Alestria had lost her bloom. Her cheeks were no longer rounded, and her eyes had a strange gleam to them. Against her pale face her pupils had become dark stars lit by black flames. I never suspected her condition-for Alexander destroyed everything he touched-until the day I heard two women whispering behind a sheet hanging on a line: "The queen is with child!"
Alestria with child! I burst into her tent. She was sitting before her mirror, pinning up her hair.
"Is it true that you are with child?" In the mirror her eyes avoided mine. "Are you with child?"
She lowered her head and said nothing. I left her tent, smacking the door closed behind me.
Alestria had gone mad; there was no other explanation. Bewitched by Alexander's words, she had decided to renounce our ancestors and put her life in danger for him.
"The queen is with child!" The rumor did the rounds of the city, spreading along trade routes and propagated all over the Indies. I did not believe it: Alexander had invented this to encourage his army to advance, Alestria had imagined it to satisfy a husband increasingly impatient for an heir. It was all just a conspiracy conjured by men who, thanks to this good news, hoped to win back the trust of their soldiers and incite them to fight.
The king arrived, radiantly happy. I greeted his happiness with a heavy heart and an icy expression. Unaware of my anger, the king congratulated me, saying I was to become an aunt. How could Alestria's frail body carry a child? How could that slender silhouette, those narrow hips, deliver a life? How could anyone cheat the curse of our ancestors? I did not understand my queen's smile, or the king's joy. She was going to die: they should have been weeping, but they were laughing!
Alexander ordered three days and three nights of banqueting all over the empire. In our encampment a huge gathering of generals, commanders, soldiers, workmen, seamstresses, and sandal makers swarmed around the fires to drink to the thousand-year reign of the future prince. Alexander was drunk, beating a drum while his monkey-an even more ridiculous creature than the eunuch Bagoas-plucked the strings of a lute. Alestria kept having to withdraw to be sick. I watched the whole devastating spectacle without a word. My queen had betrayed me, but I said nothing to reproach her; I sulked in silence. I continued to serve this woman who had led us into betrayal and captivity, because she was my queen and my sister. To each their own war. To each their own brand of madness. While Alexander fought beyond the frontiers of the known world, Alestria overstepped forbidden boundaries and advanced toward an unknown fate.
She had violent headaches, and still she grew thinner. Unlike some women who grow more beautiful in pregnancy, Alestria grew plain. Brown marks appeared at her temples, her cheeks became gaunt, and her forehead looked disproportionately tall and ponderous. But her husband had regained all his lust for life. Alestria was dying, and Alexander was thriving. He talked loudly, jubilantly, took the queen in his arms, patted her stomach, and boasted about how beautiful she was.
"Look how beautiful my Alestria is!" he exulted, calling me as a witness. Then, not waiting for any remark from me, he added: "Ania, you shall watch over my child! I spent thirty years looking for a queen," he confessed with tears in his eyes. "I rode all the way to Asia to meet her. I survived injury, poisons, the cold, sunstroke, evil spells, and exhaustion to reach the happiness I have today. My god has blessed me, how lucky I am!"
I said nothing. All I could read on my queen's blotchy face were suffering and death. I slipped out of the encampment to stray through the forests. Despite the soldiers' warnings I felt no fear: no tigers or boa constrictors, no ape-men or speaking parrots, could frighten me. Armed with my two daggers forged by the People of the Volcano, I walked on and sat down at the foot of a tree to shed a few tears. Why had my life changed overnight? Why had the vastness of the steppes become the torments of the jungle? Why had the simplicity of the earth and sky become the labyrinth of this forest teeming with smells and colors and sounds? I no longer knew where to find good and where to find evil. I could no longer distinguish between beauty and sadness. Had I lost my mind? Was I, too, haunted by spirits? Where were they taking me? Toward the light or toward the shades?
I wept again and again until all the despair was emptied out of me and hope filled me once again. Then I wiped away my tears and went back to the tented city, to Alexander and Alestria. Although lost in my own distress, I knew that the God of Ice had not abandoned me. He was making me tackle a slope where the north wind blew hard and night seemed to go on forever.
In the past Alestria had led the troop of Amazons, and I, Ania, had galloped behind her without a care in the world.
Now my god had separated me from my queen.
With no guide, with no friend, alone, I had to climb the glacier.
In the land of the Indies night was dark and the moon icy. The river Hydaspe whispered in the distance while a Persian soldier played the flute nearby.
I had seized the Birdless Rock that resisted Hercules in ancient times. This conquest was a more dazzling exploit than the twelve labors accomplished by the son of Zeus. From now on no hero and no mortal could act as an example for Alexander.
I was slipping into the infinity of the universe, oppressed and yet comforted by solitude. I could still hear Philip's howls and Olympias's weeping. I could still hear my own impassioned speeches and the bustle of soldiers marching toward Persia. But they were now merely the feeble echo of previous lives. Countless battles had raised me to the world of the night and sparkling lights. Far from earthly fates, up in the star-filled sky, I had no friends anymore, no troops. I heard neither their calls nor their cries. I was accompanied by silence, sometimes threatening, sometimes soothing. Death had never felt so close, but I was less hostile to its company. It was once a constant threat, but now I saw it as the accomplishment of my person, as release for my army. I trusted the gods who had granted me the time to wage war, and I waited for the final day when death would make me immortal.
Alestria's belly was growing. I had an heir! The thought of it worried me and filled me with joy. Would I be a good father? Would I have my mother's patience and Aristotle's wisdom? Would I be able to make of him a courageous and well-reasoned prince? How could I bequeath him this vast empire I myself had never succeeded in governing?
I had always desired strong young men; they were like so many rocks strewn along my way, tackled with tact and determination. Born in different lands and brought up in different cultures, some understood the calendar of the stars, others counted using sticks or had their own strange way of saddling horses. Each of them harbored a hidden treasure, unwritten poetry, an understanding of the birth of the world. Once we were naked, our differences melted away. Male flesh is a wild land in which no civilization and no religion has ever taken seed. Two men together is a meeting with oneself; it is confrontation and physical gratification in step with each other.
Alestria was not my reflection. I understood nothing of her body, even less of this growing belly. I did not seek gratification in her: I united myself with her strength, which perpetuated life.
I found Alestria disconcerting; her metamorphosis amazed me, frightened me, and fascinated me. I kept taking her in my arms, breathing in the smell of her and touching her swelling breasts. Her hair was becoming dry, her cheeks blotchy, her lips cracked. All these flaws, like the impurities of the moon, served only to make her shine more brightly.
