Shan Sa - Alexander and Alestria

"Alestria, I put my thoughts, my dreams, your smiles, and your happiness into each of these things. Here are a pair of crickets I asked to sing for you. At night their song reaches into your dreams, spreading the words of love I taught them. Here is a feather for you to write your poems and send them to me. I want to go to sleep with your voice telling me that, in spite of the distance, you will always love me. Here is a star of crystal that promises us eternal life. Here is a heart-shaped ruby, it is my own heart, which needs to beat close to yours. However ridiculous they may seem to you, these gifts are me! I am all over this tent, and even when I am away I watch over your well-being. You are not alone, Alestria. When you wear these jewels, when you wrap yourself in these tunics, it is me kissing you and holding you in my arms.

"When I die someday, when my god decides to take me from my queen, you will realize that all these things contain a little part of me. And you will have a treasure from me: my eyes, my mouth, my hair, my tears. You will see that I am still there living beside you, all around you, protecting you, loving you even more than in life. For when I am dead, I shall no longer be a warrior. Freed from my earthly duties, I shall devote my days and nights to loving you, to breathing your presence and you breathing mine, to sleeping inside you, waking beside you, living in your eyes, your mouth, your body, and your soul."

In spite of my hatred of Alexander, I, Ania, was moved by his words. Standing by the door to the royal tent, listening in secret, I shed a few tears.

But Alestria, impassive, remained silent. Alexander fell at her feet, bathing his wife's tunic with his bitter tears.

"You no longer love me, then! You want to leave me for this young man who has not fought! Alestria, forgive me for being away. Don't abandon me!"

My queen's body made a small movement. She took Alexander's face in her hands and stared him right in the eye.

"I want to go into battle! I want to make war by your side. I do not want to be Queen of Asia. I want to defend you and to die for you!"

Alestria's words made me quiver with joy: my queen no longer wanted to live confined to the city. She had deliberately made Alexander jealous of an anonymous soldier-it was her strategy to force her husband to take her into battle.

The king leaped to his feet.

"Never," he cried, "never!"

Alestria pushed him away violently.

"Why not me?" she cried, even more loudly than him. "Why not Alestria, who can fight better than your men?"

"Because you are my queen. A queen is the heart of the empire; she should bear the king's heir," bellowed Alexander. "A queen is someone people venerate. Like a goddess, people whisper her name but do not know her face. You should be an Eastern Athena, inspiring strength, courage, and the union of our peoples."

"I am not some divinity!" Alestria shouted again, trying to be heard by a husband who was deaf to her desires. "I am a warrior who rides faster than any man. Take me with you, Alexander! Disguise me as a man. Ania will agree to take my place and wear my veil. No one will know it is not me. I am leaving with you; I want to stay with you day and night. I want to protect you from arrows drawn to the front, to the left, and to the right. I want to fight with you. Together we can force back the shadows and reach the sun."

My heart leaped: I, Ania, would not wear her royal veil either. I was a warrior, and I had my pride as an Amazon. I would not bury myself alive in this city that supported hordes of eunuchs and women with no muscles, bland dishonest creatures constantly discussing petty intrigues. I too had aspirations to blood, purity, and a glorious death. I would follow Alestria and fight the ape-men, snakes, and crocodiles. I would never be a veiled queen!

But Alexander understood nothing about women. Alexander was so full of his masculine power that he wanted no woman by his side. He did not want his queen to triumph where he had been defeated. He did not want to give Alestria an opportunity to conquer the world with him, for him. He did not love my queen. He looked down on women and thought of us as domestic animals. He threw himself at Alestria and took her in his arms, telling her to stop making these childish requests. He called her his little girl and said he would come back to her more often. He tried to undress her, smiling and telling her that if she loved him she should not die for him but give him a child.

I, Ania, was incensed. Was this love: hiding away a woman as capable of fighting monsters as himself? Was this love: making an Amazon die of boredom and wealth and powerless power? Was this Alexander's love: putting a bird of the glacier in a cage and leaving it there to wither and fade?

Alestria, always so calm and well behaved, was suddenly furious. Interpreting her fury as hysteria, Alexander initially spoke like a patient, indulgent father. But, rather than consoling her, his words only humiliated her further. An Amazon's anger is a fearful thing: she screamed and wept and threw his gifts on the ground. She wanted to go back to the steppes. Having no more clever lies up his sleeve, Alexander too became angry. He blocked the queen's way and roared at her. She took him by the wrists and elbowed him in the stomach, launching him to the ground. He clutched hold of her ankle, tripping her up, then threw himself at her, shouting angrily. She grabbed his throat, but he knocked her out with a powerful clout from his head.

I, Ania, thought with delight that they no longer loved each other and would now part. But their anger was already eroding, the storm was passing, and after the turmoil came the cool, silent night. Alexander took Alestria in his arms and whispered poems of love in her ear.

I wandered through the forest, my heart laden with sorrow as the undergrowth was weighed down by rain. Up in the sky the moon was in its zenith, and the stars had disappeared in its bright light. My queen was like that pure detached moon, forgiving, still shining, still radiant for Alexander, offering him the last of her light.

I kicked out at a tree, and a shower of dew fell from it. Thousands of moons slithered from its leaves and fell, flattened, on the ground.

My beloved blew on my forehead. I stroked his cheek where it was scratched. He looked at me so searchingly.

"Alestria, you who want to fight," he said with a smile, "do you know about war? You know about wielding weapons, about the smell of blood and the squeals of injured horses, but you do not know war. I don't want you to know it. I don't want you to know the madness of men. You who are pure and transparent as tourmaline sown on the ground by the dawn, I have brought you on my journey, but you must not come into my world. You must not know the world I come from."

I said nothing, listening to him.

"War is hundreds, thousands, of men and horses lined up in icy silence. When the horns sound, they throw themselves at each other. Feathers, arrows, lances, shields, everything becomes confused. Arms fly off, thighs are cut open, feet severed. Heads roll and bellies spew out blood. Men in combat are more ferocious than starving animals devouring each other. Striking blows with lances, axes, hammers, and sabers, they mutilate their enemies and send them to their deaths. While some fall, others march over their bodies and fight on. Then silence, the ground strewn with corpses while fresh blood showers over dried blood. Dying horses tremble till their teeth chatter. Survivors wander among the dead, stealing anything of value. Scavengers are drawn from far and wide to enjoy this feast that will ensure their survival. Flies swarm down from the sky, settling on every excrescence of life: white spilling from open heads; green and yellow tumbling from abdomens; red seeping from chests. They cluster on motionless hands still holding weapons, they cloak rigid feet, feet with broken toenails because they have done too much marching. They lick greedily at a hairy ankle, a thigh speared by an arrow, a torso without a head, and wide-eyed heads without torsos.