Part the Second.
Second part of "Saviour". Hint for young players - read Part One first, or it won't make sense.
Allrightythen.
Bagoas could not say why he had stopped, only that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. His feet had hurt from the rough ground and sharp little stones that worked their way into his boots with every step, and his legs ached from keeping him upright, and if he’d had a pack when they’d started out, he’d set it down at the last stop and forgotten to pick it up. He was not used to carrying packs. The straps had chaffed at his narrow shoulders, cutting in. He’d kept his waterskin, though, tied to his belt. It was a shame that it was empty now; he could have done with a drink.
It was crashingly hot out here. The type of heat that made the land an anvil, flattened things out, drove them down and inside themselves. A killing heat. Bagoas knew that. There was not a thing he could do about it. It had been better in the night, with the white cool stars for company. He wondered if he would see another night, see the stars again. He did not think it likely.
He’d stopped in the dark, with the rise of smooth stones for company, and watched the column go trooping past. He remembered doing it, remembered hearing the footsteps, the mutterings, the curses as someone tripped and fell and scrambled back to their feet. It had not seemed real. Even when someone had stopped and called out to him, it had not seemed real. It had been as if he were the only living person in all the world, and the winding column of men marching past were shades only, shapes and shadows from another place and time. He was not part of that. He’d watched them instead, and looked at the stars, and felt how glorious it was simply to sit and not to move and let his tired body and aching legs find peace.
He’d come back to himself too late. Perhaps he had meant only to rest a moment, to fall back in with the line of march before the last man went by. If that had been in his mind though, his mind had failed him. Or his body had, or both. He’d sat, and watched men who were shadows and shapes go by in the dark … and only at the very last had he realised that there were men there no more, that what he saw were only shadows, the wanderings of his wits in this land that ate men whole. He had come back to his senses to find himself alone, with the sky greying to dawn and no idea at all what to do.
He had at first thought to try to track the army to its camp. It should not have been difficult; surely so many men and beasts would leave tracks that he could follow? Or there was his sweet lord who would be waiting for him, Alexandros, who was a light of his own in the world; surely his heart would always know the way towards that? A wind had come up though, hot as is if straight from a furnace and tossing sand and dust and small stinging stones, turning the air to a haze. He could make out no tracks on the stony, sandy ground, and his heart knew nothing at all. He went the way he thought that he should, if the column had only continued its line of march and if his memory was not playing him false. It could have been; things looked different in daylight, and he had not been paying attention in the night. He had gone only a short way when he stumbled and felt his ankle twinge so that he limped when he walked, and only a little further when a blast of hot wind eddied about him and threatened to flay him with wind-tossed sand, so that he had to hunker down behind a large rock and wait for it to pass.
The rock gave him a little shelter - some small shade, some protection from the drying, killing wind. Bagoas huddled there, his light, fine green cloak pulled up over his head. He was surprised a little at how calm he felt; he might have thought he would weep, or be afraid. He was going to die out here, after all. Instead, he felt almost serene, and curiously empty. The gods, whoever or whatever they were, called men to them as it best pleased them to do so, and men lived and died knowing that. No one alive knew the manner of his ending; if this one was different from the one that Bagoas might have hoped for, then what of it? He had no family who would mourn for him, and no hope of sons for his future - his death would be no real loss in the world. His single concern was for his lord, who would not have the sense even to come in from the rain with no one about to take care of him. How would he manage, without someone who knew to see to his needs? He had so little care for himself, and no one else to give him care for his own sake alone. His generals, the men around him, they all wanted something from him, loved him only so long as he gave it. Even the tall one with the striking face who came and went as he pleased, the one who was Alexandros’ heart’s own sweet friend, even he wanted things that sometimes Alexandros should not have to give, arguing with him, demanding and driving. Bagoas had always made sure to demand nothing at all, and to give his lord peace where he could. Why should a man who was Great King and halfway to a god have to live up to any legend other than what he was? Only Bagoas understood that.
His throat was dry. He’d finished the last of his water with the sunrise. Well, of course he had; the water had only been meant to last him until the next camp and the scouts had said they’d be there by dawn. Bagoas hoped that those oafish squires remembered to turn down the king’s bed properly, and shake the bedding free of sand. Alexandros hated sand in his blankets. His lips felt dry too, starting to crack. He’d taken some care as he could not to let this place mark him too badly. He supposed it didn’t really matter now. When he was white bone and sun-leathered hide, no one would know or care that once he had been beautiful.
He took the stopper from the waterskin anyway, raised it half-hopefully to his lips. It filled his mouth with the taste of dank leather and the memory of water. Bagoas closed his eyes, and thought that perhaps even a memory was better than nothing. He could still remember the first time he’d laid eyes on Alexandros of Macedon after all, and known that he would be nothing in his life he was not that man’s. And he had been that man’s, if only for a short while. There was that. Memories could comfort, a little.
The wind gusted and grated, and the sun seared down. The little dancer sighed in the empty space inside, thinking of his lord alone. He was sorry to have let him down like this. He only hoped that when they met in the next world, Alexandros’ great soul would forgive him.
*****
Hephaistion knew how to make a horse last, in a place like this. The Persian bay - he called it Swift, for the way it dipped and swooped when it ran, and because when he’d asked someone how to say it in Persian the word he’d got back sounded like a cat drowning in a tub - had good endurance, but it had also had a hard campaign and a long march; he didn’t push it. He moved on steadily though, taking the horse from a walk to an easy trot, then dismounting to lead it on foot for a while before mounting up to walk again. He was making good time. Not so good as he might have made if his horse was fresh, or if he’d had two horses to share the work. He didn’t though - Swift was the pick of the animals they had left, and Hephaistion was not about to put another horse through this when they were struggling already. It was bad enough he was putting himself through this. If Alexandros ever found out, he would kill him.
He was not risking his life out here; he was not that great a fool. He had water to spare, enough even for his horse too, for a short while. He knew where the camp was, and where they had marched - he’d spent enough time on enough scouting forays not to lose his way. He’d meant what he’d said too, about being back by dusk either with the boy or without him. The outcrop of stones that Lagos had spoken of, and the dry river … he would go only so far as that, if his horse and the day held. If the boy was there, well and good. If he had wandered off though, crawled out into the desert to die like some small wounded animal, there would be nothing for it but to go back to camp without him.
Hephaistion hoped it would not come to that. He had no strong feelings for the little eunuch one way or the other, but Alexandros was fond of the boy. There had been enough deaths, in this wide stretch of sand and stone, and Alexandros rightly or wrongly taking every one of them to heart, carrying the weight of them with every struggling breath. It all comes back to me. I brought us here. This death at least Hephaistion could spare him. He could at least try.
