Hephaistion, who had never imported anything in his life before, had gone through the complex business of ordering from Athens a copy of The Myrmidons, which he gave to Alexander. Under a flower-bowed lilac beside the pool of the Nymphs, they discussed the nature and attributes of love.
It was the time when the wild beasts mated in the woods. Aristotle was preparing a thesis on their coupling and the generation of their young. His pupils, instead of hunting, hid in the coverts and made notes. Harpalos and a friend of his amused themselves by inventing far-fetched procedures, carefully doctored with enough science to secure belief. The philosopher, who thought himself too useful to mankind to risk a chill crouching for hours on wet ground, thanked them warmly and wrote all of it down.
One beautiful day, Hephaistion told Alexander he had found a vixen’s earth, and thought she was mating. An old tree near by had been uprooted in the storms, leaving a deep hollow; one could watch from there. In the late sunlight, they went into the forest, not crossing the paths of their friends. Neither remarked on this, or offered the other any reason.
The dead roots of the fallen tree sheltered the hollow; its bottom was soft with last year’s deep-drifted leaves. After some time the vixen, heavy with young, came slipping through the shadows with a partridge chick in her mouth. Hephaistion half-raised his head; Alexander, who had closed his eyes, heard the rustle of her passage but did not open them. She took fright at their breathing, and ran like a red streak into her lair.
Soon after, Aristotle expressed the wish to dissect a pregnant fox bitch; but they spared the guardian of their mystery. She grew used to them, after a while, would bring out her cubs without fear, feed them and let them play.
Hephaistion liked the cubs, because they made Alexander smile. After love he would grow silent, drifting into some private darkness; if recalled he was not impatient, but too gentle, as if with something to hide.
Both agreed that all this had been ordained by their destinies before their birth. Hephaistion still felt an incredulous sense of miracle; his days and nights were lived in a glittering cloud. It was only at these times that a shadow pierced it; he would point to the fox cubs playing, the deep brooding eyes would move and lighten, and all was well again. The pools and streams were fringed with forget-me-not and iris; in sunny copses the famous dog-roses of Mieza, blessed by the Nymphs, opened their great bland faces and spread their scent.
The young men read the signs with which their youth made them familiar, and paid up their bets. The philosopher, less expert and not so good a loser, while they all walked or sat in the rose-starred gardens looked doubtfully at the two handsome boys unfailingly side by side. He risked no questions; there was no place in his thesis for the answers.
The olives were powdered with fine pale-green flowers, whose faint sweet waxy scent blew everywhere. The apple trees let fall their false fruit; small and green the true apples began to set. The vixen led her cubs into the forest; it was time they learned the craft by which they would live.
Hephaistion, too, became a patient and skillful hunter. Till his prey first came to his lure, he had not doubted that the passionate affection bestowed on him so freely held the germ of passion itself. He found matters less simple.
Once more he told himself that when the gods are bountiful, man must not cry for more. He thought how, like the heir of great wealth who is happy at first only to know his fortune, he had gazed at the face before him; the wind-tossed hair springing loosely from its peak, the forehead already traced with faint creases by the eyes’ intensity; the eyes in their beautiful hollows, the firm yet feeling mouth, the aspiring arch of the golden eyebrows. It had seemed he could sit forever, content simply with this. So it had seemed at first.
“Oxhead wants exercise, let’s go riding.”
“Has he thrown the groom again?”
“No, that was just to teach him. I’d warned him, too.” The horse had consented, by degrees, to be mounted for the routine of the stables. But once his headstall was on with its buckles and plaques of silver, his collar worked with filigree, and his fringed saddlecloth, then he knew himself the seat of godhead, and avenged impiety. The groom was still laid up.
They rode through red new-leaved beech woods to the grassy uplands, at an easy pace set by Hephaistion, who knew Alexander would not let Oxhead stand in a sweat. At a coppice edge they dismounted, and stood looking out to the Chalkidian mountains beyond the plain and the sea.
“I found a book at Pella,” Alexander said, “last time we were there. It’s one by Plato, that Aristotle never showed us. I think he must have been envious.”
“What book?” Hephaistion smiling tested the hitch of his horse’s bridle.
“I learned some, listen. Love makes one ashamed of disgrace, and hungry for what is glorious; without which neither a people nor a man can do anything great or fine. If a lover were to be found doing something unworthy of himself, or basely failing to resent dishonor, he would rather be exposed before family or friends or anyone, than before the one he loves. And somewhere it says, Suppose a state or an army could be made up only of lovers and beloved. How could any company hope for greater things than these, despising infamy and rivaling each other in honor? Even a few of them, fighting side by side, might well conquer the world.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“He was a soldier when he was young, like Sokrates. I expect Aristotle was envious. The Athenians never founded a lovers’ regiment, they left it to the Thebans. No one’s yet beaten the Sacred Band, did you know that?”
“Let’s go in the wood.”
“That’s not the end, Sokrates ends it. He says the best, the greatest love can only be made by the soul.”
“Well,” said Hephaistion quickly, “but everyone knows he was the ugliest man in Athens.”
“The beautiful Alkibiades threw himself at his head. But he said that to make love with the soul was the greatest victory, like the triple crown at the games.”
Hephaistion stared out in pain to the mountains of Chalkidike. “It would be the greatest victory,” he said slowly, “to the one who minded most.”
Knowing that in the service of a ruthless god he had baited his trap with knowledge gained in love, he turned to Alexander. He stood staring out at the clouds, in solitude, conferring with his daimon.
Guilt-troubled, Hephaistion reached out and grasped his arm. “If you mean that, if it’s what you really want…”
He raised his brows, smiled, and tossed back his hair. “I’ll tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“If you can catch me.”
He was always the quickest off the mark. While his voice still hung in the air he was gone. Hephaistion threaded light birches and shadowy larches to a rocky scarp. At its foot Alexander lay motionless with closed eyes. Distraught and breathless Hephaistion clambered down, knelt by him, felt him for injuries. Nothing whatever was wrong. He eyed Hephaistion smiling. “Hush! You’ll scare the foxes.”
“I could kill you,” said Hephaistion with rapture.
The sunlight, sifting through the larch boughs, had moved westward a little, striking glints like topaz from the wall of their rocky lair. Alexander lay watching the weaving tassels with his arm behind his head.
“What are you thinking of?” Hephaistion asked him.
“Of death.”
“It does leave people sad sometimes. It’s the vital spirits that have gone out of one. I’d not have it undone; would you?”