Time’s Eye

The party marched out of the gates of Babylon. They set off to the east, with the Macedonian officers in their dress uniforms with bright purple cloaks, and Corporal Batson and the other British in their kilts and their serge, all to the din of trumpets and drums.

Alexander was a hardened warrior, and while he hoped for peace, he prepared for war. In Babylon, Bisesa, Abdikadir and Casey, along with Captain Grove and a number of his officers, were summoned to a war council.

***

Like the Ishtar Gate, the royal palace of Babylon sat on a platform raised some fifteen meters above the riverside plain, so it loomed over the city and its surroundings.

The palace was staggering—if, to Bisesa’s modern perspective, it was an obscene demonstration of wealth, power and oppression. Walking toward the center of the complex, they passed terraced gardens built on the roofs of the buildings. The trees looked healthy enough, but the grass was a little yellow, the flowers sickly; the gardens had been neglected since the Discontinuity. But the palace was a symbol of the city and Alexander’s new reign, and there was a great flurry of activity as servants ran back and forth with jars of fresh water and nutrients. These were not slaves, Bisesa learned, but some of Babylon’s former dignitaries, who had come creeping back from the countryside where they had fled. In the aftermath of the Discontinuity, they had proved themselves cowardly; now, at Alexander’s orders, they were reduced to menial chores.

At the heart of the palace complex was the King’s throne room. This room alone was about fifty paces long, and every surface from floor to ceiling was coated with multicolored glazed bricks showing lions, dragons and stylized trees of life. The moderns walked in, their feet echoing on the glazed floor, trying not to be overwhelmed by the scale of it all.

A table had been set up in the middle of the room, bearing a giant plaster model of the city, its walls and the surrounding countryside. Perhaps five meters across, the model was brightly painted and full of detail, right down to the human figures in the streets and the goats in the fields. Toy canals glimmered, full of real water.

Bisesa and the others settled to their couches before the table, and servants brought them drinks. Bisesa said, “This was my idea. I thought a model might be easier for everyone to grasp than a map. I had no idea they would put together something on this scale—and so quickly.”

Captain Grove said levelly, “Shows what you can do when you can draw on an unlimited resource of human mind and muscle.”

Eumenes and his advisors entered and took their places. To his huge credit in Bisesa’s eyes, Eumenes showed little taste for elaborate protocols; he was far too intelligent for that. But as a member of Alexander’s court he couldn’t avoid some flummery, and his advisers fluttered around him as he grandly settled to his couch. These advisers now included de Morgan, who had taken to wearing elaborate Persian dress, like others in Alexander’s court. Today his face was bloated and red, his eyes marked by deep shadows.

Casey said bluntly, “Cecil, my man, you look like shit, despite that cocktail dress you’re wearing.”

De Morgan grunted. “When Alexander and his Macedonians get started on one of their debauches, they make British Tommies in the brothels of Lahore look like schoolboys. The King is sleeping it off. Sometimes he misses whole days, though he’s always awake for the evenings when it all starts again …” De Morgan accepted a goblet of wine from a servant. “And this Macedonian wine is like goat’s urine. But still—hair of the dog.” He took a deep draft, shuddering.

Eumenes called the meeting to order.

Captain Grove began to set out ideas on how to strengthen Babylon’s already formidable defenses. He said to Eumenes, “I know you already have crews out reinforcing the walls and digging out the moat.” That was especially important on the western side where the walls had been all but rubbed out by time; in fact the Macedonians had decided to abandon the western side of the city and use the Euphrates itself as a natural barrier, and were building up defenses on its bank. “But,” said Grove, “I would recommend setting up deeper defenses further out, especially to the east, where the Mongols will be coming from. I’m thinking of pillboxes and trenches—fortifications we can set up quickly.” Many of these concepts took a little translating, through Eumenes’ assistants and the hungover de Morgan.

Eumenes listened patiently for a while. “I will have Diades look into this.” Diades was Alexander’s chief engineer. “But you must know that the King is not mindful simply to defend. Of all the fields on which he has fought, Alexander is most proud of his victorious sieges—at Miletus and Tyre, and a dozen other examples—these are epic triumphs that will surely echo down the ages.”