Part the First (apparently!)
Well, who bloody knew. Apparently, you can cause this LJ thing to do a full on dummy-spit by dumping in a large post. And apparently, 12 000 words plus, is considered a large post. So it ate it. Me? So not impressed.
So here we are, second attempt. This is, I am informed, to be described as fanfic. Which is fair enough, since there exists in the sources no indication that Bagoas ever got left behind in the desert (or for that matter, that he was even there as far as I can tell). The idea for that? All Renault. Kudos to her, credit where it's due and all. However, my_cnnr made the request for fiction based upon this episode from Renault, and this is what jumped into my head. Yes, sometimes 12 000 word stories do just jump into my head. Yes, I know that's weird. What can I say.
Right. So. Posting in two parts, to make LJ happy and to give your scrolling hands a break.
Title: Saviour. Shut up, crappy titles are my trademark.
Rating: General, I guess.
Summary: Some things are worth going back for.
Feedback: Hit me.
It was dust and stone and death, and it seemed to Hephaistion that they had been marching through it forever. Or it seemed that way to a part of him, at least; the rest of his mind, the part that concerned itself with logic and laws and things being as they should, knew that that could not be so. It knew that there had been a time in his life when he had lain in green grass beneath a spreading tree, when there had been water and wine for the wanting, and food too, and his horses had tossed their heads up and run, all bright and glossy and strong. Now there was precious little food, and only what water they could find, and his horses stumbled along as he did, footsore and ragged. He found himself holding to those thoughts of green and shade and bright glossy horses - dreams, memories, whatever they were - on the long dark marches from dusk to dawn. In the night, men lay down beside the column and died while their fellows went by, heads down, eyes set and strained, setting one foot in front of the other, and the other, and the other, until the last weak cries had gone away.
Hephaistion did not listen to the cries, or stop for them. No one did. The was the Makran that they marched through, a great waste of desert fierce enough to flay the skin off a man’s bones and never even notice it had done it. If a man fell out, if he was too weak to carry himself through, then he was lost. In the beginning they’d gone back for stragglers, dragged them along, men nursed and cajoled and bullied by their friends into marching on, one more rise, one more night. Now, though, no one had the strength to spare. A man carried himself, and that was all. It was all any of them could do to keep moving forward in the night when the sand tugged at their boots, dragging them down, and soft cool voices seemed to sigh from the land, and to rest a while, only to rest and let the march go on without them, seemed the sweetest thing in the world. Hephaistion had heard those voices himself in his own head, soothing and sane and horribly tempting. Stop, they had said. Rest. What matter, if they march on without you? Rest a while, that’s all, and follow on when you’re done. No harm to rest, to stop, to lay here in the sand and watch the stars until the sun comes back to swallow the world whole. He’d set his mind and his will and all of himself against the pull of it, and the voices had stopped coming to him after that. They had frightened him though, and not only for what they said. What frightened him most in the darkest hours of the night, was how much he wanted to do just whatever they told him.
He would not, though. He had never been one for giving up, for taking the easy way out of things. There were reasons for that, in his life beyond this place. His pride, that had never let him sell himself short, for one. His duty, and tasks that never seemed to be done. His innately stubborn nature, that made defeat prick at him like a sharp stone his boot. Those things … and one other thing, the one best reason he had for anything at all; Alexandros. Who had brought them into this place out of temper and pique and his own peculiar refusal to know that a thing was impossible, and who would, impossible or not, lead them out. Hephaistion knew that in the way he knew the sun would rise - and the sun in this cursed place always rose, hot and hard and unforgiving - without pause for doubt or fear. It might have been pure blind faith, or simple instinct, or it might have been something more. It didn’t matter. Alexandros was as he was, and he could no more do things the easy way than Hephaistion could.
He was, in fact, doing this harder than any of them, even if only Hephaistion knew it. The wound he had taken scarce months past, that had come so close to killing him, troubled him still. More than troubled him, in fact; it hurt him to breath, to move, made him gasp for air and catch at his side when he thought that no one was looking. Hephaistion could have told him to save himself the bother - anyone looking at him would know what he was feeling. He looked like a man half dead. What weight he’d had, had dropped from him, leaving him sharp and stretched thin; dust grimed his skin, dulled his bright gold hair. Pain left lines and shadows on his face, caught in hisses between his teeth and in the sudden flatness of his eyes. He still shone though, glowing in the long dark of the night marches like a torch, sparking gold in the white hot sun. He still led them, and they still followed. He was still and always their Alexandros, even when he was killing them and killing himself for them, and they loved him for it to a man.
Hephaistion shook his head, driving those thoughts away. He did that, when he was tired or when there was no other thing around to stop him; he thought too much, made too much of things. It was only Alexandros doing what he always did, after all; he had always shone, and he always led from the front, and he always did a round of the camp after a march, seeing to his men before he saw to himself. Not killing himself; not killing anyone.
Another night march, another small, half silted water hole and camp set at dawn. There was some bustle about it - men struggling with their shelters, setting their tents or makeshift shades, collecting water, dicing, divvying up food. They were tired to dropping, but there were tasks to be done, a camp to be put to order before they could rest. Hephaistion, who had spent half of his life in one military camp or another and who knew the importance of discipline and routine, had seen to that himself, setting rosters and duties and snapping at men who failed of them. Never mind if they all hated him for it; it would help to keep them alive. His eyes went to the men standing guard at the water hole, and the string of others filling skins and jars and dispatching them about the camp. He nodded to himself. He’d had to set guards on the water - men rushed it otherwise, fouled it. Hephaistion couldn’t rightly blame them, but it didn’t mean he would put up with it, either.
Alexandros had stopped to watch the water gatherers too. He was standing lopsided, a little hunched, favouring his wound; he straightened when he saw Hephaistion looking.
“I’m fine,” he said, more sharply than he needed to. Hephaistion only gave him a look and did not respond. He was tired of that argument anyway. Alexandros sighed. “I’m fine,” he said, in a softer voice. “You’ve done a good job, with this. The men all know their tasks.”
“The men have always known that. It’s just a matter of seeing no one forgets. It helps though, I think.” Hephaistion paused, squinted at the horizon where the sun was rising, turning the sky to bronze. It would turn the day into a forge, before it got too much higher. “It’s better for them to be doing something, than only lying in the sand waiting for the next march to come. Men give up, that way.”
“Yes. Doing is better.”
Hephaistion caught the bitter edge to that. He gave his friend a sharp glance.
“You’re doing everything you can.”
“It’s not enough though, is it.”
“It’s more than anyone else could do.” Hephaistion made a sound that was scorn and frustration and pain put together. “Gods Xandros, with that wound you should barely be walking, let alone marching through a bloody desert at the head of an army. And even when you can hardly breath - don’t bloody argue, I’ve seen you hold your chest and gasp like a fish, do you think I’m blind as well as a fool? - you still do more work than any other two men in this camp put together.”
Alexandros looked for a moment as if he might argue anyway, but then he shook his head and gave a wry smile. “Only two? Ah, well, I knew I was slacking.”
“Idiot.” Slacking, he called it. “You don’t have to take everything on yourself, you know. You shouldn’t try. You can’t carry it all.”
