Armed with lances, masked with leather blinkers and covered in armor, the horses charged. They collided, breast to breast, their legs clashing together; they reared up and trampled fallen soldiers. Their manes scattered showers of blood. The men's shouts mingled with the frantic whinnies of their mounts as they fell, never again to rise to their hooves. Arrows whistled through the air. Lances, shields, bludgeons, tridents, axes, and iron whips gleamed. Wherever a weapon flashed, blood sprang forth, organs spilled, limbs and heads fell. The smell of sweat, blood, and excrement was suffocating. I could no longer hear the drum roll. I could no longer make out the sun through the haze of white dust. I lost track of time. I was stepping into that eternity where men are reduced to incandescent patches, luminous halos. There was a hot liquid running over my face, a barbed whip had just ripped a piece of flesh from my thigh, an arrow had buried itself in my left side, the sharpened blade of a dagger had cut my arm to the bone. A heavy weapon struck me on the nape of the neck, and I staggered. That moment I knew my god had abandoned me. He had abandoned me to my own fate, to the Persian warriors who were still hurling themselves at me. I had to make the choice alone: to wake up or close my eyes, to let myself be carried off by the sweet torpor or to return to the horror and the shouting. Suddenly I could sense death breathing over me, hear its lascivious whispering. It wrapped me in its arms and rolled out a smooth calm road before me, stretching to the horizon. I don't want its monotonous peace! I don't want that bland gray, that platitude and inertia! Give me life in all its color and madness! Give me copulation and galloping horses and warfare! My body felt all its pain again. Strength returned, and with it the terrifying grimaces of the men around me, the froth on the horses' mouths. I brandished my sword. My standards followed its lead and advanced slowly but surely toward the east.
Darius, the Great King of Persia, had come to meet me, intending to crush me with an army of one hundred thousand men. His elephants and camels, his barbarian foot soldiers and armored cavalries, had filled the valleys and spread out across the plain. Confronted with this unprecedented deployment of troops, I opted for the strategy of exhaustion. The number three is perfection, while nine possesses the magic of infinity. I constrained Darius to a long duel of three cycles, each of which would be divided into three battles.
During the first cycle the enemy were more numerous, but Alexander's phalanxes were very disciplined. The Persians, who had believed they were invincible until then, were impressed by the temerity of my troops. The second cycle was a succession of badgering skirmishes. Trapped in its rigid formations, the Persian army was unable to defend itself from my cavalry's repeated surprise attacks. In the third cycle I ordered my battalions to lose. As soon as the Persians drew near, our soldiers had to throw down their arms and flee. To flatter Darius, I myself pretended to run in fear, leaving behind my golden helmet, which the Persians swiftly carried back to their king as a trophy.
The weather was magnificent on the day of the ninth engagement, but since dawn we could smell rain in the air. I reviewed my troops on horseback, riding a mount very like Bucephalus, who had succumbed to his wounds. No one had noticed the substitution. Everything around me had to contribute to the myth of an indestructible Alexander. I had manipulated certain elements to ensure that Apollo gave us a message of victory. On that decisive day I needed the complicity of this god, who was often silent in the face of my doubts and weaknesses.
Above the emaciated faces and wounded bodies of my troops I saw my standards floating in the wind. To the death, soldiers! Or to all the gold in the East! Life is so short; tomorrow, rubies and sapphires, velvet sheets and beautiful slave girls, will be ours! Let us take the spices and palaces and sumptuous feasts of conquerors! The arrows strike only cowards and spare the brave! The blood we lose makes us stronger; a severed arm, a gouged eye, only makes us all the more courageous! To battle, my men! If you die, you shall go home to rest; if you live, you shall sleep in Babylon!
From the top of the hill I watched the two armies throw themselves at each other like two great waves. My two look-alikes, each escorted by a commander's standard-bearer, fled in opposite directions. The Persian troops immediately followed them in the hopes of looting weapons, helmets, and saddles. Then, disguised as a lowly soldier, I rode down the hill with a cavalry detachment in light armor and sped to the rear of the Persian army, where Darius had his headquarters.
