Still Alestria said nothing, and tears came to my eyes. I caught a grasshopper and spoke to it:

"You who are so small and so swift, you who travel the earth so tirelessly, be my messenger! Climb mountains, follow rivers, fly toward the steppes! Fly to the land of Siberia! From flower to leaf, from leaf to branch, from stone to tree… one morning you will leap into the open hand of one of our sisters! Tell her we are not dead, we will come back, the queen is well and thinking of her sisters. Then, grasshopper, do not waste any time, come back quickly to give us news of Siberia. You will tell us: everyone is well back there, the babies have grown and can already run and ride. One of the great-aunts has gone away to die. We were attacked, but we defended ourselves and our queen would be proud of us. Come back, Talestria! Come back, Tania!"

Alestria started to run. I ran after her, crying:

"Wherever Alexander goes, the earth shakes beneath his feet and birds fly away. Where Alexander's army goes, the grass is trampled, flowers cut down, trees uprooted, and rivers filled with bodies. Where there are no paths, Alexander burns down the forests. Where men resist him, he massacres them and carries off their women. You have been blinded, my queen!"

I held back my tears and gave one last scream:

"I hate Alexander!"

My voice was carried by the wind and resonated round the valley for a long time before going to join the clouds. I had never cried so loudly; that one scream set me free. I realized I was no longer afraid of the assassins who had torn me from my mother's breast.

Chapter 8

The rain kept falling. Rain mingled with hailstones spattered on the soldiers, who covered their heads with their shields. Violent winds pushed them over, battering them with broken branches. They struggled through the icy mud, looking in vain for some purchase by prodding their lances into the ground. The first row fell backward onto the second, who took all the rest with them. As they fell, they injured themselves on each other's weapons. Their terrified horses whinnied and tried to clamber back to their feet. Lightning tore through the darkness, striking the earth with a terrible crackling and briefly illuminating the trees so that they looked like Titans looming out of the earth. The Persians knelt to pray while the Greeks and Macedonians looked for a means of escape.

Still riding Bucephalus, I forged a route through the chaos. As the thunderclaps covered my men's desperate cries, I shouted at them, forcing them to get back up, to form orderly ranks and advance. The rain blinded me and turned my limbs to ice, rain that wanted to wipe Alexander's army from the face of the earth, rain acting as a messenger for unknown powers that wanted to stop me in my headlong race against myself.

The rain kept falling, weaker but persistent. We had pitched our tents and lit fires when a Persian soldier burst into my tent to report the pitiful state of his regiment, and then himself collapsed. I had him carried to my bed and continued my discussions with my generals. When the poor boy came to, he was startled: ashamed and terrified to find himself sleeping in Alexander's place, he prostrated himself at my feet and begged me to punish him.

"Soldier," I said, "Darius would have condemned you to death for sullying his throne. Alexander asked for you to be carried to his bed in order to save your life. With Darius your life had barely any value; you were an armed slave who could be broken and abandoned. With Alexander you are a free man, a respected warrior. Go back to your regiment and tell them to rest before the next battle."

That rain heralded painful ordeals. A young page called Hermolaus, the son of a noble Macedonian warrior called Sopo-lis, was secretly plotting to assassinate me. When his scheme was denounced by one of his accomplices, he was taken before an assembly of Macedonian soldiers because the law of our native land granted them the right to try him and condemn him. The young page acknowledged his crime without shame and used the opportunity to whip up the crowd.

"You, Alexander, have killed innocent people! Attalus, Par-menion, Philotas, Alexander of Lyncestis, and Cleitos all protected you with their shields in the face of enemies; they suffered injuries to guarantee victory and glory for you. But this is how you thanked them: Cleitos drenched your table with his blood, Philotas was tortured and exposed to jeering from the Persians he himself had defeated, you used Parmenion to kill Attalus and then had him assassinated too. That is how you rewarded your Macedonians!"

The soldiers cried out in protest, and Sopolis was tempted to throttle his own son. I calmed them with a firm wave of my hand, and invited Hermolaus to go on.

"We have endured too much of your cruelty as well as the humiliation you inflict on us by making us dress like barbarians! You love living like a Persian, but it is a Macedonian we want to fight for!"

Those names-Parmenion, Philotas, and Cleitos-echoed in my ears like so many thunderclaps. Those who had been father, lover, and friend to me had betrayed me and had all ended up in a bloodbath. But the evil they had sown lived on in men like Hermolaus. Even dead, they were still conspiring, urging soldiers to avenge their alleged innocence.

If Hermolaus were put to death, other conspirators would soon replace him. There would always be discontent, anger, rebel-lion-they go hand in hand with victory. For Alexander was not unique; there were as many different Alexanders as there were Macedonians, Persians, Greeks, soldiers, women, and children. Every people judged him according to their own culture and religion. Every man understood him according to his upbringing, his parentage, and his past. Those who had already met him judged him on just one word, one look, the color of his skin, what he was wearing, or his mood when they saw him. Those who had never seen him formed an opinion about him from rumors and legends that could inspire admiration or hatred. They all took what they needed from him and rejected him when that harmed their own interests.

Neither Plato nor Aristotle had ever pondered this phenomenon. No man had ever inspired such extreme passions. Loved and feared, desired and loathed, I had capitulated before this extension of myself. From East to West, I offered myself to the living and to those who would curse me or sing my praises after my death. I was their horrifying shade from the tenebrous depths, or a ray of sunlight awakening life and distributing poetry. I was their god and their sacrifice.

Soldiers of Macedonia, you have voted for Hermolaus to die! He and his accomplices will be stoned. But I have decided to spare members of their families, who, according to our law, should die along with the criminals.

"Alexander responds to violence with clemency! He is not afraid of betrayal, he knows how to live with conspirators, he feels no self-pity for his pain, he still trusts you.

"A king who has not survived betrayal is not a great man, he is not worthy of leading an army. To those who want to deflect me from the path of my fate, to those who want to stop my progress toward the Orient, I say, Show yourselves now! Alexander is waiting for you!

"Hermolaus accuses me of becoming a Persian. How could a Persian talk to you like this in Macedonian?

"What is a Macedonian? He is a man capable of marching for days on end without food or water, and who throws himself at enemies with ten times as many troops. He is a man who kills without batting an eye and who does not weep when his father and brothers fall.