How many miles to Babylon?

Bad news.

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 03:37:27 GMT

Latest update. At the 11th hour, publication of my book has been withdrawn due to contractual issues. I cannot elaborate on this, so don't ask.

Publication at a future date has not been ruled out, but as of now, the book isn't happening.

My apologies to those who were awaiting this book, and my thanks to those who offered their support.

Update

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 03:05:49 GMT

For anyone still watching this space ...

http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=1869505964

... for info about the book, including shiny pretty cover art.

FYI ...

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 05:02:24 GMT

For those who care or are interested, book related info is behind the cut. Everyone else, feel free to ignore.

Some of you might be aware I've gone and written a book - and yes, of course it's about Alexander the Great. Release date is fast approaching (trust me, when you're faced with the threat of last minute rewrites, it is VERY fast approaching) and I can now give you some information on the whole what, where and when thing.

The title of the book is The Lion's Cub by L Speight (that's me) and it is published by HarperCollins NZ and HarperCollins Australia. Availability in the northern hemisphere is an unknown at this point, but given that in this current internet savvy era you can buy almost anything from almost anywhere, anyone who actually wants a copy will find a way. Release date is set for 11/8/06, all going to plan, and there is an ISBN but I can't be bothered finding the paperwork for that right now so let's just let that slide for now, okay?

Right, enough trumpet-blowing from me. Catch you later.

Should I stay or should I go?

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 14:36:31 GMT

Some of you may have noticed a small break in proceedings. There are reasons for this. The fact that I am something of a computer dunce is one of them. The fact that I am preoccupied with another project is another. That being the case, I anticipate a decrease in what work I post here. For now, I make this rather modest offering, because quite frankly I've got nothing else to do with it than put it here.

We now return you to your regular transmission.

Title: Spin. Because it just IS.
Summary: The boys are skiving off. Just for larks.
Rating: Harmless.
Feedback: Sure.

The land about the Tyrian coast was not made for fine hunting. It was a place of red, stony soil and low harsh scrub, and a long plain rolling to the forested hills beyond. It was rabbit country, fit for goats or the flocks of small, hardy sheep; wealth here came from trade or from the sea, not from the land. Hephaistion, riding through it, thought that he could not live here. It was not good land for horses at all.

Nor was this long crawling siege good for horses either. Hephaistion sat back firmly against his stallion’s sudden coil, bringing the animal’s head in so that it arched its neck and jigged sideways instead. The dark eye rolled at him, ears flickering and flattening; Hephaistion laughed low between his teeth and told the horse to behave. It wanted to run. Hephaistion did not blame it. If he had spent most of the week hobbled on a picket line, he would have wanted to run too.

In a way, Hephaistion thought, he had been hobbled and picketed all week – or near enough as made no difference. That was Tyre for you, squatting out there on her rock in the sea, defiance in every stone. It was Alexandros too, who always wanted everything done right now and nothing set aside for later, and never mind how possible it was – or was not. An army could not take Tyre by land, and Alexandros had no fleet to speak of, but that was not going to stop him from getting what he wanted. It was impossible, it was mad, it was sheer and simple stubbornness, but Alexandros was not leaving until Tyre fell, or the stars did, or the seas rose up and drowned them all.

Hephaistion, who was used to Alexandros being impossible, had begun to wonder this time. Not at Alexandros’ resolve to do this thing, but that the man even believed it could be done at all. Tyre was an island, with high walls and barred harbours and closed and sealed gates. Alexandros had the finest cavalry in the world, and infantry drilled to precision, and none of it was going to help him reach that island or breach those walls. For that he had his engineers, his careful clerks and his builders, his makers of lists and drafters of plans and movers of stone. Sometimes, Hephaistion was not entirely sure that it would be enough.

Hephaistion shook his head, chasing those thoughts away. He was tired, that was all. Of course he would doubt things, when he was worn and weary and there was no end in sight. The siege had lasted for months so far, the weather warming as the days stretched on. It had given Hephaistion work and more to do – cutters and drivers and diggers to organise, and a dozen small things each day that went missing, or astray, or just plain wrong. Today it had been red ink that had run out, with the engineers swearing blind they could not draw their plans without it, and in the dull gloom before dawn some idiot had dropped a lit lamp into a cartload of fodder and sent the whole of it up in smoke, and another fool had managed to tip his wagon coming through the camp, breaking a wheel and spilling timbers in a jumble of wood and cursing that nearly took down Kallisthenes’ tent. The Royal Biographer had insisted on setting his tent in sight of the siegeworks, the better to document the slow inch of the causeway and the steep climb of the towers that would bring about Tyre’s fall, he said. Hephaistion had told him that he would be in the path of the carts coming and going. Kallisthenes had merely looked down the length of his nose in that haughty way he had even with men who topped him by a full head and more, and announced that he was disinclined to think that a problem. Hephaistion wondered if he was still disinclined now – nearly being crushed by an ox-cart of falling timber could go a long way to changing a man’s mind. Certainly Kallisthenes had made enough noise about it, squawking like an affronted hen. Hephaistion did not know what had come of that; he had not stayed to find out. He had thrown up his hands in disgust, and announced that he was going riding. If anyone needed him, they could go hang. Tyre was not going anywhere, after all.

Under him, his tall roan horse jibed and snorted, snaking its head against the bit. Hephaistion gathered it in without thought, holding it down with knees and heels and hands, sending it into a tight, neat circle and then reining up, boxing the animal square so that its back came up and its neck arched like a gamecock’s. He could feel the big muscles bunch and quiver, all energy and flare held down. The horse needed this as much as he did. With a sudden wild whoop to the sky, Hephaistion clapped his heels to the stallion’s flanks, dropped his hands and sent the horse surging forward.

The animal flung itself into a wild, mad gallop, flat and hard like a spear flung from one of Tyre’s great trebuchets. Hephaistion lay himself low along the dark grey neck and gave the horse its head. There was a great freedom in this – one man, one horse, and all the world nothing more than the drum of hoofbeats on the earth, the slash of mane and tail in the wind, the rush of air against one’s skin. No siege, no red ink, no long and endless stream of carts coming and going. Hephaistion found himself opening to it the way he always had, with a quick bright delight that took him out of everything, making all the world fall away in the wide and sweeping rush of air and sky and earth, and in the coil and beat of muscles that were not – quite – his own. He imagined that falcons might feel like this, the same singularity and clarity and release, in the moment that they stalled in the air and plummeted into their dive, and laughed at himself for sounding like a fool. The sound of his laughter seemed to touch the horse too; it stretched long and low and ran on.

Hephaistion gave his mount no urging. Instead, he dropped the reins to the horse’s neck and let all of Alexandros’ mad blind siege fall away from him under the churn of his horse’s hooves. Alexandros hated to be denied, and hated more to be balked … hardly a wonder then, if he hated Tyre too. He had come to this place and been told he could not have a thing that he wanted. That would have made Hephaistion laugh, if it had not given him so much work to be getting on with. The Tyrians had denied the Macedonian king, had closed up their harbours and drawn up their fleet and settled behind their high stone walls and told Alexandros no. It was as if they thought that the young man who had come out of the west with an army at his back was just anyone at all. In the beginning, Hephaistion had wondered what they were playing at.

With the initial wild joy of the run easing to something calmer and kinder, Hephaistion’s stallion settled to a steady canter, and then down to a snorting, jostling trot. Hephaistion let his arms drop and took up the reins again, loose and light. He was not so far from the camp, here – he could look over his shoulder and see the chaos and scatter of it on the shore, and Tyre a blur in the sea-spray haze – but it was far enough that red ink and tumbled timber carts did not matter at all. Hephaistion, who didn’t care if he never saw red ink again, was content to let them go on not mattering for the rest of the day. He had a good horse and an open sky and no one asking him for anything. It made a pleasant change.

The plain was not empty; he was not alone out here. He would have to ride a lot further from the camp to escape it completely – out, even, beyond the forested hill country where the woodcutters were at work. Lines of dust went up in the distance where the timber carts groaned down to the camp and then rattled their way back up to the cutting grounds, and along the coast road inland he could make out a small convoy of men and mules, probably carrying fresh fodder. Grooms and horseboys and off-duty troopers exercised horses in wide, sweeping circles and a scattering of young men were playing some game that involved a chaff-filled ball and a lot of shouting. Away to his left, Hephaistion could see a troop of horsemen wheeling and spinning, and hear snatches of faintly shouted commands. Kleitos, that was, drilling his men. A siege was no place for cavalry, but that did not mean that a commander should let his men go soft. Kleitos had been Philippos’ man for long enough to know the truth of that; he’d drilled green young boys into soldiers with only the snap of his teeth and the snarl of his voice and the heavy fall of his hand where it was needed – he knew a thing or two about keeping men to their places. Kleitos, Hephaistion had sometimes thought, would not know soft if it jumped up and chewed his beard off.

In the centre of the plain, partway between the place where the horses were being exercised and where Kleitos’ men wheeled in their rank, another line of dust went up, catching Hephaistion’s eye. No surprise in that; wherever Alexandros was, he would always draw eyes to him, and Hephaistion’s had a way of finding him even when he was not looking. Even, sometimes, with his eyes closed. Right now, even from half a parade ground away, Hephaistion recognised him at once. He recognised what he was doing too, and the chariot he rode in, plain homespun thing that might have come straight out of Homer. There were not two chariots in all the world that looked like that one, as if it might fall apart at any moment and spill its driver to the ground. It had looked even worse when Alexandros had first found it in some corner of the palace stables at Pella, an old dismounter with a missing wheel and a broken axle, and all the sinew ties and springs as brittle as dry twigs. Now it bounced across the scrubby plain, as rickety as ever, jolting over the uneven ground. A pair of Alexandros’ Pages followed along in the chariot’s wake, holding their horses to a steady trot. Even from this distance, Hephaistion could see that the one on the left was the better rider; the other sat his horse like a sack of meal, ungainly and oddly loose. Hephaistion hoped for the lad’s sake that Kleitos would not see him, riding like that. Kleitos would tear strips off him.

Hephaistion grinned, watching Alexandros turn the rugged little ponies in the chariot’s traces into a neat curve, then leap off the moving chariot and back on again in a swift, sure flicker. Well, he was not the only one shirking his duties then, if Macedon’s king was out here playing at chariots while his siege ground on without him. Hephaistion’s grin widened. There was a small audience watching Alexandros now he looked for it – a cluster of grooms and horseboys, a gaggle of troopers who had been hunting and had a brace of scrawny rabbits to show for it, a trio of Pages with time on their hands. Hephaistion decided to give them something to look at. He set his horse’s head towards the place where the old chariot bumped and jounced along the plain and heeled it forward.

Alexandros looked up and laughed as Hephaistion went by him in a thunder of hooves and a flash of grey horse and bronze hair and wild, white smile. He was standing on the stallion’s broad rump, knees bent for balance, whooping like a loon. Alexandros’ own grin was just as wild; he knew a challenge when he saw one. Hephaistion let his horse sweep in a broad circle about the chariot, cutting across the path of the stocky ponies that drew it and dropping easily astride to draw rein on Alexandros’ right hand. Alexandros bared teeth at him, lightly, laughing still.
“Show off.”
“Raven, crow.” Hephaistion shrugged lightly and waved a hand, airily dismissive. As if Alexandros was one to talk. The lads who had been playing with the ball had stopped to watch as well, gathered in a shoving, jostling group. Hephaistion felt his stallion dance under him, jibbing sideways and bunching its hindquarters to spring. He laughed, a pure, clean sound – gods, this was better than supplies and timber wagons and a fortress on a rock in the sea! – and made the horse spin on the spot. “Your turn.”

The arch of Hephaistion’s brow was positively wicked. Alexandros felt his own grin answer it, sharp and tight and brightly fierce. Oh, challenge indeed. He gave the reins a sharp flick, urging the ponies to a run. Hephaistion kept pace easily, his leggy stallion cantering alongside.

