Persia, its infinite expanse and shadowy provinces, appeared like a dream, a necessary dream and an indispensable challenge. It became the obsession that promised to bring an end to my torment.
Ambition healed and intoxicated me. I had no choice: in a long starless night, Alexander would be a shooting star, burning intensely. Though short, his life would leave the memory of its swift dazzling trajectory across the celestial vault.
Olympias talked to me of marriage. I knew from my men that she had started looking for a wife for me among the daughters of Macedonian noblemen. Her dreams of a happy marriage and her longing to be a grandmother made the very air in the palace difficult to breathe. I tried to evade the question with talk of my father, accusing my mother of allowing him to pervert me, and of tolerating my vices as she had his. Olympias looked at me, her eyes filled with sadness.
"Woman!" I screamed, "you gave me love, but that love nurtured a monster. I don't want to be married! I don't want a wife like you! I don't want to have children I can harm!"
She looked away and said nothing.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and gave full vent to my anger.
"Look at me," I bellowed, shaking her. "I'm not the man you think you love. I'm not a god. I destroy cities for the sheer pleasure of showing that I'm more fierce and dangerous than Philip, to exceed him in every crime he committed. I have decapitated children, eviscerated women, burned men alive when they have done me no harm at all. Oh, Olympias, you gave birth to a tyrant!" She held me in her arms and wept.
"Give me a child," she whispered. "Then go and never come back! If I raise a son of yours, he will be a good and just king, he will be wise and clement…"
Her words touched my heart, which had no armor against her. My tears mingled with hers, and we wept together for our ruined lives. Night fell, and Olympias sang me the same songs that had lulled my childhood. I lay with my head on her stomach and fell asleep as I used to then.
Women are stronger than men. Even Philip, despite his drunken rages, had never succeeded in defeating Olympias. How could I escape her will? I set off on horseback again, leaving her in charge of the palace and the scheming trappings of power. But her letters followed me beyond mountains; her voice silenced the tumult of war and brought me back by her side, in her bedchamber looking out over orange trees and fountains. I could not help myself replying, and our exchanges were like butterflies flitting over fields strewn with corpses. She and I were harnessed together by the timeless link that joins a man and a woman. Philip was dead; I in turn had become her intrepid warrior, her devouring force, her hand reaching out to expand its territories over the world. She was my home; she had the keys to my treasure and watched fiercely over Pella. I waged war at the front, and she pacified to the rear. I pillaged, and she balanced the accounts. I killed, and she dressed the wounds.
How to fight a woman who had borne suffering, accepted violence, survived brutality? There was a small room in the palace where black crystals were laid out on an altar. My mother shut herself away in there, and no one, not even Philip, had ever dared open that door. Olympias knew everything about me; I had been a part of her. I knew nothing of her, nothing except the mountainous land she came from, a place where people wore black and went to market to sell scorpions, snakes, spiders, and precious stones with magic powers and evil promises. The men practiced vengeance as others might sing and dance. The women of her family, promised to Dionysus by an ancestral pact, learned from him the skill to subdue warriors.
Preparations for a military expedition against the Persians had begun many years before. Philip had reformed our armies to make them more mobile. With archers marching ahead of the phalanxes and walls of lances hiding the cavalry, our square formations could transform themselves into curved lines at any moment. After good harvests and with our grain stores full, the mention of a war against the Persians motivated Greek cities that had once submitted in terror: they regained their dignity and aspired to a sense of unity. Meanwhile, Olympias had taken several lovers, and she hid behind them, governing from the shadows, the intrigues of one group neutralizing those of another. I was no longer afraid my throne would be usurped.
I introduced more rigor and discipline to Philip's army. I studied maps of roads and gathered useful information. I knew the names of influential ministers and eunuchs. I knew exactly where the favorite of Darius, the Great King, had a beauty spot. Knowledge paralyzes action. The more I learned, the more I realized how little I knew of an empire a thousand times more powerful than mine. Days passed, and still I made no decision. It was Olympias who hastened my departure. Knowing that she could not hold me back, she harassed me day and night about taking a wife. Her muttering about the continuity of our dynasty infuriated me. Her mournful silence disarmed my rage. She made my life unbearable.
One night in a dream I saw my queen. She lived in a temple built on the pinnacle of a rock. Dressed in fiery red, she stood in the first row of a group of young girls all in white. She wore a necklace of Byzantine gold and scarlet pearls from some rich, unknown land. She was reaching up to the heavens, and a slow, reverberating chorus rang out, praising the glories of some unfamiliar god. Like water flowing over burning embers, her song soothed my fevered soul.
When I woke, my sense of wonder turned to doubt. Plato taught that each of us is part of a celestial entity that breaks in two as it falls to earth, thus beginning the quest for love. Without a doubt, this princess was mine as I was hers. Where was that rock? Did she know I even existed, that I had seen her, that I already loved her even before I knew her? Was she waiting for me? Had she seen me? Had she dreamed of me? Would she commit the terrible mistake of binding herself to another soul?
I announced my imminent departure to Olympias. Her eyes shrouded themselves with tears.
"No one can challenge the barbarian empire," she murmured. "Our men will be no more than droplets of water spilled along a shoreline. They will all be absorbed and erased."
It was not in pursuit of victory that I wanted to confront danger! Tired of accusing him, I wearily cited Philip once more: "My father failed; I must carry on."
"Your father did not fail. He was a thoughtful king. He listened to Zeus and managed to avoid disaster."
Hearing her speak well of Philip infuriated me.
"I'm not a man of reason," I said, raising my voice. "I will go beyond where my ancestor Achilles fell. The gods on Olympus didn't choose Philip to bear their glory. I am the chosen one! I am the son of Apollo, and Artemis drew me from your belly, that's why she let her temple burn the night I was born. There's no point in discouraging me; I shall reach the ramparts of Babylon."
"You would rather challenge the power of foreign gods than govern," she said menacingly. "I never succeeded in stopping your father, and I won't be able to stop you. I shall lose you. Your heart will forget me and I shall die alone…"
I sighed. "You have done enough intriguing to keep me in this palace. Dry your tears, your king commands it. Being born the wife and mother of warriors is a sad fate. But show yourself worthy of your name. Let me go."