Eumenes 1, Chapter 8: A Helmetful of Water

We are sinking in the deep desert. We have nothing to do but walking on the sand. Passing from a dune to another, I feel like everything is recurring forever, every scene is just like I saw before. It gradually makes my mind empty, lose my emotions and sensations.
“Go west, and we reach the end of this desert. All you have to do now is to keep going ahead.” King encourages soldiers.
I asks him, “Excuse me, my Lord. I keep in my mind several questions which I cannot resolve by myself. May I have your suggestions?”
“What? Tell me.”
“Why you love to keep wandering in the dangerous world? Why you won't stay in a city soberly but encamp in the fields? You never feel at ease. Why you can stand it?”
“Ha ha, simply because I am a king. I could rize the throne because my thinking and feeling differ from yours. It's quite natural.”
“I thik I understand, but could you tell me a little bit more easily for me?”
“What you feel difficult is rather easy for me, what you feel easy is conversely difficult for me. I cannot tolerate what you feel happy, but your pain is rather my pleasure. If you feel pain in pleasure, or pain pleases you, it means you get brotherhood with kings.”
It's a riddle to me.
“All right. Keep only in your mind what I confess you now. If I stay in my court, in the palace of Pulla, Babylon or Susa, my men are released from military services and go back home. Everyone sleeps well and have good time with his family. But, the court is NOT my home, but the most dangerous BATTLEFIELD for me, everybody there is my enemy.
We are now on the way to the world conquest. I'm happy just because everybody needs me. Every soldier is living in a very desperate life. That is the life he really needs me. I'm required only in battle fields. If I live in Makedonia, nobody will need me, but everybody will start to kill me. Also my father, Phillipos II. He didn't die in a battle. He was killed in his daughter's wedding ceremony. Of course he had many bodyguards. He was stabbed by one of his own bodyguards. Why?
Because he was a king. Then who made the bodyguard kill father? I don't know yet. Someone says my mother killed my father.
Hence I dislike fests, theaters, courts, and town crowds. Those are just horrible, very uneasy for me, never entertain me. Right?
I feel like everyone in a city would be an assassin. It would be the city I captured yesterday, or it would be my sweet old hometown.
No matter where I stay, I can never rest. A battlefield is the only place I can sleep well, because if I die, everybody will also die in battle fields, so they are desperately saving me. That only makes me safe and sound.
The more the situation is dangerous, the more our soldiers are obedient to me. I can grasp them at once if I gather them in a garrison. But, if I release them in their home town, I can't know what they are doing. Someone will attempt to kill me.”
“In a battlefield, you may be also killed by enemies, assassinated by your bodyguard, or handed over to enemies, like Persian kings or generals.”
“Yes I will die if I lose. It's natural. A king is safe as long as he is in battle fields and keep winning. Otherwise, he can die anytime. Give up your life. Tame your death. Only in such case, you can sleep and eat peacefully. Fortunately, I have more than enough talent to defeat enemies in battles.”

Hungry soldiers try to catch something like a beetle or a lizard to eat if they find it creeping on the sand.
One day we found a dried bush on a rocky desert. There were a lot of snails sticking to the stems. Soldiers even grilled and ate such worms.
Though the sand is totally dried, the rocks sometimes get wet with the night dew. Soldiers are striving to suck and lick such small water
Some of the light-armed soldiers are starting away from the army in quest of water, found some collected in a shallow cleft, or a small and mean spring.
Another day a soldier found a small pooled water in a cave, collecting it as much as possible into his helmet and carried it to King.
“Is this all?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“I would drink if we have enough water for every soldier. I'm glad you give me but I can't receive this. It's impossible only I can drink. Since you found this, you may drink it.”
“Forgive me. I can't drink, either, while my Lord is thirsty.”
“Please. That's your water. You drink freely. Do not mind me.”
“Then, you give it to someone else, my Lord.”
“That's also impossible. If you don't drink it by yourself, throw it away.”
The soldier starts trembling. “I can't. I can't do it.”
Of course King suffers from thirst. This soldier also. And everybody. Who can give up the live water?
Thirst accelerates as time progresses. Dotted lights will appear on the back of your eyelids. A cat will cross in front of you or a rooster crows that cannot be in the desert. That's the sign the death is approaching. Finally we kill horses to drink the blood, and the next is the turns of humans.
“Wait,” shouts Amastri, on a camel with her sister Raokhshna.
“You don't, Amastri!”
Driving away Apama, Shaking Raokhshna off, she is coming, kicking up the burning sand.
“I'll drink it, if you waste.”
Panting, she reaches out her hand.
The whole army is watching her and King, anticipating what is happening.
Her lips are cracked, the white in her eyes gets dull yellow. The freshness of young woman's skin is also spoiled.
King squints into her eyes with a smiling mouth, says, “You want to drink this?”
“Yes.”
King takes the helmet from the soldier, pours its water upon the ground, in front of her eyes.
Amastri kneels down, scoops the still wet sand by her palms. But it is soon dried up by the sun and the wind, spilling through her fingers.
She gazes up King for a while, weeping faintly.
Soldiers were watching the incredible incident. Every soldier felt as if he had been the sand sucking the helmetful of water.
“Anytime we share equally, right?” King puts the helmet on the soldier's head. Only a drop of water was running down on his temple.