It was no easy thing, holding one’s balance on the narrow deck of a bouncing, surging chariot. Alexandros managed it without falter. Dust and small stones sprayed up from the ponies’ hooves, flared from the rims of the chariot’s wheels. It sprayed up under Alexandros’ boots too, when he stepped smoothly down from the deck and onto the good earth, running even as he landed. There was a trick to it – balance, timing, the length of the leap; he made it look like effortless, like breathing. Hephaistion remembered watching him learn the trick of that, back in Pella. It had cost Alexandros skinned knees beyond counting and one badly twisted ankle, but he had mastered it. He always did, with the things he set his mind to. The Tyrians might have learned from that, if they had been watching.

The king matched the chariot’s pace for a handful of strides, then he grasped the rail and pulled and leapt and swung all in one movement, and then he was back on the chariot’s rattling deck, grinning up like a fiend, all fierce bright eyes and sharp teeth in a dusty face. A shout of approval went up from one of the hunters, and someone laughed, swatting at his fellow with one of the dead rabbits. Hephaistion bit back a laugh of his own and gave his friend a nod, schooling his voice to something very like indifference even while his eyes glittered with something altogether else. “Not bad.”

That won him a sweet smile and a hard flash of eyes, but that was all. Alexandros was hardly going to let him get away with that. Not in front of an audience, he was not. The king’s voice matched his smile, sweet and cutting both at once.
“Your turn.”

Hephaistion gave him that nod again, seeming serious but for the dancing of his eyes and the soaring that was in every line of him. The chariot was still clattering along briskly; the roan stallion, who would have surged ahead given the chance, answered the rein and held back to a steady canter. Hephaistion knew the rhythm of it in every bone, just as he knew the pound and drive of the horse’s pace beneath him and the perfect time to vault. He fisted his hands in the stallion’s thick mane, drew up his legs and suddenly lifted himself across the animal’s shoulders, letting his feet touch the ground in a neat tap, then swinging back and across to the other side, halfway to a flying dismount only to vault back astride without missing a beat. The horse, used to his master’s oddities, did not falter. A cheer went up, and someone whooped in approval of one thing or another. Hephaistion wondered what they were betting on, then decided he didn’t care. He was having too much fun. He cast his friend a look that was part challenge and part laughter. “Well?”
“Not bad,” Alexandros allowed, manfully unimpressed. Hephaistion was not fooled for a moment. He only gave the king that sharp, defiant grin. Alexandros felt his lips quirk up in spite of his efforts. “My turn?”
“Your turn.”

Leaning into the reins, Alexandros brought the ponies around in a tidy curve, setting their heads towards the place where Kleitos was drilling his men. One of the chariot’s wheels hit a stone and kicked sideways; the chariot seemed to leap. So did Alexandros, fast and flat and forward of the wheel, as if he had been thrown. For half a heartbeat, Hephaistion felt his gut twist in alarm, and behind him someone yelled out, but then Alexandros was hitting the ground in a tight, coiled roll and springing neatly to his feet. The ponies had not slowed; the empty chariot rattled and bounced, already drawing away. Alexandros took two running strides and launched after it, catching the rear of it by the barest breath. Someone shouted encouragement, and the little crowd that had gathered to watch jostled and seemed to bounce on its toes, willing Alexandros on. Hephaistion swore under his breath, and willed Alexandros on too. If he fell now, he would come up half flayed.

The young king two steps more, barely touching the ground. The chariot lurched under the drag, and Alexandros sprang forward. His booted foot hit the edge of the deck, slipped, then teetered, then caught. For a heartbeat, two, he hung on that point of balance that was perfectly between triumph and pure disaster, and Hephaistion half expected to see him tumble hard to the dirt … but Alexandros was in the habit of defying impossibility. He’d not have been laying siege to an island, else. The young king coiled and seemed to slide forward, and then he was back aboard the thing, reaching for the reins, crowing in triumph.

He should rightly have fallen. Hephaistion was not surprised that he had not. Anyone else would have paid for that misstep, spilled out onto the sandy soil. Alexandros, though, had always had the luck of the gods. Or of a madman, Hephaistion thought, which might have been closer to the truth. He said so out loud, pitching his voice to be heard over the steady drum of hooves and the rattle of the chariot and the shouts of the watching men. Alexandros only gave him a playful glance over his shoulder. It made Hephaistion think of the way a young lion played, practicing for the kill.

The ponies were blowing and snorting when Alexandros pulled them up. They shook their shaggy heads, making their harness rattle, and ambled into an easy walk. Behind them, one of the Pages was chattering like a magpie, waving his hands about in excitement. The other was doing his best to hold his seat.
“A man makes his own luck, Hephaistion. God or mad or otherwise.” Alexandros was dust all over, and one red raw scrape down one arm from his elbow to his wrist. He looked inordinately pleased with himself. “Well?”
Hephaistion grinned his concession. “Show off.” His horse began to sidle and toss, protesting the slow pace, wanting to prance. It was like Alexandros in that – it liked an audience too. Hephaistion gave it a slap on the neck and nudged it around, reined it in when it tried to snap at the haunches of the nearside pony. The pony didn’t flinch, only flicked its ears in disdain. Well trained, those ponies. Alexandros smiled happily in agreement.
“Always,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve managed a clean remount on the dive, though. I usually miss it.”
“I’m pleased for you. Idiot.”
“Idiot?” Alexandros looked around, mock indignant. “Now who’s talking about ravens and crows? I’m not the one vaulting off horses at a full gallop!”
Hephaistion snorted to show what he thought of that. Full gallop, indeed. His horse had barely been stretching out. The animal was bred for more speed than that.
“That wasn’t a gallop, that was a brisk canter at best. And I’m not the one trying to break his fool neck diving head first off old chariots. Perdikkas would have kittens.”
“Perdikkas only frets about keeping other people from killing me,” Alexandros said, unconcerned. “He doesn’t care if I kill myself.”

That was not, strictly speaking, true, but Hephaistion let him get away with it. The men who had stopped to watch began to disperse, remembering they had business to be about. The game with the ball had started back up. The Pages were talking amongst themselves, all bright eyed and keen. They’d be out here themselves soon, trying to vault their own horses and coming up with wrenched knees and bruises for their troubles. At least they didn’t have a chariot to lark about in – if any of them took it into their heads to try that diving dismount, they’d probably break bones. Hephaistion supposed they could try the trick of it in one of the timber carts if they were determined to play the fool, but he was not very worried about that. Mules and oxen and a lumbering timber cart were a long way removed from Alexandros’ rattle-trap of a chariot and its quick, neat ponies.

Hephaistion watched the Pages chatter for a moment, and the other men move away. If they had work to be doing, then so did he. He was in no hurry to get back to it. Nor did Alexandros seem to be, especially. Hephaistion smiled to himself at that. He scratched under his horse’s mane, and glanced idly to Alexandros. “What are you doing out here? Run out of siege to organise?”
“Hmm?” Alexandros had been watching Kleitos’ men drill through the left wheel formation. He looked around, distracted. “Oh, I’m skiving off, same as you.”
“I’m not skiving off,” Hephaistion told him. “I’m damn near running away.” He listed off the morning’s infractions on his fingers. “Red ink, a torched feed wagon, and some fool who tipped a cart load of timber over Kallisthenes’ tent. Kallisthenes was still squawking when I left. Tyre,” he added darkly, “has a lot to answer for.”

So it did, but Alexandros had done with chewing rocks over it. He had been furious at first, when they had shut their gates and told him no, but that fury had settled into something surer and saner and far more dangerous. It had settled into anticipation. There was nothing in Alexandros more dangerous than that.
“Another month, that’s all. The causeway’s making good progress. Soon the towers will be able to reach the walls. Then we’ll have them.”
There was something predatory in how Alexandros looked when he said that. It made Hephaistion think of fangs and the red gleam of eyes beyond a campfire. Not for the first time, he wondered if the men behind Tyre’s walls knew what they had got themselves into. They were crouched on their rock in the sea, fancying themselves safe, the way sheep might seem safe behind the walls of their pen. Hephaistion, though, had seen what happened when a wolf got into a sheepfold. This would end in blood and death, and the Tyrians would have no one to blame but themselves.

They should have known better. Perhaps they had thought that they were facing only some young upstart, who had a habit of biting off more than he could chew. Perhaps they had thought that he would turn tail and leave, when he saw that he could not have what he wanted. That made Hephaistion want to snort in disgust or laugh out loud, that anyone could lay eyes on Alexandros and think that. But then, the Tyrians had never seen the hard, set look of Alexandros’ face when a thing set itself before him and defied him to master it. They had never seen a young prince of Macedon walk up to a stallion that could have trampled him and never broken stride, and then ride that stallion away. They had never watched him scrape himself bloody in fall after fall, learning the trick of a rickety old chariot the rest of the world had forgotten about, or seen him fling himself headlong from it only to prove that he could. They had never seen him stare into the sun.

They could not possibly know. Hephaistion, who had seen all those things and more, understood that utterly. It was as if a cloud had moved from over the sun, and set the clean light free again, realising that. They could not know, but he did, and there were doubts and there were doubts, but when it came to Alexandros doubts counted for nothing at all. Alexandros would have what he wanted. There should never have been any doubt of that. A part of Hephaistion wanted to laugh at that, too. At himself, mostly, for ever wondering at all.

The old chariot clattered as Alexandros turned the ponies, and set their heads back towards the shore and the camp that waited there. Hephaistion, letting his roan horse walk along beside and listening to Alexandros talk about one thing and another, wondered what the Tyrians would think if they knew that what was going to take their city was not the great causeway that turned sea to land, or the high impossible siege towers on their wheeled bases, or the engines that Alexandros had seen built. It was one man, in an old chariot that rattled as it went, who did not know what impossible meant.

And, Hephaistion thought to himself, if Alexandros could do the impossible, he himself could do whatever else was left. It was only one irate scholar after all, and few jars of red ink. He was up to this. They both were. Tyre would know that, soon enough.

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:40:58 GMT

Another random excursion.

Title: Borrowed Glory
Rating: harmless.
Summary: Alexandros wants some of his own.
Feedback: Go ahead.

Alexandros had never seen Athens before. Right now, he did not care if he never saw Athens again – or anything to do with it, for that matter. Not the city with its high temples and long walls and even longer history, not the dried up conclave of old men who wanted to cast ballots on everything from breathing to taking a piss, not that thrice damned fool of an orator who had talked his city into a war it couldn’t win, and if he ever got his hands on one of those dratted waterclocks, he’d break it. For all the good that would do; it would take more than a broken jar and a puddle of water to keep these people from talking. Alexandros was beginning to wonder how they had time for anything else.

He had known, he supposed, that it would be like this. He had not been sent to Athens to play at being a tourist, after all. It was an official delegation, this. He had been sent to return the city’s dead, and to accept its tribute and its leaders’ careful, tight-eyed submission to his father, Philippos of Macedon, whom Demosthenes had taught his city to hate. Alexandros wondered if his city was regretting listening to him now. He thought that it very well could be.

If the Athenians were tired of Demosthenes’ voice, though, they had an odd way of showing it. They had given it to him to speak in honour of the dead who had fallen at Chaeroneia; the man was making a good fist of it. Alexandros had been a little surprised to see him – he had not thought, after such a loss as this had been, that the orator would be able to show his face. In Philippos’ army, an officer who led his men to such a defeat would not have kept his command; in Athens, it seemed, a man had to do more than only lose everything that mattered to be stripped of what he was. Demosthenes had wanted this war, had opposed Philippos and Macedon and everything to do with either of them with every breath he took. He had got what he had wanted, and Athens had paid the price for it. Was paying the price even now. Demosthenes had picked a fight, and he had lost. Alexandros was a long way from having any sympathy for that.

“Let it never be said that those men of Athens who have fallen on the field go down to the House of the Dead for nothing. Men fight for more than victory, men stand for more than only might. This is what it is to be a man, both in measure and in final proof. These men did not turn from courage, and whatever faults and flaws were theirs in life are blotted out by the gallantry of their deaths. They stood against an enemy of their land and home and families, and died as heroes for it. They stood against hubris and they stood as free men. May my weak words do some service to their strong deeds.”

