She was very beautiful, with sparkling eyes and curly brown hair, tall, elegantly limbed – please don’t imagine her as somebody’s mother. She bore Alexander at the age of fourteen, and when I first met her – not first saw her at court at a distance, but actually stood in her presence – she was twenty-five years old, in the prime of her beauty. Her skin glowed, and she herself had a sort of radiant vitality that she passed unmarred to her son. I’ve known men who hated her, and I’ve heard magnificent tales of her debauchery, and I know some of them to be true, but let it be said – Macedonian men disliked powerful women, and she was a powerful woman who added to beauty and charm an indomitable will and an almost unbreakable bond with the king that allowed her to call the tune at court. She had many enemies.
She was fiercely protective of Alexander and her protection extended to his friends and companions, and despite having several skirmishes with her myself, as you will hear, I have to admit that she was often our ally against Philip and his companions – the older men who saw us first as children and later as dangerous rivals.
But I digress. That winter, she had got it into her head that Alexander needed a woman, and she decided that the woman of his dreams would also be a useful tool to manipulate him – this is a fine example of how her mind worked.
Anyway, she and Aristotle were adversaries. These days, it has become popular to suggest that Olympias and Philip were the enemies, but I never saw that. It seemed to me that Olympias and Philip were united in wanting their boy to grow up to be a good, solid, dependable Macedonian nobleman – something, I’d like to note, that Philip never was – and Aristotle wanted something more – a great king, an Athenian-style philosopher who had the mettle of Achilles and the mind of Socrates.
Calixeinna became their battleground. She could flirt, a talent wasted on young men, and she could play the lyre and the flute and recite poetry. She could also do geometry, and this fascinated Alexander and even Aristotle. She was not without weapons. Nor was Alexander indifferent to her. He loved beauty, and she was beautiful.
One day, Alexander was paired with me in a war game. We were to live without supplies for three days, stealing food from the kitchens or outlying farms. This was in emulation of the Spartan training, and deeply unfair – if we were caught, I would be beaten. Alexander was never beaten.
We were taken some miles from the Gardens of Midas, and our horses were taken by slaves. We were to live three days off the country, never being caught or even seen, and then we were to steal food from the manor itself, and finally, we were to surrender ourselves to Aristotle at a set time.
Alexander wanted to be paired with Hephaestion, but for whatever reason, he was paired with me. We were taken into the chora, the farmland west of the manor, and left at the edge of the forest without food, water or weapons of any kind.
Perhaps this sort of thing challenges Spartan boys. Alexander and I had a very pleasant three days. We lay up until dark, stole into the first farm and took the dog leashes off the wall of an outbuilding we’d observed at last light. We slept together for warmth and in the morning we unwove the hemp leashes and made slings. Instead of going into the chora, we went up into the hills and killed every rabbit we wanted. There were ripe berries on the bushes, and Alexander got us not one but two magnificent trout out of a stream by standing stock still in the freezing water until the trout trusted him – and then he abused that trust. He was very proud of his feat and I praised him extravagantly, both while I cooked the fish in clay and later, when my belly was full.
Trout, rabbit – by the gods, we ate more than we ate in the pages’ mess, and we slept as long as we wanted. It makes me laugh to think of it.
The second night, we were watching the stars come out. We’d been talking about war – as a generality.
‘I want to conquer Persia,’ he said, as if the stars had just told him.
My belly was full and I was sleepy. ‘I want a cup of good wine,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be an ass,’ he said. ‘Pater is not going to get the invasion together until Athens is subdued. Athens can’t be subdued until the Chersonese is cleared. The Chersonese can’t be cleared until the Athenian fleet is neutralised. The Athens fleet can’t be neutralised until Persia is conquered. Persia can’t be conquered until Athens is subdued.’
He grinned, proud of his deliberately circular logic.
‘But this season he’s campaigning in Thrace, against the Scyths and the Thracians,’ I pointed out.
Alexander laughed. ‘You know as well as I that fighting the Thracians and the Scyths is merely an extension of fighting for the Chersonese.’
I did know that, so I laughed. ‘But we don’t have to beat Athens,’ I said suddenly.
‘Why not?’ the prince asked.
‘Athens is a democracy,’ I said.
Alexander nodded. ‘Good point.’
This was, I have to add, one of the chief features of discussing anything with Alexander. He was so intelligent that when you did make a good point, he always – or almost always – understood immediately, which had the boring effect of keeping the rest of us from ever getting to explain ourselves. What I had meant was, Athens is a democracy, and sooner or later one of their factions will screw up their alliance with Persia, or lose interest in the war, and then we’ll have them. And the moment I said it, Alexander understood.
It saved time in argument, anyway. But our conversations may have seemed stilted to outsiders. The insiders – Hephaestion, Cleitus the Black, me, Craterus – we could often have whole conversations in single words.
At any rate, he lay there and finally he said, ‘Until he defeats Athens, he can’t send all his force against Persia.’
‘True,’ I said.
‘I will need you, when I go to conquer Persia,’ he said. What he meant was, Philip will never finish with Athens, and I will have a turn.
I laughed. But he sat up and put a hand on my arm.
‘I am serious. There’s only a hand of you I really trust. I need you. And to be the man I need, you must stop surrendering in contests,’ he said. ‘Here, in the woods, you kill game, you cook, you find trails, you cut bedding – you are the perfect companion, afraid of nothing, quick with good advice – but among the pages, you lie down and let lesser boys triumph over you.’
I remember a hot flush of anger – which of us likes to have our innermost failings exposed? And the temptation to tell him that I was practising, that I meant to strike back, was like the pressure of a swollen river on a dam. But I resisted.
‘Aristotle has spoken to you about it,’ Alexander said.
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice thick. I wanted to say fuck of, or words to that effect.
‘Get it done. Our time is coming.’ Alexander sounded very sure of himself, but then, he always did.
I struggled for words. But none came, and suddenly he turned to me.
‘I know where Calixeinna bathes,’ he said. Again, it was as if the stars had spoken to him.
‘You can see her naked any time you want,’ I shot out, still full of emotions.
‘Isn’t there something terribly . . . ignoble, in giving orders to a woman purchased for you by your mother?’ he said. He shrugged. ‘I love to look at her. She has the most beautiful body I have ever seen.’ He shrugged again. ‘But I will not order her to disrobe for me.’
I shook my head. ‘Give her to me, then,’ I said. I meant to be playful, but he rolled over suddenly on our bed of grass and his face was inches from mine. ‘No,’ he said coldly. ‘She is mine.’