I confronted the showers of arrows with my eyes open. In our galloping frenzy, I grew taller, and death receded. Stupefied by the extraordinary phenomenon of a warrior who would not die, the barbarians believed I was the manifestation of a god. They threw down their arms and began to flee. Darius, the master of the Persian universe who had grown up in the suave luxury of oriental palaces surrounded by women and eunuchs, Darius, the demigod who had never wielded a weapon, was terrified by the war cries drawing closer to him. He lost any desire to fight and fled with his personal guard.
With that flight began his downfall.
The regent in Babylon, an ambitious eunuch, exploited the Great King's defeat, proclaiming himself master of the city and taking the royal children hostage. On hearing this, Darius decided not to return home and fled toward the mountains. Confusion reigned over his lands. Many towns surrendered, and many regiments capitulated without a fight. I learned that Darius was a weak man and had been manipulated by his eunuchs, who could think only of bickering for power and increasing their own wealth. Constantly traveling between the splendors and marvels of Babylon, Suse, and Persepolis, he had known nothing of the famines and epidemics in the provinces. As if deaf and blind, he had slowly released his authority at the expense of his governors, and so, thanks to him, the decadence that had ravaged the West reached the East.
Poor peasants, undernourished soldiers, and local dignitaries who had never been respected at court rushed after me and showered me with gifts. I was hailed everywhere as a liberator, as the one who had conquered the tyrant, I was encouraged to march on Babylon and drive out the usurper.
The regent tried to negotiate for peace by sending me finery, caravans filled with Darius's treasure. He promised me other fabulous riches if I continued to pursue Darius without stopping at the gates of his city. I sent him a herald with my reply: if he recognized Alexander as his master, he would be under my protection, shielded from challenges and insurrections.
Three days' march from Babylon I was greeted by a procession of royal dignitaries with incense and music. We signed a secret treaty: the regent would proclaim me master of Babylon, and I would entrust the running of the city to him.
On the horizon I could see the bronze gates piercing the very skies and stopping birds in flight. They opened before Alexander with the servile enthusiasm of a great courtesan spreading her legs for her richest client. Dressed as a lowly soldier, I watched with satisfaction as one of my look-alikes stepped into that ancient city crowned with golden laurels and dressed in my gold armor with scarlet straps. He was hoisted onto a cart and drawn triumphantly down the widest avenue in the world, waving proudly and indulgently to the prostrations of the Chaldeans and Persians.
The wind blew, and the hanging gardens scattered a shower of petals.
The tower of Babel had disappeared; Babylon had become that Tower of Babel, carrying off its inhabitants, its palaces and gardens, its streets and canals, in a giant spiral toward the heavens. Wide avenues wound round networks of sinuous little streets. To make the streets more passable the Babylonians uprooted trees and bushes, replanting them on roofs and terraces high up on pillars. But still carts, traps, camels, and horses jostled for space. The streets became blocked and then cleared for no apparent reason. Shops, restaurants, smoke houses, taverns, and baths kept their doors open day and night. The crowds drifted in and out; they went up steps into high-perched houses decorated with balustrades, or down underground where snatches of incantatory music wafted from dark rooms lined with cushions and lit by lanterns. The rustle of clothing and clacking of shoes mingled with clinking glasses, the clip-clop of horses' hooves, the hubbub of conversation, and the bustle of waking households. The high, painted city walls resonated with the echoes of all this never-ending life, emitting a muffled buzz that grew louder with every new dawn.
Temples dedicated to the gods occupied street corners: people from all over the world, dressed in every kind of costume, went there to pray in every language. Each wore the perfume of his or her country. Every variety of incense from every land blended with every smell of every different style of cooking. Newborns were greeted according to a thousand different customs, and the dead were left naked or shrouded, burned or mummified, buried or left to scavengers. Each individual went to heaven or to the shades on horseback or by boat, in chains or on beating wings.
