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lay, prop-ped painfully on one elbow, and when she recognized him she gave a little cry and began
floundering through the water, falling once and vanishing from view, and finally run-ning up the bank and
kneeling beside him, crying, "Alexander, Alexander, I did not know you were ill!"
Still he could not utter her name, but there was a good reason now, a sound reason, for his lips were
cov-ered with hers. The river water that drenched her hair ran down upon his face and neck. It was only
when she raised her head to catch her breath, when, defying the law of gravity and his own weakness, he
put his arms around her waist, that the name at last found freedom. "Sarai."
Tears began intermingling with the river water that fell like rain upon his face. "I would have stayed in
the vil-lage, O Alexander, but I could not bear to be so far apart from you. I ran away as soon as you left
and came back to the camp of the camp-followers. I promised Anytus that I would cook and wash for
him if he would take me along, and he agreed. Dear Alexander, I hope you are not angry with me."
He looked up into her large brown eyes, realized for the first time how deep they were. Saw for the
first time the promises they held. "I'm glad you ran away."
She fell to kissing him again, then abruptly drew back. He saw her blush; then he, too, became aware
that they had an audience. It was quite a large one, consisting, in addi-tion to the two bearers, of several
hundred grinning peltasts and several hundred grinning hoplites. Sitting On his horse a short distance
away, re-garding the reunion with luminous dark eyes, was Xenophon himself.
Alec found himself not only equal to the occasion hut capable of taking advantage of it. "I request,
Xenophon," he said, "that in addition to the favors you have already accorded me you accord me one
more. I would like to have this slave girl at my side for the remainder of the march in order that I may
look after her."
Zenophon smiled. "It would seem, Alexander, that you need more look-ing after than she, but how
better could such a purpose be served? Re-quest granted."
VIII.
Snow
WO DAYS AFTER entering Ar-menia, the Ten Thousand passed around the source of the
T
Tigris. At this point, Tiribazus, the deputy-governor, put in his appearance. The Greek generals met with
him and agreed, in exchange for his promise not to interfere with the march, to re-frain from vandalizing
any of the vil-lages in their path. Three days later, with Tiribazus following at a discreet distance with a
large body of cavalry, the Greek army arrived at the palace of Sequanor and quartered in the vil-lages
encompassing it.
That night, it snowed heavily, and in the morning none of the men wanted to get up. To shame them
into doing so, Xenophon began cut-ting wood. Pasion was the first to follow his example, and soon he
and Sarai had a roaring fire going in front of Alec's/Xenophon's tent. Meanwhile, Alec, who had
recuperated sufficiently to do for himself, discovered that some time during the night his micro-tape
cartridge case had been stolen.
He knew it had been in the pocket of' his leathern vest last night because he had replaced it there
after insert-ing the fifth and final cartridge in "Pasion's" helmet while the Arcadian was out foraging and
while Xenophon, during one of his rare visits to the tent, was napping on the pallet he had procured for
Sarai. Sarai had re-marked on what a strange little box it was and had asked what it was for, and Alec
had answered, "To keep strange little things in."
Clearly, "Doris the Boeotian" had been wrong in assuming AgoCo didn't have an agent-assassin on
the March. Just as clearly, that agent was either Sarai or Pasion.
Sarai could safely be ruled out. AgoCo would hardly have sent a nine-teen- or even a twenty-one
year old girl on a mission that involved a 3,000 mile hike. It was true that she hadn't shown up till half of it
was over, but the second half was by far the more arduous, and it was unlikely that a twenty-first century
American girl would be able to survive it. The fact that Sarai had managed to survive it thus far merely
served to argue that she was what she both seemed and claimed to be a Babylonian peasant girl.
That left Pasion. Pasion slept just within the doorway of the tent and had strict orders to rouse
Xenophon and/or Alec should anyone try to en-ter. Since Alec removed his vest each night before going
to bed and used it to augment his rather thin blanket, the Arcadian could easily have lifted the cartridge
case after Alec and Sarai had fallen asleep. Xenophon had left early in the evening, so there would have
been no witnesses.
Before passing judgment on his friend, however, Alec inspected the tent's goatskin walls. None of
them had been cut. Next, he went outside and checked the tent stakes. All were securely in place, nor
were there any footprints in the snow.
It had to be Pasion. Not only was he the logical candidate, he was the only candidate.
It was he who had made friends with Alec, not the other way around as it had at first seemed.
Probably he hadn't intended to steal the cartridge case till the Ten Thousand reached Trebisond, but
when Alec's helmet had been handed to him outright he had changed his mind and decided to pasttape
the rest of the pastacular himself. To do so, he had needed the fifth and final micro-tape cartridge, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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