"Alexander and Alestria" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sa Shan)

Chapter 1

I, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Philip, king of kings, conqueror of the Greeks, came into this world on the night of a great fire.

The temple of Artemis was alight. Ocher and yellow flames, forests of sparks and twisting wreaths of smoke, spilled into the sky. Thick clouds settled on villages in which every soul had taken refuge indoors, terrified by the fury of the divine huntress.

By the time of my first memory I can already run to the top of the hill. My mother, who dresses me as a girl, takes me to play among the ruins. There are fragments of burned stone scattered in the grass, and wild flowers exhale their bitter fragrance. Wearing a white tunic and sandals with golden straps and with my hair in braids, I stumble up a collapsed flight of steps, hide behind a fallen column, and laugh when the slaves walk past without seeing me. My mother watches me. She tells me of a great temple wiped out by fire, and warns that fire alone is indestructible.

As an adolescent I went back to that hill where the ruins, in turn, had disappeared. A new temple had been built with painted columns, and frescoes along the pediment and arches. My father tells me that Artemis and Apollo were twins. Artemis was born first, already clothed and armed, and she helped her mother bring Apollo into the world. Horrified by the suffering of childbirth, she made a vow of chastity. My father chose to dedicate the new temple to Apollo because, he claimed, my birth had brought an end to the inconsistent world of the moon, of poetic virgins and wandering bacchantes. With me came the era of the sun, of conquerors and lovers devoted to the rages of war.

I, Alexander, whose name means male succor and the protection of warriors, was born prince of a kingdom of peasants and soldiers. My father, Philip, sent gifts and silver to families that brought boys into the world. He took care of the boys' physical education and put them in training as soon as they were six. Royal envoys scoured the villages once a year during the celebrations dedicated to Zeus, selecting the tallest, strongest, and most deft boy children to turn them into the best warriors on earth.

Having a soldier in the family was an honor. Every Macedonian household had at least one. Parents whose son had just enlisted in the army and who were losing a pair of hands to work in the fields were handsomely compensated by my father. He promised them the unimaginable spoils of conquered cities. He turned war into an opportunity for everyone to grow rich.

Money and strength were then but one. There was nothing we valued more highly than a man's strength. The Macedonians had been trading on their valor and military expertise for a long time, and neighboring cities paid them to fight their enemies and die for them. My father brought an end to this bartering. He explained to our soldiers that they could not put a price on a Macedonian's life and that selling our strength was wasting a valuable resource.

At the time of my birth our people was fighting for riches and my father for power. The divisions among the Greeks played into my father's hands, and he asserted his authority over everyone as Agamemnon had in the days of Troy. He reigned over the Athenians, the Thebans, and the Spartans while all around him men and women schemed to take his place. During her pregnancy my mother constantly hid herself, convinced that people wanted Philip to have no heir.

I, Alexander, son of Philip, king of the Macedonians, and Olympias, daughter of the king of Epirus, I, descendant of Achilles and Zeus, came into this world in a poor village, close to the temple of Artemis. Apollo is my god and protector.

Macedonia, my country, I was born for your high mountains and deep valleys. I grew strong in your forests and meadows. Soon I was running to join in the Feast of Horses and babbling the word "horse," which lends itself to so many expressions of strength and speed. Early in the morning I sat on the balustrade of the terrace at the very top of my white palace, and watched women in brightly colored aprons and red skirts as they drove their flocks toward the hills. Clouds glided across a blue sky, followed by their shifting shadows. I peered at the horizon. The sea was far away, farther than the hazy line lit up by the blazing dawn. Way over there Neptune was blowing into his horn and raising a storm; Achilles was sailing for Troy, city of his demise, which would render him immortal; Ulysses was drifting from one island to another, haunted by the sirens. He too would go down in legend.

My mother came over to me, her long black braid wound round her head, her body draped in a white tunic. She took me in her arms, enveloping me in her perfume. I buried myself in her embrace as avidly as a honeybee looking for nectar in the most beautiful flower in Macedonia. She was young and beautiful, daughter of the gods whose whims she described for me, daughter of the heroes whose capricious acts she whispered to me. Her velvet voice transformed bloody wars into lovers' tiffs, monsters of the abyss into cooing birds. Her gaze lingered in the invisible sea. I watched her smile and grow sad, I watched her weep but was unable to console her. My mother bore a secret in her heart.

I could not understand the obsession men had with war. There was nothing more lovely than soft fabrics, colored stones, and women's laughter. In summer the town seemed to float in the heat. I lay in the shade of orange trees with my head on my mother's stomach. Slaves burned grasses and herbs to drive away insects, and they waved palm fronds to cool me. In winter in this vast terraced palace, my loneliness was equally vast. The empty palace echoed to the sound of my mother's singing. She taught me about the lives of plants and the names of birds. I drank in her words as an infant drinks milk.

Sometimes peasants would bring us injured animals: a bird with a broken wing, a limping dog, an orphaned monkey, snakes, and bees. Olympias healed them, and by her side, they regained their strength.

"When you want to talk to an animal, don't move," she told me. "Don't look at it. Keep your eyes on a nearby plant, a tree, a patch of sky. Forget that you are Alexander. Let the animal's thoughts come to you."

That was a time when I knew more about the language of toads and goats and vipers than the language of men.

