of ivy covered in thorny creepers. My soldiers tried to breach this wall, but immediately developed a rash on their hands and arms; they rolled on the ground screaming in pain. Communicating in gestures, one of our guides explained that a labyrinth of seven walls of vegetation protected this ancient tribe, and only its own members and their monkeys knew how to get through it. On my orders, my soldiers camouflaged themselves and watched the comings and goings. In three days they captured dozens of monkeys carrying bamboo tubes full of deadly venom; these were intended for neighboring tribes who gave them hashna-the grass of happiness-in exchange. One of the Gonya prisoners told us it was rare to meet a Boonboongonya because they were famed for their laziness.
The monsoon was over, and I forced my way into the village with fire. My troops took cover beneath their shields and finally broke into the kingdom of poisoners, but they encountered no hail of pebbles or lethal arrows. A strange sense of calm reigned over the village, where the only sounds were birdsong and the whisper of a waterfall. Dense shrubs and flowers shaped like water lilies with pistils like red snake's heads wound into an intoxicating labyrinth. I followed the monkeys in secret passageways to reach their masters: a group of Boonboongonya were sunbathing outside their huts, men with matted hair, a tiny tail at the end of their backs, and wearing a seashell to hide their genitals. Some were asleep on the bare earth; others rubbed yellow and black powder into their skin. Seeing us approaching, they smiled to reveal green teeth: they chewed hashna, I was told, which made them dream with their eyes open in broad daylight.
All at once we heard piercing cries, and a group of Boon-boongonya females appeared, naked save for the red paint that covered them. They threw down handfuls of snakes, millipedes, and pestle-shaped stones. My guards were quick to grab them, but they in turn screamed, watching their hands go purple as they came in contact with the creatures.
The males of this tribe did not work: the women could cast a spell over the monkeys to enlist their help in their work and to climb trees to pick fruit, which was their main source of food. They drugged crocodiles and taught them to chase snakes. They covered their children in a paste made of poisons from plants, centipedes, and spiders; this made their thick hair fall out, leaving smooth skin and unwrinkled faces. When a crocodile brought them a snake, they attached it to an instrument and tortured it until it spat out its most deadly venom. Mixed with black powder and toxic roots and leaves, and pounded by the monkeys, it became the lethal concoction known as boonboon.
Like all Gonya peoples, the Boonboongonya lived as a community and had no concept of family. The males did not have a role as fathers, and the females bore children that belonged to the whole tribe. Unlike other Gonya, though, the Boonboongonya had lived a long time in isolation, and their blood had degenerated. The males had grown so lazy they no longer even bothered to mount their females; that was why there were so few young. Those who looked young were in fact old but still had beautiful skin thanks to the poison wraps; those who looked old were over a hundred.
My soldiers were disappointed not to have found an antidote to the deadly poison, as the Boonboongonya did not make one. And they were horrified when, on the night of a full moon, they heard wails so harrowing their skin crawled. The Boonboongo-nya had congregated near the waterfall and chosen one male and one female from among them. Without any ceremony they tore them limb from limb while they were still alive, grilling hunks of their flesh on the fire, tossing their organs to the crocodiles, and giving the bones to the monkeys to gnaw.
My soldiers slaughtered the cannibals with their lances. Their blood spilled, and when it came in contact with my men's skin, it left red patches that itched terribly. Any unfortunate whose eyes were splattered with this blood lost his sight for several days. I asked for the black and orange millipedes to be released from their containers of woven leaves and ordered that the huts be set alight. The flowers caught fire, and with them instruments of torture, wooden mortars impregnated with poison, and vessels made of bamboo. The bitter smell released by them gave my men migraines.
My army did not even wait till dawn to decamp and flee those nauseous flames. The boonboon monkeys ran after us, moaning. One of them leaped at Bucephalus and climbed onto my shoulder, hanging round my neck and not wanting to leave me.
I named it Nicea.
"The Macedonians don't understand why you have abandoned the sumptuous palaces," Hephaestion told me, "or the hordes of concubines and the constant banqueting, and all for this endless marching across the arid Bactrian mountains onto the Scythians' steppes and into the luxuriant forests of the Indies, where you have to battle with monsoon rains, ape-men, and snakes. They now realize that Alexander seeks neither gold nor glory, and they no longer believe in your constant promise of diamonds. Without the lure of booty, without dazzling victories to flatter their warrior vanity, their every step is weighed down by exhaustion. That is why discontent has spread like an epidemic."
"Hercules tackled the Nemean lion, the Erymanthian boar, and the Cerynian hind," I replied. "He slew the birds on Lake Stymphalus and the Minotaur in Crete, and he put Cerberus in chains. The ape-men are nothing compared to the monsters the hero of yesteryear brought down. Our soldiers will soon see the wealthy cities of the Indies; they will sleep on soft cushions and send home caravans of gold and precious stones."
"The weakness of strength is to believe only in strength," said Hephaestion.
Irritated, I said nothing and sought out Nicea. I had tended and groomed him myself, and the little monkey now had golden fur again and wore a scarlet tunic embroidered with gold thread that I had tailored specially for him. He brought us a tray of fruit, chose the best of the bananas, peeled it carefully, and handed it to me. I smiled.
"Do you know what our soldiers are saying?" Hephaestion went on.
"That the Gonya steep their arrows in poison and the Macedonians in slander," I replied wearily.
