Legends of Persia

Book 0: The Time for Alexander Series

by Jennifer Macaire

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

When Ashley Riveraine jumped at the chance to travel back in time to meet her hero Alexander the Great, she never thought she would end up staying there…Following Alexander the Great’s army on its journey across Persia, Ashley is walking the knife edge of history. As a presumed goddess, Ashley is expected to bless crops, make sure battles are won and somehow keep herself out of the history books. Can Ashley avoid the wrath of the Time Institute while keeping the man she loves alive?

Release date: June 2, 2017

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 244

Sample

Chapter One

Mist obscured the mountaintops. The path I was following rose steadily and was worn smooth by the passage of hundreds of feet and hooves. Taking advantage of a pause, I bent and scraped some snow off a boulder. Next to me, Plexis stopped walking, stretched, then caught sight of my hands. ‘What’s that?’

‘A snowball.’

‘What does one do with it?’

I smiled sweetly. ‘One throws it! Catch!’ I threw the snowball as hard as I could, catching Plexis on the chin. His expression of shocked outrage turned to one of calculating revenge. He scooped up a handful of slushy snow and patted it into a snowball.

‘Like this?’ he asked, cocking his head to one side. His clear brown eyes were guileless, his dark brown hair curled in ringlets around his high-cheekboned face. He looked like a Raphaelite angel. Appearances can be misleading.

I dodged around the side of my pony. ‘Sort of.’ I peeked over the withers and received a faceful of snow. ‘Not fair!’ I bent down and tried to make another snowball, but the stuff was melting as fast as it fell and was starting to turn to rain. I looked up at the sky, soft and grey as the belly of a turtle-dove. ‘Well, that was snow,’ I said, licking the last of it off my lips. ‘Haven’t you ever seen it before?’

‘No, I lived in Athens. It never snowed there. Iskander saw snow when he was a child in Macedonia. He was always lording it over me. He made it sound so wonderful.’ His voice was wistful. ‘I never thought it would look like ashes.’

I was startled. ‘Ashes?’ I looked at the snow differently now. The snowflakes, fat and gentle as feathers, did look like wood ash. I smiled. ‘The first time I saw snow I thought it was bits of paper. I was sitting downstairs, and I fancied the maid was throwing torn newspaper out the upstairs window. I rushed to see, but nobody was there. It gave me a shock. I must have been only four years old, but I remember it clearly.’

‘There you go again with your strange stories,’ Plexis teased. ‘I suppose I’ll ask you what a newspaper is and you’ll say, “I can’t tell you,” and I’ll spend another day longing for death.’

I gave a shocked laugh. ‘You don’t really believe in the prophecy, do you? The oracle said I’d answer your questions on your deathbed, but did you ever stop to think that perhaps you’ll be disappointed?’

‘No, and I have a list somewhere – a list of things I’m going to ask you, so you’d better be prepared.’

‘Well, a newspaper is like papyrus with all the daily events written on it. A journal.’

‘Like the one Onesicrite’s writing?’ He wiped the last bit of snow off his face and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

‘I don’t know. Is he writing one?’

‘He’s sending all the latest news to Athens.’

‘I didn’t realize that.’ I frowned. Onesicrite had arrived a few weeks ago, as puffed up with self-importance as a ruffled chicken. He and Nearchus were always coming into our tent in the evenings. I had wondered why Onesicrite asked so many questions of my husband and wrote everything down on a parchment. I was used to the scribes and historians. I hadn’t thought for one minute there would also be a journalist. ‘I assumed he was just one of Nearchus’s pals,’ I said. Nearchus was the admiral of my husband’s navy.

‘Nearchus is flattered by him. The city of Athens has hired Onesicrite to write about Iskander’s conquests.’ Plexis narrowed his eyes as he stared at the sky. ‘Snow is such flimsy, wet stuff,’ he said, sniffing. ‘I can’t believe Iskander made it sound so marvellous when we were young.’

He called my husband ‘Iskander’, as did most people. In time, he would be known as Alexander the Great, but right now he was simply Iskander, King of Macedonia, Greece, Egypt, and most of Persia. We were following him over the Hindu Kush Mountains. The mountains were the Himalayas, and we were still on the lowest slopes. It was autumn, but winter was nipping at our heels, hurrying us along. We had hired guides to take us through the mountain passes because we’d been warned it would be difficult.

Alexander marched at the head of his army. With sixty thousand soldiers, it was a formidable fighting machine. It was also a city unto itself, full of men from different countries with different languages and customs, following Alexander like the tail trailing behind a comet. The army also had priests and whores, soldiers’ wives and children, cooks, engineers, doctors, scribes, historians, diplomats, lawyers, botanists, astrologers, grooms, messengers, slaves, and – last of all – me.