The roar and bustle of the greatest metropolis on earth stopped at the foot of the City of the King. This town within a town was crammed with administrators' palaces and ministers' residences. Built with blocks of beaten earth and painted inside and out, they shamelessly displayed their splendor. As the sun set, an entire population of plants and animals came to life as if trying to break away from those facades: monkeys squabbled along the walls; parrots called from the rooftops; dogs ran alongside leopards; bees plundered roses and carnations. A bird with the head of a vulture and a long shining tail had pride of place on the pediments. I learned that it was called the phoenix. Every hundred thousand years it died in flames and was reborn from the ashes.
What secret shame I felt as I cast my eye over the conquerors and the conquered! On the one side, Macedonians and Greeks, their heads bare, their linen tunics leaving their arms, shoulders and legs for all to see, their leather sandals revealing hairy feet and filthy black toenails. On the other, Persian administrators in turbans, wearing rich brocade all the way down to their shoes which were embroidered with gold. They each held a different flower in their hands as a symbol of their responsibilities. They were followed by eunuchs, imperial slaves with shaven heads, who wore vests over their short tunics and ballooning pants threaded with gold. An evolved civilization clothes its people; it covers their flesh, ties their hair, and decks out their limbs with precious stones to distinguish them from animals. I who had conquered
Darius must have looked to the Persians like the leader of a band of savages set loose in the Orient.
In Pella life had only five colors: green like the fields, yellow like wood, white like houses, blue like the sea, and black like the earth. When the regent opened the gates to the citadel of pleasure, I was accosted by a profusion of unfamiliar colors carried on a blend of subtle perfumes.
The eunuch who had sold Babylon to Alexander smiled and bowed. He walked backward before me and called for a bevy of castrated young musicians to sing the praises of my victory. His head was bare, and he wore a heavy amber necklace. His triple chin quivered, and his eyes-one tawny and one blue-studied me surreptitiously. He was holding a bracelet, nervously rolling the ruby and emerald beads in his fat fingers. He led me straight to the bedchamber of his former master, offering me his bed, his slaves, and his gynaeceum.
In the heart of the city of Babylon was the City of the King. In the heart of the City of the King was the City of Pleasure. At its highest point, up in the heavens, was my bedchamber.
The warriors' screams and the clash of arms ceased to haunt my ears. I heard only birdsong and the sibilant murmur of fountains. The most beautiful garden in the world stretched out beneath my arched windows, wiping away sorrows of the past and concerns for the future. The Euphrates snaked through meadows dotted with roses, violets, and carnations, and edged with orange trees and jasmine, and it spilled its ripples peacefully into ponds covered with water lilies.
I lay on the bed and forgot the incandescent sun, the cruel wind, the endless marching. I swam in a sea of cushions, heaped around me, soft and giving. A curtain the size of a tent was draped over my bed, and through it I glimpsed the cupola-shaped ceiling-a clear demonstration of the Persians' superiority in science and architecture. There were no pillars or support beams in that vast room: the substantial roof was held up by the six walls thanks to an ingenious distribution of its weight, calculated in a way the Greeks had not mastered. The frescoes were lit by candelabras that never went out. At the tops of the walls flowers blossomed between geometrical patterns. At eye level there were panels covered with a fine layer of gold, and Darius himself was represented as a handsome young man in his royal turban. A sequence of scenes from his daily life were depicted: reading, reciting poetry, chasing butterflies, watching monkeys dance, riding on an elephant, picnicking, bathing… and even in his bath the fallen king wore his turban. Loving embraces followed on from languorous walks, and poems in calligraphy accompanied the images. Beneath the panels were mosaics depicting a limpid spring edged with exotic vegetation. Among the countless faces of his beautiful and sensual young concubines, I noticed a favorite-small with very white skin and huge eyes over a small mouth-who featured in all the scenes of pleasure.
Hephaestion came to greet me, telling me Cassander was angered by these frescoes to Darius's glory, and wanted to replace them with scenes of Alexander's battles. I cast my eyes over Dar-ius's chests of different perfumes, his musical instruments, his carpets of spun gold… and I started to laugh.
I, Alexander, son of Olympias, whore of Philip, usurper of the League of Corinth, had become master of Babylon. It was a miracle I could barely believe.
