"Each to that at which he excels," I said. "You'd best leave fire-walking to the fire-walkers, laddie."
"I will wager I can walk farther on those coals than you!"
"Out on you! I had all the burns I want in the dungeons of Babylon."
"Fie! You are no sportsman. I will show you!"
Vardanas sat down and pulled off his boots. Then he rolled up his trouser legs and walked to the end of the trench.
"For the honor of the Persian race!" he cried, and stepped out upon the coals.
He made his first step without flinching, but then something went wrong. With a yell, Vardanas hopped off the embers, sat down, and clutched one foot. Everybody—Thessalians, Kappadokians, priests, and priestesses—burst into laughter. Vardanas wept, not I am sure from pain but from shame.
"The mouse has tasted pitch!" I said. "Get your bear-grease ointment, Elisas. Here's a fire-walking priestess who could not quite make it."
From Tyana the road took us to Kybistra and thence to Laranda in Lykaonia. Our escort turned back at the Lykaonian border. Lykaonia is mostly high, cold, barren, windswept plain, broken here and there by small conical mountains. We kept close watches, because the Lykaonians have the name of lawless hillmen who rob travelers. Nought befell us, however, except that once a pair of huge lionlike sheep dogs attacked us and had to be slain.
Now that we were back in Alexandrine territory, I took up again my series of reports to the king, explaining the interruption. I urged Alexander to come to terms with the worthy Arivarates. On the other hand, I warned him against Harpalos, who, I was sure, was looting the treasury to an indecent degree.
There was a chance of these letters' falling into Harpalos' hands as they passed through Tarsos, but I thought it unlikely that the treasurer would try to stop and censor all the royal mail. In any case, honor demanded that I make a serious attempt to avenge myself on those who had injured me or tried to. As the Persians say, kindness to the lion is cruelty to the lamb.
In Laranda, soldiers of Antigonos' garrison stopped us, as we had plainly ridden from hostile territory. Their commandant, a solemn Spartan named Nabis, walked up and down, looking gloomily at us.
"You tell a fine tale," he said in Doric dialect, "but what proof have you-all got?"
"Plenty," I said. "Hand me the documents, Klonios. Here is a letter from Eumenes, in which all loyal subjects are commanded in the king's name to help us and further the expedition. Here's authority to requisition governmental fodder. Here's a letter from Menes, viceroy of Syria, to Philoxenos ..."
Nabis made a show of studying the documents, pursing his shaven upper lip and frowning over the edge of the papyrus at us. As he sometimes held them upside down, methinks any pieces of writing would have done as well. At last he said:
"I reckon you-all can go on. In fact, the sooner you get that two-tailed monster out of town, the better I'll like it."
Off we went on the road from Laranda to Derbe. As spring came on, the trees along the watercourses put out new leaves and the tamarisks turned pink. The brown earth became green with new grass, and flowers carpeted the plains. Herds of wild asses grazed hock-deep in the growth and galloped off braying as we neared them.
Spring also filled the hipparchia with new energy. Though it seemed we had been on the road since our childhood, home at last began to look real instead of like some mythical place beyond the edge of the world. I no longer had to drive and harry my people to keep them moving. Smelling their oats, they often hurried me on faster than I intended to go.
The Thessalians began talking of their plans against the day of their discharge. One would open a shop, another buy a farm, and a third pay off his father's debts, while a fourth meant to spend all his bonus on wine and women and then go to Macedonia to seek service under Antipatros, the regent.
I made no more progress with Nirouphar, though the spring made my love burn brighter and more painfully. She was pleasant and gay and courteous, but then so she was to all. Pyrron's promise to hold aloof from her was gradually forgotten, until she was spending almost as much time with the philosopher as formerly. I once mentioned the fact to Vardanas, hoping to rouse him to renew his ban.
He grinned. "Not Auramasdas himself could keep my fair sister from conversing with somebody. On the whole I think she is, safer with the philosopher than with you, highly though I esteem you. He is not a lustful man, whereas you ..."
"I am as virtuous as the next!" I said.
"Ah, but do you remember that girl in Karmana, the one with a cast in her eye?"
"Let's not rake old ashes. For that matter, I recall some of your escapades, too."
"But I do not even pretend to be a safe escort for blooming young virgins!"
From Derbe the road led us to Ikonion. According to the Lykaonians, Ikonion was the first place to emerge from the waters after the Flood. Here the gods, to repeople the earth, made men of mud and caused the winds to blow the breath of life into them. From Ikonion we made a long march northwest to Ipsos, where we rejoined the Persian royal highway.
Now the going became easy. With the coming of spring, however, the splendid road was thronged with traffic, which ofttimes slowed our progress until we could edge past. After a while, we took to putting the elephant at the head of our column instead of the tail. Then when Vardanas or Klonios rode ahead, shouting: "Way! Way for King Alexander's men!" the travelers took one look at Aias and leapt for the ditch. Sometimes they kept right on running across the nearest fields.
There were horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, and men afoot. There were chariots, carts, and sleds. There were herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. Platoons of Greek or Macedonian soldiers strode eastwards in heavy Iphikratean marching boots, while gangs of slaves, mostly swart Gandarians and Indians captured in the last two years' battles, shuffled westwards on bare feet, with hanging heads.
Betimes a Persian postman galloped by, blowing a horn to clear the way. Whenever one flew past, we all sang out: "Neither snow, nor rain ..." Again, a solitary Hellene, wrapped in a cloak and his face shaded by a traveling hat, plodded along with a walking stick or jogged on a mule, on his way eastwards to seek his fortune or just to see the world.
The road led us along a river between the massive Paroreian Mountains to Prymnessos, which sprawled on flat land with a castle on a crag above it. Thence we marched to Keramonagora, where they make fine carpets. Then we entered gracious Lydia, with its vine-clad hillsides and fields of wheat and purple crocuses, from which the folk make saffron. We saw the long-robed Lydians at their wild rites in honor of Kybele.
And thus, on the last day of Mounychion, we came down the Hermos River to Sardeis, the jewel of western Anatolia, often destroyed but always rising again from its ruins. The city bustles with business and manufacture like a Syrian town. The streets near the market place are lined with racks on which dyed stuffs hang to dry; the spring breeze stirred their billows of crimson and yellow.
South of the city rises Mount Tmolos, crowned by a marble arcade built by the Persians as a lookout. From the city below, the arcade is a mere white fleck topping the dark forested slopes. The mountain thrusts out a spur towards Sardeis, and on this spur stands the citadel. Thither we took our way.
Antigonos son of Philippos, viceroy of Phrygia and Lydia, was a tall, lean man, even taller than Kanadas. He had one cold blue eye in a somber, scarred face with a close-cut graying beard. He limped and rested his weight on a stick.
"A scratch I got at Lake Tatta," he said. "It will soon be well. What is your mission?"
I told my tale, which I now knew so well that I could repeat it in my sleep. I ended: "How is the king? I heard in Kilikia that he was badly wounded. Have you had any later news, General?"