*****
The shade behind the stone shrank and the sun grew. Bagoas had thought about moving again, about getting up and trying to walk, trying to find the camp. A part of him wanted him to make the effort, not to simply sit and wait for death like a lamb waiting calmly for the butcher’s knife. That was the part of him, he thought, that might have been a man if his life had been different. It had not been though, and he could die here by his rock as well as out there in the dust, and it would make no difference in the end.
No one would come for him. He’d known that from the very first. He’d heard it from Alexandros’ own lips, though the king had not been speaking to him at all when he’d said it. Ptolemaios, it had been, with his sharp nose and his heavy jaw and his kind way of speaking to a barbarian slave … he had been talking to the king, of a party sent back for those who had fallen out and only half returned themselves, and Alexandros had clenched his fists and dropped his head and cursed in a voice as bleak as the land and said that no one would go back for stragglers any more. A man marched, or he did not.
Bagoas had not. The part of him that wanted him to move now railed at him for that too, calling him weak, calling him a coward. A man would have marched, stayed with his lord. To do this, to give up … this was betrayal as surely as the mutiny in India had been betrayal, and Bagoas had seen his lord’s eyes after that. He did not want Alexandros to think of him in that way. Too late for that now, though. Far, far too late.
As the day stretched out, the wind fell away. It left only heat and hollow silence in its place. Bagoas had found himself listening to it, actually hearing it, and thought that if it did not stop he would go mad. He’d tried singing, to fill the space with sound, but his mouth was parched and his mind wandering and he couldn’t remember the words … and in any case, the smallness of his song only made the silence seem more large. In the end he’d given in to it, as he’d given in to everything else, and lay silent too.
*****
Hephaistion had been right about the hat. A sensible thing, he was glad he’d thought to bring it. It took away some of the glare, kept the sun from eyes at least. It did nothing about the beastly heat, but he was used to that. As used to it as a man born in the high hills of Macedon, who had known snowy winters and fresh cold streams ever could be, at least. His horse liked the hat too. It took water from the upturned hollow of it, lifting a damp muzzle and snorting softly. Hephaistion nodded in agreement. “Yes. I’m tired too. Only a little further, Bright-Eyes, then we turn back. Will you give me that?”
Another soft snort, that might or might not have been consent. Hephaistion nodded again anyway, putting his hat back on and enjoying the brief cool sensation of it damp against his forehead. He swung up onto the animal’s back, took a last long swallow of water himself, and nudged the horse on. The animal went, but with none of the sparkle in its step that it would have had in better times. Hephaistion remembered being struck by that the first time he’d swung astride this horse, pulling it from a roiling battlefield after his own stallion had gone down and a Persian with a spear had tried to pin him to the ground and halfway succeeded - the lightness of its feet, its soft smooth paces, the way it seemed to dance beneath him. Now the animal did not dance at all, only went where he asked and gave what it could. Hephaistion did not blame it. He did not think he would have the energy for dancing, either.
They had come to the dry riverbed that Lagos had mentioned, and moved down it towards the place where it curved. Hephaistion kept his eyes up, looking for some sign, letting the horse pick its way. The land was harsh and sear all about, all shades of yellow and brown and tawny under a sky faded near to white. There was a certain splendour to it, Hephaistion supposed, in its simplicity and its perfect savagery. It was almost beautiful, the way that a well crafted blade could be beautiful even as it tore out a man’s throat. Gods. He shook his head a little at that, took another slow mouthful of water and smiled to himself around it, a little wry. Out in the sun too long, that was his problem, if he was riding through a desert alone and thinking poetry about the land. A philosopher might approve of it, but he had to get through this place and back again alive. Poetics were not going to get him anywhere at all.
There was a stony outcrop ahead, a cluster of rocks near the elbow of the dry river’s turning. The place where Lagos had said he’d seen the eunuch stargazing, that would be. Hephaistion hoped it was at least; he was going no further than that, whether he found the boy or not. Setting his horse’s head to the stones, he flicked the animal into a trot and waited to see what would come of it.
Bagoas was not there. Hephaistion circled the stones once, looking down from the back of his horse, then he swung his leg quickly over the animal’s withers and dropped to the ground. The horse, unburdened, stopped at once and stood hipshot, head hanging. Hephaistion scanned the stones and ground around them; no boy, and no sign of him either. He wondered if Lagos had been wrong about where he’d seen him, or that he’d seen him at all. He supposed the lad could have been. More likely though, the little eunuch had wandered off, touched witless by sun and thirst. Hephaistion swore quietly. Stupid boy. He’d had an extra half-day’s march for the sake of him so far, he’d rather it was not for nought. He took off his hat, scrubbed a hand through his sweat-damp hair and gave a short huff of frustration. Behind him, his horse echoed the sound and shifted its weight to the other hip.
He should go back. Hephaistion knew that; it was what he’d told himself, what he’d promised the horse. Only to the stones, and then back - he was not going to scour the desert all over looking for one wayward gelding who should have known better in any case. It was not about the boy though; it never had been. He had not come out here for that. Alexandros’ shoulders could only take so much, and Hephaistion had not liked the look in his friend’s eyes. He was not a man used to losing so much; it was wearing him down, taking the spark from him inside. He needed a victory now, even a small one - and this was one loss that could be avoided, if Hephaistion could only find the boy and bring him back.
“Where would he go, eh horse? Eh Swift? You’re Persian, you tell me.” The horse was no help, only turning a dark eye on its master and swishing its tail against the heat. Hephaistion shrugged, leaned back against the stones, as hipshot as his horse. He considered last night’s march, and the line of it, and where the scouts had led them. West to start, and then veering northward to clear a steep ravine, and westering again here before angling north at the last for the waterhole and the day’s camp. Bagoas like as not would not have noticed that, would have paid little attention to where he was being led, but Hephaistion had spent enough years charting new terrain for such things to be second nature, now. He mapped in his head as he went - a rough skill compared to what the cartographers and surveyors could do with only an ink pot, a good eye and a length of string, but good enough for the purpose. Hephaistion reached into his pouch, brought out another crust of the hard, gritty bread he’d taken that morning with Alexandros, gnawed on it thoughtfully. The horse pricked its ears at him and whickered gently. Hephaistion slanted it a look. Greedy horse. “Shut up. This is mine. You wouldn’t want it anyway, it’s hard as rocks.”
So. If they were westering on their march here, and the little eunuch might have thought to follow … Hephaistion’s eyes scanned across the desert that way, considering what he might or might not do. West a little then, to that stand of rocks that were a shimmer in the middle distance, and then cut back towards the camp, and give the boy up for lost. He could not scour this whole place alone, after all. He should not even try.
Before he mounted again, he gave the horse the rest of the bread.