The scars on my body counted out the battles won with force and fury. The calluses on my hands told of enemies defeated and lands conquered. Nothing else about me or on me proved that I was master of Macedonia, Greece, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia. I felt as if I had cheated: that was why I laughed. Since the dawn of time the earthly crown had been waiting for just one master. All those who longed for it had failed. I had grasped it, but not because I had greater strength, better tactics, or more determination. I, Alexander of Macedonia, was not afraid of the stars of decadence. Where other men retreated, I advanced. Where other men gave up, I persevered.
Hephaestion, my friend, why do Darius's courtiers speak Greek when none of our generals speak Persian?
Why do Cassander, Perdiccas, and Crateros insist on wearing worn old sandals when Darius's slaves wear embroidered shoes?
Why did the West close its doors on the East, claiming it was barbarian?
I, Alexander, shall wear oriental dress and learn the language of the defeated. I want the East and the West to unite, the luxuries of Persia to combine with our philosophy, the strength of Macedonia to flourish in the beauty of oriental art. I want our bloods to mix. I shall send Persian women to the Greek islands so their children can benefit from two languages and a double inheritance. I shall drive away the bandits who prowl the trading routes and put the corrupt Persian army back on a sound footing.
Tradesmen will no longer be subject to extortion: from now on our soldiers will protect their caravans. Alexander will open up the free market between East and West.
Hephaestion, do you understand what the forced marches were for, wearing down soldiers' feet and torturing their legs? Do you understand why horses died and soldiers starved and the incandescent sun blinded us and drove men mad? Do you understand the reason for the murders, executions, and massacres? A far greater good can emerge from evil!
Without violence there would be no exchange. Without the war led by Alexander, all these peoples-the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Jews, the Egyptians, and the Arabs-would never have agreed to embrace each other.
Don't you see, it is here, in Babylon, in Darius's bed, that my fate has been revealed. I have conquered peoples, and those peoples have conquered me. For them I shall design a new civilization, a new world, that of the phoenix rising from the ashes.
The eunuch who has already betrayed one master must die of a sudden fever. I shall confer the regency of Babylon on Mazee, Darius's general who fought valiantly against Alexander.
Crateros shall be the arm mercilessly brandishing my sword. One by one, Darius's sons-both legitimate and illegitimate- shall be tracked down and decapitated. You, Hephaestion, who love medicine, you must learn Persian remedies and magic. You shall heal my wounds and give succor to my soul.
The door of the imperial gynaeceum opened to reveal thousands of women's bodies, offerings given by the empire's twenty satrapies. Princesses, noblewomen, daughters of the common people, daughters of vassal tribes, girls captured by nomadic cavalries… all had been Darius's slaves, captive to his desires.
Young, old, barely out of childhood, blond, brunette, white, black, women from every land on earth were represented here, living imprisoned in a vast room covered in carpets and decorated with pools and fountains. They slept, urinated, danced, embraced, sang, and ate in a hubbub of moans, cries, sighs, and laughter, all indifferent to onlookers or to the smell of putrefaction and excrement. Eunuchs circulated among them, some serving, others cracking a whip. I was informed that since Darius fled, the attendants in the City of Pleasure had stopped cleaning the gynaeceum and only fed the women once a day. Their eyes looked dull and empty for lack of air and freedom, like birds with clipped wings no longer dreaming of the sky. In all that dying flesh I found the king's favorite, the one painted on all the walls of his bedchamber. She was lying naked on a carpet, sobbing and weeping, her hair disheveled. Her body was covered with scars and scabs. I learned that after Darius's defeat the other women had scratched and bitten and trampled on her.
I gave orders for these women to be released, and handed each of them enough money to travel home. I myself washed and fed Jasmine, the woman whom the Great King had loved, and led her to my room. Although quite lucid now, she would not say anything. She was happy simply taking refuge in my arms. In my absence she stayed on the bed, motionless, occasionally sweeping her cold, joyless eyes over the frescoes depicting moments of happiness she no longer recognized. She had turned my room into another prison.
When I finally decided to give her freedom, she claimed she knew where her parents lived. She refused an escort, took the money I gave her, and left.