Alexandros did not say anything to that, but his eyes flashed, once, hard. Hephaistion sighed to himself. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Aloud, he said, “Come on. Those lads of yours will have finished with your tent by now, we should eat.”
“A strip of dried meat and hard bread.” Alexandros wrinkled his nose at the thought. “I’d kill for a fresh, crisp apple.”
“Right now,” Hephaistion told him seriously, “you’d have to get in line for that. Behind me. King or not.”
The camp was starting to settle now, men sprawled about their shelters, eyeing the climbing sun with a sullenness that bordered on hate and picking at the little food they had. Rations were tight and getting tighter, even with all the men they’d lost. Hephaistion did not like to think of that, but he’d been too many years organising supplies for this expedition or that for it not to prick at him now, that there was not enough food to go around. Not enough of anything to around, really, and no one to blame for it. The fleet had failed them, been sunk or attacked or waylaid somehow - no supplies came from the ships. They’d turned inland to hunt for water, and found it … but no foraging for the animals, no hunting for the men. Then the flood that had torn away half the camp, and most of what was left of the baggage … Hephaistion hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry over that. A flash flood in a desert where they were dying of heat and thirst, and now they were starving as well. The gods, he thought, had an odd sense of humour sometimes. He’d settled that night for cursing the air blue and salvaging whatever he could. He was glad now that he had. It was all that they had left.
Alexandros paused to talk with the men as he passed, a word here, a joke there. He’d always done that, always shown them he shared in their hardships, always remembered their names. Hephaistion, who could keep the details of three separate baggage trains and the plans for a new city in his head and never skip a beat, had never stopped being amazed at just how many names Alexandros knew. Not just their names, either - who they were, what they had done, their pride and their strength. His men had fought impossible battles for him because of that before now, and won him impossible victories. Hephaistion only hoped they would not stop now.
A cluster of men sat near the slanting shade of their shelter, listening to one of their fellows play a song on a sweet toned flute. No one sang; they only passed a waterskin back and forth and watched the sun climb as the music played. Alexandros stopped to listen too; Hephaistion, who had not been watching, nearly walked into his back. One of the men, an old campaigner with a scar that hooked under his eye, looked up and nodded a greeting to the king and his friend.
“Morning to you, sir. Looks like being another scorcher, I’d say.”
“That it does, Antigenes. Good drying weather.”
The man grunted. “Aye sir, if we had anything left in need of drying out I’d say it would be.” He lifted the waterskin, offered it to his king.
“True enough.” Alexandros hunkered down on his haunches, took the skin and swallowed, handed it back. “You’re bearing up?”
“Course we are sir. Been through worse on the drill field than this, ain’t we lads?”
“It’s better’n India at any rate, sir,” a second man put in. He was younger than the first, his nose peeling from sunburn. “At least we ain’t wet all the time. My old father used to say, a man can cope with most any hardship sir, so long as he don’t have to do it with wet feet.”
“Ah.” Alexandros nodded. Mention of India was a raw wound for him still, as raw as the mass of pain in his chest, but he didn’t let that show. They needed something, these men. If talk was their only comfort, let them have it. “A wise man, your father. I remember him when I was a lad, bawling me out for not oiling my horse’s tack well enough.”
“Aye sir, he were the same with all of us lads too. A little care’s better spent than a lot of work for nought, he’d say. He were right, too.”
The man with the flute had stopped playing. He didn’t speak, only sat where he was and turned the thing in his hands. Alexandros clapped his shoulder.
“That was well played, Demetrios. Better than your brother’s singing, by any lights! Where has he got to, anyway?”
Demetrios did not answer at once. Hephaistion saw how Antigenes grimaced and looked away, and felt his breath catch in his throat. Oh. Gods, no. He took half a step to Alexandros, then stopped. What did he think he was going to do?
“Dead sir. Last night. Just laid himself down coming across that field of stones and wouldn’t get up.” Demetrios’ voice was flat and dull. There was no anger in him, and no real grief yet either. He was numb, that was all. So many men had died out here. His brother was only one more. Alexandros shut his eyes briefly, his face going tight.
“Demetrios. I’m sorry.”
“Tried to get him up sir, but he weren’t having none of it. It were like he just … he just … gave out. He just said ‘No Demos, this is far enough I reckon,’ and he just laid himself down, and that were that. Then he were dead.” The man did not weep, though from the dead look in his eyes that was still to come. Alexandros squeezed his shoulder roughly, still with that tight look to his eyes, to all of him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it. “I’ll see … I’ll grieve for him. I’m so sorry.” He levered himself to his feet, stared briefly down at his hands, then he turned abruptly and walked away.
*****
In his tent, the tightness fled. Hephaistion had been right about the pages, they’d had the thing set and readied for their king, with food and drink waiting. Alexandros thanked them curtly, then chased them off. It did not take much when he looked as he did now, all tense and quick and fierce, like a falcon about to strike. Hephaistion was not fooled though; he knew what lay under it. He was not surprised at all when the flap fell down behind the last of the Pages, and Alexandros sank to his cot with his head in his hands and moaned like his heart was hurting.
Hephaistion said, “Alexandros.”
“Too many dead,” Alexandros muttered into his hands without looking up. “For no good reason. Too many. Gods, I hate this miserable place. I wish we’d never come here.”
Hephaistion, who wished the same thing, only shrugged. “No point in wishing. Done is done, Xandros. You know that.”
“And dead is dead.” The king looked up sharply, his eyes hard and reddened from dust and grit and glare. “And you … you’re wrong.”
Hephaistion raised an eyebrow at that, and poured out a little wine, mixing in water to make it go further. There was not much wine left. A jar, maybe three. He put a cup into Alexandros’ hands, watched him drink in that smooth, thoughtless way he had of doing things. Dragging a camp stool over with one foot, he dropped himself onto it. “Wrong?”
“I can take it all on myself.” Quiet, that, but it had the sound of stone. Alexandros was not going to be easy on himself, here. “You said I shouldn’t try, but I don’t have a choice. I can carry it all. I have to. I’m the king.” He paused, took another swallow without tasting it, and raised those hot, hard eyes again. There was anger in them, and pain, but none of it was for the man sitting across from him. It was all for himself. “I brought us here. For no better reason than that they thought it too hard to go on, and damn it all Phai, we were so close! If they’d only just been strong, given me another month, two at the most …” They hadn’t though, his men who had followed him out of Macedon and across the world. They had stood on the banks of an Indian river and stalled in the traces, and no goad in the world had been able to spur them to go further, not even the ocean at world’s end. Alexandros was a long way from forgiving them for it, Hephaistion knew. He nodded, slowly.
“Ah,” he said. “So, you know you’re doing that, then.”
“Yes I know it!” Alexandros threw back the last of his wine, flung himself to his feet and started to pace. Hephaistion flinched for his sake, thinking of his wound.
“Alexandros, stop that.”
“Don’t bloody cosset me, I don’t need it.” He flung it over his shoulder, like stones. “I brought us here Hephaistion, and I know to the last bloody inch why, and if the men are paying the price for it then why should they be the only ones to feel it?”