I begged her to undress, and lay next to her, fingering this body in which another body was germinating. I pressed my ear to her stomach and listened to the rustling of a new world. I looked between her legs and wondered how my son would reach me through that tiny channel. I was gripped by a nameless fear, nauseous and vertiginous. I felt even more vulnerable and disarmed than my pregnant queen. I was afraid she might trip, afraid of conspiracies; I could not leave her side. I took her everywhere with me and settled her where my eyes could always alight on her. Her presence reassured me. She and our child, they were all that was left of my journey toward the future.
Inside a man's body I surrendered to a war of pleasure. The struggle was a game of balance, a dance of well-mastered movements. In Alestria's belly I was absorbed, I became clumsy. I carried her heavy body on my back; she held me to her breasts swollen with milk. We flew together through the night. We flew together toward the dawn.
Alestria had stopped talking of going to the front. Alexander had succeeded in holding his queen back by giving her a child. She had stopped waiting for the king outside the city gates but stayed calmly in her tent talking to her belly. She spent her time sewing children's clothes, but she was not gifted with a needle. She sewed so badly that her servants secretly unpicked her work and pieced it together again. Unaware of her ineptitude, my queen took pleasure in her sewing.
Having always been distant with the warriors' wives, she now started spending time with them and asking them about childbirth. Women were eager to give her advice, to offer her particular food and drink, and to shower her with flattery, which made her smile dreamily.
The king interrupted his campaigns to watch over her. I saw the loathsome Bagoas prowling around our city once more. He had grown even fatter, his double chin gleaming amid the soldiers' thin, honed faces. Alexander had brought back an army sickened and demoralized by wind, rain, and arrows.
The city was abuzz with drumming, singing, and banqueting once more. The king and his men drank to the birth of his heir. Alestria wore a veil to receive their compliments, and I stood behind her, knowing she was tired and suffering.
But Alestria was proud, and she wanted to please the man she loved. She stood close to him like a faithful sentry. Back in her tent, she fell asleep exhausted, but the king, who was always overflowing with ideas and energy, would not let her rest. He woke her so soon, asking her to go with him to inspect his army or to watch them in training: he was devising a new plan of attack.
Worn down by such demands, she fainted. She was brought back to our quarters, and I, Ania, fussed over her to bring her round. She woke slowly, looking lost, as if she had been on a long journey. The king sent messengers to inquire how she was, and these boorish soldiers-who had been given instructions to see her with their own eyes-argued with me at the door of her tent. Alestria rose to her feet, changed her clothes, and asked to be taken to her husband. Alexander was a pitcher full of cool fresh water, and she wanted to drink it down to the last drop.
Alestria's belly swelled while her body grew thinner. It was such a small belly! Compared to the great mountains borne by other pregnant women, hers was a tiny hill. Unaware of its meager volume, the king and queen went into ecstasies every time they looked at it.
They spent hours admiring that belly. Alexander stroked it and pressed his cheek up against it, speaking to her navel. Alestria lay smiling, and she too stroked it, answering for her belly. The king and queen conversed through that belly, both laughing and crying, both forgetting that it was abnormally small, both believing that from this minute hill a great man would be born.
They argued over his name. They argued over each item of clothing he would wear. They argued over the choice of tutor: Alexander wanted to summon Aristotle, while Alestria did not want it to be a man.
Alexander sought out midwives, not trusting any of the women in his entourage. The queen's belly had become the focus of all intrigues and plots. Everyone knew that the birth of an heir would annihilate the generals' hopes of acceding to the throne in the event of Alexander's death. In the end he conceived the extraordinary idea of entrusting this task to Bagoas. I, Ania, screamed with indignation.
Bagoas, that glistening worm! Bagoas, who slept with men to sound out how loyal they were to the king? Bagoas the informer, the spy, the torturer who was neither man nor woman? He would not touch my queen's little toe! It would be I, Ania, I the Amazon, who drew this child from that belly, despite the curse of our ancestors.
I cannot tell you where I come from, my child. In the early days of my life, I crawled among wild horses, drinking a mare's milk when I was hungry and thirsty. I pulled at her mane and heaved myself onto her back, then clung to her neck as she galloped. My first mother smelled of sunlight, grass, and dung. She licked me from head to foot and showed her yellow teeth when she laughed. Under the starry sky of the steppes she slept on her feet with me between her legs. She taught me that language is a music and that whoever opens their heart to the music understands the language of grasshoppers, butterflies, birds, wolves, and trees.
One day nomads appeared on the horizon and chased us for days on end. One after another the horses were captured with a long rope, and I was taken to the chief's wife. My second mother taught me to dress myself and walk with shoes. She burrowed me under a blanket with her children, and I escaped at night to sleep outside the tent under the stars. One evening I was woken by the thunder of hooves: horsemen brandishing sabers descended on our tents, killing the whole tribe in their sleep and stealing their horses and cattle. Hiding in a bush with my hands over my ears, I saw and heard nothing. I lived among the corpses until the day another tribe passed and put me up on a horse's back, but I never stayed with my adoptive families after that, leaving them after one season. I was too afraid of seeing them massacred by the horsemen galloping out of the huge opening between the earth and the sky.
One day I heard the legend of the Amazons who had no fear of men, and I wanted to be like them. I walked alone toward the north of the steppes. Three seasons later an Amazon discovered me and took me to their queen. She undressed me, pointed at the scar on my breast, and wept tears of joy. I do not remember where that scar came from. It looks like an iron branding or an animal bite. It is the secret inscribed by the God of Ice.
I did not see my mother Talaxia very often. It was a time of great upheaval: the tribes on the steppes fought constantly with each other. After several seasons of drought, good pastureland was rare, and horses and cattle were starving. Men turned to pillaging.
The queen disappeared frequently, and I was raised by Tan-kiasis, her serving woman, whom I called my aunt. It was she who fed me with goat's and cow's milk. Sometimes we had to break camp and gallop for days on end, pursued by our attackers. She tied me against her chest, and I rested my head between her breasts. Sometimes we were the ones who launched an attack, and then she would tie me to her back. I could feel her muscles tensing and relaxing. I clung to her heat and sweat, listening to the war cries reverberating through her body, and dozing to the clash of weapons and the whinnying of horses.