They say Jasmine drifted about the city. They say she went mad all over again. Babylonians, if on your travels through these sinuous streets you chance across a little girl with disheveled hair, walking barefoot and singing and muttering to herself, give her water, give her bread, do not throw stones at her! It is Jasmine, once cherished by Darius, the most powerful of kings, tended for a while by Alexander, the most intrepid warrior. Babylonians, step aside and let this girl pass, this girl who harbors the secret of her loves in her breast.
Giant sailing ships unfurled their sails and plied up and down the Euphrates. Smaller boats laden with goods, like fish teeming round marine monsters, tossed and jostled in their wake. Persia was the country of excess.
Every quarter of the city had its own libraries, vast palaces with rooms in which the erudite from all lands could come to eat, sleep, and work. A royal annuity allowed them to lead an intellectual life with no concern for the contingencies of their day-to-day existence. This decree attracted the wise from all over the world, and the Achemenides opened the gates of the City of the King to all, offering them positions in their countless ministries. Compared to the number of Persian officials, the Ecclesia in Athens and the Macedonian council were mere child's play, but the Persians had the intelligence to simplify complexity.
The Great Kings made no decisions without consulting the academies of arithmetics and of astrologers.
The Academy of Manners oversaw good relations between different peoples.
The Academy of Architects designed towns and palaces.
The Academy of Sports organized horse races.
The Academy of Agriculture sent its inspectors and specialists to the very limits of the empire.
The Academy of Water was responsible for wells, irrigation, and waterborne trade.
The Academy of Industry built roads and dams.
There were academies of painting, perfumes, lamps, ceramics, slave management, weaving, royal animals, and medicine, each gathering, classifying, devising, and making official its respective specialty.
The Academy of Poets was associated exclusively with royal life. Poets followed the king and, in beautiful calligraphy, had to write poems inspired by every situation: audiences, receptions, banquets, journeys. When men are long gone… poetry remains. It transforms everyday moments into historical fragments. The Great Kings of Persia knew how to make themselves immortal.
The Academy of Music inventoried fashionable tunes and composed official melodies. Wherever the king went, he heard music appropriate to the place and his activities.
Poetry and music are man's most beautiful adornments.
The center of Babylon was occupied by dignitaries and the rich; the poor lived around the outskirts of the city, in low-slung houses made of wood and beaten earth. They all had favorite taverns, be they luxurious or tumbledown, where men could meet and talk.
They drank infusions of leaves from the lands around the Indus, and they circulated a long pipe connected to a flask of water.
"Beyond Persian territories lie the lands of the Indus," announced the head of the Order of Merchants, who had invited me into a sumptuous tavern reserved for his personal use.
The merchants were not common stall keepers, I gathered from Mazee, Darius's former general who had become my most fervent servant. Throughout Persian lands, merchants were respected and stall keepers despised. The Persians considered that merchants transported the wonders of this world from one country to another, while stall keepers robbed their own neighbors in the market square.
I drank the infusion and pretended to enjoy his pipe. The smoke made me nauseous, and my head spun, but I decided to please Oibares, the most influential man in Babylon.
In this empire so avid for wealth and exoticism, merchants governed from behind the scenes, and extended their invisible power to the very limits of the earth. The richest of them owned as many as ten caravans, which came and went in rotation to ensure a constant stream of new goods. Supplying kings and satraps, selling weapons and working as spies, with an intimate knowledge of distant inaccessible lands, they knew how to manipulate tribal chiefs and corrupt armies. They brought messages of peace or delivered declarations of war. In order to protect their own best interests, they were affiliated with the Order of Merchants, which controlled the trading routes, set out the laws, and settled disagreements. Every ten lunar years the merchants held a great nocturnal ceremony during which they threw straws into a vase to elect a new leader.
Oibares was forty-five, with shining blue eyes, a fine proud nose, and thin lips. Like all rich Babylonians obsessed with their appearance, he wore a scarlet turban on his shaven head, and had a long beard in which his own hair was blended with extensions. He created magnificent arrangements with it, dying it chestnut brown, curling it with hot irons, and perfuming it with rosewater. Disappointed with such a weak, extravagant king, Oibares had plotted against Darius, who constantly raised taxes and closed his eyes when his troops plagued trading caravans.