Hephaistion didn’t think that they were the only ones. He had proof of that right in front of his face. In any case, he wasn’t sure if the men did not deserve this, or at least some of it. It had been their own folly that had brought them here after all, when they had turned away from the mad bright creature that led them and demanded to go home, like so many sullen children. Their folly, and Alexandros’ burning temper, which was a folly all of its own. He didn’t say that to Alexandros though. He only said, in a mild, sure voice, “Yes, you brought us here. And you’ll bring us out.”
“Gods, listen to you.” Alexandros threw him a look all flat edged with scorn. He was panting already with the effort of prowling, his breath catching with it. “Do you ever get tired of being so bloody sure?”
“Of you? No.” Hephaistion scowled back. “Would you rather I told you that this is hopeless, and you were a fool to bring us here?”
“At least that would be true!”
“Shut up,” Hephaistion told him bluntly. “They’re both true. You are a fool, and you will get us out. Now sit down before you open that bloody wound again. There’s food here. You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” All the same, he stopped pacing. Hephaistion shrugged.
“Eat anyway.” He picked up a chunk of hard bread, tossed it to his friend. Alexandros caught it automatically, eyed it dubiously, then gave his friend a long, complicated look. Hephaistion only took a chunk of bread for himself and gnawed at the edges. Alexandros sucked in his breath, winced as it spiked in his chest, then let it out slowly. He sat on his cot again, toying with his food. It was nine parts grit, in any case.
“It’s not about Demetrios’ brother, is it.”
Alexandros snorted at that. He knew what Hephaistion was doing. It was what he always did; let him talk himself out, made him say the hard things. It worked too - such a simple thing, but it was usually better, after. Alexandros had long since given up fighting it, or resenting it too for that matter. It was only how well they knew each other, after all. He tore a piece off his bread, rolled it around in his mouth until it was moist enough to chew. “No, of course it’s not. I hardly knew the man, except that he was a laggard and when he sang he sounded like a stepped on cat. But that’s not the point. Is there more water? This bread might as well be made of sand, there’s more grit in it than meal.”
“Sand gets into everything, you know that. Here.” Hephaistion poured, handed him another cup. Alexandros tore another lump off the bread, dipping it in the water to soak.
“It’s just … it all comes back to me. It always does. I brought us here. For what? Pride? Revenge?” He sighed, gave his head a small shake, tipping it to the door. “Those men out there, they’ve never refused me before that. Not once, in so many years. And this is how I repay them. They’ve given me everything they had, time after time. I’ve watched them die for me, from wounds in battle, from illness, from snake bites and bad water, from every damned thing. And every one, every bloody one, has meant something. Every one of them died going forward. Until now. Now, they fall like dead wood in winter, and we leave them where they lie and march on. Demetrios out there - I was going to tell him I’d see to it that his brother got a decent burning. But I can’t, can I.” The bread was gone now, and so was the anger in Alexandros’ eyes. Only the pain remained. It made Hephaistion think of a fire burned down to ash, bleak and empty. “They’ve crossed half a world for me Phai, and made me king of most of it, and I’ve brought them to this place that’s killing them by inches and I can’t even give the dead their rites.”
A shudder went up Hephaistion’s spine at that; he made a sign of warding. All those unquiet dead … it didn’t bear thinking about. “The dead won’t hold it against you. Not the living, either. They love you, Xandros. A man only needs eyes to see that. You’re their talisman, you always have been. They know you’ll bring them out of here.”
“I pray you’re right.” Alexandros scrubbed a hand over his face and let his shoulders slump. He looked like a man half out on his feet. “I’ll sacrifice for the dead, when we get out of this place. That’s something, at least.”
“It is.” Hephaistion did not point out that Alexandros had said when they got out, not if. He didn’t think he needed to. Alexandros had never been much able to conceive of defeat; why should this be different? “It’s something. But you should rest now, if we’re to march tonight.”
“I thought I told you not to cosset me.” There was no heat in that, though. Alexandros only flicked his friend a wry smile. “I get enough of that from Bagoas, I don’t want it from you too.”
Hephaistion snorted a laugh and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t compare me to that puppy. At least I don’t moon around after you like a lost lapdog looking for a hand to lick.”
“No, that’s true. You just tell me I’m being an idiot, and refuse to let me get away with it.” Alexandros bit back a yawn, and rubbed at his face again. Personally, he thought that Hephaistion was more like one of his stallions than a puppy; strong, honest, demanding respect and earning it. He was not going to say so, though. Some things were better without words. He stretched his shoulders out carefully, mindful of the places it hurt, and let his eyes fall shut. “Oh, by Herakles’ balls, I’m just so tired.”
“Sleep then,” Hephaistion said, with maddening sense. “Idiot.” He drained the last mouthful from his cup, and cast a longing look at Alexandros’ cot from behind it. He was tired too, but there was work to be done and at least he wasn’t doing this with the weight of an army on his shoulders and every second breath stabbing like a knife. He would sleep later. “Do you need your Pages to get you to bed, or can you manage?”
“I can cope with getting my boots off by myself, I think,” the king said dryly. He had already laid his belt aside. “Speaking of Bagoas, I wonder where he’s got to. I usually can’t move in here for his fussing, when we make camp.”
“I haven’t seen him. He’ll be lurking about somewhere, he never goes far. I’ll ask one of the lads to look for him.”
Alexandros grunted. “Do that. I can manage with getting my own boots on and off, but I could do with a rub down and the boy has good hands. Every muscle I have is aching.”
It was a sign of how bad it was, that Alexandros would admit to pain even in such a small way as that. Hephaistion, who knew him well enough to understand that, only nodded. It was getting warm in here, and would get warmer yet as the day went on. The Pages would roll up one of the sides to let air in - that would help a little. Hephaistion moved to the door, then paused and looked back to his friend, sprawled now on his cot. He looked worn and sun-scorched and weary, the marks of a long and grinding pain on him even at rest. Watching him, Hephaistion felt something in his chest go tight. Gods, that man … He swallowed it away, pushed his voice past the sudden knot in his throat.
“Alexandros?”
His friend did not speak or open his eyes, barely twitched an eyebrow in response, but Hephaistion knew he was listening. “You’re wrong, you know.”
That opened Alexandros’ eyes for him. He’d never liked to be told he was wrong. Hephaistion went on. “You don’t have to carry it all yourself. I’m here. I can carry some of it for you.”
For a moment Alexandros said nothing to that, only looked at him long and steady in the dimness. Then he smiled, soft and sweet. His voice the same, a private thing, pitched only for his friend to hear. “I know, Phai. You can.” A pause, and then softer again, “You do.”
Hephaistion bowed his head to that, to the words and to what was behind them, then went out into the day to carry what he could.
*****
There was work and more to be done. Hephaistion gave himself the worst of it. He had never liked killing horses, but he liked watching them suffer slowly even less. There were half a dozen of them on the point of foundering, too weak for another march; there was no other thing for it. He could make it quick and clean, at least. He had appropriated one of Alexandros’ Pages, a lad who knew what he was about with a flaying knife, and set him in charge of butchering the carcasses. Meat was meat, wherever it came from. Half of the baggage animals had gone that way. There were guards set now on the cavalry mounts.
Hephaistion was blood to the elbows when the second Page came up. The lad was wearing a wide brimmed hat that kept the sun off his face, but he was sweat damp all over from the heat. At Hephaistion’s feet, a slow fat fly buzzed about the dull eye of the dead horse in the sand. Hephaistion waved it off; it droned its way to the soak of blood in the dry earth instead. Hephaistion sighed and scowled and looked to the Page.
