"Talas!" she cried, running toward the river.
I did not know how to swim. But I had no choice but to follow her. I ran into the water and sank like a stone. The waves surrounded me. The river was a bed of flowers: magnolias, dahlias, carnations, roses, and violets bloomed around me. I moved forward and reached out to pick them. My body felt light and rose up from the riverbed, flying toward the sky: yes, I was flying, beating my hands, which had turned into wings. I slid among silvery fish and avenues of undulating weeds. At the far end of the path the sun was no longer an incandescent ball of fire but a face floating over a vault of shadows and reflections. All of a sudden it became wrinkled, and its expression changed. I saw Alestria moving back and forth: she was looking for me! I wanted to swim toward her, but the current stopped me reaching her, and I was carried farther away. I wanted to call her name, but water poured into my mouth. I lost sight of her silhouette, and the sun disappeared. My eyes were filled with beams of yellow, orange, pink, purple, and crimson, which turned into a rainbow.
I opened my eyes and saw Alestria's chin and chest. My head was resting in her hands on her lap. Her melancholic gaze fixed the horizon. Although she was naked, she seemed to be wrapped in a magnificent veil made neither of fabric nor fur but of a corner of sky pierced with flashes of lightning. She looked down and stared into my eyes. Her dark eyes seemed to be questioning me: "Will you dare to lay down your weapons and love a little savage? Will you dare take a vagabond with you on your noble Bucephalus? You, Alexander, son of Philip, king of kings, conqueror of the Greeks, and of Olympias, daughter of Achilles and Zeus, will you dare to make this child your queen, this child abandoned by men and by the gods?"
I said nothing, but met her gaze.
No, I would not hesitate.
The king of conquerors was not afraid of a warrior woman. He recognized in her someone who had been banished from those kingdoms with ten thousand palaces and one hundred thousand downy cushions; she was a brother living in a stranger's body, a spiritual sister carved from the same block of diamond.
No, I would not hesitate. My pride would be disarmed, the invincible warrior would be vanquished. Wait a little longer! Let me gather my strength in silence and prepare to welcome in the love about to strike my life like a thunderbolt.
She was my queen! Without any doubt. Her melancholy calm, her spontaneous joy, and her black eyes reflecting all the mysteries of Asia displayed more majesty than those capricious princesses who were never exposed to the sun. My eye slid down her neck to her naked breasts, and on the inside of her left breast, I discovered a large scar, a terrifying emblem. I could not tell whether her flesh had been deeply scored by a dagger or marked by a white-hot iron. The crimson skin that had grown over the wound was marked with lines and calluses, and I imagined that she positioned the bound rope of her bow there.
I laid my hand on the scar. She sat up with a start and wanted to flee, but I rolled on top of her and pinned her down with the weight of my body. I rested my face on her injured breast and heard her heart beating.
Alestria, your origins do not matter: whether you are a free warrior or a fighting slave, I shall take you from your tribe and free you from servitude.
Alestria, child of the steppes, you have conquered the invincible Alexander! For you he will stop scouring conquered lands in search of a noblewoman worthy of being his queen.
Alestria, you who do not know my name, I who do not know your parents' names, we shall found our own dynasty. Alexander and Alestria: from our two names combined a river will spring up and flow to the very ends of humanity.
What does it matter that you have neither clothes nor jewels nor a kingdom? All that is Alexander's is yours: he offers you his army, his cities, his empire! You will lay down your arms, he will wage wars for you.
You will be my companion in my travels and in my life. Together we shall ride to the ends of the earth. All my suffering will be relegated to the past. All your suffering will be erased.
Alestria, I love you! I offer you Alexander, whose beauty is nothing compared to his ability to love. I offer you diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and the most luxurious fabrics to make you the youngest, most beautiful, and most glorious queen on earth.
You were destined for me, Alestria! It is I, the most powerful of men, whom the gods have chosen for you to tear you from the shadows and make you shine in the zenith!
Oh, Alestria, give me your wounds and your weapons. All those who have possessed you and all those you have loved shall be exiled! I have come to take you, to take you away!
Come, Alestria, my love! I came onto this earth for you. Together we shall ride to the firmament. Do not refuse me!
A thousand years, ten thousand years, from now the birds on the steppe will still sing of our meeting: on a moonless night two stars collide, the sky burns and spews out a tempest of flames and lightning. Every legend already written shall be burned, and a new era shall rise up from their ashes!
Chapter 6
My name is not Alestria, it is Talestria: the T represents the tribe of Amazons, the women who love horses. I do not know when I was born.
I like red, the color of leaves burned by the sun, the color of blood.
I do not know who my parents were.
On the steppe countless men and women love each other for one night and then part without the promise of meeting again in another life.
On the steppe, every encounter has the intensity of a fleeting moment, for it is as easy to be born as it is to die. Life is as brief as one passing season, spanning one torrential rainstorm, the tiny moment it takes a bird to reach the clouds.
One beauty erases another; they are all ephemeral.
Talestria is queen of the Amazons. I knew that this name, like all other names I had been given, would be short-lived. I wore it like a piece of armor to go into war. One day I would leave it just as I came to it, anonymous and without weapons.
Our tribe was made up of girls without a past, all of them abandoned orphans. Each taken in by the warrior tribe, we in turn became women who feared nothing: cold, war, and famine were the three eagles sent to us by the God of Ice to guide us to the summit of Siberia.
"The greatest good comes through the greatest evil," my aunt used to say.
That is why my life started so badly: a little girl with no name who slipped into every name she was attributed. Her face was dirty, her features hard, her lips wizened with cold and thirst. Her hair, which was never cut, looked like a swallow's nest with locks trailing over her face, hiding her fierce expression. She strayed through the marketplace, her cracked, bleeding hands stealing the occasional piece of fruit or biscuit, or squeezing a goat's udder for a mouthful of milk. She threw stones at children who laughed at her, and hid under carts when dogs chased her, lying in manure and beating their snapping jaws back with a stick. But adults were more dangerous and cruel than dogs, dragging her through the dusty alleyways and whipping her. She suffered their blows without a sob, sometimes even laughing to please them. She wanted to live and to avenge herself; that is why she disguised her rage and chose to appear docile.
She wandered around the marketplace, not knowing where she came from or who her parents were. She let families adopt her, and for a couple of seasons she played the role of a good-natured, servile slave. They would give her a name, a plate, and a blanket that she shared with sheep, calves, and fleas. Then she would run away and escape to the steppes, running through the grass that was taller than she was, diving into rivers and letting the currents carry her off, floating on her back watching clouds and birds go by. At night she shivered, hungry and exhausted, with only the howling of wolves as comfort; she knew how to call to them to warm her and lick her wounds.