Herakles held up an arm like a man trying to block a blow. His face worked, but nothing came out, and then he whirled, crashing into a slave and spilling wine everywhere, and fled from the room.
Banugul applauded. She sat up, clapping. Terrified slaves hurried to clean the floor, and still she applauded.
‘Well done, Stratokles. And don’t think that I don’t see right through you.’
Stratokles shook his head. ‘As I am making no attempt to dissimulate, you don’t have to “see” through me. I want him to come to his senses, get out of his mother’s boudoir and come out into the world.’
Banugul laughed. ‘I think you have come on too strong, my friend. He will never forgive you.’
Lucius shook his head. ‘He used to worship Stratokles. I’d watch the two of them at the camp fire when we were coming here — when was that? The year of Gaza? Yes?’ He looked into her eyes and lost the thread of his discourse.
Stratokles almost snorted wine through his nose. ‘Lucius, come back,’ he said.
Later still, Stratokles lay on a wide bed with good linen sheets, and Banugul lay in the circle of his sword arm, her head pillowed on the heavy muscles of his bicep. ‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘Why do you never come? Did that harlot at Heraklea love you better?’
Stratokles smiled at the ceiling — at the gods.
‘Amastris of Heraklea never made love to me in any way,’ he said. ‘I served her. She betrayed me, arranged for my death, and failed.’ He shrugged, a comfortable movement that caused him to appreciate her body all the more. ‘I used her as well, my dear. And I cannot serve Athens as your bed-mate. Athens cares nothing for Hyrkania.’
She lay for a little while. ‘Must I tell you again that I missed you?’ she said.
He kissed her — not passionately, as he had a few moments before, but lightly, with friendship. ‘As I missed you — not every day, but deeply, at times.’
‘And other times you forgot I existed? And you the ugliest man in creation?’ she spat, but there was no real malevolence in her words — going through the motions than aiming to cut.
He laughed. ‘How often have you thought of me?’
‘At least once a year. And whenever I see a particularly ugly old goat.’ She laughed into his chest.
And then they were kissing, slowly at first, exploring forgotten territory, and then faster and deeper as they discovered more things they had forgotten, or only laid aside — the taste of the inside of his mouth and the sharpness of his teeth, the warm heaviness of her breasts and the texture of her nipples …
Stratokles ceased to plot, or even to plan, and the couch became, for a while, the circle of the world, her hair the edge of the universe.
‘If you take him away,’ she said, much later, after they’d surprised themselves by making love twice, like youths, ‘if you take him away, I’ll have nothing.’ She didn’t sob, or seduce. Her words had a chilling truth to them.
‘He needs to be in the world.’ Stratokles sighed.
‘No!’ she said, and rolled on top of him. ‘Aphrodite, I’ll be sore in the morning, and my cheeks are rubbed raw from your beard. But no — he does not need to be in the world. You need him in the world. You need him as a pawn in your revenge.’
Stratokles watched her in the lamplight — the kindest light to all women, young and old — and she was magnificent, and again he silently thanked the gods for this, for this woman, for a rest from his endless life of struggle. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s true. I want to spring him on Cassander and watch him sweat.’
She lay back down. ‘That’s better.’ She stretched languorously. ‘If we could manage a third time, I would feel quite young, I think.’
He rubbed a knowledgeable thumb around her nipple and licked the side of her ear. ‘You’ll be the one doing all the work,’ he said. ‘The last time I made love three times in a night, I was here. And ten years younger.’
She laughed — and her laugh alone took him halfway to arousal. ‘I do believe that was the nicest compliment you’ve ever paid me.’
‘What, better than “she’s not half as beautiful as you”?’ Stratokles laughed into her neck, and they wrestled for a moment, he seeking to pin her with his legs and she seeking to roll atop him — and then he lay still as she began to stroke him with her hands, bit his shoulder.
‘Well, well,’ he said quietly into the storm cloud of her hair.
‘Why didn’t you tell me she was your woman!’ Lucius said bitterly. They were exercising in the yard. Stratokles showed the marks of his night, nor had he any interest in hiding them. In fact, he felt twenty years younger.
Stratokles blocked the wooden sword with his cloaked arm, stepped to the left, and rocked back, ready to kick. Lucius changed his guard. They sparred together so often that most of what they did was to show each other their guards — they’d long since run out of surprises, like an old married couple with their fights.
‘She is not my woman. She is very much her own woman,’ Stratokles said. ‘And if she had wanted it, she would have been in your bed last night, nor would I have been allowed to protest in the slightest.’
‘She is a harlot?’ Lucius asked.
‘She is the queen of this little country. She is the daughter of a great Persian nobleman — she was Alexander’s mistress, and perhaps Antigonus’s as well. She has survived when all about her, her family and friends have died. Her son is the last get of Alexander on the circle of the world, and he is only alive because she and I are both brilliant plotters — and because Antigonus thinks the boy is no threat.’ Stratokles shrugged. ‘Besides, I thought you knew that we … were friends.’
‘Damn me, you are a close one, Athenian.’ Lucius shrugged. ‘She is remarkable. Like a great lady in my country — very like them. You are not jealous?’
‘Who could be jealous of sharing the sun?’ Stratokles said. ‘The heat warms us both, and cares as much for our desires.’
‘Well put!’ Banugul said. She clapped. ‘You are both so elegant naked.’
Lucius made a face, and whirled, but when he caught her eye he was hers, and no amount of discomfort could hide his feelings. Still, his flush went from the middle of his stomach to his hair.
Stratokles feinted and tapped his man on the head. ‘Pay attention, Lucius,’ he said.
‘Fuck you,’ Lucius said, quietly. But then he stepped back and saluted. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said. ‘And you’ve found some sort of youth potion.’
‘Perhaps,’ Stratokles agreed, with a grin. And hit him again.
A week later, Stratokles rode west, with ten men-at-arms furnished by the queen, all Macedonians, as well as Lucius and Herakles. The young man rode out with armour on his back, a fine sword at his side, a beautiful gilt helmet with a pair of eagle wings at his saddle bow, and four servants to attend him. Behind him, his mother waved once from the gate, saw his raised hand in answer, and then went calmly inside to see to the business of her little kingdom. She was too proud to cry in public.
Stratokles didn’t try to kiss her in public, but they’d already exchanged words. She was angry, and he understood, but took her son anyway.
But cry she did, night after night. Nor was she weeping for the loss of her lover. He did this — he rode away to conquer the world, and came back when he was beaten, and rode away again. What she loved best in him was that she could heal him.
But her feelings for her son were fifty times as strong, or a hundred times. And after her fifth night of sleepless tears, she dragged herself to her shrine to Aphrodite, and threw herself on the floor — a full prokinesis — and swore to the goddess.
‘Blessed Lady of the Cyprian Shore, foam born, goddess of lovers — may my son live, and thrive, out there in the world! And if Stratokles the Athenian leads him out to his death, may he, in turn, die, and all those who caused his death — my curse on them, and him! And if he lives, may he go from glory to glory — but first, Lady, let him live!’ She wept, and crawled to the foot of the goddess’s statue. ‘Let him live! Let him have his glory and live!’