IN TAXILA WHEN elephants were not required on campaign or for training, they were left to forage for themselves during the night. In the morning the mahavats would go out to find them in the jungle; the bells helped. But Ravi had never put a bell on Ran Bagha. He always seemed to know where to find him. It was as if there was a voice inside telling him where to look.
Gajendra experiences this same feeling tonight.
He cannot sleep; he goes to Elephant Row but cannot find Colossus. Several of the elephants are missing, and the waterboys mumble incoherent replies when he demands to know where they are. At first he panics. If Alexander finds out about this, he will lose his position as Elephantarch as quickly as he has gained it.
But then he realizes – he senses – what has happened.
He had seen it before in India; he had never known any other animal except for an elephant do it. A young female elephant had died after being mauled by a tiger and for days the other elephants would not leave her. And every year after that they came back to the same place, looking for the bones. It was as if they were grieving.
Ravi had showed him this curious ritual. They had hidden in the jungle, out of sight of the herd, to watch. By then most of the bones had bleached or disappeared.
‘It is like they understand what death is,’ Ravi had whispered. ‘Tell me one other animal that knows what a grave is!’
Gajendra walks across the battlefield. Most of the bodies have been stripped and dragged away, but debris still litters the grass; he trips on the shoulder piece of a corselet in the dark. There are discarded scraps of uniform everywhere.
He hears his tuskers before he sees them. They are not trumpeting or shrieking; it is the rumble from their stomachs that alerts him that they are there. They are gathered around Ran Bagha.
Ravi sits cross-legged at his head. There are two other silhouettes. As the moon skims from behind high clouds, he recognizes Mara and Catharo.
He sits down and watches. He makes no move to join them and supposes they have not seen him. He is downwind, so the elephants do not catch his scent. He would like to join them but feels he has no place there.
He listens to the elephants and the wind rustling in the grass. He reconsiders.
A vast grey mountain lies among the ruins of the battlefield. The corpses have long ago been hauled away by the carters, but the elephant is a different proposition. They may have to burn him where he lies. And they will have to do it soon; he has lain out here for two days now in the hot sun and as the gases build up inside the giant body there is a danger he will explode.
Ravi will not leave him. He sits there in the sun, head bowed, and if the waterboys did not take it in turns to bring him water from the river he would have died from thirst. He has not eaten; he has hardly moved.
Mara and Catharo are with him. No one comes to order them back to camp. Gajendra is too busy with his new wife to chasten his waterboys, she supposes. Besides he wants us to escape. He is giving us another chance.
But she will not leave Ravi; and Catharo will not leave her, does not even grumble about it any more.
Flies cluster around the dried blood on Ravi’s scalp. He will not go to the physicians to have the wound tended. He just sits there cross-legged and stares at the massive corpse and rocks back and forward.
Mara sees a knot of riders approach from the camp. Sunlight reflects on their armour and hurts the eyes. She knows they are officers by the way they ride. As they get closer she recognizes Alexander in the lead.
He jumps down from the saddle and stands with his hands on his hips. ‘Well, this is a fine pass. What do we have here?’ He walks around the beast and then looks down at Ravi. ‘He’s starting to smell, lad. Time you moved on.’
‘He gave his life for me.’
‘Well, then we shall remember him fondly. In the meantime I wish you to remove back to the camp. We need good Indians to replace the mahavats I lost in the fight.’
‘What will you do with him?’
‘What would you have me do? Build a mausoleum?’ He sees Mara and Catharo. ‘What are they doing?’
He does not seem perturbed that they do not answer. Instead he turns to Perdiccas, watching from his horse. ‘I want the foot,’ he says.
‘I shall need a footstool. I heard the King of Taxila had one. If it’s good enough for an Indian it’s good enough for me.’
‘You will cut off his foot?’ Ravi says, in a daze.
‘Not just his foot, we will have his ivory, too. By the black breath of hell, he stinks!’ He turns and is about to remount his horse. Mara comes out of her daze, grabs the knife that Catharo has concealed in his tunic and rushes him. Alexander hears her coming, turns unhurriedly to face her. He registers no alarm, even when he sees the knife flash in the sun. A man who has spent his whole life in battle is accustomed to having drawn blades thrust at him.
As she brings the knife down he casually steps aside and knocks her down with a fist. At the same moment he wrenches the knife out of her hand, waving aside his guards with a flicker of annoyance. I do not need wet nursing, the look seems to say.
Catharo is a different proposition. He is not expecting this; the little fellow hits him on the run and takes him out at the knees. Alexander goes down, winded, and drops the knife. Catharo snatches it up and is about to slash Alexander’s throat in the same movement when one of the bodyguards reacts and takes him down with his spear. Catharo screams and grabs the shaft, which has smashed his thigh, the same one he wounded just days before. This time it smashes the bone. A man, even one as brave as Catharo, cannot stand on a broken leg. He falls to the ground.
Alexander is on his feet in an instant, takes out his sword and plunges it through Catharo’s chest. He then turns on Mara. She tries to get up. He kicks her over again and puts his sword at her throat. ‘Don’t hurt her! She’s a girl!’ Ravi shouts before he can administer the killing stroke.
Alexander stands back, frowning. He strides over to Ravi and squats down on his haunches. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said don’t hurt her, lord. She’s just a girl.’
‘A girl?’
Ravi nods.
‘Did your Elephantarch know about this?’
Ravi shakes his head, no, but he is a very bad liar. Alexander gives a nod of the head, signal to his bodyguards to take the prisoner away. He looks down at Catharo’s lifeless body in disgust. Mara knows what he is thinking: how did a fellow like this become so useful with a sword? If it wasn’t for his bodyguards he would be bleeding into the dirt right now.
This will bear looking into.