THEY DRILL THE elephants all morning; there is upasthana, teaching the tuskers to rise over small palisades; samvartana, getting them to rise on their hind legs and take a giant step over a ditch. But most of their training is designed to get them ready again for pitched battle, to bear the noise of infantry sounding trumpets and banging swords on shields; and preparing the cavalry, getting them to bear the tuskers so they do not bolt from each other in a charge.
Afterwards the waterboys take the elephants to the river to water them and scrub them down. Th is is everyone’s favourite time of day. The elephants trumpet and hose themselves and each other down while the waterboys scrub at them with brushes and pumice stones.
Gajendra watches how Colossus reaches for their new slave boy with his trunk.
Ravi comes to stand beside Gajendra.
‘You want to know what I think? He’s not his uncle. He’s some sort of mercenary and he bought the boy from a brothel or an auction block. A freak like that is not going to get a woman or a boy unless he pays for it. Or else he’s his pimp. An olive oil merchant! You didn’t buy that, did you? He’s a merchant all right. And he’ll do a fine trade from the Macks here, if he can get that pretty little thing out of your sight for an hour or two.’
Mara is giving Colossus a good scrub. He’s better at that than he is at shovelling dung. The other waterboys complain that he wants a rousing cheer from the infantry and an extra ration at dinner for every lump.
‘Still,’ he concedes, ‘he has a way with him with our tuskers. It’s a rare gift.’
‘It’s no gift. He’s always feeding them apples instead of mucking out the straw. If he keeps this up I’ll send him over to the infantry.’
‘You’re jealous of him.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he grumbles.
It’s not jealousy; it’s something else. He watches how he pulls at the hair at the nape of his neck, like he is looking for a curl. Does he know he is being provocative? He has never been one for splitting the peach but there’s something about this one that unsettles him.
And the boy won’t leave him alone.
Mara wants to know everything, is on at Gajendra all the time, asking about the ali baasawa, the language he and Ravi use to control their elephants, wants to know about the nila points where the elephant is sensitive, the dangupola for controlling him, the mara nila or death points. He learns that the sonda nala is the top of the trunk and the pasa dhana is the knee.
Every day he pursues him with questions. Why do they turn more slowly to the left than the right? Why do they put their trunks in each other’s mouths like that?
‘You are a slave,’ he tells him. ‘Can you not behave like one? For someone I could sell off to the highest bidder you are very sure of yourself.’ He sees Catharo watching them. Ugly brute. ‘He’s not your uncle, is he?’
‘Of course he is,’ Mara says. But he can tell by his eyes; the boy is a terrible liar.
Gajendra is only slight, but it is all muscle. Her first judgement of him was wrong, he is not Persian but an Asiatic. She supposes some might call him handsome, he is clean-shaven, lithe and has an air of authority about him.
She watches him move among the elephants while they are getting scrubbed down in the river, examining each and every one, as gentle as if he were with his children. They seem to know him, too, reaching out with their trunks and feeling for him, like a blind man reading a face. He clicks his fingers for a boy to come and tend to some injury on one of the animals, scolds another for not fetching enough food. He talks to the beasts as if they were babies, cooing and chanting.
Today Colossus is, as always, the last to leave the water. Mara wanders away to find a bush to relieve herself. When she looks up, Colossus has followed her.
She hears Gajendra coming.
Mara turns. ‘Go back,’ she says and tries to shoo him.
He stops, trunk swaying, and trumpets at her.
Gajendra bursts through the bushes. ‘What have you done to him?’ he shouts at her.
‘It’s not my fault.’
‘Have you taught him some secret signal? Why is he following you?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘An elephant has one mahavat, only one, do you understand?’ He taps the hook on his ear and Colossus turns reluctantly away.
That night Alexander orders elephants to be prepared for a wedding feast. Gajendra has a dozen of his tuskers painted in gaudy colours, even their toenails. They use reds and ochres and greens, with circles around their eyes and geometric patterns over their trunks and bodies, even headdresses like they would wear for battle.
When it is done he leaves Ravi in charge of it and retires early to the straw. Later he hears the sound of drums and flutes and tries not to think what is happening. Murder and jealousy curdle in him like bad milk.
It is like she is there beside him. He imagines the way her hip must feel with his hand resting upon it as she lies on her side, her sweet breath on his face. The longing is so urgent he groans aloud.
Finally he gets up in the night to retch into the grass and then he abandons sleep and instead he sits up all night with the elephants, staring at the sea.