*****
Of all the things that Bagoas had been trained to do in his life since that day when his future and sons had been stripped from him by a handful of coin and a sharp quick knife, dancing was what gave him the most joy. He’d liked to dance even before he’d been cut and trained to please men, and though he’d learned first to tolerate and later to enjoy what arts he practised in the bedchamber, it was the dancing court that made his blood sing. When he danced, what was missing from him did not matter - dreams, wishes, things he could not have. When he danced, he was complete and whole, a creature of light and music and perfect, wild grace. He was free and alive and beautiful when he danced, not like now. Not this dull and lonely thing, drying out in the sands.
He was dying out here, he knew that. Had fully expected to, from the time he’d known that he was alone. He did not think that he could have walked now if he’d wanted to - or if he could have, he’d have wandered in a slow circle and passed out three times in doing it. His mind was floating in and out now, leaving him in a mist of dreams and nightmares and uneasy sleep, then waking him again to an awareness so sharp it hurt. The waterskin didn’t even hold the memory of water now; it was as dry as the rest of him, lying useless in the sun.
So he danced. Not with his body - he did not think there was enough left of him for that - but in his mind and in his heart, he danced. If he was going to die out here and be only a pile of bones with a rock to mark his place, he’d face death in joy, and dance. Flowing like oil, bending like a cat, swooping and soaring like a swallow in the summer … Bagoas let go of every other sensation and fell into that instead, the way he had danced with Alexandros’ eyes on him, the way that, in the secret heart of him, it had not mattered to him if his lord watched and approved or not, because he danced at the end of it all for himself, because his dancing brought him home.
A word pulled him out of it. One word, repeated, in a voice sharp with … something. Irritation? Anger? It came again - his name, it was, and not to be denied.
“Bagoas!”
Bagoas sighed, made the dancing stop. He opened his eyes, looked up in resentment.
“I was dancing. What do you want?”
The face above him frowned in puzzlement, and Bagoas realised without much interest that he recognised the man it belonged to. Hephaistion, tall lord with his easy smile and cool, dismissive eyes. The man did not look dismissive now though, or easy. Instead, he looked tired and worn and annoyed and quite baffled. He said, “What?”
Bagoas realised he had spoken in Persian. He doubted it would make more sense in Greek, but he said it anyway. “I was dancing.”
Hephaistion snorted. “You were dying,” he corrected, in a voice like sand. “Or you would have been, soon enough, wandering off the path like that. Can you sit up?”
“Yes,” Bagoas told him, and then closed his eyes and fell back into dark.
Hephaistion looked down at the boy and swore again, like he meant it. Dancing, of all the fool things … ah, well, that was what sun and heat and hovering death could do to a man, he supposed. He squatted by the eunuch and took up his green cloak, dampening it with water from one of his skins and wrapping it about the boy’s head and neck. That cloak had already saved the boy’s life, if he only knew it - might as well help to keep him cool, too. It had been that flag of green that had caught Hephaistion’s eye, out here in this place where nothing green should be. What things grew here, grew in low scrubby clumps of brown, with thorns.
The eunuch spluttered and coughed when Hephaistion trickled water over the parched lips, but he didn’t wake. Hephaistion didn’t much care. He hoisted the boy up - gods, such a little thing, and so light, as if he were made from bird bones - and settled him as best he could on his horse’s back. The animal turned its head and made a show of sniffing at its strange new burden, and tried to arch its neck and crab sideways. Hephaistion was not in the mood for foolery though, taking the bridle high up and stopping the horse with a steadying hand and a firm word. The animal was too tired for it to come to much in any case. It subsided with a brief shake of its head, and began to follow where its master led.
*****
Bagoas came back to himself slowly. He did not give himself away, only slumped where he’d been put on the high bay horse, and watched Hephaistion walking ahead through half-closed eyes. He understood what had happened - he had fallen out of the column, and Hephaistion had come back for him. He’d have died, otherwise. What he did not know, was why.
“Drink something. There’s water in the skins.” Hephaistion’s voice surprised him; he had not thought the man knew he was awake. He managed to croak, “Thank you,” but his hands felt distant and numb and he fumbled the waterskin, almost dropping it. Hephaistion took it from him without breaking stride, neat handed and sure. He flicked the stopper loose, handed it back. Bagoas only looked at him.
“I knew you’d come round when you stopped babbling. I didn’t take on an extra half-day’s march to listen to that, it was giving me a headache. Stay awake now, will you? I’m glad of the quiet.” Hephaistion flicked him a warning glance over his shoulder. “And go easy on the water to start with. You’ll give yourself cramps.”
Bagoas sat and looked at the waterskin, then took a very deliberate mouthful. He wanted to drain it dry. To Hephaistion, he said, “I’m sorry, my lord. For babbling.”
That earned him an odd glance and half a smile, and Bagoas realised belatedly that he had been being teased. Mostly. Macedonian humour could be a rough edged thing. But then Hephaistion said, “If I were you, I’d be sorrier for falling out. You’ve put me to a deal of trouble today, boy. Don’t do it again, I won’t come back for you twice.” He was not joking at all.
“I didn’t think anyone would come back at all,” Bagoas heard himself say. Hephaistion glanced back at him, and patted the horse’s neck.
“No,” he said. That was all. Bagoas frowned.
“Did Al’skandros send you?” If he’d been only a little more in charge of himself, he would not have let those words pass his lips. He regretted them as soon as he spoke them. Hephaistion snorted, to show just what he thought of that.
“A-lex-andros,” he enunciated carefully, “did no such thing. With any luck, he doesn’t even know you’re gone. Put the stopper back in the waterskin before you spill it.”
Bagoas took another slow mouthful, then did what he was told. He thought about what had brought him here; weakness, it had been. Nothing else. A man would have marched. “I should have stayed with the column. I should have been in camp to do my duty by my lord. I failed him.”
“Yes. You did.” There was no compromise in that at all. Hephaistion was tired of people doing that in one small way after another, tired too of excusing it. Alexandros deserved more. He had always deserved more, and Hephaistion was weary and worn and had not slept since the day before. His patience, often an unsteady beast in any case, was inclined to suffer for that. It made him turn on the boy and snap suddenly, as at a raw recruit who had got himself out of line. “Damn you boy, it was a crackbrained thing to do, wandering off like that. Herakles’ balls, what were you bloody well thinking?”
“Obviously I wasn’t bloody well thinking,” Bagoas snapped back out of nowhere. “My lord. Or I’d not have done it at all, would I?”
That surprised both of them. Bagoas, who was still feeling half out of himself from his day in the desert, would never have spoken so bluntly if his senses had not been so frayed, and he knew it. He blinked in astonishment at himself, and at the tall Macedonian who had stopped in his tracks to stare at him. For a moment Bagoas thought that the man might shout at him again, but then Hephaistion laughed, a strong true sound, and shook his head with a grin.