Odd, how utterly ordinary he looked, this little man who had railed so loud and long against his father, whose voice had raised a great city to war. Narrow, stoop shouldered and balding, with deep set, bleak eyes and a voice like polished stone, all practised elegance and smooth, clear edges. Alexandros gave him the attention he gave anyone who would be his enemy – intense, singular, and utterly without pity. He noted everything, from the words the man said to the words he did not, and the carefully deliberate way that he never once let his eyes travel up and meet Alexandros’ own. Alexandros was good at reading men. He knew what that was. He had always hated to be ignored.

Nothing of that showed on his face, though. Alexandros was good at that, too. Stillness bothered him, bored him – he let that show instead. He lounged where he sat in the wide agora where half of the city was gathered, one leg stretched out in front of him and the other hooked idly under the leg of the fine chair he’d been led to, leaning back on one elbow as if he had a jar of good wine near at hand and was thinking about making a start on it. He looked nothing like what he was; he looked, even, quite harmless.

Hephaistion could tell at a glance how dangerous that was. Even from where he stood, a full spear’s cast away and more, he felt it on his skin. Alexandros, who was like a lion lying in the sun, all gold and tawny and half-lidded eyes, and pure intense focus that seemed to be nothing at all … ah, that was nothing like harmless. Watching without seeming to watch, without seeming to matter – lions were like that, before they hunted. Hephaistion almost knew what would happen next.

Not that he much cared. It almost might have been worth it, even – a display of Alexandros’ temper, that coiled intensity suddenly striking out, tearing away the veneer of civility and pretty words that served Athens as shield and armour both, laying bare the jagged resentment beneath. That would have been a more honest thing than all this careful posturing and the flickering, sidelong glances that went with it, at least. That would have been more real.

More real than this. Demosthenes was still talking, still lauding the dead and the city that had raised them. He was making a fair enough job of it, Hephaistion supposed; he had managed to avoid mentioning Philippos and Macedon at all – discretion learned late, perhaps, or simple guilt. After all, it had been his own fierce words that had brought them here, as much as any Macedonian king. It took two men to pick a fight. Demosthenes was wise if he understood that. He was brave if he admitted it. Hephaistion was not entirely sure that he was either. But then, Hephaistion was young and strong and his shoulders were remarkably free of weight; such loads as he had learned to carry did not yet include losing all the war with one battle. He could admit that, he supposed. Demosthenes had a far greater weight to bear.

He was talking too much, though. Hephaistion did not have to know oratory to know that. The man spoke well, resonant and sure and grave, but there was too much in it of art and too little of truth. Too little of instinct. The words carried to where Hephaistion stood at the back of the crowd with not a hesitation in the world. “… these sons of Athens, who answered their city’s call and offered up their blood and hearts and lives for the constitution and custom which have brought us through generations to greatness, and made Athens an example to all others. For such was the esteem of the fallen for Athens, that made them, that they would give up themselves as offerings that their city and we in it might be spared the cruel hand of fate – and such is our gratitude to them that we pay them all the honours their sacrifice deserves.”

Hephaistion thought of the dead sprawled broken and ungainly across the field at Chaeroneia, the smell of blood and bowels and the wheel of kites overhead, waiting to feed. The kites hardly cared why a man was dead, only that he was. Demosthenes, he thought, could have learned from that. Too many words, too much of trying to make it right, to make it matter. Hephaistion would have said it differently. They were men, he would have said. They lived, they fought, they held their honour dear. They died, and held their honour still. No man could need more words than that.

“It’s not quite Perikles, but it’s close enough,” came a dry murmur in Hephaistion’s ear. “Alexandros has had a gutsful of it, at any rate.” Ptolemaios, that was, no more inclined to take things any more seriously than he had to. He had a point about the prince, though. Hephaistion glanced sideways at him and grunted.
“Perikles was a fighter, at least. I could take it, coming from him. That idiot down there couldn’t tell one end of a spear from the other without help.”
“Nor could most of the men he’s talking about.” Ptolemaios shrugged, with an odd twist of his lips. Disgust was part of it, and resignation – but pity too, and an understanding that came of having been there. Ptolemaios had never yet faced an enemy he could hate, when it got right down to it. Too many other things to think of on a battlefield without wasting time on that. “Farmers mostly, and potters, and cobblers and merchants and masons. Citizen levies. They should be standing here listening to this, not burned down to dust. They would have been, if everyone had only had a little more sense. Philippos would have done this without a fight, if he could.”
“I don’t blame them for fighting,” Hephaistion said. Which was true – he didn’t. A man fought for what mattered, after all. “It’s the pompous oratory I could do without.” Actually, it was Demosthenes, standing down there with his head high and his thin shoulders set and squared and never once saying the only important thing that he could that grated the most. He had always been one to take responsibility for his actions, had Hephaistion. “How can he have talked them into such a defeat, and then stand there and sound so smug?”
“That’s Demosthenes,” Ptolemaios told him, as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did. “Supercilious bastard. Always has been. I’m picking that Alexandros won’t let him get away with if for long. How long before he loses his patience with this altogether, do you think? If you were laying money on it, I mean.”

Hephaistion shifted at that, turning to look at Ptolemaios and glancing back to where the others were waiting. Philotas was there, and that whoreson Kassandros, and Harpalos who had tagged along for the sights. Philotas was amusing himself throwing pebbles and small pot shards at the pigeons that strutted nearby. His aim was out, Hephaistion thought, or the birds were bolder than they had a right to be; the most they did was ruffle their feathers and strut a little faster. Gods. Even Athenian pigeons were smug. Kassandros was watching Philotas, arms folded and a bored, piggish expression on his face. He saw Hephaistion looking and scowled, then deliberately turned away. Harpalos, who had been kicking his heels against the wall he was leaning on, smothered a yawn and grinned from behind his hand at the same time. He winked at Hephaistion, then stuck his nose in the air and affected a tight, mincing turn in what was an uncannily accurate impersonation of both Kassandros and the bloody pigeons. Hephaistion bit down on a laugh. Demosthenes might have been supercilious and dull to boot, but there was such a thing as decency. He was not so far gone that he would laugh at a bloody funeral. He glanced over at Alexandros, catching the quick, flat glitter of his friend’s eyes and the brittle quality of his stillness, and looked back at Ptolemaios. “What, do you have a bet going?”
“Philo and the Piglet do. I’m not fool enough to bet against Alexandros.”
“Oh?” Well, Ptolemaios had always been the sensible one. “What’s the bet?”
“Philo has good silver riding on Alexandros to yawn before the end of Demosthenes’ speech. The Piglet is backing him to get up and walk away. No one has any money on him yet to lose his temper outright and tell Demosthenes to just shut up. I’m wondering if I should get in on it.”

He was – mostly – joking. Hephaistion knew that. He snorted. “Save your money. He’s not going to do any of those things. You can tell that just by looking.”
Ptolemaios blinked. “He looks like he could do any of those things.”
“Exactly. Which is why he won’t. He hates to be predictable.” Hephaistion’s lips twitched a little, dry and very knowing. “He’ll save all of that for later.”

*****

Hephaistion had been right. Alexandros did save all of it for later. He had sat through the formalities of the funeral oration with perfect, languid poise, and he had accepted Athens’ fealty on his father’s behalf with good grace and all the dignity it deserved. He had been perfectly charming, and perfectly polite, and perfectly, utterly terrifying. The first two he knew about; he had been working on them. The last was nothing at all that he did; it was simply what he was. Alexandros in a temper was not an easy thing, even when he was hiding it.

Right now, he was not hiding it at all. Right now, he was seething – a clawing, spitting fury that made Hephaistion think of a cat dunked in a basin of water. Or a lion, when jackals had stolen its kill. He was stalking about his room in the house they had been given, flinging curses and clothing with rancorous abandon. Hephaistion ducked out of the way of a sweep of well worked wool as Alexandros’ cloak was hurled in the direction of the bed, and thought that Demosthenes had more to answer for than he knew.

“That man,” Alexandros growled. “That bloody man. Who in all hells does he think he is? Did you hear him? Did you see …?”
“Of course I heard him, everyone heard him. That was rather the point,” Hephaistion said. “Funeral orations are meant to be heard.” He’d had time to get ready for this. It didn’t mean he could not be provocative. “You could hardly have expected him to laud you to the skies.”
“No,” Alexandros conceded. It came out half a snarl, muffled a little as the prince tugged his chiton free and flung it on the floor. He bent to tug his sandals free, kicking them across the room. One skittered sideways under the bed. The other landed upside down by the door. “But I did expect him to at least acknowledge me.”
“As what? The face of the enemy? The tyrant king’s heir?”
“No,” Alexandros said again, more tightly this time. He was rummaging in a coffer, pulling out an old rag of a chiton and his boots, scuffed and worn to comfort. He shrugged into both with quick, sharp little movements. “I expected him to acknowledge me. Not his speech – him. He ignored me. I might as well have been made of stone, for all he cared that I was there.”

Hephaistion would have laughed at that, if he didn’t know better. Alexandros had his belt in his hands right now though, and a sharp knife with it, and laughter was not the best option. He watched his friend set the belt about his hips and cinch it tight.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. He knew you were there. He looked at everything but you. That’s an acknowledgement in itself.”
“Acknowledgement.” Alexandros made a sound that was part disgust, and part plain pique. “He didn’t even bloody stutter. He could have given me that, at least. He stuttered for my father, and all Philippos did was smile at him.” An old tale, that one – Demosthenes had been haunted by it for years. A delegation to Macedon to treat with her king, and Philippos had received them with civility and ceremony and waited to hear what would be said, and Demosthenes had looked the king in the eye and stammered himself into silence. Hephaistion supposed that if they needed a reason why Demosthenes had railed at Philippos for so many years, they could do worse than start with that. A man had his pride, and a wounded orator was a dangerous beast. All the same, he gave Alexandros an exasperated look.
“Stutter.”
“Yes.”
“You’re angry because he didn’t stutter.” It was not a question; it was far too flat for that. Far, far too dry. Alexandros drew in a pinched breath and let it out in a sharp huff. He glared at his friend. Sometimes, he thought, Hephaistion could be deliberately obtuse. Well, two could play that game. The smile he cast at Hephaistion was too sweetly sharp to be safe.
“I was giving him my best glare.”
“He wasn’t looking at you.” Hephaistion had already pointed that out, but he said it again, just in case Alexandros had not been paying attention. He could be sweet too. “If he had been, I’m sure you’d have knocked a stutter or two out of him.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“Shut up. They laid their city at your feet. You can afford to let them have a speech or two to salve their pride.”
“They laid it at my father’s feet,” Alexandros grated. “I never got so much as a look-in!”

Ah. So, now they came to it. Hephaistion blinked, taken aback in spite of himself.
“But,” he said. “Alexandros. This … this is … It is your father’s victory. It was your father’s war.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Alexandros snapped impatiently. He was dressed now for hunting, or riding, or anything but sitting about listening to dried up old men chirp at each other like crickets, endlessly and pointlessly. One hand scrubbed through his hair, leaving it a rumpled mess. He was pacing, quick and tight, making the room seem small. It was his energy that did that, filling up spaces with movement and thought and that peculiar intensity that was all his own. It tended to sweep others up in its wake, Hephaistion knew. He was only partially immune. Alexandros was still talking, low and hard. “You think I don’t know every bit of that? He took his war and the victory I gave him – I turned the Band, that wasn’t his doing and he knows it – and he’s damned near cast me to the wolves.”
Hephaistion raised his brows. “I’d hardly call an embassy to Athens being cast to the wolves.” More like being cast to the lapdogs, he thought privately. Lapdogs with pompous oratory.

