Shan Sa - Alexander and Alestria

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.