He reached for his sword hilt. In response, Aristides smiled and raised his arm. At his back, forty hoplites clashed spears and shields together, suddenly ready to charge. The king of Macedon let his hand fall back naturally enough. He and Aristides weighed one another as he waited for a reply.

‘A man who speaks as the slave of Persians requires no mockery of mine,’ Aristides said. ‘He does it to himself. Come, I will take you to the Assembly. It is almost noon. Your horses, though, must remain here. We need them to pull rubble and beams.’

‘My horse is trained for war, not as some beast of burden!’ Alexander said, his voice rising in shock.

Aristides shrugged.

‘We need them, even so. Your Persian friends killed all the mules and asses. They ate them. We will not mistreat your beasts, except to put a harness on and make them pull. If their treatment troubles you, speak faster to the Assembly!’

Without waiting for their agreement, Aristides gestured over his shoulder. Six of his hoplites came up, all glowering and ready to kill the strangers. The Macedonian group clenched their fists, but there was nothing they could do. Their steeds were taken away, leaving the men somehow reduced.

‘What was your name, Majesty?’ Aristides asked as he led them through the broken walls and into the streets beyond.

‘As I told you: Alexander, king of Macedon,’ he replied.

‘Friend of Persians,’ Aristides added.

‘Ally to the Great King,’ Alexander corrected, firming his jaw. He glanced at one member of his little group, something Aristides noted. The leader of Macedon seemed painfully aware that every word he said might be reported later.

Without warning, Aristides held up a hand, halting the small group. Cart after cart trundled across ahead of them. Bodies lay on each cart-bed, wrapped and piled like logs. Aristides lowered his head and prayed, his lips moving. After an age, the last of the rickety, creaking transports had passed. Aristides shook his head, looking weary and much older.

‘They still wash up every day. We have to collect our people and put them in the ground, before pestilence spreads. Unclaimed, unnamed, unknown to anyone but the gods, most of them. You should come down to the docks before you leave, to watch the widows and children checking the faces of anyone laid out there. You will never see anything more pitiful. They long to see husbands and fathers, even in death. Is that not strange? Though the bodies are so blown and marked now, I would be surprised if their own mothers could truly know them.’