“Amyntas. What is it?”
“Sir. It’s the boy, sir. The little Persian, Alexandros’ eunuch? You asked me to find him, but … well, he’s not in camp, sir.”
Sweat was trickling down Hephaistion’s brow. He swiped it away with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of blood instead, and frowned at the young Page. “What do you mean, not in camp? Of course he’s in camp. Where else in all Hades would he go?”
“I don’t know, sir. Only, we can’t find him.” Amyntas seemed to think about it briefly, then he blinked and said, “Lagos said he saw him on the march last night, sitting by a rock. Said he asked what he was doing, sitting there, but he got no answer. Sir,” and the lad paused again, a grim sound this time, “Sir, I haven’t found anyone who’s seen him since then. I don’t think he made the march, sir.”
Hephaistion swore under his breath and bent to rub his hands clean on the dead horse’s hide. He thought about what he had been told. The fact that no one remembered seeing him did not mean the eunuch was not in camp. The boy crept about like a cat, after all, hiding himself away in corners and in places where he should not have been. Besides, he was easy to overlook - no one put much effort into keeping track of slaves and servants and tame dancing boys on a march like this. If he’d decided to shirk his duties, skive off with some pretty trooper with spare coin or trinkets or whatever it was that won his fancy, he would know better than to be obvious about it. Hephaistion was not sure if he could believe that of the boy though - he’d meant what he’d said about lost lapdogs, and Bagoas had always seemed devoted to the king. If he were in the camp, he’d surely have been sniffing about in Alexandros’ tent, getting underfoot and shooting Hephaistion those odd, glittering glances when he thought no one was looking, for all the world like a lapdog watching a war hound with a bone. If he was out there in the desert though … ah, merciful gods, if he was out there, he was dead - or as good as. No one went back for stragglers. No one. Hephaistion cast his eyes up to the sky, faded and distant with the heat, and the sun in it like a hammer. No one went back.
Except … he remembered Alexandros, and how he had slumped in despair with those bleak, empty eyes and said, I can’t even give the dead their rites, and he felt a quiet pain go through him like a cold wind. Too much. For one man, who always wanted to carry it all, some things were too much. He looked back to the Page, sharp and sure.
“Make certain. Search the camp. Then if you still can’t find him, bring Lagos to me. I’ll be with my horses.” Then, as Amyntas only stood there blinking some more, “Well, go on boy! Get to it! Now!”
Gods, did he have to do everything himself?
*****
They had not found him. Hephaistion wished he could have been more surprised. He’d managed to get the blood off his hands, though he still reeked of it even to his own senses. His horses had not liked that at all, but they were used to trusting him even so; they’d stood quietly for him to check their hooves, let him whisper to them of green meadows and running water, whickered against his shoulder and lipped at his hair. Now they stood quiet again, while Hephaistion paced in front of them, tossing questions to a barrel-chested young man with a face like sack full of rocks. One of Ptolemaios’ young cousins, Hephaistion thought he might be; he recognised that beak of a nose.
“You saw him, Lagos, you’re sure?”
“Aye sir, sure of it. No mistaking him. Clear as I see you now.”
“Alive?”
“Seemed that way. Watching the stars, he was.”
Hephaistion grunted. He knew what that was. The voices in the dark did that, calling in that soft siren song. Come, sit, rest, watch the stars until the sun comes. Stronger men than Bagoas had fallen prey to it - Demetrios’ tuneless brother, for one. Hephaistion could not hold that against him. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and swore with some feeling. Damn the boy for doing this. Did he have no sense at all?
“How far back? Tell me again.”
“After the last break, it was.” The rock-faced young man closed his eyes, as if trying to picture it exactly. Hephaistion said nothing, just let him get it right. “We came up that small scarp, and I remember because I got a stone in my boot and I had to stop and get it out, it was cutting in. There was a dry river bed on the right, bending away, and a scatter of smooth rocks half the size of a man on the left. The little dancer was sitting there, looking at the sky. I called to him, but he didn’t say nought.” The young man opened his eyes and shrugged. “I figured he’d get up and follow, or he wouldn’t. I reckon he decided he wouldn’t.” He frowned, uncertain. “I know he’s the king’s, sir. Was I wrong to leave him there?”
“No.” Hephaistion sank down to his haunches, scooped up a handful of pebbles and dust. He let them run out through his fingers and sent his eyes out to the horizon. It shimmered and dipped in the heat, like looking at an ocean. He wondered how long anything would survive out there, with no water or shelter. “No, you weren’t wrong. A man carries himself, or he falls. I’d not have expected you to sling him over your shoulders and carry him too. The king wouldn’t expect it either.”
“Aye,” Amyntas said. He still had on his wide brimmed hat. A sensible thing, that hat. The lad sounded a little sad. “But it’s a right shame, sir. I know the king set some store by him. And he danced so prettily, too.”
Hephaistion said nothing to that. He took up another handful of pebbles, bounced them thoughtfully in his palm, squinted to the sun and then back to the camp and the king’s tent in it, where Alexandros was with all the weight of the world bearing him down. He thought of the words his friend had said, and the hurt, angry eyes. Blaming himself for it all. They fall like dead wood in winter, and we leave them where they lie and march on. I brought them to this place. I’m just so tired. He nodded, slowly, spoke without looking up. “Has anyone mentioned this to the king? Told him the boy’s missing?”
Amyntas shook his head. “No sir. The king’s sleeping. Seemed a shame to wake him, when he needs his rest so badly.”
Hephaistion let his lips quirk into a brief smile, shot a quick look at the young Page. A wise head on that one, when he made use of it. He made a note of that. Brushing the pebbles and dust from his hands, he rose to his feet and nodded again. “Good. Don’t bother him with this. He’s got enough to deal with as it is.”
“Yes sir.” The lad hesitated, scratched at his jaw thoughtfully. “But … if he asks?”
If he asks … Hephaistion drew a deep breath, let it out. Deciding. He gave a final nod, almost to himself, and turned to the two young men.
“If he asks,” he said, “tell him the truth. That you don’t know where the boy’s got to, but someone’s looking for him. Just … don’t bloody tell him where, and for the love of sweet Aphrodite and all her gifts, don’t bloody tell him it’s me.”
“And if he asks for you, sir?” Amyntas, thinking again. Hephaistion almost laughed. Yes, he had potential, that one. There was an officer in there somewhere.
“Tell him I’m damned well busy. That will be true too. And don’t fret, I’ll be back before nightfall. With or without the boy.”
“Sir.” Lagos, that was, sounding puzzled. Hephaistion decided that Amyntas was the brighter. “Sir. Why are you doing this? You said it before, if a man can’t carry himself … what’s a Persian dancing boy, to go back for?”
“I know what I said.” Hephaistion had turned to his horses now, taking the dark bay from the tether and leading it out. It was the stronger of them after the march they’d had, lighter and leggier than the blue roan he’d had from his father’s lines, a Persian animal, desert bred. It took the conditions better, held some weight on even the sniff of green. “And I’m not going back for the boy. I’m going back for something more important than that.”