My aunt smelled of goat's milk and chrysanthemums. In summer I liked to lick the salt from her skin while she fanned me with large leaves and sung me tunes of the steppes. When my mother returned, her mare's hooves made the ground shake, and the pungent smell of unknown lands preceded her. She leaned over me and pinched my cheeks. She gave orders in her powerful voice, and all the girls started packing up: we had to leave. Every time my mother appeared, it was the sign for another departure. I was afraid of her; I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay between my aunt's breasts, at peace, forever.
My mother was strong and brutal, my aunt tender and gentle. Talaxia rode horses and fought with men. Tankiasis managed the girls and defended me. She brought me up to be intrepid and spontaneous as the queen, and tender and thoughtful as her serving woman. I am the fruit of two women who were sisters and lovers. I am the fruit of their love, which ended only when, one after the other, they left this lowly world.
One day I saw my mother return with one breast pierced by an arrow embellished with green feathers. My aunt called for a large pyre to be built and for Talaxia's body to be laid on top of it. With her hair awry and her body covered in sweat, she prostrated herself before that fire for several days.
Talaxia and Tankiasis had met when they were still young. My aunt had been married to a tribal chief, one of many wives living on colorful soft carpets in a vast tent. She had left her husband and her child, betrayed her family, abandoned her servants, torn her beautiful clothes, and handed out her jewels. She left in the middle of a dark night, on the back of a mare belonging to a woman known as the queen of Siberia. Talaxia and Tankiasis loved each other and never left each other. But my mother was not faithful; she made other seductions and had countless lovers, both men and women. She brought home other young women frantic with desire and admiration for her. Tankiasis-who had given up her original name, her mother, her sisters, and her child-accepted all these hardships because of that extraordinary emotion called love.
Tankiasis crouched before the pyre while the flames danced in her eyes. Her queen was no more: Talaxia, the indefatigable warrior, conqueror of men and women, would never seduce again. She had abandoned everything she had conquered, abandoned all her prey and her harvests, in order to travel up to the skies along that pillar of black smoke.
My aunt stayed by the pyre until the last spark faltered and went out. She took the decision to stay for my sake, to finish her instruction, to teach me the silent prayers that respond to the call of the glacier. Then one morning she left without a trace. Tan-kiasis went to join Talaxia among the stars, leaving me with an enigma: What is love? Is it a song with no odor or color or melody, but which bewitches the living and the dead?
My child, you carry in your veins all the patience of Tan-kiasis, who stitched every one of my garments, and the strength of Talaxia, who trained me on horseback. Are their souls rejoicing up there in the wind, the rain, and the zigzag of lightning? The fruit of their love has found fulfillment and now carries the fruit of a love with the king of warriors. You, my child, you in turn will bear fruit, and so the tribe of lovers will be perpetuated.
Ania is afraid of love and suffering, but she will help me bring you into the world. She will raise you, and you will call her your aunt. She will teach you the secrets of the Amazons, and you will teach her to love the volcano, which is just as tall and ardent as the glacier.
My child, you will be strong, courageous, and sensual as your father. You will be calm, reflective, and inspired as your mother.
You will take command of the army when your parents grow old. You will continue to open up roads in a world where there are no roads. You will wear the laurels of warrior men and know the language of warrior women. You will be a tiger and a bird, a king and a queen.
I am waiting for you, my child! Your father is impatient for you to be here! I can feel you moving, you kick so hard it hurts, you strike me with your fists, butt me with your head… you make my own head spin.
My child, you leap and bite and tear my flesh!
You cannot wait to be born, you cannot wait to sit in your father's arms, you cannot wait to become a soldier and meet your queen!
My child, I want all the treasures of this world for you, I want a life of battles for you, I want every bird and every horse for you.
When strength withdraws from our bodies, when Alexander and Alestria leave, hand in hand, to join glorious souls among the stars, you will be our flame, our word, our eyes.
My child, Alexandrias, sleep now. Sleep and have beautiful dreams, sleep and have a wondrous awakening!
Sleep, my child, you shall be king of the steppes, forests, and plains, queen of deserts, rivers, and oceans.
Sleep, my child, sleep peacefully. I pray that the God of Ice will send you a beautiful wife.
In the heart of the night the female's arms and legs thrash like tentacles. Her vagina opens like a carnivorous plant and slowly spits out a head, a hand, a foot. A life emerges. Blood streams. And in the middle of it the whitish cord. I seize it. I look for the knife to cut it, but it slips from my fingers. I reach for it. The child is already coiling in the gelatinous cord and strangling itself.
I wake with tears in my eyes. I, Ania, loathed the work of a midwife! I loathed myself for witnessing several births so that I would be ready for the queen! The Amazons were right to refuse this thankless task. Why was Alestria insisting on producing an heir when there were so many women crawling round Alexander who could have carried one instead of her? Why was she waging this pointless battle when other more experienced women could have won the fight for her?
The door to my tent was torn open, and one of the girls of Siberia ran in.
"The queen's in labor!" she cried.
I leaped up and ran barefoot to the queen's tent. Alestria was lying on the carpet, racked by violent convulsions. She had torn her tunic and was thrashing and moaning, trying to get to her feet and falling back down onto her back.
I asked for a fire to be lit and for water to be boiled. Two strong girls took Alestria's arms, and two more pinned down her legs. The queen bit into a cushion and stifled her cries, but her sweat-soaked body and distraught expression communicated her pain to me. I examined her inside: there was a trickle of blood, but the channel was not yet open.
It was daybreak. The blood had stopped flowing, but the suffering did not abate. She was trembling, and her eyes were wide and full of tears. The entire city had been drawn to the spectacle: women gathered outside the tent and, behind them, crowds of soldiers. Their commanders came to speak to me, but I waved them away impatiently. No one was authorized to come into the queen's tent. A few days earlier Alexander had left the city in great haste, and no one knew where he was or when he would return. Without the king there, I was suspicious of every man's motives. I, Ania, armed the girls of our tribe and positioned them round the tent to protect Alestria.
My queen's stifled cries cut me to the core. She fainted after each convulsion. The army's best midwife came to help me. She palpated Alestria's belly for a long time and then told me we would have to kill the queen to save the child, for out of the mother and the heir, there would be only one survivor.
If only one of them was to live, it would be my queen. I had the madwoman thrown out of the tent.