The men always came back. Their hurried footsteps, their shouting and hearty laughter, echoed round. The smell of wine and sweat and weapons spread. The door creaked noisily, and my father appeared. I ran behind a drape. His one eye swept over the room, turning me to stone. If Philip was in a good mood, he would grab my legs in his great hands and throw me in the air. If Philip was drunk, he would grab me by the hair and bellow. He would rip my girl's clothes, call me a bastard, and threaten to throw me into the lions' den. My mother came to save me, but Philip heaved me up above his head. His tightly curled hair had a strong animal smell. His shouts reverberated through me so that my whole body shook with fear. He cursed Olympias and her family, swearing he would slit her adulterous throat and bury her bastard child alive. He called her a witch, accused her of plotting against him and wanting to overthrow him. He would only drop me back to the ground once he had made my mother weep and terrorized me.

The warriors took their places as pitchers of wine were carried along the corridors. Whole roast calves on silver trays converged on the feasting hall. There, by torchlight, mouths covered in scars gleamed with grease as they popped olives and grapes. My father sat in pride of place. Beneath his thick fair eyebrows, a flame danced in the heart of his one blue eye. He held forth about military operations yet to be perpetrated and kingdoms yet to be conquered. I hid behind a column and listened, fascinated by his booming voice but not understanding a word. The clamor was deafening. Philip poured wine down his throat with one hand and delved into the belly of a roast calf with the other. He drank quickly and ate too much. Pleasure-that sweet, slow progressive sensation-was unknown to him. He liked only instant gratifications so that he could move on to the next.

When the servant women found me, they took me away forcibly and shut me in my room. I leaned on the windowsill, watching lights twinkling around the town. All of Pella was feasting with the king. When the moon was bright I could see naked men walking through the gardens and terraces. They chased each other through the grass and disappeared into the trees. One day the slaves forgot to block my door, and I slipped out of my room. I came round a bend in a corridor and saw Philip almost naked. He was fighting with a young man. They were both groaning. I froze at the sight of them. Fascinated by their thighs and stomachs, I could not tear my eyes away. My father gave long rasping moans that terrified me. I ran to my room in tears and hid under the bed.

The tyrant disappeared for months at a time. Life settled back into its gentle music. I did not want to be a man, to be like

Philip. I liked braids and women's clothes, and learned the disciplines I enjoyed: dance, the lute, poetry, the game of marbles. But the tyrant returned more fiery and brutal, more drunk than ever. Olympias wept. Philip bellowed. I trembled, closing my eyes and blocking my ears. My father's imprecations and my mother's screams as he struck her hammered through my head.

Olympias, your beauty and your origins bewitched Philip. He had your father assassinated and abducted you from your country! Philip the tyrant is not my father. A young Greek warrior loved you, and you conceived me. Olympias, don't cry! I will have our revenge.

When I reached the age of six, my father stole me from my mother. I was driven out of town in a cart and was interned at the Royal School, where I was to learn to fight like every Macedonian man. Still haunted by Olympias's sobs, I walked timidly through that imposing portico. The sons of generals and noblemen kept their distance, eyeing me coldly. I stopped in front of the closest of them. He looked down.

"Are you a girl or a boy?" I asked him.

"A boy," he replied.

"What's your name?"

"Hephaestion."

I liked the way he flushed, the smell of him and his voice. I knew instantly that his friendship would be eternally faithful and protective.

I was the smallest and weakest at school. The boys imitated their fathers' coarse habits and walked with their heads held high.

They made fun of me and deliberately bumped into me. I was flattered merely to exist close to their muscles. I played Olym-pias, the submissive woman, and charmed them with my affable smiles. I took more interest in the beauty of the male body than in athletic training. The world of boys made me forget the unbearable ugliness of lame, mutilated, blinded, and scarred adults.

Philip announced the imminent arrival of a philosopher famous for his moral rectitude. He wanted the man to come to Pella, he explained, to correct the perversities Olympias had instilled in me. Aristotle appeared one spring morning, dressed in a white tunic which left his thin bony arms uncovered. I hid behind an olive tree, refusing to talk to this man who wanted to educate me in keeping with Greek customs. He would find out about my conversations with birds and my girlish ways. He would punish me and torture me. He was here to work on my reason.

Aristotle sat on a bench and called for Alexander. Hephaes-tion dragged me by the hand, then pushed me forcibly. I stood in front of the philosopher with my eyes lowered and my hands behind my back, staring at a column of ants carrying grain toward some bushes. Aristotle's voice rang out. It was the first time I had heard pure Greek, unhampered by any accent.

"Macedonia is just one star in a sky full of stars, do you know that?"

I looked up.

Aristotle drew me in and tamed me with his beautiful words and his soothing presence. He let me feel his body, which was nothing like those of the warriors I grew up with. His status as a philosopher meant he could dispense with all athletic training: his skin was soft, his belly fat, his chest flabby. Aristotle was living proof of the diversity of the world. Other men may be as powerful as warriors. Other towns may be more beautiful than Pella.