Let them work that out for themselves. Then again, Hephaistion thought, from the look on young Amyntas’ face, he already had.
So here we are, second attempt. This is, I am informed, to be described as fanfic. Which is fair enough, since there exists in the sources no indication that Bagoas ever got left behind in the desert (or for that matter, that he was even there as far as I can tell). The idea for that? All Renault. Kudos to her, credit where it's due and all. However, my_cnnr made the request for fiction based upon this episode from Renault, and this is what jumped into my head. Yes, sometimes 12 000 word stories do just jump into my head. Yes, I know that's weird. What can I say.
Right. So. Posting in two parts, to make LJ happy and to give your scrolling hands a break.
Title: Saviour. Shut up, crappy titles are my trademark.
Rating: General, I guess.
Summary: Some things are worth going back for.
Feedback: Hit me.
It was dust and stone and death, and it seemed to Hephaistion that they had been marching through it forever. Or it seemed that way to a part of him, at least; the rest of his mind, the part that concerned itself with logic and laws and things being as they should, knew that that could not be so. It knew that there had been a time in his life when he had lain in green grass beneath a spreading tree, when there had been water and wine for the wanting, and food too, and his horses had tossed their heads up and run, all bright and glossy and strong. Now there was precious little food, and only what water they could find, and his horses stumbled along as he did, footsore and ragged. He found himself holding to those thoughts of green and shade and bright glossy horses - dreams, memories, whatever they were - on the long dark marches from dusk to dawn. In the night, men lay down beside the column and died while their fellows went by, heads down, eyes set and strained, setting one foot in front of the other, and the other, and the other, until the last weak cries had gone away.
Hephaistion did not listen to the cries, or stop for them. No one did. The was the Makran that they marched through, a great waste of desert fierce enough to flay the skin off a man’s bones and never even notice it had done it. If a man fell out, if he was too weak to carry himself through, then he was lost. In the beginning they’d gone back for stragglers, dragged them along, men nursed and cajoled and bullied by their friends into marching on, one more rise, one more night. Now, though, no one had the strength to spare. A man carried himself, and that was all. It was all any of them could do to keep moving forward in the night when the sand tugged at their boots, dragging them down, and soft cool voices seemed to sigh from the land, and to rest a while, only to rest and let the march go on without them, seemed the sweetest thing in the world. Hephaistion had heard those voices himself in his own head, soothing and sane and horribly tempting. Stop, they had said. Rest. What matter, if they march on without you? Rest a while, that’s all, and follow on when you’re done. No harm to rest, to stop, to lay here in the sand and watch the stars until the sun comes back to swallow the world whole. He’d set his mind and his will and all of himself against the pull of it, and the voices had stopped coming to him after that. They had frightened him though, and not only for what they said. What frightened him most in the darkest hours of the night, was how much he wanted to do just whatever they told him.
He would not, though. He had never been one for giving up, for taking the easy way out of things. There were reasons for that, in his life beyond this place. His pride, that had never let him sell himself short, for one. His duty, and tasks that never seemed to be done. His innately stubborn nature, that made defeat prick at him like a sharp stone his boot. Those things … and one other thing, the one best reason he had for anything at all; Alexandros. Who had brought them into this place out of temper and pique and his own peculiar refusal to know that a thing was impossible, and who would, impossible or not, lead them out. Hephaistion knew that in the way he knew the sun would rise - and the sun in this cursed place always rose, hot and hard and unforgiving - without pause for doubt or fear. It might have been pure blind faith, or simple instinct, or it might have been something more. It didn’t matter. Alexandros was as he was, and he could no more do things the easy way than Hephaistion could.
He was, in fact, doing this harder than any of them, even if only Hephaistion knew it. The wound he had taken scarce months past, that had come so close to killing him, troubled him still. More than troubled him, in fact; it hurt him to breath, to move, made him gasp for air and catch at his side when he thought that no one was looking. Hephaistion could have told him to save himself the bother - anyone looking at him would know what he was feeling. He looked like a man half dead. What weight he’d had, had dropped from him, leaving him sharp and stretched thin; dust grimed his skin, dulled his bright gold hair. Pain left lines and shadows on his face, caught in hisses between his teeth and in the sudden flatness of his eyes. He still shone though, glowing in the long dark of the night marches like a torch, sparking gold in the white hot sun. He still led them, and they still followed. He was still and always their Alexandros, even when he was killing them and killing himself for them, and they loved him for it to a man.
Hephaistion shook his head, driving those thoughts away. He did that, when he was tired or when there was no other thing around to stop him; he thought too much, made too much of things. It was only Alexandros doing what he always did, after all; he had always shone, and he always led from the front, and he always did a round of the camp after a march, seeing to his men before he saw to himself. Not killing himself; not killing anyone.
Another night march, another small, half silted water hole and camp set at dawn. There was some bustle about it - men struggling with their shelters, setting their tents or makeshift shades, collecting water, dicing, divvying up food. They were tired to dropping, but there were tasks to be done, a camp to be put to order before they could rest. Hephaistion, who had spent half of his life in one military camp or another and who knew the importance of discipline and routine, had seen to that himself, setting rosters and duties and snapping at men who failed of them. Never mind if they all hated him for it; it would help to keep them alive. His eyes went to the men standing guard at the water hole, and the string of others filling skins and jars and dispatching them about the camp. He nodded to himself. He’d had to set guards on the water - men rushed it otherwise, fouled it. Hephaistion couldn’t rightly blame them, but it didn’t mean he would put up with it, either.
Alexandros had stopped to watch the water gatherers too. He was standing lopsided, a little hunched, favouring his wound; he straightened when he saw Hephaistion looking.
“I’m fine,” he said, more sharply than he needed to. Hephaistion only gave him a look and did not respond. He was tired of that argument anyway. Alexandros sighed. “I’m fine,” he said, in a softer voice. “You’ve done a good job, with this. The men all know their tasks.”
“The men have always known that. It’s just a matter of seeing no one forgets. It helps though, I think.” Hephaistion paused, squinted at the horizon where the sun was rising, turning the sky to bronze. It would turn the day into a forge, before it got too much higher. “It’s better for them to be doing something, than only lying in the sand waiting for the next march to come. Men give up, that way.”
“Yes. Doing is better.”
Hephaistion caught the bitter edge to that. He gave his friend a sharp glance.
“You’re doing everything you can.”
“It’s not enough though, is it.”
“It’s more than anyone else could do.” Hephaistion made a sound that was scorn and frustration and pain put together. “Gods Xandros, with that wound you should barely be walking, let alone marching through a bloody desert at the head of an army. And even when you can hardly breath - don’t bloody argue, I’ve seen you hold your chest and gasp like a fish, do you think I’m blind as well as a fool? - you still do more work than any other two men in this camp put together.”
Alexandros looked for a moment as if he might argue anyway, but then he shook his head and gave a wry smile. “Only two? Ah, well, I knew I was slacking.”
“Idiot.” Slacking, he called it. “You don’t have to take everything on yourself, you know. You shouldn’t try. You can’t carry it all.”
Alexandros did not say anything to that, but his eyes flashed, once, hard. Hephaistion sighed to himself. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Aloud, he said, “Come on. Those lads of yours will have finished with your tent by now, we should eat.”
