IT IS HARD work taking the armour off wounded elephants. They are distressed and it is a dangerous task. The leather armour on Colossus’s flanks bristles with arrows; one has somehow found its way through and blood streams from his neck. The physician is the same one who tends Alexander; he is doing brisk business.
There is an air of celebration; men never drink so much or laugh so loud as when they have cheated death. Exploits are recounted in the disbelieving shouts of men who are trying to reassure themselves that they really are still alive.
The elephants are rewarded with food, mountains of it brought in carts and stacked in front of them to distract them while the physicians do their work. Later they are taken down to the river where the grime and blood can be washed off.
Most days they trumpet and spray water everywhere. But today the elephants are impatient with their handlers and several are hurt by their surly charges.
‘Look at them,’ Mara says.
‘They have lost a comrade,’ he says. ‘They are wild animals but it seems to me that sometimes they act like men. They are angry with us. It is grief, pure and simple.’
He shrugs: he doesn’t know.
She slips away to the battlefield. Kites circle screaming over the corpses. Soldiers are still trying to form up or are bent on looking for a spear they’ve left in someone’s guts or drinking all the wine from their canteens.
She walks among the dead and dying, tries not to look too closely at what she sees. Twice she slips in blood pools. She keeps her hands over her ears so she does not have to listen to the things she hears. Why doesn’t someone put these men out of their misery?
Ran Bagha is not hard to find, a massive grey mountain of flesh on the plain. Pennants flutter around him, placed there by other mahavats. Ravi sits alone and cross-legged. He does not look up at her approach.
She sits down beside him. They mourn together.
Alexander’s sword is stuck to his hand with blood. A physician is stitching a gash in his shoulder with thread, a bowl of blood-stained water beside him. His general drinks another cup of wine and appears oblivious. Alexander’s body is a patchwork of old wounds and cicatrices. He has scars on his scars.
His face is flushed with the glory of it. His armour lies on the floor, slimed with gore; both shoulder pieces of his corselet have been sheared away, and the facing of his breastplate is so battered he cannot identify the Gorgons that were so painstakingly worked into the gold.
His tunic is discarded also, a rag of blood and sweat. There is a cut on his head that is blackened with blood. His physician now attempts to seal it with copper dog-bites and stitches.
Gajendra is cheered as he walks in. Hands clap him on the shoulder. He is not an elephant boy any more; he is the hero of Syracuse.
Alexander finally manages to detach himself from his sword and he stands and embraces him. There is a general euphoria. The dead are forgotten. How could they be so remiss as to expire in such a complete victory? It is plainly their fault that they are missing this celebration.
They have had word from their spies in Syracuse that Antipater has now proved himself inconvenient to his hosts and has been murdered. The oligarchs are suing for peace, and with Alexander’s navy now blockading their port, it will come at a heavy price. The rebellion has been crushed. Kraterus will retake Macedon; Italy is next for Alexander, and then the world is theirs. Even the grumblers are silent now.
‘Your elephants won the day,’ Alexander says and gives him wine and a seat beside him. Blood still streams from his shoulder and mixes with sweat and grime. He is in his element. He takes a long breath, savouring the moment.
Gajendra has found his heaven also. No one is going to piss on him, not ever again. An elephant boy has become a general.
So why is it that all he can think of is Ravi and his beloved Ran Bagha? He imagines the flies will be at work already. Soon it will be the turn of the maggots and the worms. It was just a wild beast, not even one of the best warriors. They can buy and train another. A thousand men dead out there, what does one tusker matter?
‘What shall be your reward?’ Alexander asks him. ‘Name it.’
‘Zahara,’ he hears himself say.
The smile falls away. Those standing close turn to listen.
Even Alexander seems perturbed. ‘You will not give her time to weep?’
‘She will not weep for him. She was just a trophy to him like any other.’
‘Yet it would be best to wait.’
‘You asked me what I wished for as a reward. I have told you.’
A chill silence settles on the room. Nearchus has earned a hero’s death today and this smacks of disrespect. ‘Th is is not right,’ he hears someone mutter. ‘Should a wife not be a widow for longer than a day?’
Even Gajendra is shocked by his own audacity. But he wants his due, what he has risked and worked for, and he wants it now.
Alexander smiles. ‘So you can be ruthless after all. The elephant boy is a general.’
‘It seems so.’
‘They will not like it,’ he says, looking at the other captains, those who cheered him hoarse a few moments before.
‘I do not care what they think of me.’
Alexander is bleeding more heavily now. The doctor again attempts to finish stitching his arm. He pushes him away, and claps Gajendra on the shoulder. ‘What are you all staring at? Is he not the hero of Syracuse? We shall give him his due!’
They are used to being bullied by Alexander but they don’t have to like it. All he gets is sullen looks. But Alexander just laughs and calls for more wine. He is a god. He can do as he likes.