In the shade beneath the porticoes Aristotle unrolled his maps. He took an olive branch and traced the roads and shorelines. Country by country, he communicated his passion for geography to me. He smelled good, and his face glowed. No one before him had that phrasing, that way with words, that stringency and clarity. Aristotle was a mason who knew how to build minds. He consolidated the foundations laid down by Olympias, and erected the columns. Mathematics, logic, and metaphysics supported the structure of thought. I grasped that history was not written only by the gods of Olympus or by heroes destined for great exploits. The earth was populated not only with Cerberuses, centaurs, and mermaids. Men had created kingdoms, cities, and governments. Somewhere beyond incantations and witchcraft there was grammar, analysis, and morality. Beyond the art of divination, there was arithmetic, and that quest for a just medium between the failings and qualities of all things, that balancing act, that is called politics.

Phalanxes of the Macedonian army made the very earth tremble. My father advanced at the head of this swaying forest of lances, and never retreated. He returned to Pella only for major feast days. Crowned with laurels and wearing sandals of woven gold, he dominated the world as Zeus did Mount Olympus. His hair was bleached by the sun, his wind-burnished skin obscured by a beard, while his white tunic revealed one shoulder and showed off an arm with bulging muscles scored with lance wounds. And this mighty king publicly ridiculed me: he said I was as thin and stupid as a girl. He grabbed my hand and laid it on his scars, claiming he would teach me about manliness and valor.

Orgies could no longer satisfy his thirst for gratification. He took to keeping lions and releasing captives into the arena with them. The monsters roared and leaped onto these near-naked men. Rare were the slaves who could hold on to their weapons and fight against the lionesses, who were even fiercer than their mates. My father would laugh, standing up and craning his neck when a belly was ripped open. I sat beside him, no longer shaking. Olympias had taught me not to be afraid. She told me that when the storm was in full swing, I had to stay calm and keep my feet on the ground. Because nothing can sway the ground, nothing could destroy it. It is the source of all strength. That was the secret of our ancestor Achilles, who was invincible so long as his feet touched the ground. The spectacle was drawing to a close; my father spat, put his hand through my hair, and waggled my head, roaring with laughter. The sun was setting and the feasting began. The king was soon drunk, and his affection toward me turned to rage. He brandished his goblet and his sword, called me a bastard before everyone, and asked in a booming voice who my father was. The warriors laughed, each claiming I was his daughter.

I had grown up. I no longer cried. I was training myself to withstand suffering. One day a slave would kill the lions. One day Alexander would slay the tyrant.

Having abused her body and debased her soul, Philip neglected the queen who no longer appealed to him. Freed from his pestering attentions, Olympias took refuge in the consolation of women and formed an attachment with a young slave girl she kept in her bedchamber. Olivia was gentle and fair-skinned. When she brushed her garnet lips over my mother's face, she made her forget this life of imprisonment she had never chosen.

One day when he was drunk, the king came across Olivia in the garden and raped her. Bleeding and ashamed, the slave girl drowned herself in a lake. Olympias was demented with grief, resentment, and hatred. She beat her breast, tore out her hair, and cursed the king. She ran barefoot to the top of the ramparts and wanted to throw herself to her death, but the soldiers held her back. The king ordered her to be locked up, and a rumor spread that the queen had gone mad.

I came back from the Royal School for her sake, kneeling before her and calling to her. She did not recognize me but gabbled deliriously, her hair awry and her tunic soiled. I lay my hand on her forehead; she shivered and tried to fight me off. I did not move away but sent her my thoughts through the palm of my hand. A spark appeared in her eyes, and tears sprang up. I drew her to me, and she followed me out of that underground dungeon. She went back to her chamber and lay on the bed where Olivia would no longer join her. Olympias huddled close to me, her tears falling on my breast, but the pain was more bearable now. My muscles were beginning to forge themselves, I had learned to fight with a sword and had my first scar. I no longer knew pity.

Why suffer? Why take pleasure? Why do women and children cry? Why do men get drunk and copulate?

When I asked these questions of Aristotle, he gave me no answers. It was a hot, starless night full of perfumes and the hum of insects.

"You are the star in this starless universe," Aristotle told me.

"You are black, red, yellow, green, purple, white, and blue, the seven colors the Demiurge used to create the world of stars."

I opened my eyes wide and saw mysterious lights in the sky: creatures like butterflies, fireflies, birds, sometimes transparent, sometimes opaque, decked in sparks of light. They brushed past me, settled on my shoulder, then flew away.

My father wanted to make a warrior of me. My mother claimed that I was the son of a god. Aristotle hoped to make a good and just ruler of me. I wanted to become none of these three Alexanders.

Papyrus books had taught me about the pyramids, the Sphinx, and boats with crimson sails. I believed I was destined for oceans and deserts, for forests, mountains, and volcanoes.

Without Homer, the exploits of men would have been scattered on the wind. Without him, kings would not have known immortality. I, Alexander, would give birth to majestic landscapes, grandiose cities, and warriors who exceeded all norms. Their weapons would be exceptional, their horses magnificent, their words unparalleled. Riding forth with furious desire, they would know neither hunger nor thirst, forget rumor and calumny, and ignore the countries and hearts trampled by their steeds. They would conquer the sun. They would steal and compete with each other to advance faster, ever faster, to the very edge of the universe.

I would be a poet.