The elegance of Oibares' appearance was a perfect camouflage for his thoughts. As it was impossible to guess what his intentions were, I disarmed him with my submissive-woman behavior. I let him talk without interrupting: encouraged by my complicit silence, intoxicated by my loving gaze, he took long drags on his pipe and exhaled lightheartedly. The smoke scrolled around us like drunken bacchantes dancing languidly to the rhythm of his voice.
"Have you heard tell, Great Alexander, of the lands of the Indus, lands of deepest valleys and darkest forests?" he asked. "The men who live there are wild and cruel. Their swamps are full of slithering snakes and birds that spit fetid venom. No one has conquered those kingdoms since time immemorial. But you, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Apollo, invincible warrior who was granted Ammon's benediction, you shall conquer the nine-headed monsters with tiger's teeth and serpent's tails. You, the man whom all the gods love, shall take the treasure defended by those tribes of men and apes."
Oibares clapped his hands, and a slave appeared, carrying a tray of raw gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls. He put the tray down on a low table and left us. Oibares picked up a piece of emerald, rubbed it on his sleeve, and looked at it. He gave a sigh.
"Oka, Great Alexander, master of Babylon and Memphis! You alone deserve all the jewels of the Orient! Do you know that in the days when the earth was covered with snow and frost, there was an ocean where the Indus is now, in the land where the sun rises? There were dragons, huge aquatic snakes covered in scales, living in the eternal darkness of those abyssal depths. Every three moons they uncoiled their monstrous heavy bodies and came to the surface to wait for dawn. When the sun rose, they squirmed and writhed together, throwing themselves out of the water to draw in the light, their celestial sustenance. But time passed, and the land emerged from the depths. The dragons died, and their gigantic bodies turned into mines of precious stones in which the incandescent sun still burned. The seed borne by the females became a seam of diamonds holding the vital force of that long-gone world in its very heart."
Oibares stroked his beard, his eyes lost in thought, as if gazing at that distant land so dangerous it gave its riches a sensual glamour. All of a sudden he flipped the tray over with a disdainful swipe of his hand. The precious stones scattered and rolled across the carpet.
"The stones of the twenty satrapies of Persia are but pebbles! In the land of the Indus the gold is heavy and the gems dazzling! Oka, Great Alexander, the only man destined to be Master of Asia, the only king worthy of ascending to the throne in the heart of the sun, the only hero who will make a vast crown of glory from the treasures of the earth, I shall give you whatever gold you need to raise the greatest army in the world! In exchange for this humble service, you shall carve a route for us, we who transport the colors and savors of life, a route from here right to the sun!"
I found Oibares pleasing: his poetry, his fiery admiration for unknown lands, his passion for life, lent a certain grandeur to his mercenary calculations. I liked his intelligent mind, which had spotted an ally in me. I particularly appreciated the finesse with which he manipulated, offering and submitting before receiving or asking. He had just suggested a deal that would join his interests to my ambitions. Carried forward by Persian soldiers and supported by merchants, I could conquer the entire world.
I lay down my pipe and took off my rings, mounted with the most beautiful stones from the lands I had conquered; then I threw them in the air like trifles. They rolled over toward the Persian pebbles.
"Glaciers are melting, seas are drying out, dragons are turning into diamonds, and one day they will be dust. Worldly riches come and go. Alexander wants celestial riches, the ocean of gold pieces that belongs to whoever reaches the summit! In that place where Alexander is heading the earth trembles, citadels burn down, city walls are breached, roads appear. Alexander builds and destroys fortunes. Those who follow him ride with him toward all that is vast and magnificent."
Oibares looked me in the eye and then burst out laughing. Contaminated by this rush of exuberance, I laughed with him and concluded our unprecedented alliance between East and West, between the power of gold and the strength of the lance.