“A strip of dried meat and hard bread.” Alexandros wrinkled his nose at the thought. “I’d kill for a fresh, crisp apple.”
“Right now,” Hephaistion told him seriously, “you’d have to get in line for that. Behind me. King or not.”
The camp was starting to settle now, men sprawled about their shelters, eyeing the climbing sun with a sullenness that bordered on hate and picking at the little food they had. Rations were tight and getting tighter, even with all the men they’d lost. Hephaistion did not like to think of that, but he’d been too many years organising supplies for this expedition or that for it not to prick at him now, that there was not enough food to go around. Not enough of anything to around, really, and no one to blame for it. The fleet had failed them, been sunk or attacked or waylaid somehow - no supplies came from the ships. They’d turned inland to hunt for water, and found it … but no foraging for the animals, no hunting for the men. Then the flood that had torn away half the camp, and most of what was left of the baggage … Hephaistion hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry over that. A flash flood in a desert where they were dying of heat and thirst, and now they were starving as well. The gods, he thought, had an odd sense of humour sometimes. He’d settled that night for cursing the air blue and salvaging whatever he could. He was glad now that he had. It was all that they had left.
Alexandros paused to talk with the men as he passed, a word here, a joke there. He’d always done that, always shown them he shared in their hardships, always remembered their names. Hephaistion, who could keep the details of three separate baggage trains and the plans for a new city in his head and never skip a beat, had never stopped being amazed at just how many names Alexandros knew. Not just their names, either - who they were, what they had done, their pride and their strength. His men had fought impossible battles for him because of that before now, and won him impossible victories. Hephaistion only hoped they would not stop now.
A cluster of men sat near the slanting shade of their shelter, listening to one of their fellows play a song on a sweet toned flute. No one sang; they only passed a waterskin back and forth and watched the sun climb as the music played. Alexandros stopped to listen too; Hephaistion, who had not been watching, nearly walked into his back. One of the men, an old campaigner with a scar that hooked under his eye, looked up and nodded a greeting to the king and his friend.
“Morning to you, sir. Looks like being another scorcher, I’d say.”
“That it does, Antigenes. Good drying weather.”
The man grunted. “Aye sir, if we had anything left in need of drying out I’d say it would be.” He lifted the waterskin, offered it to his king.
“True enough.” Alexandros hunkered down on his haunches, took the skin and swallowed, handed it back. “You’re bearing up?”
“Course we are sir. Been through worse on the drill field than this, ain’t we lads?”
“It’s better’n India at any rate, sir,” a second man put in. He was younger than the first, his nose peeling from sunburn. “At least we ain’t wet all the time. My old father used to say, a man can cope with most any hardship sir, so long as he don’t have to do it with wet feet.”
“Ah.” Alexandros nodded. Mention of India was a raw wound for him still, as raw as the mass of pain in his chest, but he didn’t let that show. They needed something, these men. If talk was their only comfort, let them have it. “A wise man, your father. I remember him when I was a lad, bawling me out for not oiling my horse’s tack well enough.”
“Aye sir, he were the same with all of us lads too. A little care’s better spent than a lot of work for nought, he’d say. He were right, too.”
The man with the flute had stopped playing. He didn’t speak, only sat where he was and turned the thing in his hands. Alexandros clapped his shoulder.
“That was well played, Demetrios. Better than your brother’s singing, by any lights! Where has he got to, anyway?”
Demetrios did not answer at once. Hephaistion saw how Antigenes grimaced and looked away, and felt his breath catch in his throat. Oh. Gods, no. He took half a step to Alexandros, then stopped. What did he think he was going to do?
“Dead sir. Last night. Just laid himself down coming across that field of stones and wouldn’t get up.” Demetrios’ voice was flat and dull. There was no anger in him, and no real grief yet either. He was numb, that was all. So many men had died out here. His brother was only one more. Alexandros shut his eyes briefly, his face going tight.
“Demetrios. I’m sorry.”
“Tried to get him up sir, but he weren’t having none of it. It were like he just … he just … gave out. He just said ‘No Demos, this is far enough I reckon,’ and he just laid himself down, and that were that. Then he were dead.” The man did not weep, though from the dead look in his eyes that was still to come. Alexandros squeezed his shoulder roughly, still with that tight look to his eyes, to all of him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it. “I’ll see … I’ll grieve for him. I’m so sorry.” He levered himself to his feet, stared briefly down at his hands, then he turned abruptly and walked away.
*****
In his tent, the tightness fled. Hephaistion had been right about the pages, they’d had the thing set and readied for their king, with food and drink waiting. Alexandros thanked them curtly, then chased them off. It did not take much when he looked as he did now, all tense and quick and fierce, like a falcon about to strike. Hephaistion was not fooled though; he knew what lay under it. He was not surprised at all when the flap fell down behind the last of the Pages, and Alexandros sank to his cot with his head in his hands and moaned like his heart was hurting.
Hephaistion said, “Alexandros.”
“Too many dead,” Alexandros muttered into his hands without looking up. “For no good reason. Too many. Gods, I hate this miserable place. I wish we’d never come here.”
Hephaistion, who wished the same thing, only shrugged. “No point in wishing. Done is done, Xandros. You know that.”
“And dead is dead.” The king looked up sharply, his eyes hard and reddened from dust and grit and glare. “And you … you’re wrong.”
Hephaistion raised an eyebrow at that, and poured out a little wine, mixing in water to make it go further. There was not much wine left. A jar, maybe three. He put a cup into Alexandros’ hands, watched him drink in that smooth, thoughtless way he had of doing things. Dragging a camp stool over with one foot, he dropped himself onto it. “Wrong?”
“I can take it all on myself.” Quiet, that, but it had the sound of stone. Alexandros was not going to be easy on himself, here. “You said I shouldn’t try, but I don’t have a choice. I can carry it all. I have to. I’m the king.” He paused, took another swallow without tasting it, and raised those hot, hard eyes again. There was anger in them, and pain, but none of it was for the man sitting across from him. It was all for himself. “I brought us here. For no better reason than that they thought it too hard to go on, and damn it all Phai, we were so close! If they’d only just been strong, given me another month, two at the most …” They hadn’t though, his men who had followed him out of Macedon and across the world. They had stood on the banks of an Indian river and stalled in the traces, and no goad in the world had been able to spur them to go further, not even the ocean at world’s end. Alexandros was a long way from forgiving them for it, Hephaistion knew. He nodded, slowly.
“Ah,” he said. “So, you know you’re doing that, then.”
“Yes I know it!” Alexandros threw back the last of his wine, flung himself to his feet and started to pace. Hephaistion flinched for his sake, thinking of his wound.
“Alexandros, stop that.”
“Don’t bloody cosset me, I don’t need it.” He flung it over his shoulder, like stones. “I brought us here Hephaistion, and I know to the last bloody inch why, and if the men are paying the price for it then why should they be the only ones to feel it?”
Hephaistion didn’t think that they were the only ones. He had proof of that right in front of his face. In any case, he wasn’t sure if the men did not deserve this, or at least some of it. It had been their own folly that had brought them here after all, when they had turned away from the mad bright creature that led them and demanded to go home, like so many sullen children. Their folly, and Alexandros’ burning temper, which was a folly all of its own. He didn’t say that to Alexandros though. He only said, in a mild, sure voice, “Yes, you brought us here. And you’ll bring us out.”
