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Sisygambis immediately realized he was there, stood up and came to him, warmly greeting him in Persian. Her face clearly displayed her worry and concern, and pain too, but there was no sign of unease.
    ‘The Queen Mother greets you,’ came the interpreter’s translation, ‘and she begs you to accept her hospitality.’
    ‘Thank her for me, but tell her that I do not wish to disturb her – I have come only to try to provide assistance for Darius’s wife who is in some difficulty now. My physician,’ he continued, looking straight into her eyes, ‘says that he could perhaps help if she . . . if she were able to overcome her modesty and agree to have him examine her.’
    Sisygambis thought deeply, looking back into Alexander’s eyes with her face displaying just how much she was moved, and they both felt how strong their feelings were and how distant they were from the formal language of the interpreter. At that moment the silence was invaded by the muffled sound of the mother-to-be moaning, trying to face her ordeal in solitude and pride. The Queen Mother flinched at the sound and her eyes filled with tears.
    ‘I doubt your physician would be able to help even if she did give permission.’
    ‘But why, Great Mother? My physician is most expert and—’ he cut himself short because he realized from the expression on her face that her thoughts were travelling in a different direction.
    ‘I believe,’ said Sisygambis, ‘that in truth my daughter-in-law does not want to give birth.’
    ‘I do not understand, Great Mother: Philip, my doctor, feels that the baby is perhaps not in the correct position for the birth and . . .’
    Slowly, two tears ran down the Queen Mother’s cheeks; her face bore all the marks of her age and her pain and the words came from her mouth deliberately, like the words of a verdict: ‘My daughter-in-law does not want to give birth to a prisoner and no physician has the power to change her decision. She is holding the baby within her, so that she will die together with him.’
    Alexander was truly bewildered and speechless and he lowered his head.
    ‘It is not your fault, my boy,’ continued Sisygambis, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘Destiny created you to destroy the empire founded by Cyrus. You are like the wind that blows impetuously across the earth, and after the wind passes, nothing is as it was before. But men remain attached to their memories, just as ants hold on to leaves of grass while the storm rages around them.’
    At that moment there came a much louder cry and then a doleful chorus of moaning from the rooms within the building.
    ‘It is done,’ Sisygambis said. ‘The last King of Kings is dead, before being born.’ Two handmaids entered and covered her face and shoulders with a black veil so that she could give vent to her grief without being seen.
    Alexander would have liked to say something, but as he watched her she appeared to him to be like a statue, a simulacrum of the goddess of the night, and he dared not speak. He lowered his head for an instant and then left the room, setting off along the corridor in the midst of the crying and the wailing of Darius’s women. Philip came out of the dead queen’s antechamber, pale and dumbstruck.
    *
     
    The following day Alexander gave orders for the funeral to be celebrated, for the Queen to be buried in grand style, with all the honours befitting her rank, and for a great mound to be constructed, as was the custom in her native tribe. He could not help but cry as they placed her underground, thinking of just how beautiful and delicate she had been and thinking too of the baby who had never even seen the light of day.
    The eunuch escaped that very evening and rode for days and nights until he reached the first Persian outposts near the River Tigris. There he asked to be taken to King Darius’s camp, which was on the other side of the river. A group of Median horsemen escorted him for ten parasangs across the desert