The sun sank in the sky. Now exhausted, the monster Al-estria bore granted her a moment's respite. I washed the queen's body and covered her in a clean tunic. In the middle of the night the convulsions returned and the blood began to flow again. Having pulled the cushion to pieces, Alestria asked for a sheet to muffle her cries. It was not long before she lost her voice and, her mouth wide with pain, made a mewling sound. I fell to the ground beside her and prayed. Where are you, God of Ice? Save Alestria! Save my queen! Take my life instead of hers!
Day took over from the night. My queen could no longer cry, she lay there panting.
Ptolemy introduced a sorcerer renowned for his powerful magic, which had saved kings and princes of the Indies. With his wrinkled face, his protruding yellowish eyes and earlobes distended by earrings laden with diamonds, he looked like an old woman. He wore a pleated skirt around his hips, and his scrawny arms were covered in gold bangles set with rubies. He examined Alestria and told me he could save the mother.
"Yes, my queen must be saved!" I told him. "Alexander will give you ten chariots filled with bracelets and earrings if you drive death from this tent."
The sorcerer boiled herbs, roots, and dried fruit in water. He sang as he stirred the concoction with a black spoon, and made signs with his free hand. Even the bitter smell of his infusion seemed to soothe the laboring mother. I ordered the sorcerer to taste his medicine, which could have contained poison, then blew over the bowl until the liquid had cooled before bringing it to Alestria's lips.
She refused to open her mouth.
I shook her and begged her, wasting my breath trying to persuade her. Reluctantly, I cited Alexander's love for her and the possibility of another child. But Alestria, the intrepid warrior, did not back away from death. She kept her teeth clenched, would not admit defeat. Haunted by the legend of the Great Queen, who died in childbirth, I wept streams of tears.
Suddenly Alestria moved and opened her eyes. I ran over to lift her up and offer her the infusion. She looked at me tenderly, smiling and shaking her head.
Gripped by anger, I threw caution to the wind and cried:
"Let him go! He's a monster! He wants to kill the mother and control the father. He wants to annihilate Alexander and Alestria in order to be the one king of every land! Condemn him. Turn your back on him. Look at the light and turn toward our god."
"I am already in the light!" she murmured.
In her weak, halting voice she explained that Talaxia, Tan-kiasis, and all the dead warrior women had come down from the skies. They had gathered in that tent and were waiting for the arrival of the great king.
She was delirious. She had been taken over by evil spirits who wanted to bear her away. Night drove out the day. I sat beside my queen with two daggers in my lap, cursing Alexander for abandoning her. I was powerless, listening to the rustle of the wind and night birds chattering and sniggering. Alestria's body was racked with shaking and already looked as fragile as a pile of dead leaves.
I greeted the dawn when it returned at last. My eyes scanned the inside of that tent and came to rest on the trunk full of Alexander's gifts. I stood up stiffly and took those jewels and trinkets that had brought my queen so much joy and sadness, and laid them out around her inert body. I put my hand on her belly: the child had stopped moving. The monster had not found its path to life. Alestria, the invincible warrior, had lost this battle that so many other women would have won.
Now I, Ania, who had not slept for three days, saw an army of lost souls. They had come for Alestria. Oh, that they would take me with my queen!
Alestria's hands were cold as ice. She was still breathing, but her soul had left her body. She was there among those wild spirits who loved victory and light, laughing, dancing, and occasionally peering at me out of curiosity.
Alestria, it is I, Ania, your sister, your servant, your scribe!
Alestria, have you forgotten those flat stones on which we started writing our story?
Alestria, have you forgotten the smell of lily of the valley, the song of the white birds, the gold and red clouds rising on the horizon?
Alestria, are you weary of Alexander, the man who brought an end to your galloping and who showed you all the pleasure and pain of being a woman?
Alestria, come back! The life of kings is an illusion. We can return to our own land and go back to our novel of the stars.
Come back to your body, Alestria!
Poros. The name obsessed me. People everywhere praised his intelligence and fine looks. His reputation for eloquence had spread along the banks of the Indus: he alone succeeded in rallying the princes to drive Alexander back out of their lands.
I had left my queen to fight this fearsome rival. I offered pacts to the cities I had conquered, and promised those that surrendered the fertile lands that belonged to Poros. Right in the heart of the web woven for me by my adversary, I was building my own net. Where he had found friendship, I set up an army. In my progress toward the south I knew that Poros was riding out on his white elephant, sometimes ahead of me, sometimes following behind me. Neither he nor I had yet chosen when we would meet. But the battle was already inscribed in the stars.
That night I saw Ania in my dreams. She was staring at me, her eyes full of hate, and hissing: "Alexander, the queen is dead."
I woke. It was not yet light outside. It was raining, and I thought I heard moaning from the queen I had abandoned for the toils of war. "Alexander, come back!" Ania, her faithful servant, called. "The queen is in labor! It's a boy!"
Alexander must not turn his back on war for a woman! He must show his soldiers that he can sacrifice his family for the sake of victory.
Kristna, a young Indian prince, had secretly sent me a message offering me an alliance against Poros on condition that I left him his fields of hashna, the grass of happiness. Was this offer a trap or an opportunity? Was it bait put out by Poros or the whim of a prince who wanted to play one warrior king off against another? I drove Alestria and Ania from my mind and concentrated on the lands of the Indies reconstructed in miniature on the table before me. Different-colored stones represented the various kingdoms spread out between the forests and mountains. Blue was for allies, yellow for adversaries, and green for those who had not yet chosen between Alexander and Poros.
I ordered my men to break camp and rode out at the head of my army toward Kristna's enemies. By killing them I could offer this prince a poisoned gift: he would have to ally himself to me, he would no longer have any choice.
Nothing-not Alestria's tears nor the birth of my child- must interrupt my progress. Nothing must slow me down or break my concentration. I shall race headlong toward this duel, this great battle.
I was haunted by Alestria's pale face. The dark foliage looked like her naked body giving birth. A snake the color of fire flew in front of me and bit a guard, killing him instantly. Hephaestion had toothache, and his gum was so swollen he could no longer talk. All these signs were bad omens and made me anxious. Alestria, forgive me, I am riding toward our glory! I am fighting for your beauty, for your radiance, for the future reign of our child! Alestria, do not weep. I shall return when I have won the battle. I shall return to give you Poros's white elephant and a river of diamonds.
The rain stopped, the wind blew, and the river Hydaspe roared. I heard Ania's voice accusing me: Why did you beget a child if you are afraid of being a father? Why have you abandoned your wife like every other Alexandria you conquered? What have you done with your life? You killed your father, rejected your mother, burned every land you passed through! You claim you want the sun but forge your way through the shades.