“Gods, listen to you.” Alexandros threw him a look all flat edged with scorn. He was panting already with the effort of prowling, his breath catching with it. “Do you ever get tired of being so bloody sure?”
“Of you? No.” Hephaistion scowled back. “Would you rather I told you that this is hopeless, and you were a fool to bring us here?”
“At least that would be true!”
“Shut up,” Hephaistion told him bluntly. “They’re both true. You are a fool, and you will get us out. Now sit down before you open that bloody wound again. There’s food here. You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” All the same, he stopped pacing. Hephaistion shrugged.
“Eat anyway.” He picked up a chunk of hard bread, tossed it to his friend. Alexandros caught it automatically, eyed it dubiously, then gave his friend a long, complicated look. Hephaistion only took a chunk of bread for himself and gnawed at the edges. Alexandros sucked in his breath, winced as it spiked in his chest, then let it out slowly. He sat on his cot again, toying with his food. It was nine parts grit, in any case.
“It’s not about Demetrios’ brother, is it.”
Alexandros snorted at that. He knew what Hephaistion was doing. It was what he always did; let him talk himself out, made him say the hard things. It worked too - such a simple thing, but it was usually better, after. Alexandros had long since given up fighting it, or resenting it too for that matter. It was only how well they knew each other, after all. He tore a piece off his bread, rolled it around in his mouth until it was moist enough to chew. “No, of course it’s not. I hardly knew the man, except that he was a laggard and when he sang he sounded like a stepped on cat. But that’s not the point. Is there more water? This bread might as well be made of sand, there’s more grit in it than meal.”
“Sand gets into everything, you know that. Here.” Hephaistion poured, handed him another cup. Alexandros tore another lump off the bread, dipping it in the water to soak.
“It’s just … it all comes back to me. It always does. I brought us here. For what? Pride? Revenge?” He sighed, gave his head a small shake, tipping it to the door. “Those men out there, they’ve never refused me before that. Not once, in so many years. And this is how I repay them. They’ve given me everything they had, time after time. I’ve watched them die for me, from wounds in battle, from illness, from snake bites and bad water, from every damned thing. And every one, every bloody one, has meant something. Every one of them died going forward. Until now. Now, they fall like dead wood in winter, and we leave them where they lie and march on. Demetrios out there - I was going to tell him I’d see to it that his brother got a decent burning. But I can’t, can I.” The bread was gone now, and so was the anger in Alexandros’ eyes. Only the pain remained. It made Hephaistion think of a fire burned down to ash, bleak and empty. “They’ve crossed half a world for me Phai, and made me king of most of it, and I’ve brought them to this place that’s killing them by inches and I can’t even give the dead their rites.”
A shudder went up Hephaistion’s spine at that; he made a sign of warding. All those unquiet dead … it didn’t bear thinking about. “The dead won’t hold it against you. Not the living, either. They love you, Xandros. A man only needs eyes to see that. You’re their talisman, you always have been. They know you’ll bring them out of here.”
“I pray you’re right.” Alexandros scrubbed a hand over his face and let his shoulders slump. He looked like a man half out on his feet. “I’ll sacrifice for the dead, when we get out of this place. That’s something, at least.”
“It is.” Hephaistion did not point out that Alexandros had said when they got out, not if. He didn’t think he needed to. Alexandros had never been much able to conceive of defeat; why should this be different? “It’s something. But you should rest now, if we’re to march tonight.”
“I thought I told you not to cosset me.” There was no heat in that, though. Alexandros only flicked his friend a wry smile. “I get enough of that from Bagoas, I don’t want it from you too.”
Hephaistion snorted a laugh and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t compare me to that puppy. At least I don’t moon around after you like a lost lapdog looking for a hand to lick.”
“No, that’s true. You just tell me I’m being an idiot, and refuse to let me get away with it.” Alexandros bit back a yawn, and rubbed at his face again. Personally, he thought that Hephaistion was more like one of his stallions than a puppy; strong, honest, demanding respect and earning it. He was not going to say so, though. Some things were better without words. He stretched his shoulders out carefully, mindful of the places it hurt, and let his eyes fall shut. “Oh, by Herakles’ balls, I’m just so tired.”
“Sleep then,” Hephaistion said, with maddening sense. “Idiot.” He drained the last mouthful from his cup, and cast a longing look at Alexandros’ cot from behind it. He was tired too, but there was work to be done and at least he wasn’t doing this with the weight of an army on his shoulders and every second breath stabbing like a knife. He would sleep later. “Do you need your Pages to get you to bed, or can you manage?”
“I can cope with getting my boots off by myself, I think,” the king said dryly. He had already laid his belt aside. “Speaking of Bagoas, I wonder where he’s got to. I usually can’t move in here for his fussing, when we make camp.”
“I haven’t seen him. He’ll be lurking about somewhere, he never goes far. I’ll ask one of the lads to look for him.”
Alexandros grunted. “Do that. I can manage with getting my own boots on and off, but I could do with a rub down and the boy has good hands. Every muscle I have is aching.”
It was a sign of how bad it was, that Alexandros would admit to pain even in such a small way as that. Hephaistion, who knew him well enough to understand that, only nodded. It was getting warm in here, and would get warmer yet as the day went on. The Pages would roll up one of the sides to let air in - that would help a little. Hephaistion moved to the door, then paused and looked back to his friend, sprawled now on his cot. He looked worn and sun-scorched and weary, the marks of a long and grinding pain on him even at rest. Watching him, Hephaistion felt something in his chest go tight. Gods, that man … He swallowed it away, pushed his voice past the sudden knot in his throat.
“Alexandros?”
His friend did not speak or open his eyes, barely twitched an eyebrow in response, but Hephaistion knew he was listening. “You’re wrong, you know.”
That opened Alexandros’ eyes for him. He’d never liked to be told he was wrong. Hephaistion went on. “You don’t have to carry it all yourself. I’m here. I can carry some of it for you.”
For a moment Alexandros said nothing to that, only looked at him long and steady in the dimness. Then he smiled, soft and sweet. His voice the same, a private thing, pitched only for his friend to hear. “I know, Phai. You can.” A pause, and then softer again, “You do.”
Hephaistion bowed his head to that, to the words and to what was behind them, then went out into the day to carry what he could.
*****
There was work and more to be done. Hephaistion gave himself the worst of it. He had never liked killing horses, but he liked watching them suffer slowly even less. There were half a dozen of them on the point of foundering, too weak for another march; there was no other thing for it. He could make it quick and clean, at least. He had appropriated one of Alexandros’ Pages, a lad who knew what he was about with a flaying knife, and set him in charge of butchering the carcasses. Meat was meat, wherever it came from. Half of the baggage animals had gone that way. There were guards set now on the cavalry mounts.
Hephaistion was blood to the elbows when the second Page came up. The lad was wearing a wide brimmed hat that kept the sun off his face, but he was sweat damp all over from the heat. At Hephaistion’s feet, a slow fat fly buzzed about the dull eye of the dead horse in the sand. Hephaistion waved it off; it droned its way to the soak of blood in the dry earth instead. Hephaistion sighed and scowled and looked to the Page.
