If that weren’t unpleasant enough, spending a winter in the ugly and ignored bastard of Persia’s four capitals was even worse.Susa was a bleak and vile smudge of gray, its people hunchbacked against the cold winds that sighed and howled and gnawed deep into their bones. It was a wonder that the city had been sacked so many times in its long history; had I lived here, I’d have begged any would-be conqueror to pull down its bricks to save myself the eyesore.Yet it was in the open plain outside Susa that I stood bent over my knees with my chest heaving, having just run oiled, naked, and shivering beneath the city’s sodden sky—admittedly not the best weather to show off a man’s shaft and cods—with Alexander in farewell games dedicated to a whole bevy of Greek, Persian, and even a few Egyptian gods. Alexander had once boasted that he would run the stadion in the Olympic Games only if all of the other competitors were kings, but I could have beaten him by a good ten paces today.