My body was changing and causing me suffering. Standing naked beside the river, I was intimidated by the soldiers who stopped their horseplay under the waterfall to turn and look at me. I was no longer slender as a little girl: my shoulders, hips, and buttocks were muscled up by Olympian exercises. The brown and black curls of my hair floated about my face, which had lost its childish curves. I threw myself into the water to hide. Hephaes-tion came over and whispered that the commander of the phalanx had asked us to take part in a water fight. I was overcome with shame and indignation, and escaped by swimming downstream. Rushes swayed in the wind, swifts skimmed over the water and flitted up to the trees. There was an inexpressible pain inside me: something was about to happen, and I knew it would bring both fear and joy.

Hephaestion always watched me, growing aggressive when I spoke to other boys. He sulked for days on end, then came back. The tall, brutish adolescents at the school had stopped making fun of me, looking for opportunities to flatter me and allow me to win wrestling matches. In exchange for this servitude they took turns asking me to scrub their backs when bathing. Only Crateros continued to assault me, never hesitating to spit in my face or hurt me in combat. His hostility appalled me: I hovered around him, smiling at him and flashing him burning glances, which infuriated Hephaestion. The two boys fought over everything and anything; they even went so far as to brandish their swords and threaten to kill each other. I leaned against a column and watched them with a feeling of melancholy.

I was beautiful, I realized that. Not like these boys born for massacres; I had only my beauty to protect me and to ensure I was accepted by other men. I wanted to please everyone I met. Pleasing is a means of escape, it is a means of domination.

I realized how much I had changed when I walked out to meet Philip on his return to Pella after yet another victory: the tyrant watched me in silence. At the banquet he seated me beside him and covered me with compliments. He called for Bucephalus, a huge horse with a dazzling white coat, and offered him to me.

He ordered me to pose naked before the royal sculptors. In their deft hands, the clay became a mouth, curls, a torso, thighs. The divine Apollo and I were now but one. Together we would dictate the law of perfection throughout Macedonia and Greece. Philip came to watch, walked round, then left. He came back and stood before the statue, motionless as he contemplated it.

He begged me to let him kiss me, ordered me to open my arms to him. He clambered over me suffocatingly, kneeling before me when I rebuffed him with a scream. My rejection unleashed his desire: his gifts piled up, he summoned me to every celebration, introducing me as the future king of Macedonia, seating me in pride of place beside him, pouring wine for me as eagerly as a woman in love.

His efforts flattered and disgusted me. His passion softened my loathing even as it heightened it. I nurtured a towering contempt for the human body and for those obsessed with the flesh. A new Alexander was burgeoning within me. I could not tell whether he was strong or weak. He told me that my beauty was the rarest of goods: if I learned how to barter, I would become a superior being.

Everything was reduced to trade-offs. I gave only on condition of receiving. Philip, the king who was never refused anything, began to enjoy this game that reversed our roles. I had become his tyrant; he reveled in his servitude. To persuade me to undress, he had to heap gifts at my feet: gold plates, weapons, jewels, all the treasures he had grasped from the Greeks by force and by blood, at the risk of his own life. I soon tired of this accumulation; gold elicited only my disdain. My displeasure aroused him further, and he made dogged attempts to earn my smile.

I asked for every extravagant gift that came to mind: a three-horned bull, an embalmed Egyptian, a shrunken head, a freshly aborted fetus from a slave girl. When I tired of the game and felt satisfied with my offerings, like Apollo consenting to step down from the heavens, I gave myself to him and his companions in pleasure with perfect indifference. He would laugh and put his golden laurel wreath on my head, offering me his throne in exchange for one long kiss. Through all the madness of this capricious behavior, I kept my feet anchored to the ground.

Of all the things he had, I wanted only his strength.

Ever in pursuit of the model of divine beauty, artists abandoned the coarse bodies of athletes and became infatuated with the cool contours of my muscles, my graceful limbs and fine features.

Looking at my reflection, I no longer saw the timid girl with braided hair, or the melancholy little boy who dreamed of being Homer. Instead there was a young prince with a proud nose and a determined chin. He had large, green innocent eyes that fascinated the powerful Macedonian warriors, and an adolescent mouth that the Greeks longed to kiss. His square shoulders, strong chest, and narrow waist, his firm belly and muscled buttocks, still had the harmonious curves and sweet proportions of a woman. I had become a work of art and was offered to everyone, but was forever inaccessible to common mortals.

How could it be that such filth and crime had made my body so resplendent? I was obsessed with hatred, ravaged by vengeance, initiated in the art of torture, unmoved by corpses, laughing as I decapitated and eviscerated them… how could it be that my features were still so incomparably pure?

Is the face a comedian's mask hiding the tragedy of the soul?

The body a statue of marble to serve men and the gods?

With Aristotle, I was an assiduous and intelligent pupil. With my father, a torturer and a whore. With my fellow students, a tyrannical leader and a servile lover. With Hephaestion, a suspicious woman, constantly haranguing him reproachfully to make him suffer.

I had grown accustomed to being several different people. There were as many Alexanders as there were men and women interested in me, in love with me, intoxicated by my face.