Alexandros was not so sure. “Really?” he said. “If my father has enemies anywhere, it’s here. And he’s set me in the middle of them. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Yes, I’d noticed.” Hephaistion was getting tired of this. Alexandros could be like this sometimes, when he had not enough to do and too many walls between him and they sky. Sitting still always made him feel trapped. “And yes, he did. So that you can charm them senseless and accept their tribute and their fealty, and they don’t have to look him in the eye and choke on it. It’s called diplomacy, you idiot. It’s nothing you can’t deal with. Are we going riding?”
“I thought we could. Along the walls, maybe. And of course I can deal with it, that’s not the point.”
“No?” A tilt of the head answered that, half of question, half challenge. “What is the point then? If it’s not stuttering orators or playing message boy for your father? And what about the others, are they coming too?”
“Philotas and Kassandros were taking bets on me making a fool of myself,” Alexandros scowled. “They can bloody well stay out of my way. And the point, since you ask, is that if anyone should have had to sit through that bloody pretentious ceremony today, it’s Philippos. It’s his damned victory, and his tribute. The point is that I don’t want to accept the wreaths for my father’s victories, or anyone else’s for that matter but my own. The point is, I don’t want to spend my life laying claim to my father’s empire on my father’s behalf.” He paused, then looked Hephaistion straight in the eye with eyes as sharp and sure as lightning. His voice was the same – bright and searing and burning the words into his bones. “I want to claim my own.”

It should have sounded thoroughly unreasonable, like a child demanding a slice of the moon, or announcing that he would sprout wings and fly. Or, it would have sounded unreasonable, if anyone but Alexandros had said it. As it was, Hephaistion did not think it unreasonable at all. It was the only thing that made sense. Of course Alexandros would have his own empire – and wings and the moon too, if he wanted them. It startled him a little, knowing that … but then, it always startled him a little to know that, no matter how many times he had been shown it before. This was Alexandros, and Alexandros could not be anything other than what he was. He nodded, tasting the words slowly. “Your own empire.”
“Do you think I can’t?” That was challenge pure. Hephaistion laughed at it, quite unfazed.
“Oh, I know you can. And your own legend to go with it. But it won’t get you out of listening to boring speeches, you know.”

Alexandros gave him a hard look, then grinned suddenly. “Gods. Phai. You won’t let me get away with anything, will you?”
“Probably not,” Hephaistion admitted. He did not sound concerned. “No.”
“Come with me?”
“Riding? Or to find this empire of yours?”
“Both. Idiot.”
Hephaistion pretended to think about it. Alexandros mock-growled at him and threw up his hands in frustration. Obtuse. Stubborn. Deliberately so. Hephaistion relented, laughing in the glitter of his eyes and the quirk of his mouth.
“Yes. I’ll come. I think I have to. You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“Are you talking about riding, or winning empires?”
“Both,” Hephaistion said sweetly. “Idiot.”

That was truth any way that Alexandros looked at it. He grinned and bowed his head to it, slanting Hephaistion a look that was all sharp white teeth and eyes that did not understand limits. “I’ll know where I’m going,” he said. “As soon as I get there, I’ll know.”
“How?”
“You’ll be there.”
“I’m here now. I’m always here.”
“That,” Alexandros told him, in a voice as sure and as limitless and as intimate as his eyes, “is because you’re my empire too. You’re the heart of it. You have to be.”

And that, Hephaistion decided, as Alexandros leaned in to seal it the best way he knew how, was truth too. Any way he looked at it.

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:04:10 GMT

Well, the whole point of this journal was for me to keep all my scribblings in one place. So this can go here as well. It's just me, mucking around.

Title: A Worthy Foe
Rating: G. Perfectly work safe.
Summary: Darius wonders who his enemy is.
Feedback: Yep.

Darius had hoped to avoid this war. Or, at the least, delay it. Delay to a degree they had managed, when a good deal of gold from the Royal Treasury had been given into certain hands, and Philippos of Macedon had died from it. From that, and from the spite of a lover scorned. The gold – and the men to whom it had been paid – had not dealt with Philippos’ son though. Perhaps he had not been thought an issue. Perhaps it had not been considered that he even needed to be dealt with. Darius, Great King of Persia, thought that rather a pity. If someone had only thought of dealing with this Alexandros sooner, he would not have mustered an army across the sea, waiting only for the weather to settle so that he could cross the straight to make war on Darius’ lands, and Darius would not have found himself in the position of having to take care of matters himself.

Not that he intended on doing any such thing. Not directly, in any case. He was Great King after all, he had governors and generals, aides and armies, to do these things for him. He himself had to do very little, in fact, beyond give an order here, a command there – a twitch of his fingers, that was all, a slight nod of his head. The Great King of Persia did not carry out his own will. He simply made his will known, and others carried it out for him. Even, Darius sometimes thought, when he was alone and could let the mask of kingship slip, to the point of distraction. He was not entirely sure how he felt about that, in those times when he was not wearing that mask – he had been a soldier once, in his life before he was the chosen of Ahura Mazda and Great King; he’d been good at it, enjoyed it. Great Kings of Persia, however, were not soldiers. He could be a general, stir himself to war, go forth in his gilded battle chariot with his ten thousand Immortals and a mighty army mustered from all the corners of his kingdom, meet the enemy under the eyes of the Lord of Light, and see him smitten down and his troops put to flight. He could not, though, stride after him across a field of war, call him down and fight him in the dust until the blood flowed red. That was not for Great Kings to do, and never mind that it would have made the world a good deal simpler.

A battle chariot, the Immortals, the ungainly sprawl of the Royal Household on the march … Darius sighed, thinking of it. It was an inward thing, that sigh – it was not fitting for the Great King to show emotion as other men. The Great King, Darius had learned, was not meant to show emotion at all, not in his public life. The Great King was as far above such things as that as the sun and stars were above the men they shone down on. Besides, it put on a good show, that regal impassivity. It impressed, it intimidated, it woke awe and a healthy respect. No one would respect a king who laughed, or who walked among his people and spoke to them face to face. It was a quality of kings that Darius had taken the effort to learn, that stillness and seeming calm in the face of the world. It would not do to let every thought he had show itself on his face. Better to seem unshakable and aloof than bored or concerned or even unsure, after all. In the wide, cool hall, his chamberlain was droning on about some trivial thing to do with tributes and taxes, but Darius let the words go past him to the many silent and scribbling scribes who wrote such things down and let his mind go on wondering about Alexandros of Macedon.

To march his army, his whole Household, to war … ah, it all seemed like rather a lot of effort to go to for only some little yellow haired barbarian kinglet. Darius was not sure that this man was worth it, this Alexandros. His noble lords, his satraps with their garrisons and walled cities, said that he was not. What had he done, they asked, besides destroy some squalling village in Hellas, and set a few tribesmen to rout? Philippos had been a threat, a man who knew what he wanted and what he was about. They had watched Philippos from across the sea, expanding, consolidating, building himself a nation to be king of, and casting his eyes then to Persia. Alexandros … well, that was a different matter, Darius was told. Alexandros was a nuisance, his generals said, that was all. The Great King of Persia and all his army should not bestir themselves for anything as trivial as that.

The Great King should, the Great King should not. The Great King was told a good many things. It did not help. There were times when Darius suspected he was told only what his lords and generals and chamberlains thought that he wanted to hear. What Darius of Persia wanted to hear when it came to Alexandros of Macedon, he could not truthfully say – he only knew that what he had been told so far did not quite seem like enough.

He thought he might know a way to rectify that. Eyes-and-ears were all very well, and Darius had his agents who reported to him of what his enemies – and his allies, for that matter – might be doing, but this new kinglet of the Greeks remained an unknown. He contradicted himself at every turn, if the reports from Darius’ agents were to be believed. He was a poet, a warrior, a philosopher, a barbarian thug. He was generous to a fault, said one report, and too too trusting; he was ruthless said another, with a temper like lightning, quick and sharp and fit to strike a man dead. Darius would have liked to know which of these things were true. What he needed, Darius decided, was a man who knew his enemy. It was fortunate for him that he had one such, and knew just where to find him.

He lifted a finger, cutting off the chamberlain in mid-ramble, and rose stately and proud to his feet. “Enough,” he said, without raising his voice at all. “Have the matters remained recorded and seen to. Have Memnon of Rhodes brought to the Winter Garden. I would speak with him. That is all.”

The Great King did not carry out his own will. He simply let his will be known, and others ran to carry it out for him.

*****

Memnon of Rhodes did not run. Not to obey summons, at any rate. He did not need to, not these days. He may only have been a mercenary general in the eyes of the world, but he had proven himself many times over, cut his reputation out on the fields of war in this land and others until it went before him and made the world take notice. He had earned wealth for his men, and honour for himself – honour enough to speak in the presence of kings and never bow his head for a moment beyond what Persian court manners required. They were a balancing act, the manners of the Persian court; Memnon had learned to use them as soundly as any other strategy, and anticipate them too. On a battlefield, power might change hands based on the smallest of things – a song, a surge, a single act of bravery. In the Royal Persian court, it was the same; a man’s life could be won and lost in the way he held his eyes, or how he lowered himself before the Great King. Too much of one way, and a man lost whatever pride or regard he might have had. Too far the other, and he would be punished for having pride too much. Memnon did not run … but nor did he dally, and keep the Great King waiting.

The Winter Garden was a wonder of a place, here in this city of gardens and courtyards and lush greenery. It was colonnaded on three sides, airy green spaces of sunlight and shade where a man could walk or sit or simply take the air. The fourth side lay open to the walls, with a great drop to the city below. The winter sun angled across it through the day, made it shimmer in shades of gold and green and warm, soft light. Memnon had learned to like the place in spite of its tame and trammelled nature; in Babylon, it seemed, even the gardens answered to the will of the Great King.

Memnon had learned to like Darius too. The man was new still to the throne of Persia, and he seemed both more direct and less corrupt than those that had gone before. Or perhaps it was only that Memnon was more used to it now, to what it was to be Great King in Persia. He’d been in this land for half of his life, it seemed – even taken a Persian wife of an old and noble family, and got children by her too. He knew the language and the customs, though he had never been able to bring himself to wear those fool trousers. He had, over the years, become used to a great many things that had seemed strange and foreign to him at first. A man who was not careful, Memnon had decided, could become accustomed to almost anything.

He was announced into the Great King’s presence by one of the palace eunuchs, a long narrow creature with a smooth face and a fluting voice. As always, the odd smooth skin and long soft body and the thought of what it had lost unsettled him – a man could become accustomed to almost anything, but the Persian habit of gelding men and letting them live made him shudder. Any man who lost that part of himself should, the mercenary thought, be allowed to die with what was left of his dignity. Better that, than this half life as this half creature that was neither man nor woman and not as useful as either. Trousers, then, and eunuchs – two things he had not accustomed himself to. Two things that still set him apart, that still let him say in his head and his heart, I am of Hellas. In such small ways, a man held to his home as he may.

The eunuch withdrew, and Memnon bowed low and low in formal greeting, the ritual abasement before the Great King. Darius barely seemed to note it, only inclined his head a little as Memnon straightened again, waving him forward with a flick of his much beringed hand.

“I am curious,” Darius said without preamble, “about this Alexandros of Macedon. You know him, yes?”
Memnon gave a little nod. Oh yes, Darius was much more direct. It was to the good. Memnon preferred a man who got to the point. “I did once, Great Lord. When I lived in Macedon briefly, in his father’s household.”
“Good.” Darius nodded, once, decisively. “You will tell me of him. Come. We will walk.”

Darius did not wait to see if Memnon would follow, he simply walked and assumed that he would. Memnon had not expected anything else. He fell into step behind the Great King, at a distance both practical and respectful. He had to stretch his legs to keep up; Darius was a tall man, and given to striding out. They walked along the colonnade, from sun to shade to cool dappled light, and back to sun again. In the garden, a coloured bird whirred past in a bright flurry of feathers, calling as it went in a voice both sweet and harsh. Memnon watched it as it flew out over the walls.