I was born three thousand years in the future. I used to take a monorail to the city, and here I was, on foot, leading a pony. The city we were heading towards might have a gym, a courthouse, a bakery, a temple, a fountain, and then again, it might not. It might be just a huddle of mud huts near a sullen stream. One thing it would not have would be a Tele-time station to send me home. Home was here and now, early December 330 BC.

Over my knee-length linen tunic and cotton shift, I wore a thick woollen cloak. I also had sturdy boots and a knit cap sporting a jaunty red pompom with matching mittens.

While I slogged through wet snow and mud, I daydreamed about the ten-bedroom house where I grew up, with its maids, butler, and the cook, Daphne, who made such wonderful scalloped potato pie. Potatoes would make it to Europe in roughly one thousand five hundred years. I did not daydream about my mother, who had made my life hell, nor about my father, who had died of old age when I was ten years old.

My mother had been in her fifties when I was born. I was an ‘accident’, and my arrival embarrassed both parents deeply. I spent my life in boarding schools until my mother managed to marry me off to a much older, brutal man. The memory of my parents and my marriage made me glum, and the grey sky was depressing enough, so I tried to think about something cheerful. Like my Hawking Prize. I’d won the coveted journalistic prize when I was still in Tempus University. Unheard of! Then I was chosen to participate in the time-journalism programme, to which most people don’t get invited until they have been journalists for decades. And to top that, I’d beaten thousands of candidates and was selected to go back into the past.

The smiles I received from my colleagues could have cut glass. Everyone was sure I’d bought my way into the programme because my mother’s fortune was colossal, I had a title, and my photo was often in the society pages. I didn’t care. I was about to embark on a voyage to the distant past to interview the famous person of my choice. I had chosen Alexander the Great, a childhood hero.

Time travelling uses an extravagant amount of energy and can only be done once a year. The lights on the entire planet dim for the thirty minutes the magnetic beam is in use. Twenty-two hours later, when the person is picked up, the lights all over the world dim once more. Such is the power of the beam and the renown of the programme. No one can ignore it. The trip is a stomach-wrenching, head-splitting journey. You freeze solid, your bones and blood turn to ice, and you pass out while your atoms are disconnected and spiralled through the magnetic beam into the past. Sometimes they recover cadavers from the beam.

I’d survived. I arrived in a secluded spot, and I threw up right after I regained consciousness. It was an awful trip. No one had bothered to warn me. I bet they were all grinning, thinking about me writhing and shivering on the ground while my body thawed and the frost left my veins.

I’d made my way to Alexander’s encampment. I’d met him and made quite a fool of myself pretending to be a temple virgin, asking silly questions like, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ I had a lot to learn about the people of that time. For one thing, they were incredibly sensitive to sound. They were careful about what they said, because the spoken word was the only way most of them could communicate. I was an enigma. Alexander loved mysteries. He proceeded to kidnap me.

He followed me when I had to leave and saw me being pulled into the frozen magnetic beam. It makes an eerie blue light and the cold is intense. He actually pulled me out of it, and somehow we’d both survived. But I was trapped in the past, and I couldn’t let anyone know who I was. If I changed history in the slightest the Institute of Time Travel would use the beam to erase me. And so, with that Damocles’ sword hanging over my head, I lived with Alexander. He married me, which was sweet of him. He also thought I was Demeter’s daughter being taken back to the underworld by the god of the dead, Hades. Everyone believed that. My stupid grass sandals that the Institute made for me, the ones that cut my feet and made me limp, were sitting in a temple in Arbeles being prayed over. I was known as ‘Ashley of the Sacred Sandals’.

Only Alexander knew I was from the future. I had to tell him, we were making each other too unhappy with our secrets. He took charge of telling the scribes and historians not to write anything about me. That way, I wouldn’t show up on any ancient scraps of papyrus.

It’s easy to get people to do as I like here. I threaten to turn them into frogs or owls. They are absolutely terrified of being turned into frogs, and owls run a close second in the nightmare race. With my reputation as a divinity, I am usually left alone. This suits me fine; I grew up alone. It’s people that worry me.

I usually trailed after the second section of the army. The army was on foot. Even the cavalry walked because the horses were used to pull the multitude of wagons full of tents, weapons, food, and all the paraphernalia soldiers couldn’t do without. I followed the wagons at a distance, on foot or riding my little grey mare when I was tired of walking. I had a donkey, too, whose name was Sibyl. She was expecting a foal, and I left her with the herd of livestock that preceded the army by about a day’s march.