“True enough,” he said. “True enough.”
So. The puppy had teeth, then. Maybe the lad did have some balls, after all.
*****
How long he’d been ahorse when the camp came into view, Bagoas could not have said. They had not spoken much on the journey back, Hephaistion seeming content with the company of his horse and Bagoas recovering himself only slowly. Once, Bagoas had offered to walk a while, but Hephaistion had only given him that quick, over the shoulder glance and told him to stay where he was. The man had brought them to a halt three times to rest the horse and share out more water, but that was all. Now the camp was in front of them and the sun was drawing westward, and Bagoas still had no more idea why he was alive than he had had when the tall Macedonian had first found him.
Hephaistion stopped a little back from the edge of the camp. He murmured something soft to the horse, clapping it on the neck, and flicked his eyes at Bagoas. “Get down.”
Bagoas did as he was told, feeling as he did so how appallingly weak his legs were, the muscles stiff and slack at once, almost shaking beneath him. Hephaistion looked at him and grunted.
“You think you can get to Alexandros’ tent on your own?”
“Yes, my lord.” In fact, Bagoas sure of no such thing, but he did not think that Hephaistion wanted to hear weakness or excuses now. There was a certain set to the man’s shoulders, a deliberation in the way he moved that spoke of near exhaustion. Bagoas understood that, and knew he had been a large part of the cause of it. Besides, Hephaistion intimidated him, with his height and his confidence and his strong, direct stare. The man might have saved him, but Bagoas did not for a moment think that that had made them friends.
It had made them, if it came to that, something entirely else. The man had saved his life - Hephaistion owned him now, as surely as if coin had changed hands. Bagoas was aware of that in the part of himself that kept track of such things; that now, for all the course of his life and all the good or ill that would be to come, this Macedonian lord could point to him and say, You live because of me. That was a claim that went deeper than anything else Bagoas knew, whether either of them liked it or not.
He doubted that Hephaistion had considered it. He did not even know if the man thought like that - he did not know how he thought at all. Now Hephaistion only gave his head one brief nod and said, “Good. Go then. Look after him. I can’t, he won’t take it from me. And don’t fall out again.” Taking the horse’s head, he made to move off.
“My lord.” Bagoas said it suddenly, but he couldn’t not ask. He had to know. Hephaistion stopped, looked at him with flat, tired eyes. Bagoas braced himself, and said it anyway. “Why did you come back for me?”
A pause answered that, and then Hephaistion blinked, as if he’d just understood what had been asked of him. His expression changed, and he glanced away to one side and back again as if to cover it. He was, the eunuch realised, almost amused.
“For you?” Hephaistion looked at the boy and shook his head. Lagos had asked the same thing, as he recalled. Well, they were both fools then, Lagos and this gelded boy. He saw no reason to soften it; he was too tired, and didn’t really care. “I didn’t go back for you. I went back for Alexandros.”
*****
Hephaistion was not sure which was the greater pleasure; a waiting bed, or a waiting bath. He was tired to dropping, and grit and dust all over, stinking of sweat and horse and old blood still from the morning’s butchering. He settled on washing first, sleeping second. It would feel good, to be clean. He would sleep the sounder for that.
There was not water enough to bath in - or there was, but it would take too long to draw it from the waterhole and have it carried here, and the men had better things to do. A basin would do just as well, wide flat dish and cool water that felt so good to the touch. His soiled clothes he kicked into a corner, revelling in the feel of air on clean skin. He even managed to shave as well, working slowly by touch, paring the growth away. He was glad to be rid of it; it itched, he didn’t like it. By the time he was finished, he looked almost respectable.
“You look magnificent.”
Hephaistion turned to look at Alexandros standing in his door and shrugged, with a slight smile. Well, it was not as if it were nothing that Alexandros had not seen before. “I look passable. But at least I’m clean.”
Alexandros nodded, stepped inside. He looked at his friend, his head tipped to one side in that way he had. “I know what you did, you know. Bagoas told me.”
Hephaistion nodded slowly. “Oh.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“I hoped he might not. There didn’t seem any reason to mention it, once it was done.” Crossing to his cot, Hephaistion sat down on the edge of it. Gods, he was so tired. “How is he?”
“Alive, thanks to you. Resting. He’ll be fine.”
“Ah. Good then. That’s good.”
Alexandros paused, then said, “We won’t march tonight. Everyone could do with the rest.”
Well, that was true. Hephaistion grunted his agreement.
“Probably a good idea. We’ll all move better, rested.”
“How are you?” Alexandros asked. Still with that tilt to the head, and that careful, thoughtful tone. Hephaistion scrubbed a hand over his face and smiled.
“Alive. Good. Fine.”
“You look tired.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Well, if you need a good rub down, I could arrange that for you. The boy has good hands, you know.” There was a certain note to that that made Hephaistion laugh. He’d never understood what Alexandros found to fancy in the little eunuch. He had always thought the boy an odd little thing, a gelded trinket with painted eyes, skittish as a deer for the most and useful in his way, but certainly nothing to fancy; Alexandros was not above teasing him over that, sometimes.
“If it’s all the same to you Xandros, I’d rather you did it yourself. Your hands aren’t so bad either.”
Alexandros seemed to consider that. He gave a thoughtful nod, seeming serious but for the glint in his eyes. “I could probably arrange that too.”
Hephaistion, who knew him better than anyone, knew exactly what that meant. He sprawled himself comfortably face down on his cot, waited for Alexandros to come to him. It was not much of a wait. The oils were cool and soothing on his skin, his friend’s hands strong and sure. He felt his body relaxing into them. For a long while, neither of them spoke. When Alexandros’ voice did come, Hephaistion was halfway to sleep.
“Hephaistion?”
“Hmmm?”
“Thank you for going back for him.”
“Hmm.”
“And never do anything like that again.” Alexandros didn’t harden his voice or his hands, but something in him had shifted; he was all serious now. “Never put your life at risk for something like that. No one goes back for stragglers.” He sighed, searched for the right words to soften it, found them without thinking. This was Hephaistion he was talking to after all; Hephaistion always understood. “I could manage without most things in my life. I would find it very hard to manage without you.” He sealed that with a kiss against his friend’s shoulder, warm and brief. Hephaistion flexed against him, dragging himself awake far enough to answer.
“For the last time,” he said, partway to laughter. “I didn’t go back for the boy.” Gods, it felt like he’d been saying that all day. Alexandros cuffed him lightly.
“I know that,” he replied, as if Hephaistion had just said the most obvious thing in the world. Part of him wanted to laugh at it; did Hephaistion think he was completely an idiot? He said it anyway, because he knew it for truth. “You went back for me. And I love you for it.”
Another kiss went with that, and Hephaistion took both it and the words it came with down into sleep with him, as he sank into darkness under warm, restful hands.
