ONCE THEY HAVE them surrounded the Bactrians relax. There is no longer any reason to be desperate about it.
Their leader is a big man with a nose that makes his horse look handsome. A face like a leather bag, ill repaired, and no tooth that is not at least part rotten. He knows the type: they will run face first into walls just to make themselves look more fearsome.
‘So who are these fine fellows?’ he says and walks his horse up to them. No one yet has produced a weapon. In such a situation there is no need.
Gajendra studies the ragtag of men with him; if they were just bandits he would be more hopeful but these men look like mercenaries, professionals. They will be happy with such unexpected bounty because violation and murder are set into such men’s souls like iron rusted into a wall.
They are deserters, from someone’s army; he doubts it is Alexander’s for he takes care to keep them well paid and well fed. They may have come from Syracuse hoping to find employment at Panormus. They speak rudimentary Greek with bad accents; he supposes men like this don’t even speak their own language very well.
‘Where are you headed?’ Horse-Face asks them.
‘Panormus,’ Gajendra says and then, taking an enormous risk, he adds, ‘This is General Hanno’s daughter. There is a massive reward offered for her safe return. I hoped to claim it.’
There is stunned silence and then the horsemen all pound their saddles with their fists and guffaw. Horse-Face gives a nod and one of the riders grabs Mara and pulls her off her horse. ‘Looks like a boy to me,’ he says, ‘but we’ll soon find out.’
‘Leave her!’ Gajendra tries to put his horse between her and them but he is no horseman and only succeeds in losing control of the horse. After they have finished laughing at him one of the men draws his sword and hammers the hilt into his face, knocking him to the ground.
He lies winded. He cannot breathe. His mouth and nose are clotted with blood and he has to roll onto his belly to spit it out.
The men find this amusing. Meanwhile they have dragged Mara from her horse. ‘Come on, boy, get up,’ Horse-Face jeers at him. ‘Let’s see you make a fight of it.’
The brute gets off his horse and aims a few leisurely kicks at him. He hears Mara screaming, curses mainly, but they haven’t really tried to hurt her yet.
Horse-Face stands, legs apart, right in front of him. Gajendra crawls forward, hand over hand. Never mind that he laughs and dares you to fight like a man. Keep your head down.
Poor Mara. For a general’s daughter she has borne a lot of rough handling this last year, and now here are four men intent on violating her as a girl or as a boy, depending on their fancy. He shuts out her screams, it distracts him.
He thinks he has broken some ribs when he came off the horse.
‘Please don’t hurt us,’ he says. ‘Take our horses, take whatever you want, but please don’t hurt us.’
Horse-Face likes that. ‘You hear that? He’s offering us the horses.’ Another kick. ‘If we wanted them we would take them, but I wouldn’t even carve these nags up for the pot. Are you sure that one is a girl?’
There is consternation among them, however, when they find Catharo’s body across his saddle. This is unexpected and alarms them. It is a perfect distraction.
When your opponent thinks he has won, this is your time to strike, he hears Alexander say. He concentrates all his will on bringing his knee up so that he is ready to spring and then reverses his grip on his knife; there, in pissing range now, if this fellow were a bandit.
He is on his feet in an instant, his head smashing the man’s nose – he could hardly miss – while his knife plunges to the hilt under the breastbone. Catharo could not have done better.
Even before Horse-Face has finished his dying, Gajendra has the man’s sword in his hand and has lopped off the left arm of the man pulling on Catharo’s corpse. He does not delay to deliver a final blow. In his experience a man who has lost a limb in such dramatic fashion quickly loses his appetite for fighting.
He concentrates instead on the two men bending over Mara. They are covered in scratches; she has made a good fight of it. She clutches onto the soldier who is on top of her and keeps him from rising. Twice in one day; it is becoming routine.
While the other one fumbles for his weapon Gajendra swings down with all his strength and the edge of the sword cleaves the man’s face from scalp to chin.
The one on top of Mara screams in horror and punches her twice in the face to get away. But she has delayed him enough. Gajendra dares not swing the sword a second time in case he hits her; instead he lunges with the point. He is inexpert but he takes the man through the centre of his chest. He puts a foot on his breastbone to extract the sword and then dispatches the other, who is still lying on the ground bleeding and howling for his mother.
He has never known such cold rage. He is even sorry it is over. He would chew their bones with his teeth and spit their gristle in the mud if he could. He is of a mind to mutilate them even though they are dead, but that would serve no purpose. They are not the bandits who raped his mother and sisters. But they might as well be.
There are things he suddenly remembers now of that day; he was not sick after all, the episode with the spider was months before. He had actually run inside and covered his ears when his mother and sisters were screaming. The men had come in later and dragged him out again. By then, they were already dead. Why hadn’t they killed him as well? It was what he had never understood; how arbitrary it all was, savagery and mercy all at a whim.
He wonders now at how he could have forgotten this telling detail. Until this moment it seems he could not bear to think of it.
Mara is on her knees, spitting blood and sobbing. He goes to comfort her but she waves him away. She does not wish to be touched, even by her rescuer.
He hesitates, then reaches for her a second time. She relents and hides her face in his shoulder and clings to him. There is blood on her face. Look what they have done to her.
A thought comes to him: what would have happened to him if the dacoits had not come that day? He would be ploughing a field with an ox cart. He supposes.
Instead he is here.
He pulls the stopper from a waterskin and washes the blood off her face as best he can. As if she was not beaten enough. Her father will think he did this, if he recognizes her at all.
‘It will be all right,’ he whispers. Perhaps it will. Who knows? He hasn’t given up yet.
He looks down at himself. He is covered in blood, too, some of it his. Just like Alexander, then. The elephant boy has learned his lessons well. And now they have four fresh horses and they can leave the two nags behind.
She clutches him like she is drowning and howls.