But before he could find the answer Hephaistion’s usher came bustling in. “Sir! You must come … The strangest thing, the strangest people—”

Hephaistion snapped, “Is it news of the King?”

“I don’t know, sir. Oh, come, come!”

Hephaistion and Eumenes glanced at each other. Then they stood, carelessly toppling the table with its scrolls, and hurried out. Hephaistion snatched up his sword on the way.

Bisesa and de Morgan were brought to a grander collection of tents, though no less mud-spattered than the rest. Severe-looking guards armed with spears and stabbing swords stood at the entrance, glaring at them. Bisesa’s escort stepped forward and began to jabber in his fast Greek. One of the guards nodded curtly, stepped into the first tent and spoke to somebody within.

De Morgan was tense, edgy, excited—a state he got into, Bisesa had learned, when he sensed opportunity. She tried to keep herself calm.

More guards, in subtly different uniforms, came pouring out of the tent. They surrounded Bisesa and the others, their swords pointed at the travelers’ bellies. Then out came two figures, obviously more senior; they wore military-looking tunics and cloaks, but their clothes were clean. One of these commanders, the younger, came pushing through the guards. He had a broad face, a long nose, short dark hair. He looked them up and down and peered up into their faces—like his troops he was shorter than any of the moderns. He seemed tense, gaunt, unhappy to Bisesa, but his body language was so alien it was hard to be sure.

He stood before de Morgan and yelled in his face. De Morgan quailed, flinching from the rain of spittle, and stammered a reply.

Bisesa hissed, “What does he want?”

De Morgan frowned, concentrating. “To know who we are … I think. His accent is thick. His name is Hephaistion. I asked him to slow down. I said my Greek was poor—and so it is; the stuff I was taught to parrot at Winchester wasn’t much like this. ”

Now the other commander stepped forward. He was evidently older, bald save for a frosting of silver hair, and his face was softer, narrow—shrewd, Bisesa thought. He put his hand on Hephaistion’s shoulder, and spoke to de Morgan in more measured tones.

De Morgan’s face lit up. “Oh, thank God—a genuine Greek! His tongue is archaic but at least he can speak it properly, unlike these Macedonians …”

So, with a double translation through de Morgan and the older man, who was called Eumenes, Bisesa was able to make herself understood. She gave their names and pointed back up the valley of the Indus. “We are with an army detachment,” she said. “Far up the valley …”

“If that is true we should have encountered you before,” snapped Eumenes.

She didn’t know what to say. Nothing in her life had prepared her for an incident like this. Everything was strange, everything about these people from the depths of time. They were short, grimy, vigorous, powerfully muscled—they seemed closer to the animal than the human. She wondered how they saw her .

Eumenes stepped forward. He walked around Bisesa, fingering the fabric of her clothes. His fingers lingered over the butt of Bisesa’s pistol, and she tensed; but happily he left it alone. “Nothing about you is familiar.”

“But everything is different now.” She pointed to the sky. “You must have seen it. The sun, the weather. Nothing is as it was before. We have been brought on a journey against our will, without our understanding. As have you. And yet we have been brought together. Perhaps we can—help each other.”

Eumenes smiled. “With the army of a god-king I have journeyed through strangeness these past six years, and everything we have encountered we have conquered. Whatever strange power has stirred up the world, I doubt it holds any fear for us …”

But now a cry went up, rustling through the camp. People started running to the river, thousands of them moving at once, as if a wind had run over a field of grass. A messenger ran up and spoke rapidly to Eumenes and Hephaistion.

Bisesa asked de Morgan, “What is it?”

“He’s coming,” the factor said. “He’s coming at last.”

“Who?”

“The King …”

A small flotilla of ships sailed down the river. Most were broad flat-bottomed barges, or magnificent triremes with billowing purple sails. But the craft at the head of the flotilla was smaller and, without a sail, was pulled along by fifteen pairs of oarsmen. At its stern was an awning, stitched with purple and silver. As the boat neared the camp the awning was pulled back to reveal a man, surrounded by attendants, lying on what looked like a gilded couch.

A muttering ran through the watching crowd. Bisesa and de Morgan, forgotten by all but their guards, pressed with the rest toward the shallow bank. Bisesa said, “What are they saying now?”

“That it’s a trick,” de Morgan said. “That the King is dead, that this is merely his corpse being returned for burial.”

The boat put into the shore. Under Hephaistion’s command a team of soldiers ran forward with a kind of stretcher. But, to general astonishment, the figure on the couch stirred. He waved the stretcher-bearers away, and then, slowly, painfully, with the help of his white-robed attendants, he got to his feet. The crowds on the banks, all but silent, watched his painful struggle. He was wearing a long-sleeved tunic and a cloak of purple, and a heavy cuirass. The cloak was inlaid and edged with gold, and the tunic ornately worked with patterns of sunbursts and figures.

He was short, stocky, like most of the Macedonians. He was clean-shaven, and he wore his brown hair brushed back from a center parting and long enough to touch his shoulders. His face, if weather-beaten red, was strong, broad and handsome, and his gaze steady and piercing. And as he faced the gathering on the bank he held his head oddly, tilted a little to the left, so that his eyes were uplifted, and his mouth was open.

“He looks like a rock star,” Bisesa whispered. “And he holds his head like Princess Diana. No wonder they love him …”

A new muttering began to spread through the crowd.

“It’s him,” de Morgan whispered. “That’s what they are saying.” Bisesa glanced at him and was startled to see tears in his eyes. “It is him! It is Alexander himself! By God, by God.”

The cheering started, spreading like fire through dry grass, and the men waved their fists and their spears and swords. Flowers were thrown, and a gentle rain of petals settled over the boat.

20. The City of Tents

At dawn, two days after his departure, the Mongol envoy returned. The cosmonauts’ fate, it seemed, had been decided.

Sable had to be prodded awake. Kolya was already alert, his eyes gritty with sleeplessness. In the musty dark of the yurt, where children snored gently in their cots, the cosmonauts were given breakfast of a little unleavened bread, and a bowl of a kind of hot tea. This was aromatic, presumably made from steppe herbs and grasses, and was surprisingly refreshing.

The cosmonauts moved stiffly. They were both recovering quickly from their orbital sojourn, but Kolya longed for a hot shower, or even to be able to rinse his face.

They were led out of the yurt, and allowed a toilet break. The sky was brightening, and the customary lid of cloud and ash seemed comparatively light today. Some of the nomads were paying their respects to the dawn, with genuflections to the south and east. This was one of their few public displays of religious feeling; the Mongols were shamanists, eschewing public rituals for oracles, exorcisms and magic displays in the privacy of their yurts.

The cosmonauts were led to a small group of men. They had saddled up half a dozen horses, and had harnessed two more to a small wooden-wheeled cart. The horses were stocky and undisciplined-looking, like their owners; they looked around impatiently, as if eager to get this chore over with.