“Sable—”

“But not today. He got what he wanted, and so did I.” She beckoned Basil. “You, Frenchie. Tell Yeh-lü that Genghis has decided. The Mongols would have reached Iraq anyhow, in a generation or so; the campaign won’t be a challenge for them. The quriltai, the council of war, has already been called.” She took a dagger from her boot, and thrust it into the map, where she had placed it before, into Babylon. This time nobody dared remove it.

Part 4

The Confluence of History

25. The Fleet

Bisesa thought that Alexander’s fleet, gathered offshore, looked magnificent despite the rain. There were triremes with their banks of oars, horses whinnied nervously on flat-bottomed barges, and most impressive of all were the zohruks ,shallow-draft grain-lighters, an Indian design that would persist to the twenty-first century. The rain fell in sheets, obscuring everything, washing out colors and softening lines and perspectives, but it was hot, and the oarsmen went naked, their brown, wiry bodies glistening, the water plastering their hair flat and running down their faces.

Bisesa couldn’t resist taking snaps of the spectacle. But the phone was complaining. “What do you think this is, a theme park? You’re going to fill my memory long before we get to Babylon, and then what will you do? And I’m getting wet …”

Alexander meanwhile was seeking the gods’ approval of the coming journey. Standing at the bow of his ship, he poured libations from a golden bowl into the water, and called on Poseidon, the sea-nymphs, and the spirits of the World Ocean to preserve and protect his fleet. Then he went on to make offerings to Heracles, who he supposed was his ancestor, and Ammon, the Egyptian god he had come to identify with Zeus, and indeed had “discovered” to be his own father at a shrine in the desert.

The few hundred nineteenth-century British troops, drawn up in rough order by their officers, watched with amazement, and some ribald comments, as the King did his divine duty. But Tommies and sepoys alike had been happy enough to accept the hospitality of the Macedonian camp; Alexander’s gestures today were the finale of days of sacrifices and celebration, of musical festivals and athletic contests. Last night the King had given a “sacrificial” animal, a sheep, cow or goat, to each platoon. It had been, Bisesa thought, like the mightiest barbecue in history.

Ruddy Kipling, standing with his broad face sheltered by a peaked cap, pulled irritably at his mustache. “What nonsense fills the minds of men! You know, as a child my ayah was a Roman Catholic, who would take us children to church—the one by the Botanical Gardens in Parel, if you know it. I liked the solemnity and dignity of it all. But then we had a bearer called Meeta who would teach us local songs and take us to Hindu temples. I rather liked their dimly seen but friendly gods.”

Abdikadir said dryly, “An interestingly ecumenical childhood.”

“Perhaps,” Ruddy said. “But stories told to children are one thing—and the ludicrous Hindu pantheon is little more than that: monstrous and inane, and littered with obscene phallic images! And what is it but a remote echo of this nonsensical crew on whom Alexander wastes good wine—indeed, of whom he believes himself to be a part?”

“Ruddy, when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Josh said.

Ruddy clapped him on the back. “But, chum, hereabouts Rome probably hasn’t been built! So what am I to do? Eh, eh?”

The ceremonies finished at last. Bisesa and the others made for the boats that would transfer them to the ships. They and most of the British troops were to sail with the fleet, with about half of Alexander’s army, while the rump would follow the shore.

The army camp broke up, and the baggage train began to form. It was a chaotic scene, with thousands of men, women, children, ponies, mules, bullocks, goats and sheep, all milling around. There were carts laden with goods and tools for the cooks, carpenters, cobblers, armorers and other craftsmen and traders who followed the army. More enigmatic shapes of wood and iron were catapults and siege engines, broken down into kit form. Prostitutes and water-carriers worked the crowd, and Bisesa saw the proud heads of camels lifting above the crush. The noise was extraordinary, a clamor of voices, bells and trumpets, and the complaints of draft animals. The presence of the bewildered man-apes, confined in a lashed-up cage on their own cart, only added to the circuslike atmosphere of the whole venture.

The moderns marveled. “What a gagglefuck,” Casey said. “I have never seen anything like it in my life.”

But it was all somehow coming together. The coxes began to shout, and oars splashed in the water. And on land and on the sea, Alexander’s followers began to join in rhythmic songs.

Abdikadir said, “The songs of Sinde. A magnificent sound—tens of thousands of voices united.”

“Come on,” Casey said, “let’s get aboard before those sepoys grab the best deck chairs.”

The plan was that the fleet would sail west across the Arabian Sea and then into the Persian Gulf, while the army and baggage train would track its movements following the southern coasts of Pakistan and Iran. They would meet again at the head of the Gulf, and after that they would strike overland to Babylon. These parallel journeys were necessary; Alexander’s boats could not last more than a few days at sea without provisioning from the land.

But on land the going was difficult. The peculiar volcanic rain continued with barely a break, and the sky was a lid of ash-gray cloud. The ground turned to mud, bogging down the carts, animals and humans alike, and the heat remained intense, the humidity extraordinary. The baggage train was soon strung out over kilometers, a chain of suffering, and in its wake it left behind the corpses of broken animals, irreparable bits of equipment—and, after only a few days, people.

Casey couldn’t bear the sight of Indian women who had to walk behind the carts or the camels with great heaps of goods piled up on their heads. As Ruddy remarked, “Have you noticed how these Iron Age chaps lack so much—not just the obvious like gaslights and typewriters and trousers—but blindingly simple things like carthorse collars? I suppose it’s just that nobody’s thought of it yet, and once it’s invented it stays invented …”

That observation struck Casey. After a few days he sketched a crude wheelbarrow, and went to Alexander’s advisors with it. Hephaistion would not consider his proposal, and even Eumenes was skeptical, until Casey put together a hasty, toy-sized prototype to demonstrate the idea.

After that, at the next overnight stop, Eumenes ordered the construction of as many wheelbarrows as could be managed. There was little fresh wood to be had, but the timber from one foundered barge was scavenged and reused. In that first night, under Casey’s direction, the carpenters put together more than fifty serviceable barrows, and the next night, having learned from the mistakes of the first batch, nearly a hundred. But then, this was an army that had managed to build a whole fleet for itself on the banks of the Indus; compared to that, knocking together a few wheelbarrows wasn’t such a trick.

For the first couple of days after that the train happened to pass over hard, stony ground, and the barrows worked well. It was quite a sight to see the women of Alexander’s baggage train happily pushing along barrows that might have come from a garden center in Middle England, laden with goods, and with children balancing precariously on top. But after that the mud returned, and the barrows bogged down. The Macedonians soon abandoned them, amid much derision of the moderns’ newfangled technology.

Every three days or so the ships had to put into shore for provisioning. The shore-based troops were expected to live off the land, providing for themselves and for the crews and passengers of the ships. That became increasingly difficult away from the Indus delta, as the land grew more barren.