Chapter 9Nubia, 332 B.C.
As promised, the papyrus containing the first riddle arrived at Alexander’s suite of rooms at first light. He was both relieved and unnerved, relieved because the battle was now engaged and unnerved, because, of what? Had he finally met his match, overextended his luck in that hubristic way the gods always took pains to take offense at in all those tragedies he staged as he and his men swept through the Persian Empire? Why did the Candace unsettle him so?
Hating to be afraid, he ripped open the scroll, hoping he had not marred its contents, which read: I am a tree that has twelve branches and sixty leaves. Half of my leaves are black and half of them are white. What am I?
What the deuce did that mean? Alexander gazed out his window at a date palm so close that h
