Read Online Alexander (Vol. 3) (Alexander Trilogy) by Valerio Massimo Manfredi - Free Book Online Page A

began writing:
    Callisthenes to Aristotle, Hail!
    Only today, twenty-eighth day of the month of Boedromion in the first year of the hundred and twelfth Olympiad, have I received the thing I had asked you to send to Theophrastus. The motive behind my request no longer exists and therefore I will destroy this thing, so as not to create any pointless risks. Let me know, as soon as you are able, if you have discovered anything regarding the assassination of King Philip because not even Zeus Ammon wanted to answer this question. Now we are leaving the coast to march towards the interior and I do not know if I must say goodbye to the sea for the last time. I hope you are well.
     
    He dusted the papyrus with ash, shook it, rolled it and handed it to Hermocrates. ‘I leave at dawn tomorrow and so I will take my leave now. Travel well and safely and tell my uncle that I miss his advice and his wisdom very much.’
    ‘I will do so,’ replied the man.
    The following day the army set off followed by the royal caravan with the women of Darius’s harem, the Queen Mother and the concubines with their children. Barsine travelled with them and tried as best she could to help Sisygambis, now a very old woman.
    East of the Vale of Orontes, before they reached the banks of the Euphrates, Hephaestion’s messenger met them and asked to be taken immediately to Alexander.
    ‘Sire,’ he announced, ‘we have constructed the floating bridge and we have taken the eastern bank of the Euphrates, but the Persians are torching all the villages along the road to Babylon.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘My own eyes have borne witness: as far as I could see everything was ablaze, even the stubble in the fields. The whole plain was like a sea of flames.’
    ‘We must go then,’ said the King. ‘I am anxious to see what is happening.’ He took two squadrons of cavalry and set off at a gallop together with his companions for the ford at Thapsacus.

 
9
     
    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING , before midday, Alexander crossed the floating bridge, followed by his companions and his cavalry. Hephaestion and Nearchus came to meet him.
    ‘Have you spoken with our messenger?’
    ‘I have. Is the situation truly so serious?’
    ‘You may decide for yourself,’ replied Nearchus, and he pointed to the columns of smoke rising everywhere around them.
    ‘And to the east?’
    ‘You mean off in that direction? As far as we know, there is nothing happening in that direction – no damage, no razed earth.’
    ‘So Darius is waiting for us on the Tigris. These fires are clearer than any written message: the southern route is the same one Xenophon’s ten thousand took seventy years ago, not without considerable difficulties in finding supplies. Now, with the villages and the harvest destroyed, it would be completely impossible. We have no choice but to take the second route, the one that leads to the ford across the Tigris and the King’s Road.
    ‘Darius will wait for us there and it is there that the final battle will take place. And to help us he has cleared the way, allowing us to replenish our supplies in the villages which stand on the foothills of the Taurus Mountains.’
    ‘And we will accept the invitation, is that not so, Alexander?’ asked Perdiccas, stepping forward.
    ‘Indeed, my friend. We must prepare ourselves now because from tomorrow our march begins – in six days’ time we will be at the meeting point with the greatest army of all time.’
    Parmenion was watching the columns of black smoke rising into the air above the horizon and he said nothing; soon he moved away in silence.
    Ptolemy watched him as he went, ‘The general does not seem to be so keen, does he?’
    ‘He is getting on now,’ said Craterus. ‘He really ought to go home.’
    Philotas was nearby and overheard these comments, ‘My father may well be old, but he is worth more than the rest of you put together!’
    Hold on, calm down!’ said Seleucus. ‘Craterus was