I think there must have been something in the milk, for my recollections get more indistinct from there. There was more running, and calling of the Bacchic refrain Euoi saboi, Euoi saboi. A nest of fat snakes appeared in our path. The snakes seemed drugged, sluggish; Rohjane tore into one of them with her teeth, ripped off the living flesh, and swallowed the chunks. Alexander, pleased, took the head for himself, while Bagoas performed a sinuous, serpent-like dance. Much aroused by this, the King grasped him by the flanks and buggered him in the sight of Heaven. Yet not even this seemed strange to me, as Rohjane and I shared a winking glance, and the Queen lay back in my arms with her thin, blood-caked fingers entwined in mine.
Through our frenzy we became conscious of an urgent sensation in our throats. We had to come upon a cold, clear stream before we realized that this sensation was thirst, and that we were parched from what must have been hours of exertion. We bowed and drank like things of the forest, stopping only when our bellies were full and we could barely turn our backs to the smooth creek side rocks warmed by the sun. Lulled by the song of the cicada, we fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.
When we awoke the sun was down near the shoulder of Meron. My head was a bit clearer, and I could see the evidence Bagoas and Rohjane bore of their experience: cuts on their feet, burrs in their hair, blood and milk on their chins. Alexander was standing some distance away, looking through the trees down to the valley below.
Evening shadow had fallen on the Macedonian camp. Torches winked in the distance, arranged along the ranks of tents. The King had an odd expression on his face, both curious and wistful, as if he were regarding evidence of an ancestor’s life. I plucked the half-crushed garland from his head and tossed it aside.
“The sundown watch must be coming on,” he told me. “Look-the Third battalion of footmen still can’t pitch a straight line of tents.”
“Shall we get back?”
He sighed, and putting his weight on my shoulder, remarked, “It’s always there, is it not? Somewhere around me like the Furies. Jealousy, Blood Avenger, Unceasing Pursuit! Other men had gone abroad, explored foreign lands. I must take an army with me to see new places! The original blunt instrument! I love them so much I would run away right now. I wonder if you understand, dear Machon.”
I thought it best to say I did not. But he continued to walk with me as we descended the mountain, Bagoas and Rohjane stumbling behind us in the twilight. As we proceeded it became clear that we had waited too long to start back: the light was failing, and the path was little more than a deer track. We lost our way, but pressed on down the slope. Finally the ground leveled, and we came upon the outskirts of a village we hadn’t passed on the way up. Alexander called for the little column to halt.
“Is this Nysa?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” I answered, “but I may not have seen it from this side.”
“There-someone’s coming,” Bagoas pointed.
Three women appeared. They were neither girls, nor particularly old-young mothers, perhaps. Their heads were covered with parti-colored cloths, their hands hidden behind the folds of their dresses. They were approaching a flat stone scattered with flowers and spice-leaves. Spreading a cloth on the ground there, one of the women dumped a handful of small objects in the center-in the gloom it was hard to see what, but they appeared to be either chickpeas or some kind of nut. As the woman in the middle set about picking chaff out of her nuts or peas, the other two looked reverently at the flat rock. It occurred to me then that they may have come together to a village shrine for some kind of observance. To be watching them secretly therefore seemed to be something of a transgression, though of what faith I had no idea. I swallowed my qualms, though, when it was clear that the others would not move on.
The woman in the center began to speak in a language I couldn’t understand. Cocking her ear, Rohjane gave a little gasp, then a smile of recognition. We all looked to her.
“She is not speaking Sogdian, but I understand some of it. They are performing the rite we call ‘Miserable Peas.’ It is done by women only, in times of trouble in the family. I used to see it done by my grandmother. We also used chickpeas.”
As the woman spoke, the others knelt by her, giving affirmations now and then, though they did it somewhat perfunctorily, as if they had heard her words many times before.
“What’s going on now?” asked Bagoas.
“There is a tale that must be told before the peas are purified and given away. In my father’s kingdom the story is about the wise daughter of a goatherd. There was a drought, and there was no food for the girl, her father, or the goats. The goatherd prayed to Ameretat for aid, and the yazata appeared to them with the gift of a handful of chickpeas. The shining one said: ‘Purify these as you know how, and after the rite give them away as best serves the good.’ The father gave thanks, but when Ameretat was gone he complained that the spenta had given no help at all, for they had been given only a few miserable chickpeas. And he was about to share them with his daughter for eating, when she begged him to purify them first.
“‘Foolish girl!’ her father said. ‘Purified or not, these miserable peas will not save us.’ But her piety shamed him, and he relented, saying the words that consecrated them in the sight of Ahuramazda. Again, he was about to eat them, when his daughter objected, saying she wanted to give her share to the goats. ‘Foolish child!’ the goatherd chided her. ‘What good will a few miserable peas do for our whole flock?’ The wise daughter replied: ‘I know not, father, but I cannot eat while others suffer, even if they are animals.’ At these words the goatherd was proud of his daughter’s sense of duty to asha, and ashamed at having indulged his despair. He bid her to eat her share of the peas and give his to the goats instead. When she threw her father’s peas among the flock, a miracle happened: where each pea hit the ground a beautiful green tree sprouted, grew, and ripened before her eyes, until she was standing in a grove of myrtle trees, each with boughs groaning under the weight of berries.
“In this way the goats, the father, and the daughter ate, and were saved from the drought. Soon the prince of the kingdom came by, and seeing a grove of myrtle more splendid than in any of his father’s gardens, came to the door to congratulate the owner. There he saw the goatherd’s daughter, and fell in love. When she came of age, he married her, and in due course she became Queen. But for the rest of her life, in times of trouble or not, she was sure to perform this rite of the chickpeas, to protect her family from harm.”