He glanced at Alexandros, still brandishing his sword, then nodded.
“You may trust this demagogue, Orion,” said Alexandros, “but I don’t.”
Sheathing his sword, Alexandros went to the armor standing in the corner of the tent. He pulled the straps from the cuirass and greaves and used them to bind Demosthenes hand and foot. Finally he stuffed a gag in the orator’s mouth and tied it with a strip of cloth.
“Now we can trust him,” Alexandros muttered, “for a little while.”
Standing by the blue shield with its lettering, Alexandros looked back at Demosthenes, lying helpless on the bare ground.
“With Fortune,” he read grimly. “I will look for you on the battlefield tomorrow.”
Then we left with the Hindi and started back toward our own camp.
The Hindi’s name was Svertaketu. “It is acceptable for you to call me Ketu,” he said modestly as we made our way through the predawn shadows back to the Macedonian camp. “The words of my native language are difficult for your tongues to pronounce.”
All the way back to the camp Alexandros pressed Ketu for information about his native land.
“Tell me of the lands beyond the Persian Empire,” the young prince asked as we hurried across the grassy, rolling ground between the camps, where tomorrow’s battle would be fought.
“It is so large that it has many names,” replied Ketu. “Indra, Hind, Kush—many names and principalities. A far land, very large, very distant. A great, great empire with vast palaces and temples of gold. And lands beyond that, too. Cathay is an even larger empire, far to the east. It stretches as far as the great eastern ocean.”
“The world is much larger than I knew. I must tell Aristotle of this.”
I wondered what was going through his mind. Alexandros felt it was destiny to conquer the whole world. Was he dismayed that there was so much more to it than he had thought? Or was he excited at the prospect of new lands to see, new empires to conquer? He sounded more excited than dismayed to me.
We let the sentries of our camp see us, and when they challenged us Alexandros pulled off his dark cap and shouted his name to them. Swiftly we strode through the camp, while the sky began to turn milky with the first hint of dawn, and went straight to Philip’s tent.
True to his word, Ketu told Philip and his generals everything he knew about the enemy’s battle plans.
“How do we know this man is telling us the truth?” Parmenio grumbled. “And even if he is, won’t Demosthenes and the Athenian generals change their plans?”
Philip made a wry grin. “Do you think they have enough time to bring the Thebans and all the others together and change their order of battle? From what my spies tell me, it took them more than a week to work out the plan they’ve agreed on.”
Scratching at his beard, Parmenio admitted, “Yes, it would probably take them another week of arguing to get them to make any changes.”
Philip nodded and dismissed Ketu, indicating with a gesture that I should go with him. I saw in his one good eye a conflict of anger and admiration for his son. For me he had nothing but anger, I thought. Yet he knew as well as I that no one could prevent Alexandros from doing whatever he wished to do. He could not blame me for the Little King’s foolish risk-taking. Or could he?
Alexandros remained in the tent with Parmenio and the other generals, digesting the intelligence Ketu had provided and altering their plans for the imminent battle.
As Ketu and I stepped outside into the brightening morning, I could hear Parmenio asking bluntly, “How do we know he’s telling us the truth? He could have been planted here to give us false information.”
Alexandros immediately objected. I showed Ketu the direction to the tent I shared with some of the other guardsmen.
“They do not trust me,” he said as we walked along.
“It does seem very fortunate,” I said, “that you are so knowledgeable—and cooperative.”
He shrugged his slim shoulders. “We are all directed by fate. What purpose would it serve for me to be obstinate?”