Allrightythen.
Bagoas could not say why he had stopped, only that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. His feet had hurt from the rough ground and sharp little stones that worked their way into his boots with every step, and his legs ached from keeping him upright, and if he’d had a pack when they’d started out, he’d set it down at the last stop and forgotten to pick it up. He was not used to carrying packs. The straps had chaffed at his narrow shoulders, cutting in. He’d kept his waterskin, though, tied to his belt. It was a shame that it was empty now; he could have done with a drink.
It was crashingly hot out here. The type of heat that made the land an anvil, flattened things out, drove them down and inside themselves. A killing heat. Bagoas knew that. There was not a thing he could do about it. It had been better in the night, with the white cool stars for company. He wondered if he would see another night, see the stars again. He did not think it likely.
He’d stopped in the dark, with the rise of smooth stones for company, and watched the column go trooping past. He remembered doing it, remembered hearing the footsteps, the mutterings, the curses as someone tripped and fell and scrambled back to their feet. It had not seemed real. Even when someone had stopped and called out to him, it had not seemed real. It had been as if he were the only living person in all the world, and the winding column of men marching past were shades only, shapes and shadows from another place and time. He was not part of that. He’d watched them instead, and looked at the stars, and felt how glorious it was simply to sit and not to move and let his tired body and aching legs find peace.
He’d come back to himself too late. Perhaps he had meant only to rest a moment, to fall back in with the line of march before the last man went by. If that had been in his mind though, his mind had failed him. Or his body had, or both. He’d sat, and watched men who were shadows and shapes go by in the dark … and only at the very last had he realised that there were men there no more, that what he saw were only shadows, the wanderings of his wits in this land that ate men whole. He had come back to his senses to find himself alone, with the sky greying to dawn and no idea at all what to do.
He had at first thought to try to track the army to its camp. It should not have been difficult; surely so many men and beasts would leave tracks that he could follow? Or there was his sweet lord who would be waiting for him, Alexandros, who was a light of his own in the world; surely his heart would always know the way towards that? A wind had come up though, hot as is if straight from a furnace and tossing sand and dust and small stinging stones, turning the air to a haze. He could make out no tracks on the stony, sandy ground, and his heart knew nothing at all. He went the way he thought that he should, if the column had only continued its line of march and if his memory was not playing him false. It could have been; things looked different in daylight, and he had not been paying attention in the night. He had gone only a short way when he stumbled and felt his ankle twinge so that he limped when he walked, and only a little further when a blast of hot wind eddied about him and threatened to flay him with wind-tossed sand, so that he had to hunker down behind a large rock and wait for it to pass.
The rock gave him a little shelter - some small shade, some protection from the drying, killing wind. Bagoas huddled there, his light, fine green cloak pulled up over his head. He was surprised a little at how calm he felt; he might have thought he would weep, or be afraid. He was going to die out here, after all. Instead, he felt almost serene, and curiously empty. The gods, whoever or whatever they were, called men to them as it best pleased them to do so, and men lived and died knowing that. No one alive knew the manner of his ending; if this one was different from the one that Bagoas might have hoped for, then what of it? He had no family who would mourn for him, and no hope of sons for his future - his death would be no real loss in the world. His single concern was for his lord, who would not have the sense even to come in from the rain with no one about to take care of him. How would he manage, without someone who knew to see to his needs? He had so little care for himself, and no one else to give him care for his own sake alone. His generals, the men around him, they all wanted something from him, loved him only so long as he gave it. Even the tall one with the striking face who came and went as he pleased, the one who was Alexandros’ heart’s own sweet friend, even he wanted things that sometimes Alexandros should not have to give, arguing with him, demanding and driving. Bagoas had always made sure to demand nothing at all, and to give his lord peace where he could. Why should a man who was Great King and halfway to a god have to live up to any legend other than what he was? Only Bagoas understood that.
His throat was dry. He’d finished the last of his water with the sunrise. Well, of course he had; the water had only been meant to last him until the next camp and the scouts had said they’d be there by dawn. Bagoas hoped that those oafish squires remembered to turn down the king’s bed properly, and shake the bedding free of sand. Alexandros hated sand in his blankets. His lips felt dry too, starting to crack. He’d taken some care as he could not to let this place mark him too badly. He supposed it didn’t really matter now. When he was white bone and sun-leathered hide, no one would know or care that once he had been beautiful.
He took the stopper from the waterskin anyway, raised it half-hopefully to his lips. It filled his mouth with the taste of dank leather and the memory of water. Bagoas closed his eyes, and thought that perhaps even a memory was better than nothing. He could still remember the first time he’d laid eyes on Alexandros of Macedon after all, and known that he would be nothing in his life he was not that man’s. And he had been that man’s, if only for a short while. There was that. Memories could comfort, a little.
The wind gusted and grated, and the sun seared down. The little dancer sighed in the empty space inside, thinking of his lord alone. He was sorry to have let him down like this. He only hoped that when they met in the next world, Alexandros’ great soul would forgive him.
*****
Hephaistion knew how to make a horse last, in a place like this. The Persian bay - he called it Swift, for the way it dipped and swooped when it ran, and because when he’d asked someone how to say it in Persian the word he’d got back sounded like a cat drowning in a tub - had good endurance, but it had also had a hard campaign and a long march; he didn’t push it. He moved on steadily though, taking the horse from a walk to an easy trot, then dismounting to lead it on foot for a while before mounting up to walk again. He was making good time. Not so good as he might have made if his horse was fresh, or if he’d had two horses to share the work. He didn’t though - Swift was the pick of the animals they had left, and Hephaistion was not about to put another horse through this when they were struggling already. It was bad enough he was putting himself through this. If Alexandros ever found out, he would kill him.
He was not risking his life out here; he was not that great a fool. He had water to spare, enough even for his horse too, for a short while. He knew where the camp was, and where they had marched - he’d spent enough time on enough scouting forays not to lose his way. He’d meant what he’d said too, about being back by dusk either with the boy or without him. The outcrop of stones that Lagos had spoken of, and the dry river … he would go only so far as that, if his horse and the day held. If the boy was there, well and good. If he had wandered off though, crawled out into the desert to die like some small wounded animal, there would be nothing for it but to go back to camp without him.
Hephaistion hoped it would not come to that. He had no strong feelings for the little eunuch one way or the other, but Alexandros was fond of the boy. There had been enough deaths, in this wide stretch of sand and stone, and Alexandros rightly or wrongly taking every one of them to heart, carrying the weight of them with every struggling breath. It all comes back to me. I brought us here. This death at least Hephaistion could spare him. He could at least try.