“My agents,” Darius said, ignoring the bird, “tell me many things. They report to me that this Alexandros, he is an educated man, that he reads poetry and philosophy. They also report that he is ruthless and brutal, that he lives on war and drinks the blood of his enemies. Tell me, which is true?”
Memnon gave a quiet snort. Darius needed to find himself better spies, if that was all he was getting. Aloud, he said, “Both are most likely true, Great Lord. Though I have my doubts about the blood drinking. Macedonians are a rough people, but they are not savages.”
“Are they not?” The Persian king glanced at Memnon briefly, as if he neither believed that nor cared. “So then, tell me, if both these things are more or less true, what manner of a man is he, this Alexandros of yours?”
“With respect, Great Lord, he is not my Alexandros. He is king of Macedon, and Macedon was never my home. And he was but a lad when I knew him.”
“Boys are only men writ small.” Darius paused, stepped out from the shelter of the colonnade into the garden itself. There was a fountain in one corner; he stopped there, leaning on the smooth stone rim, looking into the water. “My nobles, my generals, they tell me that he is merely a nuisance, a boy playing at soldiers. Are they right?”
That made Memnon bite back a laugh. Hera’s tits, was that what they thought? He’d known that at least half of them were fools, the Persian lords with their fineries and their sidelong glances, but he had not thought that they would take it so far as that. To dismiss an army of Macedon, no matter who led them, was folly enough. To dismiss Alexandros though – ah, he might have been only a boy when Memnon had known him, but Darius was right about one thing. Boys grew into men. Memnon remembered a young prince like a falcon diving out of the sun, quick and sharp and startling. He very much doubted that the thing that Alexandros had grown into would ever be called merely a nuisance by anyone.
“My lord,” he said seriously, “Great King. In Macedon, they do not play at soldiers. They are soldiers. And Alexandros is no longer a boy. You could do better than underestimate him.”
“You think, then,” the Great King said, in a calm, considered voice, as if he were discussing some academic treatise and not the enemy about to make war on him, “that we do underestimate him?”
“If your nobles believe that he is a raw boy, untried and green, then yes Great Lord, I believe so. He is Philippos of Macedon’s son, and Philippos was a man who understood war. This pup of his will be a wolf from the same pack.”
“Ah,” Darius said. He trailed long, jewelled fingers in the water of the fountain. A slow ribbon of silver rose to the surface, following them; a fish, light against the dark water. “But a pup all the same, yes?”
“My lord,” Memnon said, “No.” It was important, this – suddenly and deadly important. Memnon was paid, and paid well, to fight Darius’ battles; his troops would be the first into any engagement, hired men, foreign and expendable. It would very much help if Darius knew what he was up against. Memnon had no intention of dying simply because a brace of well bred Persians underestimated their enemy. He was not a man who liked paying for other people’s mistakes. He would take his enemies seriously, or not at all. Darius, if he was wise, would do the same. It could save them all a great deal of grief. “When a man holds his first regency at sixteen and leads an army to war, when he is a commander of cavalry at eighteen and destroys in one charge the Sacred Band of Thebes, when he is a king at twenty and crushes the city that the Band rose from so that no two stones stand one on the other, when he can keep down the north and settle the south in only a season, with his father’s death still fresh in the world, then he is not a man to be taken lightly. He has Philippos’ army and Philippos officers and the finest strategos in Hellas to tell him how things should be done. My lord, Great Lord of All, he is no untried pup, this man.”

For a moment, Darius seemed to consider that. He watched the fish slide silently through the water, under the gentle patter of the fountain, then raised his eyes to look out over the city below. Finally he said, “You have not yet answered my question. I would know, what manner of man is he?”
“My lord, I don’t know the man. I barely knew the boy.”
“Tell me then, of this boy you barely knew.” There was an edge of impatience to that. Darius may have been direct for a Persian king, but there was a limit to how direct a man could be in return. Memnon knew that. He stifled a sigh, and did as he was bid.

“He was a bright young thing, not big for his age but intelligent, and quite fearless. My lord will know that my father by marriage, Artabazus, spent the years of his exile in Macedon. I was there when that exile was recalled, and an embassy came to Pella to deliver the news and bring him home.” Memnon paused, remembering how out of place the Persian embassy had looked in Philippos’ half-finished palace, all shimmering silks and bright colours amid the blacks and whites and greys. It was true, what he had said to the Great King about the Macedonians being a rough people – civilisation in Macedon was a new enough thing to still show stark at the edges, especially to men of Persia whose lands had been civilised from nearly the dawn of time. It had been like watching a troop of peacocks strut through a pack of war hounds. “Philippos was away from the palace when they arrived, so the young prince received them in his father’s place. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old.” Memnon remembered that too, the golden haired boy who had escaped from his nurse, and who had greeted these oddly dressed strangers with a maturity beyond his years. Had he even been eight? He might have been younger. He had looked such a child, and the Persians had smiled tolerantly and settled in to wait for the king – “My father will be with you presently,” the young prince had said, in his high, piping voice – but then the boy had started asking questions, and they had not been a child’s questions at all. “He received the embassy, my lord, and made them welcome, and proceeded to question them on Persian law, and Persian custom, and in what ways the Royal Roads ran from city to city, and how long it might take an army to march from one to the next. Not questions for a child, my lord king. Questions for a soldier. Even then.”
“He had been schooled to ask them, then,” Darius supposed. Memnon shrugged carefully. It would not do to tell the Great King of Persia he was wrong.
“Perhaps, lord king. Though I don’t think so. When his father came and heard what the boy was asking, he laughed and called him … precocious.” Actually, what Philippos had said had been a good deal rougher and much less polite, though pride had still made up most of it. Memnon shrugged again, trying to think what else he could say. “Wolves are born to hunt, Great Lord. Men in Macedon are born to war. Princes in Macedon more than most.”

Another silence met that. Memnon suffered it; it was not his place to break it, he was not such a fool as that. Darius left off teasing the fish with his trailing fingers. He strode instead about the rim of the fountain, following the path of fine crushed stone that whispered and crunched softly under his slippered feet. The mercenary general stayed where he was, and watched as the Great King circled once and came back.
“You say he was weaned on war,” Darius said. “You say he is a wolf born to hunt. What of the poetry, then? The philosophy? Is this little king of theirs, this Alexandros,” and his tongue did odd things to that name, softening it, making it slide between teeth, Iskandros, “only an animal made to fight and kill? Or is he an enemy worthy of a Great King?”

Ah. Now there was something that Memnon had not expected – that Darius might be concerned for whether or not Alexandros of Macedon was worthy of him. It was, in Memnon’s opinion, errant nonsense to wonder any such thing … an enemy was an enemy, worthy or not. A man took his enemies seriously or he died of them as a rule, and only a fool would discount one simply for not being worthy. What did the man think that war was, some courtly dance of honour played out to make a man a hero? War was blood and ash and men bleeding their lives away in a pain beyond sound, that was what war was. One fought and lived, or one fought and died … but one did not, one absolutely did not, turn one’s back to a man because he was not a worthy foe. A man could do better for his death than to be stabbed from behind. Memnon preferred to face his enemies front on. Worthy. What kind of nonsense was that? He answered as best as could, trying not to let his teeth grit.
“He is said, my lord, to have been schooled in such things. Philippos took some care to see to that. He imported a tutor, I understand, and I remember the boy had some ear for music.” He made a small, blank gesture with his hands, holding his frustration down. Worthy. “My lord, I remember that he was sharp, that war ran in his veins, that he had been weaned on tales of glory and heroes. I remember that he was singleminded past all point of reason, and that he did not take well to being crossed. He hated to be told no, even then, would always fight for what he wanted, whether it be honeycakes before bedtime or a fine new horse. More than that, Great Lord, I cannot say. Only this; if the son takes after the father, he will be more than worthy enough, for you and for your army.” That was bold, that last, but it had to be said. If Darius was going to start discounting his enemies because they did not know enough poetry, Memnon thought he might soon be looking for another sponsor.

Darius was not completely a fool. He knew what he was being told. After all, he had been a soldier once. He gave Memnon a long, thoughtful stare.
“You think this kinglet of theirs might stand against us?”
There were two ways to answer that, that Memnon could think of. Safely, and honestly. He chose, gods help him, to be honest. It was the safest thing he could think of, in the long run – if it did not get him killed where he stood. “My lord,” he said, “If he is underestimated, yes. If he is underestimated enough, he could even win.”

Darius considered that. Memnon was a man who lived by war; he should, the Persian king thought, know what he was about. He had lived in Macedon – long enough, he had claimed, to know how they would fight, how they were equipped, what they were capable of doing. He said, as if he even believed it, that the barbarian kinglet might even win this war he wanted to start. That would have been amusing, if it had not also raised the hackles on Darius’ neck and made his gut turn cold and empty. By the Great Lord of Light, how much easier it all would be if he could only know what to do! As for this Alexandros … a warrior born, a poet and king – but it remained to be seen just what he was worth. There was Memnon’s say so, but Darius could not lift himself and his Household to war based on only that. Memnon was useful, but he was also a hired sword, no more – a barbarian Greek just as the little Macedonian king was, with no more rank by birth in the Persian court than one of Darius’ horses. If anyone was going to see what this Alexandros of Macedon was made of though, Darius would rather it was this man before him right now than any of his fine and powerful nobles, who would look down their noses and trip over their own feet. This man, at least, would take the enemy seriously. After that … well, after that, then Darius would not have to ask questions any more. After that, he would know.

“You will go,” Darius said, “to meet this Alexandros in the field when he crosses. You will find out for me, if we face a wolf or only a yapping puppy.”

Memnon did not answer that, only bowed low and moved off as the king dismissed him. It was only what he had expected, in truth; what else was he for, if not to fight his sponsor’s wars. He did not think that he would be facing a wolf though, and certainly not a puppy. He had known Philippos, and seen what he had done. Alexandros had shown himself already his father’s son, a man needed only ask the Thebans if he wanted proof of that. No, Memnon did not expect wolves or wolf pups or anything of the sort. What Memnon expected, was lions.

Lions, and here he would be hunting with untried Persian hounds. Memnon sighed, lengthened his stride, and went in search of his officers. It could be a long campaign, this one.

Then again, if he was right about the lions, it might be shorter than anyone expected.

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 23:11:45 GMT

This is nothing, just an isolated scribble as much for myself as anything else. Doesn't relate to anything much, but here it is anyway.

Title: A Man's Best Friend
Summary: Sometimes friends need help.
Feedback: If you like.

It was the smell more than anything that told him it was too late. The wound gave off a dark, sour smell, like green things rotting in still water, and the flesh around it was raised and livid. Aristoteles had seen it before, knew exactly what he was looking at. He hardly needed the other signs – the shallow panting, the hot and hectic skin, the glazed and dull eyes – to tell him what was in front of him. Neither, he thought, did the boy sitting across from him; Hephaistion could be as bull-headed as any of the young Macedonian hellions he had been given to tutor, but the lad was not stupid. He was, in fact, observant and practical and given to thinking things through, when his temper did not get the better of him. He would know what he was looking at too.

“I’m sorry lad, there’s no more I can do.”
“I’ve been cleaning the wound like you told me to. I’ve been using the salve.” There was a stubborn, resentful sound to that, like a man resisting a thing he did not want to know. Aristoteles could understand that. No man liked to admit that everything he could do was not enough. He got to his feet, reaching down to pat the boy on the shoulder.
“I know you did. We got to it too late, perhaps, and the poisons got in. The wound’s gone bad. You know what that means. Don’t you?”
For a moment Hephaistion did not answer. He only stared down at the ground. Aristoteles could feel him gathering, bracing himself to answer like a man. The boy had his pride; he would not disgrace himself. When his voice came, it was low but steady. Aristoteles could tell he had fought for it. There would be a reason why he would not look up. He did not want his eyes to betray him.
“Yes sir. I know what has to be done. I’ll take care of it.”

