THEY HAVE BROUGHT the wounded to a hastily erected tent and the physicians are at work, stitching wounds and taking out barbs with little ceremony. Men are screaming. It is hard to hear yourself think.
Catharo lies staring at the roof of the tent. It is clear he has suffered like this often enough that he now thinks nothing of it. Ravi was right: no merchant, no nephew, either of them. Not that Gajendra cares to unmask them. He doesn’t like the little fellow but he is glad he is on his side, and he owes the catamite his life.
Catharo does not even appear to blink; you might think he was dead if it wasn’t for the fingers of his right hand, which beat a kind of rhythm on the grass as he waits for the physician to attend him. He is a cheerful fellow, unperturbed by the agonies of others. Gajendra studies his body, what there is of it, sees that he has a collection of scars that would not have disgraced one of Alexander’s oldest veterans.
Catharo makes a noise, something between a grunt and a curse, as they take out the spear. Me, I would have been yelling and trying to rip off the physician’s head, Gajendra thinks.
‘Another wound, Catharo, where did they ever find a place to put it?’
‘You are no merchant, are you? Who are you really?’
‘I’m just a shitkicker with a spear in his leg. I don’t have a past any more.’
‘What do those tattoos on your face mean?’
‘They say “Mind your own business” in Arabic, Greek and any other fucking language you care to name.’
‘You fought well. I should be grateful but I’m just suspicious.’
‘If I’d fought that well I wouldn’t be lying here bleeding everywhere. But I fought better than you. You finish one combat and you stand there like you’ve struck down Zeus.’
‘Your so-called nephew is just as brave a fellow and he has better manners.’
‘If you can use a knife you don’t need manners.’
He’s not going to get far with this fellow. He leaves him to bleed and mend as best he can.
The camp is bristling with guards, and fires burn around the entire perimeter. The screams of a prisoner taken during that day’s raid echo around the camp; Alexander has ordered him tortured out of pique.
Gajendra and Mara find Colossus chained to a tree. Some bales of alfalfa have been stacked in front of him and he is consoling himself with food. The arrow is still in his shoulder. He catches Mara’s scent but like all elephants he does not see very well and has to confirm who it is with his trunk. He rumbles deep in his belly. It is both a greeting and a plea for help.
Gajendra gets to work. He feels Mara watching him.
‘You don’t have to be here, boy. Go and have your dinner.’
‘I don’t want anything. You know what they’re eating.’
‘Well, they couldn’t leave him there to rot.’
‘Will you eat Colossus if he dies?’
‘This one’s different.’
‘How?’
‘He’s mine.’
‘Such a fortunate elephant.’
Is he flirting again? He is standing too close. Mara puts a hand on his shoulder. He steps away.
‘You saved my life today,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘We’ll toughen you up yet.’
‘That’s what I need. Toughening up. My father would be pleased.’
It is a curious remark. He stands by the beast’s head, whispering to him. There are not many who will even go near him, let alone talk to him like this.
‘What’s he like?’ Mara asks.
‘Who?’
‘Alexander.’
Gajendra considers. ‘One of his guards whispered something to me, on the way from Babylon. He said Alexander sleeps with two things under his pillow: a dagger and The Iliad. The Iliad’s not just a story, it’s his family tree. He believes himself descended from Hercules, part divine. He doesn’t just rule other men because of the strength of his army. He conquers by right. He believes himself a god.’
‘And the dagger?’
‘To protect that part of himself that is not a god.’
‘Do you think him divine?’
‘He does things that are more than human. His idea of leisure at the end of a long day is a night march. His idea of dinner is a light breakfast.’
Gajendra works at the arrowhead, trying to work it free with as little fuss as possible. ‘How did you learn to be a mahavat?’ Mara asks him.
‘From Ravi. It’s called the ali baas. It’s passed down, father to son, but he doesn’t have a son.’
‘What language is it you talk in?’
‘I don’t know. It is Ravi’s language but all he can remember of it now are the words he uses for the tuskers.’
‘And that’s the only language they know?’
‘It’s not like Greek or your jibber. They know what to do when we say certain words but in a battle they can’t hear us so most of it we do with our feet and with sticks. Or if I’m walking beside him I tap him under the eye to make him kneel, just here to make him stop, the back of his heel here to get him to raise his foot so I can climb up. But it’s only an elephant’s mahavat can do it, he won’t do it for just anyone. He does it because he likes me and he trusts me.’ He rubs his hide with his hand and pats him. ‘Anyway, why do you want to know all this?’
‘Perhaps I want to learn. To be a mahavat.’
‘You think because one stupid elephant follows you about you can be a mahavat?’
‘Who got him on the ship?’
Gajendra pokes Mara in the chest. ‘Mind who you’re talking to, waterboy.’
Mara pokes him back. ‘You’re a bully and a pig.’
When he gets over the shock of his impudence Gajendra laughs and pushes him, playfully, but it’s a hard shove and he totters and falls over. ‘Remember who you’re talking to or I’ll give you a hiding.’