Ptolemaios breaks the silence.
“Everyone. According to the guides of the desert, the distance to Kerman is left only two hundred stadia. Keeping this pace and we will reach there before dawn. Evening is coming, but let's walk through the night. In the green fields of Kerman, there are shades of trees, fruit gardens, and running irrigation channels filled with fresh water. The major team already arrived there and are waiting us, preparing a delicious dinner. Don't get a stomachache by eating too much. Cheer up, this is really the last effort. Go, Makedonian warriors.”
From the bottom of sands, a rumbling cry occurs.
The soldiers, who has been as dry as fish bones before, recover the energy, stretch their limbs and spines, flashing their eyes, start locomotion like incarnated puppets. I'm astonished at the sight.
The whole army is banded together now, to accomplish our goal. Calamity forged us like steal. We must get through this desert.

Seeing my stunned face, King says shyly, “Eumenes, you think I barely saved my dignity by not drinking that water, nor letting Amastri drink, don't you?”
I must be shedding tears now. I wipe my face by my sleeves. And I regret I waste so much water from my body in this emergency.
“You invented it instantly.” I say.
“Invention? What's that?”
“Or you improvised. To gods, at several places in campaigns, you sacrificed various animals.
We humans have sacrificed goats, donkeys, pigs, cows, horses, or camels to gods. In myths, humans sometimes sacrificed humans, not only their enemies, but also their family. We've sacrificed most precious animals to most important gods.
Therefore you sacrifice water to the god of desert. Because water is most precious in deserts. In doing so, you were recovered the spiritual strength of the whole army.
Water is the holiest blood with no color. The holy of holies. Any animals or plants cannot live without it. You made it sucked in the sand. It means you made the god of the sand drink the blood of sacrifice. To pray for the safety of soldiers. Do I understand you correctly?”
“Ha, ha,” King bursts into laughter. “Amazing. Not I, but you are the genius to create a story. You give me a good reason afterwards for my unconscious, unintentional deed. I will explain so in the future when I pass a desert and pour water on the ground.
But Eumenes, you are mistaken. You completely misunderstand me. Or I made you mistaken successfully like I made other soldiers, whom I intentionally deceived.
I was just scared. I am always diligent to perform a roll of a good king.
You also heard the story of Vakhshuvarda. In Persia, a king never completes his life, nor wounded and killed in a battle, instead, he often loses his life poisoned by someone.
I don't drink unknown water. I don't eat given foods, either. I eat the same foods soldiers are eating. I reach and grab it by my hand and eat it. It's the most secure foods. I drink the water soldiers are drinking, sharing it with my own cup. It's the safest drink. Nobody can predict what food I eat and what water I drink. That is the safest dining for me. I've forgotten the taste of foods or smell of wines since I became a king. I don't and can't care those pleasing humans anymore. Eating and drinking is also my battle. I eat and drink to maintain my body, as well as not to be poisoned. As I said to you before, everyone's pleasure is my work, whereas my pleasure is everyone's burden.
Sleeping is also one of my tasks. Women is also. Love is also. For me, 'the most daring woman by whom I can be killed' is not just a metaphor. In general, a man can be relaxed and sleep well with his most daring woman. That's not for me. Every night I go to bed with my woman, I suspect she would kill me before I awaken. I would not probably be killed, but I probably would. She would love me, but possibly wouldn't.
Oh, Raokhshna, my beloved wife, but still I can't say I truly love her, nor I truly trust her. Yes, I must I truly love her, but I can't answer clearly, if I'm asked 'you never regret if she kills you?' I'm not sure. Raokhshna wants to die soon. Right. But I'm also thinking of my death any time. Always. I don't know how I shall be tomorrow, as a dying patient.
Soldiers mistake me of their own accord, that I am a familiar, intimate king, always share the hardship with his Hetairoi. But actually, my situation is quite apart from theirs.
And if, a soldier gives me not poisoned water with no evil attempt, I don't drink it, since it is not proved by some authority that the water is drinkable. I know it very dangerous to drink raw water pooled in a questionable cave. I'm a commander, can never get ill or die drinking such water.
I'm truly sorry for Amastri. I did terrible thing to her. But thirst is just a temporal suffering. It is no use if she dies to quench the thirst with poisoned water.
If I throw away water which a soldier offered me, with no reason, they will resent me. I feared the critical moment. Hence, I must have performed a merciful, self-controlled king, sharing all the hardship with his companions. That's a complete fiction. A roll play involving poor Amastri. A king must be an idol, always playing his roll.
Eumenes, take care of Amastri. I'm afraid I also give a deep spiritual scar to her as I did it to Raokhshna. However, because she is also a royal member, she must overcome such difficulties all her life. She has to learn to help by herself. She will encounter more and more calamities in the future.
Keep what now I said only in your mind. Don't tell Amastri. Also others.
I don't know the reason but suddenly something made me confess you, Eumenes.”
Oh, Basileus!