I galloped along the riverbank, fleeing this voice by urging my horse on, always faster. No, Ania, I am not an ordinary son, husband, or father. I am Alexander the conqueror, I am a phoenix flying above the flames, I am the man who brings about a new world, I am the son of Apollo and the father of all mixed-race children. Ania laughed bitterly and spat out these words: Then Alestria will die. She too will be a part of this charred path you leave behind you. You will stand alone with no wife, no heir, and no army. You will be a star condemned to flee, never knowing any rest. You will burn in a sky that never sees the light, in a frozen darkness where boundaries constantly retreat. You will slip away ever further, ever faster, ever more desperately into those eternal shades!
I pulled on the reins and stopped Bucephalus's frantic galloping. About turn! The king will return to the queen's city! Shouts of joy went up from the army, and soldiers hurried back to the encampment to hot meals, dry beds, and their wives' arms.
I galloped out in front, ahead of these men who no longer wanted to make war.
Alestria, Alexander is coming back to you. Alexander is on his way.
"The king is on his way!" A hundred horsemen stormed into the city, calling for the great gates to be opened. Behind the walls, men and women spilled out of their tents and ran toward the road. Crowds formed on both sides of the road, bubbling with excitement like boiling water. The cries and whinnying drew closer; soon the clinking of weapons could be heard. The king is on his way, the king is galloping right up to the royal tent. The king lifts the door of the tent, the king is in the middle of this tomb where I, Ania, have lain prostrated for three days.
I did not move, just held Alestria's hand.
I heard Alexander's anxious voice:
"The queen? How is the queen?"
I did not look up and left a moment's silence before replying: "The queen is dead."
Alexander pushed me aside and threw himself at Alestria's inert body. He shook her and screamed her name, his harrowing cries piercing my ears:
"Alestria, wake up! Alestria, come back! Alestria, don't abandon me!"
He stood back up abruptly, glowered at me, and bellowed: "Get out! Alestria is mine. You won't have her. Leave us! Go back to where you came from!"
He drew his dagger from his belt and started thrashing the air with it as if fighting invisible warriors. The king had lost his mind.
In a flash I saw Alestria's lips quiver. I took her hand, and she moved slightly. The queen is alive! The queen has come back to us! I laughed and wept all at once, and fought with Alexander to kiss her forehead, her lips. The queen half opened her eyes.
Alestria had forgiven Alexander. She had come back for him.
"Abandon the child!" he ordered her. "It is you that I love!"
Alestria heard his soft but authoritative voice and obeyed her beloved king: she gave up the fight. She drank the infusion prepared by the sorcerer and that night was delivered of a boy. Neither she nor Alexander wanted to touch his cold, shriveled body. It was I, Ania, who wrapped the infant in white cloth, left the city, and went deep into the forest.
On and on I walked while the brightly colored eyes of wild animals flitted around me. I was not afraid and felt no pain. I walked until I came to a river. To us, the Amazons, watercourses were the revelation of the God of Ice. I untied the swaddling, spread the white cloth on the grass, and laid the naked body on it. Even though he was a boy, the son of the queen of the Amazons belonged to our god. I backed away: soon wild animals would eat his flesh and lick his bones; his body would return to the earth while his soul rose up to the heavens. This soul, which was more fierce than Alexander and more persevering than Alestria, had just been too eager, in too much of a hurry. Glory and strength and beauty were waiting for that soul, but our god had decided it should climb the glacier naked.
Wait, wait a little longer, my sister soul. Trust in our god; he will give you another life, another destiny.
Alexander did not wait until Alestria had completely recovered before breaking camp and riding out at the head of his army. To everyone's amazement, a covered carriage followed behind the military procession: the queen was accompanying the king. Nearby I, Ania, proudly led the twenty-nine girls of Siberia, complete with helmets and weapons.
The army snaked through the forest before spreading out over a plain where spiny yellow bushes blossomed from the ocher and black soil. The undulating silhouette of a mountain range appeared on the horizon, and birds hovered dizzyingly high above, tiny specks and dashes of movement. By the banks of the river, which had shrunk in recent droughts, near-naked men toiled through the mud, forming a long black line right out into the glinting silver waters. A hundred times, a thousand times they plunged their bamboo sieves into the river, shook them, making the sand and pebbles twinkle, then fingered through the contents before throwing them away.
The mountains drew nearer and grew taller. The forest-full of dark greens, oranges, and pinks-opened up to us and revealed Kristna's city, built vertically on a south-facing flank of the mountain. The ramparts wound their way through the trees, surrounding thatched houses on stilts and others made of beaten earth, while the track climbed and zigzagged to the very top, where a fortress rose into the skies, attracting clouds of birds.
In the gateway stood richly attired soldiers playing the flute and burning incense. They stepped aside to let Alexander and his queen pass, showering them with fragrant petals. To demonstrate his peaceful intentions, the King of Asia had stationed his army far from the town, and his only entourage was made up of the queen's thirty serving women, all of them veiled so that no one would suspect the daggers attached to their belts.
Prince Kristna's fortress was itself the size of a town, flaunting its countless palaces built one above the other. A long covered gallery linked their terraced gardens and ornamental ponds. Borne on sedan chairs, Alexander and Alestria made their way through this steeply raked labyrinth where the women wore dazzling, brightly colored cloth wound around them; they had rings in one nostril, a red spot drawn in the middle of their smooth foreheads, and a black line penciled in under their dark eyes. They greeted the visitors by bowing and joining their hands, which were embellished with red paint, then backed away to the clinking of their countless bangles and the tinkle of bells knotted round their ankles, leaving in their wake their perfume of white flowers.
Well-muscled young men came to greet us, some wearing turbans that were less dramatic than the Persians', others with their black curls falling freely. They wore fine cloth about their waists and knotted between their legs, where it floated in the wind. Some had scars, others not. Some wore bangles on their left forearms; others had diamonds embedded in their noses and earrings. As I saw more of these men, I realized that the number of bangles set with rubies and pearls was a mark of each warrior's courage, an honor granted by their prince.
Our procession passed a spiral of palaces and arrived in a banqueting hall. The high-vaulted ceiling, encrusted with gem-stones, was held up by columns of finely carved marble depicting fruit trees, waterfalls, and exotic birds. The walls were paneled with precious wood edged with gold, and against this background were bas-relief scenes carved in ivory: heroes on horseback, legendary cities, and fabulous animals. Kristna, the young prince, who wore a well-groomed mustache, came over to Alexander and welcomed him with his hands joined.
