"Eumenes will see to further details. Draw your plans with care, and do not leave until your wound is better. Remember that the people you meet on the way, though their customs be strange, are as much my subjects as you. Therefore, use them with justice and moderation. There shall be no robbing or raping or bullying; and you shall pay for everything you take."
"Everything, O King?" said I, a little aghast. "D'you mean food and lodging and all, as if we were but private travelers?"
"That is right. It has long been the wont of the folk of this empire to run whenever they saw a party of the king's men approaching, for fear of being plundered. Now shall begin a new age of justice and righteousness. The official and the countryman shall look upon one another as father to son, instead of as wolf to sheep. Again, Alexander thanks you for your noble work in the battle. Now you may go. Rejoice!"
I left the king's tent with my head in a whirl. On one hand, the prospect of meeting and knowing famous philosophers stirred me. On the other, the size of the task appalled me. I was proud of the king's trust, but also more frightened of the onus laid upon me than I had been by Poros' elephants in the battle.
As far as I knew, no one had ever taken an elephant west of the Taurus Mountains. How would the creature abide the cold? How would it be fed? How could it be carried by water from Asia to Europe? Must I, like Xerxes, build a bridge of boats across the Hellespont? How did I know that all the lands the king had left behind him remained loyal? Any province might have revolted and so be impassable. Nor could I slip through by wearing the dress of a countryman and making myself inconspicuous. Anything less inconspicuous than a beast the size of a small mountain would be hard to conceive.
Well, I thought, it is a rough road that leads to glory. Deciding I ought to know my new charge, I walked to the side of the camp where the elephant lines were. It was a long walk, and I arrived sweating and limping.
Here were scores of elephants which either belonged to the allied Indian kings or had been given by them to Alexander. They stood in long lines, swaying, flapping their ears, tossing their trunks, and giving those shrill squeals that sound so silly from so large a beast. Each elephant was tethered to a massive stake by a chain about its foreleg, but keepers unchained their elephants to take them down to the river to bathe, so there was a constant coming and going. Keepers fed their beasts, renewed the designs painted on them, shoveled dung, or lay about talking and sleeping. The place smelled pungently of elephant. The beasts ate hay, greens of all kinds, and, as a special treat, a kind of cane or reed with a marvelously sweet honeylike flavor.
Being unable to pick out Poros' elephant by sight, I spoke to some of the keepers in Persian; but they only smiled, waved their hands, and answered in Indian. All the Indian I knew were the few phrases any soldier needs in a land he is invading, such as: "Where is the army?" "I want food," "Give me your valuables," and "Obey or you will be killed."
When it was plain that neither party could understand the other, one keeper dashed off towards the Indians' tents. Soon he came back, accompanied by a tall Indian with a blue-dyed beard. I introduced myself in Persian. The man placed his palms together and bowed his head over them, replying in broken Persian:
"I Kanadas of Paurava, master of Poros' elephants."
Like most Indians, Kanadas wore only a piece of gauzy cloth of Indian tree wool wrapped around his loins and a long strip of the same stuff wound about his head and tied with a knot as complicated as that which the king smote with his sword at Gordion. Kanadas' upper body was bare but for necklaces with dangling amulets.
I said: "May I see the elephant that Poros gave King Alexander?"
"Yes," he said, and led me hither and yon until we stopped in front of the monster. The animal's paint had been washed off and not replaced. Several wounds could still be seen, but they seemed to be healing. The elephant's keeper lay curled up asleep between his pet's forefeet.
As soon as the elephant got a good look at me, however, he threw up his trunk, screamed, lunged forward to the limits of his chain, and reached out for me.
I started, backed into the rear of another elephant in the next line, jumped in surprise, slipped in the mud, and fell into a pile of clung. All the keepers, who had formed a small crowd around us, burst into laughter.
A man need not be oversensitive about his dignity to be annoyed by such a thing. I got up and wiped myself off, scowling at the Indians. Their smiles disappeared, for my thick black eyebrows give me a fearsome frown. Some of them frowned back and muttered words I do not think were meant as compliments.
The elephant was still making hostile sounds, despite the efforts of his keeper to soothe him. Kanadas said: "He no like Greek helmet."
After so many men wearing tall horsehair crests had hurt the beast, he would hardly feel friendly towards men so clad. I laid my helmet down several paces away and came back. The elephant quieted but still grumbled suspiciously. I kept out of reach of his trunk.
"What is he called?" I asked.
Kanadas said: "Mahankal—Great Death. Is named for one of our gods, Siva the Destroyer."
I said: "Have you heard that Mahankal is going to Hellas? The king has so commanded."
"What is Hellas?" asked Kanadas.
"My country, far to the west."
"Oh. How far this land? One day travel? Two?"
"Farther."
"Ten day? Month?"
"Much farther than that! It may take us a year."
"What?" Kanadas seemed puzzled. As I explained, his face took on a look of horror. He spoke in Indian to the keeper. The two shouted excitedly, and Kanadas ran off towards the main camp.
Soon Kanadas returned with tears cascading down his raisin-brown face. He spoke to the keeper. Both wept, hugging and kissing the forelegs and trunk of the elephant, who shifted his weight and gurgled as if he sensed that something was wrong. The other keepers gathered round. When they heard the news they, too, wept, casting hostile looks upon me.
"Blame me not," I said to Kanadas. "I only brought the news. I am not the king, merely one of his servants."
But they only wept and lamented the more. At last I gave up and went back to the officers' tents of my troop. Here I found Gration honing his sword and Sthenelos writing a letter. I told them about my speech with the king.
Sthenelos looked grave. "Pheu, poor dear Leon!" he said. "I warned you against gorging. The king has at last taken pity on your nag and shifted you to a beast big enough to bear all that beef."
"But seriously, lads, what in Hera's name shall I do?" I said. "How does a body get such a monster halfway across the world?"
Sthenelos said: "Your best chance, blessed one, is to go north through the lands of the Sakai till you come to the country of the one-eyed Arimaspians who war against the gold-guarding gryphons. Catch a team of eagle-winged gryphons and break them to harness and build a wagon big enough to hold the elephant—"
"Na, na, that's too fancy," said Gration. "An elephant that big can ford the Aegean Sea."
"It's too deep," said Sthenelos. "It were easier to train the elephant to fly by flapping its cars."
"It is no too deep," said Gration. "Gif the sea be over the elephant's head, it can stretch its trunk up to the surface to breathe. Have you no seen them here walking on the river's bottom?"
"Oh, bugger you two knaves!" I said, and went back to sick quarters. It seemed I must needs rely on my own wits to solve my problems.