Paris took Helen away, and the Greeks waged war on the Trojans for ten years. Achilles killed Hector and was killed in turn. The defeated Priam had his throat cut, and the conquering Agamemnon was assassinated by his own wife. Beauty is prey to strength. Beauty destroys strength. From a crawling caterpillar I had turned into a butterfly. From the defenseless little girl I had forged my own strategy. My beauty had subjugated Philip; it had incited young men to fight each other, and elicited vows of loyalty. It made Hephaestion weep and tricked Aristotle. I offered it, then took it back; I threw it out, then hid it again. Beauty was my sword, and I loathed it.

Hatred of beauty was my armor. Self-loathing appeased my pain.

Philip had taught me to spy, Olympias to plot and scheme. I never hesitated to follow the king's order in killing lovers he thought were traitors. I trained myself to know no pity in order to protect my girlish heart and my poet's dreams.

I woke in the mornings exhausted by my restless sleep. I stripped naked and posed for artists who displayed my image as the aesthetic ideal to every nation. I would rule over this world of ugliness and violence with my radiant smile and innocent expression. In Pella everyone had become my lover, my slave. Everyone wanted to die within me, had sworn to die for me.

My mother's indulgence and constant weeping exasperated me. I now hated her more than I loathed Philip. So long as she was alive, her existence would remind me that I was the instrument she had forged to spite the tyrant. Wherever I was, she would be inside my head, whispering her disappointment and resentment toward men. My mother was the mirror in which I contemplated my own reflection in horror.

Who was I?

A weakling or a towering force?

Hephaestion, do you remember our early years spent running through the forests like fawns?

Do you remember our first embrace?

Do you remember the sunbeam that came in through the temple doors, unfurling a great carpet of light at our feet!

Veiled in brilliant red by the setting sun and draped in white cloth, you blushed and smiled, twisting your head away when I tried to kiss you. I pinned you to the plinth at Apollo's feet, reached out my hand, and let your tunic slip from your shoulder. As you struggled, you did the same to me so that I was naked. You were only fifteen years old, and I even younger. Do you know that I was already accustomed to hairy adult bodies and was moved by your young, hairless skin? Your lips seemed to swell, your eyes pierced mine, paralyzing me. I had to force you to turn round. You clung to Achilles' ankles. Drops of water fell on my arms, you wept as you gave me my first climax.

You have always asked me why I wept with you that day. And why I laughed as I wept. Here is my secret: I was my father's whore. I had just freely given you what my father paid for in cattle, horses, and gold pieces. I had just realized that what you had given me without compensation was worth more than the treasures of every Greek city. I learned that there was something in the world, a feeling that could not be bartered, stolen, or taken by force.

Love repairs what beauty destroys. I became a man the day you gave yourself. I, who hoped to find a warrior to release me from the prison created by my father, I nurtured the desire to become a hero to guard our purity!

Hephaestion, do you remember? For the first year of school I was always on the ground during wrestling classes. The boys called me a bastard and you fought for me, rolling on the ground with Crateros, who took pleasure in humiliating me. Do you know that for a long time I wondered which I liked best: you, my protector who looked on me tenderly, or him, the cruel one who rejected me?

When we left the temple, the sun was shining along the path. I was filled with the happiness of having known physical delight. As I walked hand in hand with you, I understood that I was no longer the king's slave, and now I wanted to become king, your king and king of the Macedonians and the Greeks. On that day I knew I had something more than my father, the invincible warrior, ever had.

I am woman and man. I am stronger, more intelligent, and more determined than a man who has not known a woman's suffering.

Be thanked, Hephaestion, for your patience and tolerance. I was once afraid you might abandon me, and I tormented you to keep you by my side. This evening I release you from my possessive desire. You are free.

Tomorrow Philip will die, or he will survive.

Tomorrow I shall be king, or I shall be condemned.

Tomorrow will be ours, or we shall be forgotten to the world for ever.

Come, Hephaestion! Let us join Cassander, Crateros, Perdic-cas, and the others. We should not make them wait.

Slaves, light the braziers! Dionysus, break open your pitchers, let the wine flow.

Let us drink and make love and celebrate!

Here's to us, brothers in arms, children of Macedonia, may we conquer pyramids, deserts, oceans, the steepest mountains and the most magnificent cities.

Blood is our strength; pain our ecstasy!

Pausanias did not break his word; his dagger struck Philip.

The king crawled along the ground before falling motionless. Only his hands still quivered. Blood blossomed on his white tunic, tinting it red. All around me women screamed and children howled. Men blamed themselves and beat their chests. They tore their clothes and lost their sandals as they barged past each other in pursuit of the murderer. Olympias threw herself at my feet, shaking me as she sobbed. I looked up toward the sun and let tears of joy stream over my cheeks.

Aristotle, your words hardened the ribs of my flanks, your lessons straightened my spine! Your knowledge armed my mind. Henceforth I shall be a king, I shall dominate this world of violence with the strength of thought. Pausanias was a soldier prepared to die for a great cause; others will follow his example and die for Alexander.

I am not the son of Philip, I am the son of a god. Apollo forged me in his divine brazier to make an indestructible warrior of me. Now that its wings have grown, the firebird is ready to fly. It will launch itself toward heights unknown to man, where there are dangers, challenges, and infinity.

Alexander rejected suggested negotiations. Alexander wanted to show the world how determined he was to reign. Alexander repudiated Aristotle, whose talk was of clemency. Rebellious cities would be reconquered with the lance.