*****
The shade behind the stone shrank and the sun grew. Bagoas had thought about moving again, about getting up and trying to walk, trying to find the camp. A part of him wanted him to make the effort, not to simply sit and wait for death like a lamb waiting calmly for the butcher’s knife. That was the part of him, he thought, that might have been a man if his life had been different. It had not been though, and he could die here by his rock as well as out there in the dust, and it would make no difference in the end.
No one would come for him. He’d known that from the very first. He’d heard it from Alexandros’ own lips, though the king had not been speaking to him at all when he’d said it. Ptolemaios, it had been, with his sharp nose and his heavy jaw and his kind way of speaking to a barbarian slave … he had been talking to the king, of a party sent back for those who had fallen out and only half returned themselves, and Alexandros had clenched his fists and dropped his head and cursed in a voice as bleak as the land and said that no one would go back for stragglers any more. A man marched, or he did not.
Bagoas had not. The part of him that wanted him to move now railed at him for that too, calling him weak, calling him a coward. A man would have marched, stayed with his lord. To do this, to give up … this was betrayal as surely as the mutiny in India had been betrayal, and Bagoas had seen his lord’s eyes after that. He did not want Alexandros to think of him in that way. Too late for that now, though. Far, far too late.
As the day stretched out, the wind fell away. It left only heat and hollow silence in its place. Bagoas had found himself listening to it, actually hearing it, and thought that if it did not stop he would go mad. He’d tried singing, to fill the space with sound, but his mouth was parched and his mind wandering and he couldn’t remember the words … and in any case, the smallness of his song only made the silence seem more large. In the end he’d given in to it, as he’d given in to everything else, and lay silent too.
*****
Hephaistion had been right about the hat. A sensible thing, he was glad he’d thought to bring it. It took away some of the glare, kept the sun from eyes at least. It did nothing about the beastly heat, but he was used to that. As used to it as a man born in the high hills of Macedon, who had known snowy winters and fresh cold streams ever could be, at least. His horse liked the hat too. It took water from the upturned hollow of it, lifting a damp muzzle and snorting softly. Hephaistion nodded in agreement. “Yes. I’m tired too. Only a little further, Bright-Eyes, then we turn back. Will you give me that?”
Another soft snort, that might or might not have been consent. Hephaistion nodded again anyway, putting his hat back on and enjoying the brief cool sensation of it damp against his forehead. He swung up onto the animal’s back, took a last long swallow of water himself, and nudged the horse on. The animal went, but with none of the sparkle in its step that it would have had in better times. Hephaistion remembered being struck by that the first time he’d swung astride this horse, pulling it from a roiling battlefield after his own stallion had gone down and a Persian with a spear had tried to pin him to the ground and halfway succeeded - the lightness of its feet, its soft smooth paces, the way it seemed to dance beneath him. Now the animal did not dance at all, only went where he asked and gave what it could. Hephaistion did not blame it. He did not think he would have the energy for dancing, either.
They had come to the dry riverbed that Lagos had mentioned, and moved down it towards the place where it curved. Hephaistion kept his eyes up, looking for some sign, letting the horse pick its way. The land was harsh and sear all about, all shades of yellow and brown and tawny under a sky faded near to white. There was a certain splendour to it, Hephaistion supposed, in its simplicity and its perfect savagery. It was almost beautiful, the way that a well crafted blade could be beautiful even as it tore out a man’s throat. Gods. He shook his head a little at that, took another slow mouthful of water and smiled to himself around it, a little wry. Out in the sun too long, that was his problem, if he was riding through a desert alone and thinking poetry about the land. A philosopher might approve of it, but he had to get through this place and back again alive. Poetics were not going to get him anywhere at all.
There was a stony outcrop ahead, a cluster of rocks near the elbow of the dry river’s turning. The place where Lagos had said he’d seen the eunuch stargazing, that would be. Hephaistion hoped it was at least; he was going no further than that, whether he found the boy or not. Setting his horse’s head to the stones, he flicked the animal into a trot and waited to see what would come of it.
Bagoas was not there. Hephaistion circled the stones once, looking down from the back of his horse, then he swung his leg quickly over the animal’s withers and dropped to the ground. The horse, unburdened, stopped at once and stood hipshot, head hanging. Hephaistion scanned the stones and ground around them; no boy, and no sign of him either. He wondered if Lagos had been wrong about where he’d seen him, or that he’d seen him at all. He supposed the lad could have been. More likely though, the little eunuch had wandered off, touched witless by sun and thirst. Hephaistion swore quietly. Stupid boy. He’d had an extra half-day’s march for the sake of him so far, he’d rather it was not for nought. He took off his hat, scrubbed a hand through his sweat-damp hair and gave a short huff of frustration. Behind him, his horse echoed the sound and shifted its weight to the other hip.
He should go back. Hephaistion knew that; it was what he’d told himself, what he’d promised the horse. Only to the stones, and then back - he was not going to scour the desert all over looking for one wayward gelding who should have known better in any case. It was not about the boy though; it never had been. He had not come out here for that. Alexandros’ shoulders could only take so much, and Hephaistion had not liked the look in his friend’s eyes. He was not a man used to losing so much; it was wearing him down, taking the spark from him inside. He needed a victory now, even a small one - and this was one loss that could be avoided, if Hephaistion could only find the boy and bring him back.
“Where would he go, eh horse? Eh Swift? You’re Persian, you tell me.” The horse was no help, only turning a dark eye on its master and swishing its tail against the heat. Hephaistion shrugged, leaned back against the stones, as hipshot as his horse. He considered last night’s march, and the line of it, and where the scouts had led them. West to start, and then veering northward to clear a steep ravine, and westering again here before angling north at the last for the waterhole and the day’s camp. Bagoas like as not would not have noticed that, would have paid little attention to where he was being led, but Hephaistion had spent enough years charting new terrain for such things to be second nature, now. He mapped in his head as he went - a rough skill compared to what the cartographers and surveyors could do with only an ink pot, a good eye and a length of string, but good enough for the purpose. Hephaistion reached into his pouch, brought out another crust of the hard, gritty bread he’d taken that morning with Alexandros, gnawed on it thoughtfully. The horse pricked its ears at him and whickered gently. Hephaistion slanted it a look. Greedy horse. “Shut up. This is mine. You wouldn’t want it anyway, it’s hard as rocks.”
So. If they were westering on their march here, and the little eunuch might have thought to follow … Hephaistion’s eyes scanned across the desert that way, considering what he might or might not do. West a little then, to that stand of rocks that were a shimmer in the middle distance, and then cut back towards the camp, and give the boy up for lost. He could not scour this whole place alone, after all. He should not even try.
Before he mounted again, he gave the horse the rest of the bread.