“Amyntas. What is it?”
“Sir. It’s the boy, sir. The little Persian, Alexandros’ eunuch? You asked me to find him, but … well, he’s not in camp, sir.”
Sweat was trickling down Hephaistion’s brow. He swiped it away with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of blood instead, and frowned at the young Page. “What do you mean, not in camp? Of course he’s in camp. Where else in all Hades would he go?”
“I don’t know, sir. Only, we can’t find him.” Amyntas seemed to think about it briefly, then he blinked and said, “Lagos said he saw him on the march last night, sitting by a rock. Said he asked what he was doing, sitting there, but he got no answer. Sir,” and the lad paused again, a grim sound this time, “Sir, I haven’t found anyone who’s seen him since then. I don’t think he made the march, sir.”
Hephaistion swore under his breath and bent to rub his hands clean on the dead horse’s hide. He thought about what he had been told. The fact that no one remembered seeing him did not mean the eunuch was not in camp. The boy crept about like a cat, after all, hiding himself away in corners and in places where he should not have been. Besides, he was easy to overlook - no one put much effort into keeping track of slaves and servants and tame dancing boys on a march like this. If he’d decided to shirk his duties, skive off with some pretty trooper with spare coin or trinkets or whatever it was that won his fancy, he would know better than to be obvious about it. Hephaistion was not sure if he could believe that of the boy though - he’d meant what he’d said about lost lapdogs, and Bagoas had always seemed devoted to the king. If he were in the camp, he’d surely have been sniffing about in Alexandros’ tent, getting underfoot and shooting Hephaistion those odd, glittering glances when he thought no one was looking, for all the world like a lapdog watching a war hound with a bone. If he was out there in the desert though … ah, merciful gods, if he was out there, he was dead - or as good as. No one went back for stragglers. No one. Hephaistion cast his eyes up to the sky, faded and distant with the heat, and the sun in it like a hammer. No one went back.
Except … he remembered Alexandros, and how he had slumped in despair with those bleak, empty eyes and said, I can’t even give the dead their rites, and he felt a quiet pain go through him like a cold wind. Too much. For one man, who always wanted to carry it all, some things were too much. He looked back to the Page, sharp and sure.
“Make certain. Search the camp. Then if you still can’t find him, bring Lagos to me. I’ll be with my horses.” Then, as Amyntas only stood there blinking some more, “Well, go on boy! Get to it! Now!”
Gods, did he have to do everything himself?
*****
They had not found him. Hephaistion wished he could have been more surprised. He’d managed to get the blood off his hands, though he still reeked of it even to his own senses. His horses had not liked that at all, but they were used to trusting him even so; they’d stood quietly for him to check their hooves, let him whisper to them of green meadows and running water, whickered against his shoulder and lipped at his hair. Now they stood quiet again, while Hephaistion paced in front of them, tossing questions to a barrel-chested young man with a face like sack full of rocks. One of Ptolemaios’ young cousins, Hephaistion thought he might be; he recognised that beak of a nose.
“You saw him, Lagos, you’re sure?”
“Aye sir, sure of it. No mistaking him. Clear as I see you now.”
“Alive?”
“Seemed that way. Watching the stars, he was.”
Hephaistion grunted. He knew what that was. The voices in the dark did that, calling in that soft siren song. Come, sit, rest, watch the stars until the sun comes. Stronger men than Bagoas had fallen prey to it - Demetrios’ tuneless brother, for one. Hephaistion could not hold that against him. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and swore with some feeling. Damn the boy for doing this. Did he have no sense at all?
“How far back? Tell me again.”
“After the last break, it was.” The rock-faced young man closed his eyes, as if trying to picture it exactly. Hephaistion said nothing, just let him get it right. “We came up that small scarp, and I remember because I got a stone in my boot and I had to stop and get it out, it was cutting in. There was a dry river bed on the right, bending away, and a scatter of smooth rocks half the size of a man on the left. The little dancer was sitting there, looking at the sky. I called to him, but he didn’t say nought.” The young man opened his eyes and shrugged. “I figured he’d get up and follow, or he wouldn’t. I reckon he decided he wouldn’t.” He frowned, uncertain. “I know he’s the king’s, sir. Was I wrong to leave him there?”
“No.” Hephaistion sank down to his haunches, scooped up a handful of pebbles and dust. He let them run out through his fingers and sent his eyes out to the horizon. It shimmered and dipped in the heat, like looking at an ocean. He wondered how long anything would survive out there, with no water or shelter. “No, you weren’t wrong. A man carries himself, or he falls. I’d not have expected you to sling him over your shoulders and carry him too. The king wouldn’t expect it either.”
“Aye,” Amyntas said. He still had on his wide brimmed hat. A sensible thing, that hat. The lad sounded a little sad. “But it’s a right shame, sir. I know the king set some store by him. And he danced so prettily, too.”
Hephaistion said nothing to that. He took up another handful of pebbles, bounced them thoughtfully in his palm, squinted to the sun and then back to the camp and the king’s tent in it, where Alexandros was with all the weight of the world bearing him down. He thought of the words his friend had said, and the hurt, angry eyes. Blaming himself for it all. They fall like dead wood in winter, and we leave them where they lie and march on. I brought them to this place. I’m just so tired. He nodded, slowly, spoke without looking up. “Has anyone mentioned this to the king? Told him the boy’s missing?”
Amyntas shook his head. “No sir. The king’s sleeping. Seemed a shame to wake him, when he needs his rest so badly.”
Hephaistion let his lips quirk into a brief smile, shot a quick look at the young Page. A wise head on that one, when he made use of it. He made a note of that. Brushing the pebbles and dust from his hands, he rose to his feet and nodded again. “Good. Don’t bother him with this. He’s got enough to deal with as it is.”
“Yes sir.” The lad hesitated, scratched at his jaw thoughtfully. “But … if he asks?”
If he asks … Hephaistion drew a deep breath, let it out. Deciding. He gave a final nod, almost to himself, and turned to the two young men.
“If he asks,” he said, “tell him the truth. That you don’t know where the boy’s got to, but someone’s looking for him. Just … don’t bloody tell him where, and for the love of sweet Aphrodite and all her gifts, don’t bloody tell him it’s me.”
“And if he asks for you, sir?” Amyntas, thinking again. Hephaistion almost laughed. Yes, he had potential, that one. There was an officer in there somewhere.
“Tell him I’m damned well busy. That will be true too. And don’t fret, I’ll be back before nightfall. With or without the boy.”
“Sir.” Lagos, that was, sounding puzzled. Hephaistion decided that Amyntas was the brighter. “Sir. Why are you doing this? You said it before, if a man can’t carry himself … what’s a Persian dancing boy, to go back for?”
“I know what I said.” Hephaistion had turned to his horses now, taking the dark bay from the tether and leading it out. It was the stronger of them after the march they’d had, lighter and leggier than the blue roan he’d had from his father’s lines, a Persian animal, desert bred. It took the conditions better, held some weight on even the sniff of green. “And I’m not going back for the boy. I’m going back for something more important than that.”
Let them work that out for themselves. Then again, Hephaistion thought, from the look on young Amyntas’ face, he already had.