Aristoteles considered, briefly. “If you don’t want to do it yourself, I won’t think any the less of you.” He’d meant it for a kindness, but he could tell as soon as he spoke that the words were wrong. Hephaistion gave him a single hard, hot-eyed glance and shook his head.
“He’s my dog. I’ll do it.”
Prickly about their pride, lads at this age – and Macedonian lads more than most, the philosopher thought. Still, responsibility was no bad thing, whatever form it took. He had made a habit of observing these boys, seeing what sort of creatures they were and what they might be shaped into. This one, Aristoteles thought, would never be inclined to back down from hard decisions. Aristoteles had seen that, in the way that he held his ground when he knew he was right, even against the prince and, more importantly, in the way that he did not make excuses when he was wrong. All the philosopher said, though, was: “As you wish, lad.” He brushed away the dry straw that clung to his chiton, and left the stable.

Hephaistion did nothing for a while, only sat in the straw in the empty loosebox with his hound beside him, running his fingers through the thick ruff of the animal’s neck. Under its coat, the animal’s skin was hot and sickly dry. The shine had gone from eyes and fur, but the hound still knew his master’s voice. The dog made a low whining noise, and thumped his tail twice as the youth spoke his name low and singsong. “Ah, Argo. You’re a good dog, eh? Good dog.”

They’d been out hunting only a week since, a group of them from Mieza with their hounds, looking for boar. A dangerous beast for raw boys to hunt, or for grown men even, but these boys were not so raw as that. They had all hunted boar before, it was one of the ways in which a boy in Macedon showed that he was ready to become a man. This boar had been a big one – Hephaistion had known that from the trail sign well before he saw the beast. Alexandros had been pleased; he always valued a worthy opponent. The dogs had soon picked up a fresh scent and gone off baying and belling through the woods, with the hunters in close pursuit. The dogs would find the boar and bring it to bay, holding it until the young men arrived with their boar spears and someone stepped forward for the kill. It was a bloody, messy and harsh affair – the hounds baying and circling the trapped boar, snapping at heels and snout and flank; the wild pig squealing and snorting, tearing at the ground and the underbrush and the dogs with equal savagery, more than capable of taking a man down and goring him wide open should a spear give way, or a strike go astray, or a foot slip in the mud. Men had died, hunting boar. Dogs had, too.

Argo would. He had not yet, but Hephaistion knew that Aristoteles was right. He had known it before the man had come out to the stables to check on the wound; he knew when a wound had turned that there was seldom any going back. He had only wanted to be sure. The dog had been harrying at the boar brought to bay, lunging in on its shoulder to turn it back to the pack, when the pig had swung with sudden speed and a hard flick of its tusks that had left the hound torn and bleeding. It was not the first time Hephaistion had seen a hound caught by a boar, or even the first time that it had been done to this dog – old Argo was a hunter born and bred, scarred from tangling with wolves and boar and once even a bear. The dog was a little like his master in that; he had never been one for backing down either.

This wound was different. It was deep, and it would not heal. Hephaistion had done what he could – cleaned it, dressed it, tended the dog as best he could. He had even slept in the stables the past two nights, sharing his blankets with the beast. It was not the first time he’d slept in a loosebox – Alexandros teased him for it sometimes, that he’d rather share a stall with a horse he hardly knew than a bed with the friend he loved. Not quite true, if it came down to it, but Hephaistion let him get away with it. There was more to good horsemanship than fancy riding – Hephaistion’s father had been uncompromising about that. A good horseman cared for his animals, anything else was doing the job halfway. And if a horse could be a friend and be cared for, then so could a hound. There were worse places to sleep than in a loosebox, in any case. The straw was clean and there were hardly any rats, for one thing. Also, horses tended not to snore.

The dog gave a huff, then started up the quick shallow panting that gave away its distress. Hephaistion’s lips tightened. There was a dull ache in his chest; he swallowed, hard. His eyes felt hot and tired. He blinked to clear them and pressed his face briefly into the dog’s ruff. He knew what needed to be done, knew how to do it too, quick and clean. Another thing he could thank his father for, that. If it were best done, then it were best done quickly. Hephaistion knew that too. There was nothing to be gained from putting off. He had been prepared for this; he had a knife, and it was very sharp. He knew just where to strike it home. The philosopher had probably meant well enough with what he had said about letting someone else do it, but there were some things that were a man’s own to take care of. Hephaistion had never been in the habit of letting his friends down. He was hardly going to start now. His voice was soothing, his hand very steady, and the blade as sharp and true as it needed to be.

*****

When Hephaistion had not appeared for supper, Alexandros had gone looking for him. He did not have far to look; he knew well enough where his friend was likely to be. The prince of Macedon had grabbed up a cloak before he’d ventured out after his friend – it was cold enough still in the evenings to warrant one and besides, there was a certain comfort to the old wolfskin. Outside in the grey light, rain was beginning to fall in a fine mist. Alexandros ducked through it and into the stables.

“Hephaistion?” There was no answer, no sound save for the shifting of horses and a low whicker or two. Here and there an animal lifted its head, watching him pass with big dark eyes. He moved past the stalls, down to the looseboxes near the big doors. “Hephaistion?”

He found his friend sitting in the straw, his back to the wall and his knees drawn up, with his hands dangling between them. At his feet, there was a bundle wrapped in Hephaistion’s dark cloak; Alexandros could see the dog’s muzzle peeking from beneath the covering. Ah, so, it had come to that. He’d thought it would, had even tried to encourage Hephaistion to end it earlier and finish the hound’s suffering. Hephaistion could be stubborn sometimes, though. He would come to a decision in his own time, or not at all. Alexandros had lost track of the number of arguments they’d had because of that. Hephaistion hated to be pushed, the prince hated to lose a fight. It made things volatile, sometimes. For a short time it did, at any rate – they always sorted it out in the end.

This was not a time for arguments or saying I told you so. Alexandros could see that without even looking. Hephaistion had not answered him when he’d called, and not because he did not want to be found. He had not answered for the same reason that he had not come in to supper; he did not trust his own voice not to break, or his eyes not to give him away. He had been weeping; the prince could tell that even in the gloom from the redness of his eyes. Alexandros hesitated a moment outside the loosebox, unsure what to do next, but then Hephaistion glanced up at him and drew a quick, shuddering breath, swiping angrily at his eyes. He gestured to the cloak-wrapped bundle on the floor, half defiant, half despairing.
“You were right.”

Silence answered that. Alexandros came in to the box, hunkered down briefly beside the dead hound. He lifted the corner of his friend’s cloak, gently stroked the soft ears, let the cloak fall. “Poor old Argo, eh? Always did want to take on more than was good for him. You’ve done right by him, you know that.”
“Of course I know that.” It sounded angry, but Alexandros was not fooled. When Hephaistion was really angry, he didn’t sound anything much at all. That was one thing that he found fascinating about his friend; he’d never met anyone who could lose their temper in a fury of pure cold before. This … this was not temper. He moved to sit next to Hephaistion, leaning back against the wall and kicking his feet in the straw. His friend picked absently at a cut on his leg, and said, “I shouldn’t have asked him to take that boar.”
“He was a hunting hound, Phai. That’s what he did. Besides, you know what he was like, once he got his wind up. You couldn’t have stopped him.” That won a brief smile. Hephaistion said affectionately, “Mad dog.”
“Like his master.”
“I suppose.”

Another silence fell. Alexandros, who had never been comfortable with being either silent or still, found he could bear this. Hephaistion only sat quietly, looking down at his hands. There was no blood on them; he had wiped it off on the straw, perhaps. His face had a closed, inward look. Memory, that was – and a young man hiding his grief. That was another thing Alexandros found strange; in his family, no one hid what they felt. Before he’d met Hephaistion, he’d thought that he was the only one who had the trick of it. He let his hand go quietly to rest on his friend’s shoulder. Hephaistion sighed again, then let his head fall back to lean against the rough wall, staring up at the rafters.
“Stupid,” he said. “To get all maudlin about a dog.”
“Not stupid.” Alexandros had seen grown men brought to tears by less. By women, even, if a man could believe that. “He was your friend. You’re allowed to cry for a friend.”

If Hephaistion had been waiting for permission, he didn’t show it. A tear ran down his cheek, that was all; he dashed at it impatiently with the back of his hand. Alexandros said nothing, only rubbed his shoulder in the same way he might have tried to soothe a skittish horse. The sound of the animals around them was calming – the shuffle of hooves on straw, the low grind and chomp of horses at their feed, the snorts and soft rumbles as they murmured among themselves. Ah, that was one of Hephaistion’s thoughts, creeping in. He’d always maintained that horses spoke to each other. Alexandros saw no reason to suppose it untrue. Outside, the rain had grown steadier; it fell with a soft, cool patter that was both easy and refreshing. Wordlessly, Alexandros slung his old wolfskin cloak about so that it covered them both. It was not precisely cold in here, but the wolfskin had its own magic. It had always been a comfort. Hephaistion sank his fingers into the thick fur, then scrubbed at his face with his hand and gave his friend a look. His voice was oddly husky, when it came. His throat felt sore and tight – he had to speak past it. “Thanks.”

Alexandros had the good grace not to make light of it. “It’s all right. You had him from a pup, didn’t you? You brought him with you when you came to Pella, I remember.”
Hephaistion nodded. “I was eight, and he’d got into the goat pen and been trampled by a she-goat with kids. His leg was broken, my father said it would be kindest to kill him. He looked like a bundle of rags with eyes, he was so little. I made such a bloody noise over it, my father finally relented and told me to take the pup to my mother.”
Alexandros thought he could imagine that; Hephaistion had some odd ideas sometimes but he was a long way from being soft. When he dug his toes in about a thing, he’d stick to it. Even about such a thing as an errant hound pup with a broken leg.
“Your mother knows medicine?”
“A little. What any woman would know, when she has a family to look after and a son who was falling off horses before he could walk.” A soft, wry laugh punctuated that; it made Alexandros’ lips quirk. He tried to think of Hephaistion actually falling off a horse and came up short. Even Bukephalos in a tantrum had not been able to shift Hephaistion. He’d simply ridden the black horse out, and then said, “Are you finished?”

Hephaistion caught the grin, glanced at him. “What?”
“Nothing. I was just trying to imagine you falling off a horse.”
“It happens.”
“Oh, I know. I just didn’t think it happened to you.”
Hephaistion snorted. Well, that was stupid. He’d had bruises enough to prove that, over the years. “Idiot.”
“Tell me about the dog. Your mother mended his leg?”
“She showed me how to wrap his leg so the bone might have a chance to set, and one of the grooms helped me change the splints and bandages.” Hephaistion shrugged. “My father thought it would be a good lesson for me, I suppose – but he never expected the leg to mend. When it did, he told me the dog was mine now, that I’d saved him so I was responsible for him. I remember him following me about the yards with his leg all swaddled and splinted, stumping about. That’s why he always ran a little lame on that hind leg, it set a little shorter than the other.”
“Didn’t slow him down any though.”
“No,” Hephaistion agreed. “But he never went near another goat in his life. I could take him after boar or stags and he’d never flinch. He even took on a pair of wolves once, when we had mares out with foals at foot and they came too near to the pasture. But show him a goat and he’d slink off like a wet cat.”

They were sitting closer together now, drawn in by the cloak and each other’s warmth. Hephaistion could feel Alexandros’ hand on his leg now, the touch purely of comfort and support. He let his own hand go to it, squeeze it briefly in thanks. Alexandros said again, “It’s all right.”
“The others will be wondering where you are. They’ll talk.”
“Let them. I don’t care. We can go back when you’re ready.”
Hephaistion nodded. The hot prickling behind his eyes had faded, but there was still the catch in his throat and the low dull ache in his chest. It was better with Alexandros here, somehow. If anyone else had seen him like this, he would have been horrified. With Alexandros, though, it did not seem so much to matter. They were used to sharing things, after all. What point, to hide from that?
“I don’t want to leave him here,” he heard himself say. “I don’t want the rats to get at him.”
“We can stay. And we’ll give him a good send off, tomorrow.”
“No,” Hephaistion said at once. “No, I need to do it myself.”
“Yes,” Alexandros told him, “But I’ll do it with you.” He did not sound as if he expected any argument. Hephaistion thought about it, but did not give him one. Instead he said, “Yes. I’d like that.”

