Alexander and Alestria Read Online Free PDF Page B

Olympias's perfume and the rustling of her tunic. The sun had not yet disappeared behind the horizon; the moon had already risen, pale, transparent, and round.
    My soldiers were preparing for a Macedonian feast day in the encampment but, so far from Pella, it did not have the same gaiety, the same feel. Even though the moon of the pharaohs was more majestic than that which rose over Greek soil, Memphis-a bustling trading city-exhaled the same stench of decadence as Athens. I searched in vain for splendors recorded on papyrus. Time continued to trickle through the hourglass, but the Egyptians already had the weary expression of a kingdom that has lived too long in eternity.
    Ammon had supplanted Osiris. The god of the sun demanded exclusive adoration and obedience. I considered it essential to appear at his sanctuary if I was to convince the Egyptians to submit to my authority for any length of time. I was told of a desert stretching as far as the eye could see, of hills of flames and nine-headed vultures. I heard of an army of shades advancing as columns of sand blown by the wind, an army that once destroyed the powerful Persian troops. I knew no fear at all. Dangers merely heightened my will.
    Four days wandering through that ocean of dunes, four nights of forced marching beneath the stars, I turned a deaf ear to the soldiers' complaints. The sun burned down on me. I shielded my eyes with straw and saw the waves of sand twisting, breaking, and reforming, but never once did I think of retreating. Retreat would mean forever abandoning the sphinx and the pyramids.
    In the heart of the oasis Ammon's guards exhausted me with ritual dancing, chanting, and praises, then they let me into the low-ceilinged hut with its roof of palm fronds. The high priest, decked in jewels and bought with my gold, predicted what I wanted to hear: their god appointed me king of kings. He announced that, with his benediction, Alexander would be invincible among men.
    We made the return journey without stopping once. Carried by the uplifting oracle, my soldiers braved the desert in jubilant mood. I slept in the saddle astride Bucephalus. I pictured myself back there, facing the disc of the sun. I had asked this question of the high priest: "Why was I born when the end of the world had already begun?" Taken aback, he sat in silence. I was gripped with the urge to laugh, and left the sanctuary lighthearted. The end of the world had already begun because I was born to burn it down, to destroy it.
    On the banks of Lake Mareotis I used the point of my lance to draw out a new city on fallow land. I gave it my name.
    Alexandria of Egypt, you shall prosper after this ancient world has perished in flames with me!

Chapter 2
    They call me Tania. They also call me Talestita. I am tall and slender. I have a pet bird. I gather my hair in two braids and dress in red. I am often seen frowning and thinking-it is what I like best.
    Other girls used to make fun of me because I was not happy like them; my body was more fragile. I was the queen's serving girl, and she liked my air of melancholy. She told me I had a more restful presence than the others, who were too playful and chirpy. They all teased me because I have white skin, golden eyes, and fair, curly hair. They laughed and called me "the foreigner" because the elders said I was the daughter of a foreign king and my family had perished in a massacre. A foreigner among girls with dark eyes and black hair, and yet I was the only one my queen trusted as her scribe. I wrote down her words on flat pieces of stone, using tinted water and a reed cut on the diagonal. The ink dried a yellow color for orders and orange for tallies of horses and sheep.
    Few people in our tribe could write. We had no books. My mother, a servant to the previous queen, taught me the secrets of written signs. She told me our language had the strength of concentration, and that each of our signs was worth ten words in any other tongue.
    In the