Thebes, the ancient white city backed up against the sea, the city of trade and giant sailing ships, Thebes, the home of prophetesses and fallen gods, Thebes waited for us with its gates closed and its ramparts defended by mercenary archers who had run to its aid from neighboring towns. I feigned hesitation, sent messages to Pella, called for the most astute diplomats to begin talks. As I anticipated, in council these traitors could not wait to communicate the good news to the Thebans. I waited twenty-one days for their hope of peace to disarm their vigilance.

The order to attack was given in the middle of a moonless night. The cavalry advanced on horses whose hooves were wrapped in cloth. The infantrymen left their lances behind and marched in silence, saber in hand. It was only when we reached the walls of Thebes that I called for the drum to be sounded. Thebes woke too late. Behind me my soldiers formed great waves that spilled into the city. Swords flashed zigzags in the dark. Arrows whistled. War cries mingled with wailing from the injured. The smell of blood and the thrum of combat made me deaf and blind to danger. I kept on advancing, not noticing those who fell beside me and would never again see the light of day. The gates creaked open noisily and my cavalry streamed in. The Macedonians had orders to pursue any resistance, even into the Thebans' beds. The massacre lasted three days. Street after street, house after house, my soldiers killed, pillaged, and raped. Sword in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, I amused myself slicing and dismembering bodies. I dined while noblemen were grilled alive beneath the steps. Rather than soothing my rage, victory increased it tenfold.

I left Thebes dissatisfied and melancholy, riding at the head of my army, followed by the women and children taken as slaves. Thebes was in flames. Thebes was reduced to columns of black smoke.

Citizens of Greece, listen! There are none more wily than the Thebans. There are no ramparts more impregnable than theirs. There is no history more proud than theirs. Philip conquered them. Alexander destroyed them. Submit now, why wait! The Macedonian king is on his way! His lance brings with it lightning and his sword brings forth fire. When his mount Bucephalus whinnies, the swiftest steeds are paralyzed. Flee! Run! Crawl! Alexander is on his way, for peace or for annihilation!

Ferocity and intransigence are necessities. In order to be feared, a military commander must prove he is not afraid to have men mutilated and put to death. He must sacrifice his peace of mind for his authority. I no longer drank wine until it had been tasted by a slave. I woke in the night believing an assassin had crept into my tent. Philip came to me in my dreams, covered in blood and crawling along the ground, clutching at me with his icy hands. This was my punishment for plotting against my father.

I returned to Pella. With my white tunic, a gold laurel wreath on my forehead, and the royal scepter against my heart, I arrived through the principal gateway, cheered as Philip once was. Olympias took me in her arms. Her woman's perfume erased the ashen faces, the wounds seething with maggots, and the burned corpses. My mother's voice woke me from my nightmares. I noticed olive trees again, and orange blossom, sparkling water in the fountains and the gentle hum of a peaceful life: doves cooing, sparrows scrapping in the trees, bell-ringing carried on the wind, the clinking sounds of masons building a house, the laughter of Macedonians cleaning their linen down by the river.

My wounds scarred over, and I regained my strength. Pella became unbearable to me once again. Rumors circulated through doors and open windows in the palace: the world still thought of me as a bastard, as Olympias's daughter clinging to the tunic of a mother who had murdered her own husband. They said I was under her spell, they whispered that she poisoned anyone who questioned my legitimacy, and they laughed at this weak Alexander who let himself be manipulated by his debauched, scheming mother.

I set off for war again to escape the wagging tongues. Far from Pella I could make use of my mother's devotion. Orders were sent to her in secret: she had to eliminate anyone who contested my actions; she had to continue wreaking my revenge on Philip, silencing those who sang his praises, wiping away every trace of his legend, washing clean the marble floors and columns impregnated with his smell. She had to help me drive him out of my life and erase him from my memory.

Battle after battle, my soldiers grew richer and I accumulated experience as well as maps and books expounding the wonders of this world. The fury of a body streaming with blood and sweat alternated with the chill lucidity of solitary thought, constructing strategies. I was overcome with melancholy as soon as the exultant rage abated. Athens fell without a fight: that metropolis which once teemed with traders, sailors, politicians, and philosophers was now reduced to ruins. The agora was deserted, but the taverns prospered: the poorest boys and girls went there to prostitute themselves and sell their souls.

Sitting at the foot of the Acropolis, I was before the very gates of eternity, looking toward the horizon: the sea, silvery waves, and sailing boats. Socrates had been condemned to poisoning. Plato's republic was now a mere shadow on the walls of a cave. Athens and its ruined palaces, the great city of Thebes that I myself burned down, and Macedonia, a land rich in cereal crops but poor in the arts: these three formed a vast prison locking me in its unhealthy backstreets and decadent ways.

Disguised as a soldier, I loitered around the port of Athens looking for easy pleasures. Boys hovered round me, flashing me looks and tugging at my arm. The most beautiful succeeded in getting me to sit down and share their cheap wine. The sun was setting over the sea and the clouds turning scarlet. Growing steadily more drunk as my frustration grew, I could not find a single face that attracted me, a body that smelled good, a person who could bring me gratification to distract me from my gloom. I turned a street corner and caught the eye of a frightened little boy selling dates under a tree. Inexplicably, my body was inflamed by him. I grabbed him and, despite his pleading and crying, dragged him to the nearest inn and emptied myself into him.