The army was divided into three sections. The first section marched half a day ahead of the next and so on. Alexander marched at the head of the second section, which was the main fighting force. The first section was livestock and food wagons protected by the archers. Then came the foot soldiers, the weapons, the tents, and the last section was the rest of the army including the war machines, the engineers, the diplomats, and the phalanx.

There were even families, voyaging in the general direction we were heading, who joined us for company and protection. They formed the tail end of the army, a noisy, squabbling gaggle of tinkers’ wagons and gypsy caravans. They were usually two days behind us. We could hear and smell them before we saw them – dogs barking, men cursing, children shrieking, and women scolding. A noisy cacophony closed the march, along with a miasma of every conceivable animal stench.

When we camped, the last section arrived two days later and would leave two days after we left. It was like a huge inchworm that hitched itself forward and then pulled its rear end in before inching forward again.

I’d mimed that for Alexander one night in our tent. He’d nearly died laughing. If he had died, I would have been erased, and time set back on track again. It would have taken an inordinate amount of energy and was used only in dire need by the Institute of Time Travel. As long as I was careful not to affect history, I was all right. I couldn’t change time an iota.

At night, in the tent, we played charades, checkers, dice, chess, backgammon, knucklebones, and guessing games. Our games were often contests with prizes. Most nights there were stories and songs.

In Alexander’s tent were: Alexander and myself – in the big bed, near the rear of the tent; Brazza and Axiom, Alexander’s servants – not slaves, he’d freed them; Usse, Alexander’s army doctor and friend; and Plexis – better known in the history books as Hephaestion – Alexander’s childhood friend.

However, anyone could come into his tent. Callisthenes, Aristotle’s nephew and my tutor, was there nearly every evening. Lysimachus, the captain of the guards, would sometimes sleep inside the tent. And if one of Alexander’s soldiers were dying, and we weren’t in the middle of a battle, he usually ended up in the tent at the foot of Usse’s pallet, with Usse and Alexander caring for him.

I don’t know how he did it, but Alexander could give comfort to dying men. He held their hands, and they looked into his eyes and found the solace they needed. Usse said it was a gift from the gods. I don’t know how Alexander felt about this. He was drained and exhausted afterwards, refusing to talk or eat.

This snowy, grey morning was one of those days. A man had died the night before of a simple cut gone septic, and Alexander had been there to comfort him. Now he walked at the head of his army and his mood was despondent. He was wrapped in a grey woollen cloak, and his parti-coloured eyes were full of grief. Plexis and I knew enough to stay out of his way.

Plexis walked with me. He was one of the few people who had no fear of me. We had been lovers and still loved each other, though now it was a deep friendship.

The sky was dark, and I thought it might be cold enough for more snow. However, all we got for the rest of the day was slushy rain. It was a relief to reach the camp where our tents were being set up, and where the cooks had prepared a warm meal for us. Plexis and I joined the long line of soldiers waiting for their bowls of hot lentil soup. It was invariably lentil soup with onions and garlic; the smell of garlic would always remind me of the army. There was warm bread, which I chewed carefully, because the flour was stoneground and sometimes had little pebbles in it. We drank water, hot water tonight as it was so chilly.

Each soldier had his own bowl, cup, spoon, and knife. They carried these in a large pouch hooked over their belts. In addition, the pouch held a comb, a bag of medicinal herbs that they collected while marching, some linen bandages, and whatever amulets they thought necessary to protect themselves. The soldiers were unused to wearing any clothes, although they had new woollen capes for the mountains. Usually they went barefoot or wore sandals –now they had new boots.

I took my steaming bowl of lentils to our tent. Then I removed my boots and shook the rain off my cloak. In the back of the tent there was a clothesline strung up next to a small brazier, and I hung my cloak over it. I stuffed some rags inside my boots to dry them, and then with a contented sigh, I sat down on the rug. The tent was large, warm, and cosy – heated by two braziers. It was lit with an exquisite blue green lamp made of delicately moulded glass, which made everything look as if it were underwater. Whenever we moved, it was carefully lifted down, the oil was poured out, and it was packed in wood chips in a wooden box.

I sat cross-legged on a richly coloured Persian rug and set my bowl on Alexander’s low table. The table was made of carved wood and inlaid with ivory and jet. If he saw my bowl on it he would frown, so I was careful not to spill anything. On the table was a jade bowl filled with fresh or dried fruit depending on the season. Tonight it held walnuts.

Alexander had few belongings, although those he had were very fine: a priceless rug, a precious lamp, a beautiful table, and a bowl carved from apple-green jade. He also had a little earthenware bowl, the same as his soldiers had, to eat from. However, he drank from a solid gold cup that stood on lion’s paws. There was a lion’s head carved on one side, and two wings clasped the cup from either side forming the handle. The Persian king Darius had given it to him.