The two men sat down, one at each end of a very long table. With his painted eyebrows and lips and the red powder emphasizing his cheeks, our host looked like a statuette completely covered in precious stones. A dozen necklaces coiled round his neck, covering his chest, which was squeezed into a tight tunic of silver cloth with gold threads woven through it. There was an emerald the size of an egg at the front of his turban, which dripped with white and pink pearls. The narrow sleeves of his tunic gleamed, although they could not compete with the truly remarkable piece of jewelry the prince wore on his right forearm: a wide gold cuff engraved with gods and goddesses dancing in a forest where monkeys, peacocks, tigers, and elephants played with rubies, pearls, and emeralds. Around his narrow waist he wore a belt shaped like a lotus flower, every petal stitched with diamonds and hung with miniature figures. He sat with one leg folded beneath him and rested one arm nonchalantly on the other leg. His foot peeped out from beneath his tunic: there was a ring on every toe, and one of these rings had a tiny cage made of gold holding minute precious stones.
He clapped his hands, and beautiful young serving men filed in, distributed quantities of little silver dishes over the table, then withdrew. Male and female dancers accompanied by musicians appeared and twirled between the columns, jingling the bells on their ankles.
At the other end of the table Alexander pretended to eat and drink, but his lips barely touched his goblet, so afraid was he of being poisoned. That day he wore a scarlet tunic decorated down the front with three phoenixes in embossed gold thread; its wings had taken the most skilled Persian embroiderers three months to complete. His jewels conceded nothing in magnificence to those of the Indian prince, for it was important on this occasion to fight his opponent in wealth, not in power. That is why Alexander had put on ten rings, bearing fiery diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. His turban was wound round with gold thread hung with masses of dazzling precious stones from every corner of the world that Alexander the Great had conquered. Each countless sparkle of jewelry-tiger's eye, moonstone, coral, turquoise, agate, amethyst, pearl, onyx, not to mention the beautiful sapphires and still other stones as yet unknown to man-represented the countless territories he owned. On his feet he wore leather sandals embroidered with gold and stitched with myriad tiny pearls.
The Indian prince had seated his wives behind him, and each of them carried a small tray full of delicacies. These twenty young women-all of them beautiful and alluring-were of many different nationalities, and to counter them Alexander had only Alestria, who had also been given a small low table. She wore a white veil that covered her from head to foot, and one could see only her eyes emphasized with blue in the Persian style. On her head she wore a wreath adorned with the most beautiful diamonds in the world, the size of quail's eggs, and the most talented craftsmen had spent ten years cutting their glittering inner facets, smoothing their outer shapes. Alestria wore no other jewelry, but still she was radiant, making all the other women pale in comparison. Prince Kristna immediately recognized these legendary diamonds that no one but the Great Kings of Persia could ever own. He was besotted with jewelry and could not help constantly commenting on their purity.
The dishes had barely been put on the table before they were cleared away and replaced by other delicacies. A hundred or more plates graced the king's table that evening. As the night wore on the dancers wore fewer and fewer clothes: bare-breasted, they spun round the fountains, skipped down the alabaster steps, or strolled among peacocks and parrots. In the huge gardens torches and candles lit a flower bed of exotic blooms, their petals either ruffled or smooth, thick or thin, opaque or transparent. Each of them was shown off at its best by the ingenious lighting, thanks to which even the leaves competed in this pageant of beauty. Hundreds of different types of leaves-long and slender, short and notched, round and thick-stood out against the darkness and quivered as the dancers brushed past them.
Indian warriors brandishing swords erupted onto the steps. I, Ania, and the queen's Amazon guards ran to meet them with our daggers raised. They started dancing, and we danced with them by way of combat. Kristna's eyes shone; he was watching Alexander: the king, unruffled, smiled and clapped in time to the music.
The sun rose, and the banquet came to an end in feigned drunkenness and mutual mistrust. The two kings exchanged a good many polite niceties, bringing their hands together at chest height, touching their foreheads, and patting each other's shoulders with their left hands while keeping their right hands over their hearts. Kristna accompanied Alexander to the gates of the city, where Hephaestion was waiting for him impatiently. To thank him for such a sumptuous reception, Alexander called for two soldiers to offer his host a pair of gold-plated silver caskets. Inside them were two severed heads: astonishment turned to smiles when the Indian prince recognized them; then he knelt and swore loyalty to Alexander.
What was it that happened between those two men who barely spoke to each other all evening? I was told that the king had killed the Indian prince's sworn enemies before visiting him. Now hated by the Indian tribes, Kristna was forced to follow Alexander.
As soon as we were back at the encampment, Alestria lay down beside Alexander, and the two lovers spent the day asleep.
Alestria was exhausted.
Alexander was relieved.
The army set up camp and broke camp. We were hounded by groups of Indian warriors: arrows fell, elephants trumpeted, and men screamed in their native languages. These skirmishes erupted more rapidly than summer storms and abated just as quickly. Everyone knew that the king was marching toward one murderous battle. He had an appointment with Poros, a fine, strong Indian king. The two men had never met but had loathed each other through intermediary wars. Each of them had sworn he would have his rival's head and, with it, glory and immortality.
Rivers grew wider, becoming major waterways, and in between them paddy fields flashed like mirrors beneath the sky. Forests surrounded us, then opened out, only to swallow us up again in the shadows of their giant trees. The king rode, and the queen went with him. Side by side they marched toward the greatest war that Indian soil had ever seen.
Alexander gathered his troops on the banks of the Hydaspe.
The wide, peaceful river with its muddy waters glinted yellow. Soldiers and horses arrived along the earth track and down the river. Slaves set out from the encampment with picks. The king disappeared for days on end, and every time he returned, another regiment left to take up its position in the forest.
Alexander had set up a table in his tent, and on it he had had a model of the entire region made with its forests, rocks, rivers, and swamps. I, Ania, who slept in front of the tent to ensure the king and queen's safety, saw Alexander's shadow bending over that table. I could see Alestria's silhouette when she woke and joined her husband. Their two shadows met and forged into one. I no longer tried to decipher signs: I did not want to read the future. Alexander had sought out his wife in the kingdom of souls, and Alestria had followed him and come back to earth. According to steppe tradition, they were both already dead. They were both now living outside time.