*****
Of all the things that Bagoas had been trained to do in his life since that day when his future and sons had been stripped from him by a handful of coin and a sharp quick knife, dancing was what gave him the most joy. He’d liked to dance even before he’d been cut and trained to please men, and though he’d learned first to tolerate and later to enjoy what arts he practised in the bedchamber, it was the dancing court that made his blood sing. When he danced, what was missing from him did not matter - dreams, wishes, things he could not have. When he danced, he was complete and whole, a creature of light and music and perfect, wild grace. He was free and alive and beautiful when he danced, not like now. Not this dull and lonely thing, drying out in the sands.
He was dying out here, he knew that. Had fully expected to, from the time he’d known that he was alone. He did not think that he could have walked now if he’d wanted to - or if he could have, he’d have wandered in a slow circle and passed out three times in doing it. His mind was floating in and out now, leaving him in a mist of dreams and nightmares and uneasy sleep, then waking him again to an awareness so sharp it hurt. The waterskin didn’t even hold the memory of water now; it was as dry as the rest of him, lying useless in the sun.
So he danced. Not with his body - he did not think there was enough left of him for that - but in his mind and in his heart, he danced. If he was going to die out here and be only a pile of bones with a rock to mark his place, he’d face death in joy, and dance. Flowing like oil, bending like a cat, swooping and soaring like a swallow in the summer … Bagoas let go of every other sensation and fell into that instead, the way he had danced with Alexandros’ eyes on him, the way that, in the secret heart of him, it had not mattered to him if his lord watched and approved or not, because he danced at the end of it all for himself, because his dancing brought him home.
A word pulled him out of it. One word, repeated, in a voice sharp with … something. Irritation? Anger? It came again - his name, it was, and not to be denied.
“Bagoas!”
Bagoas sighed, made the dancing stop. He opened his eyes, looked up in resentment.
“I was dancing. What do you want?”
The face above him frowned in puzzlement, and Bagoas realised without much interest that he recognised the man it belonged to. Hephaistion, tall lord with his easy smile and cool, dismissive eyes. The man did not look dismissive now though, or easy. Instead, he looked tired and worn and annoyed and quite baffled. He said, “What?”
Bagoas realised he had spoken in Persian. He doubted it would make more sense in Greek, but he said it anyway. “I was dancing.”
Hephaistion snorted. “You were dying,” he corrected, in a voice like sand. “Or you would have been, soon enough, wandering off the path like that. Can you sit up?”
“Yes,” Bagoas told him, and then closed his eyes and fell back into dark.
Hephaistion looked down at the boy and swore again, like he meant it. Dancing, of all the fool things … ah, well, that was what sun and heat and hovering death could do to a man, he supposed. He squatted by the eunuch and took up his green cloak, dampening it with water from one of his skins and wrapping it about the boy’s head and neck. That cloak had already saved the boy’s life, if he only knew it - might as well help to keep him cool, too. It had been that flag of green that had caught Hephaistion’s eye, out here in this place where nothing green should be. What things grew here, grew in low scrubby clumps of brown, with thorns.
The eunuch spluttered and coughed when Hephaistion trickled water over the parched lips, but he didn’t wake. Hephaistion didn’t much care. He hoisted the boy up - gods, such a little thing, and so light, as if he were made from bird bones - and settled him as best he could on his horse’s back. The animal turned its head and made a show of sniffing at its strange new burden, and tried to arch its neck and crab sideways. Hephaistion was not in the mood for foolery though, taking the bridle high up and stopping the horse with a steadying hand and a firm word. The animal was too tired for it to come to much in any case. It subsided with a brief shake of its head, and began to follow where its master led.
*****
Bagoas came back to himself slowly. He did not give himself away, only slumped where he’d been put on the high bay horse, and watched Hephaistion walking ahead through half-closed eyes. He understood what had happened - he had fallen out of the column, and Hephaistion had come back for him. He’d have died, otherwise. What he did not know, was why.
“Drink something. There’s water in the skins.” Hephaistion’s voice surprised him; he had not thought the man knew he was awake. He managed to croak, “Thank you,” but his hands felt distant and numb and he fumbled the waterskin, almost dropping it. Hephaistion took it from him without breaking stride, neat handed and sure. He flicked the stopper loose, handed it back. Bagoas only looked at him.
“I knew you’d come round when you stopped babbling. I didn’t take on an extra half-day’s march to listen to that, it was giving me a headache. Stay awake now, will you? I’m glad of the quiet.” Hephaistion flicked him a warning glance over his shoulder. “And go easy on the water to start with. You’ll give yourself cramps.”
Bagoas sat and looked at the waterskin, then took a very deliberate mouthful. He wanted to drain it dry. To Hephaistion, he said, “I’m sorry, my lord. For babbling.”
That earned him an odd glance and half a smile, and Bagoas realised belatedly that he had been being teased. Mostly. Macedonian humour could be a rough edged thing. But then Hephaistion said, “If I were you, I’d be sorrier for falling out. You’ve put me to a deal of trouble today, boy. Don’t do it again, I won’t come back for you twice.” He was not joking at all.
“I didn’t think anyone would come back at all,” Bagoas heard himself say. Hephaistion glanced back at him, and patted the horse’s neck.
“No,” he said. That was all. Bagoas frowned.
“Did Al’skandros send you?” If he’d been only a little more in charge of himself, he would not have let those words pass his lips. He regretted them as soon as he spoke them. Hephaistion snorted, to show just what he thought of that.
“A-lex-andros,” he enunciated carefully, “did no such thing. With any luck, he doesn’t even know you’re gone. Put the stopper back in the waterskin before you spill it.”
Bagoas took another slow mouthful, then did what he was told. He thought about what had brought him here; weakness, it had been. Nothing else. A man would have marched. “I should have stayed with the column. I should have been in camp to do my duty by my lord. I failed him.”
“Yes. You did.” There was no compromise in that at all. Hephaistion was tired of people doing that in one small way after another, tired too of excusing it. Alexandros deserved more. He had always deserved more, and Hephaistion was weary and worn and had not slept since the day before. His patience, often an unsteady beast in any case, was inclined to suffer for that. It made him turn on the boy and snap suddenly, as at a raw recruit who had got himself out of line. “Damn you boy, it was a crackbrained thing to do, wandering off like that. Herakles’ balls, what were you bloody well thinking?”
“Obviously I wasn’t bloody well thinking,” Bagoas snapped back out of nowhere. “My lord. Or I’d not have done it at all, would I?”
That surprised both of them. Bagoas, who was still feeling half out of himself from his day in the desert, would never have spoken so bluntly if his senses had not been so frayed, and he knew it. He blinked in astonishment at himself, and at the tall Macedonian who had stopped in his tracks to stare at him. For a moment Bagoas thought that the man might shout at him again, but then Hephaistion laughed, a strong true sound, and shook his head with a grin.
“True enough,” he said. “True enough.”