Outside, the rain eased. It was full dark now, but Alexandros was comfortable enough. He did not need light to see what his friend needed of him. The others would talk, seeing that both he and Hephaistion were missing, but what he’d told Hephaistion was true. Let them talk, he hardly cared what they said. He wondered what they would think if they knew that barely half of what they said was true, that he and Hephaistion had only barely done more than kiss and let their hands explore a little. It didn’t matter. Hephaistion was his friend, that was what was important to him – to them both, if it came to that.

Alexandros had never been in the habit of letting his friends down. He was not about to start now.

Moral Victory

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 14:33:31 GMT

This story is an act of both faith and outright defiance. Not having been able to write anything worth a damn for the past few weeks (or ever, in some people's opinions I'd wager), this is my attempt to WRITE. SOMETHING. DAMMIT. As a result it's a little weird and a little stilted in places, but at least it is something. I count it as a moral victory, at least.

Title: Comfort From the Cold
Summary: Dreams, memories and wishful thinking?
Feedback: Certainly. Hit me.

The heat was stifling. Alexandros, King of Macedon, Great King of Persia, Lord of Asia and half a dozen other things he couldn’t remember right now, tossed fitfully in his bed. His head was pounding with the heat, and his mouth felt as if he had been swallowing sand. When he shifted to reach for the water jar, his covers stuck to him, damp with sweat. He kicked them aside irritably. Babylon in high summer, and some idiot of a body servant had him swaddled about in blankets enough for half a regiment. He could not remember coming to bed. Perhaps he had been drinking – he had been drinking a lot lately. There was a reason for that, but he could not remember that either.

He couldn’t sleep, but he could not seem to wake up, either. Not all the way, at least – there was a floating, distant quality to things, as if he were seeing them in a dream. The water tasted odd on his tongue, like iron shavings, and his mouth was still dry after it passed. It was the heat, that was the problem. He felt as if someone had wrapped him in wet wool and shoved him in a furnace. No one could think with a clear head in heat like this.

There was a cold pool in the bath house, just through the doors over there and along a short colonnade. They kept it cold with barrels of snow packed in straw, brought down from the high mountains. When he had first heard that, he had thought it an extravagance beyond measure. Right now though, with his head swimming dully and his skin slicked with sweat, the idea of it was the next thing to bliss. It would wake him up too, get rid of this nagging slow feeling.

The room tilted a little as he stood and he frowned at it in annoyance, resting one hand on the wall until it stopped. Rooms had no business doing that kind of thing. He told himself to ignore it – a cold dip would take care of that too. His legs seemed to have the same problem as his head, feeling all slow and disjointed as if they did not want to wake up either. It was not far to the water though. He would feel better then.

The cold water folded itself around him like a second skin as he slipped into the pool. It did not do much to clear his head, but at least that raging heat had gone. He could feel it still, beating within him like a flame burning behind a closed door, but the water kept it at bay. Babylon. What a wretched place. And to think that he had thought of running his kingdom from here. Why in Hades was it so damnably hot? The water was cool, soothing. He hung in it and let it carry him as it would.

The cold began to sink into his bones. Alexandros could feel it, but for some reason it didn’t seem to matter. It was better than the heat, in any case – kinder and softer. It made him think of Macedon and the way a man could feel snow in the wind even in the summer. The cold was a merciful thing, the way it wrapped a man about and held him close, pulling him down into a soft slow sleep from which he would never wake. There was something to be said for that. Alexandros barely noticed that he was shivering. That odd, floating feeling was stronger now, as if his body was nothing much to do with him at all. It was not so bad, once one got used to it. It was a lot like letting go.

“Alexandros,” a voice said. “Alexandros. You can’t stay in there all night.” It was a familiar thing, that voice – as familiar as breathing. Alexandros smiled to himself where he was floating in the dark. He would know that voice even to the end of time, in his bones, in his skin, in his very soul. He opened his eyes looked towards the sound of it.

Hephaistion sat on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet in the water. For a moment he seemed to glow very bright so that it almost hurt to look at him, but then Alexandros blinked and the glow was gone, and it was just Hephaistion in a pale chiton and a warm, easy smile. There was something not quite right with that, a part of Alexandros knew, but the thought was gone before it even formed. He said, “Phai. Couldn’t you sleep either?”
“I’m not tired,” Hephaistion answered. “I don’t need to sleep.” He gave his feet an idle kick, making the water splash. “Will you come out of there?”
“Why?”
“Because,” Hephaistion pointed out, amused and patient at once. “You’re freezing. I can see you shivering from here. You get any colder and you’ll sink like a stone. You never could swim worth a damn.”
“Not like you. You swim like a dolphin.” Alexandros remembered that from their days at Mieza, playing in the wide cold pool in the Sacred Grove. Hephaistion had always had the best of him in the water, all long and sleek and graceful. There had been that time in the baths in Memphis too – gods, it was strange how clearly he could see it, even now; Hephaistion rolling into a shallow dive, his body gliding smoothly through the water, the way the light had struck off him as he broke the surface, the glide of warm wet skin against his own … Alexandros smiled, thinking of it. Still, Hephaistion was right; he was freezing. He wondered vaguely how that had happened – hadn’t he been too hot, only a moment ago? Now, though, his teeth were chattering crazily, his whole body shuddering with cold. Hephaistion held a hand out to him, half laughing.
“Alexandros. Come on, before you catch your death. You’re turning blue.”

There was still something odd here, something out of place. Alexandros wondered distantly what it was. He reached for his friend’s hand, felt it clasp his wrist in that old familiar way, warm and strong and gentle all at once. It felt very real, a part of him noted. That made him want to laugh. Of course it felt real, Hephaistion was right there after all, how else should it feel? In his head a memory shifted, flickering; a tower of flames, reaching to the sky – but then Hephaistion’s lips were against his neck, and he heard his friend’s voice murmur, “No, don’t think of that,” and the image was gone.

It was so cold. His skin seemed to scream with it, wanting to draw away from the sigh of the night air. What in Zeus’ name had he been doing, swimming in a cold plunge pool in the middle of the night? A man could catch ill from fool things like that – Alexandros had seen it happen before. At Ecbatana, Hephaistion had taken ill from less. A deeper chill sunk into him, thinking that. Hephaistion seemed to notice it, and smiled that easy, gentle smile again.
“Idiot. Why do you do these things to yourself? Here. Let me help.”

There was a long low couch set along the wall, looking out over the plaza below and the wide city walls. Hephaistion took him to it, his bare feet soundless over the cool of the tiles. Or maybe they were not soundless at all, and Alexandros’ teeth were simply chattering too loudly for him to hear. He felt his friend drawing him down onto the couch, setting his arms about him, pulling him into a comfortable embrace. He let himself fall into it gratefully, feeling the warmth of Hephaistion’s body seeping into him in the same way that sun could seep into a stone. His skin, that had gone the same hard dull white as marble in the marble in the moonlight, tingled and sparked where Hephaistion touched him. It almost hurt, but it was a good clean pain that left comfort in its passing. The chill began to ease, both inside of him and out. He leaned back against Hephaistion’s chest, listening to the slow steady drone of his friend’s heart beating, feeling the warmth of his hands and his breath against his skin. Something inside him seemed to sigh and shift, like a hand unclenching about his heart. Oh gods, he needed this. This was what he had been missing, ever since … ever since …. He thought of Ecbatana again, and seven black walls. It meant a death. His mind wanted to shy away from that. He let it; it seemed easier, that way. It all seemed very distant anyway, like something remembered from another life. Or from a dream. He felt himself shudder, once, all over.

“You’re still cold.” Hephaistion reached to the foot of the couch, and pulled his cloak up over the pair of them. “There. That’s better.” The cloak was good honest wool, dyed in the lighter of the Tyrean purples, almost amethyst. Alexandros recognised it – he had given it as a gift, because Hephaistion had said he liked the colour. He felt it settle over him, and the way that slow warmth spread beneath it. Hephaistion shifted, getting comfortable, settling his friend back against him again. Alexandros felt rather than heard the soft chuckle in his chest, like the rumble of a cat purring.
“This brings back memories. How long has it been since we had to share a cloak? Five years? Ten? Do you remember that old wolfskin you used to have, back in Mieza?”
“Yes.” Alexandros heard his own voice as if it were coming from a long way off. He was tired, he supposed. “I remember everything.” He did, too; they had shared their first kiss under that cloak, and discovered each other by touch in the dark. It would be in rags by now, venerable old thing that it was, but it still had its magic when Hephaistion chose to invoke it. Even the memory of it could keep a man warm. It was good to be warm. He had been so cold, lately. So very very cold. And in the temples, all the altar flames had gone out.

There was still a strangeness to this, a sense of distance, of inwardness, as if he were watching things unfold with no heed to thought or consequence. It might almost have been a dream, if it had not felt so sharply real. He asked it anyway.
“Hephaistion? Am I dreaming?”
A low laugh answered that, and a brief tightening of the arm that held him. “You always dream. You’re an incorrigible dreamer. It’s your defining flaw.”
“Yes, but right now …”
“Alexandros, what’s the matter? Does this feel like a dream to you?” A kiss fell on his shoulder; there was no mistaking that for real. No mistaking the touch of Hephaistion’s hand either, finding what was most male in him and stroking gently. Alexandros groaned softly and moved into his touch. “No,” he said. “No.” But then he thought of the strange floating feeling in his head, and the way his thoughts would not come together, and he said, “Yes.”
Hephaistion paused a moment and then kissed his neck again. Alexandros thought that he might have sounded a little sad. “Well, at least it is a good dream.”
“I dreamed before,” Alexandros heard himself say. “I dreamed you … you were sick, and then you died, and I was all alone. I dreamed you left me. It was so real, I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. As real as this.”
“Dreams can seem real sometimes,” Hephaistion said quietly, “and still be only dreams.” Alexandros considered that. There was still the warmth at his back, still that easy touch on his sex, with that steady ache growing behind it. Still real. It was all the comfort from the cold he needed.
“You’re not … you didn’t leave me.”
“Herakles’ balls!” Hephaistion gave him a playful shove. “What a thing to say! Of course I didn’t leave you, Xandros. I never will. I’m right here, aren’t I?
Well. That was true. There was no denying that. Alexandros wondered why he should want to. He glanced back to his friend and grinned suddenly, white and wicked. “Prove it.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Oh,” said Alexandros, flexing into his friend’s slowly stroking hand. “Yes.”
“Well,” Hephaistion growled, all edged with hunger and laughter in equal measures. “Let me prove it, then.”

It did not last long. Hephaistion knew what he was about, and Alexandros was in no mood to resist him. For a while there was nothing in the world for Alexandros but the shivery warmth of Hephaistion’s mouth on his throat, and the high wonderful ache of his hand on his sex. Then Hephaistion’s hand dipped and squeezed, and he did something clever with his fingers, and Alexandros felt his body pull in on itself and suddenly pulse outward, and he barely had time to hear his friend whisper “Gods, Xandros, I love you,” before it broke over him and pulled him down into the dark.

*****

They found him the next morning, sleeping in the bath house on the long low couch. He didn’t wake when they called his name, and his chest rose and fell in jagged, painful catches. His fever was less than it had been – or maybe it was only that it was cooler out here, with the breeze coming over the water to play on his skin. In any case, he was more comfortable than he had been in days, out here. The doctors glanced at one another with bleak, knowing eyes, and said that he might as well be left where he was. There was nothing they could do now. It would not be long.

Bagoas, who had woken in a panic to find him gone, stayed behind when the doctors had left. His dreams had been odd, last night. He thought that he heard Alexandros talking to someone, and once or twice calling Hephaistion’s name. That was not strange in itself; delirium did that to him, and that deep savage grief that even now cut at him like knives. What was odd, and what had left Bagoas cold, was that he was sure that he had heard someone answer, sure that he had heard a voice he could not mistake saying, “I never left you, I never will.” Hephaistion’s voice, that had been, as clear as day though the man was nothing but ashes and memory, all burned to dust under the Babylon sky.