Along the river crocodiles floated among broken branches, dead leaves, and pink water lilies. Tree trunks transformed into junks came and went, trailing long wakes of tiny eddies. A moon waxed and waned. Hephaestion, so calm by nature, grew nervous. Bagoas, always edgy and talkative, stopped chattering. Cassander thundered up on his horse, took his orders, and set off again. Persian commanders filed past in the same way. At night there were many sounds against the backdrop of rustling leaves: drum rolls, the wail of horns, and the cries of birds flying off in panic. I lay on my carpet with my ear to the ground, and heard heavy footsteps that made the very earth tremble. Poros and his allies were drawing close. Leading his elephants, the ape-men, and the best warriors in the Indies, Poros was marching on Alexander.
I coped badly with the heat and humidity and could not sleep. I got up and, by moonlight, sharpened the two daggers beaten by the People of the Volcano till their blades gleamed.
the earth rumbled, the forest shook, huge ancient trees parted like reeds. Monkeys and birds threw themselves into the air with piercing shrieks. Poros used drugs on his white elephants, and now they hurled themselves at Alexander's army. The soldiers fled while Cassander, dressed all in red, galloped at the head of the cavalry. Fired by the movement of troops, the enraged elephants chased the horses, trumpeting and trampling everything in their way. Cassander's division surged on into an almost dry riverbed, and, following them, the elephants sank into the sludge. Suddenly the waters swelled and changed into a torrent, spilling over the monsters and bearing them away. This was Alexander's doing: he had secretly had a dam built upstream and given Cas-sander orders to lure the elephants into the trap.
Columns of black smoke rose up and carved through the sky. Fires consumed vines and leaves, climbed up tree trunks, and spat out showers of sparks. Alexander had set fire to the forest, turning it into a labyrinth of flames. His troops marched along strips of land protected by trenches they had dug; they breached Poros's surrounding defenses and cut his army to pieces.
The massacre began. I, Ania, had been given orders by my queen to protect Alexander from any arrows that could potentially be aimed at him by his own generals. He was disguised as an ordinary cavalry soldier as he launched himself at the Indians, screaming. I was dressed as a man and followed behind him, brandishing my weapons. In all that furious killing I forgot the steppes, the birds, and my queen-whose husband had forbidden her to take part in battle. Riding on behind Alexander like his shadow, I lost count of how many Indians I brought down. Furious galloping alternated with pauses during which we wiped off blood, bandaged wounds, and ate hunks of bread. The nights were short: after we snatched some sleep the dawn was already there, casting its white light over the trees while the horns and drums sounded again, urging the men to kill each other to the last one standing.
Alexander searched frantically for Poros, but this war of kings was also a battle of look-alikes. In the distance I saw a number of Alexanders wearing his armor and riding various Bucephaluses. They chased after Poroses in their narrow chariots. For two days now the real King of Asia had been tracking down the Prince of the Indies, who, according to our prisoners, was wearing a slave's armor.
At the end of the third day we came across a group of warriors whose clothes were in shreds and whose horses were bleeding. They moved in a particular way that attracted Alexander's attention: he gave a great cry and carved a path for himself with his lance, swooping eagle-like on a slave who rode in the middle of the formation of Indians. The two men eyed each other. Both had bandaged wounds and had lost their helmets. Their faces were daubed with mud and blood, and the only thing alive in them was their glowering, shining eyes. They stared at each other for a moment as if each hoped he might kill his enemy with the ferocity and pride in his eyes; then they threw themselves at each other, screaming.
Alexander's sword wounded Poros's arm, and two Indian warriors came to help their master. They surrounded Alexander, and Poros ran away, but the king threw off his attackers and set off in pursuit of his prey. I let go of a man I was about to kill and rejoined Alexander in his headlong gallop. We followed Poros deep into a part of the forest that had not been burned. The sun was sinking, and this made Alexander nervous. Afraid that Poros might slip through his fingers at nightfall, he redoubled the pace and rushed into a circular meadow. Suddenly high-pitched whistling sounds rose up and interrupted the thunder of our horses' hooves. Arrows aimed at us were flying from the surrounding trees.
Poros had set a trap for Alexander! Alexander the invincible, too eager to finish off his rival, too impatient to claim victory, had offered himself to his enemy's archers! But it was too late to think. We surrounded the king and made a wall with our bodies. I waved my daggers to deflect the arrows, but in vain: they embedded themselves in my legs. A muffled cry made me shudder, and I turned to see that Alexander, who already had several arrows in him, had one right in the middle of his forehead. He fell from his horse. I slipped to the ground and dragged myself painfully toward him. Blood was spreading over his forehead, down his nose, and onto his pale cheeks. Blood spilled into my eyes, and something knocked me out.
When I came around, it was already night. The arrows had stopped whistling. Shadowy figures moved closer to us, cooing with joy in a language that sounded like strange night birds. We had been taken prisoner by Poros.
I woke in the dark to the boom-boom of drums, and realized straight away that my hands and feet were tied. A long time went by before I remembered what had happened: Alexander's body had been taken away; the surviving soldiers had been piled onto carts and taken to Poros's encampment, where we were searched from head to foot. The Indian soldiers cried in amazement when they discovered I was a woman. Their officer left. When he returned, he gave the order to carry me to a tent, where two women hauled out the arrows that had struck me, and I passed out with the pain.
I crawled to the side of the tent and put my eye up to a gap: I could see the soldiers guarding me and campfires blazing in the distance. The sound of singing and clapping reached me, and there were silhouettes dancing round the fires-Poros was celebrating his victory.
Where was Alexander? Where were the soldiers? Where was Alestria?
I woke again when dawn lit up the tent and shed light over my body, which was wrapped in Indian cloth. Some women came in and untied me, took off my bandages, and changed the foul damp mud applied to my wounds. They gave me some food, then tied me up. They came back toward the end of the day. A little later night fell, and in the distance, the celebrations began once more. I felt no fear and no regret. I was expecting torture, rape, and execu-tion-that is the fate reserved for the defeated. For a warrior there is no humiliation in this, it is the natural end to a fight.
Toward the middle of the next day some men burst into the tent, tipped me violently onto a carved wooden door, tied me to it, gagged me, and carried me out of the tent. Trees skimmed past me against the sky. I greeted passing birds, asking them to fly to my queen and my sisters, and tell them Ania would be joining the glorious souls of the warrior women.