Gajendra yells as Colossus wraps his trunk around him and shoves him out of the way. There is no doubt that he has taken sides. Gajendra is astonished. He has never seen an elephant do anything like this before. ‘Well, well. He seems to like you.’ He grabs Mara’s hand and pulls him to his feet. ‘All right, boy. We’ll see what we can do with you. Maybe you do have talent.’
‘For what?’
‘For this work. At least the big fellow here seems to think so. Maybe I’ll teach you a few things.’
‘But how can you? I’m a slave, as you never tire of telling me.’
‘And not a very good one.’ The iron arrowhead is almost free. Colossus bellows again, but does not move.
‘How’s my uncle?’
‘He’s not your uncle, is he?’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘It would take more than one javelin to kill him. He fought well. A professional soldier could not have done better. For a humble merchant he knows how to use weapons.’
‘I didn’t say he was a merchant his whole life.’
‘I would have thought the next time he sees a ledger of accounts it will be the first time.’ He works out the arrowhead and a spray of blood splatters over him. Colossus shrieks and takes a step backwards but calms when Mara talks to him. It is remarkable how he can do this.
‘Will my big boy be all right?’
‘If you mean the elephant, yes. He’ll be sore, but you can’t kill an elephant with just one dart. Not in his shoulder anyway.’
‘You care about him more than you pretend.’
‘I need him. He’s the biggest and the best. Aren’t you, you big, bristly bastard?’ He slathers the wound in honey to keep it clean. He looks at Mara, as if he’s surprised to find him still there. ‘Get back to your post. You’ll have to work twice as hard now, I lost some of my best shit shovellers today. You’re not much good at it, but you’re all I’ve got.’
That night she takes Colossus down by the river with the other tuskers. A storm breaks over the mountains, and cloud tumbles down the valley like smoke, lightning sheets through the valleys. The tuskers don’t mind the storm; they love the rain. Colossus seems none the worse for his wound. As Gajendra said, he’s a tough one.
The storm brings on evening early. The other mahavats retreat to the camp. Mara stays behind. Colossus is an immense presence in the darkness. He is restless. He rumbles, he trumpets, he snakes out his trunk and tastes her scent. It is as if he is trying to tell her something.
For all the terror he creates in those around him, he is a good-natured beast, even though his affection can be measured in pints of elephant slime. Once she would go nowhere without precious ointments and oils, smelling like summer. Now she reeks of elephant day and night and she has snot in her hair.
If her father could see her now.
‘That’s right,’ she says, ‘cover me in slobber. And Catharo still calls me princess!’
She pats his trunk anyway.
‘How are you feeling, old fellow? If you’re in pain you don’t show it. You’re like Catharo. Take his leg off and he just hops after you shouting threats.’
She could not have imagined this, a few weeks ago, before the walls of her city came down. For a long time she had not felt tired or angry or scared, and had no affection for anyone; now here she was cooing to an elephant. It has been so long since she has been touched, even the slimy pink tip of this strange beast’s trunk feels like a massage with oils.
‘I need a hero, old fellow, someone to watch over me tonight. Do you think you could do that for me?’
Colossus raises his left foot and stamps it down, the first sign that the stiffness in his shoulder is bothering him. He is still poking her with his trunk. Don’t you have a watermelon for me? That’s what he’s saying.
‘Did you see what I did today? He was black, did you see how black he was? They say they’re not human, those fellows. But his blood was the same colour as mine, the same colour as yours. I didn’t have time to think about it. I just did it. It was him or Gajendra. If I’d had time to think about it, perhaps I wouldn’t have done it.’ She makes a fist and jerks down. ‘See! That’s how I did it. Just like that. Me. A woman. And that’s what I’d do to Tanith too, if she was here.’ She stabs again. ‘That’s for taking my baby!’ Stab, stab. ‘That’s for taking my husband and my son!’
She is crying. Stop it, get a hold of yourself, Mara.
The growling in Colossus’s belly gets louder.
‘What do you make of your Indian? He’s a good-looking fellow, isn’t he?’ She runs a hand along his trunk, it is like stroking a rough stone wall. ‘He reminds me of my husband. Did you know I had a husband? He would talk to me the way Gajendra talks to you, he knew where to touch me and what to say when I was angry or when I was afraid. He was my mahavat! But he didn’t need to poke me, like your man does you. I would get angry when he told me what to do, but you know what, now he’s not here, I miss it. Everyone needs someone like that, someone to whisper in their ear, someone who knows all about you, someone who never gets angry.’
She leads Colossus back to the camp. The elephants have been shepherded into a cypress grove. It is raining harder now, the thunder cracks over the mountains, but she throws down her blanket under the tree and under Colossus. If she goes over there to sleep with the other waterboys she knows what will happen; she will not risk it without Catharo there to protect her.
‘If you decide to lie down in the night, remember I am here. I know once I asked you to squash me flat but I don’t know that I want that any more. So I am going to trust you, old fellow. It’s up to you. Goodnight.’ And she lies down under her dark and bristled sky and listens to the rumbling of his belly and the swishing of his tail and feels safer and warmer under a bull elephant with a bad temper than she did for many months in the house of a goddess.