The following morning I left Athens as soon as the sun was up, horrified by the memory of that drunken night, by the little boy's terrified expression-so like Alexander's as a child. I had committed Philip's crime. His soul was distilled in my blood. In death, he lived through me, making a mockery of my pointless rebellion.

I needed greater acts of cruelty, fiercer battles! I had to gallop and climb and throw myself at the highest battlements. Only arrows and the sparking clash of swords, only the cries of dying men and the flames of burning cities, could exorcise my anguish! With Greek cities pacified, the world had become too small to contain my suffering, which prospered more swiftly than my pleasure. I needed new cities, barbarian nations, and unknown lands to deflate my pain.

Persia, its infinite expanse and shadowy provinces, appeared like a dream, a necessary dream and an indispensable challenge. It became the obsession that promised to bring an end to my torment.

Ambition healed and intoxicated me. I had no choice: in a long starless night, Alexander would be a shooting star, burning intensely. Though short, his life would leave the memory of its swift dazzling trajectory across the celestial vault.

Olympias talked to me of marriage. I knew from my men that she had started looking for a wife for me among the daughters of Macedonian noblemen. Her dreams of a happy marriage and her longing to be a grandmother made the very air in the palace difficult to breathe. I tried to evade the question with talk of my father, accusing my mother of allowing him to pervert me, and of tolerating my vices as she had his. Olympias looked at me, her eyes filled with sadness.

"Woman!" I screamed, "you gave me love, but that love nurtured a monster. I don't want to be married! I don't want a wife like you! I don't want to have children I can harm!"

She looked away and said nothing.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave full vent to my anger.

"Look at me," I bellowed, shaking her. "I'm not the man you think you love. I'm not a god. I destroy cities for the sheer pleasure of showing that I'm more fierce and dangerous than Philip, to exceed him in every crime he committed. I have decapitated children, eviscerated women, burned men alive when they have done me no harm at all. Oh, Olympias, you gave birth to a tyrant!" She held me in her arms and wept.

"Give me a child," she whispered. "Then go and never come back! If I raise a son of yours, he will be a good and just king, he will be wise and clement…"

Her words touched my heart, which had no armor against her. My tears mingled with hers, and we wept together for our ruined lives. Night fell, and Olympias sang me the same songs that had lulled my childhood. I lay with my head on her stomach and fell asleep as I used to then.

Women are stronger than men. Even Philip, despite his drunken rages, had never succeeded in defeating Olympias. How could I escape her will? I set off on horseback again, leaving her in charge of the palace and the scheming trappings of power. But her letters followed me beyond mountains; her voice silenced the tumult of war and brought me back by her side, in her bedchamber looking out over orange trees and fountains. I could not help myself replying, and our exchanges were like butterflies flitting over fields strewn with corpses. She and I were harnessed together by the timeless link that joins a man and a woman. Philip was dead; I in turn had become her intrepid warrior, her devouring force, her hand reaching out to expand its territories over the world. She was my home; she had the keys to my treasure and watched fiercely over Pella. I waged war at the front, and she pacified to the rear. I pillaged, and she balanced the accounts. I killed, and she dressed the wounds.

How to fight a woman who had borne suffering, accepted violence, survived brutality? There was a small room in the palace where black crystals were laid out on an altar. My mother shut herself away in there, and no one, not even Philip, had ever dared open that door. Olympias knew everything about me; I had been a part of her. I knew nothing of her, nothing except the mountainous land she came from, a place where people wore black and went to market to sell scorpions, snakes, spiders, and precious stones with magic powers and evil promises. The men practiced vengeance as others might sing and dance. The women of her family, promised to Dionysus by an ancestral pact, learned from him the skill to subdue warriors.

Preparations for a military expedition against the Persians had begun many years before. Philip had reformed our armies to make them more mobile. With archers marching ahead of the phalanxes and walls of lances hiding the cavalry, our square formations could transform themselves into curved lines at any moment. After good harvests and with our grain stores full, the mention of a war against the Persians motivated Greek cities that had once submitted in terror: they regained their dignity and aspired to a sense of unity. Meanwhile, Olympias had taken several lovers, and she hid behind them, governing from the shadows, the intrigues of one group neutralizing those of another. I was no longer afraid my throne would be usurped.

I introduced more rigor and discipline to Philip's army. I studied maps of roads and gathered useful information. I knew the names of influential ministers and eunuchs. I knew exactly where the favorite of Darius, the Great King, had a beauty spot. Knowledge paralyzes action. The more I learned, the more I realized how little I knew of an empire a thousand times more powerful than mine. Days passed, and still I made no decision. It was Olympias who hastened my departure. Knowing that she could not hold me back, she harassed me day and night about taking a wife. Her muttering about the continuity of our dynasty infuriated me. Her mournful silence disarmed my rage. She made my life unbearable.

One night in a dream I saw my queen. She lived in a temple built on the pinnacle of a rock. Dressed in fiery red, she stood in the first row of a group of young girls all in white. She wore a necklace of Byzantine gold and scarlet pearls from some rich, unknown land. She was reaching up to the heavens, and a slow, reverberating chorus rang out, praising the glories of some unfamiliar god. Like water flowing over burning embers, her song soothed my fevered soul.

