Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

In fact, I didn’t. I might lust after her body – it was impossible, despite my deep love for Thaïs, not to look at Banugul without some lust – but I’d scarcely noticed her otherwise.

‘The king needs a guide. I need some help from the king, too, so I’m hoping we can arrange an exchange of favours.’ Her eyes smiled again, and I tried not to imagine what she might have in mind.

‘I will take you to the king,’ I said carefully. ‘But I cannot guarantee his reaction.’

‘I would be in your debt,’ she said. Her voice was level, and offered no seduction.

Alexander was bathing. Two slaves were attending to him with sponges.

‘What do you want?’ Alexander spat at me.

‘I have recovered the stragglers, as you ordered,’ I said. ‘I also picked up Barsine’s sister, who wishes to see you.’

‘Splendid,’ Alexander said. ‘Send her in.’

Another man might have leered, or made a gesture, but Alexander didn’t see the world that way. I doubt that he ever flirted in his life. His own nudity was neither here nor there.

‘She is Hyrkanian,’ I said. I’m not sure why I was inclined to help her – perhaps the oldest reason in the world.

Alexander turned to me for the first time. ‘By Zeus Amon my father! Of course she is! Well done, Ptolemy son of Lagus!’

No thanks for a day in the desert, chasing water mirages and finding men near dead of thirst. But for bringing him a guide for his latest pothos . . .

And of course, I had done nothing.

‘Your servant, Great King,’ I said. I was mocking him, and he didn’t acknowledge it. Or perhaps even then, he took it as his due and missed the mockery altogether.

Banugul entered. She made a noise.

‘Greeks don’t worry about nudity,’ I said. Everyone’s friend, that was me.

She unwrapped her hair and face, and fell on her knees, and then did the full proskynesis.

Alexander nodded. ‘You may rise, sister of Barsines. How may I help you?’

‘Reconquer my kingdom for me, lord. And I will guide you through the mountains.’

‘Are you bargaining with me?’ he asked, voice silky.

‘Never, lord. I answered your question. I will guide you, regardless!’ She sounded breathless, insistent, and very, very intense.

But Alexander’s horses were wrecked, and the hypaspitoi were at least a day behind us across the saltpan.

Alexander looked at Banugul – the coolest, most appraising look I suspect she had ever received, from a man. ‘How long to Hecatombion?’ he asked. That’s where our scouts and the Persian turncoats reported Darius to be.

Banugul pursed her lips. ‘Four days. Better to travel at night.’

‘You could guide me at night?’ he asked.

She simpered – you could see on her face that she was reaching for the sexual innuendo, and then realised that he meant none, and her face changed – a fascinating glimpse into her mind. ‘I could guide you blindfolded,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Ptolemy?’ he asked, without taking his eyes off her.

‘Lord?’ I answered.

‘I need you to fetch in the hypaspitoi. Go fast. Take your pick of men and horses. I’m sending Coenus south for water and remounts.’ He finally turned. ‘I need to leave here tomorrow night. But I need men, animals and water.’

As he ordered, it was done.

I rode out before the sun was up, with twenty men – Polystratus and my own former grooms, most of them now remounted on the best Niseans, fresh from the royal stud, as well as Cyrus the Persian and ten of his best men. Kineas went north, with fifty of his men, and Philotas took the very best of the Hetaeroi and went due east.

I found six more men alive, on the trail, and left a party to bury three more I found dead. Before the sun was high, I’d made fifty stades, and I found Nicanor. I had forty water bags, and his men shared them – forty bags among a thousand men – and we marched.

I spent the day riding up and down the column, telling desperate men that they had a few stades to go and no more.

And falling in love with my new horses. Tall, strong, beautiful Niseans, both steel grey, both tall like goddesses, fast – I had never been so well mounted, though it was disrespectful to Poseidon to say as much. And there in the desert, when I stopped to change – for the tenth time – I spread my arms wide and sang the whole hymn to Poseidon, and cut a lock of my hair and burned it.

Cyrus watched me. He made me uneasy – he was so silent – but despite that, I was prepared to like him.

The column had escaped while I made my prayers, and we rode along at a fast walk – anything faster might have endangered the horses, in that vast and dreadful desert – moving as fast as we dared to catch up.

Cyrus turned to me after a few minutes. ‘That was religious?’ he asked.

I nodded.

He frowned, but nodded.

‘This is the first time I have seen a Hellene pray,’ he noted.

I shrugged.

‘Hmm,’ he said. After a stade, we caught up to some stragglers sitting, defeated, in the desert, and I swore at them and got them moving.

I was afraid that if I rode past them, they’d collapse again. One of them was one of my men from the first days – Amyntas son of Philip – and I was not going to let him die.

So we rode slowly behind the three men.

‘You worship the horse?’ Cyrus asked.

I shook my head.

He looked at me, annoyed. ‘What, then?’ he asked.

‘Poseidon,’ I said. ‘Lord of horses. I had a wonderful horse. A godsent horse. He died in battle. These are the first good mounts I’ve had since the battle, and I was thanking the god.’

We rode on for as long as it takes a man to make a brief oration.

‘That is good,’ Cyrus said. He rubbed his beard. ‘Yes.’

I left him to watch the three end men, and I rode up the column, and I felt as if I were on a Persian flying carpet – one of their legends. The pace – the gait – of the Nisean is like flying.

I found Nicanor, also by the end of the column. He looked terrible – grey-faced and tired, and he admitted to me that he spent far too much time vomiting. Like Cleitus. There was something nasty going around. Apollo had shot his deadly shafts into our army, and men were dropping fast.

But when I told him we were less than five stades from the town, he showed his mettle, pulled all his men together and made them march. Men who had been shuffling their feet, barely alive, suddenly raised their eyes and saw the town at the edge of the heat shimmer.

They began to sing. Bubores was there, at the head of his company, and Astibus.

Have you any idea

What we’re like to fight against?

Our sort make their dinner

Off sharp swords

We swallow blazing torches

For a savoury snack!

Then, by way of dessert,

They bring us, not nuts, but broken arrows, and splintered spear shafts.

For pillows we have our shields and breastplates,

Arrows and slings lie under our feet, and for wreaths we wear catapults

We marched into Rhagae like the elite veterans we were. Alexander emerged from his tent, and smiled.

He gathered all his officers an hour later. Nicanor looked as if he was going to die. The rest merely had sunburn. Water had restored them.

‘I have twelve hundred good horses. I need to go for six to ten days with no sleep and very little food so that we can carry enough water to keep going.’ He looked around. His eyes glittered with excitement – he was deep in the game he loved, overcoming tasks with Herculean strength and daring.

‘I need the very toughest men. The very best. Nicanor – three hundred of your best. And Ptolemy – choose me three hundred of the Hetaeroi. We will leave in four hours, and ride at night.’