So. The puppy had teeth, then. Maybe the lad did have some balls, after all.
*****
How long he’d been ahorse when the camp came into view, Bagoas could not have said. They had not spoken much on the journey back, Hephaistion seeming content with the company of his horse and Bagoas recovering himself only slowly. Once, Bagoas had offered to walk a while, but Hephaistion had only given him that quick, over the shoulder glance and told him to stay where he was. The man had brought them to a halt three times to rest the horse and share out more water, but that was all. Now the camp was in front of them and the sun was drawing westward, and Bagoas still had no more idea why he was alive than he had had when the tall Macedonian had first found him.
Hephaistion stopped a little back from the edge of the camp. He murmured something soft to the horse, clapping it on the neck, and flicked his eyes at Bagoas. “Get down.”
Bagoas did as he was told, feeling as he did so how appallingly weak his legs were, the muscles stiff and slack at once, almost shaking beneath him. Hephaistion looked at him and grunted.
“You think you can get to Alexandros’ tent on your own?”
“Yes, my lord.” In fact, Bagoas sure of no such thing, but he did not think that Hephaistion wanted to hear weakness or excuses now. There was a certain set to the man’s shoulders, a deliberation in the way he moved that spoke of near exhaustion. Bagoas understood that, and knew he had been a large part of the cause of it. Besides, Hephaistion intimidated him, with his height and his confidence and his strong, direct stare. The man might have saved him, but Bagoas did not for a moment think that that had made them friends.
It had made them, if it came to that, something entirely else. The man had saved his life - Hephaistion owned him now, as surely as if coin had changed hands. Bagoas was aware of that in the part of himself that kept track of such things; that now, for all the course of his life and all the good or ill that would be to come, this Macedonian lord could point to him and say, You live because of me. That was a claim that went deeper than anything else Bagoas knew, whether either of them liked it or not.
He doubted that Hephaistion had considered it. He did not even know if the man thought like that - he did not know how he thought at all. Now Hephaistion only gave his head one brief nod and said, “Good. Go then. Look after him. I can’t, he won’t take it from me. And don’t fall out again.” Taking the horse’s head, he made to move off.
“My lord.” Bagoas said it suddenly, but he couldn’t not ask. He had to know. Hephaistion stopped, looked at him with flat, tired eyes. Bagoas braced himself, and said it anyway. “Why did you come back for me?”
A pause answered that, and then Hephaistion blinked, as if he’d just understood what had been asked of him. His expression changed, and he glanced away to one side and back again as if to cover it. He was, the eunuch realised, almost amused.
“For you?” Hephaistion looked at the boy and shook his head. Lagos had asked the same thing, as he recalled. Well, they were both fools then, Lagos and this gelded boy. He saw no reason to soften it; he was too tired, and didn’t really care. “I didn’t go back for you. I went back for Alexandros.”
*****
Hephaistion was not sure which was the greater pleasure; a waiting bed, or a waiting bath. He was tired to dropping, and grit and dust all over, stinking of sweat and horse and old blood still from the morning’s butchering. He settled on washing first, sleeping second. It would feel good, to be clean. He would sleep the sounder for that.
There was not water enough to bath in - or there was, but it would take too long to draw it from the waterhole and have it carried here, and the men had better things to do. A basin would do just as well, wide flat dish and cool water that felt so good to the touch. His soiled clothes he kicked into a corner, revelling in the feel of air on clean skin. He even managed to shave as well, working slowly by touch, paring the growth away. He was glad to be rid of it; it itched, he didn’t like it. By the time he was finished, he looked almost respectable.
“You look magnificent.”
Hephaistion turned to look at Alexandros standing in his door and shrugged, with a slight smile. Well, it was not as if it were nothing that Alexandros had not seen before. “I look passable. But at least I’m clean.”
Alexandros nodded, stepped inside. He looked at his friend, his head tipped to one side in that way he had. “I know what you did, you know. Bagoas told me.”
Hephaistion nodded slowly. “Oh.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“I hoped he might not. There didn’t seem any reason to mention it, once it was done.” Crossing to his cot, Hephaistion sat down on the edge of it. Gods, he was so tired. “How is he?”
“Alive, thanks to you. Resting. He’ll be fine.”
“Ah. Good then. That’s good.”
Alexandros paused, then said, “We won’t march tonight. Everyone could do with the rest.”
Well, that was true. Hephaistion grunted his agreement.
“Probably a good idea. We’ll all move better, rested.”
“How are you?” Alexandros asked. Still with that tilt to the head, and that careful, thoughtful tone. Hephaistion scrubbed a hand over his face and smiled.
“Alive. Good. Fine.”
“You look tired.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Well, if you need a good rub down, I could arrange that for you. The boy has good hands, you know.” There was a certain note to that that made Hephaistion laugh. He’d never understood what Alexandros found to fancy in the little eunuch. He had always thought the boy an odd little thing, a gelded trinket with painted eyes, skittish as a deer for the most and useful in his way, but certainly nothing to fancy; Alexandros was not above teasing him over that, sometimes.
“If it’s all the same to you Xandros, I’d rather you did it yourself. Your hands aren’t so bad either.”
Alexandros seemed to consider that. He gave a thoughtful nod, seeming serious but for the glint in his eyes. “I could probably arrange that too.”
Hephaistion, who knew him better than anyone, knew exactly what that meant. He sprawled himself comfortably face down on his cot, waited for Alexandros to come to him. It was not much of a wait. The oils were cool and soothing on his skin, his friend’s hands strong and sure. He felt his body relaxing into them. For a long while, neither of them spoke. When Alexandros’ voice did come, Hephaistion was halfway to sleep.
“Hephaistion?”
“Hmmm?”
“Thank you for going back for him.”
“Hmm.”
“And never do anything like that again.” Alexandros didn’t harden his voice or his hands, but something in him had shifted; he was all serious now. “Never put your life at risk for something like that. No one goes back for stragglers.” He sighed, searched for the right words to soften it, found them without thinking. This was Hephaistion he was talking to after all; Hephaistion always understood. “I could manage without most things in my life. I would find it very hard to manage without you.” He sealed that with a kiss against his friend’s shoulder, warm and brief. Hephaistion flexed against him, dragging himself awake far enough to answer.
“For the last time,” he said, partway to laughter. “I didn’t go back for the boy.” Gods, it felt like he’d been saying that all day. Alexandros cuffed him lightly.
“I know that,” he replied, as if Hephaistion had just said the most obvious thing in the world. Part of him wanted to laugh at it; did Hephaistion think he was completely an idiot? He said it anyway, because he knew it for truth. “You went back for me. And I love you for it.”
Another kiss went with that, and Hephaistion took both it and the words it came with down into sleep with him, as he sank into darkness under warm, restful hands.