When I woke, my sense of wonder turned to doubt. Plato taught that each of us is part of a celestial entity that breaks in two as it falls to earth, thus beginning the quest for love. Without a doubt, this princess was mine as I was hers. Where was that rock? Did she know I even existed, that I had seen her, that I already loved her even before I knew her? Was she waiting for me? Had she seen me? Had she dreamed of me? Would she commit the terrible mistake of binding herself to another soul?

I announced my imminent departure to Olympias. Her eyes shrouded themselves with tears.

"No one can challenge the barbarian empire," she murmured. "Our men will be no more than droplets of water spilled along a shoreline. They will all be absorbed and erased."

It was not in pursuit of victory that I wanted to confront danger! Tired of accusing him, I wearily cited Philip once more: "My father failed; I must carry on."

"Your father did not fail. He was a thoughtful king. He listened to Zeus and managed to avoid disaster."

Hearing her speak well of Philip infuriated me.

"I'm not a man of reason," I said, raising my voice. "I will go beyond where my ancestor Achilles fell. The gods on Olympus didn't choose Philip to bear their glory. I am the chosen one! I am the son of Apollo, and Artemis drew me from your belly, that's why she let her temple burn the night I was born. There's no point in discouraging me; I shall reach the ramparts of Babylon."

"You would rather challenge the power of foreign gods than govern," she said menacingly. "I never succeeded in stopping your father, and I won't be able to stop you. I shall lose you. Your heart will forget me and I shall die alone…"

I sighed. "You have done enough intriguing to keep me in this palace. Dry your tears, your king commands it. Being born the wife and mother of warriors is a sad fate. But show yourself worthy of your name. Let me go."

Olympias said nothing. She knew all this was inevitable.

I arranged for Apollo to pronounce a favorable oracle. Speeches were made before council. Never mind the rumors that Alexander wanted to prove to the world that he was not Olym-pias's daughter. Hephaestion, Perdiccas, Cassander, Crateros, Ly-simachus, the lovers of my youth and my longtime companions, cut open their arms and let their blood mingle with mine as an oath of eternal loyalty. In keeping with the treaty of Corinth, all Greek cities sent us their most valiant men.

Horses gleaming, troops roused, our war cries rang out. The great army set out upon its earthly route. Some detachments set sail by sea, their mission to plague Persian ships and make them believe our allied armies would attack from the coast.

Begone, the gilded prison where Philip locked me away in his glory and his misery. Begone, kisses from Olympias, who wanted me to be her little girl forever. Begone, Macedonia that gave me life, Aristotle and Homer who watched over me as I grew. I, Alexander, am destined for the mysteries of civilization, for the vastness of this world. I run, I gallop, I fly toward the land of the pharaohs.

Open your arms, Osiris and Isis, gods of my rebirth, givers of life and strength, I am coming with my wound and my nightmares.

The hot wind blew as I watched the sun sink over the ramparts of Memphis. The wind from the Nile-heavy with the smell of wet earth, of reeds and grilled fish-erased Olympias's perfume and the rustling of her tunic. The sun had not yet disappeared behind the horizon; the moon had already risen, pale, transparent, and round.

My soldiers were preparing for a Macedonian feast day in the encampment but, so far from Pella, it did not have the same gaiety, the same feel. Even though the moon of the pharaohs was more majestic than that which rose over Greek soil, Memphis-a bustling trading city-exhaled the same stench of decadence as Athens. I searched in vain for splendors recorded on papyrus. Time continued to trickle through the hourglass, but the Egyptians already had the weary expression of a kingdom that has lived too long in eternity.

Ammon had supplanted Osiris. The god of the sun demanded exclusive adoration and obedience. I considered it essential to appear at his sanctuary if I was to convince the Egyptians to submit to my authority for any length of time. I was told of a desert stretching as far as the eye could see, of hills of flames and nine-headed vultures. I heard of an army of shades advancing as columns of sand blown by the wind, an army that once destroyed the powerful Persian troops. I knew no fear at all. Dangers merely heightened my will.

Four days wandering through that ocean of dunes, four nights of forced marching beneath the stars, I turned a deaf ear to the soldiers' complaints. The sun burned down on me. I shielded my eyes with straw and saw the waves of sand twisting, breaking, and reforming, but never once did I think of retreating. Retreat would mean forever abandoning the sphinx and the pyramids.

In the heart of the oasis Ammon's guards exhausted me with ritual dancing, chanting, and praises, then they let me into the low-ceilinged hut with its roof of palm fronds. The high priest, decked in jewels and bought with my gold, predicted what I wanted to hear: their god appointed me king of kings. He announced that, with his benediction, Alexander would be invincible among men.

We made the return journey without stopping once. Carried by the uplifting oracle, my soldiers braved the desert in jubilant mood. I slept in the saddle astride Bucephalus. I pictured myself back there, facing the disc of the sun. I had asked this question of the high priest: "Why was I born when the end of the world had already begun?" Taken aback, he sat in silence. I was gripped with the urge to laugh, and left the sanctuary lighthearted. The end of the world had already begun because I was born to burn it down, to destroy it.

On the banks of Lake Mareotis I used the point of my lance to draw out a new city on fallow land. I gave it my name.

Alexandria of Egypt, you shall prosper after this ancient world has perished in flames with me!