The merchants busied themselves putting together an army for me. To secure absolute loyalty toward me from Darius's former soldiers, they opened up the succession of heavy bronze doors leading to the fortified chamber suspended between the sky and the earth, where the princess, the hidden pearl, the daughter and granddaughter of Great Kings, was waiting for her liberator.
Her perfume reached me before she appeared; and the rustle of her tunic already filled the room in which I sat. Preceded by two eunuchs and followed by two governesses, she approached with all the confidence and majesty of an imperial daughter. She was tall and slender, with white skin. Her brown hair had been coiled around hot irons and now fell in floating curls about her heavily jeweled headdress. She gave a slight bow and knelt before me. With lowered eyes she waited for me to hold out my hand to her, thereby sealing the union between Persians and Macedonians.
Olympias would have been furious to see me wed a barbarian. Behind the princess Hephaestion, Cassander, and Perdiccas stood like statues, frozen in icy pride, their faces betraying vehement indignation. City dignitaries nervously fluttered their peacock-feather fans, determined to see the end of the Achemenides dynasty. There was palpable impatience in these Babylonians already dreaming of a newborn leader, a legitimate master of both East and West, their future emperor, he who would make Babylon the center of the world.
Mazee, the new regent, gave me a wink, a signal urging me to reach out my hand as a symbol of my acceptance. But this girl of royal blood was a disappointment to me! Kneeling humbly at my feet, she proved to be an insignificant creature, without music or color, a vessel, a simple recipient for the male seed, ready to conceive and give birth. I felt no emotion. The infantile excitement of seeing my dream realized had just come crashing down. She was not the young woman in red waiting for me at the top of a rock. My precious pearl was not here.
Instead of holding out my hand to her, I stiffened and announced:
"Princess, I grant you my protection. You, your mother, and your sisters may keep your titles and privileges from the previous reign. You need be afraid of nothing from now on. May you be venerated like members of my own family!"
Cassander was moved to cough, Hephaestion smiled, Perdic-cas wiped his brow. The Babylonians, disconcerted, withdrew, and the princess followed their lead, returning to her gilded prison. I spent a feverish night, tossing and turning in the vast imperial bed, wondering whether I was condemned to be a king without a queen, a conqueror without an heir. Was this the sacrifice expected of a man spoiled by the gods?
The following morning Oibares asked to speak with me. Unable to insist I take a particular wife, he made me a second and final proposition: to convert me to their religion so that the supreme god, the source of all light and creator of the world, Ahura Mazda, might invest me as the only king over many and the only master of many. A brief presentation of the religion founded by Zarathustra was all I needed. Ahura Mazda, the all-powerful winged god, reminded me of the Demiurge venerated by Aristotle. Without losing any more time, I arranged the ceremony for the following day and dismissed Oibares, still reeling from the speed of my decision.
The incantations grew louder as I stepped into the dark interior of a massive temple, its long aisle lined with fires. The ceremony had to be interrupted for an awkward incident: the magi wanted to shave the middle of my head and make me wear a turban-a barbarian practice that I refused. The procession was suspended, and the debate lasted three days, dividing all of Persia. The future of the empire was saved when one magus found a passage in an ancient text citing a king who had been converted without having his head shaved. Reciting prayers all the while, the priests threw me into a pool and purified me. They dressed me in a scarlet tunic and allowed me to wear a wreath of golden laurels, the crown conferred on me by the Macedonians and Greeks.
The magi consecrated me and gave me the name Akassam, the warrior of fire. They revealed to me a very ancient prediction that foretold the arrival of a warrior from the West. Dressed in red and gold, he would bear the fire of the winged gods all the way to the Far East. Every soldier who followed him and took part in that sacred war would be handsomely rewarded after death. They would live happily in celestial houses, surrounded by women and children.
That evening, in my dreams, I was back on the battlefield. Arrows whistled by; lances flew. I felt the hunger and thirst of combat. The soft cushions, indolent eunuchs, and intoxicating flattery were beginning to soften my mind and relax my muscles. Thirty days had been for Alexander what three years would be for an ordinary man. My time was counted. My life belonged to forced gallops, to the wind, and to unknown lands.
A woman was waiting for me, in a distant land, at the very top of a steep, rugged rock.