Alexandros stirred and muttered something that was half a sigh and half a groan. Bagoas lifted the cloth from the bowl, wrung it out, and laid it against the king’s forehead. It seemed to quiet him; he lapsed back into those long slow hitches of breath. The doctors had said only to make him comfortable, and to pray. Bagoas was doing both, as best he as he could.

Bagoas’ eyes were drawn to the cover that lay over the king’s body. It was oddly familiar, and out of place. He knew everything that the king owned by heart – this was not something of his. It was not even a blanket, it was a long cloak of good dyed wool in the light purple of Tyre. Hephaistion’s cloak. Bagoas stared at it long and hard, then looked away.

I never left you, I never will.

Wherever he was now, he would not have long to wait.

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 14:27:36 GMT

This was written in about an hour several months ago. I don't like it much, but that's just me. In any case, it belongs here too. I can't remember where it was posted before, but apologies to those who have already seen it.

Title: A Wish Come True
Summary: Bagoas learns the hard way to be careful what he wishes for.
Feedback: Yeah, sure.

The seven walls were draped in black. Once, they had shone in the sun, the bright white of the stone and the colours of the friezes that ringed the city blazing out across the plains. Only a week ago, that was … a week, or a lifetime.

It felt more like a lifetime – surely the whole of the world could not have changed so in a week. Or maybe the not the whole of the world, but only the part with him in it, as if that made a difference. A week ago, Bagoas had counted himself cursed to shared the attentions of the Great King Alexandros with that man who was the king’s own sweet friend. Now … ah, now he would have counted himself blessed to simply see the king, to be in the same room and breath the same air. Now everything had changed.

It was strange, how a man could want a thing for so long, and then when he had it, find he did not want it at all. Bagoas had never thought he would grieve, when Hephaistion died. The man had been no enemy of his, that was true – and yet Bagoas had cheerfully wished him dead anyway, more times than only once. Perhaps he had thought that with Hephaistion gone, Alexandros would turn to him to take his comfort. Perhaps he had even thought that he could take Hephaistion’s place in his master’s heart. He knew better now. He had got what he had wished for, and he knew better.

The Greeks had a saying. At worst may the gods favour you, at best may they ignore you completely. They were cruel, fickle creatures, the Greek gods – Bagoas was coming to see that, far too late. Best by far that they had ignored him, with his fool’s heart and his petty jealousies. Best that Hephaistion had lived. Without him, Alexandros was breaking apart.

He had not realised it, how much that man with his quiet eyes and his wild smile had held Alexandros together. He had always thought that the king’s strength was his own, it had never occurred to him that he might draw it from another. He had never wondered at the capacity Alexandros had to love and be loved, his need to draw it in from those around him. To Bagoas, Hephaistion had always seemed to be a shadow across the sun. Now, without him, the world seemed darker yet.

The death had been sudden. Hephaistion had been ill with some fever or other, but he had seemed to be recovering. There was no reason why he should not, after all – he was young and strong, and he had the best doctor in the army to see to him. No reason, other than the selfish, secret wish of Bagoas’ heart. And now some god had heard it, and made it true, and Bagoas’ heart felt fit to shatter into pieces.

Alexandros’ certainly had. His heart, and , some whispered, his mind as well. They had tried to keep him out, Ptolemy and the others – Bagoas had come when he heard the commotion and seen that, seen Ptolemy reach for his king and take him by the shoulders, saying something in a low voice. Alexandros’ face had gone to marble, and his eyes had rolled white in the dark of the palace corridor. His voice had been clear enough, ringing out down the hall – “No! You’re lying, you’re fucking lying!” – and Ptolemy had spoken again, and tried to lead him away. Alexandros had surged against him, shoving him back, fighting past as hands grabbed at him, forcing his way into the room. Hephaistion’s room. Perdikkas had made to go after him, but Ptolemy had stopped him. Bagoas remembered very clearly the pain on Ptolemy’s face, and the way he had said, “Let him go,” in a voice slack with despair. And then, from Hephaistion’s room, there had come a sound like a soul breaking, high and keening and full of pain, and Bagoas had known that the king’s friend was dead. He had even, gods help him, in a deep secret place been glad.

Now there was no gladness in him at all. Alexandros had stayed with his friend, clinging to the body all day as it cooled and stiffened, the once warm flesh turning to stone. They had dragged him out almost by force in the end, and Bagoas had made sure to make himself scarce for that. He found he did not want to be remembered as one of those who had taken him from his friend. It was bad enough to know in his heart that he had wished the man dead; it would be worse for Alexandros to look in his eyes and see it.

The king’s grief was nothing that Bagoas could touch. It was a fortress of its own, with Alexandros at the centre of it, howling at the sky. He had killed the doctor – the man hung on the city walls, black with crows like mourning garb. The king didn’t sleep, and then when he did, he slept too much. He neither ate or drank unless someone made him. He had cut off all his bright gold hair, leaving himself a gaunt and ragged thing, with eyes that were halfway to madness in a face that had turned to stone. When they turned on Bagoas, those eyes, they did not recognise him at all.

It made sense, Bagoas supposed, in a bleak sort of way. He would be set aside. It would be a sacrifice, of sorts – Alexandros was fond of making sacrifices. His tall lover, with his dark bronze hair and his quick laugh, would be his lover forever now, enshrined and untouchable. Nothing mortal could come close to that. Nothing mortal should. It might cause the king some pain, to turn him away, but he would do it for his friend. For Hephaistion’s shade, and because pain such as this should not be lessened with baser things.

Yet it had to be. For Alexandros’ sake, and for the sake of his kingdom. And, if truth were known, for the sake of a Persian eunuch who had gotten above himself, and wished for more than was his right to have. The gods had given him a great gift, that he had had so much of Alexandros’ regard as he did. He had been a fool to wish for more. It had come to this, in the end – and Bagoas had no idea how to undo it.

Ptolemy, he thought, might. Ptolemy had known Alexandros for long and long, since he was a child – and Ptolemy had always been kind to the pretty young eunuch who served his king. It did not take so much courage to search him out as Bagoas might have thought that it would. He would rather face Ptolemy than venture those mad blank eyes again.

He found him alone, which was to the good. Ptolemy might have been kind to him, but that was not true of all of Alexandros’ officers. Most of them had no more time for a barbarian eunuch than they would have had for a starving dog. Less, even. They might feed a starving dog, but Bagoas could count on no such kindness. They were like wolves, these men of Macedon – tall and rangy and sharp, and not at all given to softness. Bagoas had learned which of them to best avoid.

Ptolemy looked up as he came in, and even smiled a very little. It was a half hearted thing that didn’t take the sorrow from his eyes, but it made the effort to look brave.
“Bagoas. I’ve been wondering where you were. How are you?”
Bagoas could have wept. He didn’t, though – Macedonians were not much given to tears either, he had noticed … at least, not where anyone could see.
“I … I am …” What was he going to say, he was well? His world had been shattered and his own wishing had been at the heart of it, and his sweet lord was paying the price of it in full. What could he say, to that? “My lord, I fear for the king. This grief he has … this is madness.”
“Do you think so?” Ptolemy did not seem surprised, only more sad than before. “Ah, gods, Bagoas, you knew them … what did you expect?”

What did you expect? It hit him like a blow, making him flinch. He, who had thought he knew so much, who had thought himself so much a part of the king’s soul … how much he had been wrong. He had wanted Hephaistion gone, and had thought no more of it than that the king might then turn to him and spend no more nights in the tall man’s arms. He had thought, even, that the king might forget that other, and remember only him. He had been a fool, and more than a fool. He had thought of himself, only. He had never once thought of Alexandros. You knew them …

He had not, he knew, all in one moment, known them at all. Oh, he had known their names, and some of their habits – the way they had of laughing together over jokes he couldn’t see, the way they seemed to speak to each other sometimes in sentences only half finished, as if words were a thing they did not need – he had known, too, a little of what they were to each other. He had never been able to understand it – it was not the Persian way, for a man to give himself to another man like that – and yet he could see that neither of them were any the less for it. He had never been able to understand, and he did not really know them. He said so. “No. Tell me.”

Ptolemy looked at him long, in silence. He sat back on a chair, and reached without thought for his cup. It was empty; he poured the wine himself, offered some to Bagoas. The eunuch shook his head. He had gone off wine, for some reason. Hephaistion had had a cup by his bed, half drunk. No one much seemed to have noticed. Ptolemy shrugged, one sided, and set the jug down.
“Hephaistion came to Pella when Alexandros was 13. They were the same age, almost – less than a month between them. I don’t know what made them seek each other out, only that they did. I don’t think they could help it. They were friends almost at once, inseparable. Twenty years later, and nothing’s much changed … until now.” He made a sound that might have been a laugh, in happier times. Now it sounded of nothing so much as despair.
“They hunted together, went to school together,” and oh gods, he remembered them like that so clearly it hurt, he could almost see them with their heads together, planning to sneak toads into Aristotle’s bed to see how far the old man would jump. “They campaigned together, even bloody conspired against Philip together. Hephaistion did try to keep him from that, he always was the sensible one, but Alexandros … once he’s made up his mind good sense doesn’t come into it. Hephaistion never played him false, never bowed to him, never told him anything simply for the sake of currying favour. But any man might have done those things, who was a good friend.” Ptolemy sighed. He had tried to do those things himself, in as much as he could. He loved Alexandros too. The eunuch was still watching him, still and grave. Ptolemy stirred himself, tried to find the answer the boy wanted.
“When we went to Troy, they did a thing that set the pair of them in stone. You know of Achilles and Patroklos, yes? And the great war of Troy?”
Bagoas felt himself nod, not too smoothly. He knew the story, the bones of it at least; the Iliad was Alexandros’ favourite book, he had made some effort to understand it. Most of it had seemed to be about blood and death and the anger of the gods. It had left him cold. Achilles he knew though – Alexandros’ ancestor, a great hero and warrior. Ptolemy was talking; Bagoas made himself listen, though he thought he knew what was to come. He had asked for this. He made himself listen.
“Achilles had a friend who was more to him than all the world, more than life. Patroklos. When Patroklos was taken from him, Achilles’ grief was matched only by his rage. He demanded vengeance on the one who had killed him, even though he knew that it would mean the death of him. Life doesn’t mean much when the thing you have been living for is gone, I suppose. Achilles got his revenge, and died as he was destined to, and when he crossed the Styx he met Patroklos again on the other side.
“At Troy, there is a monument to them, to everything they were. We landed there, and Alexandros looked …” Gods, he had looked like divine fire made flesh that day, leaping from the ship to claim the beginnings of this new empire he had made. Ptolemy remembered wondering how Hephaistion could stand so close to him and not be turned to ash. “He looked every inch the king. And he called Hephaistion to him, in the sight of all the gods and the whole bloody army, and they paid tribute to Achilles and Patroklos. Not just because they were heroes, or because Achilles was an ancestor of Alexandros’ … they did it because of what they were to each other. Do you understand? They saw themselves echoed in that place, and they brought the legend back to life and made it their own.” Ptolemy blinked hard, and swiped at his eyes. He looked at the soft strange creature standing across from him, and shrugged again. “That’s what they were boy, one soul in two bodies. Yes, Alexandros grieves, and yes, it looks like madness. It probably is madness – he’s lost the other part of himself and Hera’s tits, I wouldn’t wish pain like that on my worst enemy. We can pray he will come through it, for all our sakes, but … for the sake of the gods boy, what did you really expect?”

He had not known them. He had not known them at all. To be so close to so much, and not see that … he had been blind, and a fool, and far too concerned with himself. He heard himself speak then to Ptolemy, heard himself say “But he must come through it, some one must help him …” and he heard too the tired, worn sigh that answered it.
“Boy,” Ptolemy said in a voice that was nine parts sorrow and the rest pain, “Bagoas, the only man who could ever help him was Hephaistion. And he’s gone. What are any of us, to that?”

What indeed, Bagoas thought, as he turned and stumbled away. What indeed.