"They say you have gone mad!" cried Hephaestion. "They say you have fought too much, galloped too far, and slept too little! Your mind is no longer lucid, hence your stubbornness, your refusal to hear any complaints or listen to advice!"
I made Nicea jump onto my lap.
"Why risk your life fighting creatures that are not even human? Why go on when you have already conquered Persia and been recognized as King of Asia? If you were struck by a poisoned arrow tomorrow, all that glory and the crown would no longer be yours. You, Alexander, do not even have an heir!"
His words hurt me, but I held my temper in check. I opened up a silver casket and showed him the leaves in there.
"Look, Hephaestion, here is the secret of this war: they are hashna leaves. They do not grow in this forest, and the Gonya know nothing of cultivating the land. Men are supplying them with this mild drug on condition that they make war with us. Men are manipulating them to attack us. Men are afraid of us and want to drive us out of the Indies before we take their cities by storm and claim their treasures for ourselves."
Hephaestion wanted to reply, but I interrupted him:
"I have been told of a great king called Poros. He is so rich, it is said, that his elephants are covered in precious stones. This gallant warrior dreams of uniting all the kingdoms of the Indies. I have arranged to meet this man, Hephaestion, I must confront him. If I die in combat, you will take our troops back to Persia. If I win the battle, I shall share with you and with all my soldiers the unimaginable treasures of the Orient."
"Are you really so blind? The gods are sending you signs to stop this absurd campaign. The degenerate state of the Gonya proves we have reached the limits of humanity. Beyond this forest there are no more men but the kingdoms of monsters and wild beasts. And do you, the great Alexander, want to lose your soldiers down to the last man in order to be king of those lowly creatures?"
Hephaestion shot a look laden with contempt at Nicea, then withdrew.
Weary of arguing with him, I let him leave. Hephaestion could not understand me: his dream of seeing me venerated as king of the Greeks and Persians had been realized, and any other unexpected dreams were mere poetry and madness to him, a Macedonian nobleman raised by Aristotle like myself.
Two days later in battle an arrow shot from behind drove into the crest of my helmet. Had the soldier's hand wavered? Or had he been ordered to threaten me? Days passed, and still the army could not identify the murderer. I suspected a conspiracy among the highest ranks and entrusted Bagoas with carrying out a secret investigation of my friends' loyalty.
The eunuch reported back all the conversations his men overheard: Hephaestion was angry with me for being so obstinate; Cas-sander still could not forgive me for marrying an Asian of obscure parentage; Crateros complained that I had grown hard-hearted and said I was deaf; Perdiccas was still mourning the loss of Cleitos, whom I had killed with my own hand; Ptolemy, the eldest and most restrained, was convinced I should be forced to take a year's rest. They all referred to me as the tyrant behind my back.
Shut away in my tent, I taught Nicea how to play a musical instrument. I lay on my bed listening to the monkey plucking the strings of his lute and pictured Alexander, Hephaestion, Cassander, Crateros, Lysimaque, and Perdiccas at school together. At first we had been inseparable, all experiencing our first kisses and embraces at the same time. There were the fits of laughter, the arguments and reconciliations followed by exalted oaths of loyalty. Alexander was right at the middle of that virile little world, playing the capricious girl who knew just how to secure promises and protection.
Those young boys swore they would never leave each other; they decided to conquer the world together. Along the way on our campaigns, carnal love had given way to friendship, and each of us in turn had taken lovers. That band of happy reveling friends had gradually split up as they waged wars and conquered lands. They had all lost their innocence, and I had become an arbitrator, responsible for sharing out glory and wealth: I was both their master and their slave, handing out titles and promotions. They plotted to try to force their ideas on me; they came and begged me to oversee their lovers' upbringing; they formed a united front against anyone who succeeded in getting close to me; they made sure my relationships never lasted long. Their possessiveness grew the farther we marched away from Macedonia. Anything not from our country they condemned as a perversion, a whim, a disloyalty. The Persian clothes and customs I had adopted, the barbarian food I so loved, Bagoas the slave I had given a position, Alestria the Asian orphan I made my queen… all were offenses that drove Cleitos to insult me in public. By killing him with my lance, I had broken an oath of eternal friendship.
Nicea abandoned the instrument and turned to massaging my head. The love and gratitude I read in his gaze were not enough to console me. I tore myself from this sadness by turning my thoughts to war.
Withdrawing from the Indies and taking my troops back to Persia would mean giving the Indian princes time to rally around Poros. My soldiers were so haunted by the nightmare of crossing the Indies that-once their minds were relaxed, their bellies fed, and their muscles unwound-they would not have the courage to suffer a second time. Only the ignorant have temerity. To rest was to give up: we had to advance.
Lying in Darius's bed in Babylon, I had laughed at the thought of my victory. Now, in the middle of a hostile forest that featured on no map, I laughed at the thought of my defeat. Losing his friends was a failure for Alexander the Great. Isolated in my tent, betrayed on all sides, I was back to the loneliness of the little boy watching the stars. The pinnacle of my life as a warrior had come full circle. Alone and disarmed, I still had the same dream, though, the same obsession: to conquer beauty.
The headlong gallop toward wonderment knows no limits.
Wonderment is the gold of the sun.
I, Alexander, son of Apollo and Ammon, will not renounce it.