Shan Sa - Alexander and Alestria

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.