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spearpoint gleaming, horses in their finest panoply, chariot teams snorting and prancing and tossing their plumes. They circled the field of Issus; they massed in formation, wheeled, swung down the long broken level like one great shining creature, and halted in their ranks before the face of the king.
    He wore his golden corselet, his lion helmet. He sat on the back of his little black horse that was as much a legend as he was, and took their roar of acclamation and gave it back in the splendor of his smile.
    And then they massed themselves round the tower that they had built of wood and flesh, and performed their sacrifices, and watched the priests pour oil over the pyre. The king cast the first torch. It arced high against the grey vault of heaven, crested and curved and fell, and caught on the summit of the pyre. Others came after it like a fall of stars. Then, so suddenly it singed the beards of those who lingered closest, it erupted into flame.
    Meriamon could not watch the bodies burning. The wind carried the smoke away from her, or surely she would have disgraced herself. What would their souls do now? How would they cross the land of the dead, what judgment could they hope for, with no earthly home to anchor them?
    People were wailing. It was part of the rite. She clamped her jaw on her own cry. So many bodies, so many souls lost—gods, how could they do it?
    There were people near her on the slope. Most of them were silent.
    One spoke beside her. “Did you lose someone in the battle?”
    It was a woman’s voice, and anything but Persian. Its owner seemed calm, dressed as a Greek woman with a veil over her hair and half-hiding her face.
    Meriamon took refuge in the sight of her—a curl of bronze-gold hair, a smooth ivory brow, a pair of great dark eyes. They were level on her, with sympathy in them, and curiosity: a peculiarly Greek expression. Her accent was as pure as any Meriamon had heard.
    “How can they do it?” Meriamon asked. “How can they destroy the dead?”
    “It sets their souls free,” the Greek woman said. “Then we bury the bones, and they can rest.”
    “Is that rest? To destroy them?”
    The Greek’s brows drew together. They were strong, and elegantly arched. “If the soul is to be freed to cross the River into Hades, the bones must lie under the earth.” She shivered in her fine blue mantle with its embroidered hem. “How horrible, to be fettered to the rotting flesh and forbidden passage to peace.”
    “Our faiths are very different,” said Meriamon, thin and tight.
    “You’re Egyptian, yes? I heard that there was an Egyptian woman in the camp.”
    “I’m supposed to be a boy,” Meriamon said.
    “Someone has been chaffing you, then.” said the Greek. “Believe me, a woman is safer than a boy where Hellenes are.”
    Meriamon looked at her. “Did some of the generals bring their wives with them after all?”
    The Greek laughed, sweet and high. That was art, that swoop of mirthful notes; art worn to instinct. “Wife? I? Aphrodite forbid! No, my lady of Egypt, I am a camp follower, a hetaira they call me, which is a courtesan. Haven’t you heard of Thaïs?”
    “No more than you have heard of Meriamon.”
    Thaïs let fall her veil. She was not the raving beauty that Meriamon had expected. Her eyes were magnificent, and her skin was flawless. But her nose was long even for Greek taste, her mouth wide and somewhat overgenerous, her chin a shade too definite.
    Character. That was the name of it.
    Meriamon had never spoken with a hetaira before. Concubines—men had those in Khemet. And there were women who sold their bodies for men’s pleasure. But someone who seemed to glory in it, whose title meant “companion”—that was a Greek thing, and strange.
    “We’re a necessity, you see,” said Thaïs in that bright, brittle voice. “For some men, boys are not enough, and their wives are good for little but spinning wool and bearing sons. We give them what their wives are