Listening in bed, in the lee of mountain crags, in a wood at daybreak; with an arm clasping his waist or a head thrown back on his shoulder, trying to silence his noisy heart, Hephaistion understood he was being told everything. With pride and awe, with tenderness, torment and guilt, he lost the thread, and fought with himself, and caught the drift again to find something gone past recall. Bewildering treasures were being poured into his hands and slipping through his fingers, while his mind wandered to the blinding trifle of his own desire. At any moment he would be asked what he thought; he was valued as more than a listener. Knowing this he would attend again, and be caught up even against his will; Alexander could transmit imagination as some other could transmit lust. Sometimes, when he was lit up and full of gratitude for being understood, Longing, who has the power to achieve all things, would prompt the right word or touch; he would fetch a profound sigh, dragged up it seemed from the depth of his being, and murmur something in the Macedonian of his childhood; and all would be well, or as well as it could ever be.
He loved giving, to gods or men; he loved achievement here as elsewhere; he loved Hephaistion, whom he forgave for having confronted him, irrevocably now, with his human needs. The profound melancholy after, he bore uncomplaining like a wound. Nothing could be had for nothing. But if later he threw a javelin wide, or won a race by two lengths instead of three, Hephaistion always suspected him, without a word or a look to show it, of thinking that virtue had gone out of him.
In his waking dreams, from which hard clear thought emerged like iron from fire, he would lie back in the grass with his arm behind his head, or sit with his hands loose on the boar-spear across his knees, or pace a room, or stare from a window, his head tilted up and a little leftward, his eyes seeing what his mind conceived. His forgotten face told truths no sculptor would ever catch; behind dropped curtains the secret lamp flared high, one saw the glow, or a dazzling glint through a chink. At times like these, when, Hephaistion thought, even a god could scarcely have kept his hands off him, then above all he must be let alone. But this, after all, one had known from the very beginning.
Once having understood it, Hephaistion could himself achieve, in some degree, Alexander’s power to drive the force of sexual energy into some other aim. His own ambitions were more limited; he had already attained the chief of them. He was entirely trusted, constantly and deeply loved.
True friends share everything. One thing, however, he thought well to keep to himself: that Olympias hated him, and her hatred was returned.
Alexander did not speak of it; she must have known that here she would meet with rock. Hephaistion, when she passed him without a greeting, put it down to simple jealousy. It is hard for a generous lover to pity a devouring one; he could not feel much for her, even while he believed that this was all.
It took him time to credit what he saw in front of him, that she was throwing women in Alexander’s way. Surely she would hate their rivalry even more? Yet waiting-maids, visiting singers and dancers, young wives not strictly kept, girls who dared not for their lives have risked her anger, now hung about and made eyes. Hephaistion waited for Alexander to talk about it first.
One evening just after lamp-lighting, in the Great Court, Hephaistion saw him waylaid by a young notorious beauty. He flashed his eyes at her languid ones, said something crisp, and walked on with a cool smile, which disappeared at sight of Hephaistion. They fell into step; Hephaistion seeing him on edge said lightly, “No luck for Doris.” Alexander looked ahead frowning. The newly lit cressets flung deep shadows and shifting gleams into the painted stoa.
Alexander said abruptly, “She wants me to marry young.”
“Marry?” said Hephaistion staring. “How could you marry Doris?”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Alexander irritably. “She’s married, she’s a whore, she had her last child by Harpalos.” They walked on in silence. He paused beside a column. “Mother wants to see me going with women, to know I’m ready.”
“But no one marries at our age. Only girls.”
“She has her mind on it, and she wishes I had mine.”
“But why?”
Alexander glanced at him, not in wonder at his slowness but envy of his innocence. “She wants to bring up my heir. I might fall in battle without one.”
Hephaistion understood. He was impeding more than love, more than possession. He was impeding power. The cressets flickered, the night breeze blew coldly down his neck. Presently he said, “And will you do it?”
“Marry? No, I shall suit myself, when I choose, when I’ve time to think of it.”
“You’d have to maintain a household, it’s a great deal of business.” He glanced at Alexander’s creased brows and added, “Girls, you can take or leave whenever you like.”
“That’s what I think.” He looked at Hephaistion with a gratitude not quite aware of itself. Drawing him by the arm into the thick column’s shadow, he said softly, “Don’t be troubled about it. She would never dare do anything to take you from me. She knows me better than that.”
Hephaistion nodded, not liking to admit that he understood what was meant. It was true that he had begun lately to notice how his wine was poured.
A little while later, Ptolemy said in private to Alexander, “I’ve been asked to give a party for you and invite some girls.”
Their eyes met. Alexander said, “I might be busy.”
“I’d be grateful if you’d come. I’ll see you’re not plagued, they can sing and amuse us. Will you? I don’t want to be in trouble.”
It was not a custom of the north to bring in hetairas at dinner; a man’s women were his own concern; Dionysos, not Aphrodite, closed the feast. But lately, among up-to-date young men at private parties, Greek ways were admired. Four guests came to the supper; the girls sat on the ends of their couches, talked prettily, sang to the lyre, filled up their wine cups and patted their wreaths in place; they might almost have been in Corinth. To Alexander his host had allotted the eldest, Kallixeina, an expert and cultured courtesan of some fame. While a girl acrobat was throwing somersaults naked, and on the other couches understandings were being reached with covert tickles and pinches, she talked in her mellow voice about the beauties of Miletos, where she had lately been, and the oppression of the Persians there; Ptolemy had briefed her well. Once, leaning gracefully, she let her dress dip to show him her much-praised breasts; but as he had been promised, her tact was faultless. He enjoyed her company, and at parting kissed the sweetly curving lips from which she took her trade name.
“I don’t know,” he confided to Hephaistion in bed, “why my mother should want to see me enslaved by women. You’d think with my father she’d have seen enough.”
“All mothers are mad for grandchildren,” said Hephaistion tolerantly. The party had left Alexander, vaguely restless, and receptive to love.
“Think of the great men it has ruined. Look at Persia.” His somber mood being on him, he retailed from Herodotos a hideous tale of jealousy and vengeance. Hephaistion expressed a proper horror. His sleep was sweet.
“The Queen was pleased,” said Ptolemy next day, “to hear you enjoyed the party.” He never said more than enough, a trait Alexander valued. He sent Kallixeina a necklace of gold flowers.
Winter began to break. Two couriers from Thrace, the first having been delayed by swollen streams, arrived together. The first dispatch said that the King could walk a little. He had had news from the south by sea. The League army, after troubles and delays, had won a partial victory; the Amphissians had accepted peace terms, to dismiss their leaders and put in their exiled opposition. This was always a hated condition, since exiles returned bent on settling their old scores. The Amphissians had not fulfilled their agreement yet.