There were four men carrying me on their shoulders, and they were joined by an escort of horsemen. Shouting and jeering started up, accompanied by slow, languid music. We passed foot soldiers, more horsemen, and then Poros on his golden chariot or-more likely-one of his look-alikes.
Some westerners on horseback loomed against the sky. They slipped to the ground and leaned over me. I recognized Hephaes-tion! The Indians put me down and withdrew, while the Macedonian soldiers untied me and took the gag from my mouth.
"Alexander!" I cried. "Where is Alexander?"
I leaped to my feet, but a sharp pain shot through me, and I fell back down.
"Alexander has gone home," Hephaestion replied.
His words chilled me to the bone: so Alexander was dead.
The soldiers helped me to a sedan chair. Alexander's troops greeted me as I passed before them. I could not help shedding tears when I spotted the royal tent adorned with gold and pearls gleaming at the far end of an avenue guarded by soldiers. Four Amazons took over my chair, lifted the door of the tent, and set me down inside.
Alestria was standing, while Alexander, stretched out on a wooden door like mine, still had the arrow that had brought him down in his forehead.
"Alexander is not dead. You, Ania, have come back to me! I am the happiest woman in the world," the queen told me, smiling, as tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks and onto her husband's arm.
Poros knew that if he killed Alexander, the Macedonians and Persians would come back to avenge their king's death. He also knew that the arrow that had struck Alexander's forehead was fatal.
Alexander was still alive, but he was condemned to die.
Poros had proposed peace to the Macedonians in exchange for their king's body.
Hephaestion had negotiated with Poros and promised to leave Indian territory.
Hephaestion and Poros had agreed on the division of wealth: the Macedonians would leave Poros any towns conquered in the Indies, while Poros would hush up Alexander's injury and capture, and would help put about the word that Alexander was still alive.
Poros's army withdrew.
Alexander's army erected a wall of spikes around the encampment.
Hephaestion transported Alexander's body inside a sealed tent. He purified the air by burning large candles. He delicately removed the arrowhead using a magnetic stone, closed the hole in the skull with powdered ivory, and covered the wound with skin taken from Alexander's leg. Alexander lay in darkness for three days. His heart was beating, but he did not talk or even open his eyes.
Alestria, alone in her tent, could not eat. She lay with her eyes closed, not sleeping but praying.
Flames press against each other, joining together and then exploding. Flames crawl and leap and swirl. They are black, threatening, ice-cold. I stray aimlessly through the world of flames, not knowing who I am. I move forward and turn back. I run and then walk. Who am I? I finger a body I do not know but which is somehow mine.
The flames throw themselves at me, then drop back and fall to the ground. I am not afraid. They seem familiar to me. They are like me. They have come to cheer me on with their frenetic dancing.
A question hovers over my lips.
"Do you have souls?" I ask them.
A sharp pain stabs at me. The flames quiver, try to strangle me, then withdraw, and I understand that this is a forbidden question in this world. By asking it, I have proved I have a soul. Whose is it?
Every part of me hurts, and I curl up tightly. I roll on the ground, then leap to my feet and start to run. But the pain follows me. The pain is inside my body, so the soul is also rooted in my body. The flames leer and sneer at me. They are the damned whose souls have been taken; that is why they seem so voracious and so fierce, and why they do not burn me. For, without souls, all beings are but illusion. They can survive only thanks to the fear they engender.
I have a soul. I am Alexander! That name is a terrible aching! Images reel by in the flames.
Two little boys going into Apollo's temple. The marble god watches them as they undress and fall into each other's arms.
A woman with a long braid and heavy breasts leans on the balustrade of a terrace, waving her hand and weeping.
A city appears with painted walls, embroidered flags, and streets milling with people and horses. A succession of palaces, and in them eunuchs and concubines.
Muddy roads, torrential rains, icy tracks, unbearable cold! Corpses slither over the flames, wearing different costumes, bearing open wounds. Columns of smoke rise up and wither away. Breached ramparts, sumptuous banquets, and warriors' faces all file by. Fruits and vegetables spring from the gaping neck of a bull. Naked men embracing women wrapped in fine cloth, swaying together and disappearing. All these images make up Alexander. Alexander is mountains climbed, rivers crossed, land burned. Alexander is in the dust, in the clouds, and in the ashes.
A voice calls me: "Alexander, Alexander!"
It is a woman's voice. I do not know her: she is pure and tender, it is not my mother's anxious voice, no, it is not my mother-she is far away, I fled from her, she can no longer reach me, hold me to her breasts, kiss my forehead, stroke my hair, put me to bed, or laugh and weep about my fate. This woman is different; her voice is simple and courageous, she loves me and wants nothing from me. She is looking for me and calling to me to take me back to another world, where I will be delivered from these flames and illusions.
What is her name? Where did I meet her? How did she find me among the flames? These questions will never have answers. But what use are answers? I must follow her, I must trust her. Alexander has been defeated.
An arrow hurtles toward me and plants itself violently in the middle of my forehead. The flames go out, and I fly through the blue transparent universe, twirling toward the light, my heart brimming with joy. I smile, every portion of my body smiles, and I can hear the universe smile. I am in another world, one the flames cannot reach. Solemn music resonates through me and through the clarity of each ray of light.
White lights form a gigantic door. I move closer, a tiny body longing to receive life, waiting for the door to open for the distribution of souls.
The door metamorphoses into a face surrounded by a golden halo. It reminds me of Philip, my father, but this man has both his eyes. His eyes are open, clear blue; he has no wrinkles or scars. All earthly suffering has been erased from this face, it radiates with goodness. This must be a god who has taken on my father's appearance in order to address me.
"Go back to the earth," he tells me. "Your destiny has not finished being written. Go back, oh body without a soul, go back to your soul that stayed below for the love of a woman."
I bow to him and hurry away, tumbling through the air. The wind whistles, blue turns to white, and the white grows dark. I scatter, reassemble myself, then break again. I fall headlong, spinning downward.
I opened my eyes. The candle flames flickered.
A man sat up sharply and leaped out of the tent.
"The king is alive! The king has opened his eyes!"
Cheering broke out. Men filed past the table I was lying on: I recognized Hephaestion, Cassander, Bagoas, and all my companions. They withdrew, and silence returned. A woman came in, lifted one corner of her veil, and leaned over me. Her lips were cool. I drank her breath like water, I drank her life like honey. She put her arms around me, and I entered into her as a gazelle leaps into a spring river.
Alestria-I came back for her!