I was alone in the tent. Plexis had gone to see to his horses, and he’d kindly taken my pony. Axiom and Brazza were probably with their friends, gossiping in the mess tent. Usse was in the infirmary, most likely treating blisters from the new boots. Alexander was everywhere at once, seeing his men, talking to the families tagging along, reading the scribes’ daily reports, or conversing with his many generals. He had to see to everything; from the Royal Macedonian guard captained by his childhood friend Cleitus, to the cavalry, the navy, the engineers, the infantry, and the different tribes who were represented by captains, including the barbarians led by Pharnabazus, Alexander’s brother-in-law.

I was Alexander’s third wife. First he’d married Barsine, who was expecting his child. Alexander then married Darius’s daughter Stateira, who was also pregnant. Alexander was confident this baby would be a son, because the oracle had spoken to him in Babylon.

Alexander already had a child. I’d borne him a son, Paul. Now we were trekking over the mountains in pursuit of Bessus, the man who’d kidnapped our baby. He’d betrayed Darius, the Persian king, and then killed him. Now he had the crown of Persia and, with our son, was fleeing to Bactria to raise an army. I wished the bloody oracle had told Alexander when we’d catch up with Paul.

Alexander was a great believer in omens and portents, oracles and signs. He was forever glancing at the sky, searching for seagulls, swallows, eagles, or crows, which would mean various things depending on if they were flying, eating, or shitting on you.

I believed in none of this, which drove him crazy.

He would have preferred to be like me, but he couldn’t. Everything he’d ever learned was based on fate, that men had no control over their destiny, and that the gods decided everything. Only by reading omens could men decipher the hints that gods were willing to drop.

I had never believed in fate. I’d always believed that I, and I alone, decided what my life would be. The idea of predestination was ludicrous to me, which was ironic, as I was trapped with a man whose destiny was known to me. A destiny I could not change, no matter how much I wanted. So, in a way, our beliefs were the same now, which drove me crazy.

Chapter Two

The tent flap opened letting in a cold draught. I turned, and my smile wavered when I saw who it was.

‘Oh, hello, Onesicrite,’ I said, trying to put a little enthusiasm in my voice.

The man in front of me was small and well built, but he wore a perpetual frown. He would have been quite handsome if he’d only smile. He had those dark, feverish eyes women swoon over. Not that he would ever glance at a woman. He was madly in love with Nearchus, Alexander’s admiral.

Nearchus was madly in love with Alexander. Nearchus was nice, but terribly serious. He had one of those faces you see on Greek statues, full lips, heavy brows, sleepy eyes, and thick, wavy blond hair. A very famous marble head, called Alexander’s head, is actually a portrait of Nearchus. He was rather dull company, never one to tell jokes or play charades. The only time we did get him to play charades, he took all evening to mime ‘Midas’s donkey ears’. Hopeless. Nevertheless, he was an excellent admiral, and he knew everything about boats and naval warfare. Once launched on a conversation about the sea, he could talk for hours and be utterly fascinating. Onesicrite adored him and hung on his every word. Nearchus was flattered. Onesicrite was a clever man with a quick wit and a sharp tongue. Nearchus, although in love with Alexander, was content to let Onesicrite worship him.

Onesicrite carried a roll of papyrus and a reed pen, so he meant to sit with us and write tonight. My heart sank. It meant Nearchus would come too, and when they were in the tent with Alexander, Plexis, and me, the undercurrents of emotion were as strong and unpleasant as rip tides.

‘My lady.’Onesecrite bowed, nearly – but not quite –prostrating himself.

‘Please don’t do that,’ I said – for the fiftieth time at least. ‘I’m not a goddess, or even your queen.’

‘You are my king’s wife,’ he said, his smouldering eyes serious.

‘I am only his third wife; he’ll most likely proclaim Barsine queen …’

‘That barbarian!’ The tone of his voice carried all the contempt a true Athenian felt for someone non-Greek.

‘Her mother was Greek,’ I said in a conciliatory tone.

‘Her grandmother,’ he corrected me.

‘Well, all right. Maybe he’ll proclaim Stateira queen. She’s already ruling Babylon. She was born a princess. Her father was Darius, the great king of Persia. She would make a wonderful queen,’ I said helpfully.

‘Just wonderful. A barbarian, a Persian widow, or … what are you again?’

I smiled at this transparent attempt at getting me to speak about myself. Onesicrite had decided to write a historical journal and was determined to include me. ‘I’m nothing of importance,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Won’t y. . .