Suddenly the queen spoke:

"Darius, your destiny as king is at an end. The God of Ice is putting you to the test. You must climb the glacier without adornment, without a horse, without a royal turban. At its summit you will find a priceless treasure."

Darius's face lit up.

"To please you, I shall go in pursuit of it." Talestria smiled.

"This treasure is in your heart, but the road there has been barred. Try to find your way instead of making war. Life or death, you can still choose."

After a brief silence she gave an enigmatic smile and added:

"Dying is living."

Darius thought for a moment. I, Tania, had noted all this down without understanding it. My queen rose to her feet, arranged her crumpled tunic, and left the tent, and I followed behind.

We set off again toward the land of the white cranes with the crimson heads.

Chapter 5

Reinforcements came from Greece, and my Macedonian lieutenants put them in training with the Persian soldiers. I gathered information on the eastern territories and drew up better maps of them. At the head of a new army subjected to Macedonian discipline and reinforced with the battalions of camels and elephants abandoned by Darius, I marched toward eastern Persia.

Suse capitulated without a fight, but a riot erupted inside the city. The leader, a slave who had been driven out of the palace by the eunuchs after Darius's downfall, and who claimed he was the son of the winged god, had incited the poor to rebel. The uprising was swiftly quashed, and Bagoas chained and thrown at my feet. He was a slender young Persian with black hair and green eyes. The hatred, insolence, and religious fervor in those eyes bore right through me.

With that first glance from him, I forgot the order to have him executed and his body displayed for all to see. Kneeling at the foot of the dais, he seemed to know no fear, staring me down and making me uncomfortable. I, Alexander, master of the world, flushed as I ordered that he should be thrown into a dungeon. But I was haunted by his face, I could not sleep, and longed to hold him in my arms, to bring him suffering and pleasure.

I called for Hephaestion the very next morning and talked of my many concerns before tackling the question itself: I told him I would pardon the beautiful Bagoas, leader of the rioters, but that he would be punished with castration and would become my servant. Hephaestion smiled bitterly, understanding my message. He could not make me faithful, and did not know how to protect me from myself by saying no. He had always preferred my pleasure to his own happiness, and now, once again, his suffering would carpet the way to my delight.

Hephaestion had young Bagoas castrated, and was tender and patient with him while he healed, tolerating his insults and forgiving his attempts to murder him. One evening, when we were heading for Persepolis, he brought the youth to my tent, dressed in a eunuch's tunic.

I tore off Bagoas's clothing. Naked and backed into a corner, my captive had only his fierce emerald eyes as defense. His stare was so intense it paralyzed my desire. Instead of raping him, I held out my hand and stroked his face, which was rigid with loathing and pain. Bagoas loved me! That was why he suffered in silence. That was why he continued to appear cold and rebellious when his skin burned and moaned beneath my fingers. To prove my love for him, I put his tunic back on and sent him away.

I waited an eternity for Bagoas to come to me, and I waited another before he admitted he had desired me from our very first meeting. I did everything I could to make him a willing prisoner. He was a proud, tormented creature who showed me all the agonies of carnal passion. Bagoas was a wild bird I had forced into a gilded cage. He sang happily when he felt love, and raged for his lost manhood when hatred washed back over him. He dreamed up a thousand different ways to torture me. He told me Darius had let him mount him and had called him Little Bee. He chirped like a sparrow but refused to talk of his parents or homeland. One moment he would grovel at my feet, begging me to touch him; the next he would disappear for days on end, suffering and weeping over his infirmity. I was subjected to his mood swings and his determination to die, unable to impose my authority. His constant outbursts infuriated me, but as soon as he was away from me I missed his childlike voice, his honeyed skin, the blue shadows under his eyes, and the trace of tears on his cheeks. The Great Alexander capitulated, and Bagoas was given a place in my life: he oversaw my clothes and my meals. He was jealous of anyone close to me and complained that the Macedonians were brutal and the Greeks crude. He swept aside all rivals by intoxicating me with sensual delights of the Orient.

We headed east, then west, then north, then east again. Following the steep roads along which Darius had fled, I took cities by storm. To those that surrendered without resistance I gave their autonomy, setting up a garrison. I had scarcely arrived before I set off again, shield in hand, lance borne aloft. I no longer stopped to rest, there was not time. Towns, villages, fortresses, and fortifications reeled past, their names becoming confused. To simplify matters I called them all Alexandria. Every city that I embraced became my bride, but once married they were immediately abandoned.

The road forked in the mountains, and I always bore left. I sometimes rode for days on end, spurred on by my desire to advance ever faster. Sometimes, as I looked down on the deep valleys and torrential rivers beneath my feet, I thought of that young girl in red waiting for me at the summit of a rock. Where was she? Had I missed her by skirting round the mountain to the left? I smiled bitterly at the thought that she might be on a path I had already trodden, in a land I had already conquered.

Days of exultation alternated with times of despondency and sadness. I would shut myself away in my tent, refusing anyone entry. I wrote letter after letter to Olympias, one minute accusing her of failing to love me, the next praising her as the light of life. My mother was my only link with Macedonia, which grew a little more distant in my thoughts every day.

The road wound on through the endless snow. Only the barbarians' furs could protect us from the biting cold, and my Macedonian generals were forced to wear oriental clothes. In the evenings we lit large campfires, and the successive feast days of all the different tribes called for banquets, drinking, frenetic dancing, sacrifices, and incantations.

One morning Bessos, a Persian general, delivered Darius's body to me, an event that caused jubilation throughout the army but chilled me to the bone. A final victory without a battle is, for Alexander, a defeat. I leaned over my enemy's mutilated body, unable to accept that he was dead. Late in the night, while my soldiers slept, I came back secretly with Bagoas. Darius's former lover confirmed my doubts: this was the body of a double. Darius the coward was renouncing his throne by sending me his body: he wanted to live safely and to deprive me indefinitely of a face-to-face dual. "Dead," he hoped to pacify me with his cities and his lovers. Alive, he would remain a latent threat: he could always reappear, avenge himself, and take back what had belonged to him, what he had temporarily lost.

I pretended to fall into the trap by arranging a royal funeral for his double. I made the most of his "death" to take the pompous title of King of Asia. On the pretext that every Persian province had to submit to Alexander, I set off again along those steep roads to find the real Darius. Tracking a man who no longer existed, I ventured deeper and deeper into the shadows of the Orient.